h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sprout - thanks, can't argue with the facts. Perhaps they shpould carry out a cost / benefit analysis for every convicted offender

Who are they? The elves?

to paraphrase Bill Bailey...

Perhaps a link to another discussion forum? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F135418?thread=622094&latest=1 Perhaps...

Hi Sprout

I started this thread off because I sincerely feel our system of electing our representatives is flawed, it does not produce a government supported by the majority of those who actually vote.

I am impressed by the powerful action which caused the 2 upsets mentioned by other posters.

I regret bringing up the judiciary issue - it has been the subject of long POV threads, but since I am nearly 65 I can remeber times of much greater peace and less disorder and most certainly less antisocial behaviour than we see now.

If you don't want harsh sentences for some of our more pernicious youth, what about resurrecting conscription? That would get some of them off the streets - possibly into world travel ,to 'interesting'places like Iraq or Afghanistan - (tongue in cheek)

Novo

Conscription... Hmmm...

Teaching a 16yo how to shoot to kill and stab their enemy to death...

Tired old example but hey...

Novo,
IMHO we are reaping the harvest of a comparatively wealthy, consumer driven society where all know their rights and choose to ignore their responsiblities. Add to this the expertise of the advertising industry in raisng expectations and the tabloid press, which seems to be peculiar to Britain, who's only responsibility is to sales figures and you begin to see what is going wrong.

Nowhere is it more apparent than in schools where teachers are expected to pick up the debris from ignorant parents, too selfish or churlish to raise their offspring to be part of a civilised society.

Teachers are in the front line, along with the emergency services and casualty departments, in that their customers know all their rights, choose to ignore their responsibilities, but demand what they have been told are their rights, to have others compensate for their stupidity, to patch them up, or turn their little darlings out after seven years with 3 A grade A Levels and if they don't they'll be round to punch their lights out.

I'll get my coat

Education and the alleged fall in the standards of behaviour in youths and young adults is a classic example of the red herring of party politics.

Anyone who watched jamie Oliver take a solution for the p*ss poor quality of the food we serve children DIRECT to the schools, negating the party political system cannot help but have been shocked by the results of his experiment. In one term teachers were reporting better behaviour in schools, as were parents, and medical bills on such 'unrelated' illnesses as asthma plummetted.

Sure both main partiesd all ummed and arred about it and said what a jolly fine chap he was. Not one of them stood up and offered the really radical conclusion - that stopping feeding our kids sh*t in schools and spending a little more money dealing with the problems earlier might actually mean spending less down the line on law and order and health and who knows what else (as well as breaking the near-fatal stranglehold that supermarkets have on the British economy) as an alternative at the election. Not one of the b*gg*rs even offered to do further work and studies about it.

Too True Blue (shark)

For many a year (I remember a programme back in the early 1990s) I have seen issues and discussions about E-Numbers and their subsequent effects on hyperactive and Attention Defecit Disorder children/parents.

Culture of (inter-)dependency

Novo

The problem with national service and the like is twofold:

1) There aren't many military jobs that you can learn in a year or less any more.

2) For the majority of the people who had to go and do this, it was a total and utter waste of time. I lived in France for a couple of years, and French people my age were amongst the last generation that had to to do national service. They all hated it and viewed it as a year of their life down the pan.

sprout

Hi Sprout,

I understand that, but the kind of youth that I feel could be conscripted would be a benefit to us all, ( out of the way really ) and might benefit himself/herself in the end.

I do take the point that there are not many service jobs available, but I also feel sure we could recreate the Pioneer Corps. After all the troops on active service could do with a few trench diggers / loaders / carriers etc.

The point on people who did the national service and hated it is fair, but I am referring to people who already hate everything , and do their best to despoil what we hope to enjoy. Pointless and mindless vandalism etc

I sometimes feel that the increased liberalism we have seen over the years has created an environment of thought, where nothing is anyones fault, it is always due to something done or endured in their past.

The human race didn't progress this far by hanging labels round teenagers necks claiming a 'disorder' in order to cover up for it's inability to face up to what , in a minority of cases perhaps, is plain old fashioned loutishness .

I don't know the answer, I only know that the night time weekends are getting worse in our towns. and that most town streets are a wall of steel shutters after closing time.!

What's your solution?

Novo

Novo

I don't think putting people into an Army-styled regime is going to stop their violent and aggressive tendencies.

The reason that you have streets of boarded up windows and steel-covered shops is due to boredom.

I was never bored when I was little. I was always doing something. Now, because they don't have the time, parents are unable to spend adequate time with their children and thus prevent them from being unruly.

For some reason, it seems as though all parents who were born in the 1960s-70s have lost all reasoning when it comes to the basic fact that you have to look after your children, not let them "grow and nurture" in an all hippie-styled kibbutz (I exaggerate, unsurprisingly). Our culture is now one of letting parents 'get away' with being bad at teaching their children because of the support services that have been created. Social Security, schooling, health services, etc etc etc. have all been developed and modified to take away the responsibilities of parenting and the basic teaching right from wrong ethic.

I deal with complaints for a UK energy company. The times I've had customers ask me what to do because their heating will be out of action for an evening, that they have 3 kids under 5 years old and no way of keeping them warm. I shudder when I think of the woman who said "How can I look after my children now?".

Of course, for the teenagers who have their own kids, we're ending up with a perpetuation. Could this be the way of the future?

Afternnon Chubstar

I agree whole heartedly with you description, and your analysis. And perhaps you are right in saying that putting little thugs into the 'army' would not help.

But doing nothing except wringing our hands won't help either.

Like you I was NEVER bored as a child , and if I ever whispered that I didn't know what to do in the summer hols, my father quickly had me cleaning the family's shoes, or worse the hen-house!

I look around me now and I despair - but who seems to give a damn? Everyone sits on their hands or points somewhere else with one finger.

I have yet to come across someone who disagrees with what I try to put across - but with a constructive solution. Of course you are right in your assertion about where the origins of poor parenting may lie, but where is the leadership, or the ability to say "this is wrong", or heaven forbid "NO" to a stroppy child, going to come from?

regards
Novo

The following is expressed as opinion not fact.

I am absolutly convinced that in the history of mankind every adult generation has been concerned about "the youth of today". I think that every adult generation has looked back the the halcyon days of their youth spent perhaps being a little mischeivious but not as bad as thoses youngsters are now.

I note that my great granparents did it. My grand parents did it. My Folks do it. I have even heard people of my generation start to do it ("We would never have got away with that behavior at school").

Now it surely isn't the case that children behavior has been steadily declining for all time, rather that people forget the really bad stuff they did as kids and just remember it through rose tinted spectacles.

I ask you what were the summers like then? Hot sunny thoughout is probably the way you remember it. But if you check the meterological data you will find they were not that much different from today.

I think a lot of this is in people heads, certainly listening to my old man talk about what he and his mates got up to as teenagers certainly makes me think this.

I expect there have always been bad parents, perhaps even a majority of bad parents, and that its best if the state tries to cover for their mistakes.

I agree totally with the point that we look on our youth as something where we did "little things" and got away with being minxes, etc.

As a child who lived from 5 to 15 during the 1980s, I would disagree that "life was better" in the good old days. That's not my case at all.

My point is that the majority of parents seem to be helpless when it comes to looking after the interests of their own children. I just don't understand it.

I know of people at school who had underage sex, drank, smoked, did drugs and all at or around 13-15 years of age. Perhaps because I lived in a country area, I didn't get to see as much as the townsfolk.

I was going to write more but I realise I start to sound like my parents, except my parents never usually comment on these social issues.

It's like the perpetual feeling that education is dumbing down and that exams are easier. When I got my GCSEs in 1992, my A-Levels in 1996 and my degree in 2000, I was met with the ever-increasing ranting from "intellectuals" that my results were, in essence, useless because the tests were so easy. I worked my damndest to get my education and felt so angry that people were saying I was just a thicko with a piece of paper. Perhaps I am.

My point, essentially, was to apportion responsibility to the parents. Now more than ever, it's the parents who are responsible for their children. I am happy to say that it is those 25+ who are doing really rather well with their parenting (IMHO) and those under it who, by and large, appear not to be.

Sweeping statements aside, I think that our future will be a blame culture. I think, to be honest, it started when Thatcher left. And thank God she did, but still...

"
For many a year (I remember a programme back in the early 1990s) I have seen issues and discussions about E-Numbers and their subsequent effects on hyperactive and Attention Defecit Disorder children/parents."

Part of the problem is telling parents that they're kids have ADD or are hyperactive and allowing them to think their horrible offspring simply have an illness that they can do nothing about when in fact it's filling them full of junk food, E numbers and sugar that is causing the aforementioned horribleness.

I'd never have thought it a few months ago, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the dreadful diet the British live off is largely responsible for why so many of us are so utterly foul/thick/delinquent.

The current system has flaus and drawbakcs, whatever ssystem it might be replaced with would also have drawbacks and flaus, and whatever system it is not everonne would be happy. As much as I used to firmly believe we should go down PR route, I ain't quite so sure now.... Another example BTW, of local issues at the elction was in Cambridge; I think one of the biggest swings (that never got a mention on any of the coverage I'v heard of the election), 18.9 % (this is from memory don't shoot me if I'm out), From Labour to Lib Dem, on teh basis that the Labour MP Anne Camble lied over her intention not to support the war, and not to support tuition fees (and then went and voted and supported both in teh House) Perhaps some form of PR, with some form of First past hte post would work? a kind of mixed version of both? Hmm, I remember a while ago it beign suggested that the house of lords could be an elected house through PR, whilst the other place remined first past the post... I'm just not sure in practise how it'd go....

Blues - "I must say I find it mildly ironic that McKay is complaining about people returning a corpulaent and possibly corrupt Labour MP whereas both myself and SLG are moaning about the return of a corpulaent and possibly corrupt Tory MP in our constituency."

I find it sad, rather than ironic. Possibly, despite all experience to the contrary, we are too idealistic.

2Legs - "Hmm, I remember a while ago it beign suggested that the house of lords could be an elected house through PR, whilst the other place remined first past the post." - I recall that post as well, and it seemed a good idea to me - that won't happen then.

Found it - "It's the German system. You have two votes: one for the MP and one for the party. MP's are voted in on a first-past-the-post basis. Then the party votes are counted. If, at the end of the day, a party is under-represented in parliament comapred to the number of MP's it has, additional members are added from a party list until the party is properly represented.
There is also the 5% rule: you don't get *any* members added until you exceed 5% of the total vote. This prevents small parties from tipping the balance of power (such as the Nazis did initially)."

Please don't ask me to explain - FM's your man for that.

A former teacher of mine expounded the theory to me that Chernobyl was to blame.

He contended that the radioactive cloud that swept around the world after the explosion, affected cows and the milk they produced. This radiation, he argued, entered the food chain and affected adversely the growth of children, producing in later years, a single band of pupils across a few school years whose behaviour he noted was significantly dissruptive.


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>>It's like the perpetual feeling that education is dumbing down and that exams are easier. When I got my GCSEs in 1992, my A-Levels in 1996 and my degree in 2000, I was met with the ever-increasing ranting from "intellectuals" that my results were, in essence, useless because the tests were so easy. I worked my damndest to get my education and felt so angry that people were saying I was just a thicko with a piece of paper. Perhaps I am.<<

Oh I agree. That makes me wild.