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Are young people allowed to do ANYTHING anymore?!

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sophia wrote:
    Yes I do. It's a matter of principle tbh.

    First off, as a consumer I can pass judgment however I like -- I can choose where to spend my cash based on whatever rational or irrational reasons I like. If a shop displays a sign in the window which I find offensive, I won't shop there, my prerogative.

    Of course you can, I never suggested otherwise. I expressed disagreement with you was all.
    Secondly, I don't care what the circumstances are that led to the sign, it's outright prejudice to limit the number of people under a certain age in there, and I think it stinks. If a shop was robbed by a group of black people and they subsequently put a sign in the window saying "only two black people at a time", think how outraged you'd be.

    What if a shop was robbed by black people, every day for a year?
    It's wrong to stereotype young people on the basis of their age, just as it's wrong to stereotype people on the basis of their skin colour. When I was a teenager I was polite, well behaved, honest and would never have dreamt of shoplifting or any other kind of anti-social behaviour. How dare they presume I would have, just because of my age?

    It'd be nice to go on being liberal indefinitely, but there has to be a point at which the buck stops. Whereas you become indignant at the fact you may be tarred with the same brush as other people, I think it's often a necessity. If a shop was being robbed repeatedly by middle class, white men in their twenties, I wouldn't feel outraged at a maximum of two mid-twenty year olds being allowed in at one time. In my eyes the shop keeper is protecting him and his own. I’d introduce myself to him and let him know a little what I was about, separating myself from his preconceptions.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It'd be nice to go on being liberal indefinitely, but there has to be a point at which the buck stops. Whereas you become indignant at the fact you may be tarred with the same brush as other people, I think it's often a necessity. If a shop was being robbed repeatedly by middle class, white men in their twenties, I wouldn't feel outraged at a maximum of two mid-twenty year olds being allowed in at one time. In my eyes the shop keeper is protecting him and his own.
    You don't have a problem with someone discriminating against people based on completely made up groups then? Define 'black people' or 'middle class people'. Give me some exact boundaries, and then tell me what exactly it is that makes these people 'all the same' which is the only way you could justify treating them all the same. If you can't do that, then you have no arguement.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sophia wrote:
    It seems to me it's easy to advocate intolerance and prejudice when you're not the one on the receiving end of it.

    You might feel slightly different if you were the one being told by businesses, politicians, the media on a daily basis that you were a criminal, on the basis of nothing other than your age.

    I'm not advocating intolerance and prejudice.

    I'm not all that far out of my teens, the illusion that what todays youth are experiencing is in someway unique, is just that, an illusion.

    Do you have any thoughts on the questions i posed in my previous post?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You don't have a problem with someone discriminating against people based on completely made up groups then? Define 'black people' or 'middle class people'. Give me some exact boundaries, and then tell me what exactly it is that makes these people 'all the same' which is the only way you could justify treating them all the same. If you can't do that, then you have no arguement.

    Without wanting to seem rude, this has been covered a million times before on these board and i suspect it'll be same tripe regurgitated again. It's basic 6th form philosophy, at best.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Without wanting to seem rude, this has been covered a million times before on these board and i suspect it'll be same tripe regurgitated again. It's basic 6th form philosophy, at best.
    So in other words, you don't know, you can't define them, and your entire argument is utter bollocks then?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So in other words, you don't know, you can't define them, and your entire argument is utter bollocks then?

    It does seem lik that to me.
    To which my answer is, I would still think the shop owner was a racist if s/he tried to limit the numbers of black people who came into their business on the assumption that all black people are thieves, and I would still refuse to shop there.

    Despite being white, I'm the same.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So in other words, you don't know, you can't define them, and your entire argument is utter bollocks then?

    Steady on there, civilised discussion and all.

    OK for the sake of argument, let's gown down the path again.

    To me a black person is a person who would descibe themselves as black.

    A middle class person is a member of the socioeconomic class which resides between the upper and lower class. The are likely to be a professional with a middle of the road, and resonably expendible, income.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    To me a black person is a person who would descibe themselves as black.
    And how do you know that, without getting to know the person. In order to do this type of grouping of other people, you have to make judgements yourself, so just by looking, what is a black person? You own the shop, you've got to define them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Does anyone remember black people not being allowed on buses in America, because the majority of the rest of society saw them as being troublemakers, with no real evidence supporting them? Or Jewish people being denied certain rights and access to certain places of business in nazi Germany, because, again the majority of the rest of society saw them as troublemakers without any real evidence supporting them? That's what happens when this sort of thing ends up on a national scale, with the government in question holding the same beliefs and contempt for the rights of these groups of people, as the people who advocate removing rights based on the group they are placed in.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sophia wrote:
    I notice that you ignored this post by me, any thoughts on it?
    The thing a lot of these businesses should bear in mind is how much their trade would suffer if young people stopped shopping there altogether. If you own a newsagents near a school, a very large proportion of your profits will come from them spending their pocket money there, and you can't have it both ways. No business can. Anyone who goes into business is at risk of theft, I worked in retail for years and am well aware of how prevalent shoplifting is, but also know it's a loss that can't be avoided, and that you have to accept as part and parcel of your trade.

    Clearly not all children are thieves, as plenty of them go into these businesses and spend their money in there, which the shopowners are only too happy to put in the tills.

    Sorry, i am trying to keep up :razz:

    I agree, there is a decision that needs to be made by the business. They needs to weigh up the pros, cons, moral and ethical factors of any given situation and make an informed decision on that. I think where we disagree is that you don't believe that it's possible for the outcome of this deliberation to limit the amount of children in your shop, whereas i do.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Does anyone remember black people not being allowed on buses in America, because the majority of the rest of society saw them as being troublemakers, with no real evidence supporting them? Or Jewish people being denied certain rights and access to certain places of business in nazi Germany, because, again the majority of the rest of society saw them as troublemakers without any real evidence supporting them? That's what happens when this sort of thing ends up on a national scale, with the government in question holding the same beliefs and contempt for the rights of these groups of people, as the people who advocate removing rights based on the group they are placed in.

    You're way off in your understanding of the rationale behind the examples you've cited.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    And how do you know that, without getting to know the person. In order to do this type of grouping of other people, you have to make judgements yourself, so just by looking, what is a black person? You own the shop, you've got to define them.

    A person who is black. The same as i define someone who was white.

    To keep the analogy exact, however, shouldn't we also be examining how i define school kids as well?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Does anyone remember black people not being allowed on buses in America, because the majority of the rest of society saw them as being troublemakers, with no real evidence supporting them?

    You mean Rosa Parks?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A person who is black. The same as i define someone who was white.
    So it's up to you to judge whether someone is "black enough" to be black?
    To keep the analogy exact, however, shouldn't we also be examining how i define school kids as well?
    Yep. Does it only apply when they're in their uniform? And if not, how do you know who's a school kid and who isn't? Or do you just use your judgement and try and guess who's 'most likely' to steal?

    I assume that you accept a property owners right to deny anyone access to their property, based on whatever criterea they want? That's a perfectly valid position. And my position is that I would refuse to give my custom to shopkeepers that exercised this right in a way that I deemed unethical, so there you go. However, they do not own the street outside the shop, that's public property. As public property, any member of the public deserves to be treated equally on it by the authorities. A group of people, of any age should only be moved on if they are actually causing harm to another person. Them being a certain age is not nearly enough of an indicator that they are planning to commit a crime of some sort.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You're way off in your understanding of the rationale behind the examples you've cited.
    It's nothing to do with the rationale for the policies, it's about how these policies were sold to the public at the time. These groups were victimised in a similar (but obviously far worse) way to the way that young people are often victimised in certain sections of the media in this country (i.e. grouped together based on a single common factor, not taking into account the individual people whatsoever).
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's nothing to do with the rationale for the policies, it's about how these policies were sold to the public at the time. These groups were victimised in a similar (but obviously far worse) way to the way that young people are often victimised in certain sections of the media in this country (i.e. grouped together based on a single common factor, not taking into account the individual people whatsoever).

    If you're going to draw paralells between cases of discrimination then you've got to make sure they're exact and that you're basing your newly found assumptions on fact. Black people weren't discriminated against in America because people were spun the line that they were "being troublemakers", they were discriminated against because they were seen as lesser human beings.
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    Young people nowadys have no discipline, no morality, no respect! :D
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote:
    Young people nowadys have no discipline, no morality, no respect! :D

    Thanks!
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    If you're going to draw paralells between cases of discrimination then you've got to make sure they're exact and that you're basing your newly found assumptions on fact. Black people weren't discriminated against in America because people were spun the line that they were "being troublemakers", they were discriminated against because they were seen as lesser human beings.

    Do you agree with police curfews for under 16's?
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So it's up to you to judge whether someone is "black enough" to be black?


    Yep. Does it only apply when they're in their uniform? And if not, how do you know who's a school kid and who isn't? Or do you just use your judgement and try and guess who's 'most likely' to steal?

    I assume that you accept a property owners right to deny anyone access to their property, based on whatever criterea they want? That's a perfectly valid position. And my position is that I would refuse to give my custom to shopkeepers that exercised this right in a way that I deemed unethical, so there you go. However, they do not own the street outside the shop, that's public property. As public property, any member of the public deserves to be treated equally on it by the authorities. A group of people, of any age should only be moved on if they are actually causing harm to another person. Them being a certain age is not nearly enough of an indicator that they are planning to commit a crime of some sort.

    If i own a shop in which i'm having an extreme amount of theft from kids at the local "Tea-Leaf High", then of course i'm going to limit the numbers of kids coming in from that school. It's all i've got to go on. Unless you're suggesting i personally get to know all 800 of them as individuals? Which is obviously pretty ridiculous because i have a life to lead and a business to run.

    I think people see the word "dicriminate" and immediately throw there arms up in the air screaming "oh the inhumanity of it all". Discrimination comes in many forms and is sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing and an awful lot of the time, necessary.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sophia wrote:
    A bit like children now then... :chin:

    Yes, all children are treated like lesser human beings and the comparrison between them and the American civil rights movement is exact. :eek2:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote:
    Do you agree with police curfews for under 16's?

    I haven't thought about it a lot to be honest, but i can see what you're getting at. I think that in some extreme cases it could probably be reasonably argued for, in some specific, localised areas.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sophia wrote:
    I didn't say it was exact.

    But yes, to a certain extent I think children are treated as lesser human beings.

    I think we're getting a way off the original topic here, but i also think that the odd flash in the pan story on the BBC or in the papers isn't enough for me to forget about all the positive things that kids have as well. There are plenty of things available to kids these days that simply weren't available to me as a child. The very fact kids have a medium such as TheSite to debate and air their views is more than i had.

    A couple of kids get told they can't play hopscotch and suddenly kids the comparrison between that and the civil rights movement is drawn. I think you need to be careful not to make martyrs out of todays youth, because i reckon that's way off the reality of the situation.
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