[muffin]

Be very careful, however angry you are, you shouldn't intervene because these thugs usually won't think twice about doing the same or worse to you. In the last two weeks I have read about a young couple being kicked and stamped to death in a public park by a group of youths merely because they were dressed like 'rockers', whilst others were around watching and calling police. The girl was kicked as she cradled her boyfriend's head in her arms.

Then I read about a dog walker who was attcked by kids who kicked his dog to death. Last year yobs kicked a puppy to death, and other kids broke into a mausoleum and kicked the head of the body inside around like a football. Meanwhile a man has received a prison sentence for kicking and stamping on his dog, whilst holding a child under his arm, then bundling the dog into the car boot and driving off. Eleven separate calls were made to the SSPCA, but no-one intervened. Witnesses did come forward however, unusually, and the new Animal Welfare Act means he got a three-month prison sentence. All the events in this paragraph happened in Edinburgh, where Harry Potter was written. It just shows you. I don't feel safe enough to go out alone, even in day time.

I am so sick of living in this youth yob culture, where kids run around in tribes and intimidate and hurt others just for kicks. It makes me want to emigrate. I am so fed up. I blame human rights legislation, the welfare state and poor parenting. I read a newspaper article last week about three generations of the same family, ie grandma, kids and their kids, ten in total, and none of them worked, and the household get £32,000 in benefits a year. That's a lot, considering someone working an a supermarket full-time for example will only get about £12,000, oh, and the benefits family were having their house paid for by the council, and had sky tv (well they need to be able to relax), and had the cheek to complain they needed a 10-bedroom house to fit them all in. These kids don't see the point of going to work, because it's boring, and they actually get more on benefits than they would by going out to work. I hate the fact that an increasingly small proportion of the British population are paying higher and higher taxes to support smack addicts and wasters, whilst pensioners are so poor they have to choose between eating properly and heating their home.

It hurts to be poor in America, and it's harder to escape poverty, and I wouldn't want that here, but we've gone too far in the UK. I'm all for supporting those who need it, but when you've got gangs of kids who can't be touched by police (human rights means police powers are ridiculously limited here), and these kids will claim off of the state all their lives, it's disgusting. People actually feel they have a right to be supported by the state! The sad thing is that there are a lot of good people living on council estates, and the minority of 'bad apples' spoil it for everyone and drag local kids along with them. As for parents who say 'oh, I can't control my kids'..spare me.

Apologies for the rant, I'm just so fed up of 'neds' as they are called in Scotland. What's the English equivalent anyone? Does this sort of stuff happen in the USA and Canada?