tough. stay and suffer. I can go though!
Time to leave the country!
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Go to Australia. They´re looking for "ten pound ticket Poms" again. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> On-topic: Prisoners in Holland actually dare to complain about the conditions in our prisons. They want more luxury, more time outside, more time to work-out! One prison even had it´s own bar/pool! Some guys even went on some sort of strike to accomplish these goals. And now some guy behind a desk thinks it´s handy if they start giving them their social security money in jail (normally you get an allowance) because that way, it´s easier to get back in society!!! Outrageous! (Sp?)
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Whatever happened to hangings and public stonings?
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Urgh, Wizard - in the UK some prisoners are sueing the prison service for not having colour TV´s available, or giving them access to other luxuries they think they should have.
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there in prison not on vacation! it´s not supposed to be fun it´s punishment most of them are violent. whats next evening suits and fuzzy slippers <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> oh wait i know they´ll want there own shopping mall <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> as far as "citizenship" tests i don´t know if there good or not.
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As far as I´m concerned, you go to prison and you give up all but the very basic human rights afforded to you by the country. If you can´t play by the rules then you suffer the consequences, it really should be that simple. The human rights movement over here really is taking the piss. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_disapprove.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>
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Take note that Wiz´s On Topic point isn´t made up... its true, they are wanting to strike for "better" accomodations. I say revert to the old system, where if you gave the gaoler a bad lip, hed smash your head in. I definately want to Leave Holland, but don´t have the necessary funds, I was contemplating Ireland and England Maybe. Basically, a prisoner has no right to complain, with his spacious cell, and yes I do say spacious, where he can lay his fat arse to rest, on his own, with Privacy, he has especially no right to complain about what the Gaolers are wearing, be it chestpins or otherwise Edited by - Locutov on 10/4/2005 3:09:20 PM
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Somethings are needed, if you have any hope of rehabilitation. Reading to educate the criminal, guidence to get his/her life turned around, but amenitys? Absolutly knot. The want to work out, do sit up, push ups and run the rec yard in the aloted time. They are in there for a reason, not as an alturnative to not working. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>
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criminals do need more rights in some countries, however i believe they need less in some like holland and possibly britain. also i think prison sentences shouls be longer, not as a punishment for those there, but a somethin to make peoplehave a bit of fear when it comes to stealing. most people only getput in jail for around 5 months for minor stealing, this should be longer, then it wouldn´t happen as much i am not saying that we turn england into a country running martial law, but i am sure oneday we will.
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As someone said, is prison for rehabilitation or punishment? However, if you commit crime, you must be punished, because what is the motivation to not commit crimes otherwise? Rehabilitation is important if you wish to release crims back into society if they have served their time. Unfortuately, as it currently stands - when released a high percentage are not even remotely rehablitiated at all. They commit crime again (I think it was a statistic that 80% commit further crime - or 80% that are caught commiting further crime). The short sentences and seemingly "luxurious" circumstances surrounding the criminals seems to detract from the rehabilitation of themselves. If we are failing to rehabilitate them due to short sentences (you get 50% off for good behaviour in this country, which makes the sentences a farce!) then you are neither punishing or rehabilitating them. Indeed, it´s failing society as a whole in its mandate entirely, but sadly there appears to be no change to this, only further progression towards negative means. Whom is the prison and rehabilitation supposed to serve? The nation, or the criminal?! Right now it appears to be the criminal, at the expense of the nation. Furthermore we currently have an idea - if the jails are getting full of crims, to make room... we simply release them. Excuse me, but exactly what is the prison service for again? Are we going to start letting some crime go completely unpunished because we haven´t the room? Oh, hang on - we do that already - how stupid of me. Punishment may now be in the form of a "curfew" of 9pm. Oh dear, how limiting in my life, what punishment - to be in at 9pm, wonder if anyone will take it to the EU court of human rights, that it´s violating their human rights, and then to sue for it. hmm, gives me an idea... Edited by - Mike G on 10/5/2005 12:07:50 AM
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I wouldn´t be surpised if I was the only person on these boards who´s actually been throught the criminal justice system. so maybe I can lend a somewhat different perspective. when you´re in gaol, you´re in gaol. it doesn´t matter if it´s a Category A maximum security establishment, or a Category D *open* prison, it´s still gaol, your life isnt your own and you are deprived of your liberty. You have nothing, no possessions, no value except what you can earn from the prison system and the value and respect you can command from your fellow prisoners. you get up at a set time, eat at set times, work at set times and go to bed at set times. while your in prison you can´t earn real money and your affairs are in effect on stop - help with outside matters is very difficult and most prisoners lose their homes and jobs, quite often all their possessions as well. So its very common to come out of even a short sentence, to nothing. if the purpose is indeed rehabilition, then if prisoners have no safety-net for when they come out of gaol, how are they expected <i>not </i> to re-offend? it may seem odd to provide prisoners with social security benefits whilst they are incarcerated, but the social and finacial cost of <i>not </i>[ doing so is even greater. this leads on to a further argument - what are people sent ot prison for? everyone says *punishment* but what do you mean by that? are people imprisoned <i><b>as </i> </b>punishment , or <i><b>for </i> </b>punishment? the two things are very different. I assure you, being deprived of your liberty and taken from everything you are familar with into the alien and hostile environment of even a *soft* prison is still pretty severe. Adding the harshness of the *short sharp shock* so favoured by reactionaries is merely a licence for sadism. I always wondered why people became prison officers, its quite often accompnaied by a desire to treat people like cr*p. Prison officers treat everyone except their *pets* like dirt and they do so because they know that the prisoners can say and do nothing about it. What happens in Abu Ghraib is daily repeated in many prisons across the so-called *civilised* West - I have witnessed prison officers <i>en masse </i> beating the living daylights out of people who just spoke up for themselves after weeks of provocation. The physical brutality is the final expression of a regime of humiliation and de-humanisation. All the myths that are told of gang-rape and drug ganmgs inside prison? forget them - other prisoners are fine with you (mostly) it´s the guards you have to watch out for. And they are almost all open to bribery - on their terms of course. it´s very simple. if people are treated like animals, they will behave like animals. Treat them with respect, you will get respect. The idea of prison <i>for </i> punishment and the imposition of a harsh if not brutal regime is a favourite of people who´ve never experienced it. it doesn´t do any good, btw. all it does is make fitter leaner criminals with even bigger chips on their shoulders.
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No offence Taw, what year was that in perchance?
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94. why? however going back to the original topic, this is an increasingly disturbing trend amongst the PC crowd, because they seem to single out *english* imagery as distinct from any other. I wonder if anyone who wore a St.Andrew´s cross, or a St. David, would be similarly censured? I think perhaps not. And certainly, display of non-UK national imagery is seen as being fine. If such a rule is to be enforced then it must be enforced fairly. why does *englishness* get singled out? partially I think it´s a P.C. reaction to our colonial and imperial past (although that was British as distinct from English) and also there´s a perjoritative element in that the Cross of St. George is associated with football and thus by extension football violence and racism, which is ludicrous of course - that´s as stupid as saying every Moslem is a terrorist. the P.C. goons should keep their own houses in order. the perfectly politically correct Sir Iain Blair, Commisssioner of the Metropolitan Police, saint of the politically correct and hand-picked by President-of-the-World Blair himself, turned out to have misused his powers to hide the facts about the London Tube shooting of an innocent man and attempted to pass the blame onto more junior commanders in the field, resisted calls for an independent enquiry and still attempts to hide what happened under a blanket of national security and operational *intelligence* - although one might well question what sort of intelligence (if any) was in operation the day Jean Charles de Menezes was shot in the head. Sir Iain is very close to the Govt and to the Blairs (he´s no relation btw) because of his history of handling PC issues - how the Police investigate rape, sexism and racism in the Police and towards the public, the Lawrence enquiry, the Newbury bypass, and was seen by many as a new type of Police chief for a new type of Police force - however these days he seems to putting as much effort into whitewashing his own name and squirming out of any responsibility. funny isn´t how once upon a time public figures would resign over matters like this, now they just look for other to blame while mouthing mealy words of sympathy. how to public institutions go on about displayingt he Cross of St George as part of their insignia, as indeed many Police forces do? I wonder... Edited by - .Tawakalna on 10/5/2005 6:34:58 AM
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It also is a question of whether the St. George´s cross has been co-opted by a radical racist group so that in a sort of guilt by association, St. George´s cross flag wavings too often are at racist activities. If, in the modern past, the English flag was not brandished by patriotic Englishmen (the Union Jack being the more common emblem perhaps), worn as symbols of national pride or observance and then, in recent times, the practice was taken on by radically racist elements, the "meaning" behind a person´s decision to wear the emblem can give rise to questions of that persons intended "statement." That´s the nasty thing about not caring about PC just as much as it usually falls into a degree of ridiculousness, the amount of time and illogic spent on PC. And that´s the thing about the politics of hatred and race prejudice. As it is a given that a politcs of hatred is wrong, those who advocate a form of it always will try to align its imagery with something which is supposed to be emblematic of an idea that is wholly legitimate such as simple "English pride." Perhaps a more obviously a "charged" PC issue in the US pertains to the "official" flying of the old Stars and Bars of the Confederacy at government buildings and whether that is an appropriate message by imagery to impart to the public.
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interesting comparison! the Cross of St George has indeed been appropriated by racist groups for their own purposes. There is even an organisation of that name which co-ordinates extreme right-wing activity in the UK and has links with neo-Nazis and the ultra-Right in Europe and the US, and was responsible for at least some of the street violence that accompanied the murder of Sarah Payne a few years ago (Sarah Payne was a little girl brutally murdered by a freed paedophile - however in the newspaper and tv inspired public withch hunt that followed, hospital paediatricians and single middle-aged and elderly men found themselves being attacked without provocation by ignorant mobs) However, this is a modern phenonemon. Before the War, ultra-rightists were often at pains to distinguish themselves from association with St George imagery, and the inspirational myth of St George was called upon frequently during the War against Hitler. St George´s Day was until relatively recent times a national holiday and was accompanied with festivals and fairs. It´s therefore very sad to see this traditionally English element of our culture, as distinct from British, be thus misused and almost as sad to see it becoming <i>anathema </i> as a result of its misuse. the Confederate flag is a different matter. it is intimately associated with a political and social culture that enshrined slavery as a central tenet and maintains a <i>revanche </i> influence via symbolism and association to this day that still holds back social and political development in those regions. Now its possible that I´m wrong, and if so I apologise in advance to anyone who I might offend with my next statement, but it seems to me that most of the people who take such pride in being sons or daughters of the Confederacy and display the flag with pride, or in secret, are in sympathy with and wholeheartedly support that history and symbolism and in many ways continue the pro-segregation/anti-integration attitudes that have remained in the South since the Civil War. it´s not an innocent symbol that got misused, it is by its very nature loaded with symbolism and a wounded perception of *national* pride.
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<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> but it seems to me that most of the people who take such pride in being sons or daughters of the Confederacy and display the flag with pride, or in secret, are in sympathy with and wholeheartedly support that history and symbolism and in many ways continue the pro-segregation/anti-integration attitudes that have remained in the South since the Civil War. it´s not an innocent symbol that got misused, it is by its very nature loaded with symbolism and a wounded perception of *national* pride. <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Those who feel that they have legitimate justification in favor of honoring the Confederacy will point out that the War was not about race or slavery but about "States´ rights." For the beginning two thirds of the Civil War, indeed until the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln himself referred to the War as a matter of preserving the Union. And so there are those who are comfortable with the notion that race and slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. I, of course, do not belong to this school but the fact of the matter is that it is a popular "explanation" for what happened and, depending on the political trends of the day, it gains currency or recedes among the history minded communities here.
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You are right. This is often a statement like "I am a redneck and pruod of it". On the other hand I think many of those Confederalists want to make a statement "Against Washington" or "Against Administration" or the like than "For Slavery".
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<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> I think many of those Confederalists want to make a statement "Against Washington" or "Against Administration" or the like than "For Slavery". <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Yes and no. Certainly, there are many who would point to the theme of "States´ Rights" as being exactly as you say. The irony in this, if one follows American politics, is that it is the Party of Lincoln, the Republican Party, which advocates what in the modern day would equate to the "States´ rights" of yore. That being the case, one need not in the modern day, point to the Confederacy as means of attacking big government in Washington DC. Rather, they merely need to vote for Republicans when federal offices are being contested, so to speak <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>. And this is why I do not agree with that school of historical interpretation about the Civil War. The fact of the insitution of slavery existing in the exact same states that fought for "States rights" in the Civil War inextricably cements the fact that the "right" which the Confederate states were fighting for, was to be able to perpetuate the institution or at the least decide for themselves whether slavery was wrong and should be abolished. So that as the US expanded westwards, slavery could be exported into the new territories and the slave holder property rights of southern "owners" must be legally enforced in the non-slave states, etc. Indeed many of the most important "political moments" in Washington DC in the 19th Century decades leading up to the Civil War were motivated by slavery (i.e. "The Missouri Compromise" ). <Edit> Corrected misidentified historical compromise legislation. Edited by - Indy11 on 10/5/2005 1:22:23 PM
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Slavery, was what the media ran with and it stayed in the forefront of attention. But in truth it was a minor issue due to people in the north having slaves as well. There is a lot more depth to that war that is not put in school history books. Those that lived in the south, wether slave owners or not, and not all could even afford to own slaves, wanted thier life style, not what the north wanted. There is record of some southern families that were themselves devided over the issue. To want to keep memory of your heratige, is not a problem. People here still do that of a country they came from, even though they are several generations removed from that time frame.
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The individual flags still represent the individual countries of the UK (did the confederate flag represent a country/nation? - my US history is rusty) its just that the reason they aren´t seen as often is because we are "one nation" - we are the United Kingdom. We aren´t England in the EU, its the UK. We aren´t England at war, its the UK. We aren´t England at a summit - its the UK. So at every major function, whether it be Blair or the Queen, they represent the United Kingdom - never just England. Only in sport do you see the St George, simply because its England. Same for Scotland and Wales. Unfortunately, it means that the flags are seen whenever there is trouble for each national team... which links the flag to "trouble". It would be like each state of the US has its own flag, but you aren´t allowed to display it because its potentially "racist". To make it even more stupid, researchers (for the news) asked ethnic minorities if they found the flag offensive. They found it offensive that people thought they would find it offensive - that is what makes it so flippin stupid. I think that is actually what gets my goat - it has been said many times that people aren´t offended by the St Georges flag, seeing it doesn´t make them feel threatened or that the person/business displaying it is making a racial statement - yet it continues to be banned for that reason! Regardless of what the very ethnic groups whom its supposed to offend are saying, it is being banned simply for "PC" reasons - which don´t exist. It´s madness! Edited by - Mike G on 10/5/2005 10:00:21 AM