I wasn't going to even look at this thread again as I don't feel well enough to engage in a debate about this but I have done and as people as asked for me to explain my last post I feel it only fair I do.
When I said this is what's wrong with this country I meant the lack of empathy and preparedness to try and understand what is going on that is almost uniformly apparent across this country. Here on this thread; on facebook; on the news; by most politicians (certainly those in power). This narrowest of viewpoints that has become the norm is what creates the divided society that allows such awful acts as these riots to happen. Yes, amongst the diverse makeup of the rioters will be those who would be out vandalising and robbing anyway. Yes, for all the rioters this is opportunistic, criminal and gratuitous. But it does not follow that society cannot be held accountable for allowing it to be.
This predates this government though in the space of only a year the coalition has so successfully undone all the good Labour was working on and more that it is no wonder that there has been such a large number of violent protests and riots in these few short months since they came to power. The government is responsible for creating a stable, secure, peacful society and they have failed in this both by allowing such division in society that so many people think it is ok to behave this way and by not protecting citizens properly through a wholly inadequate response and through their larger cost-cutting within our public services.
But people in general are also responsible for the disenfranchisement of a whole generation. The media has long perpetuated the selfish, reckless 'hoodie' without any consideration for the poverty, lack of opportunity and education that underlies life for many young people and taking no responsibility for the material and selfish way of life it perpetuates with its trite celebrity culture that leaves young people thinking success equates to property rather than achievement. Those who follow this myth are just as responsible for the media panders to its audience. In general the people of this country are just as guilty of selfishness as those causing the violence. A lack of community spirit and consideration for others, a desire to build up house and home and opportunity for one's own family without thought for others who are in need, a minset endemic of consumerism and capitalism that at least dates back to the '80s (without going into the historical segregated past of the UK).
In the end humans are just animals with society imposed upon us. For it to work it needs to be fair and just. The more people who are neglected and marginalised the more inevitable they will one day club together and show their total lack of respect for the society that has had no respect for them, behaving as the animals we all are underneath. It's been said a million times before. You treat people like shit, they will act like shit. The answer? Stop treating them like shit and give them something meaningful to live for. It's society that teaches us morals and consideration, it isn't something genetic that we're born with. If people are lacking in what the majority consider to be a moral code then it is because they have not been properly taught it ergo society has let them down.
I want to stop there but I have to say this as it seems to be impossible for the majority of people to comprehend (and that's not a dig here but all over the media) that understanding what has allowed this to happen is NOT the same as condoning or justifying it. If we never ask the questions and seek the answers this will just happen again and again, always bubbling just beneath the surface.