Sally wrote:I still wonder if it is a small minority who can do substantial harm to the law-abiding majority.
Isn't that always the case?
Absolutely. They're called psychopaths , constitute 2 to 3% of the general population and 25-30% of the prison population. Its the stupid, antisocial and/or violent psychopaths who end up in prison. The clever ones might be found as captains of industry, religious leaders, Fuhrers, Presidents and Prime Ministers. The damage they do to societies is immense.
Like the poor, psychopaths are with us always, and are untreatable, irredeemable. Due to their emotional deficiency psychopaths cannot empathize, and as a result have no conscience. They know 'right' from 'wrong' intellectually but cannot feel it instinctively like ordinary people. To them it's like the difference between 'red' and 'blue' as understood by somebody blind from birth. Whatever they do is motivated purely by self interest. 'Morality' to a psychopath is just a word game useful to manipulate others. Nothing they do has any emotional impact on them. What emotional responses they do show are often simulated to provoke a desired effect.
All you can do with a psychopath is shoot him or lock him up. The Eskimos used to push theirs off the ice pack into the sea.
J. R. Ewing wrote:I've been working with Flood victims from the what appears to be the forgotten floods that happend in South Yorkshire and Humberside who quite a few experienced looting.
JR I'm sorry to hear of this. I genuinely believed that a disaster would bring out the best in most. I still wonder if it is a small minority who can do substantial harm to the law-abiding majority.
Surely you have come across some heartening stories as well? (Please tell me you have!)
Yeah I suppose I'm being too harsh. What I will say that I found encouraging was how some of these people who'd been made homeless were welcomed to live with family and friends while their houses were being made liveable.
But the looting for me is pure sick, it's like the kick in the teeth. These kind of opportunists should be dealt with severly IMO.
Andy Hunt wrote:In New Orleans the police were shooting looters - it was widely condemned at the time because 'these poor people were only looking for food'.
I wonder how any one of us would feel if confronted with someone looting our own home for whatever they could find?
Katrina - There is a big difference between being confronted by a looter and returning to a house you abandoned.
If you get out of a disaster area with a whole skin, then you can't criticise those left behind.
Remember the reports from the football stadium? If that was the official help on offer, breaking into an abandoned shop whose contents will have been written off isn't so much looting as self-preservation.
It's an interesting (if that's the word) subject . . . I was wondering the other day whether the advent of cheap goods from China had served to reduce the crime rate in the UK.
The time was that smackheads and the like would break into your house and steal expensive hi-fi and video gear which they could sell down the pub. These days the stuff is so cheap that it would probably fetch next to nothing secondhand, thus removing a lot of the incentive for burglary.
If this is true, then PO will probably result in a higher incidence of burglary as certain goods fetch a higher and higher price on the black market.
Paradoxically, it will probably be the most energy intensive goods which are worth the least secondhand. Things like hand tools might be the goods which are most prized.
redlantern wrote:I would envisage people not wanting to ever leave a house empty, both for maintaining fuel and water continuity and because of burglary.
Round parts of Ireland there are farmhouses that have never been left unattended. Okay perhaps this is a memory of a discussion that I overheard while a child so the information could be dated - but some communities change slowly and I would not be surprised if this were still true.
Sally wrote:Round parts of Ireland there are farmhouses that have never been left unattended. Okay perhaps this is a memory of a discussion that I overheard while a child so the information could be dated - but some communities change slowly and I would not be surprised if this were still true.
I can believe it. In Portugal, the people live in villages, and go out in the day to work on their fields, sometimes 3 or 4km away. The idea of an isolated farmhouse fills them with concern. "What if something happens?" is the question. They think living out of shouting distance of the neighbours is a strange thing to do.
Andy Hunt wrote:In New Orleans the police were shooting looters - it was widely condemned at the time because 'these poor people were only looking for food'.
I wonder how any one of us would feel if confronted with someone looting our own home for whatever they could find?
The situation around my area wasn't like that at all. Looting for peoples property and looting (if you can call it that) for food are two entire deiffernt situations. The scum I speak off were purely and simply after valuables. The police and authourities should be condemned for such behaviour as this New Orleans situation
redlantern wrote:I would envisage people not wanting to ever leave a house empty, both for maintaining fuel and water continuity and because of burglary.
Round parts of Ireland there are farmhouses that have never been left unattended. Okay perhaps this is a memory of a discussion that I overheard while a child so the information could be dated - but some communities change slowly and I would not be surprised if this were still true.
I had family in NI.
They would never leave their house empty ... the Troubles resulted in houses being burned and a sort of ethnic cleansing.
Many people became homeless.
Squatters would take over your house if you left it empty.
(My relatives also wouldn't open the front door unless someone was sitting on the stairs with a shotgun pointed at the door ... )
They would never leave their house empty ... the Troubles resulted in houses being burned and a sort of ethnic cleansing.
Many people became homeless.
Squatters would take over your house if you left it empty.
(My relatives also wouldn't open the front door unless someone was sitting on the stairs with a shotgun pointed at the door ... )
OOoo Errrrr....
I'm a country gal.... it was NEVER like that for me. PHEW!
I guess I've led a sheltered life!
The houses I was talking about were isolated farm houses. Often it was 'granny' left by the fire in her rocking chair as the sole attendee. I got the impression that older farming families in the south were similar.
redlantern wrote:I would envisage people not wanting to ever leave a house empty, both for maintaining fuel and water continuity and because of burglary.
Round parts of Ireland there are farmhouses that have never been left unattended. Okay perhaps this is a memory of a discussion that I overheard while a child so the information could be dated - but some communities change slowly and I would not be surprised if this were still true.
I had family in NI.
They would never leave their house empty ... the Troubles resulted in houses being burned and a sort of ethnic cleansing.
Many people became homeless.
Squatters would take over your house if you left it empty.
(My relatives also wouldn't open the front door unless someone was sitting on the stairs with a shotgun pointed at the door ... )
Doesn't sound like the Northern Ireland I know then again I have only lived here for nearly 40 years
Doesn't sound like the Northern Ireland I know then again I have only lived here for nearly 40 years
Oh well, I must have made it up then ...
On 22 May 1992, The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was asked in the House of Commons to give a report on the number of squats in the province. The answer was 555, including 244 in Belfast. In 1971-72, the sectarian fighting in parts of NI led to widespread homelessness and population movement. In January 1977, there were 6,168 squats in property belonging to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Adding estimates for private property, the number of squatters reached its peak around the same time at 30,000]. However then, as now, housing was strictly controlled by our "community defence organisations"
There may be few squatters now ... BUT ... there were 30,000 in 1977. It was a serious problem ... would YOU have left YOUR house empty in such an environment?
As for doorstep killings, I couldn't find a neat summary .. but they did (do?) happen, as Google will show.
