Man dies two hours after being pepper sprayed by British police..

[Oscar Namechange]

Jacob Michael dies after he was pepper-sprayed and arrested by 'ELEVEN officers' | Mail Online

[Bryn Mawr]

oscar;1366891 wrote: Jacob Michael dies after he was pepper-sprayed and arrested by 'ELEVEN officers' | Mail Online


Not a couple of weeks after another man was killed after being tazered *three* time by the police - surprise, surprise, he had a heart attack.

[spot]

I hope nobody reading the account is even remotely surprised at the nature of English policing. There are few occupations in this country which should engender shame among those employed in them. Policing tops the list.

[theia]

spot;1366893 wrote: I hope nobody reading the account is even remotely surprised at the nature of English policing. There are few occupations in this country which should engender shame among those employed in them. Policing tops the list.


There are rotten employees in all organisations and these employees should, quite rightly, be brought to account. There are also good employees in all organisations, but we rarely hear about them.

[Oscar Namechange]

I really don't see how the officers Involved will squirm out of this one given the amount of first hand eye witness's.

How this came about after It was him who called the police In the first place Is alarming.

[spot]

theia;1366895 wrote: There are rotten employees in all organisations and these employees should, quite rightly, be brought to account. There are also good employees in all organisations, but we rarely hear about them.


And that would be true of, say, tabloid photographers, would it? Or are there some occupations that by their nature attract only the dregs of society, the amoral opportunist profiteers and the hyped-up adrenaline junkies? Because I'd applaud a tabloid photographer over a British Bobby any day of the week when it comes to enhancing the public weal.

[Lon]

oscar;1366891 wrote: Jacob Michael dies after he was pepper-sprayed and arrested by 'ELEVEN officers' | Mail Online


I believe what happened as reported, but I can't help feel that there is more to the story than what was reported.

[theia]

spot;1366897 wrote: And that would be true of, say, tabloid photographers, would it? Or are there some occupations that by their nature attract only the dregs of society, the amoral opportunist profiteers and the hyped-up adrenaline junkies? Because I'd applaud a tabloid photographer over a British Bobby any day of the week when it comes to enhancing the public weal.



Why?

[spot]

theia;1366899 wrote: Why?


Tabloid photographers don't kill people in custody.

Police try to stop critical film again - This Britain, UK - The Independent was written ten years ago. Do you think matters have improved since? What it describes is a total immunity from prosecution for officers who behave this way. What would serve the country better is a fully empowered police unit which is on the side of natural justice rather than papering over the cracks, which is willing to investigate these incidents and bring prosecutions.

[Bruv]

Are you seriously condemning ALL Police as.....only the dregs of society, the amoral opportunist profiteers and the hyped-up adrenaline junkies ?

If so just a itsy bitsy bit over the top, no ?

[spot]

Bruv;1366905 wrote: Are you seriously condemning ALL Police as.....only the dregs of society, the amoral opportunist profiteers and the hyped-up adrenaline junkies ?

If so just a itsy bitsy bit over the top, no ?


It's a similar position to that of the armed forces. Both are volunteer recruitment. Both know the amoral uses the government might put them to, both take money in exchange for promising to behave as commanded. In the case of the armed forces, bystanders die when such orders are obeyed - not just now and then but as an inevitable consequence of the nature of the orders. In the case of the police, those who behave hysterically and end up with a dead victim in custody know they're protected by the government from any prosecution, there's an unwritten guarantee of immunity. Every single officer in the force colludes with that, nobody steps out and offers evidence which would force a prosecution.

Which is worse? I'm not going to judge. Both are unacceptable. Both are agreements entered into with open eyes. Neither occupation can be taken up by anyone with a moral backbone. Can such people not be fairly described as dregs, the bottom-scrapings who join for the excitement of knowing they can kill with impunity and get paid for it?

Anyone volunteering for either occupation knows full well what use the government will make of them because there's a track record. In the case of the armed forces it's foreign adventurism, in the case of the police it's the ruthless suppression of the legitimate aspirations of the working class as typified by the brutality at Orgreave, may those with the batons in the front line rot uncomfortably under the full effect of a wanion, blast their eyes.

I'd be delighted to be told why I'm wrong. I've no interest in being simply told I'm wrong without convincing reasons.

[Bruv]

spot;1366918 wrote:

............Neither occupation can be taken up by anyone with a moral backbone.

...........in the case of the police it's the ruthless suppression of the legitimate aspirations of the working class as typified by the brutality at Orgreave.




I wish I had your grasp of the English language, you will have to suffer my stumbling response, had to look up a couple of your words.

My first reaction ? A hysterical rant, from somebody who has studied his stuff.

On a point of pedantic order, you being the pedant so very often, would you like to revise the first sentence above ? Seems to me to be well over the top.

The Police and Army and the Bankers and the Politicians are ALL drawn from the general population, along with the rioters/wrongdoers, none of whom can be held up as shining examples of humanity.

There was a time that such professions were held in high esteem, people of high principle, people who could be respected........what has changed ?

Lets look at it differently, there was a time when the police would not have had to use riot gear to control pickets, so what came first, unruly pickets or police that didn't gather respect ? Roll that out across society in general, town centre drunks, unmarried mothers etc. etc.

Something has altered, what is it ?

[Oscar Namechange]

spot;1366918 wrote:

I'd be delighted to be told why I'm wrong. I've no interest in being simply told I'm wrong without convincing reasons. So what you are really saying Is, that you have an opinion that " in the case of the police it's the ruthless suppression of the legitimate aspirations of the working class as typified by the brutality at Orgreave" when you have no factual or verifiable evidence to back this opinion up, yet state you do not want anyone else to tell you that you are wrong unless they have any factual or verifiable evidence?

A rather pompous attitude to take surely In a forum based on debate?

Theia was correct In saying that all organisations have good and bad. Yes, there has been cases of brutality over the years and my problem Is that the Officers see to enjoy Immunity.

[theia]

spot;1366918 wrote: It's a similar position to that of the armed forces. Both are volunteer recruitment. Both know the amoral uses the government might put them to, both take money in exchange for promising to behave as commanded. In the case of the armed forces, bystanders die when such orders are obeyed - not just now and then but as an inevitable consequence of the nature of the orders. In the case of the police, those who behave hysterically and end up with a dead victim in custody know they're protected by the government from any prosecution, there's an unwritten guarantee of immunity. Every single officer in the force colludes with that, nobody steps out and offers evidence which would force a prosecution.

Which is worse? I'm not going to judge. Both are unacceptable. Both are agreements entered into with open eyes. Neither occupation can be taken up by anyone with a moral backbone. Can such people not be fairly described as dregs, the bottom-scrapings who join for the excitement of knowing they can kill with impunity and get paid for it?

Anyone volunteering for either occupation knows full well what use the government will make of them because there's a track record. In the case of the armed forces it's foreign adventurism, in the case of the police it's the ruthless suppression of the legitimate aspirations of the working class as typified by the brutality at Orgreave, may those with the batons in the front line rot uncomfortably under the full effect of a wanion, blast their eyes.

I'd be delighted to be told why I'm wrong. I've no interest in being simply told I'm wrong without convincing reasons.


And I have no interest in telling you why I think you're wrong or trying to find convincing reasons to justify it. Opinions are just that, opinions. Neither is more or less valid than another.

[gmc]

spot;1366918 wrote: It's a similar position to that of the armed forces. Both are volunteer recruitment. Both know the amoral uses the government might put them to, both take money in exchange for promising to behave as commanded. In the case of the armed forces, bystanders die when such orders are obeyed - not just now and then but as an inevitable consequence of the nature of the orders. In the case of the police, those who behave hysterically and end up with a dead victim in custody know they're protected by the government from any prosecution, there's an unwritten guarantee of immunity. Every single officer in the force colludes with that, nobody steps out and offers evidence which would force a prosecution.

Which is worse? I'm not going to judge. Both are unacceptable. Both are agreements entered into with open eyes. Neither occupation can be taken up by anyone with a moral backbone. Can such people not be fairly described as dregs, the bottom-scrapings who join for the excitement of knowing they can kill with impunity and get paid for it?

Anyone volunteering for either occupation knows full well what use the government will make of them because there's a track record. In the case of the armed forces it's foreign adventurism, in the case of the police it's the ruthless suppression of the legitimate aspirations of the working class as typified by the brutality at Orgreave, may those with the batons in the front line rot uncomfortably under the full effect of a wanion, blast their eyes.

I'd be delighted to be told why I'm wrong. I've no interest in being simply told I'm wrong without convincing reasons.


You haven't actually really made a very good case as to why you are right. It's bad enough seeing things with rose tinted spectacles but that's better than seeing things in black and white. People join the armed forces or police for all sorts of reasons to assume the only reason is they want to be government thugs is beyond all common sense. Blame those who formulate policy not those who carry out their duties to the best of their abilities. You might not agree with their sense of duty but that doesn't make it any less real. Parliament rules not the police - we still have politicians trying to make the police a body controlled by the politicians, we always have had that tendency the way to stop it is through your MP and keep the police away from political control. At the same time we need an independent body with teeth to look in to these cases but not every victim is actually innocent.

Should you ever find yourself being mugged and the police turn up and risk being attacked in coming to your aid I trust you will remember to thank the dregs of society pulling the thugs off you. Remember all the met corruption scandals from the seventies and eighties and cases like the Birmingham four? It was policemen that got those responsible for the corruption and have been actively overturning miscarriages of justice. If they were all as corrupt as you imagine that would not happen. Some in the Met come across as real wide boys and crooks but I've also been there as police tackle knife wielding yobbos and no they weren't very nice about it but I can't say as I blame them.

I knew one ex traffic policeman that left after getting in to trouble for taking a mobile phone of a car driver and smashing in on the ground, in the previous week he'd attended three fatal accidents and quite literally had been scraping bits off the road, the driver had started complaining about why wasn't he out there chasing down real criminals instead of harassing innocent motorist and he momentarily lost it. Dealing with the stupidity of the public will try the patience of anyone.

Not saying everybody on the police or armed forces is a fine upstanding individual, to categorise them all as being low lives is just plain silly.

I'd be delighted to be told why I'm wrong. I've no interest in being simply told I'm wrong without convincing reasons.




Can't be done, you can't produce an argument against a belief that is nonsense. You make the claim you back it up.

Anyone volunteering for either occupation knows full well what use the government will make of them because there's a track record. In the case of the armed forces it's foreign adventurism, in the case of the police it's the ruthless suppression of the legitimate aspirations of the working class as typified by the brutality at Orgreave, may those with the batons in the front line rot uncomfortably under the full effect of a wanion, blast their eyes.


Haven't heard those kinds of arguments since I was a student in the seventies usually from terribly terribly middle class people putting on a common accent so they could feel as one with their working class brethern. Meanwhile their working class brethern were using education as a means to improve their chances in life. You come across an ageing communist lamenting the lack of a revolution that as never going to happen in the UK as too many people saw through to the basic flaw that all you would do is swap one set of masters for another. The irony of course being that communism is an incredibly elitist middle class ideology where those who have seen the light lead the way to paradise. There you sit at your keyboard chuntering on demanding any, just anyone tell you why you are wrong. Can't be done, you can't produce an argument against nonsense.

[spot]

gmc;1366955 wrote: People join the armed forces or police for all sorts of reasons to assume the only reason is they want to be government thugs is beyond all common sense.
I'm sure you're right that people join the armed forces or police for all sorts of reasons. My point is that their reasons are immaterial. The government has shown during previous outings that - as in my Orgreave example and countless others I could offer - the use of the police will have political motives, the intention being to intimidate strikers from exercising their legitimate rights to protest by way of pickets, or (think G20) lawful protesters from protesting on the streets. These are political projections of power and volunteers sign on the dotted line promising to intimidate whenever they're told to. That's the immorality. Their motive for signing up may well be different. That has no effect on the immorality of making the promise.

An identical argument applies to volunteers for the armed forces. None of this is opinion, it's my analysis of the facts I've presented. My logic appears, to my eyes at least, faultless, hence my request that someone pick it apart. I haven't expressed an opinion, I have advanced a reasoned argument with examples where appropriate.

[Ahso!]

Unless the person signing has been convinced that, at times, taking orders blindly and employing intimidating methods is necessary and good. A matter of sacrificing morality for the good of the group as a whole.

I think moral code can be shaped by the society and is therefore subjective.

[spot]

I agree - if you're an Aztec or an ant then you're entitled to sign. It is, as you say, culturally determined. Any respectable post-Enlightenment culture in which someone signs such an agreement at least recognizes the amorality of the signee and despises him.

[Bryn Mawr]

Bruv;1366937 wrote: I wish I had your grasp of the English language, you will have to suffer my stumbling response, had to look up a couple of your words.

My first reaction ? A hysterical rant, from somebody who has studied his stuff.

On a point of pedantic order, you being the pedant so very often, would you like to revise the first sentence above ? Seems to me to be well over the top.

The Police and Army and the Bankers and the Politicians are ALL drawn from the general population, along with the rioters/wrongdoers, none of whom can be held up as shining examples of humanity.

There was a time that such professions were held in high esteem, people of high principle, people who could be respected........what has changed ?

Lets look at it differently, there was a time when the police would not have had to use riot gear to control pickets, so what came first, unruly pickets or police that didn't gather respect ? Roll that out across society in general, town centre drunks, unmarried mothers etc. etc.

Something has altered, what is it ?


Undoubtedly the loss of respect for the police but why was that?

I think it was the point at which political correctness decreed that children should not be punished for disruptive behaviour.

When I was young, all those many years ago respect for the police and for teachers etc was ingrained from early childhood, now it's two fingers up to the lot of them.

I totally agree that there was abuse and that abuse had to be stopped but children must be taught the limits of acceptable behaviour and the pendulum has swung was too far. Having seen, more than once, a child saying to a teacher "what you gonna do about it, you can't touch me" and redouble his efforts at being as annoying as possible, I find it unsurprising that they have as little control over their own actions as "authority" has over them.

As those children have grown up and acted as role models to their successors, so the situation as become worse. As parents they are no longer teaching their children to respect others and so it goes on.

The solution? I don't know. You cannot force people to respect others, you certainly cannot beat respect into them - but without it society cannot function.

[Oscar Namechange]

I don't believe anyone joins the police force In this country with the Intention of going out crushing skulls or lying under oath but I do believe that with some, a sense of self preservation kicks In.

Most start of joining taking the pledge to protect the public first and foremost but In some, somewhere this goes awry. My own personal belief In recent times, Is that government text book targets are wholly to blame. Officers feel pressurised Into performing as often this Is the only route to promotion. Get rid of the targets, put more officers on the beat and we may see a difference,

That is not to say however, that there will always be the one's who are rotten to the core and some sort of physcological profiling should be carried out before they are selected and let loose on the streets.

[Bruv]

spot;1366964 wrote: .................or (think G20) lawful protesters from protesting on the streets.


When I think G20 protests, I think UK riots 2011.

Bad example from you.

[Bryn Mawr]

Bruv;1366990 wrote: When I think G20 protests, I think UK riots 2011.

Bad example from you.


You don't think there was any problem with the policing of the protests?

Think Ian Tomlinson.

[Bruv]

Any protest or movement of people can be handled better, it is a spur of the moment, fluid, reactive, seat of the pants type operation. Football fans by and large comply, the likes of G20 protestors did not. I may have got my riots mixed up here, but were there no shop fronts kicked in and other illegal type events, that we employ the police to stop ?

[Bryn Mawr]

Bruv;1366998 wrote: Any protest or movement of people can be handled better, it is a spur of the moment, fluid, reactive, seat of the pants type operation. Football fans by and large comply, the likes of G20 protestors did not. I may have got my riots mixed up here, but were there no shop fronts kicked in and other illegal type events, that we employ the police to stop ?


Very few - a couple of RBS sites invaded but that was no great surprise at the time.

[flopstock]

My s-i-l is alergic to something in peppers. no idea what it is, but i can't imagine this guy went his whole life without coming in contact and reacting, if that were the case.

Perhaps it's a case of the cause of death being unrelated to the headline.

[Bruv]

Bryn Mawr;1366999 wrote: Very few - a couple of RBS sites invaded but that was no great surprise at the time.
Is that not like saying very few murders, it is to be expected.

[spot]

Bruv;1367024 wrote: Is that not like saying very few murders, it is to be expected.


No, murders are irreversible. None here would, I hope, commend the breaking of plate glass windows in bank offices but the act is obviously in a different league.

[Bryn Mawr]

Bruv;1367024 wrote: Is that not like saying very few murders, it is to be expected.


Given the number of protesters, the actions of the police and the sequence of events I would say not.

The protests did not start with the intention of being violent and compared to other protests of similar size the amount of violence was low.

There was only one murder and it was not without precident.

[Bruv]

Bryn Mawr;1366987 wrote: Undoubtedly the loss of respect for the police but why was that?

.............As those children have grown up and acted as role models to their successors, so the situation as become worse. As parents they are no longer teaching their children to respect others and so it goes on.

The solution? I don't know. You cannot force people to respect others, you certainly cannot beat respect into them - but without it society cannot function.


I have a theory as to why the world has gone mad, it is possibly as off the wall as Spot's.........but without the linguistics and logical statistical backup.

My theory covers the fall of western civilisation and the rise of Islam.....only an opinion mind with no links and facts.

Not too long ago people had a fear that doing wrong would be punished.

If the Police didn't catch you, the all seeing creator would keep a book on your conduct and come judgement day you would be answerable. These days everybody knows CCTV is watching but you can put two fingers up to it, unlike the previous all seeing eye.

Add to this the culture of instant gratification, and if it feels good do it, or the let it all hang out philosophy of 'if it doesn't hurt anyone else'........if god doesn't exist, who else can be judge of my actions ?

Once the all seeing eye and the fear of punishment is out of the picture the only way is down.

For the record I am NOT born again or remotely religious, but until there is another set of values (that's where Islam comes in) we are all doomed.

[Bruv]

The two replies between my posts sort of backs up my theory.............it's only glass, they didn't intend to kick off, it just happened.

[Bryn Mawr]

Bruv;1367047 wrote: I have a theory as to why the world has gone mad, it is possibly as off the wall as Spot's.........but without the linguistics and logical statistical backup.

My theory covers the fall of western civilisation and the rise of Islam.....only an opinion mind with no links and facts.

Not too long ago people had a fear that doing wrong would be punished.

If the Police didn't catch you, the all seeing creator would keep a book on your conduct and come judgement day you would be answerable. These days everybody knows CCTV is watching but you can put two fingers up to it, unlike the previous all seeing eye.

Add to this the culture of instant gratification, and if it feels good do it, or the let it all hang out philosophy of 'if it doesn't hurt anyone else'........if god doesn't exist, who else can be judge of my actions ?

Once the all seeing eye and the fear of punishment is out of the picture the only way is down.

For the record I am NOT born again or remotely religious, but until there is another set of values (that's where Islam comes in) we are all doomed.


Why have people lost the fear that doing wrong would be punished?

How has the culture of instant gratification gained a foothold?

The fear of "punishment" was not fear of divine retribution but fear of rejection by your peers if you behaved anti-socially. Nowadays there appear to be sections of society where peer pressure is the cause of anti-social behaviour.

[Oscar Namechange]

Bruv;1367047 wrote: I have a theory as to why the world has gone mad, it is possibly as off the wall as Spot's.........but without the linguistics and logical statistical backup.

My theory covers the fall of western civilisation and the rise of Islam.....only an opinion mind with no links and facts.

Not too long ago people had a fear that doing wrong would be punished.

If the Police didn't catch you, the all seeing creator would keep a book on your conduct and come judgement day you would be answerable. These days everybody knows CCTV is watching but you can put two fingers up to it, unlike the previous all seeing eye.

Add to this the culture of instant gratification, and if it feels good do it, or the let it all hang out philosophy of 'if it doesn't hurt anyone else'........if god doesn't exist, who else can be judge of my actions ?

Once the all seeing eye and the fear of punishment is out of the picture the only way is down.

For the record I am NOT born again or remotely religious, but until there is another set of values (that's where Islam comes in) we are all doomed.


Bruv, could you just clarify for me please.... are you saying It Is the spread of Islam that has created a breakdown In society?

[Bruv]

Bryn Mawr;1367053 wrote: Why have people lost the fear that doing wrong would be punished?

How has the culture of instant gratification gained a foothold?

The fear of "punishment" was not fear of divine retribution but fear of rejection by your peers if you behaved anti-socially. Nowadays there appear to be sections of society where peer pressure is the cause of anti-social behaviour.


Because there is no god so no final judgement to all.

[Bruv]

oscar;1367054 wrote: Bruv, could you just clarify for me please.... are you saying It Is the spread of Islam that has created a breakdown In society?


It is filling the vacuum left by the breakdown, the breakdown is caused by a lack of any moral code, the code of god fearing come uppance.

[Bryn Mawr]

Bruv;1367060 wrote: Because there is no god so no final judgement to all.


The peer pressure was not religious, I've been agnostic since I was ten and lived in a community that was only nominally Christian for almost as long, it was social - you do the dirty on the community and the community will shun you.

[Oscar Namechange]

Bryn Mawr;1367065 wrote: The peer pressure was not religious, I've been agnostic since I was ten and lived in a community that was only nominally Christian for almost as long, it was social - you do the dirty on the community and the community will shun you. I can Identify with that. You never messed on your own doorstep and If you did, you cleaned It up or you were Indeed shunned.

As a teenager, my parents social standing and pride was everything. We respected that and acted accordingly. We were proud of our parents.

[Bruv]

Bryn Mawr;1367065 wrote: The peer pressure was not religious, I've been agnostic since I was ten and lived in a community that was only nominally Christian for almost as long, it was social - you do the dirty on the community and the community will shun you.


You have covered all the bases.

Small community was it ?

Nominally Christian is good enough..........it seeps into the pores.

Shun you like excommunication ?

I would class myself agnostic too, can still feel the affects of christianity on my values

[Bryn Mawr]

Bruv;1367073 wrote: You have covered all the bases.

Small community was it ?

Nominally Christian is good enough..........it seeps into the pores.

Shun you like excommunication ?

I would class myself agnostic too, can still feel the affects of christianity on my values


When you come down to it we all live in small communities but yes, I've always lived in small communities.

When I first got married I took my wife to see the suburb where my parents had grown up and where I'd spent my holidays as a young child - this was at least fifteen years after I'd last visited the place and I'd grown a heavy beard in the meantime. We were walking down the main street when I was stopped by an old lady - "you're Mary's youngest aren't you". I had to confess that I was. They never forget you know :wah:



I definitely agree, even though we are not an evangelical nation Christian moral values were all pervasive and absorbed through the skin - but I think that that is changing as the young are not being given limits to acceptable behaviour. They are being shunned by the communities that they live in but there are so many of them that they are forming their own community within a community where anti-social behaviour is a mark of respect and acceptance rather than a discredit.

[theia]

Bruv;1367047 wrote: I have a theory as to why the world has gone mad, it is possibly as off the wall as Spot's.........but without the linguistics and logical statistical backup.

My theory covers the fall of western civilisation and the rise of Islam.....only an opinion mind with no links and facts.

Not too long ago people had a fear that doing wrong would be punished.

If the Police didn't catch you, the all seeing creator would keep a book on your conduct and come judgement day you would be answerable. These days everybody knows CCTV is watching but you can put two fingers up to it, unlike the previous all seeing eye.

Add to this the culture of instant gratification, and if it feels good do it, or the let it all hang out philosophy of 'if it doesn't hurt anyone else'........if god doesn't exist, who else can be judge of my actions ?

Once the all seeing eye and the fear of punishment is out of the picture the only way is down.

For the record I am NOT born again or remotely religious, but until there is another set of values (that's where Islam comes in) we are all doomed.


Your post had me reaching for my old copy of Durkeim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life and the quote "In a word, the old gods are growing old or already dead and others are not yet born." And, "A day will come when our societies will know again those hours of creative effervescence, in the course of which new ideas and new formulae are found which serve for a while as a guide to humanity."

I haven't a clue what the current guide to humanity is or will be, or even whether there's a need for one.

[spot]

I think you're both ignoring the fact that secularism is only prominent in Europe, Australasia and Canada.

The ruling class in the USA is predominantly a fundamentalist Protestant group. Roman Catholicism is an essential component of life in the Philippines, in Mexico and in Central and South America, Russia and the Ukraine have a solid Orthodox base, there's Serbia and Greece, South Korea has the hugest congregations of over-hyped evangelists on the planet. If nothing else those alternative areas of the world are a test-bed for your notion that morality is contingent on Christian belief, Bruv. I think the suggestion is hokum myself.

Do those still-Christian societies express a higher morality than European secularism? I doubt you could argue convincingly that they do. There are practically useful and successful moral philosophies outside Monotheism which have no externalized God threatening hell-fire.

[theia]

For me, the word "gods" can refer to anything/anyone and does not necessarily signify a religious "god" or a particular religion.

[Bryn Mawr]

spot;1367120 wrote: I think you're both ignoring the fact that secularism is only prominent in Europe, Australasia and Canada.

The ruling class in the USA is predominantly a fundamentalist Protestant group. Roman Catholicism is an essential component of life in the Philippines, in Mexico and in Central and South America, Russia and the Ukraine have a solid Orthodox base, there's Serbia and Greece, South Korea has the hugest congregations of over-hyped evangelists on the planet. If nothing else those alternative areas of the world are a test-bed for your notion that morality is contingent on Christian belief, Bruv. I think the suggestion is hokum myself.

Do those still-Christian societies express a higher morality than European secularism? I doubt you could argue convincingly that they do. There are practically useful and successful moral philosophies outside Monotheism which have no externalized God threatening hell-fire.


Both?

[Bruv]

I have never suggested morality was contingent on Christian belief.

The British are supposedly a Christian country, our biggest celebration is concerned with the birth of Jesus, apparently.

Suspect some of our rioters were early Christmas shopping.

Being nominally Christian doesn't presuppose a high degree of active Christians, the same goes for here or abroad whatever their religions.

My theory is based on the rise of knowledge calling into question long held beliefs that we will all be judged for our misdemeanors by an all seeing deity.

This covers all religions/beliefs in all countries.

The exception seems to be Islamism, perhaps because it is diametrically opposed to Christianity and is filling the void left by it's demise.

[Bruv]

Bryn Mawr;1367131 wrote: Both?
LOL.......and I don't often use such whatchamacallits

[gmc]

spot;1366964 wrote: I'm sure you're right that people join the armed forces or police for all sorts of reasons. My point is that their reasons are immaterial. The government has shown during previous outings that - as in my Orgreave example and countless others I could offer - the use of the police will have political motives, the intention being to intimidate strikers from exercising their legitimate rights to protest by way of pickets, or (think G20) lawful protesters from protesting on the streets. These are political projections of power and volunteers sign on the dotted line promising to intimidate whenever they're told to. That's the immorality. Their motive for signing up may well be different. That has no effect on the immorality of making the promise.

An identical argument applies to volunteers for the armed forces. None of this is opinion, it's my analysis of the facts I've presented. My logic appears, to my eyes at least, faultless, hence my request that someone pick it apart. I haven't expressed an opinion, I have advanced a reasoned argument with examples where appropriate.


Both police and armed forces are necessary parts of any state but are also part of the society in which they exist and that is what shapes the way they are run and conducts itself. Police and army cannot exist seperate from then people, when they do you eventually get rebellion - just ask gaddafi. People don't just do blindly as they are told except in exceptional circumstances, soldiers sign up to go to war but how they behave, especially after a battle reflects the society they come from. The politicising of the police is resisted from within the police force as much as it is by those outside just look at police reaction to cameron's attempts to take over the running of the police after the riots. It's always a balancing act between the desires of government and what people are prepared to accept. if you recall when the met were first set up they were unarmed the intention being they be seen as citizens. That we have a judiciary separate - most of the time- from government control is a tribute to the morality of those who shaped it. Orgreave was a bad day for policing but look at the aftermath.

Official reports[citation needed] state that during the course of the confrontation, 93 arrests were made, with 51 picketers and 72 policemen injured.

Ninety-five picketers were charged with riot, unlawful assembly and similar offences after the battle. A number of these were put on trial in 1987, but the trials collapsed, all charges were dropped and a number of lawsuits were brought against the police for unlawful arrest. South Yorkshire Police later agreed to pay £425,000 compensation and £100,000 in legal costs to 39 pickets in an out of court settlement.




So much for the police being able to carry on as they like.

Your argument that the reasons for those joining is immaterial is absurd and suggests a world view where government exists separate from those who are governed. Look at egypt for instance, if the army had been willing to open fire on demonstrators the uprising in Egypt would have ended very quickly. That they weren't ordered to do so rather suggests they were worried about the consequences of giving an order that wouldn't be obeyed.

Look at the catholic church - a noble organisation spreading the word of god are you seriously suggesting that the reasons for people joining has no effect on that organisation an the way it behaves? That the character of a borgia pope or a paedophile priest is irrelevant because of the organisation they have joined?

It's not just christian morality that has shaped us but also our ancient pagan and tribal heritage. We owe the aklthing court of the vikings and the egalitarian sentiment behind it as well as the ideals of a pagan roman republic and greek democracy a lot more than we ever did the christian faith. All that ever taught was how to kneel to your betters put there by god to rule over us. If all men are equal in the eyes of god then why not on earth as well? That is a heresy that freed us from christianity.