Soapbox Malcolm Haines: Litterbugs and drunks need to take responsibility for their actions
WHILE the Clean Up Derby campaign by your paper may be commendable in principle, I feel it is missing the point and it also seeks an easy option.
As of late, a number of articles have appeared regarding certain areas of the city, from people whinging and whining about their streets being cluttered with rubbish.
One does not have to be rich to be clean and tidy, they are basic skills I learned at a very early age.
I fail to see why the council should have to provide extra services for the people making this mess – where do they think the money is coming from? They can't be naive enough to think it's for free.
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Why should the rest of us have to take part in voluntary litter picks – they threw it down, let them pick it up. If they have no wish to do that, let them disappear under their own detritus, if that brings about a plague of vermin and disease, so be it, maybe the dimwits will then begin to see the error of their ways.
One thing is absolutely certain with these people, the more you clear up after them, the more rubbish they will leave.
Another point I wish to make is about street closures.
Well done to the political pioneer who came up with the idea to close off part of Derby city centre – the area around The Strand/The Wardwick.
Initially the argument is one of "public safety", which seems very laudable. However, what it actually means is the city centre has been given over to drunks and druggies, who, from their own crass stupidity, might be harmed. So the rest of us have to suffer.
It doesn't make me proud to admit that, from time to time I have been as legless as the best of them, however, I was always made to accept responsibility for my own safety. Learning to cross the road was also a skill that I was taught at a very early age.
Not that I agree with much of the rubbish that comes from America, but one useful law they do have is one of jaywalking.
A friend of mine, having been to the States for his holidays, committed the above offence and finished up with a broken arm. Not only did he have to pay his hospital bills, he also got fined for jaywalking!
Such remedies tend to focus one's behaviour quite sharply. If you were unfortunate enough to cease living, then you also cease to be a problem for the rest of time. Should you only be severely maimed, then the burden of care ought to rest with your immediate family and not the rest of us.
We have gone too far in making excuses for all these miscreants, it's about time they shouldered the responsibility for their own actions.
Perhaps the offenders will claim that I disrespect them. Well yes, I do, because respect is not a right, it has to be earned, and you can achieve that by conforming to the most basic standards.
2 Comments
by janine2011
Monday, March 11 2013, 2:50PM
“Eloquently put, I agree with all of it. I taught all my children to put their rubbish in their packet if there wasn't a bin handy, along with how to cross the road. They in turn have taught their own children and now my great grandson will also learn the same lessons when he is older, he is only a few months old yet.”
by SarahL123
Monday, March 11 2013, 10:46AM
“I couldn't agree more. Like you I was taught to take my litter home if there wasn't a bin nearby, and learned to cross a road safely (even when steaming drunk!)
Littering is an offence, as is being drunk and disorderly. Why are we not enforcing these rather than implementing costly schemes that simply reinforce the poor behaviour?”