English Unrest

[doodle]

It seems that the unrest in England is growing. Things have even gotten so bad that PM David Cameron has had to postpone his Tuscan vacation to come home and deal with the "thugs and hooligans". Now, I'm in no way condoning the violence and destruction of private property, but I think it provides a good example of the realities of what hopelessness and disparity of wealth do to a society. I'm curious what the perspective some of the forum participants on the other side of the pond can provide about what is happening over there. It seems that the English has been a lot more vocal and taken to demonstration and action than the Americans thus far.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

[stone]

doodle, there hasn't been any of it where I live or work (fingers crossed) so I've got no more idea of what is going on than what I've seen on the news and that is probably just what you've seen in the USA or anywhere. The news is all saying that it is not a protest or demonstration but just coordinated looting. Why now? The Police shooting an apparently armed criminal is not a rare event by any means. It is more worrying that it all seems so incomprehensible. We get Taliban fighters on the TV explaining what their motivations are but these British people seem totally mysterious and other worldly. Apparently 10 year old children attacked a bus by throwing looted bottles of champagne at it! I guess we will be resorting to cannibalism in time for hosting the Olympics.
We do have some districts in the UK with 80% unemployment. Perhaps we have created a scavenger class (with our bankers as the predator class ) and this is the consequence? I really don't want to dream up excuses for what is ultimately individuals being awful.

[stone]

Clive, the discipline in childrens' schools thing is astonishing. My brother worked in a childrens' school in Japan and said that there, the children never did anything wrong. Disciplining by teachers simply wasn't called upon. I went to school as a child for a year in Texas (in the 1970s) and was astonished that the children were quiet and respectful to the teachers in comparison to the pandemonium in the UK (but they were academically a year behind  in Texas ?!?).
I do think that it is a big problem that welfare payments depend on not working. I'd much rather a system with a flat payment and anything earned being retained. I'm sure some people will say all of this is due to liberalism and others will say it is down to not enough liberalism. I kind of wonder whether it is due to people being controlled and dis-empowered both by liberals and by anti-liberals alike.

[stone]

Clive, until very recently my mother volunteered as a lay probation worker. She acted as a mentor for young offenders after they had come out of prison. She said that the astonishing thing was how pleasant they all were to her. They were presumably the people who cause all of the trouble. Clearly they could turn the nastiness on and off and for some reason in every case turned it off when they were with her. That makes me really wonder about all of this. It really makes it clear that even those people  are not all that messed up.

[MediumTex]

I am visualizing a cross between Atlas Shrugged and A Clockwork Orange.

Here in Texas we have the death penalty available for even minor classroom infractions, and that helps a lot.

[gizmo_rat]

We don't tend to do riots like the rest of the world.

Note use of riot shield.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8663728@N06/6024429000

At the moment I think it's just chav's [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav ] stocking up on trainers [sneakers] , mobiles and ipad's, however I have some concern that if things escalate this evening, it will turn into a more general unrest.

Interesting Amazon is experiencing a rush on orders for baseball bats
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/movers-and-s ... =zg_bs_tab

Don't know why US sports are suddenly so popular here

As the great radical Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee) said a few months ago,

"The price of this financial crisis is being borne by people who absolutely did not cause it" , "Now is the period when the cost is being paid, I'm surprised that the degree of public anger has not been greater than it has."

[Storm]

Really interesting that baseball bat sales are up over 5000% in Amazon UK.  Somehow I don't think most "Chavs" are going to have the thought process necessary to place an order on Amazon and wait a couple of days for their shiny aluminum bat to arrive before bashing up some property.

Do you think most of those sales are for self/home defense, considering that gun ownership isn't legal in the UK?

I also have to say, something like this would probably not happen in most US cities.  At the point the looting/rioting became problematic, you would see many property owners with guns putting a stop to it.  When you outlaw all the guns, only the outlaws will have guns.  Personally, I wouldn't mind having a few ex-cops or ex-military in my neighborhood taking turns keeping watch with a hunting rifle and a big sign that says "Looters will be shot on sight."

[Reub]

"Its just a spread of opportunistic smash and grab brought about by liberalism."

Clive, I believe that it is politically correct to refer to them as "progressives" these days, not liberals. Besides they have a right to hate the rich and greedy store owners who have made their fortunes from stealing from the poor. They have entitlements, after all. Where else have I heard that recently???

[MediumTex]

"Its just a spread of opportunistic smash and grab brought about by liberalism."

Clive, I believe that it is politically correct to refer to them as "progressives" these days, not liberals. Besides they have a right to hate the rich and greedy store owners who have made their fortunes from stealing from the poor. They have entitlements, after all. Where else have I heard that recently???

911 Tape: "Yes, please send a wagon of constables to my shop.  A group of progressives have entered by smashing the locks and are progressing to take every bloody thing I own.  Some of the progressives appear to have progressed through several pints of ale before making their way here."

[MediumTex]

Clive,

Apparently, all of that 1984-style surveillance network with cameras on every corner hasn't helped prevent this.

Aren't the progressives/looters concerned that Big Brother is watching?

[gizmo_rat]

Do you think most of those sales are for self/home defense, considering that gun ownership isn't legal in the UK?

I also have to say, something like this would probably not happen in most US cities.  At the point the looting/rioting became problematic, you would see many property owners with guns putting a stop to it.  When you outlaw all the guns, only the outlaws will have guns.

Cross cultural comparisons on things like gun ownership are almost impossible, it just doesn't mean the same thing here.

The tacit agreement between citizen and state is that police are not armed but anyone seen on the street with a gun will be shot by an armed response unit.

The upshot of this is that gun related crime is minimal, disorder and altercations rarely result in fatalities.

Even though the current rioting is "the worst in living memory" afaik no one has been killed (I hope that remains the case tonight).  The genie is still in the bottle.

Given how difficult it is to use a hand gun accurately , I suspect that property owners opening fire would likely be a bigger danger than rioters.

Just leave it to the pros

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxWWJaTEdD0


 

[gizmo_rat]

Clive,

Apparently, all of that 1984-style surveillance network with cameras on every corner hasn't helped prevent this.

Aren't the progressives/looters concerned that Big Brother is watching?

Given that Big Brother (CCTV operator) is pulling 12 hour shifts 6 days a week to earn a minimum wage, he's likely to join the liberals in looting the Apple store.

[MediumTex]

I saw the story linked below entitled "Peter the Wild Boy" today about a feral child from the 1700s that captivated the attention of Britain.

It sounds like the homo ferens roaming the streets today are not quite as charming as Peter.

In the summer of 1725 a peculiar youth was found in the forest of Hertswold near Hameln in northern Germany. Aged about 12, he walked on all fours and fed on grass and leaves. ‘A naked, brownish, blackhaired creature’, he would run up trees when approached and could utter no intelligible sound. The latest in a long line of feral children – in turn celebrated, shunned and cursed through the ages – ‘The Wild Boy of Hameln’ would be the first to achieve real fame.

After a spell in the House of Correction in Celle, the boy was taken to the court of George, Duke of Hanover and King of the United Kingdom, at Herrenhausen. There the young curiosity was initially treated as an honoured guest. Seated at table with the king, dressed in a suit of clothes with a napkin at his neck, he repelled his host with his complete lack of manners. He refused bread, but gorged himself on vegetables, fruit and rare meat, greedily grasping at the dishes and eating noisily from his hands, until he was ordered to be taken away. He was given the name of Peter, but was variously known as ‘Wild Peter’, ‘Peter of Hanover’, or, most famously, ‘Peter the Wild Boy’.

LINK

[smurff]

I also have to say, something like this would probably not happen in most US cities.  At the point the looting/rioting became problematic, you would see many property owners with guns putting a stop to it.  When you outlaw all the guns, only the outlaws will have guns.  Personally, I wouldn't mind having a few ex-cops or ex-military in my neighborhood taking turns keeping watch with a hunting rifle and a big sign that says "Looters will be shot on sight."

Actually, Storm, it's already been happening in American cities, albeit on a smaller scale. 

The mayor of Philadelphia a couple of days ago held a massive press conference where he announced that everyone under age 18 had to now abide by a curfew, and parents would be made to be responsible for damage.  Philadelphia and other cities in the Midwest and East have been suffering all summer with flash mobs of teenagers whose purpose is looting and general mayhem (in contrast to the usual flash mobs, where two or three hundred people do something silly but relatively harmless, like show up all at once in their underwear to ride the train).  The last couple of teen flash mobs in Philadelphia have led to serious injuries and lots of property damage, and they have grown more vicious over time.  You can probably find the videos on YouTube. 

Then there was the really bad one at the Wisconsin State Fair last week.  They're coordinated via Blackberry and other social media.  Hundreds of people descend on the planned location at once, do their destruction, and leave, with no time for the police to react.  The only thing missing from the USA examples so far are flames and riot police.

[stone]

The idea that widespread gun ownership ensures US law and order sounds nice but could you potentially have a Somalia style situation if dozens of children with AK47s blazing choose to take over? I heard a couple of interviews with the perpetrators on the news. They said that they were not looting because they wanted the goods but were looting to show that they could not be controlled??? I do think a lot of the problems we have are about control being something people try to impose on other people rather than coming from each of us. Isn't the Tea Party movement in the US a reaction against imposed control? Basically even if we had an East German style police state, if people really had zero respect for each other we would all be in the shit.

[Storm]

Smurff,

It looks like the flash mob in Philadelphia was only about 2 dozen individuals and one man ended up with a broken jaw.  I have not heard of any looting or rioting.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationn ... -mobs.html

I have yet to see any rioting or looting on the scale of the UK riots.

[MediumTex]

10 years of preparing for terrorist attacks that never came finds many U.S. police departments with tons of riot gear and tactical units that I'm sure they would love to field test on rioters.

There will probably be some riots here at some point, and I predict they will be dealt with swiftly and brutally.

[Gumby]

An opinion from the other side of the tracks in the UK...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=biJgILxGK0o

You will only see this on the internet. BBC isn't going to replay it due to what was said...

[Reub]

He sounds like a "progressive" also.

[Gumby]

He sounds like a "progressive" also.

Well, yeah. He's Darcus Howe. It's a different perspective from what you might typically hear in the news.

[smurff]

I have yet to see any rioting or looting on the scale of the UK riots.

You're right Storm, Philly teen flash mobs are nothing at all like the current vintage of UK riots.

[Coffee]

We don't have to speculate: We had it, with the Rodney King riots and Katrina. 
Ref: Korean shop owners/L.A. and "Drunks with Guns" defending their neighborhoods, Katrina. 

Lawlessness like the rioters will not spread to suburban neighborhoods in America (especially in Texas!) because the buck stops with guys like me:

[Coffee]

[stone]

Coffee, I traveled through LA the year after the Rodney King riots and there were still lots of burnt out stores then. I guess the shop keepers hadn't managed to protect all of the shops. It looks as though persistent rain is what has saved the situation here in England. A very English solution! I hope the looters are taken aback by the scale of the prosecutions. There are specially set up courts running 24/7 to prosecute hundreds and hundreds of looters.

[moda0306]

Adequate insurance tends to be a nice disincentivisor to taking your gun out of the safe to defend your shop.

Just get out of dodge if you can... defend your person if you must.