In the news

Yes and no.

IMO the main things that are different are, 1) levels of unemployment; 2) the level's of legal and accepted discrimination in France, and 3) levels of police brutality.

It's a little like when people relate UK ghetto's to those in the States.

I was using France to illustrate people's ability to think a bit more rationally when it's not at home. I wasn't comparing the events as equivalents (although I do stand by the argument that this stuff has happened, and probably will continue to happen, in urban areas periodically).

Basically, I am arguing on the one hand, there is more to this than a simple class of sub-humans. People do not exist independent of their surroundings and something has made this way of acting possible. On the other hand, the gut instinct a lot of people are having ("lock them up and throw away the key") is insane and the opposite of what anyone should do (here's an article in the Globe and Mail (Canadian national news paper) from a couple of weeks ago about discussing youth incarceration and actually used the UK as an example in the face of mistakes Canada is about to make: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/time-to-lead-archives/canadas-youth-crime-plans-bewilder-international-observers/article2102822/).

I also listened to an interesting episode of Thinking Allowed a couple of weeks ago dealing with the Liverpool riots (http://www.endomondo.com/home). The timing may have been unfortunately apropos, but it's worth a listen to to maybe offer a perspective on what's happening now from the past.

Basically, I wish people would ease off on the outrage and stop offering easy answers that will do no one good.