Some things are what's known as 'cut and dried'. In other words there's little ambiguity, there's little room for debate. It is what it is, and unless you're pedantic or into meta-physics, perhaps you could do better things with your time rather than questioning it.
I confess to not being in the loop as much with the news these days. I find it selective, biased, sensationalist, and i view it as adding fuel to a fire. After a little self-research into the global warming debate, i was alarmed at the inaccuracy in the media, and the way such inaccuracies were sucked up by the populace. News, i thought, is bad for the mind.
As such, i knew the name Raoul Moat, but knew little else except that he was a man - possibly armed - in poor mental health. Not a good thing, so he was labelled a threat to both police and the general public. As it all went on i started following it more intently, and chose to read from several different sources to get the whole picture.
Raoul took his own life after a stand off with the police. Now, there are two schools of thought here, one is saying - Good riddance to a real piece of shit, and the other - He was a folk hero, let down by the system and shit on by his girlfriend.
I find little suprise in the way that Moat cut his hair into a mohawk near the end of his days. If you're wondering why, you haven't seen the Scorsese film Taxi Driver, where DeNiro's character, Travis Bickle, cuts his hair into a mohawk before he goes off on his killing spree. DeNiro himself came up with that idea, after conversing with a chap from Special Forces who said that Special Forces Ops used to do that in Vietnam so that their colleagues would know they were due to go off on a mission and would leave them alone so they could get in the right head space.
I don't want to get into the whole 'movies influence society' debate. What i want to say is, in the movie DeNiro's character ended up a hero himself. Lauded for taking on the pimps and the bad guys. As the nation grows increasingly frustrated with the police in this red tape age, anyone seen to be mocking or ridiculing them is met with childish support. To threaten to kill them however, takes us to a whole new level.
The story goes Moat was released from prison, and to say he felt down on his luck is a bit of an understatement. He moaned on his facebook page that he'd lost his business, his kids to social services, and his girlfriend to a copper.
I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that all of that is Moat's own fault. He was in prison for assaulting a nine year old child. His own child, to be precise. No-one else did that, he did. He did the time for it. Prison is not a time capsule. Things, and people, move on whilst you're in there. When you come out, you need to adjust. Moat seemed intent on blaming everyone else for his shit state, rather than heading towards a mirror and giving himself a good hard look.
I'd like to point and laugh at Moat (now he's dead of course, i would not have done so had he been in front of me), but sadly the blame game carries on. The parole board is to blame for releasing him. The police are to blame for frying him with a Taser. His friend McAllister is blaming the police for not watching his house, since Moat went there twice. It's his girlfriend's fault for saying she was seeing a police officer when she wasn't, so she's to blame too. The media, they were asked to stop broadcasting negative things about Moat as it was only making him angry, and you wouldn't like him when he's angry, so the media are to blame.....nothing new there then.
On and on, with little regard for common sense. When i used to hang around pubs a lot more than i do now, i'd see many violent encounters. Big chaps, fuelled by ego and alcohol, threatening to kill each other. 'Rip your fuckin head off'.....'Fuck you up'.....'You're fuckin dead'.....the list of threats goes on. Of course, it never happened. Most times i'd see them drinking together the next day. However, people seem to think that Moat should not have been released because he made a threat. How many threats have you made? Both to people, and inanimate objects for ruining your day? Should we put you in jail? Is it the same thing? If you say "Well no, but then i havent been put in jail for a violent assault"....are you saying we should not let out anyone with a history of violence if they say anything remotely threatening to anyone?
Two more things have transpired today, one, that Moat asked for psychiatric help but never got it. So now we blame the system again right? Well he did get given appointments but never turned up, so now who do we blame.....oh wait, it's Moat again. The other thing is that Moat was a police informer. This is how he was let off when convicted of possessing a knuckle duster and a samurai sword.
To those giving sympathy to this asshole, this bullying, steroid-fuelled, selfish, thick, murdering motherfucker, i say you're not thinking enough. In fact, you're probably not thinking at all.
Though there are instances in the case of Raoul Moat that may need to be scrutinised and learned from, the fact remains that he was a cunt. He was a danger, but only through his own actions.This blaming bullshit....it has to stop.
He's gone now, and that's fine with me. I could not believe it when there was outcry that the police had used Tasers after Moat had shot himself. Would you have approached the still-warm body of Raoul Moat? Knowing what he was capable of? Knowing he had a shotgun in his hands? Fuck you i wouldn't. I'd have tasered him until he was well done. Fuck, i'd have caused an emergency for the national grid, as i constantly re-charged my Taser to blast him time and time again.
Once again it's those that aren't there, that aren't in that situation that claim they know best how to handle it. They preach from a safe zone, where they have no frame of reference. I wouldn't dream of telling a brain surgeon how best to operate, nor would i try and tell the police how to do their job. Moat left behind a mess, but he also left behind lessons. Those are the things we learn from in a positive manner.
