private school do not produce mindless vandals.

Ever run into a pack of ringies out on a Friday night?.

However I am starting to become convinced that all products of public education who are Leftists are morons.

And FWIW I am also publicly-educated and fully aware of the range in quality of its products.

Lucky I don’t live next door to you – you’d likely come out and point the finger at me for stealing the sugar out of your pantry because I happened to be drinking a cup of coffee on my balcony!

It’s lucky that there are people out there who can sum up a crime so quickly and come up with a culprit – it’s a surprise we have so many criminals when you are solving the cases so quickly with your sweeping analysis of who-dun-it! Maybe you’ve watched a few too many episodes of CSI.

As for the rest of it, you’ve taken yourself rather seriously all of a sudden! You were the one who came up about the generalisation about crime relating to public education – not me – remember – oh – all of a sudden people with a public education can spell – quick, tell the press!

However, had it been mindless vandalism I stand by my analysis of what produced that characteristic. Your empty assertion you could find counter examples is worthless. Likewise your implied presumption that the logic is reversible. It is not since fortunately a responsible work ethic is not the only inhibition to mindless vandalism. Likewise not all products of public education are morons, but unfortunately a sizeable number are. Using big words is not necessarily a reliable discriminator.

Speaking the truth does not damage the fabric of society and law – it strengthens it. Shutting your eyes does the opposite. As for speculating on the kind of culprits likely to have committed a crime we neither need nor care about your approval. Our accuracy will be judged by the eventual outcome.

My point/beef has absoultely NOTHING to do with whomever you want to stereotype as being the culprit. e.g, I could say:

all welfare beneficiares commit vandalism;
all white haired middle aged business men are corporate criminals;
all psyhcos are serial killers;
all Muslims are terrorists

Doesn’t change my point. The problem is not WHO you choose to stereotype. It’s the fact that you DO, without any evidence to suggest who commited the crime or why.

Just as milkenmild said more succinctly “the Kiwiblog detectives still haven’t solved…although some were very sure of the ‘type’ of person it would be”

I prefer to let the police do the hunting, the courts do the decision making and the judges decide what punishment is required rather than gesticulating wildly and pointlessly in public forums about “who’s responsible, because they’re all the same them lot”.

It damages the fabric of society & law doing what you do in a public forum but I guess it doesn’t matter because there’s a whole bunch of people in this forum who would only be too happy to go on about it ad infinitum and reinforce their narrow minded views of the world.

In summary, I think a statement like that is exactly that, narrow minded – and I think you realised that as you wrote it and so came up with another comment to follow. So good on you.

I put some pretty big words in there, pretty good for a moron with a public education, right? (ew look, it’s ANOTHER stereotype)

Alan – well, pretty silly thing to say wasn’t it? That’s why you had more than one person point it out. I just did it in a different way. And I think you realised that, so good on you for having a second thought. Don’t really care who are or aren’t the majority of offenders of this nature are, just want them caught.

PS. I think ‘mm’ was taking the mickey…

I wonder what will come to drive us to want to chip everyone with a gps chip?

The belief, enunciated by David Garrett above but also held by many others, that it is okay to trade freedom for “safety” (which is in itself illusory).

We cannot stop me cooking meth by banning you from the purchase of antihistamines,nor can we stop me pouring bleach into a fish tank by making it difficult or impossible for you to purcahse when all you’ve ever done, or intended to do, with it is whiten your whites and scrub your grouting.

Just as, for instance, removing the defence of provocation didn’t stop a single psychotic murderer going free, as none ever did to begin with – at least not on those grounds. Those who are determined to do evil will find a way, and all the rights and liberties we sacrifice will only make it harder, not impossible.

For as Franklin said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

Then let me explain to you why libertarians would object if I decided instead to punch you in the head and the government reacted by passing a law which said Kiwiblog commenters had to walk round with their wrists manacled because clearly none of them could control themselves, based on this one example… oh wait, I think I just did.

Talking of noses, every time I get a snotty one in Australia I have to hand over photo ID and be logged in a national register just in case I’ve decided to become a part time meth cook. Whereas when I developed one in NZ I was told Mr Smiley and Mr Power-Crazed had decided that the risk you might be a meth cook was enough to deny me the right to the most efficacious medication.

Now call me crazy, but I can’t see why the NZ solution is superior to the Australian (though that in itself is intrusive enough).

Oh, and if you have any examples of mindless vandalism that doesn’t match with my “stereotype” do enlighten us.

@mm, I’ll put money on it being a nutter. How about you?