politics The UK Brave Space For Shitposting and Other Opinions Thread

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 

 

All in all it must seem rather quaint from Murican shores.....But we survive.

 

Frogs and slowly heating water.

 

The US, despite how it may seem thanks to our media outlets, is an absurdly safe place. And I'm allowed to carry a knife (or even sword) at all times.

[Sturgeon]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

You have to understand, this isn't something that grabbed my attention until you pointed it out, but what it is primarily addressing is tossers using knives in the sort of casual violence that is comparatively common in the UK, especially at pub turning out time.....If we were meant to use knives for that god wouldn't have given us fists (or such thick skulls).

 

...You want everyone to be disarmed so that you can get beaten with fists by drunken soccer fans?

From my perspective - and the perspective of many other Americans - effective weapons like knives and especially guns are protection against "tossers", and de-escalate situations where bad men do bad things. The only way they wouldn't be is if good people aren't willing to take their defense into their own hands. I can certainly understand how, in societies where good people are expected to stand by while men in hats handle things, guns and knives would be frowned upon. After all, good people don't do own them, so if you do then you're a bad person and no good person on Earth wants to arm bad people. And since only the men in hats and those with their explicit approval are allowed to do anything, any consensus has to be codified into law, or else how is it enforced? QED, they outlaw weapons, and grunt in satisfaction afterwards. But fists are fine, of course. 

 

But I don't think that way, and I don't want to live anywhere where everyone else thinks that way, either. That sounds like a bad country for good men and a good country for bad men. No, I want to live in the country where people can kill others. And I do live there. It's great.

 

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

As for the 78 year old who took down the burglar, good on him.....I suspect the CPS will determine there is no public interest in a prosecution (unless he has made a habit of shivving people over the years), however after the 'Nazi-Pug' incident, I wouldn't completely rule it out.  Must confess I am beginning to have grave doubts about our judiciary.

 

Losing faith in your government after having surrendered all your authority in weapons must put you in a bit of a tight spot.

 

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

All in all it must seem rather quaint from Murican shores.....But we survive.

 

My innocent British friends must be patient with me, because frankly, I deeply enjoy the turning of the tables here. I've been told my country is awful and wrong and horrific and how ashamed I should be by folks with funny teeth and funny accents my whole life. Payback.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

3 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 

 

You have to understand, this isn't something that grabbed my attention until you pointed it out, but what it is primarily addressing is tossers using knives in the sort of casual violence that is comparatively common in the UK, especially at pub turning out time.....If we were meant to use knives for that god wouldn't have given us fists (or such thick skulls).

 

 

 

I have a legitimate question. In the UK, is this a common occurrence? Is it quite often that "last call" results in "Casual" violence against people? That brawls occur at last call for a majority of pubs?

 

Asking for perspective, here. 

[roguetechie]

14 hours ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

 

I have a legitimate question. In the UK, is this a common occurrence? Is it quite often that "last call" results in "Casual" violence against people? That brawls occur at last call for a majority of pubs?

 

Asking for perspective, here. 

 

Put it this way man...

 

They literally put up educational posters in pubs explaining to people that if you beat the dog piss out of the paramedics when they show up, your injured friend they came for might bleed out on the fucking pavement.

 

Something else to consider: Boy doesn't this sure put the lie to the entire practice of comparing crime statistics from one country to another?

 

Quite literally a bar parking lot altercation that will land you in prison for 1-10 years here 75% of the time if you get prosecuted, will result in charges being filled better than 90% of the time if law enforcement is called, and is better than 95% probable to be called in to law enforcement in America... Is just fuckin Tuesday at a MIDDLE CLASS English neighborhood drinking establishment!

 

No one will call the cops so you have no chance of even having charges filed.

 

The reality is our country is far less violent, if you choose to be violent you're far more likely to incur criminal charges for doing so, our conviction percentages are probably a bit lower for those prosecuted but nowhere near low enough to make up for the vast disparities in the first two stages, and finally if convicted here you will do far more time and suffer far greater lifelong effects wrt income housing employment etc.

 

We prosecute far more people, fuck them way harder if we convict them, and continue fucking them for the rest of their lives even once the official punitive fucking has been completed... Of course we're less violent!

 

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

20 hours ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

I have a legitimate question. In the UK, is this a common occurrence? Is it quite often that "last call" results in "Casual" violence against people? That brawls occur at last call for a majority of pubs?

 

Asking for perspective, here

 

I stopped drinking well over a decade ago, so I am a little out of touch, but yes, pub brawls are still pretty common in the UK, post pub/nightclub silliness even more so.....The last time I went to a pub I had to 'explain things' to someone who'd had a little too much for his own good, no harm done, but there could have been.

 

The police do attend these situations, arrests are made, charges laid & cases held.....But usually it's the same old faces/families involved, for whom a couple of months at Her Majesty's is little more than an inconvenience, indeed for some it might be considered a short break and an opportunity to catch up with old acquaintances.

 

It's a small country too.....I was surprised, but not massively so, when I moved to the outskirts of London and discovered that the local 'bad-boys' were the same family as (cousins of) the local 'bad-boys' in my rural (but kinda edgy) hometown.....Actually suited me quite well as that family and I are on pretty good terms.

 

My guess would be that the overall average level of casual violence has a downward trend, but it's still a fairly regular occurrence.....I could be massively wrong, I don't look at such statistics, nor do I care about them very much.

 

Based on my limited personal experience of the US, I'd say a brawl is still massively more likely in a UK pub than a US bar.....A friend of mine, formerly from South Africa, put this down to the fact that the escalation potential is limited due to the absence of firearms; a sock with a couple of pool balls, or just the pool-cue is as far as things tend to go in most serious pub fights, an arsehole might pull a blade (hence the advertising BS), but at that point all bets are off.

 

5 hours ago, roguetechie said:

They literally put up educational posters in pubs explaining to people that if you beat the dog piss out of the paramedics when they show up, your injured friend they came for might bleed out on the fucking pavement.

 

This is pretty much true.....Assaults on paramedics and A&E staff are major problem in the UK, particularly after the pubs turn out, even more so when the dregs finally seep out of the clubs.

 

20 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

...You want everyone to be disarmed so that you can get beaten with fists by drunken soccer fans?

 

WTF are you on about?  Firms fight other Firms, not the general public.....I've walked into a London pub with my girlfriend under my arm, to find one half of the pub was blue (Headhunters), the other half was red (Gooners).  We had a lovely pint and a bag of pork-scratchings, met some jolly exuberant young men, then left (and noticed there were now a dozen police vans parked in a row outside).  I'd imagine it got quite exciting in there shortly after we left, but nobody in that pub on either side was going to hurt either of us, we were not part of their game and it would be unsporting to do so.....What would their rivals say of them?

 

I maybe wouldn't try this while being American mind you.....Have you seen Trainspotting?

 

20 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Losing faith in your government after having surrendered all your authority in weapons must put you in a bit of a tight spot.

 

I've done no such thing.....Who on earth told you such a ridiculous tale?

 

Firstly the government and the judiciary are not the same thing.....I've never had any faith in government, I'm merely losing some of my faith in the judiciary (due IMHO to the small but corrosive influence of former on the latter).

 

Secondly, while I don't currently own a gun, if I wanted one and could demonstrate a need for one (I can, but I choose not to at the moment, this may change with my situation, at present it would not be appropriate) I can have one, as can any other British subject (unless they are a criminal or a loon).....Several of my friends & family members have them, all of whom (I believe) have multiple weapons (not on the scale you guys do, but that's the UK/US all over really isn't it).

 

Maybe stop trying to divert attention from the homicidal racist lunacy that passes for your own society by pointing your fingers at mine. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

21 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

 

...You want everyone to be disarmed so that you can get beaten with fists by drunken soccer fans?

From my perspective - and the perspective of many other Americans - effective weapons like knives and especially guns are protection against "tossers", and de-escalate situations where bad men do bad things. The only way they wouldn't be is if good people aren't willing to take their defense into their own hands. I can certainly understand how, in societies where good people are expected to stand by while men in hats handle things, guns and knives would be frowned upon. After all, good people don't do own them, so if you do then you're a bad person and no good person on Earth wants to arm bad people. And since only the men in hats and those with their explicit approval are allowed to do anything, any consensus has to be codified into law, or else how is it enforced? QED, they outlaw weapons, and grunt in satisfaction afterwards. But fists are fine, of course. 

 

But I don't think that way, and I don't want to live anywhere where everyone else thinks that way, either. That sounds like a bad country for good men and a good country for bad men. No, I want to live in the country where people can kill others. And I do live there. It's great.

 

 

Losing faith in your government after having surrendered all your authority in weapons must put you in a bit of a tight spot.

 

 

My innocent British friends must be patient with me, because frankly, I deeply enjoy the turning of the tables here. I've been told my country is awful and wrong and horrific and how ashamed I should be by folks with funny teeth and funny accents my whole life. Payback.

 

We just hired a British guy, immigrating to the USA took two years and a million bucks, and on his list of things to do is buy a gun. He's sure he fled the UK just in time and hadn't heard of PUGgate, it was the taxes and rape-ey new immigrants of peace that drove him here...

 

He also thinks the left hear is comically stupid and Trump is amusing.   As odd as this sounds, it's true!

[Sgt.Squarehead]

30 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

We just hired a British guy, immigrating to the USA took two years and a million bucks, and on his list of things to do is buy a gun. He's sure he fled the UK just in time and hadn't heard of PUGgate, it was the taxes and rape-ey new immigrants of peace that drove him here...

 

He also thinks the left hear is comically stupid and Trump is amusing.   As odd as this sounds, it's true!

 

Don't doubt it for moment, Canada would be my destination of choice, most of my remaining family are there, but my reasons are simpler.....It's too bloody crowded here. 

 

Immigrants aren't the problem, it's the number of morons per square acre.....My dogs and I need a lower density than we can probably achieve on our current budget in the UK (our housing prices are insane).

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 

 

Maybe stop trying to divert attention from the homicidal racist lunacy that passes for your own society by pointing your fingers at mine. 

 

 

But if you typed that in earnest, this entire exchange got even better. 

 

In a majority of the world, a space shared by more than one culture is in contention. 

 

The US has hundreds of mingling cultures. If we were anywhere else, it would be a constant civil war. 

 

But please, do continue to defend. Your take on the UK culture is fascinating. 

 

 

[Sturgeon]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I stopped drinking well over a decade ago, so I am a little out of touch, but yes, pub brawls are still pretty common in the UK, post pub/nightclub silliness even more so.....The last time I went to a pub I had to 'explain things' to someone who'd had a little too much for his own good, no harm done, but there could have been.

 

The police do attend these situations, arrests are made, charges laid & cases held.....But usually it's the same old faces/families involved, for whom a couple of months at Her Majesty's is little more than an inconvenience, indeed for some it might be considered a short break and an opportunity to catch up with old acquaintances.

 

It's a small country too.....I was surprised, but not massively so, when I moved to the outskirts of London and discovered that the local 'bad-boys' were the same family as (cousins of) the local 'bad-boys' in my rural (but kinda edgy) hometown.....Actually suited me quite well as that family and I are on pretty good terms.

 

My guess would be that the overall average level of casual violence has a downward trend, but it's still a fairly regular occurrence.....I could be massively wrong, I don't look at such statistics, nor do I care about them very much.

 

Based on my limited personal experience of the US, I'd say a brawl is still massively more likely in a UK pub than a US bar.....A friend of mine, formerly from South Africa, put this down to the fact that the escalation potential is limited due to the absence of firearms; a sock with a couple of pool balls, or just the pool-cue is as far as things tend to go in most serious pub fights, an arsehole might pull a blade (hence the advertising BS), but at that point all bets are off.

 

So you'd say that casual, brutal violence is commonplace in your society, and likely a direct result of your country's people being disarmed. But it mostly only affects the lower classes, so nobody cares. Got it.

 

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

WTF are you on about?  Firms fight other Firms, not the general public.....I've walked into a London pub with my girlfriend under my arm, to find one half of the pub was blue (Headhunters), the other half was red (Gooners).  We had a lovely pint and a bag of pork-scratchings, met some jolly exuberant young men, then left (and noticed there were now a dozen police vans parked in a row outside).  I'd imagine it got quite exciting in there shortly after we left, but nobody in that pub on either side was going to hurt either of us, we were not part of their game and it would be unsporting to do so.....What would their rivals say of them?

 

Sooooo... The soccer fans and their buddies can just get rekt, right?

Two pool balls in a sock isn't a "game", dude, it's assault with a deadly weapon.

 

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I've done no such thing.....Who on earth told you such a ridiculous tale?

 

Can't have handguns, can't have any long guns that would give your government pause,  and now your country is pushing this "knife free" BS. Don't act like you've got an armed populace just because you can buy a ratty old Lee-Enfield at 4x the proper rate, if you jump through enough hoops.

 

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Maybe stop trying to divert attention from the homicidal racist lunacy that passes for your own society by pointing your fingers at mine. 

 

At least I can go to a bar with the certainty that I won't see somebody get beaten to death.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

 

 

6 minutes ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

But if you typed that in earnest, this entire exchange got even better.

 

I'd assumed, based on the title, that there was a bit of light hearted-teasing going on in this thread.....Thought I'd share the love.

 

But you seem kind of touchy, Snowflake.....Maybe head for your safe space and then the nasty 'different people' can't wind you up and confuse you?

 

[Sturgeon]

Just now, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I'd assumed, based on the title, that there was a bit of light hearted-teasing going on in this thread.....Thought I'd share the love.

 

Well, we've all gone beyond lighthearted teasing, but yes that's the point. And I don't think anyone has a problem with what you've said, except for the fact that it's wrong.
 

1 minute ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

But you seem kind of touchy, Snowflake.....Maybe head for your safe space and then the nasty 'different people' can't wind you up and confuse you?

 

By "different people", do you mean tossers?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 minute ago, Sturgeon said:

Well, we've all gone beyond lighthearted teasing, but yes that's the point. And I don't think anyone has a problem with what you've said, except for the fact that it's wrong.
 

 

You are telling me my own experiences are wrong?  Are you calling me a liar?  See at this point we might be taking the conversation outside the pub.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 

You are telling me my own experiences are wrong?  Are you calling me a liar?  See at this point we might be taking the conversation outside the pub.

 

Hold the phone, everyone. I've figured it out.

 

He can't say anything negative about the UK. That would earn him a visit from the bobbys.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Damn.....You sussed me. 

 

Point is, what we are mostly looking at and reacting to is media sensationalism.....My own experiences differ from those described.  I'm aware of such events in the same way you are of mass shooters, but they are not the day to day experience.  Sure we have an outbreak of fisticuffs between midnight and three at the weekends, but rarely does it end in more than the same old faces spending a night in the cells.

[Sturgeon]

7 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 

You are telling me my own experiences are wrong?  Are you calling me a liar?  See at this point we might be taking the conversation outside the pub.

 

U WOT M8

[Sgt.Squarehead]

"You 'eard!" 

 

etc.

 

I don't know if that sort of scuffle is something that happens in the US (I saw only one vaguely similar thing in a couple of months in the US), but it does here.....Usually it ends in nothing more than a handshake, but there are those other times too.

[Sturgeon]

13 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Damn.....You sussed me. 

 

Point is, what we are mostly looking at and reacting to is media sensationalism.

 

That's true for the USA, too. My country really is very peaceful, outside of a few cities that are virtually run by gangsters.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Any chance we could focus some attention on shredding that pompous prick Boris Johnson, he's been well and truly caught out telling ghastly porkies over the Skripal case and there's a LOT more meat on the bones of that one than poxy fucking knife bans if you want to get your teeth into the British establishment. 

 

https://news.sky.com/story/porton-down-experts-unable-to-identify-precise-source-of-novichok-that-poisoned-spy-11315387

 

I wonder if Gary Aitkenhead might do a Dr. David Kelly?

 

There's another juicy story coming to light regarding the Manchester bomber too, I mentioned it a few months back, but it has just been brought up in parliament and the government were forced to admit to what, in my opinion, may amount to 'providing materiel aid to a terrorist'.

 

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/what-will-be-blowback-uk-government-after-libya-revelations-1624802462

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/24/renegade-libyan-faction-accuses-britain-nurturing-manchester/

 

Oooops.....Just realised I should probably have got one of my US conspirators to post all this, so if you don't hear from me again, either Sturgeon's banned me for being a git, or   .

[Ramlaen]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

a sock with a couple of pool balls, or just the pool-cue is as far as things tend to go in most serious pub fights

 

I'm not sure if getting my skull cracked open with a pool ball is a better choice than getting shot.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

You don't HAVE to go for the head you know! 

 

Fastest brawl I've ever seen.....A man wearing sandals mouthing off at a man wearing boots.

[roguetechie]

3 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Damn.....You sussed me. 

 

Point is, what we are mostly looking at and reacting to is media sensationalism.....My own experiences differ from those described.  I'm aware of such events in the same way you are of mass shooters, but they are not the day to day experience.  Sure we have an outbreak of fisticuffs between midnight and three at the weekends, but rarely does it end in more than the same old faces spending a night in the cells.

 

Ok so this right here is exactly the thing I'm talking about!

 

Here in the US the violence too is pretty much limited to the "same old faces" but you're going to do one helluva lot more than one night or a couple months in the cells, and our jails comparatively... *shudder*

 

Thank you though for at least acknowledging the posters though, they're real and to Americans the very idea of such posters needing to be a thing is literally mind bending.

[Lostwingman]

I have a hard time taking a country with "TV licenses" and "TV license inspectors" seriously. 

 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

9 hours ago, Lostwingman said:

I have a hard time taking a country with "TV licenses" and "TV license inspectors" seriously.

 

Now there's some lads who don't like to talk about work in the pub.....Traffic Wardens too. 

 

BTW as it now seems the 'Ministry Of Thought Control' are not going to kick my doors in, don't you think it's time for a more honest title for this thread?  'Let's try to bait The Brits'  might be a good one.

[Lostwingman]

6 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

 

I thought it was just part and parcel of living in a modern city?

 

Fucking hack.