Ashamed to be British?

EstuaryBoy said:
Then the blame lies with a poor defence in Court... But again, the poor dead victim may well have been an innocent too, yet they're always secondary in any discussion...
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Poor defence? Wasn't it latter revealed at their appeal that the prosecution deliberately kept hidden from the defence information that would have found them innocent at the original trial?
 
Bernhard said:
Poor defence? Wasn't it latter revealed at their appeal that the prosecution deliberately kept hidden from the defence information that would have found them innocent at the original trial?
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Bernhard.. I am not familiar with all the ins and outs of this particular case, but.... It would appear that you will remain anti, and I will remain pro (capital punishment)... But I am kind to animals, always pay my taxes and used to push my Commando 150 yards at 5:30am so as not to wake the neighbours.. So please don't hold that one characteristic against me.....
 
EstuaryBoy said:
Bernhard.. I am not familiar with all the ins and outs of this particular case, but.... It would appear that you will remain anti, and I will remain pro (capital punishment)... But I am kind to animals, always pay my taxes and used to push my Commando 150 yards at 5:30am so as not to wake the neighbours.. So please don't hold that one characteristic against me.....
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So you just woke someone else’s neighbours then...!?
 
Fast Eddie said:
Why can’t people who do this see the damage they cause? They inflame the ‘right’ and the degrade their own position.

It undermines and de values the real issues that do deserve attention and do need addressing.
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Boredom? Lack of purpose? Guilt? Entitlement? The list goes on and on and on...
 
I put it down to not having to work in the fields for 14 hours a day 6 days a week, once you have too much time on your hands you either use it to better yourself to fill the time or use it to over think and start envying those who you think are better off. The envy gnaws away and you become bitter and twisted.
 
Bernhard said:
Poor defence? Wasn't it latter revealed at their appeal that the prosecution deliberately kept hidden from the defence information that would have found them innocent at the original trial?
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Platts-Mills also to the evident anger of the judge demonstrated that it was entirely possible for finger prints tobe transferred. This mainstay of corrupt policing had never been demonstrated in court before. I think the jury knew very well they were convicting innocent men, but they were coopted . More generally I would suggest that truth counts for little in legal stuff, what matters isthat a procedure a legal procedure is followed.

If in fact the so called Guilford 4 had been members of the IRA then Platts Mills would have been a good choice of brief . But they were not ,so one wonders why you would chose a barrister who was 'political' He attended Stalins funeral.

No matter how brilliant he was in court , he was unlikely to win over a hostile jury,could it be this was why he was putforward?
 
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kommando said:
I put it down to not having to work in the fields for 14 hours a day 6 days a week, once you have too much time on your hands you either use it to better yourself to fill the time or use it to over think and start envying those who you think are better off. The envy gnaws away and you become bitter and twisted.
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A few mid 20th century philosophers (Georges Bataille & Gilles Deleuze) talked about this phenomenon in their analysis of the rise of facism in the 30's, the observation being that worker energy was not fully exhausted in post WW1 germany and this created what they termed "unmeasurable excess” that was subsequently expended unproductively, fascist oligarchs were able to redirect this excess energy into the worship of authoritarian structures
 
I started this post as I am definitely not "Ashamed to be British" but had started to doubt the way we are heading. Responses received give me hope but feel they still lack direction necessary for change. Maybe I hope for too much but still find a positive note in those replies, our country is fixable, we just need to find the tools. The drive and determination exist!
 
EstuaryBoy said:
Bernhard.. I am not familiar with all the ins and outs of this particular case, but.... It would appear that you will remain anti, and I will remain pro (capital punishment)... But I am kind to animals, always pay my taxes and used to push my Commando 150 yards at 5:30am so as not to wake the neighbours.. So please don't hold that one characteristic against me.....
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You are wrong about me, I am not anti, I am pro, but with very deep reserviations about the British Justice getting it so wrong and convicting innocent and executing , lets face it, innocent people. I don't pretend I know the answer to this, the only outcome if they get it wrong is not good, and neither for the greater good.
 
Bernhard said:
You are wrong about me, I am not anti, I am pro, but with very deep reserviations about the British Justice getting it so wrong and convicting innocent and executing , lets face it, innocent people. I don't pretend I know the answer to this, the only outcome if they get it wrong is not good, and neither for the greater good.
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I'm on side with you here. I've always been pro CP, for the most abhorrent crimes, but I'm also a realist about it. Lets not kid anyone, CP is not a deterrent. It reconciles only one tenet of sentencing in the common law (UK, Canada, Australia etc.) - Denunciation. Retribution was once part of sentencing, way back when CP was still performed in the commonwealth, but that went the way of the dodo. The 'cost saving' argument is a lark as well. You can't have CP in a constitutional democracy absent all the checks and balances in the judicial process to ensure innocent people aren't executed, and that did happen far more often than most realize. That includes rights to appeals, stays, higher court review etc... These checks are (were) in place to both mitigate the risk that an innocent would be hanged, but also to protect the common person (you and me) from judicial abuses. This is why study after study has proven that executing one person actually costs the state (us) more than keeping them imprisoned for the remainder of their natural lives.
 
Whilst I respect the views of all contributors here, I do wonder if those overseas realise what a pressure cooker the UK is becoming. Many of us here have seen startling change in less than one lifetime, not in the newspaper, not on the television but right outside our own front door, in our high streets and in our workplaces. And whilst it's fine to take the moral high ground, we're fast running out of real estate....
 
Bernhard said:
You are wrong about me, I am not anti, I am pro, but with very deep reserviations about the British Justice getting it so wrong and convicting innocent and executing , lets face it, innocent people. I don't pretend I know the answer to this, the only outcome if they get it wrong is not good, and neither for the greater good.
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This brings to mind a quote I remember from school (wow.... Listen to me... I guess some it it actually did rub off), not sure who originally said it but it goes like this: it's better that a hundred guity go free than one innocent be incarcerated or hanged. Seems kinda crazy until you think of yourself being the one innocent one, and without the resources to defend yourself adequately.
 
cjandme said:
This brings to mind a quote I remember from school (wow.... Listen to me... I guess some it it actually did rub off), not sure who originally said it but it goes like this: it's better that a hundred guity go free than one innocent be incarcerated or hanged. Seems kinda crazy until you think of yourself being the one innocent one, and without the resources to defend yourself adequately.
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i too remember that quote. it's relevence?
 
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