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[ed boy]

I'm going to have to ask you to clarify you on what you mean by this. Are you referring to the organisers, the rioters or the police?

Protesters.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point, and disagree strongly. The rioting on wednesday was absolutely despicable. If someone feels strongly about an issue, then they are doing only harm by acting like that. Even if you disagree with governmental policies, two wrongs do not make a right.

If you're referring to the non-violent protesters, then they are still not entirely blameless. If you saw someone breaking into your neighbour's house, it would not be right to stand around and do nothing. The non-violent protestors there, even if they did not actively do anything, still allowed such things to happen and their presence impeded the police from being able to do their jobs.

That's really not fair. Once a mob get angry, there is nothing that peaceful protestors can do about it.

Leave. It's that simple. The presence of a large crowd of people gives the more violent people a way to hide in the crowd. I know several people, who although they weren't taking part in any violence, still were part of the crowd there for over an hour and a half. I saw many people emerging from the crowd, doing something violent, then slipping back into the crowd before they attracted too much police attention. If there is no crowd of people, then they will not be able to do that.

Throwing fire extinguishers off of roofs is clearly mindless and a very stupid thing to do, but doing a bit of damage to a parties headquarters is a different matter altogether. it's all insured and I'm very happy for the big banks and insurance companies to lose as much money as possible.

Why should these people suffer for something that is completely beyond their control? Why do you hate large companies so much? I'm sure that you would not want local corner shop to be smashed up, so what differentiates them from these large companies?

Basically you seem to be suggesting that people should not protest at all, please correct me if my assumption is wrong.

I'm not saying that people should not protest, I'm saying that people should know when to stop protesting.

[Leafsnail]

Why should these people suffer for something that is completely beyond their control? Why do you hate large companies so much? I'm sure that you would not want local corner shop to be smashed up, so what differentiates them from these large companies?

Uh... what?  This was "completely beyond the Conservative's control"?

[ed boy]

I was referring to be "big banks and insurance companies" that you mentioned.

[Leafsnail]

I didn't mention any.

And I guess the difference could be something to do with tax avoidance.  There's been lots of sit ins at Vodaphone stores and stuff.

[Eugenitor]

If we rioted over companies avoiding taxes here in America, the whole country would burn from Barrow to Miami.

[ed boy]

I didn't mention any.

Throwing fire extinguishers off of roofs is clearly mindless and a very stupid thing to do, but doing a bit of damage to a parties headquarters is a different matter altogether. it's all insured and I'm very happy for the big banks and insurance companies to lose as much money as possible.

And I guess the difference could be something to do with tax avoidance.  There's been lots of sit ins at Vodaphone stores and stuff.

Funnily enough, I live not two minutes away from one of the stores that had a sit-in. I did some research on the matter, and it appears that the entire thing was a hoax. From this bbc news article:

Vodafone said reports of an outstanding tax bill of £6bn were "incorrect".

"In a statement from HM Revenue and Customs, the figure of £6bn was referred to as an 'urban myth'."

There was an issue earlier in the year involving controlled foreign companies, but that was settled in july with a payment of £1.2bn.

[Leafsnail]

I didn't mention any.

Throwing fire extinguishers off of roofs is clearly mindless and a very stupid thing to do, but doing a bit of damage to a parties headquarters is a different matter altogether. it's all insured and I'm very happy for the big banks and insurance companies to lose as much money as possible.

Uh... can you reread the author field of those?

Funnily enough, I live not two minutes away from one of the stores that had a sit-in. I did some research on the matter, and it appears that the entire thing was a hoax. From this bbc news article:

Vodafone said reports of an outstanding tax bill of £6bn were "incorrect".

"In a statement from HM Revenue and Customs, the figure of £6bn was referred to as an 'urban myth'."

There was an issue earlier in the year involving controlled foreign companies, but that was settled in july with a payment of £1.2bn.

Part of the reason for the protests is that George Osborne arbitrarily wrote off the tax owed.  So yeah, it is now an "urban myth".

[ed boy]

Uh... can you reread the author field of those?

I'm sorry, I occasionaly get confused when there are multiple people involved in a discussion.

[de5me7]

If the motivation of the rioters was simply "If I'm going to be worse off out of this, I want to make as many other people as I can lose out on at least as much", then I really have to object. Attitudes like that are so hateful, so conceited, and so harmful to society that it makes by blood boil.

If you're saying that the motivation was "I need to show that if the government tries to cut spending, there will be consequences", then this is in no way a good way to do it - Thuggery never works out in situation like this, and it just portrays the student population as immature people who resort to violence whenever they don't get their own way.

Either way, it is not good.

none of the students that protested on wednesday will be affect by the cuts to university funding, since they wont come in to effect until they have graduated. So it is unlikley that many fit in to your first scenario. The second scenario may describe more but id say oyour charicaturing the situation a little.

The police say they are going to charge the guy that thru the fire extinguisher with attempted murder. I feel that this is a little excessive given this [url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/ian-tomlinson-g20-death-video[url/]. The police officer in question has not been charged with any crime, only misconduct.

[Leafsnail]

none of the students that protested on wednesday will be affect by the cuts to university funding, since they wont come in to effect until they have graduated. So it is unlikley that many fit in to your first scenario. The second scenario may describe more but id say oyour charicaturing the situation a little.

Not true.  People from my school went, and we're first in line for the massive tuition fees hike.

[nuker w]

The police say they are going to charge the guy that thru the fire extinguisher with attempted murder. I feel that this is a little excessive

Are you seriously kidding me? The idiot chucked a FIRE EXTINGUISHER down roughly 10 stairs, which if you were the throw a COIN, would have a good change of mauling, if not killing someone! Its just bloody mad!

[Tsarwash]

Reckless gross stupidity is more apt than attempted murder but I suspect we don't have such a offence.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

The police say they are going to charge the guy that thru the fire extinguisher with attempted murder. I feel that this is a little excessive

Are you seriously kidding me? The idiot chucked a FIRE EXTINGUISHER down roughly 10 stairs, which if you were the throw a COIN, would have a good change of mauling, if not killing someone! Its just bloody mad!

Uh, ten stairs would be about as many feet, do you mean stories or "flights of stairs" (although the latter would imply it was thrown down a stairwell...)? Although a thrown fire extinguisher would be pretty dangerous even if thrown from the same level as the target, and a coin isn't particularly dangerous from any height, terminal velocity and whatnot, unless it were a particularly large coin...

[ed boy]

The police say they are going to charge the guy that thru the fire extinguisher with attempted murder. I feel that this is a little excessive given this [url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/ian-tomlinson-g20-death-video[url/]. The police officer in question has not been charged with any crime, only misconduct.

According to wikipedia, a number of pathologists conducted postmortem examinations, and they did not agree (though it appears that the first one rather botched the job, causing problems for the other two). However, one of, if not the, main differences between the two situations is that simon harwood (the officer in question) in no way intended to kill ian tomlinson. Upon hearing that he was dead, simon was shocked and distraught. The death of ian tomlinson was (most likely, can't say for sure because of the postmortem issue) caused by the officer performing his job badly, but with good intent. Punishing him hardly for that cannot be justified.

However, the intent behind the fire extinguisher man was almost certainly malevolent - we shall have to see what happens to know for sure, though.

[de5me7]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11829102

and again, i had lots of work to do to day so i couldnt march