Beautifully summarised, Lenco, and very true.
Beautifully summarised, Lenco, and very true.
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Sometimes, it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. - Terry Pratchett
I also reckon that the Arthur Hughes tragedy is just the tip of the iceberg, like I said the other day, going back long before the start of the Covid pandemic.
But for better or worse, the media and society in general seems to make a far bigger issue of kids attacking their parents and teachers, though I'm not in any way trivialising it, as two wrongs definitely don't make a right, and there have been tragic incidents of such nature (e.g, Ann Maguire).
In fact, violent and abusive kids are more often than not a result of violent and abusive upbringings, and I believe that people should think more carefully and try to get to the bottom of why certain kids are 'feral' and out of control, before resorting to typical simpleton knee-jerk responses like calling for school caning and the death penalty to be brought back, etc.
And also on one of those other forums I frequent, one member (who is obviously an avid anti-lockdowner) said that this tragedy wouldn't have happened had we not been in lockdown.
Perhaps he/she is correct in the sense that the restrictions in place at the time no doubt exacerbated the situation as poor little Arthur was unable to escape elsewhere to a place of safety, but Arthur's family were already known to have problems and already on the radar of the local SS of whom sadly failed to take Arthur's plight seriously enough at the time, so I don't think it's entirely fair to wholly blame the pandemic and the lockdowns, as reported cases of both child abuse and domestic abuse in general were already on the increase since about 2017-18, though obviously exacerbated further by the pandemic restrictions since March 2020, plus of course there were no real viable alternatives to lockdowns and other related restrictions at the time, especially as it was some 8-9 months before Covid-specific vaccines officially became available.
Though this time round, with the Omicron variant now poised to take over from Delta over the coming weeks, or even days, I personally don't think a fourth national lockdown is currently warranted in response, especially as zero Omicron-specific deaths have been reported so far, plus it's only (at worst) believed to have had a negligible impact on hospitalisations so far, at least in SA.
On a more positive note, this tragic event has provoked a wave of community spirit in the affected area, and I have just seen such scenes on the BBC News on TV, the community rallying round in positive ways with vigils and the like, rather than outpourings of mass angst and animosity.
But at least the evil toerags that are little Arthur's dad and stepmother are now quite rightly facing the music for their hideous misdemeanours; doing porridge!
Lenco, are you using the report button?
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Sometimes, it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. - Terry Pratchett
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