# No-one pitted the fuckers burning London down yet? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 8, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998 "2011-08-08T21:56:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/21 "2011-08-09T07:47:52Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Violence has been done to this generation time and again. What we now see is a reaction to that violence. You reap what you sow, Mr Cameron. Bullshit. What we now see is a bunch of sociopaths burning and pillaging just because they can. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/22 "2011-08-09T07:52:03Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Bullshit. What we now see is a bunch of sociopaths burning and pillaging just because they can. Are you talking about the bankers looting £hundreds of billions, MPs and Peer looting the public purse for 25 years through the Fees Office or corporations systematically looting the Treasury through tax avoidance - because I think the 16 and 17-year olds who had their EMA grants cancelled and their youth clubs closed and who don’t think they’ve got a cat in hells chance of getting a job would be interested to know? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/23 "2011-08-09T08:02:38Z")
And if the rioters were burning down the houses of bankers, MPs and peers, you’d have a point. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/24 "2011-08-09T08:06:15Z")
If it was a rational, reasoned response you’d have a point. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/25 "2011-08-09T08:24:40Z")
Well, forgive me for thinking that people are responsible for their actions. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/26 "2011-08-09T08:30:08Z")
That was my point three posts ago, except it’s not true whe you either inform law-making through your ‘donations’ or other influence, or actually make the laws: The game is rigged and the kids just worked it out. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/27 "2011-08-09T08:37:27Z")
So their response is to destroy the livelihoods of a bunch of innocent shopowners? Forgive me, but I fail to see the connection. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/28 "2011-08-09T08:44:09Z")
Connection between what? Uneducated, unworldly kids reacting by lashing out in the community and…sytematic looting over decades by the political class and their friends in a particular legal/accountability framework effectively designed for the purpose? Demonise kids all you will, choose to not ask ‘why?’, but this is still a social reaction by people who know they’re being cheated. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/29 "2011-08-09T08:45:17Z")
There have been dozens if not hundreds of peaceful anti-cuts protests over the past year, to no effect. I don’t exactly blame the kids for figuring out that that kind of protest doesn’t get results. Clearly many of them are burning and looting for the hell of it, but the rest of them didn’t get this angry and this hopeless in a vacuum. ETA: I thoroughly agree that destroying independent, local-owned shops and local homes is really shitty and abhorrent. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/30 "2011-08-09T08:46:18Z")
So if my boss is mean to me at work, I should beat my wife? After all, my anger is justified. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/31 "2011-08-09T08:50:21Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > ETA: I thoroughly agree that destroying independent, local-owned shops and local homes is really shitty and abhorrent. That’s been a great shame and terrible to witness. Some shop owners/areas were better organised last night (the third night) and banded together to protect rows of shops (Kingsland Road comes to mind). ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/32 "2011-08-09T08:55:55Z")
Pretty disgraceful; Police[running away](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14456050). ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/33 "2011-08-09T08:55:57Z")
Incidentally, I don’t disagree with you about the bankers and MPs. I just think that the rioters’ actions are stupid, wrong and counterproductive, and should be stopped regardless of their justifications. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/34 "2011-08-09T09:08:42Z")
I don’t think anyone is saying “should”, **Alessan** , and there’s no need to bring misogyny into it, even as a hypothetical. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/35 "2011-08-09T09:22:39Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Uneducated, unworldly kids reacting by lashing out in the community and…sytematic looting over decades by the political class and their friends in a particular legal/accountability framework effectively designed for the purpose? > > Demonise kids all you will, choose to not ask ‘why?’, but this is still a social reaction by people who know they’re being cheated. Feel free to map out the connection in detail. It may be that you can. For my part however I’ve never heard any coherent explanation of this “argument”. And it has a strong whiff of lazy and convenient line drawing between dots without logical connection, so I’ll remain sceptical till someone explains why I should be otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/36 "2011-08-09T09:25:11Z")
Q: Are you aware of the scale of budget cuts in the UK in the wake of the banking crisis. In particular the way they genuinely and most certainly affect the life opportunites of the poor and other disadvantaged? ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/37 "2011-08-09T09:38:07Z")
Dear Londoners, Our city looks that way because an asshole set off a bomb in the middle of it. And your story is…? love, Oslo ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/38 "2011-08-09T09:40:57Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Incidentally, I don’t disagree with you about the bankers and MPs. I just think that the rioters’ actions are stupid, wrong and counterproductive, and should be stopped regardless of their justifications. Okay. Then what? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/39 "2011-08-09T09:45:35Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > I don’t think anyone is saying “should”, **Alessan** , and there’s no need to bring misogyny into it, even as a hypothetical. I apologize for that. ---
**Author:** ![Bibliovore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Bibliovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bibliovore)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998/40 "2011-08-09T09:47:27Z")
I don’t think budget cuts or the economy have anything to do with these riots. I think a lot of it is just copycat troublemaking by people who want any excuse to chuck a brick through a window and raise some hell and mug in front of the cameras. A lot of these incidents were preplanned via Balckberrys, Twitter and social networking sites and many people were essentialy posting messages saying “Get down here and help yourself to some free stuff!”. I’d seriously like to say just what I think of these people but will refrain from doing so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-one-pitted-the-fuckers-burning-london-down-yet/591998.md?page=3)