tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post406505484305760017..comments2023-10-24T17:21:16.565+02:00Comments on Sounds in the Hickory Wind: Are The Cracks Getting Bigger?The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-36239005403060254172010-01-23T11:17:16.262+01:002010-01-23T11:17:16.262+01:00I should have dug a little deeper into the childre...I should have dug a little deeper into the children's background. I assumed from the anonymity order that nothing was known, but clearer a great deal has come out and it is as I expected. Children who have something to lose and some concept of their own future simply do not behave like that.<br /><br />It was the phrase 'broken society' that caught my attention, since, despite the total failure of rather too many elements of that society, the idea that society as a whole is broken, or is somehow more damaged than at some point in the past, is surely false, and therefore not a good premise to build policy on. That's why I was concerned about repressive laws, which are not typically Conservative. Your putting it in the context of Conservative nostalgia suddenly makes it all clear. It is just rhetoric. I too, hope that Cameron will be a genuine Conservative Prime Minister and will reduce the state and understand and respect personal freedom, although I wonder if British politics has not been irredeemibly poisoned by the last too PM's. We shall have to wait and see. There is certainly no one else who can be expected to do it.<br /><br />Reading about the discovery of the attack, how the victims were found and treated, and the immediate aftermath, I get the impression that Edlington is very far from being a broken society; it seems to function well, people knowing and helping each other.<br /><br />Although it may be possible to identify and try to alter the family environments which are always present in such cases, it is much harder to know what to do. Here in Spain there has been for some years great concern about the number of men who murder their wives/girlfriends. Each case is dealt with in great detail by the media and the politicians and laws are passed and nothing changes, because the real purpose of the law seems to be to get the rest of us to recognise that domestic violence is a bad thing, which I think we already knew. But the people at whom the message should be directed aren't listening, and anyway it's the wrong message. Men who kill their wives don't do it because they don't know it's wrong, but in spite of knowing it.<br /><br />It isn't the same case, of course, but it shows what happens when you try to solve the wrong problem.<br /><br />Yes, I do have a vote (if I remember to do the paperwork) and I shall not be voting for Brown/Mandelson/Milliband. They have done quite enough damage.The Hickory Windhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-61362014615001426492010-01-23T10:23:12.530+01:002010-01-23T10:23:12.530+01:00You raise some important topics. Actually Radio 4 ...You raise some important topics. Actually Radio 4 has given enough detail about the attackers' families to say that there was plenty of brokenness in their upbringing. I think you would be able to find the information from the BBC site, but I have heard a criminologist and a former principal of a secure "home" for such children talk about it.<br /><br />Cameron's idea of the "broken society" is his chosen soundbite to remind people gently what British Conservatism is based on: nostalgia for a better past, whilst Labour is based on hopes for a better future.<br /><br />When Cameron speaks of the broken society he means to imply that it can be fixed. I think you have confused him with Gordon Brown when you suggest he may initiate some new repressive law.<br /><br />I agree with you that sometimes things just happen and that it cannot be blamed on anyone in particular. Yes, you can say that "people are bad" as if nothing can be done about that either. But in fact children who do these things <i>always</i> come from terrible backgrounds and can <i>sometimes</i> be helped to grow up and live a decent caring life thereafter. (source BBC again)<br /><br />I agree with you that the case in question is one of those very rare things that happens from time to time. However the details of the family's conduct might have sparked Cameron's heartfelt Jeremiad: the children given cannabis, allowed to watch violent films and pornography from videotapes left around the house. Other aspects, such as being frequent witnesses of their father's drunken violence, could have happened in any age - probably more in the past than now.<br /><br />It's true that not every child who has such a background becomes bad; but this doesn't diminish the possibility of redemption.<br /><br />Do you have a vote in the forthcoming General Election? We have to choose Cameron's party or the Broken party with the Broken leader.<br /><br />Cameron will, I hope, be a proper Conservative PM - <i>primus inter pares</i> - guided by traditional conservative principles, in which parental responsibility will be upheld and encouraged not undermined by the state. And in other ways I look to the new government to relinquish responsibility back to professionals - teachers, NHS staff and police - wherever possible. It will take time because initiatives to do the right thing for its own sake have been sapped by form-filling, target-driven motivations.<br /><br />And if Cameron's government fails to achieve it all, I hope it will have tried, and it won't change my view that it's what we need.Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com