Fox News' Take on The English Riots and the English in General.

[Hagi]

Just because it's Fox News doesn't mean that there aren't some truths behind political and/or ideological opposition to a welfare-based society.

It's like most internet forum posters are pro the things Fox News is against, because Fox News is against it, and for no other reason.

The fact of the matter is, the more government shelters you from the risks (and rewards) of living a self-determined, independent life that expects highly of you, and wraps a baby blanket around you, the weaker, dumber, and less moral you become. Necessity is the mother of invention, and if there is no impetus for being a productive member of society, the results will be obvious. Life isn't fair, and it is made even more unfair by forcing those who have decided to live a fulfilling, independent life to shelter others from life's inherent unfairness.

I can only speak for myself but I consider it a matter of human dignity and human rights to provide a basic standard of living for all my fellow countrymen (and women).

Social welfare isn't giving away free cars, consoles or condos. It's providing other human beings with just enough money to feed, house, educate and otherwise provide for their families. And I strongly believe that this is a responsibility of society, even if it benefits some rotten eggs who take advantage of it.

Fact is most people on welfare don't enjoy being on welfare. They often don't feel entitled, they feel ashamed and frustrated. Strength of character isn't something hidden away in every person, some people need help. They need social workers to help them in finding work and they need social welfare when the demands of society become too much.

The average IQ is 100 and normally distributed. That means for every university student with an IQ of 110-120 there's somebody with an IQ with 80-90. People who aren't too smart and, in this knowledge society, sometimes have trouble keeping up. Not to mention people, from all regions of the IQ-scale, suffering from personal problems including depressions, development disorders, plain bad luck and series of unfortunate events who at times have very rough periods in their lives and need a little help.

Living a self-determined, independent life isn't something that just occurs automatically if you create the right circumstances. Human nature isn't nearly that simple. You need back-up systems for when people, despite their best efforts, fall behind and need help. And yes, sometimes their 'best' isn't much at all but they're still people and I think that all people, no matter their efforts, deserve the basic necessities of life. As the universal declaration of human rights states:

"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

I believe it a matter of responsibility and dignity to help out other people and I believe the best and most organized way to do this is social welfare.

I'm sorry for the rant and especially sorry if I insulted you. I do not, in any way or form, wish to imply that you're not a responsible and dignified person. This is just something I feel strongly about. I respect your opinion but I must also, respectfully, strongly disagree with you.

 

[Comando96]

The reason behind the riots are just the sub-culture there, which developed an attitude that they can do whatever they want without consequences because the police force are a bunch of pussies. Yes, human rights.
But could you take just a shred of cruelty from the 80s coal miners strikes and give it to the modern day police so that the police would be a wee bit more intimidating?

Bad parenting, bad education and just being left to rot in general.
The Irony with the police is that this is the first time in History the police have been accused of not being heavy handed enough xD

Police weren't given the right equipment, they were given the right training but not the right orders... as they stood and watched when vandalism was taking place.
The main failure was to let day go... just... completely unopposed... and then offer the same opposition on day two.
If on either the first or second day if the police had done anything then people wouldn't have come out. It wasn't a case of human rights limiting the police (we obey to the point of practicality) as they often are criticised for being too heavy handed.

Firstly they have been accused of Corruption, by News Corp and maybe others. Then they lost their chief commissionaire...

Completely direction-less they failed to stop day 1 and 2 so it made the rest inevitable.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Isn't Fox American?

I think they should report the news without wearing trouser, it's kind of hard to understand what they say while they talk out of their arse.

Actually they're Australian, they just found a bigger audience in America.

Nope, NewsCorp was Australian. They bought Fox up during one of Murdoch's early 'buy every media company I can' phases, after he'd had his fun with pretty much destroying the credibility of the print media in the UK.

 

[Stu35]

From what I have heard from outside the BBC these are race riots, being covered up by only showing pictures of the opposite races. I have also heard that this was started because of class welfare, the poor are being pushed out of the center of towns as they can no long afford to live there. But mostly speculation.

Well, the original excuse was that a Black man was shot by the police (he was a gun toting drug dealer, and in the last three years the London Met have shot 8 people dead including him - the other 7 were white).

However, the continuation has numerous reasons behind it - personally I think it comes down to a lack of discipline in todays Youth, which I personally blame on a modern British culture which has given over to European ideas on "Human Rights" for children, without teaching them the social responsibility that European parents teach their children. (and when I say European, I focus on the one country I've lived in in Europe that isn't the UK - Germany).

The result is children who have been given neither the stick to force them to behave, nor given the proper context to allow them to chose right over wrong of their own accord.

What we need to do is bring both back - Unfortunately the parents of these children are the result of the same system, which means they can't be relied on to steer these kids right. So I reckon the solution is to give teachers in schools back the rights to discipline children in schools without fear of legal reprisals. With discipline instilled, they can begin to work on social responsibility.

It'll take time, but hopefully the following generation will then be raised by parents who had a proper fear of authority (note, I said fear, not respect, respect of authority comes from the children of parents who feared authority), and who were taught proper social responsibility.


Any whinging about economic climate is just blowing smoke - because even though our economy is in a bad way right now, we're still a first world country (the 22nd highest GDP per capita), and nobody living in a first world country should be using rioting and looting to try and make a point about poor economic times.

 

[Lilani]

There is a shred of truth in that actually. But as always Fox likes to try and simplify complex issues into one thing. There are a whole host of reasons for the riots, and there are a lot of families living off the state. There is also a problem with the police, in what they can and can't do, and the youth are branded as scum, gangsters and criminals and this has bred a belief that they aren't going to be believed to be anything else so they might as well become criminals.
Add to that the tension caused by massive cuts to various important services in society and people are going to snap at some point. But like I said, it's complicated and not just down to gangs, like the government is claiming, or jobless spongers, like Fox is claiming.

I think FOX also likes to find some way to turn everything around and make it about America. The other problems you listed aren't really an issue here, but our welfare situation is becoming a problem so they just grabbed onto that and used it as their main talking point.

I think they try to do that because they don't want people to tune out by showing stuff that doesn't apply to them, and if people feel they know something about an issue they are more inclined to join in the conversation and stay engaged. So as cheap and blatantly obvious as their tactics may be, their ratings show they obviously know what it takes to get people to tune in and get them to stay.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Fox News got an agenda and it's decidedly anti-welfare.

I would say the cause of the riots is this: Life's shit and people are animals.

 

[Hagi]

You went into GREAT detail about various things that I never spoke to, and made some wrong assumptions.

Yes of course society is obligated to support its most disadvantaged. I go out of my way, as most people do, for the disabled or otherwise feeble among us.

However, in America, that is exploited to such a degree that we're going bankrupt. Everyone wants to be a victim, and politicians feed that mentality by pandering to peoples' fears and prejudices, and separating us by race/religion in order to redirect our ire at each other. If the system collapses, no one will get any help, or have any dignity ever. Economic sustainability is a moral responsibility. We can't borrow time and resources from the future to satisfy our political base in the present in order to get re-elected, but that is the sole largest killer of my country.

As I said:

I'm sorry for the rant and especially sorry if I insulted you. I do not, in any way or form, wish to imply that you're not a responsible and dignified person. This is just something I feel strongly about. I respect your opinion but I must also, respectfully, strongly disagree with you.

But economic sustainability for welfare can also be maintained by for example raising taxes, especially for the extremely rich.

Compared to most of western Europe American welfare is minor and small and taxes for the rich are very low. And while we're suffering the same economical problems as the rest of the world our system isn't really collapsing in any way or form.

Again, no desire to offend or insult. Merely sharing my views.

 

[Hagi]

I wasn't offended or insulted, and my response did not imply that I was. I appreciate your default position to gentility but you may want a bit thicker skin.

Now you're delving into the finer points of economics that cannot be debated with forum posts. Therefore, without opening that can of worms, I will respectfully but strongly disagree. It is far from that simple. And from here, with the Euro following the US Dollar's fate in being monetized in order to support unsustainable entitlement systems, and several EU countries needing sovereign debt bailouts including some of the biggest economies like Italy and Spain, it certainly does not seem to be in good shape. The only difference would be if European politicians have the courage to pass austerity measures that ensure sustainability, despite having to go through short-term pains as people who expect too much free ride in life start rioting in the streets, as in London.

I prefer being too genteel over being too rude, it does not imply a lack of thick skin, on the contrary a genteel reaction no matter the post implies a thick skin.

The EU is suffering much the same economical problems as the rest of the world, the USA including. Several countries still retain an AAA debt rating so overall we're dealing with the problems rather well. But as you say, this is getting into an economical debate that's not suited to forum posts.

So respectfully agreed to disagree it is.

 

[Tallim]

Errr... it's one reason for the riots, but there are others as well. It is true you can live off welfare, but most of the rioters have decent jobs, and are just doing it because... ummm... well, there doesn't actually seem to be a reason.

Pretty much. When you see the sort of people actually getting charged with looting and disorder.
They include many well to do people. I know a postman got nicked for looting a tv. A postgrad intending to be a social worker lol.

All this mayhem as very much reminded me of this:

 

[funguy2121]

another fine example of Fox not doing the research!
it boggles my mind that nobody sued them for straight up lying!

Can't sue people for lying, or else everyone there would be spending life sentences behind bars. Lie #1: Sean Hannity actually likes his own hair. Lie #2: Ann Coulter is biologically female.

still a news station should be required to do research.

No argument here. A news station should be required to broadcast facts and not opinions/straight bullshit dressed up as facts. Of course, a news station shouldn't act as a media arm of the Republican party, either, but as long as Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaif and Grover Norquist are around, it will continue.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

Fox news embellished and over simplified as they usually do, but they came close to getting the story right, or at least closer than they normally do.

America has a great welfare system. People still take advantage of it, but the logic of it pretty good comparatively.

To stay on welfare, one must prove that he/she has been interviewed and is actively looking for a job by citing the places of business that person has applied to. If everything matches up, welfare can continue.

The system is still flawed (many drug addicts still live off of welfare and pay for drugs), but prevents many from taking advantage of it.

The EU has a sort of mediocre one. It isn't just Britain that has a decent population of people living off of welfare for years.

My country isn't any better, but that's the one thing we actually did right. Next project, getting universal healthcare without calling it communism.

 

[fates_puppet13]

it is bollocks
the riots were caused because some guy in london got shot by police
thus there were riots in london

liverpool being heavily infected by wiggers and other terminally compensators decided to copy
why because they can

manchester having not such a bit infestation of said compensators but most of the unaccounted % is gangs decided to follow suit because of some rediculous intra-city feud

hopefully 2 things happen very soon

1) people at he top of the chain of command grow a pair and call out the rubber bullets and tear gas
martial law is also avalable

2) we have some elections to move out the hate figures to make everyone feel the problem is solved that and also i hate the conservatives

 

[azzair]

Fox news is as good a source of information as feces is a good source of nutrition.

 

[Tiger King]

no not true. there ARE people saying these things "oh its them damn immagrants and jobless benefits scroungers doing the damage! (daily mail middle/upper class people i think)

but that is over analyzing the problem.
its simply the scum and chavs took advantage of a situation (a peaceful protest)
in my opinion its escalated due to the media basicly saying
'the police cant stop it'
so every bored chav is going to see the party and think 'i want a piece of that'
and for some its not even the loot they want, tellys are being nicked only to be smashed up outside the shop.

its not about politics or ideals or anything like that, to them its a laugh, a buzz.
nothing more.

like when when you played knock and run when you was little.

 

[FalloutJack]

So, I was typing an essay on my laptop, sitting in the living room, when my dad turned on Fox News then left to get the mail. The nice people over at Fox News were discussing the English riots. I started to listen to their discussion on the subject, because I havent been following it at all and I descided to share what I could gather from what they were saying.
It seemed like they were saying that the riots were caused by wellfare. They were saying that there's a big population in England of two parent families (and other kinds of families too) who haven't worked a day in 15 years, because they were able to live of wellfare. And the kids growing up on wellfare developed an entitled attitude, that they were entitled to stuff. Now that the wellfare is drying up (I have no idea what your guy's wellfare status is, just saying) those same kids are taking to the streets to take what they feel entitled to.
Is there any truth to that at all?
Please dont just say that the people at Fox News are crazy, its a discussion killer.
And please dont shoot the messanger, Im only sharing what I heard.

As I hear it, it started over a shooting. Namely, a cop shot a cop-shooter. It triggered because of WHO the cop-shooter was, but I have forgotten who that was and I'm sure that all the rioters have also. The reasons that it is still going on, I compare to the aftermath of an England football match in which the fans tear up everything. It no longer has reason. It's just a loud and continuous cacophony.

 

[kayisking]

another fine example of Fox not doing the research!
it boggles my mind that nobody sued them for straight up lying!

Well... Just read this:
http://www.relfe.com/media_can_legally_lie.html

It's sad but true.