Consequences
Posted on Wednesday, March 22, 2006This baffles me. When exactly did somebody disconnect consequences from actions? When did it become possible to do whatever you want, no matter how bad or how stupid? When did it become impossible to totally screw up because no matter how much of a shit you make of things, some government agency will step in and make it all right for you? Or, to put it more plainly, when did our community start to fall apart?
I always admired the generosity we showed towards people in trouble. I thought it was right to look after the weak and the vulnerable amongst us and I still think so, but I didn’t think the obligation extended to looking after the strong and aggressive as well. This is the hard bit I don’t understand: if a person does not subscribe to the basic values of our society, is that person entitled to the same privileges as those who do?
Here’s something I found in the Clare Champion. See what you make of it.
A study funded by the Mid-Western Health Board identified 43 young people in Kilrush- 24 males and 19 females - as being “at risk”. It seems that “the primary at risk behaviour was criminal activity, specifically high levels of intimidation and personal violence. This intimidation, said to be undertaken by a small core group of adolescent males, was directed at all members of the community and ranged from breaking windows, to breaking into houses and stealing and burning out cars. Personal violence was reported as indiscriminate.”
Let’s pause here and take time to read that again. The at risk behaviour was criminal activity, from breaking windows, to breaking into houses and stealing and burning out cars. High levels of intimidation and indiscriminate personal violence.
Maybe I’m being extremely stupid, but who exactly is at risk here? Apparently it’s not the people whose cars are being stolen and burnt out. And it’s not the people suffering the indiscriminate violence, or the break-ins. No. It seems that those at risk are the fucking skobes at risk of getting caught.
What kind of mind-set is at work in this? How can anybody use the term “at risk” to describe the arrogant drunken fuckers who wander around by night (and by day), taking what they want and breaking what they don’t like. This study was funded by the Health Board, but did anyone in the Health Board look at the results and apply rational common sense to what was being said? Perhaps they did and perhaps I’m being unfair to everybody, but I wonder if a similar study was conducted to see how the victims of the violence are getting on. I wonder when a Health Board will quantify the other at risk people. The old people who are afraid to leave their homes. The decent people who are afraid to open their mouths. A man was shot in Limerick last week for going outside to see who had heaved a brick through his window. Who did this? At-risk youths whose needs hadn’t been met and who were failed by society. So at-risk that they had to go out and shoot a man at his front door. The Kilrush report was in the context of an attack on two girls by men with iron bars, members of the Kilrush at-risk community.
Why do we put up with this?
Whenever people start to talk about underprivilege, there’s the danger of a Monty Python moment: when I was young we were so hungry we had to eat our feet. Right. Listen to me, when I was young, we never ate our feet. They were too filthy to eat because we couldn’t afford water.
The sort of underprivilege we see in this town, and in towns all over Ireland, is mental and emotional. It costs nothing except effort to take your kids to the library. Not a penny. Unless, of course, you come from a long line of inbred gobshites with no interest in that kind of thing, but that’s not society’s fault. That’s yours.
There simply isn’t the kind of financial poverty that existed thirty years ago, and yet the mendicant mentality is stronger than ever. In a country that needs immigrants to fill jobs, why do we have unemployed? I’m old enough to remember Norman Tebbit’s outburst about his father getting on his bike and going out to find work. Everyone was appalled and they were right. I was appalled. He was wrong to say what he did, because there simply wasn’t work for people. I think there might have been close on 20% unemployment in Ireland in the early eighties and it was very hard indeed to make a living. But now, we have 4% unemployment, in theory and, of course, there are always those who for very good reasons can’t work. But don’t tell me that these fit young guys in tracksuits I see wandering the streets are all unable to find work. All of them? Thousands of people can travel here from Poland and find jobs, but these healthy, strong local guys can’t? What the fuck is that about?
An entire class of people has emerged who couldn’t give a rat’s arse about you, me or anyone else, as long as they get whatever money they think they’re entitled to. And side by side with that, a consequence-free life has been provided for them by our brainless policy makers.
Unless we change our attitudes fast, this thing is going only one way, and that’s towards disaster.
Stumble it!
YOU'VE BEEN SHOUTING ABOUT ...
March 2nd, 2007
Its happening in England already. Its only a matter of time before it becomes a widespread problem in small town Ireland.
In preparation Ireland, apeing the Brits as always, have decided to introduce ASBO’s. Fantastic. What next? community liason officers, security cameras on every corner.