England riots

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"Only in the West could rioters wearing designer duds with iPods and iPhones, looting immigrant shop owners and beating them up -- be considered "poverty stricken"

Playing devil's advocate here--you know that in a lot of these urban communities those things are pretty much all people own, right? There's enormous, enormous cultural and media pressure to buy useless sh**t until you can't afford decent food or lodging. On everybody, actually, not just urban poors.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"Only in the West could rioters wearing designer duds with iPods and iPhones, looting immigrant shop owners and beating them up -- be considered "poverty stricken"

Playing devil's advocate here--you know that in a lot of these urban communities those things are pretty much all people own, right? There's enormous, enormous cultural and media pressure to buy useless sh**t until you can't afford decent food or lodging. On everybody, actually, not just urban poors.

These people have far more than what most in the world have: housing, healthcare, education.
Hell, even American kids don't have what they have. Protest the government all you want, but once you start destroying property and hurting people--all you deserve is to be treated like a criminal that you truly are.

No amount of this "faux" poverty justifies this kind of sh**t. Hell, they aren't even *in* poverty by practically all standards. And killing kids who actually have a job and trying to protect their business? Sick

I complete agree. As I said, I was playing devil's advocate. Just pointing out that they are underprivileged and alienated by the standards of British society.

British society which still doesn't deserve this kind of shabby treatment. No argument there at all. By any objective standards they're acting like sociopathic, entitled little sh**tbuckets like it's their job.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Anyone who knows anything knows that any police officer anywhere in Europe isn't gonna be trigger happy,

How comes you are so sure about this?

Europe has a history of being too liberal for it's own good.

I was explaining to a coworker the other day about how different Britain is than what many Americans see it as. Instead of British people sipping tea and being friendly, the country is so radicalized and full of extremists that it has lost whatever culture it possessed in the decades following World War II. Americans look at Winston Churchill as a heroic figure. They booted him out after the war. Americans look at Margaret Thatcher as a heroic figure. Many in her own land loath her and her legacy. It's almost as if Barack Obama would make a better European leader and people like Churchill, Thatcher and Blair would make better American leaders. Indeed, I know many British people dislike the fact that Tony Blair acted more like a "President" than a Prime Minister. Maybe it's fear. After all, Europe has had a brutal history. Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, London...all of them and more were at one time or another, in ruins. Besides 1812, the Civil War, and September 11, 2001, Americans haven't had that kind of brutality in our own land, and perhaps this should give pause to criticism of Europeans.

What I can't grasp for the life of me is the hypocrisy of them to riot and cause disorder after a criminal was taken off the streets.

Do you actually know anything about Britain?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How long until Naso proposes that the rioters should have a talk with Archie Bunker?

What England really needs is a John Mellancamp type to play patriotic songs that warm their cold British hearts.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume he doesn't know that John Mellencamp is a labor militant.