Comment by nemomarx
2 days ago
Normalizing those mosquito devices and trying to drive teenagers out of public life, banning kitchen knives in some attempt to keep kids from getting used to blades...
the UK strategy on kids is very very strange to me. I can't follow the logic at all. Do they expect them to silently sit at home, not using the Internet, not going anywhere with friends, and end up well adjusted adults anyway?
Because these trials and tribulations are designed to disenfranchise the lower classes - regardless of age, the protected classes tend to be unimpeded by societal measures in the UK.
If teenagers Felicity or Joshua need to purchase a knife, or access questionable internet content, it'll be an assumed part of their privilege that they'll be able to do so. Similarly they are unimpacted by anti-social behaviour orders or restrictions on their entitlement to exist in public spaces unmolested, as this is the demographic insulated by their memberships to 3rd spaces such as Social and Sporting clubs - a fry cry from their lower-class urban peers resigned to hanging around the Tesco carpark.
Basically yeah. Where I live virtually all kinds of community centres have closed down due to lack of funding, even a local library had to close because local council has no money to keep it running. As a teenager there is nothing to do around here, a town of 20k people next to a 300k city. And then I see people complaining that "oh there are teenagers around the park at night" - yeah, because they have literally nothing else to do. And they aren't even causing anyone any harm, they just sit there and chat most of the time. But I see local neighbours groups all being like "someone needs to do something about these youths!" - like yeah, no shit, but so far the only solution anyone has is to "silently sit at home, not using the Internet, not going anywhere with friends, and end up well adjusted adults anyway". 6th largest economy in the world and it can't even keep a library open.