Child Murderer Tried as Adult by canttakesky

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

I think we should do it on a sliding scale, individually, in a fashion similar to the tests of manhood from the days of yore, only with less macho bullshit and more ACTUAL relevance....

Stuff like, say, with a budget of X, procure sufficient fuel, drive to the store, purchase and then produce a meal for four people, one of whom is a vegetarian, and do so by Y time.

Hell, most "adults" couldn't handle that, but I am just throwing it out there as an example, cause I do in fact use such tests and trials while trying to heal people who were abandoned and badly damaged pyschologically or emotionally as children, the sense of ability and self-sufficiency is very meaningful, and the ability to survive without dependence offers them a mental comfort of "freedom" even though bounded by the usual need to get the bills paid, yadda yadda...

Cause it comes to cases, I know 13yr olds I would trust to back me up with a shotgun on a game trail... and 31yr olds I wouldn't - there's "children" (mostly in the realm of 16-17) who I would loan my car with nothing more than an admonition to refuel it, and yet "adults" I not only wouldn't trust with my car, I won't even RIDE in their car - in both cases it is their judgement and maturity I call into question, you see ?

So, while a person could and many times does, reach a respectable standard of sane, mature, respectable conduct long before the "magic number"....

Simply hitting that number BY NO MEANS guarantees that they have, you know - which is where the howling and screaming and whining and temper tantrums would occur, cause SOME people, case in point the Wulfenwhiner... would *not* be considered "adults" anymore just by coasting on time, they'd have to prove it.

And you can just imagine the hissy-fit when they fail, miserably.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

Very well said.

Yes, I totally agree. Back to specifics of the case, let me take some thresholds that were crossed here

Two cases: Jordan Brown and Lionel Tate. Different, but similar.

Jordan Brown.
Threshold: Jordan Brown, gun owner. A mistake. Clearly. What should have been required? A full comprehension of consequences.

Lionel Tate
Threshold: Should not be left alone with a child. What should have been required? An understanding of safety and respect for the lives of other humans.

I think that each right should be granted independent of age, when the responsibility is demonstrated. Sometimes it should never be granted. Some people are not aware that other humans exist (I mean this literally) These people should perhaps not be given firearms.

But anyone should be able to apply themselves for a test, at any time.

Rights should be incremental. The reason I say this is that I've known some real psychopaths who would be able to fool a firearms safety test just to get a gun just to kill someone. My stepped program would be giving the least dangerous first.

Let me use cars as an example. How about this: You have demonstrated understanding of the required handling and understanding, we grant you a neighborhood electric vehicle. It's damn difficult to kill yourself and others with this. But nothing is going to test your abilities like real world experience. Move it up from there.

Now, let's say this system fails, because nothing is foolproof. Then I think the liability falls on the person who passed this individual and said that they were safe... up to a point.

If you pass gun safety, and go on, and are don't shoot anyone with your gun, then, 14 years down the road, you snap, and shoot up a McDonald's, I don't think the person who passed you is responsible. Maybe they failed to see this in you, but many other things are possible. Perhaps 4 years after you got the gun permit you began using drugs. 7 years in, you were a serious crack addict. 11 years in you had a nervous breakdown, and holed yourself up in a cabin, and 13 years you started using again. A year later, after being cut off, you started to lose it. Nonetheless you were holding down a stressful job and paying the bills. You go into a McDonald's and someone gives you a rough time. Being a total looney toons at this time, you return to your car, get your gun, and start shooting (a surprising number of these shootings happen this way: person was set off on site, returned to get their gun from their vehicle, parked on site.)

At this point, the individual has to bear responsibility.

This sound like a working model to you?

ETA: They *are* prisoners

Also, your first conversation with me was you ripping me a new one over not understanding my argument, (as you just did on the other thread.*) My response to your first post to me was to do the same to you, and then it turned out we had more in common that we had differences. But we will always have differences, that's what makes us human, and not borg assimilated clones, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Select to view spoiler:

My RTL position, "education not legislation" was my very first post on this forum, and I kinda mentioned it a lot since, but I try to avoid doing so because abortion is a political handgrenade. Sorry if you got hit by some of the shrapnel on that one. blame jong ;) he brought it up. Oh, no feelings hurt on this end. I just sent you that message to clear up my position. Essentially, IMHO, TPTB are going to reduce the world population to the point where we *can't* fight back. You don't need to see my empty piece of the world, check out your ghost town of Detroit. Statistically, worldwide, I think they probably have this one in the bag. The world population will collapse in a couple of decades. Certainly within one lifetime. I also think they're giving up on abortion, they have more advanced methods now, it's like the atom bomb, obsolete. They're going for mass sterilization.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 8:15 AM

Quote:
What you are implying goes against everything that is known about childhood through the study of human development.

You seem to be missing my point here about "everything that is known about childhood through the study of human development" is mostly performed by ADULTS, who have preconceived notions about what childhood is and what children are like.

Quote:

So kids are the same as adults then? Exactly the same, it's just that we treat them differently?? [...] although it seems pretty bloody obvious to me that children not adults

Neither of these are what I'm saying. I was introducing a counter model, based on my experience, that contradicts what is commonly thought about sexuality and mental maturity. In some, the existing models may in fact accurately describe childhood development. In others, the existing models distinctly do NOT.

I was also speculating on conditions under which children might be considered to functionally operate as adults. This is not without legal precedence: the conditions I mentioned are the same as can be found in legal emancipation.

Quote:
Clearly this is kind of new information for some of you, but truly, it aint rocket science.

Now you're just being insulting. I am very familiar with the idea you're presenting, I am not mentally deficient or incapable of understanding it as you imply, I merely am maintaining skepticism. Big difference.

Posting two links that compromise a textual conglomeration reporting on the results of a number of studies from potentially credible sources is fair and good, but I do not see them called 'theory' or 'law' from other equally credible sources. We also don't know how the studies in the links were vetted for inclusion in the text, or under what conditions, and we only ever see one side presented.

You act as though this is all fact and beyond question, but sister, that ain't SCIENCE.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 11:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
We also don't know how the studies in the links were vetted for inclusion in the text, or under what conditions, and we only ever see one side presented.

You act as though this is all fact and beyond question, but sister, that ain't SCIENCE.

Now you're talking my language.

We accept "scientific facts" so easily and without question, just cause they were featured in Time or Newsweek.

For me, this is more a philsophical / legal question than a "scientific" one. It's like when does "life" begin in the womb? Or when does "life" stop at the end?

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 12:25 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

You act as though this is all fact and beyond question, but sister, that ain't SCIENCE.

It's more science than saying that making assumptions about things based on gut feelings and whimsical recollections of childhood.

Believe what you want. If you want a world where we treat children as mini adults, then more power to you. That's pretty much what we do now anyway. Won't mean they are adults, they'll just have to pretend to act that way. Get them in built up shoes as well so they look taller while they are at it. Lets make em get married at 10 and a job as well, mortgages, the whole kit and kaboodle. Better still start them at 7, or 5, or 2. Childhood, bah humbug. Who needs it.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 1:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
If you want a world where we treat children as mini adults, then more power to you.

But nobody is saying that. Nobody.

I hear people saying that kids are capable of a LOT more competence, understanding, and good judgment than most Western adults give them credit for. It doesn't mean they are mini-adults or that they are mature humans.

It means they CAN do things, and DO do things, that patronizing grown-ups think they can't or don't do. But just because they CAN do things doesn't mean they should do them, or that they should do them as often as adults do.

I've seen 5 year olds work full time. They pickup inventory, go out on the street, sell newspapers, hawk their wares, take money, make change, buy their own food for the day, and find safe places to sleep. It doesn't mean they SHOULD be living this way. But we should acknowledge that they have such abilities and treat them with the kind of respect that such competence deserves.

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 1:27 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

seems to me people are saying this. They are saying there is no fundamental difference between children and adults, therefore they should be tried and sentenced as adults. I disagree most vehementally.

Children can work full time, they can get married, they can take on a full host of adult responsibilities, but it doesn't mean that they function phsyically and cognitively to the same degree as adults. There is a whole swathe of data from different fields of study that informs this.

I'm not saying children can't or shouldn't take responsibility for their actions, nor should they be without rights or responsibilities. Their function as children, if you can see it that way, is to learn to be adults. They need adult support in that quest to be adult, by giving them increasing responsibilities and rights as they progress through adolescence. Frem suggested a sliding scale earlier, and I think he is on the right track.

Re the newest research into brain - seems to me that this is a particulalry clean body of findings, simply because the neuroscientists had no idea what they would find. They were simply able to scan the brain safely using MRIs and so they did. What they discovered about the difference in brain function was pretty much a surprise, in that they were not out to prove a theory as so much empirical research tends to do, but just visit the brain with curiosity.

i think the really lovely stuff about this research is still to do with the brain's plastiticty, its ability to heal itself and that some of the things that heal it, include music, empathy, relationships, learning new skills, esepcially languages. Aw, they've really proven it, love has magical healing properties.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 2:40 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 canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
He called me Rappy
Yeah, that's pretty bad. But it could have been worse. He could have called someone else "Dreamtrove." I think that is the low point of RWED, when your screenname becomes an insult.

I'll hate the day when someone calls somebody else "CTS." Ouch. At least, you and I aren't there--YET.

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

From what I saw of that thread, Frem didn't CALL DT "Rappy". He called bullshit (literally) on something DT posted, and told him he was engaging in "Rappy-ism". In other words, claiming something as a fact known by "everybody" that which he has no evidence to support.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:19 PM

Quote:
Get them in built up shoes as well so they look taller while they are at it. Lets make em get married at 10 and a job as well, mortgages, the whole kit and kaboodle. Better still start them at 7, or 5, or 2. Childhood, bah humbug. Who needs it.

In the interests of not turning this into a flame war, I'm not going to comment on this beyond noting this is a logical fallacy, and also either a serious misunderstanding of my point, or an intentional misinterpretation.

You don't appear to think very highly of me as a sympathetic and humane person, perhaps you are justified in this. But however much of an asshole I am, I can assure you I have no admiration for child exploitation, either sexual and debt slavery-wise or any others I may not be aware of. In fact, I think the perception of children as sub-human under the law may actually ENABLE mistreatment.

Quote:
It's more science than saying that making assumptions about things based on gut feelings and whimsical recollections of childhood.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron/papers/kdm.pdf

I was being informal, but I can and will bring out the big guns. Both sides of this can be argued and have data, there isn't one definite model for childhood development.

You seem to be getting upset, which is understandable, because we're piling on you. And I also happened to question your scientificness, which it's only fair you hit me back on that. So, it might be best to discontinue this debate.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:30 PM

Mike

Do you find yourself defending the transporter mechanism in klingon, and think that the term Trekkie is derogatory?

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
He called bullshit (literally) on something DT posted, and told him he was engaging in "Rappy-ism".

Yeah, I know. But really, same thing, right? Rappy, Rappyism. The screenname becomes a pejorative term. Ouch.

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
They are saying there is no fundamental difference between children and adults, therefore they should be tried and sentenced as adults.

OK, DT argued in this direction. But he's the only one. It's not "people" or "they." Even Hero talked about some sort of compromise.

I am not making that argument, and from what I understand, neither is Byte. Frem is obviously against it for different reasons than you.

The issue between you and "some people" is the delineation between "child" and "adult" is not so cut-and-dry for said people. Where we MIGHT consider an 11 year old being tried as an adult under certain special circumstances, you would vehemently reject outright. Emphasis on might, in case you missed it. Also emphasis on *consider*; does not automatically mean *support*.

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 4:44 PM

Quote:
seems to me people are saying this. They are saying there is no fundamental difference between children and adults, therefore they should be tried and sentenced as adults. I disagree most vehementally.

I don't think people should be tried and sentenced at all.

The only people I ever think should be imprisoned are people with mental health problems (including perhaps addictions) to the point they could cause harm to themselves or others. I'm adamantly against the death penalty.

So no. I wasn't arguing this.

Quote:
Frem suggested a sliding scale earlier, and I think he is on the right track.

Yeah, that was a good idea. I could go for this unless someone thinks of something better.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 6:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
The only people I ever think should be imprisoned are people with mental health problems (including perhaps addictions) to the point they could cause harm to themselves or others.

Interesting.

I am adamantly against involutary commitment of those who are mentally ill.

So let me get this straight. You wouldn't support the trial and sentencing of say, Jeffrey Dahmer, but you would support the imprisonment of someone who hasn't hurt anyone yet, but that somebody *thinks* might do so in the future?

That is curious.

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 7:50 PM

I'm not even sure what to say to that. It's as bad as the sex and exploitation of children thing I was just accused of.

EDIT: an extra "could" slipped in there. I was of course referring to already proven violent psychopaths and violent drug abusers in need of rehab. I was also considering rehabilitation and the question of if rehabilitation is possible.

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Sunday, January 30, 2011 3:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I'm not even sure what to say to that. It's as bad as the sex and exploitation of children thing I was just accused of.

That is why I posed it as a question. That is what I understood, and I wanted you to clarify and correct if I was wrong.

Quote:

EDIT: an extra "could" slipped in there. I was of course referring to already proven violent psychopaths and violent drug abusers in need of rehab. I was also considering rehabilitation and the question of if rehabilitation is possible.

Yes, the extra "could" makes a difference. :) So you are saying that Jeffrey Dahmer would be involuntarily committed for rehabilitation purposes, and nobody else. That makes more sense. Thank you for clarifying.

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Sunday, January 30, 2011 4:28 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Mike

Do you find yourself defending the transporter mechanism in klingon, and think that the term Trekkie is derogatory?

Nope. Why do you ask?

As I pointed out, from what I saw, Frem *compared you* to Rappy. That's really quite different from CALLING YOU Rappy. One implies that he thinks you two are thinking alike, or acting alike; the other implies that he thinks you're actually the same person behind the screen.

When you go around claiming that "He called me Rappy", it quite clearly (to me, anyway) indicates that, in your mind at least, he considers you to the the same PERSON as Rappy, or a sockpuppet of Rappy.

I haven't read every thread here in quite a while, but if you have solid evidence where Frem referred to you explicitly as Rappy, please post it. Hell, I've been compared to KKKaney here, but I certainly didn't think anyone was claiming that I was the same poster as KKKaney.

Frem compared you to Rappy and called BS on something you claimed, because he has first-hand knowledge to the contrary of what you claimed. He called you out on something that you believe that turns out not to be true. It's not a big deal, I don't think, unless you turn it into one. Which you seem keen to do.

This Space For Rent!

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Sunday, January 30, 2011 4:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
When you go around claiming that "He called me Rappy", it quite clearly (to me, anyway) indicates that, in your mind at least, he considers you to the the same PERSON as Rappy, or a sockpuppet of Rappy.

Oh no. To me, it is very clear DT wasn't insulted cause he felt Frem accused him of being Rappy's sock puppet. He was insulted at being compared Rappy.

Either way, "calling him Rappy" vs. "comparing him to Rappy" is nitpicking and hair-splitting semantics. It is clear the insult DT feels is in the comparison. There is no question about sock puppetry at all.

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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Sunday, January 30, 2011 6:03 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Geeze, one offhand snark and it's like a match in a fuel depot...

It was one of my esoteric three-layer jokes/insults, twas meant to offend only those who *chose* to be offended, was meant as a secondary (and completely gratuitous) insult to someone else, AND it was meant as follow up to calling bullshit.

But the key is that something like that you *choose* to take as insult, just as much as if I called Mikey a Gearhead...
Not the words, but what YOU make of em, yes ?

ETA: Third layer = inclines everyone else to add to the insult of the secondary via the insinuation that they have no redeeming qualities, like a cat-ninja proxy attack, sans laser pointer, although I do feel that despite a certain mutual antagonism that insinuation is in fact, untrue and unfair.

-F

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Monday, January 31, 2011 4:35 PM

Frem,

Oh, CTS, put the sockpuppet away

Okay, was that a better snark? I admit I stole it wholesale. I gotta admit, my snarks are servings of FAIL. You didn't take the last one, or the one before it. (Wedge issue sheep!)

Seriously though, you're far more sophisticated than I, CTS caught it, she said "At least he didn't call someone else a dreamtrove." But still, rap as an punchline has been used way too often. it's hardly even a snark at rap anymore. I've noticed that wulf has become a punchline as well.

Me, Mike and River are all sockpuppets of ChrisIsAll, I thought you guys would have figured that one out already by our sign up dates. But Mike, really, no one ever thought that I was a sockpuppet of Rap. 'cept maybe you ;)

As for the worldview differences, I'm comfy with it. I'm never entirely certain of my positions. You and I have similar goals but very different methods. We come from different worlds, and we've seen different things. Sometimes what you see as a tool of TPTB, I see as a weapon against them, what you see as a weapon against them, I see as the hand of TPTB. I think you're out to take the head of the beast, I want to erode its underbelly. Or perhaps just run away ;)

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Monday, January 31, 2011 6:02 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Not only take it, but put it on a pike in the front yard as a warning to others....

-F

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Monday, January 31, 2011 7:59 PM