8 August 2011 (Monday) - Civil Unrest

My piss boiled as I listened to the news today. Whatever provocation there might have been can be investigated at leisure. The riots need to stop now.

Comments from the Metropolitan Police’s Commissioner such as “I do urge now that parents start contacting their children and asking where their children are” and "There are far too many spectators who are getting in the way of the police operation to tackle criminal thuggery and burglary" sum up all that is wrong with our society.

What are the police actually doing on the streets? They are acting as targets for the thugs. Our political leaders should see this civil unrest as a God-given opportunity to create a better society. Rioters and thugs should be given one loud verbal warning to cease and desist. And if they do not heed that warning, then they should be shot. And if innocent bystanders get shot, then that’s their tough luck. They would have had the same warning the scumbags received, and would have had no business being in the area in the first place.

Arm the police – they won’t have to mow down that much of the scum before the message gets over.

And then whilst we’re on the job of creating a better society we can arm the teachers too. People who are blaming the parents in all of this have clearly never dealt with today’s schools. The ethos there is that the child can do no wrong, and that the job of the teacher is to undermine any attempt by the parent to discipline the child. Sack the namby-pamby-loony-lefty teachers. Bring in teachers like I had as a child: ones of who we were terrified. Have the teachers addressed as “Sir” – have the little brats all stand whenever a teacher enters the room. Bring the cane back to schools. Thrash the brats who misbehave.

Bring back National Service? – maybe, but if the job is done right at school, we wouldn’t need it. As Oz once said in “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet”, it’s a bit like training a dog. If you terrorise the thing when small, they won’t give you any lip when they get bigger.

Harsh? No – not really. I once had a colleague from the depths of mainland China. He thought nothing of taking his daughter (aged six) to the hospital canteen for her tea, and leaving her there to eat on her own. He was horrified when we explained he shouldn’t do that and told him the stories of children being abducted in the UK.

Where he came from was a rather more strict society. Anyone who interfered with kiddies was put in the village stocks. And then jailed. For years. And so where he came from was actually a much better place to live.

My colleague was quite clear on this point. For all that the rules were far stricter where he came from, they were never enforced. There was no need. The threat was there, and everyone behaved themselves. They had a better society. He felt far safer back in China. For all that we in the UK boast of being a free country, my colleague never felt safe here.

Blow the thugs away. I would pull the trigger myself. I really would…