The rioters are just doing what government does all the time - helping themselves to other people's property.

And this has all come about the NO smacking program. Quote! Not you know why their all disrespectful little a holes.....From the ages 2 to 5 that's how to make a decent adult.......don't smack or show who's boss.....don't say I didn't tell you so.....and enjoy your kids that have respect for you or little else.

But you can always go and visit them in jail.

No child under 16 should be out on the streets under any circumstances, and if you do, its your embarrassment to show how you cant control your children in a modern 21 century society.

shame on you!

LEAP

Actually, pelican, you're right. Nothing to do with racism.

>>I reacted to Pericles comment on my mention of the 'Cronulla riot' because I assumed (wrongly maybe) that it was a judgement on racism from the 'high moral ground' when it was merely an addition to the list of the growing incidence of riots around the world regardless of the impetus.<<

My "Classic!" observation was a response to the very idea that Cronulla should be added to the "list of the growing incidence of riots", at all.

Apart from a bit of grandstanding by the Alan Joneses of this world, who wanted for their own reasons to categorise it as racial confrontation, Cronulla was nothing more than a kiddie-sized scuffle over a bit of beachfront, helped along by a few beers.

And it was six years ago. Nothing since.

Here's an interesting observation on Cronulla. Followed by a couple of posts.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/10/the-cronulla-riots-five-years-on/

There is a link at the top of the page to Hot Topics: London Riots.

Compare, and contrast.

The ineluctable fact is that even the most under-privileged of our society, and our "yoof", has a life that is so far and away better than that of a youngster in the drab, decaying, soul-sapping greyness of high-rise housing estates in the UK.

Here's a thing. Take one of the rioting London lads aside, whisper confidentially that we have riots in Sydney, too, and tell him about Cronulla.

Watch his eyes boggle at the idea that anyone who has access to a beach, in the sunshine, and can actually go surfing every day, would find a cogent reason to riot.

We are a long, long way from having UK-style discontent. We are even further from experiencing politically inspired unrest as seen in Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, Iran... as Crocodile Dundee would say, that's not a riot - THIS is a riot.

There are those who will tell us that life here is becoming unbearable (usually because of "other races and/or religions"), and we are all 'rooned.

Merely manufactured misery.

That's good pelican,

'With the swing to the Right and far Right in the modern political landscape, I find it necessary to balance the equation. '

'You summise I am anti-capitalism, I am not'

So, that means I am not anti-feminist. I just don't mention the good parts, just like you rarely sing the praises of capitalism. Except grudgingly as a disclaimer of course.

I have said before that I balance out the zietgeist of ubiquitous feminist social commentry. (ie The constant sophistry and hyperbole about 'objectification' and the 'gender pay gap' and the general tone about the near universally predatory and abusive male and the helpless vicim female, or as I term them; the downtrodden martyrs of society).

PS: It amuses and interests me how stridently you object to being called a raving commo:-) Wear your red colours with pride girl!

Comrade;-z

Hasbeen,

When a teacher encounters a group of kids disrupting the class, dispersing them amongst more conscientious students removes them from the one-upmanship and encouragement to some degree. Sure it's no panacea, but the fringe dwellersare emancipated from the gravitational field of the ringleaders, and that can emancipate the ringleaders to a degree also.

When all your neigbours, friends and relatives are on welfare, pregnant at 16 and on drugs, it seems a more normal existence. If you cant beat em join em.

It's debateable though wether the environment of poor little rich kids with the keys to the absent Daddy's sports car and a lonely and emotionally unstable mother spoiling them, ;leading to a cocaine fueled life of insider trading short selling and relationships with 'colourful' businessmen is really an improvement.

Best we aim for the slog it out, pay a mortgage for the McMansion, hell in flurescent lighting middle managers, salt o' the earth 'Tradies' and Soccer mums and 'good sport' nurses for our civil security and prosperity I reckon!

Society should mix like a good Irish pub. Suits and Workers, kids and old farts, all having a laugh together, keeping each other in line.

Houlle I’m not sure spreading the ghetto dwellers around will help… it will be more convenient for them to burglarize their neighbours than have to catch a bus to the town centre to smash shop windows (which is the same as hasbeen has said)

And lets face it, those people who can, choose to move rather than live next to the sort of filth who riot.

Of course, having lived in UK for many years I can tell you the problem of tower blocks is simple… they improve the available land use to better meet public housing accommodation demands and unlike Australia, the UK is a tiny island with, relatively, not much land

Finally… remember, you might take the indolent out of the ghetto but you cannot take the ghetto out of the indolent… and it is hard to defuse rampant and inflated expectations above the intellectual limits of someone who didn’t bother with school

Personally I reckon if these thugs were left to work to feed themselves or starve, instead of relying on the “welfare state” career model, they would be so exhausted that they would have no energy to riot.

Peter Hume…. Oh I wish I had said that…. :- )

Indeed QuantumLeap… a few whacks and these rioters might have got to understand the concept of respect for other peoples property, “boundaries” and responsibility for own actions

Oh you old softie Col.