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I think "we want free stuff" is a pretty good explanation for the vast majority of the looting, and "smashing stuff is fun" for the destruction. There are plen
by ig1 15y ago
I think "we want free stuff" is a pretty good explanation for the vast majority of the looting, and "smashing stuff is fun" for the destruction.
There are plenty of places with high-unemployment, political disenfranchisement, etc. which haven't turned to rioting.
While it may have been a contributing cause (if you've got less to risk you might be more willing to get involved in looting, etc.) to say it was the primary reason is insulting to the million of law-abiding individuals from struggling economic and social backgrounds.
- nodata 15y agoYour answer is a diversion. You changed the reason to "these people want free stuff". That doesn't help. Why aren't YOU looting and rioting and "wanting free stuff"? We're back to the same question again. Why these people? Why this group?
- gaius 15y agoThis is a "deprived" area of London, but the question is, what are they being deprived of? What is it that they had before, that has been taken away? What do other parts of London have that they do not? If you want an answer, it's that successive governments gave them free stuff, everything from their housing up, and now they can't really tell the difference between stuff you just get and stuff you're free to take anymore.
- nodata 15y agoYou don't need to have lost something to be deprived. You can be deprived of chances that others have.
- gaius 15y agoWhich are what exactly? Unless I'm mistaken the people of Tottenham get free educations to the age of 18 same as everyone else in the UK. They also have as good a public transport infrastructure as anywhere else and can work anywhere in London.
- nodata 15y agoWell that's what we're trying to find the answer to: what's different about this group of people?
- gaius 15y agoAnd I told you. They've been given so much they can't now see why they can't just take anything they want. Seriously, you don't fight for freedom/education/"a chance" by nicking a 50" plasma TV. And doing so is an insult to people like, for example, the Libyans and Egyptians who really did - and do - fight for something worthwhile.
- nodata 15y agoBut that's no answer at all - all of this "free stuff" you talk about is available to other groups who did not loot.
- rimantas 15y agoThey probably also had different upbringing, and grew with mindset that society owns them something. Why? Who knows. Just because. It simmilar where I am. People don't bother to go to elections and then complain to no end how bad tha parlament is as if that parlament was somehow forced onto us…
- nodata 15y agoI don't agree. "Just because" is no answer. And your first point is an opinion, not a fact, your last point is a different issue.
- gaius 15y agoYes, except if I want a 50" plasma TV (I still have a 28" CRT!) I would earn money and then buy one.