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Riots in London have everyone talking today, although violence and disorder have been going for days according to reports. Causes and motivations are still unclear, and as with most crises they will probably remain so until after the fact. Whatever the reasons, youth in London and increasingly across England are tossing aside any sense of citizenship they might have had in favour of selfish, violent behaviour against a society which, judging from the quotes that are emerging, they perceive as having abandoned them. Why is this spreading so far and so fast? Riots of this magnitude erupt when people are pushed to their limits, unhappy with a government which has betrayed them or does not represent them. We applaud when people demonstrate their desire for democracy with this kind of passion, and comdemn police who silence them. In London, however, the police seem to be determinedly holding to their responsibility not to hurt citizens - and in pro-democracy protests, rioters do not upload photos with themselves and the commercial goods they have managed to steal.

There was a protest in my city, I called the idiotic mayor and told him to put curfew rules into places, the law is my friend. The law is your enemy, the law is the enemy of those with no power. The law is a reflection of the appetites and needs of the powerful. I am the law, you are the slave of the law. I am the lawyers, you are the ones arrested and brutalized because of your skin shades. I am the law, you are the poor citizens who cannot even afford a lawyer.