Riots in Britain.

[Silva]

Over the past two days London, Birmingham and other cities have experienced riots and violence akin to the sectarian clashes in Northern Ireland of years ago. Youths have been observed laughing as they looted shops and set cars on fire. What is happening to our world?

[buddys]

It's very frightening, even on this side of the pond. To think they are burning people out of their homes and destroying everything they have in the world is just very disconcerting. It all makes me sad.

[Perfect7]

I don't understand how people can be that way, either. They obviously believe that what they are doing is okay, but I don't understand why or how they can think so.

[King Seesar]

The section of London in which I live has been basically shut down.  They imported about fifty pedestrian cops today to help shop owners prepare their businesses for potential riots tonight and this weekend. The streets tonight (as they were last night) are completely deserted except for the occasional police car/van full of officers riding by. Last night there were three arrests made in my front door and that was the only activity in my village that happened at all last night, as far as I know. This is particularly odd, seeing ass normally the drunks are out whooping and yelling until 5am. Strange times...

[Silva]

Strange indeed! They tripled the police presence in London tonight and the riots happened not in London but in Manchester and West Bromwich so it seems as though it has been planned very carefully. It's quite sinister.

[sunshine]

I am so very sorry to hear this, and hope you both will be ok!  Perhaps with the increased police in the area, things will quiet down, and start to get sorted out.  Thoughts are with you both Silva and King Seesar.

[Silva]

I live in a very rural part of England so I am quite safe, but thank you for your concern. I am so glad I no longer live in an inner city. These seem to be the focus of all of this trouble and my thoughts are with the innocents in the cities. The mindless thugs who are looting and burning need to be shot in my view.

[Perfect7]

You know, it almost sounds like they aren't "riots," per se (as in, not spontaneous agitation of the populace), but more of a planned looting. It sounds like it may not be "mindless," exactly. I think that's scarier, really.

[dirving]

I also have been hearing about these on the news. Do you think that the Prime Minister is right to be calling for social networking sites to be shut down? That's an interesting argument - public safety, or civil liberties. In my view, protecting civil liberties is more important.

[Val-the-nomad]

You know, it almost sounds like they aren't "riots," per se (as in, not spontaneous agitation of the populace), but more of a planned looting. It sounds like it may not be "mindless," exactly. I think that's scarier, really.

This is exactly what my British friend and I thought when we discussed the trouble at lunch yesterday. Having lived through the miner's strike, poll tax riots and the like I can't compare this mindless thieving to 'riots'.

[Silva]

I have read lately about well organised gangs arranging for civil disturbance in one area while they thieved in another area but this seems a little too simplistic.