Is this what we want from \" new Labour \"?

14 Sep 2009

Quote by flower411
I didn't "move away" from the original post, I took that original point of why I didn't think the "hero" who did this was anything of the sort and validated my reasons why and to do that I pointed out what I feel to be the flawed logic behind the reasoning that he is in some way heroically fighting the criminals and the system, rather than a criminal himself. A kind of domino effect if you will.
The bit you highlighted Flower was an obvious light hearted attempt to keep this debate good natured and amusing, rather than an actual statement of a proposed reality. However the underlying argument still, I feel, is credible and links in with the OP. To me that is as worthy of mentioning as the notion of beating someone to within an inch of their life because you feel it is personally justified and because you have no trust in the powers that be.
Incidentally, pointing out subjective appraisals of my posts, in no way endorses your own views. I try to comment on the situation at hand in my own way Flower.
I shall try to keep my posts 100% on tack and as humourless as possible from here on in.
So to summarise, I agree with DaveNotts really, he said it better than me.

It`s not a case of keeping 100% "on track" !!!
It`s the fact that you are trying to argue the point by taking things to an illogical conclusion...
Bit like the people that suggest that smoking a joint leads to heroin addiction ....
I just can`t see how how any of your digressions have been in any way relevent to the argument at hand ...
All you`ve done is try to draw away from the fact that this man was protecting his family and may or may not have overstepped the mark !!
I don`t for one minute believe that you were trying to be lighthearted in your reference to the SAS !! rolleyes

It was just an attempt to ridicule the suggestion that one might beat burglars up ...when the whole point is that somebody did !!
Oops! Sorry! Clicked the wrong button by mistake initially.
I wasn't drawing away from the fact this man beat up someone else, that is the very point I was trying to make. That he and his lynch mob intentionally battered someone.
I have already stated that if he was in a life and death struggle with an intruder and killed him, then I would fully support that as being justified. However I've obviously not explained myself very well so I shall try once more.
My logic is thus, an intruder tries to run away from your house after breaking in, you catch him. You are then "justified" to organise a lynch mob or to beat him up severely and if he dies, well that's tough. That is what you are arguing. No matter if he was there to rob your stereo or murder you all, his motives are irrelevant as are his rights. He waived them, as you claimed, after he entered your property.
My logic then says, if that is the case and an intruders rights are forfeit when he enters the house, then what about convicted criminals? Why are intruders only the ones with no rights? A convicted or murderer must surely also have no rights? Is justice only the preserve of those who have suffered unwanted intruders in their home? The convicted have seen their crimes proven in a court of law. You are saying that in such cases as an intruder, a court of law is irrelevant and that defacto, you become the law in your house and you adminster justice as you see fit. Well surely if victims of intruders can claim that, then why not victims of rapists or families of people murderer or killed by drink drivers? If justice is to be entirely subjective, then surely it can only be applied by those who were subject to the original crime, or were most directly affected by it.
And where is the line here? Do we stop at muderers and rapists? Muggers? Paedophiles? People who commit benefit fraud? People who speed? People who do speed? Where is the line where justice moves from being administered by the person(s) affected and to being decided by another judiciary body?
This to me is endemic of the problem of knee-jerk, reactionary thinking, everyone thinks "Oh, it will be ok if we were just able to beat shit out of them..." well I don't think the burglars would take it lying down for a start and instead of solving the problem, I believe it would just create a whole bunch of new problems. It assumes so much and is, frankly, just to my tiny mind, puffed up machismo, dressed up in as a responsible sense of duty of care for family.
You can bandy semantics and argue all you want about hidden meaning, but that is my meaning.
I am not comfortable with a situation like that. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that the decision for justice needs to rest with a higher authority. Whether that justice is seen to be done is another argument altogether. However it is not evidence to back up your claim that your brand of justice works. If you think vigilanteeism is the cure all, check the crime figures for America where people do have the right to defend their homes, with weapons, against intruders and see how burglars respond to this. They don't just stop, they get armed themselves with deadlier and deadlier weapons. To think that this wouldn't happen here is, I believe, foolhardy in the extreme.
If your intention is to make me look foolish or stupid, then really, I do that enough on my own without any extra help to be honest. If you wish to somehow force me into a humiliating climbdown to bow to your superior thought, then you have a very long wait my friend. My argument and logical reasoning makes as much sense to me as yours does to you. I can accept your view and not agree with it without needing to try and stomp your views into the ground, so why not afford others who don't agree with you the same courtesy?
My posts WERE lighthearted. If you really think my mentioning the SAS and Spiderman are a true reflection of what I think will happen should open season be declared on any house intruders then that is naive beyond belief. Almost as naive as thinking most unprepared householders would be able to see off an armed criminal should the need arise. If you are offended by my ridiculing the blatant chest beating that went on, then give thanks I was just as abhorred by the rather pathetic "I'd kill em all if they came in here" mentality so vociferously on display.
And yes, I found the machismo chest beating entirely boring, predictable and utterly illogical for the reasons I elucidated upon. However I did so in a way I hoped would be seen as amusing, friendly and non-threatening. While making the point that I would probably not be quite so gung ho in my approach and that I have great reservations about tackling criminal(s) who may or may not be armed, alone. Most criminals I'd assume when rumbled, don't tend to hang about waiting for you to organise a lynch mob to beat them to a pulp or worse. Not even if you asked them nicely. So in order to wait for the lynch mobs arrival, you'd have to restrain them indoors in some way. Which begs the question, why not call the police instead if you can do this? You may not trust the police, but a great many of us have to.
This man alone didn't beat the burglars up. He managed to chase a burglar from his house by hoiking a coffee table at him. He then organised a lynch mob to systematically and methodically beat him up on the street when he was trying to get away. You like that idea, I disagree with it for the reasons I've stated in my warbling round about, pathetically naive way. I respect your stance in disagreeing with it, I'd hope you'd argue with the arguments I present, rather than assuming you understand my "hidden meaning" in my words, which quite frankly, you don't or by implying my arguments add little to the argument. I'm happy to let others judge that and compared to the cod-outrage, machismo "Let me at em" approach favoured by some, I am happy to let it lie as it stands and let others judge.
I hope I made it clearer this time Flower. If not I apologise, but I won't be commenting again on the thread. I've made my points and they're on record to be agreed with or scorned. However they are, I believe, as valid and logical as any other arguments posted for or against the original post and regardless of your attempts to discredit them as being irrelevant, they maintain enough of a correlation to what the original post to be worth including on here. I am sorry if you feel differently.

15 Sep 2009

Quote by foxylady2209
I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the AUP that says "thou shalt stick to the orginal point or else".
If the conversation develops it may well wander gradually away from the OP. And thank goodness for that.
If we always stuck to the OP then either the threads would fizzle out after about 2 pages or they would degenerate into a few people repeating their points in more and more personal and points scoring ways until everyone else gives up reading it.

Brilliant!
So in the nieghbourhood mentioned above, and John Rambo was burglarising Spidermans gaff... my money would be on Spidey coming out on top, quite literally posably.
As the heavy and clumsy Rambo rifled through the CD collection downstairs, awakening the our resting Spidey, our domestic defender has the wonderful ability to sneak up upon the ransacking Rambo across the cieling (quite a gift) and then employing his snazzie wrist activated webby-stuff to disable and confine the heavilly armed intruder.
An unfair advantage perhaps, but our demestic have a go hero stays within the bounds of the Law, leaving time to eat some flies before the arrival of the Law Enforcers.
Good stuff.
Question is, what on earth had happened to our commie-bashing law breaker to place him in the straights that had him resorting to breaking and entering?
In such a nieghbourhood there could still be a downside for the fairly treated criminal though. Fairly treated (in the circumstances) he may have been by the householder...
... but what might happen when the officers of the Law arrive, and one of them is Judge Dread?
lp

15 Sep 2009

There's another flaw in the argument that it is "right to pursue your attacker into the street".
Consider this: Joe Bloggs hates Fred's guts so he beats the living shit out of him in the street when convenient and then, having left him for nearly dead, phones the Police and complains that he found Fred ransacking his house and chased him outside where he was fortunate enough to stave off a near suicidal attack by Fred on his life.
Fantasy? Maybe. But where is the evidence to back it all up? Can you see where this could lead?
The problem with the Tony Martin case was that he actually laid in wait for the scroats to come and rob him and then shot them in the back as they were fleeing.
Like it or lump it, TM meted out his own form of Justice which is contrary to the rule of Law and he was punished for it.

15 Sep 2009

Quote by GnV
There's another flaw in the argument that it is "right to pursue your attacker into the street".
Consider this: Joe Bloggs hates Fred's guts so he beats the living shit out of him in the street when convenient and then, having left him for nearly dead, phones the Police and complains that he found Fred ransacking his house and chased him outside where he was fortunate enough to stave off a near suicidal attack by Fred on his life.
Fantasy? Maybe. But where is the evidence to back it all up? Can you see where this could lead?
The problem with the Tony Martin case was that he actually laid in wait for the scroats to come and rob him and then shot them in the back as they were fleeing.
Like it or lump it, TM meted out his own form of Justice which is contrary to the rule of Law and he was punished for it.

Very true but....to the dismay of many people.
Many people thought the toerag got exactly what he deserved....and he did.

15 Sep 2009

Quote by kentswingers777
I hope that when they were giving him a kicking, he was feeling the same kind of fear, they must have felt, when they realised they were being robbed by some feckless and ferel lowlife.
In my opinion he got what he deserved, and it matters not to me, if it happens in the house, or in their garden, or half way down the street.

Quote by kentswingers777
Very true but....to the dismay of many people.
Many people thought the toerag got exactly what he deserved....and he did.

Kent, there is very little you could say that would shock me. I've kind of got to know how you think, to the point where I can almost predict, with some degree of accuracy, what you'd have to say on any given subject, but this? The bit in bold? Are you serious?
This little toerag, who deserved what he got, just in case you've forgotten the details Kent, was a 16 year old child. He was nobbut a bloody kid. A kid who no doubt learned at an early age how to burgle people's houses, cos that's probably how his family made a wage, and that poor sod was brought up to it by people who were supposed to care for him.
This bit of a kid was shot in the back as he fled, no doubt in abject terror of a man confronting him with a gun in his hand. He was then left to die, by this supposed law abiding citizen, who didn't think it necessary to inform the police to report a robbery, or a shooting. A man who buggered off to his mum's immediately afterwards, a man who was later seen swilling pints down the local, knowing full well he'd just shot a fellow human being, and in his rage and fear, did nothing. Reckon I'd need a pint too if I'd just killed someone, so we can excuse that, eh? confused

I have no doubt that Tony Martin was afraid, and angry. I have no doubt whatsoever that Fred Barras was even more afraid when he saw a man waving a gun at him. I have no doubt he was terrified as he tried to scarper. I have no doubt his terror went through the roof feeling the pellets rip into his back. I have no doubt he begged God to forgive him, and prayed for help, as he lay dying, watching his blood leave his body, and I have no doubt he was full of fear and remorse for the life he'd led that had conspired to bring him to that point, a life that was probably made for him in some ways, when the end finally came.
If you think a fellow human being, this so-called toerag, deserves to have their life ended in that way, then I despair. The very idea, shared by many, that Tony Martin didn't deserve what he got in the circumstances beggars belief. :?
Neil ((( No kisses, no wink. )))
p.s. Dave_Notts. My thoughts entirely! Cheers. smile

Resonance? I understood exactly what you were saying. Again, my thoughts entirely. Thanks. :) I can save a rather lengthy post for another day. My fingertips thank you both! lol

;)
p.p.s. Flower, I'll come back to you. I've come to expected better of you. :? If I had to genuinely protect myself, or Gem, I'd beat someone to a bloody pulp with the first weapon I found in me 'and if need be. I'd go for a wash, then call the police to tell them I had a dead body on my floor. That's fine, I can live with that, in the knowledge that I'd have to answer for my actions in a court at some point, and throw myself on the mercy of 12 good men and true. These circumstances don't justify the behaviour, at all.

15 Sep 2009

Actually, he shot two people that night.
Fred Barras and Brendan Fearon.
He was also convicted of possessing a firearm with the intention to endanger life, not having a firearms licence and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Sentenced to life for murder he twice appealed and on the second appeal Martin's murder conviction was reduced to manslaughter, and his 10-year sentence for wounding Fearon was cut to three years, to run concurrently.
If he had shot them coming IN he would probably still have had to face prosecution because the firearm was illegally held.
In the end, he served the sentence that he probably deserved.
The final appeal succeeded on plea of provocation and diminished responsibility, plus his original defence team failed to present the case properly.
You don't have to like it. Whether a person deserved to die for burglary is up to the individuals personal morals.

15 Sep 2009

Quote by Flower
Neil ...you are making Tony Martin out to be the perpetrator when he was in fact the victim ...

Fred Barras was equally his victim. Each paid their consequences. Are we meant to say Fred Barras was less of a victim than Tony Martin, or was Tony Martin less of a victim than Fred? Both parties made stupidly wrong choices in their lives! They're both victims of a horrible chain of events. Both of them victims Flower. I feel sorry for them both. sad

Quote by Flower
It is possible that Martin didn`t know that the young man (not a child !!!!!) was fatally wounded but Fearon must have known that something was wrong and he said nothing either !!!

We already know that Fearon was a criminal. We tend to imagine they have lesser morals than the rest of us, so no surprise there? I can kind of imagine that he was saving his own skin. Martin though doesn't have that excuse, does he, law abiding citizen that he was? confused

Barras was 16 years of age Flower. In my book, that makes him a stupid fuckin' child. Not a child I'd like to meet on a dark night admittedly, but a child all the same. Yes, Tony Martin was a victim. Maybe, just maybe, he didn't know he'd actually killed Fred. You ever fired a shotgun Flower? :? They go all over the place, eh? You probably wouldn't want to actually aim them anywhere near a living, breathing, human being, unless you had no option. Not unless you didn't care all that much if they ended up dead anyways. :? Tony Martin could quite easily have just pointed the thing, and kept his hands off the trigger. He could have aimed anywhere. He aimed at a child's back, and killed him as a result. ((( Am I labouring the child thing now? It does apparently bear repeating? :? )))

Quote by Flower
Put yourself in his shoes Neil ...remote house, repeated thefts and intimidation...what would you have done ??

People quite often make excuses for one set of criminals, that they ain't prepared to make for another. My thinking is, you have to be even handed. You kind of have to go 'Sorry mate, yes I know you found yerself in very trying circumstances, and between you and me, I'd have done the same meself, but you made a bad decision when other options were available to you. Options like not burgling houses, or beating someone up with a baseball bat with a few of yer mates in tow, or not pulling the trigger on a shotgun, but too late, the choices you made mean you're off to jail for a bit, but you can live with that, yeah?' :? It's how it works. It's what we do to keep our most 'ferel' instincts in check! ;)

Quote by Flower
Martin had reported the fact that he was being burgled on a regular basis, but nothing was done and people still keep going on about trusting the police and the courts.

He reported burglarys all the time, and yet on this particular night, he reported . . . . erm . . . . bugger all Flower. I can understand the keeping of the shotgun quiet, but he didn't even dial 999 to tell the Police he had intruders in his house? Why was that? :? Cos he didn't want to waste their time with yet burglary attempt? Bullshit! He fled cos he knew damn well he was knee deep in the shit. And he tried to get himself an alibi, but the Police were cleverer than he was. He's as guilty of the crime he was convicted of as his burglars were guilty of theirs. All were guilty. All illegal. All deserving of the full weight of the law.
N x x x ;)

15 Sep 2009

Right Neil for the record....maybe I was a bit harsh in what I said earlier. My emotions can sometimes run away with me.
Yes he was a child in the eyes of the law I suppose, but so were the Bulger killers children. So children can be evil and nasty and commit horrid crimes. He knew what he was doing. He knew it was wrong, and for him he paid the ultimate price....with his life.
In America it is quite common for people to shoot and sometimes kill people who break into their houses. Yes I know we are not in America, but sometimes at least the sentence fits the crime unlike over here. Would America have released the Lockerbie bomber? You bet he would have died in jail.
I know that is going somewhat off topic but the point is people are sick and tired of the criminals being treated as though they were the victims, and getting very lenient sentences for serious crimes.
This is a timetable of events that led to Tony Martins arrest and the events that unfolded.

Can I also point out that yes he had a firearm with no license , yes he shot that kid in the back,and yes he was convicted but.....his sentence was reduced to manslaughter on appeal. Manslaughter? If what you think is right that he shot an innocent kid in the back with a shotgun with NO license, surely on that evidence, how or why was that reduced from murder to manslaughter?
Maybe it was reduced on appeal because of public opinion, that maybe this guy was right to make a stand and most I spoke to at the time sympathised big time with this guy.
Unless you can think of another reason why the charges were reduced?

15 Sep 2009

An anecdotal story which I think may actually be true...
A circuit Judge was in the process of being burgled out in the countryside of Cambs or Norfolk. He had called the Police on many occasions but they never attended until the next morning.
This occasion, he phoned the Police and told them (again) that he was in the process of being robbed; the robbers were downstairs ransacking his house and he and his wife had locked themselves in their bedroom.
The Police responded by saying that they had no resources to deploy but advised the Judge to stay where he was behind a locked bedroom door and they would come and see him in the morning to take a statement.
He phoned back a couple of minutes later. He told the Police that he had remembered the loaded shotgun he kept under his bed after previous burglaries so opened the bedroom door and shot one of the raiders. The others had fled and were in the grounds somewhere.
In a couple of minutes, the place was flooded with armed police together with the force helicopter hovering overhead. They arrested a number of men in the grounds but found no evidence of a shotgun or anyone suffering injuries from gunshot wounds.
The Chief Inspector of Police who attended the scene quizzed the Judge and reprimanded him about his findings saying that it was a serious matter to mislead the Police about such matters.
The Judge concurred but reminded the CI that it was equally as bad for them to tell lies about the lack of resources when clearly - a few minutes later - they seemed to find it possible to provide a SWAT squad and a helicopter!
Make of that what you will.
Even considering my last post, is there any wonder that people take the law into their own hands?

15 Sep 2009

Quote by GnV
An anecdotal story which I think may actually be true...
A circuit Judge was in the process of being burgled out in the countryside of Cambs or Norfolk. He had called the Police on many occasions but they never attended until the next morning.
This occasion, he phoned the Police and told them (again) that he was in the process of being robbed; the robbers were downstairs ransacking his house and he and his wife had locked themselves in their bedroom.
The Police responded by saying that they had no resources to deploy but advised the Judge to stay where he was behind a locked bedroom door and they would come and see him in the morning to take a statement.
He phoned back a couple of minutes later. He told the Police that he had remembered the loaded shotgun he kept under his bed after previous burglaries so opened the bedroom door and shot one of the raiders. The others had fled and were in the grounds somewhere.
In a couple of minutes, the place was flooded with armed police together with the force helicopter hovering overhead. They arrested a number of men in the grounds but found no evidence of a shotgun or anyone suffering injuries from gunshot wounds.
The Chief Inspector of Police who attended the scene quizzed the Judge and reprimanded him about his findings saying that it was a serious matter to mislead the Police about such matters.
The Judge concurred but reminded the CI that it was equally as bad for them to tell lies about the lack of resources when clearly - a few minutes later - they seemed to find it possible to provide a SWAT squad and a helicopter!
Make of that what you will.
Even considering my last post, is there any wonder that people take the law into their own hands?

GNV ....I do not know what the laws are like in France on this kind of thing, but I bet they are not all crying for the criminals over there.
When are people going to smell the coffee and realize that people are sick and tired of watching criminals get away with things.
Law and order is usually very high on the agenda when an election comes around, but once in power very little ever changes. This Government in particular have got soft on crime. I do not know if that is because there is just no room left in prisons, but offenders are being let out much earlier to make more space.
The Bulger killers and the two recently who nearly killed that boy, will get the kind of things a lot of kids dream about. Regular meals, proper education, no doubt one on one too. Luxury items and then after a short while in clink will be released into the world with total anonymity and money, job and a house all laid on. What did the victims of those crimes get? Jack shit I bet, other than a lifetime of misery.
They could not have achieved all that by the time they reached 18 or whatever age these new ferel toads will be when released. We hear everyday about victims rights being ignored in favour of the criminals and their probation officers and solicitors, bleating on about how wonderful they are really.
I can only imagine how Martin must have felt in his house, in the middle of nowhere, with criminals ransacking his house, and possibly armed. Can you imagine what that must be like?
As me old matey Blair once said " tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime ". That is the biggest load of bollocks I have ever heard in my life.
They should be brought into court themselves for misleading the general public.

15 Sep 2009

Quote by kentswingers777
snip...
As me old matey Blair once said " tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime ". That is the biggest load of bollocks I have ever heard in my life.
They should be brought into court themselves for misleading the general public.

You'd probably have a better chance at bringing them to justice for an illegal invasion of Iraq :grin: innocent

27 Sep 2009

Tony Martin was tried and found guilty by a jury of his peers .....they obviously thought he had overstepped the mark...they actually heard the evidence.
spidey would kick rambos arse any day of the week

28 Sep 2009

Little has been mentioned of the other burglar. Brendon Fearon.
Fearon did not mention his accomplice in crime to the police, though he knew Barras had been injured. Had he done so there is every chance that he (Barras) would have been found and may be alive today.
Nobody came out of the case smelling of roses.