[Sparkle]

Originally Posted by Hugh

a) I am impressed that you can tell the difference between student protestors and "yoofs", since most students are, in fact, "yoofs" (strange that all police are violent fascist barstewards, but you have the wherewithal to differentiate between young people, even when their faces are completely hidden (as they were in my earlier post).

Irrelevant. My earlier post was aimed at Masque's comment about multiple police vans being tipped over, when in fact it was an exaggeration as none were.

b) it's the same police van.....

Yes from reading up on this, I do believe it is the same van. The one that was deliberately left as bait in the protester "kettle" in the November demo.

c) your follicles appear to suffer from extreme splitting.... is it ok that one police van is vandalised, and only becomes a problem when more than one police van is tipped over?

What utter nonsense. When did I say it was okay to vandalise a van? Was it not you who said "assumptions are the mother of all frakk-ups?"
Why is is okay for you to make all manner of assumptions in order to validate the indefensible, but if anyone else appears to do it then it's deemed "the mother of all frakk-ups" ?

Just because its just as bad to vandalise a van as it is to tip one over, does not excuse your camp from deliberately spreading misinformation dictating that multiple police vans were tipped over, when in fact it was one that that vandalised. If one is to exaggerate, why stop at tipped over? Why not make the fairy tales much more colourful and add in some explosions and fatalities? Maybe its just me, but I'd much rather we stick to facts than fantastical misinterpretations of what actually happened, just saying...

And before you go down your black/white route again, I do not think that all student protesters are violent, just a small minority - but that small minority damaged the reputation of the rest, just like the small minority of police who behave badly taint the rest of the force (but as I do not believe in sweeping generalisations, I believe in both cases it is a small minority).

Well its good that you accept that 99% of students who were clearly seen to be walking calmly with their placards weren't just thugs in disguise pretending to be peaceful protesters. Now we are beginning to stick with the facts, I hope this is a sign of things to come in this discussion.

The only reputation damaged in my eyes is that of the individual protestors who resorted to extremem violence, and the individual police who were overly aggressive or instigated violence. I don't tar everyone with the same brush, ever. I do judge (as do we all), but only on a case by case basis, regardless of gender, ethnicity, appearance, uniform (or lack of) or any other identifying marker other than the content of their character.