Pretty much the same percentage as all the other age groups I would have thought,a lot of the ne'er do-wells in this country are well into their thirties and forties,the younger generation are no better or worse than everybody else-all very well for you to cast judgement from the comfort of the [Text edited by Moderator][I am forty-seven by the way].Expatriots should confine theirselves to commenting on photography,as they have given up their right to comment on social issues affecting Great Britain by choosing to live elsewhere.

haha, you made me laugh. , well it would be x-factor but that hasnt started yet!

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Flash away.

Kidney - http://community.dcmag.co.uk/forums/thread/818218.aspx . I would like to suggest you read and carefully digest - especially the 'Don't' section. Also, in an effort to further your education, kindly be advised that there is no such word as 'theirselves'. Additionally, it may be of interest to you to know that on the day that you were born I was already in uniform and serving my country - Britain and ´have therefore earned the right to make comment in this regard.

sue allen:

I totally agree that the best way to rubbish something is to ridicule or make us laugh at it - thus they pick up on something like a council declaring 'winterval' instead of christmas. However, something has gone wrong. The parameters of what's acceptable have radically changed. Society in some parts has become increasingly angry - the appalling case of the man murdered in the checkout queue recently and all those cases of road rage where drivers seem to respond with a totally out of proportion response to some minor infringement. Gaining more 'rights' does'nt seem to make us happier. It's the perception that those who misbehave get away with it whilst those who suffer at their hands just have to suffer. Kids make some householders life a misery, they complain, they have evidence, but are told they can't prove it. Said householder shouts at kids - kids complain to parents about it - police arrive to arrest householder. That's the perception - the silent majority don't know the law like some of those who've been in trouble all their lives. I've had first hand experience of that with a couple of friends.

The overall perception is that 'human rights' is used to protect and compensate the wrongdoer and those who, on the whole, lead a law abiding life just have to get on with it and suffer in silence.

National Service as a military thing - no. National Service as a way to get kids off the street, out of gangs, learning a useful trade, helping the community etc. - surely got to be a good idea - why could'nt it be run by ex forces personnel.

Well, I don't think murdering people at supermarket checkouts is generally seen as being any more acceptable now than in the past. And I don't think anybody has ever been arrested for shouting at kids, its usually when people take things a bit further.

The key word you've used here is 'perception'. Where does that perception come from, a calm and rational assessment of the evidence or the tabloid press? The latter have an interest in promoting their right wing proprieters' agaendas and also to sell papers. Nothing sells papers like middle class and aspirant middle class outrage.

The thing about the rights agenda is that it generally works on behalf of minorities and the oppressed. Not surprisingly this tends not to go down too well with the oppressors or the majority who tend to feel a bit left out. Its therefore very easy for an oppressive establishment to construct this idea of a 'silent majority' who are losing out to wrongdoers.

Another agenda is that a shamefully large amount of the rights agenda has come from Europe including equal treatment, the social chapter and the Human Rights Act. Amongst other things this has given us more rights for women at work, a minimum level of compulsory holidays, rights for gay men and lesbians etc. Yet Europe has another side, the economic one which is shamelessly monetarist neocon. So the rights agenda gets caught up in general Euro bashing and rather handily, tends to take everyone's mind off the nasty capitalist stuff that the right wing establishment is rather keen on and which could be seen as less in the interest of you and me on the Clapham Omnibus.

In terms of rights protecting the 'wrongdoer', could this be because recently we hear a lot about human rights in terms of protecting Muslims or others accused of terrorism, people who are always found guilty in advance by the tabloids?

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Andy,

Most of the protection of  Human rights comes from the middle, not the left nor the right.

The biggest land grab of human rights in the last few centuries has been the virtual abolition of Habeas Corpus by the Queen's first minister - a man that has not been elected to the position, more appointed in as insidious a manner as the appointment of GWB by the Supreme Court. As Brown is from the traditionally left labour party, and it's the other right wing party that's opposing this position, I don't see how you can necessarily paint the right wing as the only offensive creatures in this matter. The left are equally bad, perhaps more so when you consider the abominations of the leftist Mao, Stalin and Trotskey and try to compare them to those of Hitler, Pol Pot, Amin, GWB and Tony Blair (OK he probably isn't the worst but his complacency is appalling).

The only reasonable governance comes from the moderates - they generally can see both sides of the coin, which makes them look two faced at time .

The largest problem facing the UK is that there is no constitution - just a series of laws enacted by parliament and subsequent high court law cases. The Americans can swoon in their right (or wrong) to bear arms, but there's nothing in British law to protect the underdog or the minorities. The fact that it's worked at all over the centuries is purely down to the majority in the middle ground.

I will agree that the addition of the Human rights act is one of the biggest benefits to arise from the European experiment. However, many of the other countries involved in this treaty are/or were right wing at the time (Holland, Germany, Italy, etc.).

It's never wise to mix Capitalism with the right wing. One is an economic system, the other is a political system, complete with the attitudes of what constitutes good governance (torture: bad...caring for the weak and infirmed: good). Unfortunately these economic systems (feudalism, communism, capitalism, etc.) also tend to have a say in the basic law making mechanisms. Interestingly enough, capitalism is one of the only economic systems that depends and derives its power from a basic right of man - the right to property ownership - a right denied to most/all by the other systems.

It's not perfect, but it's all we currently have - a capitalist economy embedded in a democracy. The secret is to balance the outright greed of the markets with regulations imposed by the common man.

Oh, and Phil, my, and other's rights to an opinion and to express them, regardless of geographic location, is a right not to be tampered with. If you want, we can also use the same forumalation you propose to squash your right to comment on the American policies: "you don't live there, why should you have a right to express your opinion".

H.

PS. And yes, I agree with you about the tabloids.

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I have one short thing to say on this matter.  You watch these documentories on police crime etc. and all you get is these louts shouting at the police saying "You cannae touch me" or words to that effect, and the police can do nothing about it.

I think it can be summed up in one phrase.   They know their rights, but don't know their responsibilities.

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The frustrations of the man on the Clapham Omnibus are many and varied and each one is dependant on whether he is working class, middle class, or whatever label you want to pin on him, I believe underclass is a recent addition to the list.

I think it's possible that if each one of us sat down and listed our ten or so major gripes, and whilst there would be a similarity in the lists I would be fairly confident that the calibre of our politicians would be on the the list of everyone.

After all, they are the ones in charge, they are the ones that would lead us to believe "they know best". They are also the ones that will not allow public opinion to sway them when it's demonstrated that that very same public opinion is diametrically opposed to their thinking and proposed actions.

Most people of my acquaintance have given up bothering, because we have come to the opinion that our so-called leaders have the integrity of a snake (apologies to snakes at this juncture); and I know that the response to this is "Why are you surprised, it was ever thus", but now it seems worse that it ever was with no sight of anyone on the horizon to turn it around.

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Graeme Mather:

I think it can be summed up in one phrase.   They know their rights, but don't know their responsibilities.

Succinctly and accurately put.

H.

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You sort of wonder where it's going? I think those of us with a sense of responsibility are getting put off standing up for what's right.

Do any of you take your kids to play parks? There's usually a little thug, generally too old to play on the swings/rides etc. that's being abusive and agressive. I look around and see parents hurriedly moving their children away, rather than speaking to the offending child. They know the parent of that child may give them a right pasting.

Maybe we'll move toward carrying weapons, the same as in the US? All the bad people seem to have access to any weapon they choose. While I was teaching, I remember a survey from one of the research universities suggesting that most children in inner city schools have seen another child bringing a gun into school. That was over ten years ago.

Everyone seems to be looking for a quick fix - national service, hanging, caning etc. When you're trying to enforce order in the classroom, the cane won't have much effect. It's all the little things - keeping uniform tidy, ensuring homework is done, lining up quietly outside the classroom, making sure they don't drop litter etc. It reinforces respect for the rules. Maybe this is the way? I know that crime was reduced massively in New York by zero tolerance. Maybe that's one of the things we should do? Who knows.

We lived in Australia for three years. Oz is pretty much a little offshoot of the US on the other side of the world, with many values from North America. They live quite peacefully on the whole - children give up their seats on buses if someone older or infirm gets on board. I never felt threatened while we lived there. Maybe the British system just doesn't hold together any more? The old polite, self deprecating thing has disappeared, so what will bind us together?

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Society has lost it's way. Normal values such as respect, tolerance and discipline have long since gone. I have no answer as to why, only the knowledge that it has, and for me personally it is something that I can more or less put an accurate date to, give or take a year - 1972.
I was brought up in a very strict environment and left home at the age of 15 to join an even stricter environment - the Royal Navy. I'd only been in the service for a couple of months when I and one other were called before the Captains table to witness punishment being administered to another 15 year old who had decided that service life wasn't for him, packed his bag and simply walked out the door. He was retrieved at the local train station a few miles away by the Military Police. Found guilty of leaving his post without permission he was sentenced to 18 cuts. The guilty youth was placed over the back of a wooden chair, his wrists and ankles secured to the feet whilst the Master at Arms administered the punishment which entailed two whacks across his bare backside with a whip - the legendary cat o'nine tails. The delivery of this punishment was an art in itself as non of the resultant wheals, or cuts across the backside were to cross as this would constitute a double cut for which compensation was payable - 10 shillings if memory serves me correctly.
Now modern society would perhaps categorize this as being cruel especially when you consider the boys age. The Navy's answer would probably be along the lines of that we expect people to do as they are told, when they are told and without question. We also expect people to learn self discipline, learn to live and work in a team, be clean...............well the list goes on. Did the boy in question go on to be a thug and to beat others because he himself had been beaten? Well actually no -  he had risen through the ranks to Lieutenant by the time I left the service some 13 years later.
However, several years prior to leaving I noticed a change come over the Navy - in fact the services in general. 'Civvy Street', which we as servicemen were essentially sheltered from,, was changing for whatever reason. The services were no longer getting the recruits who wanted to retain the long fashionable hair of the time, weren't inclined to taking orders but drugs instead and were, to generalise - rebellious against the accepted 'norms' of society. Of course the country still required it's armed forces and so standards were lowered to accommodate the new generation. To cut a long story short, by the time my contract came up for renewal 4 years later at which time I had spent some time training new entries, the Navy had so changed that I no longer recognised it nor wished to be part of it any longer.
One thing has stuck with me over the interim years however, and that is something that I was told by the Captain of that very first training establishment who incidentally was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the attack on the German ship Tirpitz. He said to me that 'once discipline has gone it can never be recovered' and sadly I feel that he could never have spoken a more true word.
I despair of society today and of the world they are creating for the generations to come. I feel angry, as Alan (ABERS) has already intimated, that there appears to be absolutely no leadership from the top, no one to accept responsibility and take the hard decisions that need to be taken. The youth of today aren't 'bad' - certainly no worse than they were in the 60's shall we say. Where they are different however, is that they lack leadership and discipline, both from their parents and from society at large. Families are seldom a unit nowadays, instead a collection of individuals. Little Tommy may or may not join the family for dinner tonight because he's in the middle of an online computer game with some other individual who has probably only seen his parents for a total of 4 hours all week.
To sum up - society is crumbling, and the sad thing is that those who are still young enough to do anything about it are unable to see it for themselves. Someone mentioned bringing back National Service a while back in this thread and I agree fully with the sentiment later expressed that basically said yes, bring it back, but not in the form of a serving force but more in the form of a disciplined environment in which youths of today can learn how to be responsible, respectful and disciplined men and women of the future. In turn they might just become better parents which as things stand today we often see more of in the animal world.

You won't hear me commenting on social problems in the Netherlands or Germany,I leave that to the people who live there-they know best.The only reason I mention America is the profound effect its culture has had on the world since mass communication took off.I reserve the right to comment on it as I can see the effect it has had in my country,some of it is good,some of it is bad.Once you start polarizing a particular group of people [i.e youth] and labelling them in the way some forum members have,you are travelling down a slippery slope.There is good and bad in all age groups,races, religions,creeds etc,I can't say any fairer than that.If you want to comment on matters in another country,I agree that is your right,but you must expect criticism sometimes,as the indigenous population may look at things in a different way.It's all a question of balance.

We all know who said "there is no such thing as society". From that instant the "me first" culture began to be acceptable, to hell with everybody else. The parents of today's youth are those that were the casualties of the devil take the hindmost attitudes of the Thatcher years. Those millions that never had a chance of a job for years after leaving school, those communities, built up over decades, destroyed in a short space of time.

Why comform to the recognised rules of civilised behaviour, why try to achieve a life worth living through hard work when it was so easily all destroyed by the application of a doctrine that had no compassion for those regarded as losers?

If the state can do what it likes with me, then I'll do what I like with the state became the norm, and the advent of the Human Rights Act has almost given that attitude some credibility.

Brown's feeble celebration of Britishness is an insult to that lost generation that suffered the indignities of the 80's. You can't motivate people if they can see in the recent past how easy it can all fall apart.  

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Alan Ingham:

Someone mentioned bringing back National Service a while back in this thread and I agree fully with the sentiment later expressed that basically said yes, bring it back, but not in the form of a serving force

I think it was me, and I think I was being a little facetious 

I've met plenty of people who've done National Service, and they've all grumbled about it. However, none of them said they regretted doing it. It gave them a lot - discipline, a trade, self-reliance, travel.

It was also a necessity - Britain was moving away from Empire, and all those National Servicemen allowed us to do it gracefuly, and I think the world is (more or less) a better place for this paced withdrawal, rather than a rapid retreat.

I don't think it will ever come back. Think of the costs of:

• food
• accommodation
• pay
• administration
• equipment
• expanding the services to train all these young people

Now double it (yes, women as well as men would have to do National Service!). It's fairly obvious that this will cost a bomb. Even if National Service reduced crime (and thus the cost of it),  we'd not see the difference for many years, and this cost reduction wouldn't match the investment needed.

How to pay for it?

• Close some schools, hospitals, lay off some police officers. Not a vote winner
• Raise taxes. I dare say that the demographic favouring National Service would also be the one that is against paying more tax?

Peacetime conscription lasted for twenty years after the second world war. As far as I know, this was the only period of peacetime conscription in our history. Many other generations grew up to be responsible members of society without this.

Probably the most important point for me against National Service is this: where would our young men and women be right now if we had already brought it back? Yes, that's right. Protecting oil wells in the middle east for George Bush's friends. If you give a politician an army, they'll use it. If you think it's just New Labour that do this, think back to Suez. When politicians ask us to put our children in uniform 'for their own good', we should be standing up to them.

I kind of understand your sentiment, Alan, that maybe we could have some form of service that's not part of the military. However, the problem here is that bad behaviour is apearing much younger than than 18 years old. Some parents are frightened of their children these days when they're just thirteen or fourteen years old. By the time they're 18, many have already committed serious assaults. If you put this lot together, it would be more like a prison than an environment for improvement.

Right now, we've got a government that's run out of ideas, so they're just apealing to voters with nutty schemes. They've just threatened 1/5 of Britain's schools with closure. So where will all these kids go... 

Cuddly, cool Dave C seems to have even less substance than Mr Blair or Brown, so where do we go now?

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Graeme Mather:

I have one short thing to say on this matter.  You watch these documentories on police crime etc. and all you get is these louts shouting at the police saying "You cannae touch me" or words to that effect, and the police can do nothing about it.

I think it can be summed up in one phrase.   They know their rights, but don't know their responsibilities.

I agree Graeme.

My dad is a policeman, and many people who get arrested, say its "only cause im black", maby 50 years ago yes, but come on grow up.

Also when i was watching an american police drama thingy, i was really surprised that they let a dog hold down a man on the floor whilst biting his arm in a very agressive way, because he stole a car. This is harsh, and something you wouldnt see in this county; but I say that  is right, and criminals should be treated like that in britain. But if the police did treat people like that they would get sewed for "racisum" or being "sexist".

Its stupid, jails should be strict...NO telly, NO games, ect ect.....
they are old anough to know what is right and wrong.

and illegal immagrants should be put in jails in there own country!

anyway thats my second rage on this thred.

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Valentinecook:

Graeme Mather:

I have one short thing to say on this matter.  You watch these documentories on police crime etc. and all you get is these louts shouting at the police saying "You cannae touch me" or words to that effect, and the police can do nothing about it.

I think it can be summed up in one phrase.   They know their rights, but don't know their responsibilities.

I agree Graeme.

My dad is a policeman, and many people who get arrested, say its "only cause im black", maby 50 years ago yes, but come on grow up.

Also when i was watching an american police drama thingy, i was really surprised that they let a dog hold down a man on the floor whilst biting his arm in a very agressive way, because he stole a car. This is harsh, and something you wouldnt see in this county; but I say that  is right, and criminals should be treated like that in britain. But if the police did treat people like that they would get sewed for "racisum" or being "sexist".

Its stupid, jails should be strict...NO telly, NO games, ect ect.....
they are old anough to know what is right and wrong.

and illegal immagrants should be put in jails in there own country!

anyway thats my second rage on this thred.

 

Mmmmmmm, I think I get your drift.

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