[UnderseaLcpl]

I'm going to side with Steed on this, if for no other reason than that nobody seems to agree with him.

While I doubt England will become the first nation in history to collapse because of teenagers who will not pick up litter, civil disobedience of this type is often an indicator that one feels repressed and powerless in the face of their government's daily influence on their lives. It also indicates the lack of respect for law enforcement officials, or more probably, the laws they enforce.

Were this incident to be repeated in differing forms on a significant scale, it would indubitably herald at best, political backlash, and at worst, insurrection.

England has a long and proud history of pissing off either its own populace, the rest of Europe and moreso than either of those, Scotland. I will not specifically mention their disputes with Ireland as the Irish seem to be pissed about something all the time. America is honored to fulfill two-thirds of this great legacy, but can probably find a way to piss off Scotland as well if required.

As far as their own populace is concerned, England seems suffering from a condition known as "socialism", which is fairly common in Europe. Early symptoms include wanting everyone else to pay for your stuff, and a complete misunderstanding of economics. The most dangerous symptom of this condition is that you feel fine at first, but then collapse under debt and social upheaval, just like every nation that contracts "socialism".

This incident, when coupled with all the other stories of bad news in England provided by Steed, does seem to indicate the onset of harmful symptoms of "socialism".

Equally worrisome is that the United States has slowly contracted "socialism" over the years. There is strong evidence that "socialism", combined with a large and uneducated populace, leads to Soviet Unions.

In summation, I feel Steed's concerns do warrant his belief in England's imminent collapse to some degree. The contrary opinion, that "everything is fine, we just have some tweaking to do", led to England's original collapse, the collapse of every Authoritarian government in history, the imminent collapse of those that still exist and their current economic problems that will, shortly, result in their collapse, the collapse of the Roman Empire, and the glorious People's prosperity of North Korea and Cuba.

Sadly for Steed, America's collapse will be #1 because we're America.

-the Lance