With reference to Jakob's previous post,
Distrust of government , thats no surprise to me .
I'm fortunate in some ways ,both my parents had solid government jobs ,
thats not to say it was all a bed of roses where they worked either ,
but it did put food on the table .
I wouldnt deny for a second Im cut from basically middle class cloth ,
grew up in middle class neighbourhoods , and had opportunities that most working class people would never have had.
Having said all of the above Ive been lucky enough to make friends from all backrounds , I certainly didnt stick to my own side of the fence ,like a lot of people do .
What I learned from standing shoulder to shoulder(mostly in the pub)with people who had much tougher lives than me was
a lot of middle/upper society people live in a bubble , a cocoon , insulating themselves from the lesser folk who they prefer to look down their nose at. There's certainly no attempt to understand what life is like for others less fortunate, the reality of which tends to smash the delusion of the well to do's to smithereens.
We have seen some very ugly scenes lately where members of the Gardai(Irish police) have been coughed on, spat at and threatened with Covid infection by kids from tough backrounds , its wound up in the court in several cases. We can slam our clenched fist on the table all we want ,and cry out 'lock up the scum' but in reality what were seeing is a subset of the population who could never expect and never were protected by the state and that was probably going on for many generations before the Irish state was even formed.
I can understand from previous postings the Nordic/Scandinavian countries have a generally high regard/trust in law and order /government, at the same time does that only better hide a smaller subset of the population who dont?
I remember around 25 years ago paying a visit to Moskow , I remember being quite gob smacked by the orderly behaviour of 99.999% of people , you would see the odd person half steamed(drunk) on neat vodka , but they still knew they couldn't run around shouting and roaring at people in the street or either the cops would drag them off or some military guy would step up and knock them out with the butt of a rifle , fear is the driver there. Just trying to get a better perspective on how it goes in Northern Europe , how is the balance between order/fear/respect struck?
The thing I worry about all this we have on our plate now is its being used to advance an agenda , no more cash money , the possibillity of more armed law enforcement and a dilution of personal freedoms ,the people who have come to rely on the long arm of the law seem unquestioning in their belief and their willingness to impose this on others , the people who never had the protection of the law have absolutely no reason to believe in the system at all , and why should they .
