Risso Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 That would be an example It's also an example of the ignorance and lack of understanding I mentioned before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 It's also an example of the ignorance and lack of understanding I mentioned before. Because... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Your raking over old ground but I'll bite. You make it sound as though Prescott just attacked someone physically for no reason. When the fact is he had an egg thrown at him from a couple of feet. As said previously his reaction was self defence and a natural one and a reaction many of us would certainly have in the same situation. Mitchells verbal attack on a Police Officer was unprovoked on someone there to protect him and his colleagues and one that the vast majority of us thankfully wouldn't align ourselves with or find a natural reaction given the circumstances around his verbal assault. Mitchells was far worse than some guy defending himself from an unprovoked physical attack. I was trying not to rake over anything and thus why i ended with my" old ground" comment so it most certainly wasn't after a case of getting anyone "biting " however as you've taken the trouble to reply , I'll say it again At the time of Plebgate I asked how the two cases differed and then my curiosity was piqued that I couldn't 't find anyone from the "left" side to condemn Prescott's action whilst Mitchell "actions " were being condemned at a time when there was nothing more than the word of a policeman , who in any other VT thread are lying corrupt bullies , but just happened to be pillars of society in this instance ... I'll accept that self defence may be valid ( I've never suggest Prescott attacked someone without reason ) however I certainly don't teach my children that violence is the answer , and my other argument has been whatever the justification a deputy leader of a country should not be street brawling , I wouldn't care what party they were from , someone in a position of high office should not act in that way ( nor should they fiddle their expenses , take backhanders on deals etc etc ) At the time all I got was the usual cry of "deflection" but the point I was looking at (which I've raised previously) is that in a lot of instances it doesn't appear to be the "crime" but the person carrying out the "crime" that is the issue ... I even wonder had Plebgate been Boris would it have escalated the way it did , for example ? your view has been consistent and fair enough , we can differ in that regard I wasn't trying to go over old ground so I'm happy to move it on if people feel this horse has been flogged to death Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 I'm looking forward to Prime Minister's Questions tomorrow Looks like Ken Clarke was looking forward to it, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Coincidence that Cameron happened to be away or was the Middle East trip booked ages ago ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 I'll accept that self defence may be valid ( I've never suggest Prescott attacked someone without reason ) however I certainly don't teach my children that violence is the answer , As the father of two daughters I certainly wouldn't teach them that violence is the answer either. However for me personally if I go out of my office today and walk past some pratt who throws an egg at me I'm not going to stand there and ask him why I'm going to defend myslef and ensure the fool can't continue his physical unprovoked attack. I think thats what most men would naturally do and its what Prescott did. If you are confident that your reaction would be different then fine. Out of interest what do you think your reaction would be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 As the father of two daughters I certainly wouldn't teach them that violence is the answer either. However for me personally if I go out of my office today and walk past some pratt who throws an egg at me I'm not going to stand there and ask him why I'm going to defend myslef and ensure the fool can't continue his physical unprovoked attack. I think thats what most men would naturally do and its what Prescott did. If you are confident that your reaction would be different then fine. Out of interest what do you think your reaction would be? hard to say , I'm naturally of a mild disposition but I'm fairly sure I wouldn't run away down the street crying for a policeman but I'm also fairly confident I wouldn't punch them either , I do know from my time playing football that I never retaliated to some tackles that were frankly tantamount to assault at times, interestingly the only time I ever seemed to get riled was when the macho thug from the opposition team would always target the littlest guy in our team !! I guess it's like a point I raised before over protecting your property in another thread , it's all very well to say if someone breaks into my house I'm going to attack him , hit him with my strategically placed baseball bat etc .. but what happens if the bloke happens to be stronger or even armed with a knife say ... it means that when you attack him you have to be confident that he isn't getting up again and I don't believe that the vast majority of people have that streak in them .. so in extreme cases you could go from losing your TV to losing your life .. The person that burgled our office once kicked in the door and left a footprint that made Bigfoot look like a midget , I'm not suggesting you hide under the bed and send your wife downstairs to tackle him but the element of I'll defend my property may not have been thought through so I guess in a long winded way what I'm saying is I still don't know , but i suspect subconsciously I would very quickly calculate the risks and the what ifs and decide that it's just not worth the hassle ..however I suspect if someone egged my wife or family member my reaction would be less calculated and more spontaneous I'm not in public office however Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 I'm not in public office however As we saw with Mitchell though, and the way he spoke down to the Police officer, being a Politician doesn't stop you instinctively acting in a way that is naturally ingrained in you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 I'm not convinced that selling arms to the ever growing totalitarian bloc in the middle east is a wise military strategy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 I'm not convinced that selling arms to the ever growing totalitarian bloc in the middle east is a wise military strategy. nah it's ok We don't sell arms to the bad guys , they just go from good to bad at some point after Interestingly I stumbled across a web site yesterday that suggested years back the Saudi's threatened to let loose a terrorist wing on the UK , if Blair blocked the BAE deal with the Saudi government ... Could be another internet nut-job theory but the content of the website was rather interesting , spoke about more acknowledged issues as well as the speculation ones I'll link to it as I found it an interesting read , probably not the right thread to discuss it in though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ads Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 The Saudis barely have any loons left. They were one of the big winners our of the Iraq War. Sheppard your Whabbist, anti-American nutters in the direction of the coalition war machine, never to be seen again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 I'm not convinced that selling arms to the ever growing totalitarian bloc in the middle east is a wise military strategy. Of course it is, they are our Dictators! On a serious note the countries around these parts are literally bricking it about Iranian ambitions in the region. If it does all go pear shaped in the end surely it's better to have their pilots flying our kit to fight the Persian hordes than our pilots doing the job instead? Plus we'll make a shit load of money into the bargain. Proxies FTW. EDIT: It's not a growing block, these countries are simply not acquainted with democracy. The culture is tribal above all else and introducing full democracy in many of these places is a recipe for disaster. It took us over 250 years to go from rule by divine right to universal suffrage. These guys are not simply going to become clones of Norway et al. overnight if the opportunity to do so is presented. It's hard to overstate the political immaturity (in a western democratic sense) of the average Arab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 I was thinking more in lines of an eastern-bloc type situation with hardline-islam taking control of the region as a whole a la communism. It seems a possibility judging by the new Egyptian constitution taking its lead from Shariah law, as did Tunisia IIRC. They certainly won't be democratic and the implications on the secular middle-classes/women and coptic christians in the region look grim. The whole area is in the grip of a popular protest (that Saudi/Jordan/UAE are doing their best to suppress) and I'm sure if those monarchies do fall then the brotherhood will step in, being as organised as they are. Admittedly the area is divided by a rather deep sectarian rift and they'll likely blow eachother up before setting sights on central africa (although some countries e.g somalia are already in the grip) and causing a **** of tribal warfare. I can understand the 'get what we can before it goes to shit' approach, but it is short term and a bit of a gamble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Swearing at someone is worse than punching them? **** hell. I do wonder what people would be saying if things were reversed. No doubt punching would be seen as much worse in that case. Not that I don't think Prescott's reaction wasn't a natural one by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Swearing at someone is worse than punching them? **** hell. I do wonder what people would be saying if things were reversed. No doubt punching would be seen as much worse in that case. Not that I don't think Prescott's reaction wasn't a natural one by the way. What a superlative false comparison. It's a stunner. You compare an incident of someone finding themselves being physically assaulted, with someone annoyed because they were asked to use one gate rather than the one next to it, then conclude that judgements about the reactions of the two people mean that verbal abuse is thought to be worse than physical assault. Obviously, judgements about comparing verbal and physical reactions would only hold if the situations were remotely comparable. Other than both involving politicians, of course they aren't. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Prescott ... the gift that just keeps on giving One could argue of course that they are comparable as they both involve the behaviour of someone in public office and inappropriate behaviour ... which all those dozens of pages ago was the issue I raised that you still seem to not want to compare the two is only really reaffirming my view of the Who not the What , IMO of course one can of course be verbally abused and it shouldn't be made light of but personally I'd rather take some one swearing at me then smacking me around the chops Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Prescott ... the gift that just keeps on giving One could argue of course that they are comparable as they both involve the behaviour of someone in public office and inappropriate behaviour ... which all those dozens of pages ago was the issue I raised that you still seem to not want to compare the two is only really reaffirming my view of the Who not the What , IMO of course one can of course be verbally abused and it shouldn't be made light of but personally I'd rather take some one swearing at me then smacking me around the chops They are wholly different incidents! One involving being physically assaulted, one being trivially inconvenienced. Do you really not see that comparing the reaction of the two people is completely misplaced? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Prescott's reaction is more understandable but that doesn't make it less worse than swearing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 They are wholly different incidents! One involving being physically assaulted, one being trivially inconvenienced. Do you really not see that comparing the reaction of the two people is completely misplaced? Do you really not see that isn't the point I raised (though possibly over time it has become derailed into something other than that ) some of the recent discussion on this over the last few pages has been quite interesting , it doesn't appear to be any more as we are just going around in circles .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted November 7, 2012 Author Moderator Share Posted November 7, 2012 Prescott's reaction is more understandable but that doesn't make it less worse than swearing. Actually its fairly easy to argue that it does. If a reaction to an incident is more understandable that another reaction to a different situation, then the sympathy both logically and emotionally is with the more understandable reaction. People can understand Prescot's reaction to physical provocation, people can't understand Mitchell's reaction to being asked to follow the current security regime. That in itself makes Mitchell's "crime" worse because to understand is to sympathise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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