I find the petition to dock benefits from people convicted in connection with the disturbances repugnant and perverse, as if depriving them of the means to live or a house to live in would achieve anything but hatred and despair.
I find the pronouncements of politicians and the media sanctimonious and self-blind. Their student japes were succeeded by scandals in their respective occupations. I've quoted Portia before in this blog:
"...Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy." We all have items of wood in our eyes, large and small.
I love the title of a sermon to be preached in the open air on Saturday: "Jesus came not for the righteous but for the riotous"!
Finally, the best discussion I've heard on the subject was first broadcast on Sky News on Wednesday: Sky News interview. An ex-gang member, Gavin McKenna, and the leader of Target Against Gangs, Sheldon Thomas, speak with inside understanding of what I in comfortable suburbia don't have a clue about. The interviewer was struggling to get her mind round what they were saying. I don't blame her, but we still need to hear them. "We have seen more people cry over material things than over the life of a young person." If we have ears to hear, we must listen.
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