Societal scapegoats?

Local-womanizer · 28-02-2012 03:11AM

Woah! I never ever blamed a traveller for my own problems in my life.

I do blame them that every establishment I have worked in the majority of travellers I have dealt with have attempted to rob the place.

If it wasn't the adults it was the kids. The worst is the kids doing it in plain view of everyone in the shop, including their parents, and the behaviour is let go on, yet when I challenge them the parents try to claim I am discriminating!! :mad:

If any person of any ethnic, social or religious background was attempting to steal from my work place I would challenge them.

I hate the shite that some people need to tip toe around issues involving travellers. The Criminal Assets Bureau should go after the "unemployed" members of the travelling community who are driving around in 2012 reg vans and cars.

This is in no way a slate against every single traveller. When I have not been in work I have met a number that are civil.

Bullchomper · 28-02-2012 03:17AM

What are we blaming people for exactly? Genuine question.

Local-womanizer · 28-02-2012 03:22AM

Bullchomper wrote: »

What are we blaming people for exactly? Genuine question.

Nothing really,I think...

I only blame those directly involved in something....

Bullchomper · 28-02-2012 03:24AM

Guess that's that sorted then!

Son Of A Vidic · 28-02-2012 08:47AM

krudler wrote: »

I blame white people

Because they can't jump?

Teyla Emmagan · 28-02-2012 10:44AM

The travellers deserve at least half the bad press they get IMO. Based on my real world empirical experience of the rotten behaviour of some members of their community.

token101 · 28-02-2012 11:13AM

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

who else is there to blame if we can't blame travellers?

The Germans, the EU, the IMF, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Michael Lowry.

Liam Byrne · 28-02-2012 11:25AM

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

The travellers deserve at least half the bad press they get IMO. Based on my real world empirical experience of the rotten behaviour of some members of their community.

And yet society doesn't appear to object anywhere near as much to the weekly horror show caused by "respectable" settled people getting hammered drunk ?

There's certainly a double-standard.

paddyandy · 28-02-2012 11:25AM

You can measure what people care about by following the paths that their money takes .

Frank Black · 28-02-2012 11:31AM

I blame it on the boogie.

token101 · 28-02-2012 11:44AM

Liam Byrne wrote: »

And yet society doesn't appear to object anywhere near as much to the weekly horror show caused by "respectable" settled people getting hammered drunk ?

There's certainly a double-standard.

People do object, but I don't know of many settled people who tear apart bars/hotels, destroy whole green areas with littering/scrap, start up bare knuckled boxing matches in country lanes, break into property and steal anything that's not nailed down, deal drugs, terrorise neighboorhoods whilst feuding amongst families and murder each other in the streets. It might be a generalisation, but not all politicians are crooks are either, yet you don't hear as many complaints.

Dyr · 28-02-2012 12:00PM

Confab wrote: »

Nearly every society has a social minority used to some extent as a scapegoat. Is it just me who finds this strange? It's usually the *insert indigenous population* or the Gypsies, although a few countries have variations on the theme, for instance Native Americans or Aboriginies. Russians have Gypisies, we have Travellers, the Australians have Aboriginies and the Americans have the Native Americans. There are many more examples. In almost all cases there has been enough hate to cause genocide for no appreciable reason. We're conditioned to blame them for their own problems and for some of ours too. It's a 'dysfunction family' trait, a positive feedback loop.

Interesting when you think about it. What caused these biases in the first place? Why do we continue to propagate them? Can you really justify them? Can you really override cultural programming? I'm as biased as the rest of you, but I don't know HOW I got like this. No Traveller or Aboriginie has done me any harm.

Yeah, some guy will come along blaming the travellers for the majority of his ills. QED, in that case. Can we discuss this reasonably please?

I havent seen anyone blaming travellers for the banking crisis or our debt problems, they blame them for general thievery because the travelling community punch well above their weight on that front.

Teyla Emmagan · 28-02-2012 12:07PM

Liam Byrne wrote: »

And yet society doesn't appear to object anywhere near as much to the weekly horror show caused by "respectable" settled people getting hammered drunk ?

There's certainly a double-standard.

I for one would also object to that actually, I don't like to see anyone hammered drunk.

And I wasn't referring to travellers drinking, I have seen them tresspassing, extorting, vandalising, destroying property etc etc. And I know settled people do that too, but in my experience a higher proportion of travellers are likely to indulge in anti social and illegal behaviour than settled people.

smash · 28-02-2012 12:09PM

Hi, I'm here for the traveller bashing....

conorhal · 28-02-2012 12:10PM

At the end of the day, any group that places itself outside the common values of a society, or in direct opposition to them, risks becoming a target of that society to some degree, that may mean falling foul of the law or social exclusion, or in extreme cases it can mean risking a lot more, if for example that society is run by a National Socialist Party...

Humans are by necessity a co-operative species because we live in complex and heavily interdependent societies. To do so requires common values, common taboos, common laws and common aims, and despite the aggressive individualistic tendencies of consumerist capitalism or the lefty deconstructionists attempt to dismantle reality into pure ideology, this still holds true today as it did a thousand years ago. We call it citizenship.

We still agree on certain common socially constructed truths like, 'it is important to be educated rather then ignorant', 'you should make a positive contribution to the common good by contributing your fair share’, 'it's wrong to act with violence towards another person in an unprovoked manner.'
Now if you're a member of a group that feels such rules only apply to your group and not wider society, or in fact feel that those common values don't apply to you at all, you will inevitably be sanctioned by that society, because exempting yourself from the common rules we all are supposed to live by makes you a threat to that society. Which, to be blunt, is fair. Now I’m sure we’ll have some that will say ‘rubbish, nobody has the right to tell me how to live my life’, but even the most aggressive individualist is unlikely to argue with any of the common values that I listed above.. That does not automatically mean we have to skip to genocide as a sanction, a civilized society applies a proportional sanction that applies to all of it’s citizens. The problem is that often we don’t.

Teyla Emmagan · 28-02-2012 12:12PM

smash wrote: »

Hi, I'm here for the traveller bashing....

Welcome. You've come to the right place :pac:

Bad Panda · 28-02-2012 12:17PM

I don't think it can be discussed rationally on the basis that you're spouting some PC bullsh!t in claiming travellers are the scapegoats of society.

They're disliked for a number of (valid) reasons. I think we all know them without regurgitating the same stuff from about a million other threads.

smash · 28-02-2012 12:19PM

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

Welcome. You've come to the right place :pac:

Well in the last 6 months alone I've been through an attempted robbery on one occasion and then I sold my car on another occasion where it ended up in a string of robberies.

I've can safely say I've never had a good experience with travellers.

Teyla Emmagan · 28-02-2012 12:25PM

Oh yeah, the travellers stole my Mam's car too, had almost forgotten that.

This was after they had extorted 300 each from all of our neighbours to get off the field beside us. My Mam's (old) car was parked across the neck of the field to stop them getting back in and they knicked that too. Was found burnt out beside a campsite off the Naas Road.

Before the by laws were changed, there was a group (like 30 caravans) going around North Kildare one summer about 10 years ago. They would break into a field (generally beside houses e.g. at Castletown House in Celbridge) and not move on until they had been paid off. They made about 8k that I know of inside of 3 weeks or so.

They're enterprising anyway, I'll give them that much.

Dyr · 28-02-2012 12:38PM

smash wrote: »

Hi, I'm here for the traveller bashing....

You be interested in a bit of roma bashing too?

gcgirl · 28-02-2012 12:40PM

It's like every group a certain few give the rest a bad name, luckily the settled travellers we have here are fairly intergrated in to our community and that's been nearly 30 yrs in the making, even when it comes to the kids one little lad that hangs around with the kids has excellent manners, I was quite taking aback when I first met him

smash · 28-02-2012 12:42PM

Bambi wrote: »

You be interested in a bit of roma bashing too?

At least they try to hide their illegal activities.

HalloweenJack · 28-02-2012 12:59PM

I've never heard anybody blame Travellers for Ireland's problems.

Yeah, they get treated terribly by the majority of people but noone has ever said to me that it's their fault that the country is in a mess.

They're a discriminated minority but they're not a scapegoat by any stretch of the imagination.

Eric Cartman · 28-02-2012 11:13PM

smash wrote: »

I've never had a good experience with travellers.

neither have most people whove interacted with them, the only people here who defend them are people whove never dealt with travellers.

Societal scapegoats?

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