Tottenham Riots

It's relevant because they just provided something there was demand for. As far as I'm aware, no-one was ever forced to buy one of them.

I'd say that the ones who repackaged mortgage-backed securities into investments were largely responsible for a lot of the problems, but that was mostly due to calculation errors rather than intent.
 
The country is in an uproar about, but the amount of public who is giving support to Police and the victims of these crimes are sky high and more stories like this needs to be heard.
Yes people will whine and gripe about whose fault this is, what could have been done before/during...but it shows is how we deal with this after that is the most important.

Lets focus on the healing and also hope that the scum that caused havoc and ruined people's lives gets their deserved come-uppance...despite where they came from.
 
Well if you choose to obey the law, nobody has to enforce it. Enforcement is only required when people break the law. Enforcement normally involves some sort of sanction. A fine, a beating, imprisonment etc. If people don't fear those sanctions or have more to gain than they have to lose then your sanctions are useless. Enforcement is reduced to street battles with riot police or all out military assaults if you happen to live in one of the more openly dictatorial countries.

Governments enforce the law by balancing the risks. They attempt to create a situation where you will have more to lose than gain from breaking the law. The government will do this with or without your consent. I wonder what would happen if everybody decided to become self employed and stop paying their taxes?

Do you think the government would just sit back and say "oh look the public no longer consent to us collecting taxes"? Of course they wouldn't. They'd take heavy handed measures to nip that sort of thing in the bud before it became widespread. At the end of the day the government is just a huge protection racquet.

Opting out just isn't really an option in this country.
 
I don't know of a single banker who burned people's houses down while they were still in them. That is what the rioters were doing. The bankers may have behaved irresponsibly, but they didn't break the law so far as we know. When he politicians expenses scandal hit. Politicians were made to pay money back they shouldn't have received. Those that did break the law were caught and punished with prison terms.

Yes the economic crash was hard. But these riots so far as I can see have nothing to do with that. Several of the people caught looting have good jobs and come from well to do back grounds. At least one of them has millionaire parents who live in a swanky country mansion.

Now none of the shops and businesses that suffered vandalism and looting were responsible for the economic crash. So I just can't see the justification for attacking them.

A gang or group of people intent on causing trouble for the police after a shooting incident, hijacked a peaceful protest and proceeded to attack innocent businesses. Others then joined in the frenzy and the trouble escalated from there.

This has nothing to do with bankers, world economics, poverty or any of the endless excuses routinely used to explain away bad behaviour. This is a simple case of people breaking the law because they could. Because they chose to.
 
It is true that the bankers are doing God's work...
Off balance sheet that it!
Mortgaging the future of whole generations.
And gearing finite resources for infinite growth!

Where would we be without them?


Osu!
 
I agree with you. "It's the government's fault. They're not helping me with this that or the other. They're excluding me from society." Common excuse.
The solution: Get a decent education, then a decent job, then help yourself. Until then don't commit any crimes.

But no, being the terrible violent youth of today, they'll do the opposite.
I'm not blaming all young people, just the stupid ones that partake in these riots/looting.
 
My point was that to argue that the police hold back anarchy is demonstrably incorrect. If it were true we would need Police numbers that exceeded the constant rioters and we'd live in a police state.

If we rely on fear of sanction we're doomed to failure; countries which have the death penalty still record crimes that carry that penalty.

Any form of free society has to be governed by common consent to be governed. The issue here is not that we need more police, or that we need police with more powers. The issue is that we need to get the people who are rioting involved, invested and consenting to society as a whole.

That doesn't necessarily mean touchy-feely nonsense of course. We may decide to shoot everyone within 50 miles of Tottenham. But increasing penalties that don't deter people or police numbers that can never exceed potential rioters will not solve the issue of the next generation of people who pay such things no heed.

Mitch
 
everyone should tune in to news night right now a well know historian who presents many history programmes for the bbc is being slaughtered for trying to argue that the adoption of black culture by white youth caused this riot LOL
 
Living in a trade and barter economy? Which btw was never a good deal for the working class. Or peasants as they were known.
 
In other words we have to find a way of making the rioters realise they have more to lose than gain from their actions?
 
Bankers didn't mortgage everyone's future, that was the people who applied for the mortgages. Banks provided the facilities for lending, people then took out loans they couldn't afford, often by exaggerating their income and understating their expenses.

In terms of where we'd be without them, we'd be a lot worse off. Financial services are vital for sustaining any modern economy.
 
No. It just doesn't work like that. You can't get people to behave out of fear.

We get the rioters to buy into society so they are aligned with the rest of us condemning such actions.

Again, people behave in line with societal norms because they accept those norms, not because they are afraid of the consequences of ignoring them.

All IMO of course, your mileage may vary

Mitch
 
Well we could then ask why do people accept those social norms. And I never said anything about fear in my last post
 
Well so far we've had a potential Olympian, a millionaire's daughter, an Opera usher, a University graduate, a school teacher, a student Care worker and a ballerina arrested for theft, arson and/or burglary.

This was opportunistic greed. Plain and simple. Their good education with a positive future is now in question because of this act of stupidity.
 
No, but you were still on the same theme of "losing more than gaining," the implication being compliance through fear of punishment, rather than compliance because of acceptance of and investment in societal norms.

Mitch
 
What were they saying to him? I get that might not have been well received but at least to an extent he's correct. Look at the fashion and listen to the language being used by some of the rioters (more than one video I saw cops being called "feds" for instance) and it did seem pretty imported from American gang culture. Like it or not, the vast majority of gang members in America are black or latino. Actually I'm pretty sure Latin gangs are numerically bigger but most of the gangs from America I see on tv or whatever seems to be the black ones. Think black gangs might be bigger in LA and thats normally the one focused on. I suppose you could also start looking at the gangsta image in rap as well but thats a tricky one to start looking into.
 
Also, riot version of question time was worth an hour if you're bored
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b013y4gm/Question_Time_Riot_Special/

Suprisingly level headed responses from the panellists and, for the most part, the audience although there are a couple of gems from the latter.
 
Depending on whether you view humanity as intrinsically good, evil, neutral, altruistic, selfish or egotistical (as raised in another thread), will then effect your belief on the validity of compliance through fear or loss. Seeing as I belief humans to be motivated by selfishness, I have nothing agianst the use of fear (due to loss) as a way to make malefactors fall into line. Investment in societal norms is not equally advantageous to everyone. If it were we'd have true equality, which obviously we do not. It's very difficult to sell a societal norm as intrinsically good, to a sector of the community which is obviously not gaining the same level of advantage from those norms (or the laws such norms enforce) as the rest of society. Sometimes showing them the positive balance in a gain:loss equation (if there actually is one) is the only real world solution.
 
Fair enough I see where I've confused you. To get people to buy into society you must get them to make some sort of investment in society. If you want to use fear as the motivator then they may fear losing that investment. A better driver though is profit. The more a person invests in society the more they have to gain.

If for example you've been unemployed for a long time. It can help your greatly if you volunteer to help out on a local community project. By helping out you get yourself into the swing of working again, into a routine. And you get references.

So by volunteering you have increased your chances of getting work and off of benefits. Which should raise your standard of living.

The thing is though. You can't volunteer for much if the government has pulled all the funding.
 
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