Feeling embarrassed being British right now
 

I guess news of all of the rioting taking place across the UK has spread around the world.

I'm both disgusted and embarrassed at the same time for all of the anarchy in some of our biggest cities at the moment. Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London... so terrible. And with the 2012 Olympics just around the corner.

I don't really understand their point. Why are they rioting, and what do they hope to create or change?

We've had our own embarrassing moments lately here, but I'm glad to say, no riots. You have my sympathy.

Can anyone point to an instance in human history, where riots have made anything better? Revolutions, maybe, but riots?

(And we're awfully proud of our revolution, but one only needs to look north to think maybe it didn't have to be that way.)

The riots started following the shooting of an armed person by the police. The person died and the initial riots were supposedly related to the shooting. Few details have been released. However, whilst some unrest at this shooting might be understandable to those few people concerned, it has since been widely broadcast by the media and it has spread across the country.

And the reasons given by the hooligans are sounding less and less "sincere", and it seems plainly obvious to me that they are rioting just because they feel they may be able get away with it. Hundreds of arrests have been made. Cars and buses burnt out. Ambulance, fire engines and police forces attacked.

It is awful to watch hooded thugs just smashing the place up, mugging people and literally stealing plasma TVs, phones, clothes etc., and riding off on their bikes or running into the night.

I am shocked and dismayed by it all. I guess this is how one feels when it happens in your "own backyard". These things go on all the time elsewhere in the world.

Who are the people that are rioting? Are they the native british people or immigrants?

The United States has surely seen its moments of shame in this same manner. I recall the riots after certain legal decisions, like the OJ trial and the Rodney King trial.

What I have never understood, is why the rioters burn the neighborhoods. In the ones I listed, they overwhelmingly burned the inner city neighborhoods they lived in. I just don't get it.

I would not endorse it, but if poor people who feel they have gotten a bad deal from life went to a rich neighborhood, and burned that, I may at least understand what they are doing. But when they burn their own neighborhoods, it defies logic.

Perhaps that is it. This has nothing to do with logic, it is pure emotional outburst, with the perception that they will not be held accountable.

Then, eventually, it all comes down to haves and have nots. It comes down to stuff. The crowd's emotion over the original issue ebbs, and people try to profit take. I suspect at this point, the rioters are not the same as the original, but those who are climbing on the band wagon.

I do not happen to agree with Bob, and think that life in Canada or anywhere else would be the same as it is now without the American Revolution. I believe that the United States has been a singular force for good and for improvements to civilization and life on earth, and that its influence has rippled down to many other places on the planet. We are surely not the only honorable or laudable force, but our influence cannot be easily dismissed either.

All that said, a riot or revolution for the sake of getting other people to leave us alone, or to get their nose out of our business is far different than a riot or action for the sake of taking other people's stuff as your own, or to damage the property of others, for the sake of hurting them.

One of my biggest challenges as a parent, especially in these times, is to have my children understand that wrong is wrong because it is wrong, not because you will get caught, or get in trouble. It is not about avoiding punishment, it is about doing the right thing.

So much of society, press, television and much more today feeds children and anyone else who will listen that wrong is determined if you get caught or not. So much bad behavior is demonstrated or even revered in the media, without consequence.

All the initial reports about the riots that I saw reported that the police had shot and killed a man who was a father of four. No more. It was much later that you could hear that he was armed, a suspected gangster, and someone who had be surveiled by the police for some time. This does not seem the random shooting, nor a casual abuse of police power, as were the seemingly early reports.

I do hope for cooler heads to prevail. Keep safe. This too will pass. I hope that all those who are taking advantage get what is appropriate punishment, and maybe a tad more. It is time to turn the tide back toward civility being the standard, not less.

KSagal, nothing is wrong anymore.

But, let me add this, I was a poor student, my brother was smart and a good student. However, we both did pretty well, not rich, but not hungry. My life turned when I went to tech school and studied commercial art when I was 25. Then I was a very good student. I had the God given talent, had not developed it.

What I have notice is that everyone that I knew growing up went to public school. Public schools were integrated when I was in hi-school. So from that point on everyone has had an equal chance. I have noticed that many like myself, up until I went to tech school did not try very hard. Those who did not take advantage of an education have not done very well in material things.

I saw this all the time a few years ago when we owned a bunch of rent property. All of my renters saw me as a rich person. They didn't believe that I was making payments on all of those houses, even when they did not pay their rent, kicked a door off or moved out in the middle of the night. When their sewer stopped up it was the rich guy, me while they had a cool one and watched TV, out there at night digging up the line and removing something that they should not have flushed down the commode. Once we sold the rent property, we did put a good sum in the bank, but we earned it!

I understand that tragedies of life happen, but it seems that if a person is uneducated and/or laze they are more apt to have these misfortunes. Both of which are self-inflected. You know, adults can go to night school if they see that they missed out on education for what ever reason. You guessed it, I have little sympathy for the lazy and those who did not or will not get an education. If they burn down their neighborhood, put a fence around the neighborhood and make them live there.

yewp, I am in trouble again.

I do not disagree with most of what you said, in fact, I agree with most.

But the one thing that is true, those in the riots are not damaging their own. They are burning that which does not belong to themselves. The neighborhoods they burn they may live in, but they rent or in government housing. They spoil their neighborhood, but only because someone else will pay to repair their damage.

When much younger, my company had a need in Syracuse NY, so I moved there. On one of my first days there, while still in a downtown hotel, someone keyed my new car. (It was a few weeks old at the time.)

They did not stick around to see my anger. They did not steal the car. They did not even break into it. They just tried to spoil it. (it was a single scrape from one bumper to the other along the passenger side. Simply walked the length of the car doing damage and they kept walking. And it was not someone who knew or disliked me, as I was not in town long enough to have made any enemies or friends yet. (This is where at least one of two or three names I have in my head are debating to themselves how it takes so little time to develop a dislike for me that I cannot be sure of this...:rolleyes:)

The other tiny fault I see with Rolacoy's comment is that there are still lots of things that are wrong. I think I understand his comment to mean however that nothing is unacceptable behavior anymore. Things that people in the past would be ashamed to be associated with, or too embarrassed to do, are now done regularly, and there is no shame left.

Feeling shame is not a bad thing. It keeps us standing straight, and doing the right thing. Not feeling it is a bad thing. It allows us to do bad or evil or selfish things, and not suffer any consequence.

I have news for many who do not seem to know it now. What goes around will come around. Just because you get away with it does not mean it was okay, and just because people are too self consumed or afraid to hold you accountable, does not mean that the final reckoning or when the final tally is made, or that morality does not mean anything. It just means that people are not as strong as they once were. Wrong is wrong. Good and evil do exist. And like it or not, we all have to choose sides, regularly.

Whoa, I didn't say that!

But I do wonder if perhaps a non-violent approach might not have led to an even better result.

It wasn't the violent start that made this country great, it was the commitment to democracy and freedom, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence. And the principles of checks and balances, and to limited government by the people.

Like you, I have oft wondered at rioters destroying their own neighborhoods. It's not the peasants storming the castle. Castles don't burn so easily. But the straw huts? They burn real nice.

My only explanation is that anger makes people stupid -- really stupid.

If you poop in your nest you should have to live in it or clean it out yourself. We need to take care of people who can not care for themselves. I don't lose much sleep over the whiners weather they live in America or Britain. And we all have them.