Joao Pedro de Magalhaes wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> Rob Sweeney wrote:
> >* Joao Magalhaes <joao.magalhaes@fundp.ac.be> [000619 10:45]:
> >> I didn't know we lived in a oppressive society? A question: since Europeans
> >> live in an oppressive society and legal system, how come we never riot as
> >> it happens in LA? No racism?
> >
> >Never riot? Perhaps there are Europeans, and Europeans. When I lived in
> >Zurich, I saw a very nice, full-out riot in the center of the city - complete
> >with broken windows up and down the Bahnhofstrasse, riot police, looting, and
> >anything else you might want. I also saw skinhead attacks more than once,
> >and quite blatant police brutality numerous times. I actually became more
> >concerned for my safety walking around there sometimes than I am home in
> >NYC - because in Zurich, I found I wasn't able to accurately sense that a
> >situation was becoming dangerous - the violent things I saw happen seemed
> >to come out of nowhere.
>
> So Zurich stopped being a member of my "future places to visit" list.
>
> Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
> >I don't know what kind of exaggeration you get on your media, but we see all
> >kinds of rioting in the news going on in europe: the french on trade and labor
> >reforms, the germans against immigrants, then you've got your organized violence
> >in the Balkan states.
>
> Let me remind you of my words: ". . . how come we never riot as it happens
> in LA?" Skinheads attacks are not riots as it happens in LA. The Yugoslavia
> war is not a riot, it's a war (what's next, WW2?) Soccer fans rioting on a
> square -- destroying cars, robbing stores, etc. -- is not a riot as it
> happens in LA. I didn't said there were no riots in Europe; I said European
> riots are nothing close to US ones.
>
So its not that they don't happen, just that you claim that yours are
qualitatively different than ours. Have you ever been in an LA riot? What
parameters do you use to judge which riots are 'better'?
It is quite arguable that warfare is merely widespread organized rioting. This
is something that europeans seem to excel at, which is why a european has about
a 50 times higher risk of dying a violent death at some point in his life than
an American. Its therefore understandable that you'd like to disregard deaths
during war as somehow not 'counting' towards 'violent crime'. Considering the
number of people convicted of war crimes after both world wars, its rather
obvious that any deaths that occured during either world war were in fact,
violent crimes. If the Nazis were in fact war criminals, then all the people who
died during the war they started were in fact victims of violent crime.
>
> Although I don't have stats I'm pretty sure that, for example, Spain or
> Italy have higher non-violent crime rates than the US.
Britain has far higher non-violent crime rates than the US. Britain's property
crime rates are five times higher than the US. I would accept that countries
like Switzerland would have lower crime rates than the US, then again,
Switzerland has a higher rate of gun ownership than the US as well, fancy that.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:13:53 MDT