No.
Its nothing like the race riots of Rodney King, or the Brixton Riots. This isnt about race, this was opportunism. Nothing to do with a certain sector of society. I came from this sector. I have a degree in Civil Engineering. lots of my friends came from this sector, none of us are looting. You sit on the other side of the pond, i have watched this unfold first hand in my community, I can tell you now there is nothing remotely political about. Dont you even dare to shift the blame with that kind of waffle
end rant
You paid no attention to what I said. I'm not saying the riots were political per se, I'm saying that it's a sign of a society with problems. That's cool you didn't join in the looting but the fact that it happened to begin with should at least prompt people to ask questions about why this is happening. Also, it's not just opportunism, as what about the first people to start doing this? There wasn't the opportunity to loot until after the rioting became widespread. It started off as a protest, which turned into rioting. You're completely ignoring the fact that there was a protest to begin with and that this happened because of the discontent of the populace. Now I'm obviously not condoning the rioting, as it's not a good way to convince people of what you believe in, and I'm not even trying to argue that they are correct in what they are protesting about, I'm just pointing out the fact that all of this is an obvious sign of serious problems going on in London's society. Happy people tend not to riot. If you believe that it was caused by nothing more than the presence of a bunch of morons who were ****** off about the shooting and then got violent about it, than the question you should be asking is why are there a bunch of morons in my society? And why do they resort to violence?
And it is a lot like the Rodney King riots, which of course also had a lot of "opportunists" running around. If you have a lot of people who are ****** off and feel they can't do anything about it, when there is an incident like this they will take to the streets. Which is exactly what happened with Rodney King. It's not political per se, the rioters weren't necessarily consciously doing it out of protest. But my point is that it is a sign that something is clearly wrong. For us it is that there a lot of racial tensions whites ignore and are sheltered from and that blacks in our country feel they don't have a voice, frustration that was bottled up and released in a few riots. And clearly something is wrong in the UK because a well-functioning society doesn't have rioters. Now you can go the Daily Mail route and say it's the culture of liberalism and state spending that caused this, which I don't agree with, but at least they're trying to answer the question. I think that's more productive than everyone sitting around talking about how much better they are than the 'animals.'
tbf, curtis, half of the kids committing these crimes don't even know what's going on with the Government. All this is, is thier mates messaging them saying "Come down to the shops, free stuff" or words to that effect. It has nothing to do with how the government is doing a shabby job. Most of them are uneducated *****, who have nothing better to do. I don't agree with that.
And what about the first people to start protesting? I'm not disagreeing with you, but at the very beginning before the looting started there was no opportunity to get free stuff. It was only after the rioting escalated that the opportunity to loot materialized. So clearly it started off as a protest against something. I'm not agreeing with the rioting or what the protest was about, all I'm doing is pointing out it's a pretty obvious sign of some problems. Even if you think there was no protest to begin with and this is nothing more than a bunch of idiots going around breaking stuff, than why aren't you asking why we have a bunch of idiots in our society that go around breaking stuff? I think it's a pretty important question and people should be discussing it rather than talking about how great they are for not participating in the looting.
Similar to the race riots? Really? 6 year olds nicking fishing rods from a store because of racial tension? Primary school teacher arrested and charged for nicking clothes when he's on just over £1000 a month? Riots because of lack of economic opportunity? How can that be when the taxpayers provide them with everything from a damned laptop to a ******* satellite dish?! And the majority of these bastards were working with adults who were in full time employment-they were seen helping them. So when people say its because of the economic climate it is pure and utter bullshit. When people say its similar to race riots its utter bullshit. It's because people have been given so much, they want more. And when they can't have it, they steal it, because they cannot be arsed to damwell go and get a ****** job. And it's obvious the families were egging them on. The police witnessed whole families looting stores. And those families ARE SCUM. If anyone thinks otherwise or gives them jusitication I say to them-STFU.
So it's not just kids that were involved-there were "adults" (fucktard is a term I prefer) and families. And most of them blame the government, because they're crackin down on benefits and they don't like it, because they have to cut the amount of drink and drugs they can afford. So rest assured they'll try to get Labour back in power so they can be guaranteed a nice little earner. If they want their voice to be heard, they do what normal human beings do-peaceful protest or see someone the mp. Not return to caveman times and act like a roving pack of animals.
I just find it amazing that people are actually doint their best to understand these animals. They don't care about you, they don't care about me, they don't care about normal people. They only care, and thrive, on making peoples lives miserable. Thats the only thing they know about-destroying peoples lives. So if anyone says to me they have become disenfranchised, have horrible lives, or blah blah blah I will say to them bullshit. Send them to a 3rd world country so they can see for themselves what poverty really is. They're bastards. Nothing more, nothing less and may they burn in ****.
I'm going to address the bolded part first. I find it hard to believe you actually think we shouldn't even try to understand what's going on...usually when bad things happen we try to understand why. The people that don't try to understand and simply write it off as the actions of lunatics or animals I think are counter-productive. After 9/11 the general attitude was that the terrorists were cowards or lunatics and there was no desire from anyone to try and understand the motivations behind their actions. I think if people took that step the war on terror would have been fought very differently. You can't fight your enemy if you don't understand him.
This is very similar to the race riots, not only because it was kicked off by the same type of incident involving a (alleged) police brutality. See what I wrote above.
Again I'm not justifying their actions, which you implied, I'm pointing out the obvious fact that something is wrong or else you wouldn't have looters. And that goes for whatever your views on the situation are.
At least you are trying to articulate some sort of reasoning behind this (the welfare state) although I don't think it's a very plausible explanation. There are plenty of other countries out there struggling with the same issues yet they aren't resorting to looting, some with a more robust welfare state than the UK. If you think it's simply the fact that you have a bunch of "animals" in London that like to break things, than the question you should be asking is why are there a bunch of "animals" in London that like to break things?