General Discussions

[ElwoodBlues1]

Trying to ignite another round of "I'm tougher on crime than you are" isn't conducive to good public policy. And trying to re-ignite the African gangs campaign is certainly not in the public interest.

Trying to tie the can around the necks of an identifiable segment of the population is guaranteed to cause "unintended" harm to that segment of the population. We've seen that over in the US. Trump blamed the Chinese for Covid and Tucker Carlson and the other Fox News arseholes tried to weaponise the replacement theory: that non-whites were trying to boost their numbers in the US so they could take over from real Americans (i.e. white guys).

But credit where it's due. A lot of seriously dangerous people had some heat put on them. An 84 year old Thai-American was slammed to the ground and killed. An elderly Asian woman was punched repeatedly. The Buffalo shooter published a manifesto parroting the great replacement theory before gunning down 10 Black Americans at a supermarket. Who knows what havoc those killings prevented ...

One election later, the lessons from Melbourne’s ‘African gang’ panic, The Age, 23/11/21.
I hope the racist arseholes are torn a new one this election as well.

Doesnt matter what colour you are, you cant go around breaking into peoples home, terrorising them and then expecting to get off because you are under age and using your racial background as an excuse for a free pass.
These kids will be badly hurt one day even fatally, they will pick the wrong house, with the wrong people who will fight back and it will be like South Africa or America and we dont want Australia descending into that type of society.
Gangs of any variety attacking people anywhere need stopping now and harsh deterrents applied..

[Mav]

Who says they should get a free pass? Anyone doing run throughs should be arrested & dealt with by the courts. And it doesn't matter what colour a kid's skin might be: if they're in the Children's Court, age does matter. Unless you want to carve out an exception for kids who are black. Of course, white kids have just gone off the tracks and need to be rehabilitated. They go to good schools and have great prospects. Ask any teacher from a private school about that.

Wonder if those white kids from private schools who do stupid crap together are in gangs. I'm only joking. Of course white kids aren't in gangs.

But there has to be a scalpel-like solution. Don't tar all African kids as gang members. That sort of crap sticks. And if you've read the article, that crap doesn't just stick to the innocent kids, it also sticks to innocent adults.

[LP]

[member=57]ElwoodBlues1[/member]‍ wrote it "Doesn't matter what colour you are!", his opening statement above in discussing crime.

All the identity stuff being attached to this debate is coming from you [member=122]Mav[/member], you initiate all the labels!

[Mav]

WTF? His opening sentence was in response to the article I posted which dealt with the African gangs scare. And if you don't think our lovely Bec was regarded by many as blaming African gangs, then I've got some swampland I want to sell you. But it was no doubt a wonderful attempt at setting racial identity aside by EB. Pity it was followed up by a statement that being under age and using your racial background can't be an excuse for a free pass. I'm guessing that means he was saying white kids shouldn't use their whiteness as an excuse, or was it a reference to black kids? Oh no, it looks as though there's some identity stuff rearing it's head there. And it all started out so promisingly.

[Gointocarlton]

I don't watch that show but what would it mean if I did?

Not a fan but I've watched Gogglebox a couple of times, one of the blokes on it is a bluebagger, a pretty cunny funt. Sits there with the Mrs drinking beer out of his Carlton stubby holder. Ive been told he was an extremely handy surburban footballer in his day.

[LP]

WTF? His opening sentence was in response to the article I posted which dealt with the African gangs scare.

That's exactly correct, we were all having a discussion about crime and politics and you introduced race.

[Thryleon]

Not a fan but I've watched Gogglebox a couple of times, one of the blokes on it is a bluebagger, a pretty cunny funt. Sits there with the Mrs drinking beer out of his Carlton stubby holder. Ive been told he was an extremely handy surburban footballer in his day.

He's the billy brownless look alike thats always barefoot yeah?

[LP]

I'm not sure what to make of the Depp / Heard case.

Heard is painting it as further evidence for the oppression of women by a misogynist society.

“I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence and sway of my ex-husband,” she said.

“I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women ... I believe Johnny’s attorney succeeded in getting the jury to overlook the key issue of freedom of speech and ignore evidence that was so conclusive that we won in the UK.

But in fairness to Depp, it could easily be that a court has ignored hearsay and looked for genuine evidence find nothing at all conclusive. What Heard describes above as "evidence" were mostly 1st person reports unsupported by any conclusive evidence, there were even some questions over the validity of the physical evidence with one 1st hand report claiming that some of the bruises widely published on the internet did not quite look right, in real life more like makeup than a bruise. Did Heard try to use "looking" as a form of evidence? This would be ironic given how many women now rally online against the practise of judging people by their looks!

Or has Depp's legal team succeeded in the practise of victim blaming.

Heard seems more concerned about her right to to say and do whatever she likes, perhaps for significant profit, rather than being proven a victim of domestic violence.

[Lods]

The bizarre thing about this is that, just on the surface, most of the elation at the decision and support for Depp seems to be coming from women. ???

(Maybe not so bizarre)

My female facebook friends are all over it. ;D
On TV, the cheering outside the court is predominantly female.

The blokes couldn't give a stuff.

[LP]

Interesting, my wife falls on Depp's side of the debate as well, she seemed to think Heard was stacking it on, it seems to be a view shared by a lot of women.

But it's a very subjective measure, all emotion, empathy and body language based, which I do my best to avoid. My wife seems to think that aspect of Heard's claims are a bit of a tell, too much "feel sorry for me" and not enough "here is what happened" maybe?