How do you "see we are bored" Noni? I am certainly not bored. At last a discussion with many views, I have really welcomed the new 'posters'.
I had planned, as you know, to stop contributing to the forum but have been interested to stay because of the new open discussions.

Now you are being ridiculous, just because some of us believe there is no excuse for criminal behavior and that someone inciting riot, rioting or trying to profit from the riots should face the maximum penalty the law allows you are trying to make out that we are wrong. No doubt you believe these people need help rather than punishment. In the Daily Express yesterday one rioter was quoted as having said that he would carry on rioting until he got caught as it would be his first offence and he would only get an asbo! Rioting is not normal behavior so normal sentences like asbo's should not apply.

lol... will do

i knw i am , but a hundred years ago he would have been shot for treason or some trumped up charge . A member of the armed forces taking the queens shilling and all that .The fact is here some members are trying to identify why young men are taking to the streets with guns and some are wishing for the big stick to come out and rectify it .
The big stick wont work in this country , it may for a while but people will rebel , these riots are just as much about economic pressures and a society that thrives on drivel on tv and politicians who are so deep in cash while the rest of us have to work for nowt .
Sure enough the social security lifestyle is just as much to blame ,it is an industry in itsself but when even decent young educated people are finding it nigh on impossible to find a decent livable wage ,then what hope is there for the less gifted in lower socio area got .

That's a bit fierce.

There was just a small interlude of humour.

I visited this part of the forum precisely because in TIO people just start shouting at people with whom they disagree, and largely refuse to think or discuss whatever the issue might be.

I wasn't aware that travel between different bits of the forum was discouraged. Oh well.

its not exactly different to that in america either.. people with bachelors degrees working as cashiers.. or at a coffee shop. A doctor came in some bit ago to a starbucks looking for work... he has a freaking Phd for goodness sake.
I really do understand both sides ..
yes the rioters need to be punished... especially those found destroying someones shop.
But on the other hand.. yes.. the people need help.. and have never felt more ignored.
both need to happen to effect a lasting change.. or these riots will happen again.

And even if the riots don't happen again for a while - they are relatively infrequent - we will get more crime and more gang violence (just not en masse) if issues are not addressed. Look at the experience of the U.S.

Exactly right. You would think history would be learned from by such a smart, instead of being repeated unnecessarily. England is a very old land.. how can they not see whats coming.

Its coming thats for sure , the problem is the upper class and the wannbee middle class whites just have one answer and thats the big stick . This is 2011 not rampaging thru africa beating natives with a big stick , this is multi cultural britain .

I am sure that a lot of people joined the riots simply to steal and because they thought they would get away with it or if caught would get a warning not to do it again and be sent home - like that young man expecting to get an asbo if caught. Well now they know that they will go to jail for it they will not be so quick to join in in future. As for these decent young educated people who are finding it difficult to get what you call a decent livable wage. Well what do you think it was like for us when we were young, we lived at home until we married then moved into a flat with an outside toilet, no bathroom and the only heating was a coal fire. Neither of us had what would have been called a decent livable wage but we worked hard and improved ourselves and our situation as time went on. Youngsters seem to expect to have everything handed to them on a plate and nothing but the best either.

Sometimes it takes a riot to get people's attention. We have had a few, across the centuries, and as reprehensible as the behaviour of the individual rioters may be, sometimes it does make people sit up - thinking of the Poll tax riots and the sus laws, perhaps the riots against the Corn laws in the 19th century.

My concern this time is that no one is listening or has a different standard in their heads in terms of how society is envisioned. Reading the sanctimonious Blair saying, effectively, that some people are just bad and should be squashed is very depressing. Equally, the standard that is being held up to people is simply self-interested financial gain, a change that started under Thatcher who did more than anyone in recent history I think to erode our concept of community over the individual.

Some of those sentences are already being appealed, however. We can expect more of that where the sentences handed out were disproportionate to a) the crime and b) sentences that are normally handed out for that crime.

As for the deterrent effect, the experience of the U.S., with ever higher rates of crime and imprisonment among the young, indicates that there really is no deterrent effect, just a deepening criminalization of people, making them yet more unlikely to ever be able to function as a part of normal society.

I agree with most of your posts , also most of K800mer's, both to me have very valid points. That surely is the point of debate and discussion.
Personally I cannot accept racism as an 'opinion'; a view more eloquently put by Kimilseung (post 132) or gross generalistions (including the disapproval of basic human rights), others will disagree.
I myself welcome new 'posters' with different views on this forum, but then I am just speaking for myself.

As you were.

We've been doing slightly less of that lately.

As you were.