Guess what I spent most of my years in a council estate surrounded by drugs and crime too. And I witnessed MANY parents teaching their kids right and wrong, expect most of the time they didn't listen. Please explain that...
"but my mum tought us what was right, and what was wrong" and "It's down to the individual to climb out of the swamp" are two contradictory statements. It's down to the individual as long as someone else gives them discipline?
I have known many people with absolutely dreadful parents and they are perfectly normal (as in normal in 'society').
Your opinions don't stack up.
The real problem is pop psychology manipulating this and that poll to suit their own ends. I have a friend who completed a degree in psychology and their conclusions - "its a load of old bollox"
The truth is no one actually knows what makes people tick, and predictably it's probably a variation of many factors. But I wouldn't be so confident in blaming 'parent's and what not. They play their part but there is bigger picture.
The argument is genetically predisposed to do so on it's own. I didn't raise it like that.
On a more serious note (and in anticipation of further bold and capital text) - it seems that the book you mentioned does hint at genetic predisposition quite a bit.
Some people are born with that "bad" gene, it's true enough. You can find some parents that try hard to get their kids on the straight and narrow but they still go wild anyway. It happens.
However, 18 kids have been killed by knives in London so far this year. Are you trying to tell me that every single one of the perps in those cases shares the same genetic defect? Unlikely.
How about the kids at my schools who picked on not just me, but other kids as well? They share that same problem? And the annoying little brats who cause trouble on buses and run around in gangs on streets? Every single one of them has a genetic disposition to be bad? I don't think so.
The odd one or two I'll accept. An entire culture? Not possible.
[Edit: You know another thing? Prisons. They're too easy going now. So there's no real threat of being locked away because it's just too fricking sweet inside. We've just had a big contract to set up free broadband to a whole load of prisons in the UK. Wish my broadband was free. Games consoles? Check. Tax-free? Check. Free meals and gym time? Check. Yet another of society's failings.]
For all we know, 18 dead to knife attacks in 6 months in London might be an all-time low. The media will have stopped talking about it by the end of the year anyway because it won't sell papers any more, and we'll stop talking about it because the media aren't reminding us about it, and we'll probably just assume that the issue went away.
How many people have been killed by drunk drivers so far this year? Let's blame it on "scum" from council estates and teenage pregnancy.
So, any time guns come up, you guys flame us in the US and argue your ridiculous arguements against guns.
Now the topic of knives is brought up. You don't have guns, so knives are used in crime. So, just ban the knives.
Tomorrow the headlines will read "man stabbed with screwdriver." Ok, now screwdrivers are banned.
August: "Woman robbed by being stabbed with a shard of glass."
October: "Man is killed by getting hit in the head with a hammer."
BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN it all!!!
Eventually, paper will be banned as someone will rob a convenience store by holding a piece of paper up to the clerk's throat and threaten him with a papercut.....
I agree to a certain amount, but then in the same breath the people that say this go on to say 'blame the parents for non-discipline'. This frustrates me because it's totally contradictory.
I think to a certain degree your genes to have an effect. You only have look at cases where identical twins were separated at birth and then go on to live remarkably similar life having been brought up by different parents, in a different area. Even having husbands with the same name, and hair colour... even the same pet dog breed... same job... same personality.
So your genetics do appear to dictate certain aspects of ones behavour.
I personally believe personality and behavour are built on MANY factors, not totally excluding the parents. Some people may be pre-conditioned to ignore their environment, where some people are more susceptible.
This is why knife crime and so on is a complex subject, and why there isn't a quick fix
BTW I never blame any of my personality traits on anyone expect myself
I'd be willing to wager that your gun deaths per capita are considerably higher than our stats for knives.
The only people in the UK who are pissed about the ban on handguns are people who shoot competitively - probably a dozen people in the whole country. So it's an altogether defensible ban for the other 59 million of us who never wanted a handgun in the first place.
Sorry to contradict Dan, but I am willing to bet my mortgage that in more than 80% of the "yoofs" with problems, the word is PARENT (singular!)
The vast majority of these kids come from homes with absent (or, in some cases) completely unknown fathers, bought up by women who would rather spend time out on the pull/on the pi$$/shooting dope than caring what their kids are doing.
I know that there are MANY single parents who do a remarkable job of bringing their kids up properly, but the ones that don't are the ones that hit the headlines.
The plod can stop and search me 3 times a day for a month and I wouldn't care...why should I; I have nothing to hide.. it only takes a minute or two, but at least it would prove that the police actually WANT to do something about it!
Yep..I just look at the "problem" areas of Oxford...Guess what.. Problem areas= High proportion of single parent families where the main "declared" source of income is the State.
Further proof... approx 80%-85% of the "problem kids" in my daughters school come from...lets see..ahh, yes, single parent families!
Dont get me wrong, I am NOT saying that all single parent families are bad, what i am saying is that there is more likelihood of a problem child coming from a one-parent family than from a two-parent family.
I was listening on the radio to kids from deprived areas of London on the causes, and even THEY admitted that the lack of a father-figure was a major factor in the rise of youth crime.
Right. Well, they're not going to stop and search you, are they, so you've got nothing to care about. When I was in my teens I would get stopped by the cops literally every time I saw them - and even on one occasion when I didn't, they jumped out from behind parked cars and pinned me against a wall. I remember another time lining up to get into a festival, cops walking down the line, straight past everybody infront of me for as far as I could see, who did they search? Muggins here.
I used to get all sorts of stories from them. "Nicking car stereos" was the funniest one, because I didn't have a bag or a coat, they were searching my trouser pockets. And "There's been a lot of burglaries" the time I was walking home at night listening to a walkman and wearing a pair of bright orange shorts.
The fact is that despite all of that I've never been arrested, cautioned, even detained by the cops because I'd never done anything wrong. They were just shit judges of character. Someone will probably respond by saying "Oh you must've looked dodgy" - well, apparently so, but imagine if you looked dodgy because you had the wrong skin. Because if they do start searching kids for knives it's going to be all the black kids they're searching, and then we'll have accusations of institutionalised racism in the police force again, and then we'll have Toxteth or Brixton again. Add all that to what they're already doing to the Muslims and you've got a lot of angry marginalised minorities.
lol I love that. One day you MIGHT have something to hide though. Do you really have that much faith in government and police? I certainly don't!
What if one day we were unfortunate to have a fascist nut case government with all these laws and powers ) would you be happy then to be stopped and searched??? would you be HAPPY THEN??? I somehow doubt it.
I guess you would be happy for someone to stroll into your house and search through all your belongings, and while they are at it have all your medical records checked. How about monitoring all your internet activity. You know if you've got nothing to hide and all that... what a terrible attitude really!
While I argee to a cetain extent with what you are saying, I can not agree with the last statement. How is it a terrible attiude to not be worried about a stop and search if you have nothing to hide?
However you did hit the nail on the head when you said that you have little faith in the police, that leads to little respect to the police and in turn little respect to the law and fllow people. I'm not saying that you are some bad ass gangster in the hood of GB, but overall the lack of faith in the police has lead to a lack of respect for the law of the land.
Because one day you might have something to hide, and I am not comfortable with the 'Police' (at the end of the day just some folk who signed up to a glorified security company for an ego boost) having these powers, nor am I the government.
If you have complete faith that one day these powers won't be mis-used, or are currently not then fine.
Of course we need a government, and Police force, but what we don't need is a nanny state. And I also don't trust governments of the future who mayl want to use these powers for their own ends.... which our current government appears to anyhow.
Its not about NOW its about the future. I have nothing to hide, but I don't trust future governments...
