Happy New Year! I’ve spent the day so far lazing around, eating leftover pizza and listening to music. And that’s about all I’m going to do, I think.
I’ll be back at work blogging tomorrow.
In the meantime, does anyone have any especially fond memories of Tom Martin and/or Steele from the past year?
Oh, and here’s a video from an Old School New Wave band called Polyphonic Size. It was 1983. They were from Belgium.
cloudiah: that’s the distillation of everything wrong with Rand and her fanboys.
And I don’t think a life sentence is appropriate. But there is a dead child and I think she should be held accountable for it. And the reason I think she should be tried as an adult is because I can’t imagine ever trying to hurt a baby, let alone kill one. I can’t even begin to imagine the inhumanity or desperation required to do something like that, and I don’t know if the circumstances matter.
“And the reason I think she should be tried as an adult is because I can’t imagine ever trying to hurt a baby, let alone kill one.”
But because you, as an adult, cannot imagine harming a baby is not actually a reason for trying her as an adult. To me, that sentence demonstrates that you’re unable to put yourself into her shoes at all.
Starla: she will be held accountable, but there’s other ways of doing that. Calling her inhuman is a bit of a stretch. I think she was definitely desperate.
Starla: can you imagine killing an adult?
“I don’t think the circumstances matter” – are you saying there’s no difference between a desperate, frightened child doing this, and an adult committing premeditated murder, knowing what it means? How many kids at that age even understand death?
Starla:
First, if a 14-year-old counts as an adult in this context, where does it end? Should a toddler be sentenced as an adult if zie kills a baby? What if someone is delusional or was being coerced?
Second, would you allow everyone’s sensibilities to carry the same weight as your own? Say I think, say, stealing is a really really terrible and inhuman thing. Does that mean minor thieves should be tried as adults?
Third, what would be your goal in sentencing this girl harshly? What are you trying to accomplish?
Starla, it’s starting to read like “I am so horrified that anyone could kill a baby, and you are not” – whether or not that’s your intention – and that therefore, the fact of this girl being a girl, not an adult, not someone with the brain development, cognitive abilities and ethical understanding one might reasonably expect, makes no difference. You seem to me to be closing your eyes to factors that are extremely important in how the case should be approached, because of a purely emotional response. And no, I am not saying “emotion bad, logic good!” like some sort of MRA douche. On the contrary, it’s like a complete inability to empathise with this girl at all. I might add that I don’t do a hell of a lot of empathising with murderers myself, if you’re thinking I’m a give-them-tea-and-cakes liberal caricature.
@kitteh
Well that’s my reason. I think killing children is evil.
Hmmm, which just proves my point. She’s a child herself and you are refusing to see that. This isn’t like some kid who broke into someone’s home and attacked them (a thirteen year old boy attacked a couple with a knife here recently – they are literally going to be scarred for life) after a series of violent attacks on others. That child needs to be in custody of some sort, and the term ‘evil’ is more applicable to him than to this girl, if it’s to be applied at all.
And the rest of us think killing children makes a nice hobby, like knitting or carving grains of rice into intricate sculptures? WTF, Starla?
Do you not see the “…And you don’t” implicit in this statement?
And are you going to answer my questions? (Apologies in advance if you ninja’d me.)
@kitteh
You are right and I’m not trying to make it sound like anyone thinks this is okay. And I can’t empathize with her. I admit it, and I dont see why anyone is trying to, but everyone has an opinion.
You don’t see why everyone is trying to. There, I think, lies the problem. You’re reducing this to black and white and turning this girl into some sort of Evil Monster.
@katz
I am sorry, this website for some reason always wants to scroll to the top on my iPhone so sometimes I miss comments.
And to answer your comments, I don’t think all minors should be judged harshly, she didn’t rob a store, she didn’t get caught smoking marijuana, she KILLED someone.
I’m thinking more about the dead baby than I am about her. And already admitted, I CANT empathize with her.
@kitteh
You are absolutely right.
OK, let’s play some thought games here. (And please preface these with “in a universe that meets all the conditions necessary for this to happen in the first place.”)
First: Two-year-old is used to being the center of attention. Parents bring home a baby that cries all the time and gets all the attention. So the toddler puts a pillow on top of the baby and sits on it until the baby stops crying.
Second: Villager in some dystopic dictatorship gets made an example of. Dictator orders him to kill a baby or else he and his whole village, baby included, will all be shot. So the villager does as he is told.
Third: A woman gives birth to a pair of twins. One is born with a malformed brain. The other has a heart defect that will surely kill it within a few days. The parents beg the doctor to give the second child a heart transplant from the first child. As the first child grows weaker and weaker, the doctor finally agrees.
All just as guilty as if they’d just randomly grabbed someone’s baby and killed it?
What if she had killed an adult? Would empathy show up then?
It seems like the warm fuzzies of “baby” have taken over.
That…doesn’t answer any of my questions. I shall repeat them:
1: What if she was even younger? Does it still apply if she’s a little toddler?
2: Why are you the judge of severity of crimes? What if I feel differently?
3: What does punishing her accomplish? Are you trying to keep her from doing it again? Make an example of her? Just make her unhappy?
This might be the most Internet Libertarian* way I can think of to describe hanging out with friends. Because, of course, Randians don’t have friends, they have individuals of mutually beneficial acquaintance!
… no, really, there’s a scene in The Fountainhead where Roark tells someone he’s hanging out with that if that guy fell off the boat and started drowning, Roark wouldn’t lift a finger to help him except for the fact that Roark enjoys his company. Our hero, ladies and gentleman!
Oh damn, I meant that asterisk to be followed with a footnote clarifying that this use of “libertarian” is here only intended to refer to right-wing assholes and not to impugn anyone who might identify as left libertarian. Oops.
Heheh “Internet Libertarian” says Randboy to me anyway, Gametime. They sound like they’ve all had empathy bypasses.
@katz
None of those even come close to the same thing. A two year old has no idea what kills something and that when something dies it can never come back. A 14 year old does.
In the second example, chances are the baby will die either way if the whole village is shot.
In the third (I’m assuming both babies will die, if nothing is done) I think that’s understandable.
Your going under the assumption that it upsets me because a baby died. That’s not it. At 14 years old you know what happens to something when you kill it.
“I’m thinking more about the dead baby than I am about her. And already admitted, I CANT empathize with her.”
…a dead baby that never would’ve existed if we taught proper sex ed…
“It seems like the warm fuzzies of “baby” have taken over.” — THIS
Really though, I’m more concerned with why this happened and how to prevent it — proper sex ed, easier abortion access, not treating teen sex as horribly slutty and sinful, advertising RU 486 as a thing that exists.
Also, this was bugging my mother — seems like no one’s asking who the father is. Which is interesting, considering that most teen pregnancies have adult baby daddies.
Starla:
Oh, so apparently circumstances do matter. And apparently there’s a threshold somewhere between two and 14. Where is it? Five? Eight? Twelve?