London Burning

Today's Guardian is everything I expected it to be; the left are using the riots as political ammunition (excuse the pun).

Once people begin to empathize with the rioters' motives, such as urban deprivation or the new tory government, they are only encouraging more violence.

The rioters are scum. It's as simple as that.

There are plenty of other people who are currently suffering as a consequence of recession and austerity measures, yet they keep trying to improve their lives in a non-selfish way that doesn't affect the livelihoods of others.

How the fuck can burning down businesses be justified? The whole economic circumstances argument is bollocks.
 
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As much as we piss on the Americans, we do need a proper legal system and a 'lil bit of "Fuck yeah"


swat_021.jpg

Be careful of what you wish for.

Exactly. Cover up the "police" lettering and now what do you see? Kind of looks like a military unit, does it not?



Today's Guardian is everything I expected it to be; the left are using the riots as political ammunition (excuse the pun).

See below:
Hopefully this'll totally mar the way history views this Government. ....seeing as it's happening, I want this to stain the coalition's reputation as much as possible.
 
It doesn't make any sense:
"There are no jobs, so let's burn down most of the local businesses."

And in any case, there are a lot of jobs out there if people know where to look for them. Christ, I had about 4-5 interviews last week alone for various positions.

The economy is more vibrant than some people give credit. The left are exaggerating the affects of austerity for political purposes.
 
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Goose+, I have to disagree. I think this msnbc (not exactely a know leftist mouthpiece) article sums it up neatly:
msnbc said:
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

The TV reporter from Britain's ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/07/7292281-the-sad-truth-behind-london-riot

Apart from that: No, the rioters are people. They are not scum. As despiseful their actions might be, they still are people. You have called me out for being "German" before, and this is a lesson to be learnt from German history: No matter how much you disagree with individual's actions, backgrounds, enthnicity or motives, they stay people.
 
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I'm not suggesting a Nazi Germany solution to the problem; merely inferring that the authorities need to take them down and punish them accordingly.

Hopefully most of them will be caught and spend their time crying themselves to sleep at night on the floor of a cold prison cell.
 
I'm not implying you want a Nazi solution. I was just calling you out for what I perceive as being uncomfortably close to Nazi hate vocabulary.
 
In 92, they eventually put every cop they could find on the street in LA. It was far too late; it didn't stop anything until the National Guard showed up and was eventually issued ammunition. After the first few idiots were shot to doll rags by HMMWV-mounted machine guns while trying to run checkpoints and looting, it started to wind down.

The London riots are far past the point that pouring all the cops at the problem will help. One look at the subject to police officer ratio in London (or the citizen to officer ratio in any US city) will tell you that riots this widespread cannot be stopped by that few officers - not without the force they're not allowed to use and equipment they don't have.

Edit: Just for the record, per the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the overall average ratio of officers to protected population in the US is 2.5 officers for every 1000 people. Per their website, the Metropolitan Police Service's jurisdiction contains 7.2 million people and they have 32,500 actual officers giving a ratio of about 4.5 officers per 1000 people. Neither number is really enough to stave off city-wide riots without high levels of force being employed as a force (meaning number of people, in this case) multiplier.

I agree they need to use overwhelming numbers of officers and soldiers on the streets to quell the rioting, and certainly need to increase the aggressiveness of their tactics; tear gas, rubber bullets, mounted police... but I don't think real bullets are needed yet. The residents of Compton were much more well armed and violent than the rioters in London so I think they can get away with less, though that doesn't necessarily mean they should use less.
 
I'm not implying you want a Nazi solution. I was just calling you out for what I perceive as being uncomfortably close to Nazi hate vocabulary.

If anything the views of socialists encroach further on fascism than my conservative views.

Jonah Goldberg does an eloquent job of outlining this in the book Liberal Fascism, which was highly insightful. Both Hitler and Mussolini started their political careers as men of the left..
 
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Fascism/authoritarianism can come in both left-wing and right-wing flavours. It does not mean you nor me being close to the Nazis, politically.
 
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Well, the underlying problem IS social. It always is. As I've said previously, Middle England doesn't do this sort of thing, generally speaking. People without hope do this type of thing. Quite often.

They are not scum. I dispise people who call other groups of people scum. It's just bullshit. They are people, they are confused and bloody stupid, they are acting like idiots, morons and thugs. But they're still people.
 
More than five times the usual number of officers for a Tuesday will patrol London's streets later and the Met has confirmed it has considered using plastic bullets - never before used to combat riots in England.

OMG a non life threatening weapon MIGHT be used! Geez, they make it sound like someone's bringing out the holy hand grenade....

And sure, they're still people but that doesn't mean we should let them go on. Shoot the the bastards and then maybe the people will understand. Life threatening or not, at this point the riots have been going on way too long. It's time to start doing something instead of just sitting around going "Well gee, we could use use plastic bullets." MAKE THE EFFORT!
 
I don't think shooting as in "shooting with live ammunition" will solve anything. This whole mess started with police shooting a man, killing more won't help.

Plastic/rubber bullets, riot sticks, tear gas, tasers, water cannons, the whole arsenal of riot control, on the other hand: At this point, no one can object against such measures, or be surprised by them.

"Considering" such measures, at this point, has nothing to do with "leftism" or "do-gooders", but just with the Met living up to their reputation as the most inefficient police department in Europe.

We haven't had any looting during the traditional May Day riots in Berlin for fifteen or so years, partly because police will confront the rioters with all the measures I mentioned above, eventhough the city is run by Labour politicians since forever.
 
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OMG a non life threatening weapon MIGHT be used! Geez, they make it sound like someone's bringing out the holy hand grenade....

And sure, they're still people but that doesn't mean we should let them go on. Shoot the the bastards and then maybe the people will understand. Life threatening or not, at this point the riots have been going on way too long. It's time to start doing something instead of just sitting around going "Well gee, we could use use plastic bullets." MAKE THE EFFORT!
Using live ammo is probably a very bad idea. Let's not forget we're talking about a section of British society where illegal guns aren't exactly uncommon. When they start firing back, it could go really tits up. Or tits down, depending on your outlook.

On the other hand, Bloody Sunday did end the troubles.. oh, wait!

I don't think shooting as in "shooting with live ammunition" will solve anything. This whole mess started with police shooting a man, killing more won't help.

Plastic/rubber bullets, riot sticks, tear gas, tasers, water cannons, the whole arsenal of riot control, on the other hand: At this point, no one can object against such measures, or be surprised by them.

"Considering" such measures, at this point, has nothing to do with "leftism" or "do-gooders", but just with the Met living up to their reputation as the most inefficient police department in Europe.

We haven't had any looting during the traditional May Day riots in Berlin for fifteen or so years, partly because police will confront the rioters with all the measures I mentioned above, eventhough the city is run by Labour politicians since forever.
I might object to the use of rubbert bullet except in exceptional cases. Principly because they are quite leathal. Killing people will just make the whole situasjon worse.
 
I might object to the use of rubbert bullet except in exceptional cases. Principly because they are quite leathal. Killing people will just make the whole situasjon worse.
As I said, killing more people won't help. Rubber bullets (as well as water cannons) can be lethal and thus have to be used with caution - in Stuttgart, a man was blinded by a water cannon a few months ago.
 
Remember the episode of Top Gear when Jeremy spoke about deploying police marksmen on bridges to shoot slow moving drivers?

What about giving the police the powers to shoot anyone wearing an Adidas tracksuit?
 
I seem to remember that being a popular sentiment regarding bankers some months ago.
 
What about giving the police the powers to shoot anyone wearing an Adidas tracksuit?
Start in the rich suburbs, rid us of middle-management types on their morning run.

But seriously, that posts borders on trolling.
 
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