Fair play to Peter Hitchens

stpaddy99

Nodin wrote: »

"no it doesn't the statistics show the over liberal ends up with more criminals more repeat criminals and more drugs abuse"

You've a source for the above?

Ive supplied loads of sources above. why don't you do some homework yourself

Nodin

stpaddy99 wrote: »

UK Violent Crime Rate Eight Times Higher Than The US

Apparently no.
http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/06/21/is-britain-more-violent-than-the-united-states/

Nodin

stpaddy99 wrote: »

Ive supplied loads of sources above. why don't you do some homework yourself

The sources above don't relate to the statement I quoted.

stpaddy99

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime

apopoarently yes the drugs issue in UK is 100s of times worse than the USA
FACT

Drug offences 183,419 per 100,000 people 560.1 per 100,000 people
DEFINITION: Drug offence cases per 100,000 population (2000).
SOURCE: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention)
Ranked 2nd. 326 times more than United States Ranked 4th.

mikom

stpaddy99 wrote: »

there is more crime per hesad here than in the usa and more drug related crime too

stpaddy99 wrote: »

UK Violent Crime Rate Eight Times Higher Than The US

The stats do not compare like with like as Nodin pointed out.
You made a similar mistake when you said "there is more crime per head here than in the usa"..................... "here" is not the UK............. ya know boards.ie and all that, Paddy.


I am still waiting on the higher drug related crime stats...........

stpaddy99

Nodin wrote: »

Apparently no.
http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/06/21/is-britain-more-violent-than-the-united-states/

APPARENTLY YES
Drug offences 183,419 per 100,000 people 560.1 per 100,000 people DEFINITION: Drug offence cases per 100,000 population (2000). SOURCE: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention) Ranked 2nd. 326 times more than United States Ranked 4th.

stpaddy99

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7922755/England-has-worse-crime-rate-than-the-US-says-Civitas-study.html


The study found that England and Wales ranked highly in a survey of crime rates among more than 30 developed counries, based on the frequency of crimes recorded by police for every 100,000 people.


For burglaries and robberies England and Wales had more crimes per 100,000 people than the USA.


England and Wales was ranked sixth for burglaries – worse than Sweden, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Italy and Chile - and for robberies, England and Wales was seventh.


For rapes, England and Wales was ranked ninth, worse than the likes of Norway, Poland, Sweden, Australia and Germany, while for car thefts, England and Wales was eighth – worse than Slovenia, Chile, Mexico, Greece and the Czech Republic.


The figures, from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, draw together crimes recorded by police in the countries studied and is published every six years.

They date from 2006 because of difficulties in obtaining accurate comparable figures.

Civitas said, where possible, it had cross-checked with more recent pan-European figures, and the rates were broadly the same.

Among two other measures, England and Wales fared better, being ranked 16th out of 35 countries for “intentional homicides” and 19th for major assaults.

David Green, Civitas’s director, said: “England and Wales are high-crime societies compared with other developed nations. We have a lot of crime compared with other similar countries.

“Random checks of later figures for individual nations show that the ranking has not changed significantly. "

Mr Green said further analysis had shown that England and Wales had a low “punitivity ratio” compared with other countries because shorter sentences were being handed down by judges.

The ratio is calculated by contrasting the number of people convicted in a year per 100,000 population with the number of prisoners in jail as a result of a court sentence per 100,000 population.

In a speech in June, Mr Clarke had said that the debate on criminal justice had to move on from the “numbers game” of measuring the effectiveness of policies solely according to the prison population.

But Mr Green said: “Mr Clarke said he thought our system was too punitive, but the report also allows us to test the theory that our system is especially severe.

"The score for England and Wales, contrary to the claims of Kenneth Clarke, is low. The claim that our criminal-justice policies are punitive is not, therefore, supported by the best available evidence.”

A Home Office spokesman said last night: "This data is now more than four years old, but highlights that we have a high level of crime compared to other countries.

"This backs up the perceptions of many communities who have real concerns about stubbornly high level of serious crimes.

mikom

IRELAND

stpaddy99

mikom wrote: »

The stats do not compare like with like as Nodin pointed out.
You made a similar mistake when you said "there is more crime per head here than in the usa"..................... "here" is not the UK............. ya know boards.ie and all that, Paddy.


I am still waiting on the higher drug related crime stats...........

YES THAT WAS A MISTAKE SORRY ABOUT THAT I MEANT UK NOT IRELAND

stpaddy99

mikom wrote: »

IRELAND

ok ok see apology above im talking about the UK

mikom

stpaddy99 wrote: »

ok ok see apology above im talking about the UK

Well now I am talking about unicorns.
How's that for ya?

stpaddy99

mikom wrote: »

Well now I am talking about unicorns.
How's that for ya?

APPARENTLY YES
Drug offences 183,419 per 100,000 people 560.1 per 100,000 people DEFINITION: Drug offence cases per 100,000 population (2000). SOURCE: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention) Ranked 2nd. 326 times more than United States Ranked 4th.

Corkfeen

Copying and pasting is wonderful. Can truly learn lots about a person.

porsche959

I think the BBC have a deliberate policy to discredit all conservative viewpoints by letting this loon on at every opportunity.

mikom

Fuck this for a lark.
It's like teaching my dog to drive.

I'll check back in a while.......

Drumpot

One of the stupidest statements to make about an alcoholic or drug addict is to suggest that any criminal sentence will be a deterrant to their erratic behaviour.

Anybody who thinks a prison sentence will make an addict be more responsible really shouldn't be discussing this topic, let alone being allowed to go on tv and discuss it, because they really haven't a clue.

I also found a lot of his views were simply based on his own prejudices. While he kept asking for specific evidence to prove that addiction is nothing more then willpower, he had only his uninformed opinion to back up his view.

Its a conversation that gets lost in the argument of people wanting justice at the expense of looking at prevention. Throwing a drug addict into jail is not likely to rehabilitate them, in turn there is a greater likelihood that they will commit further crimes. In most cases it wont act as a deterrant.

You can argue that addiction is about choices and willpower, but that's presuming that we are all born with the same wiring. But of course there are people more predisposed to depression, cancer, psychological problems. Some people are good at maths , but useless at other topics. So why is it that hard to understand that there are some people more vulernerable to addictive habits that they struggle to control?

I was also disappointed that Perry didn't ask the hitchens about his understanding of a dry drunk. How alcoholics who give up drink can be even more erratic and destructive after giving up drink.

stpaddy99

Drumpot wrote: »

One of the stupidest statements to make about an alcoholic or drug addict is to suggest that any criminal sentence will be a deterrant to their erratic behaviour.

Anybody who thinks a prison sentence will make an addict be more responsible really shouldn't be discussing this topic, let alone being allowed to go on tv and discuss it, because they really haven't a clue.

I also found a lot of his views were simply based on his own prejudices. While he kept asking for specific evidence to prove that addiction is nothing more then willpower, he had only his uninformed opinion to back up his view.

Its a conversation that gets lost in the argument of people wanting justice at the expense of looking at prevention. Throwing a drug addict into jail is not likely to rehabilitate them, in turn there is a greater likelihood that they will commit further crimes. In most cases it wont act as a deterrant.

You can argue that addiction is about choices and willpower, but that's presuming that we are all born with the same wiring. But of course there are people more predisposed to depression, cancer, psychological problems. Some people are good at maths , but useless at other topics. So why is it that hard to understand that there are some people more vulernerable to addictive habits that they struggle to control?

I was also disappointed that Perry didn't ask the hitchens about his understanding of a dry drunk. How alcoholics who give up drink can be even more erratic and destructive after giving up drink.

the first priority if the safety of the public , get the drug takers and pushers off the streets...then treat them behind closed doors...no doubt drug rehabilitation could take place in the prisons....clearly letting drug takers walk the streets especially those who go to crime to pay for their addiction, is dangerous and has failed as a policy. the repeat offending rate is off the scale, the drug problems is 300 times worse now in the UK than the USA thanks to this mindless liberal ill thought through policy

ThirdMan

Agricola wrote: »

Listening to that guy, its as if Hitch rose from the dead and came back as an ultra conservative toolbag!

Rather than an increasingly conservative warmonger.

Nodin

stpaddy99 wrote: »

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime

apopoarently yes the drugs issue in UK is 100s of times worse than the USA
FACT

Drug offences 183,419 per 100,000 people 560.1 per 100,000 people
DEFINITION: Drug offence cases per 100,000 population (2000).
SOURCE: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention)
Ranked 2nd. 326 times more than United States Ranked 4th.

"no it doesn't the statistics show the over liberal ends up with more criminals more repeat criminals and more drugs abuse"

That still doesn't address the above quote.

SamHarris

Why does one blanket statement have to be true? Why would you not think habitual drug use is predicated on the same rules all behavior is - for some people it is the result of an untreated mental illness, others the result of poor choices or even just immoral ones?

Corkfeen

UK has a long history of conservative governments so I wouldn't exactly classify them as exceedingly liberal. Also, David Nutt got fired from a government position a couple of years back for saying that certain drugs aren't particularly dangerous.

Portugal for example would make far greater sense for comparison sake.As a result of decriminalization, drug use did not rise and users seeking treatment increased.

Jimoslimos

Hitchens was a bully in that clip. I don't remember him once answering any of the points made by the Baroness, but instead focused on targeting the weak debating skills of Matthew Perry.

In the other clip posted with Russell Brand, Brand was right on the money with the following description of Peter Hitchens

I don't even think you're ignorant, I think you're innocent, like a peculiar child

Drumpot

stpaddy99 wrote: »

the first priority if the safety of the public , get the drug takers and pushers off the streets...then treat them behind closed doors...no doubt drug rehabilitation could take place in the prisons....clearly letting drug takers walk the streets especially those who go to crime to pay for their addiction, is dangerous and has failed as a policy. the repeat offending rate is off the scale, the drug problems is 300 times worse now in the UK than the USA thanks to this mindless liberal ill thought through policy

Throwing an alocohlic or drug taker (don't care about dealers, they are not comparable to addicts) into a jail may actually cause more damage then good and will potentially put the safety of the public in danger even more. A rehabilitated addict is less likely to become more violent, whereas an addict who goes into prison and gets zero rehabilitation is more likely to come out even more damaged and as such an even bigger threat to the general public.

In short, a recovered victim of addiction is a better servant to society and less of a problem then one who has gone in and out of prison and comes out in an even more messed up way. So as a society do we decide is vengeance or feeling of "justice" (ie you commit a crime and goto prison) more important then trying to rehabilitate an addict and try to reintegrate then into being a productive person in society.

Drumpot

SamHarris wrote: »

Why does one blanket statement have to be true? Why would you not think habitual drug use is predicated on the same rules all behavior is - for some people it is the result of an untreated mental illness, others the result of poor choices or even just immoral ones?

Normal people choose when they want to take drugs/alcohol and most normal people stop taking these drugs when it starts effecting their life negatively.

Addicts feel like slaves to the drug and act in a manner that just looks selfish to the onlooker. Its in truth a savage mental illness that is extremely unpopular to have and that garnishes little sympathy from an ill informed public. unfortunately, the reason Hitchens gets to spout crap on tv is because many people share his misguided views on this topic.

camel jockey

Whose fault is it that a junkie started taking the drugs? Society? ****ty parenting? Hardly...of course junkies are to blame for becoming junkies - no one forced them to take the drugs. For all the junkies out there, there are 100 people who had the same upbringing and never touched drugs.

Drumpot

camel jockey wrote: »

Whose fault is it that a junkie started taking the drugs? Society? ****ty parenting? Hardly...of course junkies are to blame for becoming junkies - no one forced them to take the drugs. For all the junkies out there, there are 100 people who had the same upbringing and never touched drugs.

Whose fault is it that a person is born with mental or physical illness? Does that mean as a society any person who is born with a disadvantage should be left fend for themselves?






Incidentally, your final sentence highlights exactly the point on addiction. It doesn't effect everybody. You could do worse then try and get some education on the affliction of addiction before commenting any further.

Mr.David

Drumpot wrote: »

Whose fault is it that a person is born with mental or physical illness? Does that mean as a society any person who is born with a disadvantage should be left fend for themselves?

Addiction and disability are hardly comparable are they?!! Even for AH thats a stretch.

You are either disabled or you are not. You are not born an addict, you chose to drink/take drugs or whatever. To compare the two is nonsensical at best

Dravokivich

Temptamperu wrote: »

Really? and where did you go to medical school? 10% of people are addicts before they pick up drugs or drink. Without their fix the go through some horrific bodily pain and the shock can kill you.
It might not be a disease but its a medical problem and not a police matter.

It truly is not a disease or a disability. I don't need medical training to know that. You don't catch addiction. The issues you refer to about abstinence from heavily prolonged usage of Alcohol or Drugs, is due to the body developing a dependency on those substances. But that doesn't make it a disease or a disability. Stating it's neither, doesn't make it any less of an issue either. People who turn to these substances as a form of escapism, or who unwittingly develop dependency on them for whatever reason need support to alleviate such issues. But that doesn't make it a disease, or a disability.

camel jockey wrote: »

Whose fault is it that a junkie started taking the drugs? Society? ****ty parenting? Hardly...of course junkies are to blame for becoming junkies - no one forced them to take the drugs. For all the junkies out there, there are 100 people who had the same upbringing and never touched drugs.

The act of being a drug user, doesn't necessarily make someone a bad person.

camel jockey

Drumpot wrote: »

Whose fault is it that a person is born with mental or physical illness? Does that mean as a society any person who is born with a disadvantage should be left fend for themselves?






Incidentally, your final sentence highlights exactly the point on addiction. It doesn't effect everybody. You could do worse then try and get some education on the affliction of addiction before commenting any further.

Would you ever cop yourself on.

Complete cop out to take responsibility away from the junkies. As for your comparison to people with mental or physical illness? Contemptible. No doubt you'll bring up eugenics and the Nazis next.

camel jockey

Dravokivich wrote: »

The act of being a drug user, doesn't necessarily make someone a bad person.

I would respectfully disagree. I understand this goes against much of the prevailing opinion in AH, but that is my opinion.

Corkfeen

camel jockey wrote: »

I would respectfully disagree. I understand this goes against much of the prevailing opinion in AH, but that is my opinion.

How exactly does it automatically make them a bad person? Addiction is somewhat of a mental illness btw, even a recovered addict has to deal with addiction for the remainder of their lives.

There's also in all likelihood a genetic link so a person could be born predisposed to addiction.

camel jockey

Corkfeen wrote: »

How exactly does it automatically make them a bad person? Addiction is somewhat of a mental illness btw, even a recovered addict has to deal with addiction for the remainder of their lives.

There's also in all likelihood a genetic link so a person could be born predisposed to addiction.

Read the comment I responded to. No mention of addiction.

Corkfeen

camel jockey wrote: »

Read the comment I responded to. No mention of addiction.

So all drug users are bad people? Well that's a fairly idiotic view.Telling me that anyone you know who have done drugs are automatically bad people?

camel jockey

Corkfeen wrote: »

So all drug users are bad people? Well that's a fairly idiotic view.Telling me that anyone you know who have done drugs are automatically bad people?

Yes, I believe that drug usage makes someone a bad person.

Corkfeen

camel jockey wrote: »

Yes, I believe that drug usage makes someone a bad person.

Could you elaborate?

BillyMitchel

bootybouncer wrote: »

Harsh.......................he seems to have come through the worst part of his addictions

Nobody is worthwhile on coke ...............................

Nice big line you done yourself there!

camel jockey

Corkfeen wrote: »

Could you elaborate?

What's to elaborate? I disagree with drug use.

Corkfeen

camel jockey wrote: »

What's to elaborate? I disagree with drug use.

Which is lovely. But how does this make a person a bad person? For example, I have smoked weed in the past but have also collected plenty for charities, treat people well and I'm fairly certain nobody considers me a bad person. So explain, how am I a bad person?

Generally a person who disagrees with drug use does not consider users to be bad people. It's highly unusual.

Skylinehead

camel jockey wrote: »

Yes, I believe that drug usage makes someone a bad person.

How so? Disregarding whether you agree with it or not, because it's irrelevant, but how does it make them bad?

stoneill

Baroness Meacher is a bit of alright - if you are on drugs!

Wattle

camel jockey wrote: »

Whose fault is it that a junkie started taking the drugs? Society? ****ty parenting? Hardly...of course junkies are to blame for becoming junkies - no one forced them to take the drugs. For all the junkies out there, there are 100 people who had the same upbringing and never touched drugs.

Actually those are two very good reasons. If you come from a disadvantaged area and you can't afford to go on to higher education and you can't get a job because of where you live and basically have no hope then taking drugs to numb the pain and hopelessness will start to look like an option.

Likewise with ****ty parenting. Who your parents are and what they do has a huge influence on how you see life.

old hippy

camel jockey wrote: »

What's to elaborate? I disagree with drug use.

Is every person who takes drugs "bad" and does that apply to prescription drugs and alcohol?

And can you define "bad"?

wandatowell

bootybouncer wrote: »

Nobody is worthwhile on coke ...............................

WRONG.


Bowie was class on coke.

old hippy

stpaddy99 wrote: »

Im not a troll Im just giving you original thought which you will of course not get on the bbc anymore

Oddly, that's what all the right posters say on the BBCs "Have your say".

And it's complete bobbins, of course.

old hippy

wandatowell wrote: »

WRONG.


Bowie was class on coke.

He was strung out, paranoid and then there was that dodgy salute in Victoria Sation. Great music, mind.

Mr.David

Wattle wrote: »

If you come from a disadvantaged area and you can't afford to go on to higher education and you can't get a job because of where you live and basically have no hope then taking drugs to numb the pain and hopelessness will start to look like an option.

Likewise with ****ty parenting. Who your parents are and what they do has a huge influence on how you see life.

No excuse in Ireland regarding education.

Its so easy to blame 'society' for everything, ignoring personal responsibility and choice.

Corkfeen

Mr.David wrote: »

No excuse in Ireland regarding education.

Its so easy to blame 'society' for everything, ignoring personal responsibility and choice.

Plenty of underprivileged areas in terms of education in Ireland.

googled eyes

If I said what I thought of Hitchens I'd get banned.


Here's another debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsMU77TwYM0

Ash.J.Williams

If someone commits a crime then they should be tried for the crime ...and whatever substances they are on should not be taken into account, unless they are on prescribed psychactive drugs....sickens me everytime a criminal uses drugs to get a lesser sentence.

Mr.David

Corkfeen wrote: »

Plenty of underprivileged areas in terms of education in Ireland.

You mean areas where the majority are comparatively less educated? Of course, but why? Its not because of lack of opportunity or money, not in Ireland. It's cultural. Society isn't responsible for the poor decisions of individuals.