Originally posted by Bobbert:
Fight for your civil rights and fight to remove obstacles to bettering yourself. There are effective, civil ways to do that. Looting and burning down buildings in the middle of a city is completely over the line. As far as I'm concerned, anyone in one of those mobs or who is found carrying a tv out of some looted store has surrendered any rights they have to complain about whatever force it takes to subdue them. You can try to justify their actions all you want, but the bottom line is that they have to be stopped. How much of the city should they trash while you keep making excuses for them? They may have had a bad upbringing, but doesn't make it ok to riot like this.
I obviously don't know much about the situation occuring in Britain but I would just like to add that many, if not all, of the things that you mentioned also take place during revolutions (not that I'm saying this is one). During times of civil unrest in the U.S., thousands of poor people looted, burned buildings & even confronted police & military with violence. Sometimes these methods are effective & sometimes they're not. Stealing a television looks relatively ridiculous by today's standards but I'm certain that people probably looted items back then that seemed equally so for that time period. I suppose that my point is that there are often times in history where desperation trumps "civility" towards those "above" or in front of you & that the types of actions these people are taking don't necessarily say about them what many of you are indicating.
? :)