Message #3075

[EliB]

What I mean is what I say: It does diminish me to use terms of abuse for others.  End of.  Abuse is abuse whether it's done by a righteous person or a bad person. Isn't it? Name calling reflects on the speaker not the criminal - and keeps the bitterness and bad feeling alive in the heart of the speaker and of what use is that?  It's the message of the Gospel to look at our own hearts isn't it?     It doesn't in any way condone criminal and offensive behaviour but it at least clears the decks towards a way of thinking about how to deal with the threat or aftermath of violence or crime with a level head.

It's not good to hear you say that what I really mean is something other than I say.  That doesn't make sense to me.  I say what I say in good faith.   I don't say one thing and mean another, I really don't.  In any case, as you say yourself, that you think what I really mean is that we shouldn't be so judgemental, that in a way follows directly from the first part of the above.  The reason for not being judgemental is that it prevents us from seeing the situation critically. It brings in emotional reasoning.  Judgmentalism clouds the issue.  It gets us nowhere. 

JJ, I'm really sorry if I offended you in appearing as though I was changing or trying to tell you what you "really" meant! What I was trying to do was clarify in MY head what you were saying...and I did that in a cac-handed way - I apologise!

"These people" were acting like human beings, by definition, because they are human beings.  Human beings behave in all sorts of ways for various reasons.  So it seems about time to accept this and see how it can be dealt with for the benefit of society, all of society, not just the people who have the brains and education and good fortune to be self aware and self reliant.

I get that "these people" were behaving like human beings just by dint of them BEING human....but it's not enough to say they were acting like that for "various reasons"....WHY oh WHY since all this rioting broke out having there been endless people trying to JUSTIFY why they were acting as though we lived in a totally lawless country! It MIGHT to have been to try and find a way of preventing this from ever happening again - but it APPEARED to be an endless queue of people trying to make excuses for the poor wee souls!

Personally, I'm quite ok about my calling them "scum" because IMO that's what they are! I don't feel it dimishes me to call them that. I know how I behave towards others and I'm happy with that! Brains, education and good fortune don't come into this. There were plenty of folk falling into each of these categories appearing in court on various charges connected to the riots! It's basic right from wrong and basic human respect for people who HAVE earned it, by being decent law-abiding citizens of this country! And these people were out to destroy them (and succeeded in various cases!).....for NO reason....in my book, that makes them "scum"!!