[Bobboau]

yes we should place the blame for the damage done on the people talking about it, not the people doing it, people are incapable of controlling their actions and we need to reinforce this. counter-revolutionary ideas must be crushed.

[JCDNWarrior]

I hope I didn't come across wrong, provocateurs as in ones that start a riot, not 'provocateurs' that incite riots through Facebook, though that also isn't a good thing to do and, if proved linked to an actual response, should be proscecuted (depending on the actual language used in the text, as well). It's similar if a president of a country orders his army to perform war crimes, not only his troops should be jailed for committing the crime, but also the one that ordered it.

I think this situation is more about curbing free speech than anything else though.

[NGTM-1R]

Ummm, one of the guys actually turned up to riot. The only reason there was no riot is cause no one else did.

So there was no riot.

So you're agreeing with me that nothing actually happened.

Thank you.

[karajorma]

You do know we prosecute people for attempted murder even if no actual murder takes place, right?

There are many crimes that are simply the act of planning a crime but being unable to carry it out due to circumstances out of your control.

[Snail]

Yeah, if someone just really sucks at murder but still gives it a shot, they should still be prosecuted for trying, not let off for failing.

[NGTM-1R]

You do know we prosecute people for attempted murder even if no actual murder takes place, right?

You do know that it's not treated as the same as murder, right? What's the typical sentence for someone who actually rioted at?

Less than four years. Whoops.

There are many crimes that are simply the act of planning a crime but being unable to carry it out due to circumstances out of your control.

Bull****. It is not enough to simply intend or discuss a crime. There must be action. You are attempting to run the Thought Police and have therefore abrogated any claim to justice.

At least one of these people never acted.

[headdie]

You do know we prosecute people for attempted murder even if no actual murder takes place, right?

You do know that it's not treated as the same as murder, right? What's the typical sentence for someone who actually rioted at?

Less than four years. Whoops.

There are many crimes that are simply the act of planning a crime but being unable to carry it out due to circumstances out of your control.

Bull****. It is not enough to simply intend or discuss a crime. There must be action. You are attempting to run the Thought Police and have therefore abrogated any claim to justice.

At least one of these people never acted.

not but they tried to set riots in motion so they acted to achieve a criminal goal and are thus criminals

[NGTM-1R]

not but they tried to set riots in motion so they acted to achieve a criminal goal and are thus criminals

Yes, but one of them actually showed up. One of them did not. Sentencing them the same is at best a gross miscarriage of justice because their actions in respect to attempting to achieve that goal were not the same.

[karajorma]

Maybe the other one missed the bus and didn't turn up cause the other one phoned him. In which case he is still just as guilty, right?

The point is that you don't know as you didn't follow the case yet you're screaming about it being a miscarriage of justice.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Prosecuting intent rather than action is a slippery slope at best. The government drops the hammer like this after social uprisings because they want to send a message that they're fully in control. Whether or not that's a good idea, well, that's up to debate. I, personally, think that it will just make things worse, but I'm pretty anti-government. This is a site about a gaming community, so that's as far as I'll go with that.

Basically, it boils down to this: would they have gotten the same sentence if they had tried to incite a riot at any other time? Probably not. And thus, the "justice" system is making up rules and changing punishments as it suits them. I think that's crap, so I'm torn, because I also think scumbags that would burn and destroy their own country deserve a lot of punishment. These are people that are willing to hurt completely innocent fellow citizens because they're pissed at the government. As one or several people have already pointed out, their anger is absolutely misdirected. March on Parliament, march on the palace, march on courts, whatever. But get the attention of the right people.

[karajorma]

The thing you haven't realised is that this didn't happen cause people are upset at the government. There was NO political message in these riots. It was just about stealing stuff and vandalism.

This wasn't like the student demonstrations earlier this year or the poll tax riots.

[Unknown Target]

People are obviously upset though, and the riots basically act like a red flag to "hey, there are unaddressed problems in this society", IMO.

[Dark_4ce]

With my limited political knowledge, the world at this stage is in pretty bad shape. A new financial crisis looms, people are pissed off, natural disasters, Green Lantern... One would almost think 2012 came early. But IMHO, we'll do alright.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

People are obviously upset though, and the riots basically act like a red flag to "hey, there are unaddressed problems in this society", IMO.

I agree with this. Yeah, I know there are people who just wait for a reason to smash things up (like in Vancouver after the NHL Stanley Cup), but I'm going to make a guess that people on that level of societal dysfunction are in a small minority of the general population.

When you have that many people performing the same action, if you ask them all why you're gonna get a lot of different answers. But the undercurrent of civil unrest is mostly due to the perception of the common citizen that the government isn't effectual in preventing the problems that they believe exist. Whether any of that is true or not, to the individual, it's perception that matters.

To the government, it's not the perception but the actions or planned actions that they have to focus on. Regardless of these individuals' motives for doing what they did, the politicians feel like they have to do something in order to prove that they haven't lost control.

At risk of angering the Big Kahuna of the boards, to say that there was no political message in the riots is probably not an accurate statement. I think it may be slightly more accurate to point to societal concerns as motivation for general civil unrest, while the more immediate actions of incitement and destruction were more likely to be perpetrated by the chavs and hooligans. On a more specific note, I wouldn't be surprised to hear of IRA involvement.

Edit: corrected spelling errors. I probably should refrain from writing semi-thoughtful posts after 6 hours of class and after I've taken my melatonin.

[NGTM-1R]

The point is that you don't know as you didn't follow the case yet you're screaming about it being miscarriage of justice.

That's not a point, it's an assertion, and it's a false one. Try again.

The thing you haven't realised is that this didn't happen cause people are upset at the government. There was NO political message in these riots. It was just about stealing stuff and vandalism.

This wasn't like the student demonstrations earlier this year or the poll tax riots.

You don't honestly believe that tens of thousands of people spontaneously decided to just decided to vandalize **** for the hell of it? I mean, really?

[karajorma]

It's pretty obvious that a few people did it, got away with it and thus more people tried it the next night. I assume you also think soccer hooligans are making a political point too.

And seriously, if you think this was political what do you think they were protesting?

[headdie]

If this was a politically motivated protest the.

1. Why were reporters assaulted trying to report on the situation?
2. Where were the cries denouncing what ever the problem was?
3. Where were the placards, banners and the rest with slogans summing up why they were protesting?
4. Why does most of the UK not know wtf it was all about despite the scale of the riots?
5. Where were the petitions to Parliament?
6. Where were the questions from the opposition party and the independent MPs on the issues?

It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting there was no protest from that point on with no provocation from the authorities.

[Polpolion]

It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting

I think you are missing something somewhere because that does not compute.

[karajorma]

 There was a peaceful protest which was hijacked by troublemakers. Very much the same thing has happened in quite a few protests recently. The troublemakers have no actual connection to whatever the protest is about but use the cover of the crowd as an excuse for looting.

There's a really good reason why I mentioned football hooliganism in my earlier post. This was exactly the same thing basically, people taking advantage of an opportunity to cause trouble. Unlike football hooliganism, with no opposing side to go after the focus is more on stealing things but make no mistake, the two are related.

[headdie]

It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting

I think you are missing something somewhere because that does not compute.

It started as a peaceful protest on day 1 about a shooting, fair enough, by day 2 it had descended into mindless violence and looting there was no protest from that point on with no provocation from the authorities.