Ducati Sporting Club UK - Sign of respect

Ducati Sporting Club UK (/msgboard.php)

- Idle Chat (/forumdisplay.php?f=102)

- - Sign of respect (/showthread.php?t=39327)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jools

I am also an old git (in my 50's) and I can't accept that there was a golden age when everything was better and crime free.

I can remember reading about people being robbed at knifepoint and about gangland razor fights when I was a kid. The likes of the Krays and 'Mad Frankie Frazer' were running around. When I was growing up there were regular fights going on between rival village gangs and these same people would regularly nick cars to travel to and from the latest rumble. Violence on football terraces was rife with people using bottles and coins as missiles and every ground had the end where the hard men went for a fight. In my teenage years two people were fatally stabbed (at seperate times and in seperate incidents) in the little market town where I live - both in fights after chucking out time. Gangs of skinheads made a religion out of using their Doc Martens. My dad also used to tell me stories of the street violence that went on in his day - it has always been the same, because human nature has always been the same.

What has changed is the technology available to the law enforcement agencies and the rigour with which they need to report incidents. I'm sure that rather than there being halcyon days of law and order as depicted in 'Heartbeat', the reality of the times was the local beat Bobby dealing out summary justice on the end of a truncheon with no need for tedious paperwork. Same crimes happened, just didn't get reported.

With the advent of greater levels of reporting (and being held to account for performance through the statistics thus produced) it fuels another phenomenon. There has never been more competition in the media. Hundreds of TV and local radio stations all vying with each other, millions of websites and internet based media plus the traditional newspaper press competing in a state of frenzy for their slice of a finite advertising cake. How do the proprietors and editors of these media outlets raise their profile above the clamour? By the time honoured methods of hype, exageration and downright lies, bending statistics to suit their particular editorial stance - the worst of them playing on the fears, prejudices and ignorance of the man in the street to whip up a frenzy of public opinion to suit their circulation figures or political leanings

I agree at 100%.

Jools
So all is well. things have never been better! I feel so much happier now. This is a wonderful bike club now we can all relax. The unprecedented levels of vicious crime is an invention of the journalists who write for the Daily Mail.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

Jesus! Talk about twisting Jools' words!

He was saying things back then were no different, there was still a lot of violence then as there is now. Only now it's more widely reported by more sensationalist media.

If you take it in that vein and read it again it might make more sense? I hope so.

I was referring to the late forties and fifties young man. There was NOT the level of vicious crime that there is now and I don't need your guidance on what constitutes common sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

I was referring to the late forties and fifties young man. There was NOT the level of vicious crime that there is now and I don't need your guidance on what constitutes common sense.

Well go ahead and be an arrogant bell-end then, see if I care :)

Enjoy!

I'm not saying all is well, the world is never perfect. All I'm saying is that the world never was perfect.

As regulars on here will know, me and my family have suffered from one of the very worst of violent crimes - just over a year ago when my wife was raped. I went public about it on the board at the time since it's a bugger trying to creep around pretending nothing happened but I'm not going to rake over all of that again here. Just to illustrate that I know only too well that real crime happens and don't live in a fools paradise.

What I am saying is that much of the evidence for the 'unprecedented level' of crime is anecdotal, and I have yet to see convincing figures that demonstrate conclusively that crime is becoming more prevalent or more vicious year on year - of course there will be blips caused by changes in criminal activity (identity fraud for instance) or changes in collating the figures - but over the long term I'm convinced that things will be pretty static. When somebody shows me the statistical evidence - adjusted to allow for the greater emphasis on gathering statistics, then I'll believe them. As it is I do believe that the press are using "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics" to support half-baked and dubious editorial positions.

As for things have never been better? Well, we don't have to put up with the slum clearances of the early 1900's, or the decimation of the First World War that ripped the heart out of the 1910-1920 period. We don't have put up with the huge social divides of the 1920's or the grinding poverty of the 1930's depression days, and we can sleep easy in our beds without the sirens going off like they did in the 1940's. We had to put up with rationing into the 1950's and a very frugal utilitarian lifestyle through to the 1960's. We had to put up with swathes of youth unrest as the baby boomers worked out their teenage angst as Mods and Rockers pitched into battle along every seafront on every bank holiday. We had the three day week and winters of discontent in the 70's, the miners strike and the Falklands in the 80's, Sarajevo, Srebrinica (spelling) and Bosnia in the 90's, Iraq today.

Ahhhh happy days...of course they weren't. Same **** different day

So because you don't agree with me I'm arrogant! TP I respect Jools' view of the world more than anyone else who posts on this board but on this topic I believe he is wrong.
I will not Harp on about it though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

I was referring to the late forties and fifties young man. There was NOT the level of vicious crime that there is now and I don't need your guidance on what constitutes common sense.

It would be very interesting to know how the figures for life expectancy are calculated.

Because on one hand there is all of you saying the world has never been so black, and on the other hand there is all of us living longer and longer.

Obviously I do share TP's and Jools' opinions. Human beings are not worse than they've ever been. Each of our generations have seen murdered millions of us, it shows that we have always been that stupid. Sad, but comforting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

No, you're twisting my words just as you did Jools'

You're post was arrogant because of the condescending manner in which you posted.

Ariel. I believe that you are right.

There was not the same level of violent crime in the late 1940's and early 1950's as there is now. Possibly because most violent crime is perpetrated by young men and a huge number of that generation had been killed in the war. Most of those who returned had probably seen enough extreme violence for one lifetime, were still in shock or getting on with the business of rebuilding their lives and the country.