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Thread: Looting and destruction of Aldi shop in Dublin.

  1. #41
    International Prospect osarusan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    Are you suggesting the decision was entirely to do with what you perceive to be their own stupidity, moral failure or lack of social conscience and had nothing to do with their environment or wider socio-economic conditions?
    No, it would be going to far to say that it had nothing to do with their socio-economic environment, particularly with regard to them not giving a shit in the first place. But on a spectrum that ranges from the former to the latter, I'd place it much closer to the former.

    But I think it is easy to say, and to think, that because they are from a particular environment, whatever they do is because they are from that environment. You seem to extend that argument without any limit really. I disagree

    In this case, I particularly disagree because the crime committed was out of character and extreme even by the standards of life in that socio-economic environment.

    You made this question in another post:
    If you were born into the same conditions and circumstances they were, chances are you'd be engaging in similar.
    And again, I completely disagree. Many thousands of people have been born into the same conditions and circumstances that they were, many thousands are living in those circumstances as we speak, but they are not engaging in similar. So far, they have all managed to avoid engaging in activity of a nature or scale anywhere near what happened with this handful of individuals.


    Perhaps we simply disagree on the extent to which this crime stands out in comparison with the kind of activity we can expect in deprived areas. Certainly, we cannot pretend to be surprised that anti-social behaviour, petty crime, vandalism, etc, are more likely to occur in such areas. It's pretty much an inevitability. But wantonly ripping apart a roof with a digger? In no way is this an inevitable outcome of life in such circumstances, in my opinion.

  2. #42
    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by osarusan View Post
    In this case, I particularly disagree because the crime committed was out of character and extreme even by the standards of life in that socio-economic environment.

    ...

    Perhaps we simply disagree on the extent to which this crime stands out in comparison with the kind of activity we can expect in deprived areas. Certainly, we cannot pretend to be surprised that anti-social behaviour, petty crime, vandalism, etc, are more likely to occur in such areas. It's pretty much an inevitability. But wantonly ripping apart a roof with a digger? In no way is this an inevitable outcome of life in such circumstances, in my opinion.
    I've suggested that the extreme and unprecedented weather may have contributed in the sense that it would have been obvious to those involved that they would be out of reach of the authorities and would therefore not have been interrupted. That might have been a differentiating factor in terms of the sort of petty crime, theft or vandalism one might ordinarily expect.

    I haven't said it was inevitable either. I suggested that environment can heighten the likelihood of people deciding to react to their circumstances in such ways. I mean, I don't think it was a huge surprise that it happened in one of the most deprived areas in Ireland as opposed to somewhere more affluent.

  3. #43
    Seasoned Pro jbyrne's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    I haven't said it was inevitable either. I suggested that environment can heighten the likelihood of people deciding to react to their circumstances in such ways. I mean, I don't think it was a huge surprise that it happened in one of the most deprived areas in Ireland as opposed to somewhere more affluent.
    Didn't some / most of the gang travel from another area of Dublin?

  4. #44
    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin View Post
    As I said, you haven't demonstrated that you appreciate the circumstances that other people commonly find themselves in, and you still haven't.
    I'm going to leave this point after this as it's obviously cutting close to the bone on both sides. You're free to disagree with my view, but as I've been there, done that, not been able to afford the t-shirt, I don't think your counter-argument can consist solely of painting a utopian graduate world where jobs grow on trees and we all have silver spoons in our mouths. It's particularly ironic that you complain that I don't appreciate others' circumstances while you resolutely ignore my own similar enough experience.

    On Danny's post, it's a bit hard to reply because I've honestly never seen someone use so many words to say so little. I think ", I don't really see the functional worth in a retributive approach" indicates an aversion to jail, and certainly there's an argument that "jail" is an easy fall-back response. But the alternative suggested - "Supervised release or probation can help ensure the offender maintains some sort of stake in or connection to his or her community and society" can't really be taken too seriously in light of people who are appearing in court with 50+ prior convictions. Evidently nothing is happening there. Of course, a court case - or 5 or 10 - won't speak for how many people probation works for, but I'd argue that a single case of 50+ convictions indicates a major problem somewhere.

    And these cases then indicate a lack of deterrent. 50 convictions and you can still walk free? It's like Flanders' parents while young Flanders runs amok - "You gotta help us doc; we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas". It's no use. Some deterrent is needed. Prison is the obvious solution still, albeit that as a progress, it may well need to be revamped. But you cannot have people knocking down buildings and thinking that effectively nothing will happen.

    And you cannot have them hiding behind societal issues; everyone seems to have some issue these days, partly concocted by defence lawyers I'm sure. Yes, address the societal issues - I've suggested that we need to be slower to replace a section of the workforce with cheaper foreign labour happy to live a life none of us would remotely expect to - but that is a distant second to the people here taking personal responsibility for their own actions. I don't think you've really given any adequate reason why you're relegating this factor so far.

    Benno (I think) listed a selection of victims in all this, but I think he forgot one. Me. You. The general public. Where does the insurance money come from? Us, ultimately. (Companies too, but they'll have to pass the cost on). Not the highest-level victim, but definitely one to consider.

  5. #45
    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jbyrne View Post
    Didn't some / most of the gang travel from another area of Dublin?
    I'm open to correction, but were most not from in and around the local area? I'm pretty certain a few were on social welfare as well. I'm not aware that any came from affluent backgrounds or areas of the city.

    Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
    On Danny's post, it's a bit hard to reply because I've honestly never seen someone use so many words to say so little. I think ", I don't really see the functional worth in a retributive approach" indicates an aversion to jail, and certainly there's an argument that "jail" is an easy fall-back response. But the alternative suggested - "Supervised release or probation can help ensure the offender maintains some sort of stake in or connection to his or her community and society" can't really be taken too seriously in light of people who are appearing in court with 50+ prior convictions. Evidently nothing is happening there. Of course, a court case - or 5 or 10 - won't speak for how many people probation works for, but I'd argue that a single case of 50+ convictions indicates a major problem somewhere.

    And these cases then indicate a lack of deterrent. 50 convictions and you can still walk free? It's like Flanders' parents while young Flanders runs amok - "You gotta help us doc; we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas". It's no use. Some deterrent is needed. Prison is the obvious solution still, albeit that as a progress, it may well need to be revamped. But you cannot have people knocking down buildings and thinking that effectively nothing will happen.
    We clearly have very different outlooks on life and people generally. That is fine, although what can be a bit annoying is that you have a real habit of being haughtily dismissive of the (substantiated) opinions of others (not just my own) - despite completely misunderstanding/misrepresenting them - whilst assuming that your own possess some sort of special self-evident or infallible status. Your opinions aren't as obvious and self-explanatory to others as they might seem to you.

    Why is prison the "obvious solution"? The concept of overhaul or even abolition of the prison system (and particularly what has been referred to in other jurisdictions as the prison-industrial complex) is certainly a radical view, but it is still a credible one with substantive evidence-based grounding. I've supplied evidence that prison doesn't actually safeguard the public, doesn't deter crime and doesn't rehabilitate offenders, so what are you basing your rather presumptuous statement on? Just because the prison is a traditional aspect of our society doesn't automatically mean it makes sense to maintain it, especially in its present form. I think the evidence demonstrates that carrots (incentives) are better than sticks (coercion), so to speak. Think about why you don't commit crime for a second. Why is that?

    I'm the one suggesting reform. You appear to wish to continue doing that same thing, oddly despite having flagged up the failures of the current system. And I presented a list of solutions to work towards that would hopefully help in combination rather than isolation, so I don't think it's fair to cherry-pick.

    No-one is talking about letting people "walk free" or suggesting that "effectively nothing [should] happen". My suggestions would still entail legal, communal and societal obligations; ones that I feel would be more effective in the long run than what you favour.

    And you cannot have them hiding behind societal issues; everyone seems to have some issue these days, partly concocted by defence lawyers I'm sure. Yes, address the societal issues - I've suggested that we need to be slower to replace a section of the workforce with cheaper foreign labour happy to live a life none of us would remotely expect to - but that is a distant second to the people here taking personal responsibility for their own actions. I don't think you've really given any adequate reason why you're relegating this factor so far.
    What sort of issues are you "sure" are "partly concocted by defence lawyers"? Who is "everyone"?

    You should read what I wrote again about responsibility and agency. I already clarified it and even re-posted it for you once. I don't think there's anything ambiguous in what I wrote, so feel free to actually deal with that - what I actually wrote - if you have n issue with it rather than what you want to think I wrote.

    It's actually another poster who has been suggesting that the offenders were so stupid and lacking in the capacity for mature or adult thought that you'd have to wonder how he could see them as being fully responsible for their actions. Take that argument up with him if you're genuinely worried about people not attributing responsibility.

    Benno (I think) listed a selection of victims in all this, but I think he forgot one. Me. You. The general public. Where does the insurance money come from? Us, ultimately. (Companies too, but they'll have to pass the cost on). Not the highest-level victim, but definitely one to consider.
    If we don't want to be victims of the consequences of social injustice (and I know I don't), that's an argument for reform surely.

    By the way, you never clarified what you meant by the term "thugs".

  6. #46
    International Prospect osarusan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    It's actually another poster who has been suggesting that the offenders were so stupid and lacking in the capacity for mature or adult thought that you'd have to wonder how he could see them as being fully responsible for their actions.
    That's the third time now, that you've attributed something to me, that I didn't even come close to saying.

    And you've done it in the same post as you criticise somebody else for misrepresenting you.

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    Banned. Children Banned. Grandchildren Banned. 3 Months. Charlie Darwin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
    I'm going to leave this point after this as it's obviously cutting close to the bone on both sides. You're free to disagree with my view, but as I've been there, done that, not been able to afford the t-shirt, I don't think your counter-argument can consist solely of painting a utopian graduate world where jobs grow on trees and we all have silver spoons in our mouths. It's particularly ironic that you complain that I don't appreciate others' circumstances while you resolutely ignore my own similar enough experience.
    I'm not being funny here but I expressed exactly none of those sentiments. All I said was you're still not getting my point, and instead of trying to grasp it you're just saying "I had problems too."

  8. #48
    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    We clearly have very different outlooks on life and people generally. That is fine, although what can be a bit annoying is that you have a real habit of being haughtily dismissive of the (substantiated) opinions of others (not just my own) - despite completely misunderstanding/misrepresenting them - whilst assuming that your own possess some sort of special self-evident or infallible status.
    Sorry Danny - I'm at least going to have to bring out the pot and kettle argument here. Your dismissal of Fizzer's post about their work experience based on the tone of their post bordered on the arrogant - the rest of the post was back to your own arguments, without any real reference to Fizzer's experience - and then there's your dismissal of views as "paternalistic ignorance" and similar on other threads. On this thread, you've three times ignored a poster saying you're misinterpreting their comments. Maybe you just can't see this; I don't know. But it's there, and makes your complaint above more than ironic.

    And on the subject of misrepresenting posts, I think this deserves comment -

    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
    You thanked a post by BTTW where he appeared to be advocating a "zero tolerance" approach.
    This has to be the flimsiest argument seen here in a long while. BTTW, for the record, said that "you still can't tolerate people brazenly knocking down supermarkets". Agreeing with this is not to show support for some sort of US "three strikes and you're out" system, which is what I would think of as proper zero tolerance, and which I absolutely acknowledge appears to ultimately be counter-productive because of the disproportionate penalties it can dish out. But knocking down a supermarket should be treated as someone knocking down a supermarket. Anything extra you read into that is your own issue.

    I also think that people who commit murder should go to jail; would you criticise this as a "zero tolerance approach"?

    It makes it hard to maintain a debate on a subject when what is actually being said is being so wilfully twisted (or mis-read, to give the benefit of the doubt)

    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    Why is prison the "obvious solution"?
    Because it's the primary social punishment in a wide range of places across the world, and has been for a long long time. That clearly makes it the obvious solution to consider.

    It's certainly to be considered ahead of reinventing the wheel, as you appear to be trying to do. Now that's not to say the wheel can't be improved, but the "obvious solution" is rarely to go for a radical system redesign. Prison mayn't be perfect, but I think it's better than the alternative. I think the cases of people appearing in front of the courts with an absurdly high number of prior convictions to their name puts prison, at worst, better than the alternative you're suggesting, with its wishy-washy, ill-defined stuff about imposing "legal, communal and societal obligations" (this sounds akin to community service, which we already have for lesser crimes, of which this simply was not an example).

    You mention reoffending stats - but you make no reference to the fact that keeping people out of prison also has high recidivism - much higher, in fact. Here's an admittedly extreme example from January - up in court after 326 prior convictions. A quick google will throw up plenty of other examples. Your idea may be nice in theory, but in practice, at best the support networks are clearly not there to have any sort of impact. You've not made any sort of allowance for this in simply deeming your idea to be better.

    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    By the way, you never clarified what you meant by the term "thugs".
    I don't need to. You brought it into the thread, not me (and here I'll have to acknowledge that I missed you putting words in my mouth), so as such, the definition should come from you.

    But let's overlook that. Yes, they're thugs. What does that term mean? It means they're thugs. The great thing about language is that words have meanings, and we don't need to define every bloody word we use, because they already have reasonably clear definitions. This micro-analysis is a habit of yours, and to be frank, it's tedious and distracts from the main points in the debate.

    It's genuinely commendable that you want to work with these people and improve their social surrounds (or at least, have someone do that), but ultimately, they knocked down a ****ing supermarket here. They potentially put people's lives at risk - knocking down a building with bystanders close by is seriously dangerous. They've caused a significant amount of commercial damage. They've presumably caused significant social unease in the area. You talk about acknowledging some manner of personal responsibility, but nothing in your posts suggest you actually want to take that into account. There's only so far that just cuddling these guys and saying they're the victims and that there's someone here for them will go.m
    Last edited by pineapple stu; 22/03/2018 at 10:16 PM.

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  10. #49
    Seasoned Pro peadar1987's Avatar
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    There are *******s in every socio-economic group. The difference is that those from wealthier groups can channel it into, say, being dirty on the rugby field, or being the middle manager from hell at Daddy's company.

    The vast majority of disadvantaged people will never mug anyone, stab anyone, or rip apart a supermarket with a digger, but that doesn't mean that the environment isn't to a large degree responsible. And there's no reason why rich *******s should have any more right to have their *******liness channeled into something less destructive than poor *******s do.

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