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Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality?
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
That's a shame
I didn't have to read very far to find out that no, the law is not a reality. Thanks, slashdot!
XML causes global warming.
Do stupid laws and frivolous lawsuits make you too afraid to help someone in trouble? No problem, we'll just pass another ill-thought law! What could possibly go wrong?
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
I'm surprised that the USA does not already have a bill like this. In other countries (e.g. Germany) helping people in need is mandatory. You are also encouraged to give CPR and if you fail at it and make it worse you are not charged (otherwise people would be too scared of screwingn up and never administer CPR at all).
"Good Samaritan" laws in the sense of Seinfeld already exist in many jurisdictions. It is called a "duty to rescue" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue. Good Samaritan laws also exist, but in legal parlance that means something different, namely protection from liability of people trying to rescue or assist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law. The California law is a variant duty to rescue. This isn't anything new. Seinfeld didn't do their research and apparently neither did the submitter of this post or the editors.
That you have to pass a law to get people to call 911 (never mind taking direct action such as interceding to stop the rape). I mean calling 911 takes what, holding down the 9 key on your phone (assuming you haven't changed the default speed dial that most phones come with), worst case you have to dial 3 digits, and say an address/quick description of what is going on, and they feel the need to codify this into law to get people to do it?
I think this is as good as any proof that society and culture (at least in California) is pretty damn broken.
This is the result of more than 20 people watching a minor (15) year old girl being gang raped during a school dance and not a single one calling 911 to report it. Unfortunately a law like this needs to be enacted so that such people can be punished. It's a shame that such basic morality is lacking in society these days but it's come to this point. We have to legislate that if someone is so devoid of such basic morality, that they can't call the police when witnessing a gang rape, that we need to start putting people in jail for not doing such basic acts of humanity, so that there is at least a threat of jail to inspire people to do the right thing if their conscious is devoid of inspiration to do so voluntarily.
could you please cite your sources? i have know knowledge of such an terrible thing ever happening, but just in examples for laws like these
Why should such people be punished? There's a lot of evidence that they are acting out of normal and fairly standard psychological patterns. Humans are less likely to help in large groups. This is known as the bystander effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect. People have tested this in many different contexts, these include having people pretending to have heart attacks, as well as more controlled lab settings. One good example test involved a lab setting where people were supposed to be answering a set of questions, then the experimenter would go out of the room and something loud and bad would happen to the experimenter who would cry out for help. The key issue is that all but one of the people in the room were actually actors. The actors all just kept taking the test. The one almost never helps. This works with as few as one actor and one real person. But if there is a single individual and no actors, more often than not, they will help. And if one of the actors gets up to help, then the person generally will also. You shouldn't punish people for following their basic herd instincts as righteous and moral as it might make you feel.
And you think this would encourage people to call for help, rather than just to get the hell away from whatever crime they're witnessing?
If you spent 5 seconds googling rather than asking for a citation you would know that the individual was talking about this case: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/411845_rape04.html.
the 20 people couldn't see through the 20 people raping her, no xray vision
It's a relatively well known phenomena that groups witnessing emergencies often take no action on the assumption that someone else will. Would you be acting perfectly rational if you were to come across something like this? Of course those responsible deserve the full force of the law. But those witnesses are acting as many reasonable people would (reasonable person as in the legal meaning). Although doing nothing is morally reprehensible, it's sadly what most people would do.
That famous Seinfeld ending was based on a very law recently passed at that time in Massachusetts. The episode was set in Latham,MA. The law referenced was not fictitious. Similar laws exist in many places.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/27/california.gang.rape.investigation/
What *we* think is completely and utterly irrelevant. This is politicians we're talking about. News media.
It's very progressive, and very surreal. Both fit perfectly in California.
Lack of morality aside, another real head-scratcher is this nugget.
Current law requires witnesses to report violent crimes when the victim is younger than 14.
I suppose CA legislators (or perhaps it was a prop) asked us to, please, think of the children, but not anyone else.
You shouldn't punish people for following their basic herd instincts as righteous and moral as it might make you feel.
Then let's make gangrape legal too, shall we ? Talk about your basic herd instinct.
The whole point of morality, religion, and by extension laws and such is that we can do better than these stupid instincts. Modern society (or any city with more than 50 people) would be utterly impossible without actively punishing people for following their instincts.
Lets make the assumption that this law existed before this event happened. Would it have been prevented? Of course not. More ineffective unenforceable laws are what America needs! That is, if you are a up for reelection.
ithappened 3 months ago. Expect a slashdot story any day now.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Violent gangs are very bad like the gang rape. This law i think will not inspire people because people are scared of retaliation against such as 'gangs' replace with(mob, corrupt governments, and etc.) Don't get me wrong this law is great because it makes people speak up. But if you do speak up and testify against them what protections will they get from testifying.
Just because it is the case that the bystander effect is normal doesn't mean it ought to be the case that it is normal. This is a very common logical fallacy in moral philosophy called the is-ought problem as it was well articulated by David Hume. The gist of it is that you cannot take descriptive statements as premises and come to a prescriptive conclusion.
The reason why there are such laws is because we feel that we should have a moral responsibility to help those who are in immediate life-threatening danger when we are in a position to help them without (too much) personal sacrifice.
Does this mean that the victim of crime can be punished for failing to report it?
I blame the Kyoto Protocol, gay weddings and Obama bin Laden!
a law like this needs to be enacted so that such people can be punished.
No. Being a bystander to rape is obviously a crime right now. This law would not significantly change the prosecution of those people (if they were identifiable).
From what I can tell the target of this law is riots and protests. If you are in a protest now and 1 person does something wrong you must STOP and contact the police. This law will be used to break up gatherings and arrest protesters en masse.
Unfortunately taking politics at face value isn't very useful and will rarely lead to logical reasoning.
No, what needs to happen is this. Round up all members who raped the girl, and execute them with a hollow point bullet. What's lacking in America is a show of FORCE in the front of heinous/violent crimes against humanity.
Life is not for the lazy.
Being supposedly "progressive" has nothing to do with it.
Ever heard about long standing tradition of blaming rape victims, for example?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Say what you will about Tennessee, but I know for a fact that if something like that happened down here, the only "watching" done by 20 people would be the sighting of their shotguns on the sorry assholes. There are some things that just don't ever make it to the courts, and in situations this extreme, I have to say I like it that way. As Bob Lee Swagger put it in the movie Shooter, "I'd bury you in the hill and tell the sherif a month or two later. He understands."
How about RTFA? Although that girl was 16, I fail to see a material difference there.
if you see someone in a situation (robed raped etc) and you do nothing to help you are as guilty as the person committing the crime especially if your actions could have prevented it. Such is the rule of honour. Turning a blind eye is never acceptable under any circumstances regardless of what happens to you.
Its in the article...
Its not politically feasible to actually punish the offenders anymore, especially juveniles. Slap on the wrist, out on parole, bam! You have another repeat offender. Last numbers from the FBI I saw showed that some 60% of offense are by repeat offenders.
Then let's make gangrape legal too, shall we ? Talk about your basic herd instinct.
Sorry, but a HUGE difference exists between actively committing a violent crime, and choosing not to report the same.
Try applying this to situations you might disagree with. Failure to report your friend smoking weed? Failure to report your mother speeding? Failure to report your uncle cheating just a bit on his taxes? Failure to report your coworker for circumventing the DMCA to do what your mutual boss ordered?
This amounts to the worst of slippery slopes. Even in the best of applications, someone might simply not have noticed (I, for one, get very disoriented in large social gatherings, and yes, you probably could rape someone in front of me without my noticing). And in the worst, this amounts to criminalizing a refusal to obey potentially intolerable laws (Failure to report anyone who violates the "We love George Bush" law).
There is no excuse doing nothing to help a victim of crime is the same as committing the crime.
Doesn't exactly sound like the kind of thing you want to be searching for in this day and age.
"that we need to start putting people in jail for not doing such basic acts of humanity"
Because we all know that prison is such a humanizing, uplifting experience for most people. Get a brain, Moran!
This can easily be seen as a violation of the 5th amendment. This would force anyone who doesn't report a crime they might or might not have been involved in to face charges for not reporting the crime unless they report the crime and, in turn, incriminate themselves. IANYAL
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
The stupid thing about the Seinfeld case is that, while they did not physically intervene to help the person, it could easily be argued that they were helping by videotaping the incident.
Unless you have a CPR mask, even if you are CPR certified (those certs expire every other year)
and you don't help, you won't be hold accountable.
No law can force you take risk like that (Swine flu, Bird flu, Flu, AIDS, Hepatitis....)
Make it legal (and not impossible) for regular people in California to get certified to carry handguns and to protect them from prosecution when they use deadly force to prevent / stop these things from happening, and I will be the first one to step up to save the next gang rape victim. Until / unless that happens, forget it. Know why you don't read about these kinds of things in Texas or Florida - because they hand out CHL's like candy and the law lets people use deadly force to stop rape.
And yea, real handguns with full capacity magazines too - not those wussy 'CA Legal' handguns with five bullets or whatever in them.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Related stories note that this crime took place in an inner city area, where people are already breaking the law rampantly. What you have here is a bunch of ghetto people that are completely out of control, and the answer is what? Some other stupid law?
The entire culture is just ruined, the values, what these people think, are just a cancer on society and it has to be isolated and then ultimately cut out. You can't mandate dogs be good samaritans, you can only put them in concentration camps.
This is my sig.
Man, I'm so glad I live in a democracy rather than that theocracy you're living in.
You shouldn't punish people for following their basic herd instincts as righteous and moral as it might make you feel.
Disagree.
Um, no, the law in question specifically refers to "witnessing a violent attack". And the law in question already exists but its only enforceable now if the victim is 14 or younger - they're just yanking the age restriction because in the case which triggered this, the bystanders couldn't be charged with anything under the existing state law.
The real proble is that in many communities, especially among some minority and lower income neighborhoods, there's a strong "anti-snitch" sentiment; somehow they view it as worse to tell the police you witnessed a murder or rape (or are witnessing one in progress) then to be the one commiting the crime.
The law here states an obligation to assist anyone facing a physical threat, but immediately exempts anyone contacting the emergency services (e.g., fire department, police). So, in effect, the law just requires service notification.
That episode contains probably one of the best lines of Seinfled that summarizes a recurring theme in the series in a brutal end explicit way:
You people with the cheese. It never ends. Hello? Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Good Samaritan Law? I never heard of it. You don't have to help anybody. That's what this country's all about. That's deplorable, unfathomable, improbable. Hold on. Suzie, cancel my appointment with Dr. Bison. And pack a bag for me. I want to get to Latham, Massachusetts,right away.
I think not. I, and I alone, will decide when and if it's safe/appropriate/desirable for me to render assistance. I have helped at accident scenes, but would no longer do so because of the legal complications we've all heard of. A law like this would ensure one thing - that bystanders would immediately exit the scene, rather than watching to see if it was safe to help.
And then you have the cases of people who just give up trying. When I lived with some friends in a less than great neighborhood (really not that bad, just not rich or anything like that) and we thought we heard something that sounded like a shotgun going off in the neighborhood, what did we do? We called 911 to report it. What did the dispatcher do? Laughed and hung up on us. They sounded interested until we told them exactly where we lived. We weren't laughing when we called, we weren't being particularly alarmist (since we weren't certain of what we heard, but have some experience hunting and know what a shotgun sounds like). There wasn't a party going on, and we had a couple of neighbors that had a history of having the cops show up to deal with domestic problems a few months beforehand. No idea why they thought it was so funny, and apparently a waste of time. No cops showed up that night.
It was mentioned in TFA.
I am so glad I moved my family the hell out of California. It's a nice place to visit but I don't want to live there.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
It's not really "society". If it were up to the public, a large majority would vote to support limiting lawsuits in a meaningful way.
Trial lawyers and other special interests are the ones who keep our "society" this way, largely against our will.
It's too bad. It was a pretty nice country we had once.
As I read TFA, the problem is that being a bystander to rape is currently NOT a crime. It obviously "should be", thus the new law.
wow your a douchebag. smoking weed and speeding comparable to gang rape? You are truly sick in the head.
Interesting point, but the bill points out that this only applies to violent crimes. All of the examples you provided are not even crimes, and some of which are not crimes at all (depending on country and circumstances, of course). Given the example from the article, the girl was raped by 10 people while 20 or so watched. You mean to tell me that of those 20 or so people, nobody would notice with 1/3 of the crowd participating? The idea here is that if you see another human being in trouble, you must do what you can to help them (while maintaining your own safety, of course). I don't see anything wrong with that, since it helps promote public safety, giving people a moral obligation to assist those who are in trouble. How hard is it to dial 911 on your cell, or a payphone even, and report a crime, and give a location? I don't think it is too much to ask. There is a big difference between reporting a violent crime, and reporting misdemeanors such as speeding. This law only applies to reporting violent crimes, and I believe would be ultimately good for everyone.
Are you seriously suggesting that being an uninvolved observer is the same as pulling the trigger yourself? Really?
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
You shouldn't punish people for following their basic herd instincts
Well, you go ahead and follow your herd instinct there buddy. Christ, talk about not rising above mediocrity or standing up for what you believe in and making a fucking difference.
You're pathetic and so are your morals.
Luke 10:23-37 And turning to his disciples, he said: Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them. And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting him, and saying, Master, what must I do to possess eternal life? But he said to him: What is written in the law? how readest thou? He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said to him: Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering, said: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee. Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the robbers? But he said: He that shewed mercy to him. And Jesus said to him: Go, and do thou in like manner.
Yes, put more people in jail, thats a good idea, prisoners are getting lonely is so not-crowded in there! Think about this: 20 people see it. What if one person called 911, are the 19 who didn't going to be prosecuted? There are a lot of details here which go against most common-law philosophy.
being a bystander to rape is currently NOT a crime
Absolutely not true. Anyone who knowingly witness a felony and does not report it is automatically an associate to the crime.
You shouldn't force people to be good- did it ever occur to you that it might be YOU who is being raped by the system some day after you fail to report such an act? Think about what would happen if 15 people all called 911? And then for every possible incident you had the same thing happen. The system is already overloaded in most places. You aren't helping things by calling 911. It is bad enough people call 911 to get the phone numbers of non-emergency police or because they just can't find there way home. It isn't an emergency you shouldn't be calling 911. I'm not saying you shouldn't call 911 if you are being raped or someone else is. I'm saying that just because you witness someone being raped doesn't being you should call 911. Having bad judgement about if you should call shouldn't be a crime. Failing to call and being lazy are going to be nearly impossible to prove unless you have a camera, a joke, and time or video of the crime on the same with the joke.
Yes. If you observe without doing something to prevent the trigger from being pulled you are guilty and as sick in the head as the person pulling the trigger. If you are an observer you are involved and if I were a family member I would hold you equally responsible.
Some folks think every time something goes wrong, someone should be punished. As if punishing bystanders (or just punishing someone -- anyone) solves a problem or makes the world better in some way.
It's emotion-based -- not a well-considered, rational response to a given situation. Be wary of emotional appeals to victimize or punish people. History has shown there's almost nothing more potentially dangerous.
The California incident shows something lacking in the character of everyone involved. Punishing them won't fill in what's missing. Maybe if their parents had done a better job, they'd already have it.
Actually it's failure to report anyone who doesn't like Obamacare, or posts opposing facts about it:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
From: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/facts-are-stubborn-things/
I believe by fishy they mean anything that isn't positive. I can't imagine the uproar if Bush had done anything remotely similar.
Its not politically feasible to actually punish the offenders anymore, especially juveniles.
congratz. You've nailed the real problem imo.
Perhaps THIS is what needs to change.
The case you mention SHOULD have been heard with the death penalty as demand. For the woman in question, clearly she preffered to die instead of being exposed, so give her what she wants.
Only if we start punishing the frivilous lawsuits, then can we stop them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think a 15 person gang rape in a school is a hell of a slippery slope to consider.
Now, what lead to that?
Yes, there is a disconnect in the severity of the crimes.
However, there are huge points to be made in terms of both perception and awareness.
For example, my family visited my sister when she was living in NYC. We walked downtown, and on the way back, my sister's roommate called us to tell us that she had seen on TV that a plane had crashed into the Hudson. We were completely unaware there was a plane crash within half a mile of us.
That deals with awareness. As for perception - not to dwell on NYC-airplane-related situations, on 9/11, I remember a friend telling me in the hall between classes that somebody bombed the World Trade Center. My response was along the lines of; "Yes, I know. Some guy in a van ten years ago."
Then I walked away.
So... murder? Yeah, that'll solve all our problems. Especially if handled by such a worthy and responsible organization as the government.
Where do you live such that your laws don't have a moralistic root? I know of no such democracy.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Or are they there to scared to do the act themselves and getting the jollies none the less?
From TFA: ... Current law requires witnesses to report violent crimes when the victim is younger than 14. Nava's bill expands the requirement to include victims of all ages."
"Witnesses could be charged with a misdemeanor for failing to report violent attacks in California under legislation approved by the state Assembly.
Thus, reading TFA, it is currently NOT a crime to witness a crime and not report it. I don't know if it's correct, but it's what TFA says. I should point out that, based on the article, it is still LEGAL to witness a non-violent crime and not report it.
It's days like these when I lose hope in humanity.
The very fact that we need laws to tell us "yes, you can help someone in need and in fact you should" is bad enough, but then we have the typical lazy-bastard response "why should I be forced to help" and even uber-rationalizations like "groups are programmed to no intervene, it's normal" or even "it's a slippery slope..."
My karma is on Excellent so mod me down if you will, but if you think like so many posters, I have this to tell you: have a good look at yourself in the mirror. YOU are a self-centered lazy bastard; no matter how clever you think you are, you're human failure and I hope you won't find out the hard way how is to be ignored by your fellows.
Do you realize our legal system can actually give you a larger sentence for smoking weed than gang rape? It is most definitely a slippery slope.
Hey, if more than twenty people were just standing around watching, and none of them felt compelled to do anything about it, she must have deserved it!
Right? Right?
Think for myself, what? I thought that if something bad was happening, that means they automatically deserved it. What the blazes!
not much, just being forced to manually insert line breaks into my comment
Well, I'm not really sure what planet you're living on, but there are countless incidents of reprehensible behavior throughout the world each day which, in the end, go unpunished, and we seem to be getting along just fine compared to a few hundred years ago. Believe it or not, there doesn't need to be a law on the books covering every little thing that could go wrong.
not much, just being forced to manually insert line breaks into my comment
Fortunately, studies have also shown that if you are aware of the "Bystander Effect" you are less likely to be influenced by it.
Thus, if we want to eliminate it from society, we merely have to educate ourselves about it.
and unfortunate. the idea should be to compel people to stop acting like herd animals, not accept the vile reality of the behavior
people also tend to litter. vast parts of german society just shrugged and accepted the rise of the third reich. so we just accept evil? "oh well"
the idea is society is supposed to enforce codes of conduct to elevate us somewhat above that of herbivores, especially when the modification to the behavior is very quick easy and low cost: you can't make a phone call if someone is being beaten? you can't walk to a garbage can to dispose of your trash?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Are you really so deluded to think that people without a moral compass and strict control over their behavior could live in a democracy ? The amount of self-control a democracy requires is a hell of a lot more than your basic religion. You certainly can be a good Christian, yet be much too violent to live in a democracy, same (I think) can be said about any other religion (/"non-religion").
I don't know about you but my first instinct when someone disagrees with me (and prevents me from doing something) is to knock him/her out of the way. If that leads to any reaction other than submission my instinct is to beat the crap out of the asshole.
How exactly would a democracy work if people acted like that in general ?
It seems to me a LOT of instincts involve the application of direct physical violence. I'm sure that's just me.
Amend the bill in the Senate to also make it a crime to video record morbid scenes and we might get just a sliver of humanity returned to us.
Talk about HUGE differences. There are an equal amount of studies that have documented the fact that people will get out of control if encouraged to do so by the circumstances and the other people nearby. A much cited example is that of the test where persons need to administer elektroshocks to actors (which are said to be test subjects too) of ever increasing intensity if they answer wrong to questions. Most people would kill that way. Are you saying that in such instances killing should not be punishable either?
There is a huge difference between a compulsion to help those who are the victim of a violent crime (such as the gangrape mentioned in the article) and a compulsion to report every instance of lawbreaking possible. For one because knowing the law in it's entirety is impossible which means that people - even the geniuses among us - simply cannot comply with such a compulsion. For two because a lot of law-breaking is in grey areas rather then black/white. Gangrape is always black ('s why it's rape and not 'bang').
I'll leave you with a quote from a magic the gathering card:
"Good is not a thing, you can neither touch nor own it. No, Good is a vision we all share and strife to make real."
"There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
I think most people can sympathize with the view that we have at least a moral duty to do something when we see one of our fellow beings is in need; whether passing yet another law is the best way is debatable, but IMO if you simply stand around to enjoy the entertainment, you are guilty.
"Guilt by association" BTW, means that you are considered guilty as the consequence of a false association (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_by_association); it doesn't apply in this case, where the offence is not that you are in the neighborhood, but that you do nothing to help, not even the bare minimum of reporting it.
Those things aside - I really have no sympathy with the attitude, that people won't accept anything but the complete and final solution to problems. Here we have identified an obvious problem: Criminals can act with impunity because nobody cares enough to do anything. Passing a law that criminalizes those that fail to help, is clearly not the best way - but it is at least an attempt at addressing the problem.
The sad truth is that you can hardly ever solve a problem with one, bold strike; it has to be a step-by-step process with a lot of trial error on the way. But doing something, anything, is a lot better than just standing in the corner, sulking. But to turn things around: Why don't you tell us all how you would solve the problem? Taking into account, of course, that your only tools are the power to legislate and to allocate limited funds to social projects.
In Brazil, we have a "rescue omission" ("omissão de socorro") law: if you're involved in an accident and escape the place leaving an injured peerson without helping or calling the paramedics, you're in for an extra charge (the aforementioned).
It has been so for what? 20 years? 30?
I thought this law existed in most places...
"punishing people who most likely didn't even know such a law exists does nothing but give us satisfaction with the thought that we wouldn't do that sort of thing, when of course, we likely would"
i've been in the kitty genovese situation in the new york subway. 10 of us made the call, and the alarm pull, and the alerting of the conductor and toll booth operator. as well as 5 of us guys and a gal holding the sleezebag perp down until cops came. as well as follow up with detectives from the nypd later. sure: some shrieked and ran away, but these were the MINORITY
the kitty genovese story as an outlier, not a definition of human behavior. herd behavior overcoming kindergarten sense of right and wrong is a RARITY, not a definition of humanity. we aren't herbivores. people point to the kitty genovese situation and say "see, that defines us". no, that's not an accurate description of human behavior. the kitty genovese situation was NOT the status quo or average situation. there's a thousand kitty genovese situations every day, and in the majority of them, someone makes the call
besides, it doesn't take knowledge of the law to counteract herd behavior. this supposition of yours is compete bullshit. we're not talking about not knowing vague arcana of the tax code, we're talking about face value obvious judgments from a kindergartener's sense of right and wrong: "someone is in trouble, call for help." if the herd behavior is enough to overcome this simple sense of morality, you SHOULD be punished, because you are truly deficient, and your deficiency resulted in harm, and will likely result in harm again: all you had to do was make a call. you are basically saying that complete bullshit excuses are acceptable
"what? murder is wrong? sorry, i didn't know that, i won't do it next time" or, since we're on the seinfeld kick: "was that wrong? should i not have done that?" its a joke, because its not a serious statement. no one with the slightest amount of functioning brain matter thinks that's a valid excuse for gross negligence. failure to act morally is a failure to act morally, whether by commission or omission, its equally indefensible and most definitely punishable
your position basically excuses evil
1. the bystander effect is a vague EFFECT, felt by everyone, but by no means the final word on your behavior. its not a law of nature like gravity.
2. but you go further than that and that says basically ignorance of the law excuses anything.
3. and even worse, you confuse horrible lack of understanding of simple right and wrong with ignorance of the law
frankly, you are completely full of shit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And this was without a "Good Samaritan Law".
People are inherently stupid. They see things that simply aren't there. They perceive things though their own past traumas and the like. If they get a silly notion in their heads, sometimes all logic is thrown out if the silly notion really bugs them. Such simple logic as "did I really see this guy do anything?
The "Good Samaritan Law" may have "good intentions", but we all know what the "road to Hell" is paved with!
I have to say, I am now glad I don't live in California, which up till now was looking good as a state I might want to live in. Now, "no way in hell" are the words that come to mind.
Gotta love our culture of hyper-paranoia. A child-abuser behind every door, a terrorist in ever-other plane seat, and now this.
I do have one solution to this mess: expatriation. Even China is beginning to look like a better option.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
The whole point of morality, religion, and by extension laws and such is that we can do better than these stupid instincts.
You're confusing morality and the law.
Morality is when you voluntarily do the right thing.
The law is forcing people to do the right thing; if you force them to do the right thing, morality is out of the picture.
Modern society (or any city with more than 50 people) would be utterly impossible without actively punishing people for following their instincts.
Human societies wouldn't work if they relied on punishment to achieve social order; it's far too easy to get away with crime and cheating.
People usually do the right thing because that's in their nature. Occasionally, you get psychopaths, but that's the rare exception (and punishment doesn't work on them anyway).
If you can't fathom that most people behave decently towards each other for no other reason than that it's the right thing to do, there's something really wrong with you and your grasp or morality. I find anybody who has your kind of worldview to be suspicious: I think you can't fathom that people are decent because you yourself secretly don't trust your own impulses. I'm glad the law (and the fear of God) helps to keep people like you in check. I'm also glad that most people aren't like you.
And when you find out that it was a false accusation, and you just killed a bunch of people who were just having a sex party with a willing participant, what do you do then?
The reason why there are such laws is because we feel that we should have a moral responsibility to help those who are in immediate life-threatening danger when we are in a position to help them without (too much) personal sacrifice.
The reason why there are such laws is also because too many people are intellectually lazy, like you are, and trying to assuage their guilty conscience with quick fixes.
Laws are just one of many ways of influencing human behavior, and apparently not a particularly good one at that. A far more effective way of dealing with the bystander effect is likely educational campaigns and public service messages. But that costs money and time. You and your kind of politician want a quick and cheap fig-leaf, something that says that you have done your duty even if it achieves nothing.
So, yes, standing around watching a rape and doing nothing is immoral, even though it seems to be the natural thing to do. Your fallacy is that you think your moral responsibility is discharged by passing a law, but it is not.
By advocating a solution you ought to know full well is ineffective, you are actually guilty of immoral behavior yourself.
What do a theocracy and morality have to do with one another?
In fact, what do religion and morality have to do with one another?
Religions (at least like Christianity) are the antithesis of morality, since they replace doing the right thing (moral behavior) with doing the most expedient thing (utilitarianism).
Actually, I don't even remember a time when we didn't have a law that requires you to report crimes you see or learn about. Not reporting them makes you immediately an accomplice and you could be tried as such. Oddly, nobody complains about it despite the can of worms it opens, especially the latter part. The "reporting when you learn about it" part. Because hearing about a crime does not immediately ensure that what you hear is right and the charge for false accusation is not far away from there.
If you really want to put someone in a mess, tell him that you were the culprit for some crime while at the same time having a very good alibi. He has to report it (or you could report him for not reporting it), and when he does you can file a suit for false accusation.
Great stuff...
Of course he could countersue because you unjustly accused yourself of a crime (believe it or not, that's illegal as well), but he'd have to prove that.
Can you tell some catch 22 laws remained in place after 1945 that were invented in the few years before that time?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know of at least one case where a bystander was assaulted for calling 911 - Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was beaten with a tire iron at a state fair when he tried to call 911 after hearing a woman call for help.
I was once (late 90's) riding the MBTA in Boston around midnight. I was in the last car, sitting at the end, as were maybe three other teenagers. In the second to last car were about 5 other teenagers. They were yelling at each other through the glass. When we stopped at a platform, the larger group came into my car and started pounding on the smaller group. The T was generally pretty safe, so I was taken back by shock for a bit. I then pushed the little red button next to me and said (trying to be quiet but hoping I could still be heard) something like "Uh, I think you need to send some cops back here, there's a big fight." The conductor said (quite loudly) "We're aware of it, the police are on their way." I then waited for what seemed like a very long time wondering if I would ultimately be safer staying in the car or dashing out the door if big group finished little group and decided to head over to me.
Anyway, I made what I think was the right decision (even though it was likely irrelevant in providing any sort of aid), but I certainly didn't think it was without risk. Not sure what I think of the law.
Duty to rescue laws infringe severely on personal freedom. Seehttp://www.commonlaw.uottawa.ca/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=2577 for a detailed analysis
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
What do you expect in a society obsessed with "Reality Television" which is the modern equivalent of the ancient spectacles held inside the Roman Coliseum. Every one of the bystanders to the rape should have been charged as "accessories after the fact" and sentenced to 100 years community service working with victim services or its equivalent. And no more reality television.
10 years of education isn't just a right, it's a crime to prevent your kids from going to school
Define "school". If a parent disagrees with the particular methods used by public schools, namely slow the entire class down to the slowest kid, should the parent have to go to a state school for indoctrination of teachers for two years before the parent can qualify to teach his or her own children? Germany, for instance, requires even home-school teachers to have not only a high-school-equivalent education but also two years at an accredited teaching school. The United States considered this requirement and its implications for religious freedom so onerous that it granted political asylum to a German family over it.
When you hear something ridiculous about California... true or not... does it really surprise you?
When I hear something stupid about California, like that warning tags have the name of some California lawsuit on them, or that California has a $21B deficit on them, it doesn't surprise me at all. Why not? Because haters abound. See, neither of these two things are true. I've been alive for 40 years and in California for almost 20 and I've never need a name of a lawsuit from any state on a warning tag. And I doubt you have either. Even when it's a Prop 65 warning (useless as they are), that's still not the name of a lawsuit, it's the name of a law.
And California's deficit? Every state is running a deficit right now because times are tough. California's deficit as passed is about $8B (depending on how you measure some of the BS measures that just change accounting instead of fixing things). Texas, whom everyone points out knows how to run a state right, is predicting larger deficits over the next 2 years (Texas uses a two-year budget) per capita and per-GDP than California is.
So it never surprises me to see someone talking trash about California, ever. Now if I could understand why people do so, I'd be a large step ahead.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You did nothing to stop Hitler, therefore you are guilty of murdering millions of people.
But seriously, you fail at basic logic.
In the case of the people who didn't call it in, it could be simple fear of reprisal. Going against that kind of crowd is likely to have very negative effects for one's personal safety. (Though, the very disturbing thought that some of the spectators just plain thought it was funny also crosses the mind.)
In the case of the people actually committing the gang rape, sure. They're the ones who are demonstrating that basic morality is really getting lost nowadays.
Kids are growing up in an environment where they consider life to be fairly cheap, don't really have any fear of the law, and don't really care anyway. Between a culture which glorifies violence and "thug life", and people living in poverty who just don't give a shit -- mankind is in the middle of regressing to a much less civilized state. This is more akin to war-torn countries where lawlessness is rampant than one would expect to find in the West.
Give it another generation or two, and we'll be pretty much barbarians and eating one another. "Civil" society is just everyone mostly agreeing to play by the same rules. Once that breaks down, the extremes start to show up. Sadly, I don't see the tide turning on this.
My memory is a little incomplete on this, but from my college years in Psych I recall a study along these lines.
About 20 Priests were recruited, they were told they were to give a lecture about morality and an obligation to do good deeds (or something like that), and they were made to believe they were running late to their appointment. Along their route to their lecture, study confederates staged a man faking a heart attack, with a crowd standing by watching. Again my memory fails me a little, but I recall only something like 2 or 3 of these Priests stopped to offer assistance. Even though these people were primed with the concept of having a duty to offer assistance, they failed to do so because they were late to their appointment.
I wont defend that kind of inactivity on a personal level, but considering our evolutionary background where it was the sick and weak that were taken by predators, it does not surprise me that groups of people can rationalize not stepping up to intervene.
This is the result of more than 20 people watching a minor (15) year old girl being gang raped during a school dance and not a single one calling 911 to report it.
Was she hot?
yes the whole thing is deplorable, but putting someone in jail for it is a pretty slippery slope. A very similar argument happened just after WWI in the newly formed soviet russia. In a communistic society everyone has to pull their weight and do their fair share. There were a lot of slackers not pulling their weight but still receiving the contributions from those that were. Then they started putting those same people in jail for being deadbeats of society. History now tells the story of that time with a completely different view. Things got way out of control, lots of people died, the gulags (not sure how its spelled) are a part of brutal world history event. As a libertarian I fear any law that takes away freedom because most laws never pose the hacker-test (ie how can i break this or exploit this before putting it into production). They pass a law that sounds great, only to find out it created some situation where the wrong people suffer while those that should suffer do not (example: adding taxes and fees to companies like insurances or utilities etc, we all know that all this does is raise end-user costs, so its you and I that really suffer)
And when you find out that it was a false accusation, and you just killed a bunch of people who were just having a sex party with a willing participant, what do you do then?
In California? Estimate how many tons of carbon emissions those wrongfully killed would have produced in the remainder of their lifetimes, marvel at the magnitude thereof, pat yourself on the back for a job well done, and resolve to get legislation passed mandating that police begin wrongfully killing at least as many people every day across the state.
No, but you can take a viable culture and exercise class and economic warfare
I agree with that completely. The deal is that the culture was vibrant, was in great shape, right up until free trade killed every manufacturing job in the northeast and knocked basically an important rung out of the middle class.
So what you have to do is, actually, what even Obama said in his own book. You have to separate out the bad elements, and then, lift up the economy for what's left, and then gradually bring those bad elements back in.
It can certainly be done, but we have to, as a nation, be mindful of the basic fact that not everyone is cut out to be in a desk job, that we need to have an economy with a spectrum of opportunity, so that everyone can have a chance to actually exert the very values we would expect them to have - to follow their talents to the best of their abilities.
It's like, at some point, conservative values about protecting society as a whole need to trump faux-conservative values about the supposed right to destroy a neighborhood in the name of economic progress. The supreme irony of our time is that there has been no greater cause of social change in the USA in the last 30 years than the right wing, which you would think is conservative, devotion to free trade. There's nothing more radical than free trade affecting the USA - even the civil rights movement is puny by comparison.
This is my sig.
Ok, so everyone in California has guns in this scenario of yours.
Let's assume I live in this hypothetical California and I have a gun, and stumble upon 10 people gang raping a girl and 10 voyeurs watching it unfold (probably friends of the other 10). Chances are all of them have guns too. How does everybody in CA having guns help in this situation, assuming I'm no Green Beret, just a normal guy?
Every teacher who has given me tests like this, without exception, has not only been worthless as a teacher, but pretty much worthless as a human being. Fortunately I never had to deal with that BS after middle school.
(_o_)
Suppose you witness a crime, but for various reasons (like wanting to continue breathing) you don't want to report it or testify about it. Suppose further the cops figure out you were a witness, and you're subpoena'd and ordered to testify. Since you didn't report the crime, and not doing so is a crime, you can now simply take the fifth and not testify!
" guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
WE need the EFF to start getting the RIAA employees thrown in jail left and right as well as other corporation executives over this.
They DAILY don't "do the right thing" to the American public... so let's hope the law is so road that it will be used to attack corporations that are pretty much evil. Time to start funding paces like EFF so they can have a legal warchest that will allow them to hunt and kill the evil in the world....
Unfortunately, this course of action did not get me any tail.
You must have been too old for the teacher.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
start mapping the gangs out in some sort of legal hyperspace (extent of turf held crimes commited ect)
then figure out what gang or gangs you could live with taking over.
Perform some sort of LBO and take over those gangs (or come to an "understanding")
then arm your gangs enough to wipe out the other gangs (maybe have the police not interfere with gang on gang stuff)
once you have "won" then see to it that the local military recruitment office gets the pick of the membership
(heck isn't part of our problem in iraq that normal military doesn't think "urban" enough??)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
By your logic, rage murders should go unpunished. The murderers were only acting out of normal and fairly standard psychological patterns, ie. they caught their wife cheating, got mad, then shot her and the guy. Is the guy likely to kill again? Not really, unless he catches his next wife cheating on him.
I imagine the Bystander effect is a lot like the concept of fate. If you don't know your fate, you're bound to it. If you do know your fate, however, you have the opportunity to change your behavior. I think calling attention to this effect could actually help to prevent it from happening in the future.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
That's a fallacy. This law applies to violent crime. I see no problem with compelling a person to call 911 for a stabbing/rape/etc if they're able. That's just basic human decency and frankly I'm a little sickened that it is even needed.
If they try to modify this to apply to any crime, then we have a problem.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
You do NOT have the right to remain silent.
Anything you DON'T say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.
No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
"It's called freedom of choice and it's what the country was founded upon." -- George Carlin
Whose morality? It's all bullshit. Like any sport they were just enjoying the show and the girl should have known better. Besides where were the idiots who were in charge of the dance. Somehow I don't like actions being dictated to me that I don't choose for myself. Keep the blinders on america, the slide in despotism is accelerating.
Then let's make gangrape legal too, shall we ? Talk about your basic herd instinct.
Sorry, but a HUGE difference exists between actively committing a violent crime, and choosing not to report the same.
Try applying this to situations you might disagree with. Failure to report your friend smoking weed? Failure to report your mother speeding? Failure to report your uncle cheating just a bit on his taxes? Failure to report your coworker for circumventing the DMCA to do what your mutual boss ordered?
That's good advice! Too bad you didn't follow it! Let's try again shall we?
Sorry, but a HUGE difference exists between actively committing a violent crime, and choosing not to report the same.
Try applying this to situations you might disagree with. Failure to report your friend beating his wife? Failure to report your mother for running somebody over in the crosswalk? Failure to report your uncle for gambling on caged-dog fighting? Failure to report your coworker for stabbing your mutual boss's wife as ordered?
Hmm, yeah. Your point doesn't hold up that well anymore.
What do a theocracy and morality have to do with one another?
In fact, what do religion and morality have to do with one another?
Religions (at least like Christianity) are the antithesis of morality, since they replace doing the right thing (moral behavior) with doing the most expedient thing (utilitarianism).
Do you mind explaining exactly what leads you to this conclusion, and maybe supplying some biblical or Christian theological sources to back this up? Granted I'm not an expert in all denominations, but as a Catholic that has independently studied Christian theology many years and there is nothing by from Jesus, the Apostles, the Gospel writers, or other important figures of the early church (e.g. St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, etc...) which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity. Sure there are many people who claim to be Christians while not even trying practicing what they preach, but you find that with any philosophy where the ethical and moral requirements are more rigorous than "doing whatever I want is justified".
Reading the article is no substitution for common sense.
This is an ICING law. A law to add EXTRA punishment. Like marijuana tax stamps.
Failure to report ANY FELONY is a crime!
Your lack of common knowledge, your horrible reading comprehension, and your blind ignorance when presented with simple information is shocking. Seek help.
and it won't hold up. You can't force people to get involved. This is yet another unneeded law backed by the Prison Guard Union lobby. The Lobby that's been behind pretty much EVERY new crime bill in CA for the past 20 years.
You wonder who pushed 3 strike? fights for longer sentences for non violent criminals?
Yeah, the prison guard union...fuckers.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I do have one solution to this mess: expatriation
good riddance. This country needs fewer people who prefer running like a coward over standing up to correct something.
Like this law would stand up in court. sheesh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think there is a good case to made that they were accessories to the crime, since their watching probably encouraged the rapists and maybe even concealed what was going on. But no new law is necessary, and charging witnesses in other cases (where they are afraid to report or in fact weren't looking in the right direction) doesn't make sense.
The whole point of morality, religion, and by extension laws and such is that we can do better than these stupid instincts.
It's true, but some instincts are so common and strong that you have to jail everyone if following them is punished.
For example, if you legally define the inside of cars as private spaces, and that looking at someone who is naked while they are in a private space is forbidden, then a woman driving down a main road naked would mean that you jail the whole city. And none of those two laws are blatantly unreasonable.
Alternatively, you might have to reach compromises. Such as a law saying that VIOLENT crimes must be reported, but not nonviolent ones. There's no clear philosophical or moral justification for why it's OK to leave crimes unreported if they are nonviolent but not when they are violent. The only one is the practical and gradual consideration that violent crimes are so bad and should be discouraged so much that punishing nonreporting outweighs the disadvantages, but doesn't outweigh in the case of nonviolent ones.
Probably the biggest negative effect of unreporting bystanders to violence is that it creates a strong public climate of fear and distrust ('only 2 rapists, but 30 bystanders? would they all have liked to take part? would they not have helped me?') which nonviolent crimes don't.
Then they tell you "ignorance of the law is no excuse" when given the size of our legal system it's the only excuse that matters. That's why there's specialized lawyers and you often go through several in just one case as no single lawyer can know the whole law and all its effects so what chance does a normal person have of actually knowing the law. When they arrest you for this BS law just wait for it. America is sliding down the drain. CA needs an outright civil war, given the number of guns it shouldn't be a problem and if it happens in America hopefully that like other times CA will start the trend.
but as a Catholic that has independently studied Christian theology many years and there is nothing by from Jesus, the Apostles, the Gospel writers, or other important figures of the early church (e.g. St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, etc...) which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
It's at the core of Christian theology: God judges you and your life and you either get rewarded or punished.
ut you find that with any philosophy where the ethical and moral requirements are more rigorous than "doing whatever I want is justified".
You want to be saved and go to paradise, right? And you'll do what "God" (actually, the church) tells you in order to accomplish that end. If God tells you to kill your son, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to kill the infidels, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to curl up and die, well, that's what you do to. Morality has been removed from the equation: you're simply following instructions in order to achieve the grand reward of "paradise".
which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
Christianity doesn't have any moral tenets; it has rules, laws, obedience, and judgment.
The right to remain silent (which comes from the fifth amendment) includes the right to not talk to police. About anything, really. And since nobody can really know ALL the laws, simply reporting an observed crime to the police could very well incriminate you in some crime, either the crime you're reporting or something else (watching a cock fight? illegal. Being out after curfew? Illegal. Who knows what laws you might have violated simply by being there, and when you report this crime, you're telling them that you were there.) For more on this -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE
"It's called freedom of choice and it's what the country was founded upon." -- George Carlin
Whose morality? It's all bullshit. Like any sport they were just enjoying the show and the girl should have known better. Besides where were the idiots who were in charge of the dance. Somehow I don't like actions being dictated to me that I don't choose for myself. Keep the blinders on america, the slide in despotism is accelerating.
It is interesting how self-contradictory your post seems to be. On the one hand you ask "Whose morality?" yet, on the other you castigate the majority of Americans because you believe they are allowing despotism to develop in the USA (and you apparently object to despotism based on your own personal moral views). Therefore, unless you believe that at least some limited form of moral code should transcend and supersede personal morality while still allowing freedom of moral belief in most cases, you are being hypocritical.
It has to make you think about what kind of society are we living in today that legislators would even have to consider putting forward a law like this.
Let's review: Twenty teenagers watched the gangrape of a 16-year-old girl outside a high school without doing ANYTHING and your primary concern is a fucking good samaritan law eroding your freedom?
I am a little more worried about the how those spectators will be the future of America.
And if you could, in any way, justify not reporting a violent crime in action (even anonymously), you have some serious issues. That's the problem nowdays, we've been reduced to sheep who don't want to get our hoofs dirty, so we just watch and wait for someone else to fix the problem.
Sorry to get pedantic here, but a good EMT friend of mine described it this way:
You only perform CPR on someone if they're not breathing and they have no heartbeat. So technically, they're already dead. You might not be successful, but you can't make things worse by trying.
But I agree with the point of your post.
You stereotypers are all the same...
"without actively punishing people for following their instincts."
stupid. There are some instinct that people need to be punished for, but not many.
I don't know what the hell you think. Gang rape isn't a herd instinct.
OTOH you are a fucker that think of violence as a first recourse for everything, so I can see you someone as screwed up as you could think other people are violent as well.
People are violent by training, not by nature.
You also misquote Obama, in fact now that I read your history, it seems you prefer violence, lies, and misrepresenting truths. /. meme's
It's like your the spawn of
fuck you, we need fewer people like you.
We have a "good samaritian" law, with the force of police, courts and jail behind it.
We have a "stop snitching" movement, with the force of death behind it.
Which do you think will win? I'd say "stop snitching" has it all over anything else, because if you are caught you easily end up dead. Here in the West we love life more.
If you read TFA, you'd know that the article summary is almost entirely incorrect.
California has a law requiring people to report (not intervene) observed physical violence against persons aged 14 and under. The new law just removes the age requirement. Not only does this make perfect sense, but there was no way it wasn't going to pass when the impetus of the bill was the widely-reported gang rape of a 16 year old girl in public.
It's clear that not all tasks can be completed, so this appears to be an optimization exercise. Nothing on the test indicates a particular sequence should be followed.
The best possible score on this test is to complete steps 1,2,3,4, and 6, while ignoring #5- that would earn a passing score of 5/6.
Anyone who completed 1,5, and 6 and did not complete 2, 3, or 4 would have only completed 50% of the problems, and is a clear failure. I would recommend pointing at them and laughing, as that sort of juvenile humiliation appears to be the point of this exercise.
What I coincidence. I had my doubts around the time I got to the end of the title and saw the question mark, but the first half of the first sentence really had me leaning in the same direction as you!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
but as a Catholic that has independently studied Christian theology many years and there is nothing by from Jesus, the Apostles, the Gospel writers, or other important figures of the early church (e.g. St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, etc...) which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
It's at the core of Christian theology: God judges you and your life and you either get rewarded or punished.
I suppose some may think about it in that way. My understanding is that Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell are less actual places than spiritual states of being based on your relationship with God. I suppose you can simplistically summarize my beliefs like this: God asks you to behave towards others in a certain way, if you choose not to you are the one punishing yourself for severing your connection with God. Or in other words, if you intentionally deny God a place in your life, don't expect him to return your calls after it is over.
ut you find that with any philosophy where the ethical and moral requirements are more rigorous than "doing whatever I want is justified".
You want to be saved and go to paradise, right? And you'll do what "God" (actually, the church) tells you in order to accomplish that end. If God tells you to kill your son, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to kill the infidels, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to curl up and die, well, that's what you do to. Morality has been removed from the equation: you're simply following instructions in order to achieve the grand reward of "paradise".
I won't deny that organized religion in general, and Christianity specifically, hasn't been horribly abused in the past which lead to atrocities. However, that is beside the points both the GP and you further down in your reply were trying to make, that religions have no innate morality. Specifically with Christianity the examples you give aren't as applicable as you think.
The first appears to be a reference to the story of Abraham and Issac, but how did that really turn out? It was a test of faith, not for God's benefit but for Abraham's (God knew the extent of Abraham's faith, but the man himself did not). Also in the story, God had no intention of actually allow the sacrifice and at the end make statements that his believers should never practice human sacrifice.
Your second and third examples is outright contradicted by Christian scriptures. Christ's actual teachings do not support killing non-believers, "Those that live by the sword die by the sword". It is also not part of the Catholic teaching on legitimate use of miltary force. Likewise, a prohibition against despair is the real meaning behind "sloth" being named one of the Seven Deadly Sins (the word in the original list translates to modern English closer to "despondency" or "listlessness" than "laziness").
Lastly I, for one, am less motivated with the prospect of rewards and punishments than I am with trying to do what I believe is the right thing because it is the moral thing to do. For me my faith informs the daily process of trying to live a moral life and provides a foundation and structure to the choices I must make. Of course, I don't pretend that all Christians, or even all Catholics, are the same way, but I do believe there are far more who are than are initially obvious to the non-religious.
which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
Christianity doesn't have any moral tenets; it has rules, laws, obedience, and judgment.
Christ gave us only one real command, to love both God and one another as much as most people love themselves. He did this not to establish a basis of morality, instead it was to assist those that already decided to do "the right thing" but not sure of what it is. All the further religio
That's good advice! Too bad you didn't follow it! Let's try again shall we?
Yes, lets - Because unless you mean to imply that my uncle runs a dog-fighting pit, your choices of examples have no relevance to my interests.
Though technically, I suppose I did say "situations you might disagree with", not "situations I might disagree with"; so if you meant that as an admission of sorts, well, apparently you have more to worry about from such laws than I do.
Hmm, yeah. Your point doesn't hold up that well anymore.
On what do you base that claim? So you substituted more violent crimes (which would fall under the law referenced in TFA, rather than requiring a slippery slope argument). I still totally oppose forced reporting of crimes, ever, and will continue to oppose the idea even if you change the examples to such extremes as genocide of the Gypsies/Jews, raping a busload of nuns, or kicking puppies.
And for the record - No, I would not call the police on my mother if she ran someone over in a crosswalk. Nor, I would hope, would anyone. I would encourage her to turn herself in, but ultimately, her choice, not mine. Even if my silence broke the law - Some things come before mindless adherence to the law.
The point is that the summary is complete horseshit. Basically, the law that is being proposed is not the same as the "Good Samaritan" law from Seinfeld. Also, the actual "Good Samaritan" law from Seinfeld is already a real law.
In summary, the summary is wrong on three counts — that the law was fictitious to begin with (it's real in Massachusetts), that California is enacting a new law (they're merely extending an existing law), and that the new law mimics the Seinfeld "Good Samaritan" law (it only deals with reporting crimes you've witnessed, not helping victims of crimes).
To attempt to make the title even moderately accurate, it would have to be reworded like this: "Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law, Already A Reality, Completely Unchanged By Unrelated California Law That Already Exists But Is Being Modified?"
As a side note, the inspiration for the law was an event a few months ago where 20 people stood around and watched a 15-year old girl get gang-raped, and not one of them called the police.
That's just basic human decency and frankly I'm a little sickened that it is even needed.
With that, I will agree completely. As I said in another thread, most likely I would intervene even if it meant putting myself at risk - But I would do so by choice, not because the law required it.
I see no problem with compelling a person to call 911 for a stabbing/rape/etc if they're able.
We'll just have to disagree on that point. I do see quite a few problems with compelled actions.
My understanding is that Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell are less actual places than spiritual states of being based on your relationship with God.
So? What difference does that make? The fact remains that you are rewarded/punished based on what you do.
The first appears to be a reference to the story of Abraham and Issac, but how did that really turn out? It was a test of faith, not for God's benefit but for Abraham's
You're missing the point. The point is that Abraham was willing to follow God's command and considered it moral because it was a command from God. Whether God's command itself was moral is irrelevant.
Christ gave us only one real command, to love both God and one another as much as most people love themselves. He did this not to establish a basis of morality
So, if God commanded you to kill your son, you would refuse? Or would you obey?
Which is why all of us who work in the schools are held to a duty to act when a child is either in danger or precieved to be in danger.
And those god sameritan laws do protect most people but they only protect people acting within the scope of there training there is also a reasonable person standard in there. However a CPR certified person is trained to perform cpr. Not pull out a pen knife and remove a bullet ala macguyver. That person would not be protected.
The California law is a variant duty to rescue.
Actually it's a variant of "misprison of felony" - which (for a long time) England had and the US did not.
And it's a massive expansion of the power of the state. It requires witnesses of crimes to put their lives at risk (from retaliation by the crooks, especially organized gangs) to perform an involuntary service to the state for the state's own purposes (enforcing the law to maintain domestic tranquility).
As such it should be vulnerable to a challenge as a violation of the 13th amendment.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There's a lot of evidence that they are acting out of normal and fairly standard psychological patterns. Humans are less likely to help in large groups. This is known as the bystander effect.
I think this one is a bit beyond the bystander effect.
This was a gang rape. The witnesses may have had a justified fear of violent retaliation if they were to turn in the rapists.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The article is pretty clear. It is saying that:
a) There is a problem that you can currently witness a crime, not report it, and you've done nothing wrnog (unless it's a violent crime against someone under 14).
b) There is a new law which fixes this problem.
You may think it's morally reprehensible to witness a crime and not report it, and I agree. But it is not a crime under the law (according to the article), but once the bill is signed in to law, it will be (for violent crimes, anyway).
My common knowledge shouldn't be at issue; firstly, everything I've said has been in relation to TFA. Secondly, I live in a different legal system with a completely different basis. I shouldn't be expected to know what is and isn't a crime in the US, except through common sense. And I said pretty clearly that I thought this law was codifying something which should be common sense anyway ("... being a bystander to rape is currently NOT a crime. It obviously "should be", thus the new law." -- Me, just a few posts ago).
I understand your reaction ("wtf, it's not a crime to witness a rape and not report it??!?") because that was my reaction too, but don't just jump down the throat of someone who's busy agreeing with you.
While it is arguably noble to stand firm for a cause you believe in, even laying down your life for it, I think it's a little harsh to criticize others for not doing the same, especially considering they may not believe in it as strongly as you do.
But my actual point for this post is this: what would you have him do? It's great to spout off feel-good lines about standing up and fighting for your country or what you believe in or whatever, but when the vast majority of people DO NOT CARE about the things you see as wrongs, what do you do? Change the opinions of 300 million people? How are you going to convince all of them that the things they think are good ideas are actually bad ideas?
Hint: You cannot do this, because there is a difference in VALUES involved.
Taking a stand and going to jail are useless if nobody cares that you did it. And, another hint: they don't care. Nobody gives a shit about anybody. That's why they need laws like this. But it's like using a band-aid to heal a broken bone. Good intentions, but in the end, useless.
The culture of money-is-all-that-matters that pervades this country has ruined it. Money is now all anyone cares about. And you know what? If that's what the majority wants, in this country, that's how it goes. Why should every place in the world be the way you think it should be? Money-whores deserve a country if enough of them want one. So they got the U.S. Why does that make those of us who want to go somewhere else cowards?
(Pardon the US-centric post)
...I can see how this might lead to a lot of phone calls to 911. Follow me:
:)
I'm in a place where one person starts committing a crime. There are 5 people (A,B,C,D & E) standing around who DON'T call 911.
So I have to call (by law) to report the criminal. Now, I also have to call 911 to report that A,B,C,D & E are now committing a crime by not calling 911!
And, I have to call again to say that A,B,C,D & E are committing another crime by not calling on each other, and that the original criminal is also committing the crime of: "not calling 911 on himself, and on A,B,C,D & E for not calling 911 on him"
I could go on all night!!!!
We don't know what Abraham's view of god's instruction was, so it's not fair to assert that he considered it moral because it was a command from his god. Of course, as it's a fairy-story, it's as useful an argument as one about whether Cinderella considered corsets moral or not.
.) And of course, laws evolved the same way. (But have since evolved in utterly bizarre unrelated directions.)
However, you make some good points in all your responses to the right-to-be-ashamed-of-his-anachronistic-point-of-view anonymous one.
My personal view is that in the early formation of societies, one had to codify for-the-common-good (apparent good, not always actual good) in whatever ways would work. The creation of religions that provide both carrots and sticks, was certainly an effective one. And that's why religions often have a moralistic core - they're easier to sell if you can see that they are clearly for the common good. (Do unto others, etc.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Sorry, I can't agree with your reasoning at all.
People "following their basic herd instincts" -- oh, let's use as an example discriminating against other people on the basis of color -- is what kept slavery legal in the US until the Civil War (and kept it the de facto law of the land in the South until . . . well, let's just say 'much more recently').
Laws are what civilized societies pass in an effort to elevate "the herd" above their animal natures.
So if there's a crime going on in front of me, and I don't report it, but I do report that the guy next to me didn't report it, am I still committing a crime?
We don't know what Abraham's view of god's instruction was, so it's not fair to assert that he considered it moral because it was a command from his god.
Well, then Abraham wasn't a moral person even though he is portrayed as such as Christianity. No matter which of the possibilities you choose, none of them amount to moral behavior.
Of course, as it's a fairy-story, it's as useful an argument as one about whether Cinderella considered corsets moral or not.
Since nearly a billion Christians derive their morality and their day-to-day behavior from these kinds of fairy tales, discussing their morality is important.
My personal view is that in the early formation of societies, one had to codify for-the-common-good (apparent good, not always actual good) in whatever ways would work. [...]
Well, that's a nice view, but a billion Christians and a billion Muslims want to impose their anachronistic "whatever works" rules on modern societies. So we have to deal with these people. Many of them are, in fact, capable of rational discourse and understanding, so asking these questions is reasonable.
Guess I need to build that time machine. I wasn't born then other wise I would had been in Europe blasting away at Nazi scum. But if the Chatholic Church hadn't got Hitler elected in the first place. And we all know how the Chatholics tried to kill Jews in the Crusades but that is probably a coincidence?
Yours maybe but that is what you get living in the land of the free (scoff) Maybe you should consider moving to Canada were you don't get 25 years for having a joint. (ie Nevada but mind you a bunch of potheads probably wont spend all their money in a casino so they want to discourage potheads from coming there. Now why is cocaine cheaper than pot in Las Vagas?)
well you are an unobservant douche and deserve the full extent of the law i'm not american but you are a coward and you hate a great man like George Bush. Isn't it illegal to be unamerican on your country? I hope the secret police get you scum bag.
My understanding is that Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell are less actual places than spiritual states of being based on your relationship with God.
So? What difference does that make? The fact remains that you are rewarded/punished based on what you do.
It appears to me that you are contending choices cannot have significant consequences and still have a moral dimension. However, I want to be clear on this. In your opinion, is cold-blooded murder no longer to be considered immoral because society tries to severely punish people that participate in it? Or in a different situation, is saving someone else from drowning still a good thing if it is widely known that any savior will get a $10,000 reward? If on the other hand, you don't believe either the punishment or reward in my examples alter the morality; then why do you believe that the potential consequences in the afterlife have any effect on the innate morality of human interactions?
The first appears to be a reference to the story of Abraham and Issac, but how did that really turn out? It was a test of faith, not for God's benefit but for Abraham's
You're missing the point. The point is that Abraham was willing to follow God's command and considered it moral because it was a command from God. Whether God's command itself was moral is irrelevant.
Christ gave us only one real command, to love both God and one another as much as most people love themselves. He did this not to establish a basis of morality
So, if God commanded you to kill your son, you would refuse? Or would you obey?
No, because for me Christ's teachings takes precedence over Abraham's example, as Christ was and is part of the single Godhead. Furthermore, and as I alluded to before, part of the reason that story is still pertinent thousands of years later is the explicit message that the God of Abraham does not want human sacrifices! Thus according reason (which in Catholic theology is something that God gave us to use), any command to kill my son would not be from God.
Not everybody is a hero, but everyone SHOULD be a responsible citizen.
And that's the crux of the matter. The fact that someone SHOULD do something does not mean that anyone (not even the government) has the right to FORCE them to do something.
Thank you for that pearl of wisdom. To think for all this time, I never realized: the fact that we SHOULD pay our taxes to cover things like roads and the military does not mean anyone (not even the government) has the right to FORCE them to pay taxes. And of course, the fact that we SHOULD refrain from killing people we don't like does not mean anyone (not even the government) has the right to FORCE us to refrain from killing people. Thanks a lot for clarifying the crux of the matter for me!
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
so COMPLYING with this law is likely to kill off the "good samaritans", for good.
Which is .. evilution in action, isn't it?
Actually, what's going to happen, eventually, is that the non-incorporated gangs will simply incorporate, and then they'll have the legal representation they need to make certain they aren't accountable for their actions, and then "peace" will be declared, right?
I wish integrity was the law...
This one is trivially easy to do fairly, and thus there is no reason to do it wrong.
Bad question:
"If an object in space with a mass m1 is placed d meters away from a fixed object with mass m2, how far away will it be after 10 seconds?"
Good question:
"USING NEWTON'S LAWS, if an object in space..."
The answer to the first question is correct if answered using relativistic equations. The second question is ABSOLUTELY incorrect is answered using relativistic equations, as the student is explicitly asked not to use them. (The question is perhaps easier because the student has been given a hint, but this is the only way to explicitly exclude the relativistic answer, if it is listed among the choices.)
HOWEVER, if the first question was asked and the correct answer using newton's laws was available, but the correct relativistic answer was NOT available, then "NONE OF THE ABOVE" is NOT correct. If the answer from newton's laws is available, ALL students should be able to recognize that the answer calculated using them is "close enough" for a basic high-school level test.