Be Excellent To Each Other

I think the moat keeps most of the riff raff away from your house Cavey.

Ironically enough mate, you're much closer to the truth than you realise.

One could try to argue it's the fact that people don't tend to associate with the neighbours much nowadays that's allowing this to happen.

Of course, even if you did manage to get a posse together it wouldn't stop these cunts from coming back for a drive-by revenge attack at some other time because you dared imply they CAN'T be destructive cunts.

I'm re-reading Enders Game and his whole philosophy on nasty people is to defeat them once, but so thoroughly that they wouldn't dare try anything again just in case he got the upper hand and did the same or worse to them again.

Make a maze out of salt with a capful of jam at the end. If they manage to make their way through, make the maze more complicated.

If you can grab just one of them, kill him. Make sure the rest can see.

I think that is but one (IMO small) factor amongst a whole host a factors.

Fuck me, when does one begin here..? As I see it, and to be objective about it, I've fairly recently come to regard the Thatcher era as corrosive in this respect; the whole 'there is no Society' mantra; the sheer selfishness and self-promotion, work ethos but at the expense of morality... the very converse of community spirit and 'we're all in this together'? But there again, this was all of itself a part-necessary, urgent reaction to the converse 'anti-work, anti-business' trade unionism that proceeded even that; an entire, bankrupt country in the hands of the IMF, in a state of paralysis.

But of course, the political dimension is really only but one facet. I believe that the undeniable, incontrovertible slide in mean educational standards since the tri-partite days of the 50s and 60s is a HUGE factor (despite the fact that 'we' spend vastly more on education now than we ever did back then, but the absence of discipline in the classroom - and home - cannot be compensated for by throwing tax pound notes at it), as I have been banging on about for years. Would we really have this problem if the vast majority of young people today were genuinely well educated, well read, and thus effortlessly numerate and literate as a result, with a built-in work ethos and self-discipline received from an early age, as they generally were 30+ years ago? In political terms, it was Labour who did away with our excellent Grammar and Secondary Modern schools, for perfectly well-intentioned and seemingly laudable reasons - but it was the political gaffe of our age IMO and the evidence of this is abundantly clear however much the exam pass-rates are massaged and grade inflation applied.

The two biggest factors are the total lack of work ethos (arising from families with three generations of no-one in work ), and the seemingly now near-default (also workless) single parent family, often with a total inability to, and/or will to control teenage children. IDS has spent an inordinate amount of time studying these things first hand and, almost uniquely within the political class these days, is prepared to really talk turkey in this matter, from a position of genuine, garnered knowledge and wisdom - and is also in a position to do something about it.

People need work. It used to be socially unacceptable (and in practice impossible) to simply stay at home, year after year, watching daytime TV/playing games etc. at the expense of the rest of us. It may well be true that there are not enough jobs to go round (especially since the average Brit simply has the option to refuse many of the low-end ones, at we therefore have to import those who *are* willing to work from elsewhere, swelling our already crowded ranks even further, creating yet more social problems, racial tensions), but in that case we need people *earning* their benefits? I can hear the wails of 'slave armies!' from certain quarters , but I'm sorry - if you're reasonably fit and able bodied, why can't you set a good example and help all of us by cleaning the streets and parks, doing up the thousands of derelict//boarded up housing that's here for all to see in the Northwest and elsewhere, help out at libraries, hospitals and schools, cleaning up our grafitti'd buildings... setting a good example to our kids, hold your heads up high at last?

Bad parenting is also very much at the heart of all this; total apathy (an unwillingness and/or inability to control or take responsibility for one's own children, all as per previous) combined with laziness (decades of total non-productivity); setting an appalling example to our young people in this and other respects. 'Workfare' and the like would start to address this deficiency, together with culpability of parent(s) if and when the kids who are supposed to be in their charge repeatedly fail to attend school, make people's lives (like WTB) intolerable, damage others' property or whatever. I'd wager that being hit hard in the pocket may well bring about success in forcing interest and accountability on the part of useless, ineffectual, disinterested parents who seem to regard the whereabouts and behavior of their own kids as somehow not their problem or responsibility?

Let's bring back discipline in the classroom and home as well; the threat of the cane at school; a smacked backside for really bad behavior without fear of being sued by your own pupils/kids for an infringement of their 'human rights'

On the other hand the sky isn't falling and the number of little scrotes out there are massively outweighed by the number of kids who are just perfectly decent, bright and normal somehow produced by this hopeless, broken society and education system.

Also the sort of parents who still slap their kids around in some sort of feeble-minded attempt at teaching them something are mostly scummy wankers.

Disagree, and it's progressively getting worse and worse, as AE has noted.
The recent mass youth riots were, pretty much, a final wake up call for those still in denial, their heads up to their ears in sand about this.

A very typical reaction akin to the liberal chattering classes, there. No-one is talking about "slapping their kids around". I was "slapped around" as you put it, so I know the difference between a once-in-a-blue moon smacked bottom and a KO rabbit punch to the head.

I've never once needed to so much as raise my own hand to my own kids, but then, I've never needed to, because, like, they were well brought up with plenty of healthy outlets for them (that didn't involve a television or XBox), good parental role models and most importantly, serious time-investment on the part of both my wife and I.

Yeah, cavey I'm a clueless member of the "chattering classes". Presumably this is because I live in an economically deprived town in Lancashire rather than a mansion house in Cheshire.

It's kinda hard to do that when you're working two jobs to pay the rent and bills.

Without wishing to sound rude, AE lives on the IoM, so his experiences probably involve an increase in wicker man burnings and the hanging of livestock for witchcraft.

There'll always eb people doing bad stuff, we care just more aware of it, through newspapers and the internet. it's too easy to draw engative conclusions from a few selected reports, the majority of people are good and kind.

O tempora, o mores.

EDIT: I'm quite against the idea of sticking these people in the army, as they'll come out just the same but knowing how to kill more efficiently.

I said akin to, not that you were! But there again, if you're going to post shite like that that, which you know full well to be the very opposite of what I have fairly painstakingly tried to explain, then don't be surprised if you get short shrift as a response.

If I live in a mansion house in Cheshire as you put it, I've also cleaned public toilets, worked well below the bread line at age 16-17, done any number of shit, low-paid jobs too.

Also, it's fucking hard to get work at present.

You're quite right, it IS hard. However, we managed to do it for 10+ years; both my wife and I *did* work full time, like millions of others who used to be able to manage it as well.

I still managed to help out during evening homework sessions; I never missed a single parent's evening or school play; we always did everything as a family on both Sat and Sun; I took an active interest in the girls' hobbies like horses or whatever; we always had a big family meal every Sunday; when teenagers I dropped them off in the evenings and got them back at night. Simple stuff, albeit often 'inconvenient'.

In today's world, quite a few parents in their 30s and even 40s seem to believe that they can essentially selfishly lead their lives - both on a social, and career level where applicable - as like single people who don't have kids at all, with near as damn it no time-investment in them whatsoever. This inherently selfish, dereliction of 'parental duty', combined with an IMO disastrous, naive, modern day 'right on' hippy-like viewpoint on the whole issue of discipline for children (or the complete, abject lack of it) and a shit, discipline-free education at school to boot, all makes for a potent mix, unsurprisingly.

Kids ultimately don't want the latest £500 phones, laptops, XBoxes and plasma TVs; at least not half as much as they do want their parents' quality time and ability to project themselves as half decent role models, at least until the age of 13. They want the kind of meaningful interaction and communication that only comes with effort and time; they need to be understood, and to feel wanted. After that, it's generally too late to apply corrections anyway, as the rot will have surely well and truly set in, in most cases. Their true peers will be elsewhere at this point, most especially if their own parents have not been arsed hitherto, even if they have bribed them with consumer goods, as if this were supposedly some kind of surrogate for the important basics that I mention, that always used to be taken for granted/as a given; part and parcel of the basic 'toolset' of parenthood.

Yeah, it is. And?


True, but they're not out stopping the stones being thrown, so that's good, but not really that useful.

Real-world-LOL

All my family are back in the UK though.

Last time I went over for was my brother's wedding about three years ago, an old mate of my dad's who I hadn't seen for years but always got on fine with said words to the effect of, 'You did the right thing getting out of here, this place is a right shithole now.'


Off the top of my head in the last few years (and this is in what was a decent, respectable, safe working class area twenty to thirty years ago when I was growing up there).

Dad - Burgled multiple times, cars broken into multiple times. Also had 'neighbours from hell' for a couple of years before they had one too many run-ins with the police and were evicted.

Brother - Beaten up on his own doorstep when he challenged local chavs (very similar to WTB's situation actually), house burgled + car keys stolen and car totalled, victim of violent armed robbery when leaving his place of work with the day's takings.

Gran on my mum's side - Burgled whilst asleep upstairs.

Grandad on my dad's side - Confronted an intruder in his house and was beaten to the ground (he was about 77 years old at the time) and then watched his house get ransacked by some junkie piece of fucking cunt.

My mum, stepdad and half-brother and half-sister have mostly escaped because they live in rural Wales, although my mum says Bridgend (the closest major town to them) has some serious hellhole areas in it.


I'm used to getting this 'AE lives on the IOM' stuff here so it's no surprise (I'm not allowed to talk about money stuff because we have low taxes over here is the other main one), but MaliA please don't assume I know fuck all about what's going on in the UK just because I don't live there any more.

Sounds like most of your family should up-sticks and come live with you AE.

Fuck me, very sorry to hear that AE.
IMO it's both a disgrace and a very sorry indictment of the standards of policing/their (in)ability to protect ordinary, peace-abiding people. The ghettoisation of entire, hitherto perfectly ordinary neighborhoods and their loss to these ever expanding, burgeoning, worthless scum continues apace, it would appear?

And yet still, we most of us are either in complete denial, or various stages of apathy: 'La la la, it isn't happening!11!', fingers firmly inserted into our ears etc. (Until something along these lines happens to each of us, of course - at which time the reality of the true situation becomes only too fucking clear, indeed unavoidable. As in my own case in fact - very nearly cost me my life and as it is, I'll never breathe fully normally again, following emergency surgery, not to mention the damage to my mind. Like, cheers then, you worthless fucking cowardly little cunts; it would've been so much better for all concerned as if you'd never been born).

Yup, large fierce dogs, 12-gauge and axe would appear to be the way forward.

You can get some copper tape from garden centres that supposedly works well. Just coat the pavement outside your house with it.

You can mock by all means Dimrill, but it's no different to any of the other houses/farms out here I can assure you, for good reason.

As I say, I used to think it wouldn't happen to me; I thought most people wouldn't dream of doing something like that - entirely unprovoked - in the first place; if they were so inclined I didn't think anyone would have a poke at the likes of me (and that if they did, I'd be able to make more than a reasonable account of myself), or if all else failed, I'd be OK if I simply 'cooperated' and gave them whatever it was that they wanted.

How wrong I was, on all counts - no matter how big or 'handy' you are, two or more tooled-up little scrotes, with the element of surprise on their side, are more than sufficient to inflict whatever harm they wish. My complacency almost killed me; I vowed that I'll never make that same mistake again.

The statistics doesn't show this to be true, though. Crime rates are dropping. Anecdotes don't equal data, as we're so fond of saying.

Heh. Those self same "statistics" tell me that standards of education are ever-improving, exam pass rates are ever rising etc. Ever even considered the possibility that those agencies publishing this data might have a vested interest in making them look good? Perhaps to the point of skewing them so much as to render them worthless or even wholly misleading?

As for youth crime, well, pardon my "anecdotes" but I was working in the thick of the Manchester youth riots a few months back and also have a pair of eyes in my head. "Youth crime rates falling", my arse.

Please don't lecture or patronise me about the validity of data vs. anecdote, Malia. I'm an engineer and good data lies at the very foundation of all that I conceive, design and do.

Of the crimes I listed that occurred just to the four members of my family detailed above (a large number of crimes, some of them violent), only the armed robbery was reported, and even that was mainly just because it involved a third party's money.

The vast majority of people know full well there's fuck all reporting crime to the police. *

Even when my brother got his car fucked he didn't report it, but just had it towed away and paid to get it fixed himself, because it was a PGA loaner and it wasn't worth the hassle.


* My mum and stepdad retired from the police not so long ago (after about sixty years of service between them), and by the time she retired she was absolutely and thoroughly disillusioned with the job - as it had long stopped being about protecting the lives, interests and rights of the ordinary man and woman.

That's partly why they retired out into the middle of Wales, because they knew first hand how fucked things were in the towns and cities and how little the police could/would do.

Ah, but AE mate, you're being naive and idiotic; you should ignore the vast, empirical, first-hand experience and evidence of your very own eyes, and exclusively rely on governmental statistics...

LoL etc.

Old people have complained about society and how kids are out of control throughout time immemorial. There are quotes attributed to people for thousands of years saying how we cannot rely on the youth as they are vicious, feral and without respect for their elders.

The sky is, very obviously, not falling.

Occam's razor, people. Occam's razor.

If you crumble some eggshells and sprinkle them on the pavement, they should avoid it as they don't like the sensation on their slimy cold foot.

Is Occam's razor the one with eight blades?

There's a long tradition in satire of mocking the comfortable middle-aged (usually men) lamenting the apparent ruin of society. The ancient Greeks did it. The Romans did it. And they experienced far less societal change from one generation to the next than have more recent Western societies.

There is an ancient satire, I forget the title, in which a group of elder statesman lounge around a plush villa, eating drinking and having their fill, all the while criticizing the incivility of youth, the degradation of art and the apparent downward spiral of civilisation. Ever was the case. If set in modern times, these men would be Daily Mail readers. Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

I think humanity is going through an extended adolescence but is on a general improving trend. Everything is going to be okay. Everything is okay. Apart from sometimes when it is not. Such is life. That does not mean we should not aspire to a higher standard of living or coach the young to live by decent standards, but the many can hardly be damned for the bad deeds of the few.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satires_%28Juvenal%29

Enough chattering, class. This is a serious topic.

"Old people"...? Heh, nice. I'm 45, AE is in his late 30s. That'll be the usual ad hominem bullshit, then. It's the BEEX way afterall; as amply evidenced above.

No-one said "the sky is falling in". It's been suggested, however, that the prevalence of scummy, lawless, uneducated, aggressive little wankers who've never worked a day in their lives is increasing, however, much to the detriment of an ever diminishing group of "normal" people, like WTB, AE's family and myself, and far more obviously, the recent "youth riots" that were the worst that this country has seen.

In response, there's been the usual patronising, piss-taking and above all provocative bullshit from people who aren't so much younger anyway, frankly - like as if that's got anything to do with anything?

Seriously, whatever people. You obviously think this is great fun, but to me you just look like a bunch of childish twats. Ironically enough, the key prerequisite for a decent discussion/debate is that the participants thereof do have to be grownups, both chronologically speaking and in their state of mind as well...

I find your use of the word "bunch" offensive. And yes, having fun with words and false mistunderstandings is childish and uncalled for. You must excuse my levity as my biological Father was a window in Lichfield Cathedral, so I take tales of stones being pinged off them with great relish.

I aasn't attempting to be rude, patronising or in any way offensive. If it came across this way I apologise. I'd include myself in the 'old' bracket, or near enough.

I just disagree about the extent to which the 'youth of today' are stagnating, or about the volume of people who are 'bad' in this way. I don't deny that there are elements of society like you describe; I just disagree as to the extent.

The thing is, Cavey, you've presented nothing but anecdotes. Sure, in your case and AEs, they're unpleasant and personally important anecdotes, but they tell us nothing about the state of society as a whole. I've lived pretty much all my life in inner city areas that are somewhat deprived, and the worst that's happened to me is having my car window smashed in. Again, just an anecdote. I'm not sure what you can rely on if official figures are just to be dismissed.

As you can tell from my accent, I live in a very upper class area. The kids round here avoid tax with offshore bank accounts and disturb wildlife by organising rowing boat races on the cut. Bastards without morals the lot of them.

So apparently they don't think much of bad weather because all has been quiet the last couple of nights. I rang the police on Thursday and they advised me to call 999 immediately if anything happens again. So that's what I'll do. I'm going to ignore their provocation, peek out to find out the direction they're heading in and keep calling the police until it stops forever.

Anec...*snip*

Anyway, dial it back a bit Cavey, I don't think anyone was dismissing your views - This ain't WoS.

I told some kids to move away from the front of my house as their bouncing football was disturbing me in my important TV watching. They said "Sorry, mate" and moved on.

Another time, MrsPaz had to chase a kid who was attempting to steal the lead from the top of our bay window. In daylight. Whilst we were in. Cheeky fucker.

Someone pushed a homemade pipebomb through a letterbox at the end of the road.

A drug dealer was shotgunned IN THE FACE outside the gym at the other end of the road.

When MrsPaz left the housekeys on the outside of the front door all day, someone knocked on the door and told her.

What I'm saying is: cunts be cunts wherever you are. But even in the deepest shit holes, you still lost the game.

"Fuck that, I'm not risking getting a nut from that bloke at number 38!"

Tell them you're from Boro. They'll steer well clear.

Stockton!

Middlesbrough-West

You bastard.

You Fucking cunt

Double insult posts.

I are winner

Oh man! I really have to put my oar in here.

Useful anecdotes:

- My kids have had a 'liberal' upbringing. They are both top of their classes and socially quite advanced for their years. I'm incredibly proud. Neither of them have chucked a bottle at a window as a result of me not smacking them. I suspect the opposite is true.

- I have extensive experience with young people from deprived areas with my work. My experience is that the anti social kids often end up being from 'strict' parents and have plenty of experience of being smacked and worse. Parents who would beat the shit out of them if they found out what they do once they get away from home. I'm sure they are perfectly well behaved at home. They haven't been taught any social skills so once they get out, they get into trouble. These are the same parents who want corporal punishment in schools.

Fails on account of being a normal, pretty girl dressed up.

That's not how you spell grandmother.

I do like scally women.

But hang on there, my kids also have had an incredibly liberal upbringing as well (to the extent that Mrs C and I were dubbed 'The Modern Parents' from Viz (lol) by our friends); I have never so much hurt a hair on their heads, and I'm only 'in favour of corporal punishment in schools' to the incredibly limited extent of having the cane rapped across the flattened hand as an absolute last resort, by the headmaster, where endless detentions and other stuff has repeatedly failed? They supposedly had the cane at three of my schools, both primary and secondary, but I never once heard of anyone receiving it in 11 years. But the deterrent effect was still there, even though it had only mythical status.

I had strict parents who beat the shit out of me (before chucking me out at 16 when I finally rebelled); believe me, that's not what I'm talking about. I don't believe in any form of actual violence towards kids, like ever, or anything even remotely approaching it, for any reason(s) whatsoever. Nor do I believe in pushing kids too hard at school either for that matter, though that's something else again.

Nothing I care about more than the welfare of, and wellbeing of young people, partly precisely because of my own tedious emo-issues and still being very aggrieved 30 years on. There was NO way I was ever going to make the same mistakes with my own, even if they did end up being the Kray Twins or worse as a result. Happily, they didn't, quite the reverse. Kids just need love and time, everything else is just so much window dressing.