REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Contagious Stupidity.

POSTED BY: FREMDFIRMA
UPDATED: Monday, August 22, 2011 19:32
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 1430
PAGE 1 of 1

Friday, August 19, 2011 8:28 AM

FREMDFIRMA


And Kansas City follows the abject stupidity of Philadelphia.
http://news.yahoo.com/kansas-city-sets-youth-curfew-weekend-shooting-0
25521638.html

Quote:

Three youths aged 13 to 16 were injured by apparently random gunshots at about 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night in an upscale shopping and restaurant district called Country Club Plaza.

So blame the victim, sure - and no one over eighteen ever rioted, and they magically somehow know the shooters age, and no one under eighteen ever worked nights...

Yanno what, call me what you will for this, but I am kinda hopin that someone finds out exactly who the dickhead responsible for this curfew bullshit is and calls down a mob on their house - of course, MY way of doin that would be exclusively adults and simply encircling the place and refusing to let them leave, see how THEY like it.

I doubt anyone else would be so merciful though, and back THEN... I don't think I woulda been either, so I can't really say much about that.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 8:42 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg


Frem,

I know you hate it when I'm right... but....

I warned people that things are going to get worse before they get better. Gang flash mobs beget curfews which beget social media shutdowns which beget more and more crackdowns... on and on..


Also,

"Curfews" are idiotic. Its yet another feel-good, do-nothing, answer from the people in "charge, to placate the sheep.

"Don't worry, we have a cop posted for every teenager on the street. Just like we have one for you, so you don't need a gun. What, you haven't met your personal body-guard/teenage monitor? Maybe you just haven't been issued one yet."



"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 8:53 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Apparently you're too stupid to realize I see enablers like you as part of the problem, cause I know for a fact that if this was a racially-specific curfew you'd be cheering for it and dancing a jig.

Go launder your robes or something Klanboy, us rational folk have things to discuss.

-F

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 9:32 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg


"Cry RACISS, and let loose the dogs of stupidity!"

Frem. Always good for a laugh.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 9:40 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


So, Fremd, any ideas as to what to do with crowds of mostly 11 to 14 year olds (per another report) out near midnight on a Saturday? There were apparently officers on scene, both on foot and mounted, and they were unable to prevent violence. As one cop noted in another article, you can't arrest your way out of this type of situation through curfew. From what the Mayor said about his conversation with a 13 year old girl, her mother apparently dumped here there with no set plans to pick her up, possibly so mom would be free for something else. Should the parents of these kids be held responsible if they cause trouble, or perhaps be cited for negligence if they leave pre-teen and early teen kids to roam late at night with no supervision or control?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 10:15 AM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
"Cry RACISS, and let loose the dogs of stupidity!"

Frem. Always good for a laugh.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"





That's a good gig you got there. Act like a flaming racists at every opportunity, then act persecuted when called on it.

You're a fucking joke.

Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 2:44 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
Frem,

I know you hate it when I'm right... but....

I warned people that things are going to get worse before they get better. Gang flash mobs beget curfews which beget social media shutdowns which beget more and more crackdowns... on and on..


Also,

"Curfews" are idiotic. Its yet another feel-good, do-nothing, answer from the people in "charge, to placate the sheep.

"Don't worry, we have a cop posted for every teenager on the street. Just like we have one for you, so you don't need a gun. What, you haven't met your personal body-guard/teenage monitor? Maybe you just haven't been issued one yet."



"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"






But Wulfie, I thought you were IN FAVOR of that armed revolution? I mean, when you thought it was going to be you and your white buddies doing it, you were all for it, right?

You're not so into it when it's others doing the revolting, I notice.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 3:26 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

The real question I have is this: If the measures fail to work, will they be quickly repealed?

--Anthony


_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 4:00 PM

DREAMTROVE


I've been hesitant to comment because i'm visiting sis in a curfew community, and boy is it functional. I mean, this place is about as together as a community gets.

Now, sure, there's an argument here that a nearby town where one kid murdered another, but I have to admit that this sort of thing also happened in my home town, and it happened in the drug scene, and I posted it here. Locals think the curfew is dumb, I find I'm less certain. It's a pretty strict society, but less so than I think you'd expect for one of these mennonite hybrid communities. It's just hard to argue with this level of success.

I've seen a lot of ugly in the drug scene in this part of the world, gang violence, and some friends of mine were murdered. I've seen a lot of attempts to quell that destructive trend, and this is the most successful. If you have better ideas, I'm all ears, but I'm just giving the counterpoint on this one: I'd rather see curfew than armed police patroling the streets and random searches in the school, etc.

In fact, that's the sound of curfew now.

My home town doesn't have curfew, just still at sis' until tomorrow. Then I'm likely to disappear for quite a while, I'm coming home to a mountain of work.


That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 7:50 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


I bet there's not a big flash-mob problem in North Korea, either.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 7:56 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
So, Fremd, any ideas as to what to do with crowds of mostly 11 to 14 year olds (per another report) out near midnight on a Saturday?

Err, what ?
I mean, does thier age alone make them automatically a threat, does what time it is really matter ?
Seriously, I could make the same damn case regarding say, sports fans, for example - but THEIR civil rights are respected cause they're above the magic number.
Sooner or later you MUST admit that these kids are human beings, or there's no point to even discussing this, and wholesale discrimination soley on the basis of an arbitrary age limit is quite frankly, ridiculous.
Quote:

There were apparently officers on scene, both on foot and mounted, and they were unable to prevent violence. As one cop noted in another article, you can't arrest your way out of this type of situation through curfew.

No shit sherlock, so why go with an obvious failure as policy, why make rules and laws based on wishful thinking instead of facing unpleasant realities ?
Quote:

From what the Mayor said about his conversation with a 13 year old girl, her mother apparently dumped here there with no set plans to pick her up, possibly so mom would be free for something else.

Ayuh, and like no wife ever dropped off the hubby at a sports bar so she could go shopping either...
Responsibility is a very individual thing, whether one is thirteen or thirty, hell I was running the household from a single digit age, which even I admit was far too early to be heaping such responsibility on a child, but even so how is it our business to tell other people how to raise their kids, why should some have the divine right to inflict their own ridiculous puritan moralities upon folk who may not share them, often with assistance of the law despite this riding the edge of a first amendment violation ?

This isn't really something best addressed on a LEGAL level, so much as a SOCIAL level, and that we have provided so few alternatives, that we make so little effort to break the endless cycle of the chain of neglect and mistreatment because it is as meekly accepted as beating your wife one was, is our failure as a society - that this society often aids and abets that mistreatment, that ever more aware and involved youth would retaliate for it, comes as no surprise to me - we do unto them, and as they grow up, they do unto us, all too often dead ending in youths spending thier whole foreshortened lives waging war against the society which has treated them so in a completely self-destructive fashion, those who do not fall into drug abuse, alcoholism or suicide.

There's also that socially, we don't really provide a lot of options, do we, and who's responsible for that, ehe ?
Quote:

Should the parents of these kids be held responsible if they cause trouble, or perhaps be cited for negligence if they leave pre-teen and early teen kids to roam late at night with no supervision or control?

I honestly don't see why, any more than one should hold a spouse responsible for the late nite DUI/DWI of their partner - for that matter much of the "supervision or control" you describe here is all but an illusion anyways because in our complete failure to treat them as human, we "adults" have failed to win sufficient respect from them to be listened to, our own hypocrisy and lies have broken the necessary bonding which would otherwise serve as the very basis for their respect of our laws and rules, many of which are enforced, as I say, in an unfair and arbitrary fashion, which demeans any impact they might have otherwise had.

This goes far deeper than something you can slap the bandaid of a curfew on, and a key component of what causes the problem is us treating them as sub-human, as less than pets, an attitude which I don't think you meant to hold here (in fact I think you might have been trying to argue otherwise!) but nonetheless shows through whether you meant it to or not.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 8:00 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

The real question I have is this: If the measures fail to work, will they be quickly repealed?


Hell no, they'll double down, triple down, more rules, more laws, more brutal enforcement, to paraphrase Eric Flint - Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences! Alles in ordnung!

And it never works, and this is blamed upon those the laws and rules are directed at, without regard to the notion that such cannot possibly work without some REASON to respect the law, of which these kids often have none, and for reasons that do make sense when you think about it.

-Frem


I do not serve the Blind God.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 8:03 PM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer: Should the parents of these kids be held responsible if they cause trouble, or perhaps be cited for negligence if they leave pre-teen and early teen kids to roam late at night with no supervision or control?


Yes, the parents should be held responsible.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 9:13 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
I bet there's not a big flash-mob problem in North Korea, either.



Indeed, Mikey, and hearing that ends-justify-means argument from DT, who damn well oughta know better, kind of appalls me.

Funny how ironic life is though, I'm on the schedule tonite, and posting between rounds, and thus I ran into the kid from Building 15 out there at around 2:20am - he's right in the age bracket we're talkin about, and comes across as fairly responsible, I often see him out late walking his dads lazy-ass beagles, cause this place has no curfew and I wouldn't enforce one anyway, not even the countys cause this is private property and they can kiss mah ass...

It's nice out here tonight, and I commented to the fact, and the conversation went kinda like this.
I like the night, it's so... peaceful.
Yeah, it is, isn't it - tell me son, ever think about a career in security ?
Huh-wha?
Well, I'm nocturnal too, and I get paid for my nighttime wanderings, besides which there's a certain pride and satisfaction in guarding the slumber of the daywalkers, knowing they can rest without worry cause I'm out here.
Ha, by the time they'd let me do it i'll be OLD!
Heeeyyy, no fair - besides, it's never too early to think about your future.


I didn't tell him that under the exception provision of PL330-1968 I could hire him as soon as he possesses a valid drivers license, but if he's still around and interested, well...


Which got me to thinkin about what the problem really is here, it's the way we look at them, the dynamic of master-slave, owner-pet, superior-inferior... and I remember quite well from my own youth how enough of that really does make you wanna rip their balls off and jam em down their throat after a while.

If we cannot seem to find it within ourselves to regard them as fellow human beings, as people, at the very LEAST we should find it possible to view them as equals-in-potential, cause all of this, that force-resistance-more-force model, which is not only a failure, but a destructive failure, isn't going to work, any more than stopping up a broken dam with toothpicks is, and you cannot force respect with violence, you can only earn it with your conduct.

No amount of force, violence or threat is even going to further discipline or teach self-discipline, only respect can do that, and in order to earn it, to secure the respect of youth sufficient that they actually give a shit about our laws and rules, see that there ARE reasons for many of them, that they DO have a point, we must first secure enough of it for them to even listen to us - this is an ongoing thing with my niece in fact, and NOT helped in any way by the fact that many of those rules and laws really ARE stupid, to which she has developed the habit of dismissing them all entire and a bit weirded out when her uncle, who is a damn ANARCHIST, is sitting there trying to point out that some of them do have value.

There's also a certain amount of reaction-hostility here, in that we label them, and they take that label and shove it in our faces, much in the fashion a lot of anarchists become such, but badly because they take upon themselves the only label society cares to attach to them and then live up to what they think the expectation of such is, rather than the ideal behind it - as I have pointed out before, and this DOES nudge their development, cause where you think I came up with the whole theatrical villain meme ?
If I was gonna be labelled a troublemaker, a villian, if I was going to suffer the penalty whether I engaged in that conduct or not... then I was damn well gonna *BE* a troublemaker, and a villain!
My niece suffers from this same problem despite my every effort to nudge her off that path, the problem with pre-emptive punishment based on what you MIGHT do, is that at that point there's no particular incentive to NOT do it, since you're gonna hang for it anyway, right ?

As it stands, we're facing the natural consequence of our own behavior, and in part their retaliation for mistreatment, passing the buck of our debts, handing them a shit sandwich for a future and expecting them to merrily chow down...
By all our sins remembered, and now they come to haunt us.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 10:58 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by m52nickerson:
Yes, the parents should be held responsible.



Maybe, but I am dubious of the utility of that.

You see, the flip side of that equals-in-potential thing, personal responsibility.
See, IMHO there's also an inherent disrespect AND enabling of this conduct by the pretense that they are NOT responsible for their own actions, and I find that just as offensive.

If a youth knowingly and deliberately performs an act that causes harm or damage (as opposed to violation of some victimless mala prohibita bullshit) then I think they damn well should be held accountable.
Not their parents, THEM, personally.

In fact my ideal response would be having the State pay damages and then assign them a certain amount of community service hours to pay it off, and I mean ACTUAL community service rather than makework and fluff, stuff where they can see a visible positive effect of their own actions to help stoke their own sense of civic responsibility and mitigate the blow of being forced to do something like this - mainly cause punitive justice is generally useless and restorative justice is about the only kind worth having.

Unfortunately, I cannot support it at this time cause of some very real problems with the notion, problems of OUR making that fall under our responsibility, the ugly realities that most folk would very much like to ignore, but I shall detail here.


1) - Police misconduct: All too often the cops just round up every youth in the near vicinity and charge them en-masse for the crime whether they were actually involved or not, this is something done to adults as well during protests and whatnot and it's a pretty blatant overreach and constitutionally unsupportable either way.
There's also beating confessions out of kids, or using extreme coercion - one reason I feel that ALL police interrogations should be video and audio recorded, and those records available to the defense and the public, something that makes complete sense if you think about it, and IF police were operating within the law, by the book, would in fact exonerate and protect them, and yet they *universally* oppose this, which crosses over with another thread regarding their conduct, mind you.

2) - Judicial misconduct: Too damn many judges are on the kickback payroll from juvie prisons, and hellcamps, something I've addressed in other threads in respect to the two PA judges we finally bagged for this, and the religiously-inclined ones who have been sentencing kids to religious indoctrination hellholes like Teen Challenge, something so far NOT properly investigated even though we've been pushing for that for some time.
Beyond that is also just how "bent" most juvie courts are, thus violation the constitutional requirement for a fair trial, as anyone who has witnessed their proceedings can attest (and I have, all too often, as defendent, counsel, or expert witness) most of the time the judge has already decided his verdict and sentence before the trial and just blows off any testimony or evidence, so as long as the juvenille justice system is chugging along on the choo-choo railroad track, it renders restorative justice, or justice of any kind, kind of pointless.

3) - Exploitation: This'd only really work if the hours "billed" were at competitive rates for the work done, assigning a minimal or pathetic "value" to those hours at minimum wage or less (often much, MUCH less) turns it from restorative justice into indentured servitude or slave labor of the truck system or "company store" variety, and I find that completely unsupportable and extremely offensive - as well it again discriminates by sending the message that their time, their labor, is worth less (pun intended) than that of someone older, reinforcing the very problem instead of contributing to a solution.

That's far from all of it, but it's a start - in short we really need to get our house in order before we got any kind of moral right to throw stones at theirs, and the abject hypocrisy with which we do so is one of the primary reasons they don't respect our society, you know.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 19, 2011 11:16 PM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:

Indeed, Mikey, and hearing that ends-justify-means argument from DT, who damn well oughta know better, kind of appalls me.


Ot making any argument, just it would be remiss to not mention that I was staying at the moment in a curfew community which does not have this problem.

I'd guess that gated communities don't have crime problems or drug wars, and there are a whole host of problems that pure Amish communities don't have. This community is mixed, which is becoming increasingly common here, but they do run an orderly society.

If you want to argue against that, I think that it behooves yiur to present an alterative solution.

As for organized crime in N. korea, not only do they have it, they also have their own special brand which htey call the police.


ETA: just like you take into account "parents will sometimes suck" you need go expand this to the rest of humanity, judges will sometimes be corrupt, police will sometimes be brutal, etc. No working solution can rely on the idea that we will create a society of pure people. This is my main problem with the enlightenment and subsequent revolution.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 3:09 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

As for organized crime in N. korea, not only do they have it, they also have their own special brand which htey call the police.




Which prevents a rather novel approach to dealing with flash mobs which are assembled ONLY for criminal activity: RICO organized crime and racketeering statutes should cover this quite nicely. After all, if it IS organized, and it IS for the express purpose of committing crimes...


Of course, it goes without saying that I think the RICO statutes should also be applied to quite a few corporate boards of directors, too. ;)

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 3:25 AM

DREAMTROVE


ah, but they own the govt. They're never going to call in the goons themselves.

In N. korea you can get executed for using a cell phone.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255375/North-Korean-man-execu
ted-calling-friend-South-Korea-mobile-phone.html


That'll stop Flash mobs, but I was unaware that synchronized dancing was illegal in Texas. :naugty:

ETA: Frem, the reason I was adding the counterpoint was not that I was a fan of the curfew policy, which I'm not, but that I believe in evolution, in all things, and so much of politics really strikes me as religion: ie, it either falls into "intelligent design" (like socialism) or it falls off the other end and back into religion as "because it's wrong" which is really the argument here.

When you attack a policy you don't like, you need a more effective solution.

It's like quarantine for AIDS. Folks might remember William F Buckley Jr pushing for the policy, but his argument was "an estimated 25,000 people have the disease today, and they will infect an estimate two million more by the year 2000 if we do nothing." so, the estimates were a little low, but he was essentially correct, and we did nothing.

Which is not to say that the two situations are analogous, though I've known a similar number of people to die in drug related crimes as died of AIDS, but rather that was needed was an effective policy.

If you don't have an effective solution, chances are evolution will select in favor of a society which does have one. In north korea the way they deal with drug crimes is the same as the way they deal with cell phone users. That policy is spreading across asia, in part because no one has come up with a more effective one.


That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 5:47 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:

If you don't have an effective solution, chances are evolution will select in favor of a society which does have one. In north korea the way they deal with drug crimes is the same as the way they deal with cell phone users. That policy is spreading across asia, in part because no one has come up with a more effective one.


That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.


Hello,

A solution has to do more than solve a problem. It has to keep from creating new, worse problems in the process.

I suspect Korea's solutions would be seen as a worse blight than the 'Flash Mobs' ever were.

--Anthony



_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 5:59 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Re: Frem's response to Anthony's question that if measures don't work, will they be repealed?
Quote:

Hell no, they'll double down, triple down, more rules, more laws, more brutal enforcement.
Again I think you're view, Frem, is overly influenced by your own experiences. Here in CA, they banned cell phones from the L.A. BART because of problems. They then repealed it because of protests from the citizenry. Now the board is meeting to discuss whether to bring it back or leave it, with public comment taken into account.

I think in this country, free speech will outweigh a ban such as this, just as I BELIEVE that not everything will result in "doubling down"; we are too independent a people (even now, with a lot of restrictions) to put up with as much "brutal enforcement" as you think. I don't say it's impossible, but I tihnk it will be pretty tough to enact laws which will result in some kind of police state. JMHO.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 7:06 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Seriously, I could make the same damn case regarding say, sports fans, for example - but THEIR civil rights are respected cause they're above the magic number.
Sooner or later you MUST admit that these kids are human beings, or there's no point to even discussing this, and wholesale discrimination soley on the basis of an arbitrary age limit is quite frankly, ridiculous.



Okay. So if they break the law, arrest them just like a drunk and rowdy Lions fan, and otherwise leave them alone?

Also, Do you consider that the parents have any responsibility for their childrens' behavior or safety, at any age, or is it all on the kid from the day they can open the door?

And do you consider it a good idea(not legally right or wrong, just a good idea or not) for parents to drop kids as young as 11 off with a bunch of other kids, unsupervised and unprotected? Seems like a great hunting ground for child predators.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 8:13 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

It seems self-evident that persons who break the law shall be arrested. Was this in dispute?

--Anthony



_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 10:04 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


The problem with this kind of "flash mob", Anthony, is that they are virtually always gone before the police can arrive. Prevention is nearly impossible, and because of the above, so is "cure". It's definitely a problem, but I don't know how it can be effectively dealt with, given I don't approve of either cutting off cell phones OR curfews.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 11:00 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


"they are virtually always gone before the police can arrive."

Hello,

This is true of virtually all crime. Police officers have always arrived at crimes after the fact, and detectives have always been tasked to piece together the identity of culprits long after the crime has been committed.

Police intervention in active crimes has always been the rarity. Even when they do arrive before the culprits escape, people have usually been fully victimized by that point. This is why dialing 9-1-1 has never been a viable self-defense tactic.

So this is no different than most other crime. The criminals will have to be tracked down and arrested after careful investigation.

--Anthony





_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 11:15 AM

DREAMTROVE



Anthony,

You may see it that way, but the govt. of N. Korea doesn't. From their pov, drugs were a problem, and now they're not. They don't think police state fascism is a problem, clearly.

It's this sort you need to convince in order for the jackboots to step down. You can easily convince me that the situation is worse, but I have no power to make the jackboots stand down.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 20, 2011 11:55 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Dreamtrove:
Ah, but I HAVE offered solutions, they just take ACTUAL WORK, as opposed to feel-good-bandaid-bullshit, and frankly they're not even solutions I came up with, but primarily based on the work of Andrew Vachss and Alice Miller - and for Miller's solutions there's some pretty damn hard empirical evidence that they DO work.

To most folk, I'd quote The Beast(Transmetropolitan)
Quote:

Oh, is that your problem with me? That I don't believe in anything? Or that I don't believe in anything you like?

But you of all people should know I not only offer solutions, I've spent a large chunk of my life trying like hell to put some of em into practice.
That said, I kinda miss Buckley, the ole bastard gave new meaning to the words "Weaponized Vocabulary", and I'd have paid good money to see him and Hunter S Thompson argue about something, heh - not that I ever agreed with Buckley, mind you.


Niki:
I wish I could believe that, but too many of my experiences are quite valid, too many times has such BECOME reality, case in point, Zero-Tolerance leading to the TSA shakedown, and many other measures first used against youth winding up aimed at the population as a whole once they get the kinks worked out - that's why I draw the line there, it's not just advocacy, it's self-defense.
And "They wouldn't dare" has never, EVER worked as a deterrent, never ever - hell, that was Madisons excuse for why the Constitution needed no specific provision against a standing army, why we didn't really need a Bill of Rights...
The backlash about it is of course gratifying, but I have learned never to depend upon it, which is ironic cause folks like me help formulate that backlash, the case with BART wasn't because they banned cell-phones, but because they impinged on ADULTS rights, if they'd restricted their enforcement to teens for example, most folk woulda shrugged, if not cheered, I'd love to be proven wrong about that, but rarely is that the case.
Notice how fast the Pilots Union bailed out on standing up against the TSA Shakedown the *instant* THEY were exempted from it ?

I ain't necessarily in as much disagreement as I sound, doll, but I know all too well the dangers of letting things slide - it's only tough to enact tyrannical laws when we MAKE it tough to do so, and IMHO the first line of defense is when they are used in this fashion.


Geezer:
Quote:

Okay. So if they break the law, arrest them just like a drunk and rowdy Lions fan, and otherwise leave them alone?

Damn right, they're people, treat em like it - and yes as I noted personal responsibility cuts both ways.
Quote:

Also, Do you consider that the parents have any responsibility for their childrens' behavior or safety, at any age, or is it all on the kid from the day they can open the door?

That's a very individual thing, which makes such things problematic - certainly we know "children" who are quite responsible, and "adults" we wouldn't trust not to get lost in their own front yard.
Parents I think have a responsibility to raise their child in a way that doesn't endanger the rest of us with their presence, and to do otherwise you could make a case for negligence - while I most certainly do NOT consider youth as pets or livestock, you might say that is similar to letting a vicious dog loose in the community, sure.
As for their safety, only so far as they could reasonably assure it - wasn't there a recent case where some parents were laid into for letting their apparently-very-responsible child test their own ability to use the subway ? stuff like that is ridiculous, if the child has a cellphone and the number of parents, friends and emergency services what more can you do, honestly ?

It feels a bit strange to argue it from this end, being that I was by necessity, left to my own devices from a single digit age and I really coulda used some damn guidance and backup - this has colored my opinion in both directions though, since I know the capabilities and limitations of both sides a little better, I think.
Quote:

And do you consider it a good idea(not legally right or wrong, just a good idea or not) for parents to drop kids as young as 11 off with a bunch of other kids, unsupervised and unprotected? Seems like a great hunting ground for child predators.

Again, a very individual thing, shit man, if some perv laid a hand on Kira (aka Crash) she'd likely land his ass in the hospital, nor is she stupid enough to fall for their games - it's already been researched and confirmed that most of the tricks predators use depend on very broken familial relationships, and those with more positive ones fail the "interview" (See Also: Marc MacYoung) part of the crime and blow off the freaks before they get a hook in, and you might also be surprised that these kids share defensive information regarding that problem with each other even when the adults don't have the balls to discuss it with them, or are too overprotective and don't wanna frighten them with such knowledge, plus yanno, safety in numbers.

Dropping them off alone, no, not such a good idea, but again, if they have a cellphone and a whistle (and frankly, MANY girls 12-16 carry pepper spray whether it's legal or not cause they don't fucking trust US to defend them, and rightfully so!) and are in a relatively public environment, how is that so much more or less dangerous than say... public school ?


You know what I think is gonna happen ?
Fact is, despite the repeated, ongoing demonization of youth, the automatic assumption that they're all lying manipulator scum (and thank you-fuck you Mel Sembler, for that!) youth are as human as the rest of us, good and bad, and smarter than we give em credit for ever...

And what's gonna happen is OTHER youth who are pissed off at these dickheads bringing down the thunder of the little tin gods who run our society upon them wholesale, are going to respond by spiking their flash mobs, by getting into their networks via infiltration or personal contact or whatever, and start shutting this crap down themselves without our intervention, that is provided our intervention doesn't push THOSE kids over the line to where they won't do it out of fear of being punished for shit they didn't do, just cause of who they are, and their rage at us over being shat on once again, without just cause.

As Anthony so aptly puts it, so far there's no real difference between this and other criminal activity, and to pretend there is, to assign a special awfulness to it via demonization of youth, cuts us off from potential allies among them by FORCING them to be our enemies in their own defense.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 22, 2011 7:32 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Like I've said before I don't believe in curfew on a legal level, being out at night can be really pleasant, especially in one's own neighborhood where one is familiar, Rachie and I always would run up and down the block in the dark, we knew not to go further because our parents had taught us not to, not because there was some law about it. I think that the only curfews should be those determined by parents/families for their kids, not those set by the government, its not up to them when my kids are outdoors, I think parents are/should be capable of making those decisions for their own family.

I'm definitely a big age designation person, its an equalizer and I'm big on that in how we treat people, at least to a point. But I think curfews are something that families should determine. If people raise their children to behave and make good choices, then a decent chunk of this problem would cease to be as problematic. I'm not saying that things would be perfect, but things would be better.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
Is Elon Musk Nuts?
Sun, November 24, 2024 10:59 - 422 posts
Elections; 2024
Sun, November 24, 2024 10:58 - 4797 posts
Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
Sun, November 24, 2024 09:50 - 7496 posts
The Islamic Way Of War
Sun, November 24, 2024 08:51 - 41 posts
Favourite Novels Of All Time?
Sun, November 24, 2024 08:40 - 44 posts
Russia to quit International Space Station
Sun, November 24, 2024 08:05 - 10 posts
human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
Sun, November 24, 2024 08:03 - 946 posts
Russia should never interfere in any other nation's internal politics, meanwhile the USA and IMF is helping kill Venezuela
Sun, November 24, 2024 07:48 - 103 posts
Japanese Culture, S.Korea movies are now outselling American entertainment products
Sun, November 24, 2024 07:24 - 51 posts
The parallel internet is coming
Sun, November 24, 2024 06:04 - 180 posts
Giant UFOs caught on videotape
Sun, November 24, 2024 05:43 - 8 posts
California on the road to Venezuela
Sun, November 24, 2024 05:41 - 26 posts

FFF.NET SOCIAL