This was an interesting post on Oscar:
The basic problem is that our country has gone soft; soft on crime and soft on punishment. There is now no deterrent to stop the "don't work, won't work" youth from just doing what they like. The emperor’s new clothes just won't cover up the holes in the system any longer. The bad guys have realised that if they overload the system, the system can't cope. Thousands rioting? they can't imprison all of them so there's not much to fear. Co-ordinated attacks on different areas - the police are just spread to thin. Rioters can use bricks, fireworks, petrol bombs and then can hide behind the human rights act. Want something? Just take it nobody's going to stop you; and if they do stop you, just shout police victimisation! No fear, there's not much to be afraid of! If caught, the worst they'll probably get is a two month suspended sentence or a few hours community service. Yea, that's really frightening!
The time has come, I'm afraid to say, to wind back some civilisation. This is a bitter pill. We should all find it distasteful. However, the decent humane approach has failed. Over the last forty years respect for the laws of our land has eroded away. The criminal and lawless fraternity have pushed against the old boundaries; the boundaries hard set during centuries of capital and corporal punishment. The good and gentlefolk of this land have tried to make the lot of the criminal more civilised and humane. The criminal fraternity is now seeing this humanity as weakness and is increasingly taking advantage of it.
Read the riot act and bring back the birch. Soon it will be too late and it really will be Anarchy in the U.K.
10 August 2011 00:39