Ha, no, the Tea Party wants to protect future generations.
Look, it's nice to raise taxes to address spending problems. But the problem is, the people who are going to benefit from "saying no to spending cuts" are mostly the Baby Boomers who are about to retire. If we raise taxes, and then they all retire, guess what -- they have basically voted to pay themselves on the backs of the next few generations.
The Tea Party opposes tax increases because of that. The people who have benefited from the MASSIVE debt in the last few decades should share in the hardship that goes along with that debt. That means they need to suffer from spending cuts, not live in a bubble where taxes go up to preserve their benefits *just* as they're about to retire.
1. An entitled juvenile with no boundaries decides she really want to use the internet late at night at a sleepover and comes up with a cunning plan. They do not think far enough that the drugs may kill.
I also believe it's likely she did not think that her actions could kill her parents, but that it was a cunning plan to get away with something.
2. Juvenile "Hey Mom, we are making milkshakes. Want one?". Parent "sure". It takes almost no time to dissolve drugs in a blender especially if they have been crushed before hand..
That sounds like a friendly open relationship, which doesn't fit how the parents react in #3 and #4.
You could be right, of course, and the teen got the parents to drink the milkshake by being manipulative like posing it as an attempt at making up and being friendly after a long history of doing weird things with a disregard for potential consequences. There is a narrative where I would support arresting her, but we don't know that stuff.
I think it's more likely that parents become controlling and almost abusive of a teenage girl than that a teenage girl becomes a sociopath who poses a mortal risk to her parents.
In overdose to a person not aware that they are under the influence of the medication they are incredibly dangerous.
How do you know she gave them an overdose? It doesn't say that in the article.
Not knowing they had been administered the sleeping pills the parents may have taken another central nervous system depressant, alcohol, antihistamines, etc. All of which are normal events on most household from time to time. That combined with the overdose of sleeping pills may have stopped their breathing. There are also other medications such as antidepressants that interact with certain sleeping pills and can kill. The drugs were administered before 10PM. The parents may have decided to make a quick run to the store for something "Hey we're out of ice cream lets get some more" and had an accident. There have been instances where people have taken too much sleep medication, gone to sleep in the bath, slipped under the water and drown. There are several ways the parents could have died and the juveniles didn't care about that; they just wanted their fun.
That's all true, and goes back to your #1 point about the teen's lack of judgment. That doesn't show intent to hurt her parents, though, and also we don't know how the girl would have reacted if her parents did one of those things. If they said "Just remembered I need to run to the store" or "Time for a few beers before bed" she might have stopped them with much shame. This is just speculation.
There is a point in many families where the juvenile realizes that parents have no power. If a juvenile does something wrong what can a parent really do? Ground them? The child just walks out? Tie them to their bed? No. Hit them No. Talk to them. They just ignore the words.
If done excessively it's abuse obviously, but how is it abusive to give your child a timeout in their room, or a spanking that doesn't leave bruises etc?
Anyway the kind of child you're talking about doesn't mesh with your point #1 about an entitled girl with poor judgment. Sounds more like a budding street thug who doesn't get anything positive from his parents that could be withheld (like internet access), doesn't care about family-style punishment, and in fact doesn't even care about being welcome at home. In this case, the girl apparently respects the 10pm internet curfew enough that she feels she has to incapacitate her parents to get around it. Not sneak out to a friend's house, not openly walk out with a big "fuck you," not trash the house, not push her parents until they relent or become abusive and she calls the cops on them, but do something very non-confrontational that she thought would be undetectable. To me that's evidence that she was scared of them and of their
You're being an idiot in calling me a troll.. maybe you don't have experience with actual trolling (taking a controversial or emotionally charged position in order to get a response from your target).
You said. "Letting this slip would be a major failure at parenting."
"This" = the teen's actions, drugging her parents.
"slip" = the op's suggestion, not arresting the teen.
My argument is that the teen's actions are not a serious crime that deserves arrest but a family issue that should have been dealt with internally.
If you think I'm putting words in your mouth by recharacterizing your argument as suggesting arrest as a response to a discipline problem, not a serious crime, you should say that and we can discuss whether I'm justified. Not fall back on words you don't understand like trolling.
But it's about what I expect from someone whose style of "debate" is to call his opponents tards who shouldn't have kids.
If you're trying to be fair you'd also have to add a Z term to account for the natural degradation of the road that happens even if nobody is driving on it. Things like rain, freeze/thaw cycles, and sunlight.
How do you figure I'm a troll? This thread started with someone saying they shouldn't have called the cops because it will interfere with the kid's future life and career.
Another guy comes around and says no it's a serious crime, so they should be arrested.
You agree with that person, adding that "Letting this slip would be a major failure at parenting."
To me, it's a major failure in parenting TO CALL THE COPS on your kid when nothing bad actually happened. All the hand waving about this being a serious crime and that it endangered the parents is irrelevant.. lots of people do irresponsible, reckless, dangerous things when they are kids, and most families deal with them internally.
What is this, opposite day? I suspect that the people bravely saying they'd arrest their own children are the actual trolls, since it goes against human nature. When it came down to it, when you realized you're going to give your child, whom you supposedly love... well yeah right. Such people are a small minority.
Who is betting the kids were doing poorly in school due to late night gab sessions on the internet and the restriction was a justifies response to the situation?
I wouldn't bet that. Consider the facts: 1. The girl drugs her parents 2. The parents have the girl make them milkshakes (didn't make them together as a family since the girl was able to put drugs in them, wait for them to dissolve, etc) 3. The parents are paranoid enough, or knowledgeable enough about drugs, that they immediately suspected drugs based on how they felt, and got a drug kit 4. The parents chose to bring their daughter to the police
We have more knowledge of abnormal behavior from the parents than from the girl.
The reaction may seem excessive to you but not to me. The juveniles put the parents' lives at risk. A day or two in juvenile detention pales before that.
With your incomplete knowledge of the events, you think she put her parents lives at risk? Is that just a gut reaction because the word "drugs" is in the article? Do you think all sleeping pills are incredibly dangerous for all people and the parents are lucky to be alive today?
She probably put her parents' lives more at risk when she was getting her driver's license (if she's 16, we don't even know that). Should that be added to her charge list?
It's bizarre. Most people feel sympathetic towards their own children and don't want to hurt them, even when they make mistakes, even when those mistakes could have hurt the parents, even when they aren't mistakes. The family is such an important unit of society, I feel sorry for this girl to have grown up with such horrible parents.
And yeah I know parents can't always be friends with their children, that's not what this is about. It's about recognizing the family bond, recognizing your responsibilities as a parent, and not relying on Officer Joe and Taxpayer Wendy to raise your children! There are things parents do to their children that would be illegal for others to do to them, and would be illegal for them to do to others.. and that's fine, because that's the special allowance of family. To turn around and call the police when your kids do something bad that had *no actual negative effects*? It's such a betrayal, it's really crazy.
Not because I think I need the state to get involved with my parenting, but because chances are pretty damn good that the friend put my child (in the story the friend provided the sleeping pills) up to this
Chances are good? How did you calculate that? I can't see past 50/50 -- your child was almost certainly the one complaining about the internet curfew. Whether they said "I should slip them something so they just chill out for once" or the friend says "You should slip them something so they just chill out for once" is impossible to determine.
and I need the state to force the friend's parent to seek help.
Really, it sounds like you would do all this for the best interests of the children involved. I have to wonder why you didn't do consider this: The other girl's parents probably aren't any worse than you, probably aren't proud of their daughter's role (whether she instigated the whole thing or just provided the pills) and, assuming they aren't sociopaths like some of the commenters here, would be more than willing to work with you privately instead of immediately calling the cops and throwing their child into the system. Failing that there's the threat of "Do it or I'll call the police on BOTH our daughters" which would make you sound totally insane, but would probably coerce them into doing what you wanted.
But no, none of that, you need to call the cops on your own daughter to force the friend's parents to get involved. Interesting.
It might very well be, that the parents didn't even choose to press charges against their kids. A doctor might have reported the incident
TFA clears this right up. The parents bought a home drug test when they were suspicious. It tested positive. There was no doctor involved. From TFA: "After the parents got the results, they brought their daughter to the police station."
Let us not forget that a very serious crime has been committed. The kids probably didn't know and didn't intend it, but they might have easily killed one of the parents.
Like you said, we don't know the whole story. Without knowing the details of the drugs involved, how do you know they could have easily killed one of the parents? Maybe the girl knew her parents take sleeping pills occasionally so the odds of it leading to death were very low indeed.
Not many people consider speeding 54 in a 45 to be a very serious crime even though it could also lead to someone's death. Are sleeping pills more dangerous than cars?
Unless you're the adult and you need to drug your kid, or you need to drug your parent, because you know what's best.
These tards talking like it was a prank either don't have kids, or shouldn't.
Does that sense of self-entitlement feel good?
These idiots talking about who should have kids should be cut off from the internet, they never contribute anything useful.
That does feel good.
Responsible parents make sure that their kids learn basic decency, like never ever drugging people.
So the parents in this story, who failed to make sure kids learned basic decency and are now turning to the taxpayer for help -- should they have had kids? If they're such irresponsible parents, can you really blame the kid for being messed up?
Letting this slip would be a major failure at parenting.
Ah. So not responding to a discipline problem by calling the police is a major failure in parenting. Got it.
A sociopath is someone with extreme anti-social behavior and a lack of conscience. Given only what we know, it's more likely that the parents are sociopaths for having their child arrested. Historically families are very reluctant to punish family members legally. It's even true for extreme intrafamily problems like child abuse and spousal abuse. For many people, "family problems" are nobody else's business and it would be far more damaging to bring in the law than to cover it up and deal with it privately -- especially when it comes to their children.
Arresting your child for something that *could* have had bad consequences but *actually* didn't is sociopathic in our society, unless there's information we don't know like the child has a history this stuff and it's been escalating.
I think the idea of people owning large scale atomic weapons is kind of silly. It's a slippery slope fallacy -- guns don't lead to nuclear weapons, just like legally owning dynamite or some other explosive doesn't lead to nuclear weapons, and books that teach you how to build nuclear weapons (or regular explosives) don't lead to widespread nuclear violence.
Your choice of an atomic bomb is a good choice because it plays to the irrational fear people have of anything nuclear. Realistically, the type of atomic weapon you could buy for $500 (like a nice handgun) wouldn't be the type of atomic weapon that could level a city.. maybe it would be useful for blowing up tree stumps or something, like dynamite. Why would I be against a tree-stump-destroying atomic bomb? Just because it's atomic? Because you could pile together a million of them and make a bigger atomic bomb? I mean you can already do that with fertilizer. What's the point?
The modern and affluent parts of those countries aren't where the majority of the jihadists are coming from. They're being recruited from and in parts of the country that are at least "backwater" by any modern nation's description.
The people who push for youtube to be banned in Pakistan are: 1. Media organizations 2. Lawyers, judges, e.g. the judicial establishment 3. Political parties within the government (notably excluding the largest, the PPP, from what I can tell) 4. and yes, the poor people in the backwaters
Really, the poor people aren't the problem. Like you said, they're being people. And really, by themselves they have such little power, they don't do anything more than low level violence (honor killings, tribal punishments, etc). That's not a huge world-wide deal, though it obviously sucks for the people who live there who are always on the wrong end of that violence, such as the few remaining Christians.
Even when it comes to outright jihad, you're mistaken in thinking that the modern and affluent parts of Pakistan are not a problem. That's exactly the problem. The small middle and upper classes in Pakistan hate India, hate Jews, and hate America. They see conspiracy theories everywhere -- ever heard of HAARP? Probably not.. I hadn't until I started reading Pakistani news and seeing articles EVERYWHERE (mainstream papers and websites) that HAARP is a secret US weapons program that controls the weather, causes earthquakes, etc. Do a search for "haarp pakistan" and you'll see what I mean. It's been going on for years. And I only read the English-language papers, which are frankly much more moderate than the Urdu ones.
That kind of 24/7 irrational fear and hatred breeds a support for terrorism. If you talk to the average rich Pakistani, and bring up the Taliban, they will stop you and let you know the first thing to learn about the Taliban is that there is the Good Taliban and the Bad Taliban. The Good Taliban are the lions of Islam who fight for speedy justice, the rights of the oppressed, and so on. They do that outside of Pakistan. The Bad Taliban are the ones who fight inside Pakistan.
Many middle and upper class Pakistanis will tell you they support terrorism as long as it's not against themselves. Terrorism against India, Israel, America (especially in Afghanistan) is fine because it's the only thing they CAN do against these shadowy, cowardly enemies who collude with each other to keep Pakistan weak, to keep Muslims everywhere weak. This is not a joke. Their government, military, and media talk about it all the time. Google "pakistan strategic depth" -- that's a codeword for supporting terrorist groups in other countries to maintain Pakistan's influence. Their army commanders give speeches about it and how proud they are that they have held the gigantic enemy of India at bay despite being so much smaller. I suggest you read this blog: http://criticalppp.com/ It began ostensibly as a watchdog of the PPP, the biggest political party in Pakistan, but I'd say it's not about that anymore. They do a good job pointing out problems in Pakistani society -- media, judiciary, military. They do a good job sourcing evidence like videos and quotes from speeches showing the widespread support for terrorism, blasphemy laws, oppression of minorities like Shias, and conspiracy theories. They'll also have translations of Urdu-language articles sometimes.
This is getting too long, but I wanted to comment on your mention of Saudi Arabia. I wasn't sure if you were joking, to be honest. I've never heard anybody seriously call Saudi Arabia more "chilling out" and "adjusting" than other Muslim countries. Surely you know that's incorrect, right? What you may be seeing is that Saudi Arabia is more stable than other Muslim countries, and mistaking that for "chilling out". Really they have more control over their population than other Muslim countries, harsher laws, and more
More specifically, how the "religious authority" handle and guide their flock.
One problem with changing Islam is there isn't a religious authority as such. Anybody who preaches the Koran is an Islamic cleric. Even in Shia Islam where you have titles loosely based on how influential you are like "ayatollah" and "grand ayatollah" -- well there are 70 grand ayatollahs alive today, right now. Change in Islam won't come from the top because there isn't a top.
The people are easy to control, it's how the authority figures wield their power and control their faithful. You can't really blame the people, it's human nature.
I agree with what you said before -- "what really matters is how the followers behave." I'm not sure what you mean by not blaming the people.. after all the authority figures are people too.. I guess you're saying nobody can be blamed? I disagree -- I don't think blaming people is that big of a deal, so it's perfectly fine to blame Islam's problems on Muslim people.
It's just islam's turn to grow up and evolve. The problem I think is the basic conditions of the people. Uncivilized control can't easily exist inside a civilized and modern society. The easiest way to "fix" them is to bring them into the 19th if not the 20th century.
What if you are ARE seeing the grown up and evolved form of Islam? Is there some rule that says when religions grow up they have to become peaceful and tolerant? The typical Muslim today has more access to knowledge, technology, entertainment, and so on than any Christian 150 years ago... just by virtue of being alive today. Electricity, TV, radio, cell phones.. look at the penetration rates in even poor countries like Pakistan.
Islam doesn't reject science. Muslim countries crave the fruits of science like nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Given that, how can you claim that "they" are not in the 19th if not the 20th century?
Not sure what you mean by people going about their business, and the country not having active wars. Afghanistan and regions of Pakistan are in states of war, whether it meets the definition of a "conventional" war is irrelevant. We're talking about places that harbor terrorists, experience bombings (performed by locals) every few days, and produce jihad videos recruiting soldiers. I don't know what you're imagining that you would think it's a country at peace.
Also I wonder how you're getting your information about the targets of drone strikes being innocent. Some of them are, of course, and I have heard acknowledgments of non-combatant deaths in drone strikes. But in the cases where the US claims it hit terrorists, or soldiers, or combatants or whatever, and you claim it hit children, where is your proof? Replacing bodies is a well known tactic by terrorists groups with good PR machines (e.g. Palestinian groups) so it's like the boy who cried wolf -- not a lot of people believe what terrorists say about innocent casualties.
As illegal as breaking and entering into someone's home and stealing photos from a bedroom safe
I don't think it's as illegal as that. If someone breaks into your home and goes into your bedroom, that's scary not just because they stole your photos or money, but they could have easily run into someone and had to decide -- do I attack this person, do I turn this burglary into a rape, do I leave witnesses, etc.
I just looked up common sentences for burglary, and found an article that discusses burglary laws in New York (http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/burglary-penalties-and-sentencing.html ). As I suspected, the main differences between degrees of burglary are whether it was a dwelling where someone lives and whether a weapon was involved. Both combined is first degree. One or the other is second degree. Neither (breaking into a store for instance) is third degree with a maximum sentence of 7 years. Hacking a phone should be the LEAST serious of any of those, really a fourth degree.
No, that's only illegal if there isn't actually a fire, and you did it to cause a panic and injure people. Even if there isn't a fire, you might think there is (smoke, but no fire) and it still wouldn't be illegal. So it's not the word "fire" that is illegal, it's the intent and circumstances of its use. That's how guns are -- and should be. Why should owning a gun be illegal if you don't misuse it?
Polytheists also have the "one truth" thing. If you look at the plight of Christians in India you'll see it is pretty bad. A lot of Hindus are very angry when Christian missionaries try to convert low-caste Hindus. Why? Who knows. They hate the lower caste, but don't want them taken away to possibly have a better life. They *certainly* don't say "Excellent, those poor people are simply on another path to the truth!" Nope, they have riots, burn churches, etc because "they" are taking "our" believers away from the true religion.
Sikhism is much younger than Islam, yet it isn't batshit crazy like Islam. I don't think the age of the religion is important today because regardless of the original teachings, it exists in the modern world which is highly interconnected. It's not like 1000 years ago where ideas spread slowly on the backs of trading caravans and the occasional crusade/jihad.
What makes you have so much faith in the purity and upright moral fortitude of American politics?
Look at the reality - people are seriously debating whether we should limit OUR OWN FREE SPEECH because somewhere around the world, crazy Muslims might start rioting. You have high level government officials and generals making appeals to preachers in Florida to not offend Muslims. Supreme Court justices pondering whether offending Muslims is like shouting fire in a crowded theater.
Salman Rushdie recently released his autobiography called "Joseph Anton - A Memoir". In reading commentary about it, I was thunderstruck at the difference in tone that politicians had back then. He was put in protective custody and given a 24 hour armed guard. Today, as soon as the identity of the maker of the "horrible, distasteful film" was determined, Obama sent the FBI to investigate him for possible parole violations! Times are changing. Rushdie himself recently commented (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19600879) that today his book would probably not be published, because people are more afraid of Muslims.
With that in mind it's not a stretch that not far from now we'll be releasing terrorism "suspects" (especially with people moaning about how they aren't given fair trials) to "save lives" and "show that we're not Islamophobes" etc.
Ah, but you see, there is still a fundamental difference, and that is what makes religion so bad. The former can not, and will not, change unless you alter the texts that state what is stated.
No there are other ways. The text can stay the same and the interpretation changes. The text can stay the same, the interpretation can stay the same, but it becomes accepted that the text and its interpretation were tied to a specific time. Or it's determined that it no longer applies because you broke a covenant with your god. All of those are common.
The latter can change with new data. That is what Christians often call moral relativity, claiming they have no such thing, and then professing it being bad.
Moral relativity is the belief that the morals of different cultures are all valid and should be respected even if your own culture has conflicting morals. If some culture believes in child marriage, that's "good" for them and who are we to judge -- our morals are not better, just different. It has nothing to do with changing your morality based on evidence from the real world, that's just pragmatism or something.
Those verses are not out of context, but in any case it's not ironic, it's good. Christians are often challenged defend parts of the Bible, and that leads Christians to learn about the Bible, and forces (most) them to say "Yeah, you're right, that sounds bizarre and I don't believe that... I guess Christianity changes with the times!"
Muslims aren't at that stage. It's rare to find a Muslim who says the Koran is out of date and doesn't apply to modern life.
Of course, there's almost nothing that Jesus does in the Bible that is bad, so Christians have it easier -- they don't have to confront an idea that Jesus was not a very nice guy. Hence the very common: "Sure the Old Testament is weird, but the main part of Christianity for me is Jesus, and he's a great guy!" and the "WWJD?" bracelets.
Muslims can't say that. The Koran portrays Mohammed, in terms of modern culture, as an insane monster. For an ancient culture, Mohammed is a strong male leader with admirable (to them) qualities -- he was tough, good at fighting, good at intimidating and getting his way, good at taking wives, good at meting out "justice," good at controlling his women. But clearly that's a problem for Muslims living in the modern world who don't want to sound like insane monsters themselves.
So people like you give "context" and that's cool. It means you are not crazy, even if in my opinion the context you end up providing is incorrect. You understand that when Mohammed beheads people and then turns their wives into slaves, and sleeps with them, but offers them freedom if they'll become his wife and follow his rules, that needs CONTEXT, because it's not OK as is. Maybe you even dismiss things in the hadith that are widely accepted in the Muslim world. Both are steps in the right direction.
I've met plenty of Muslims who don't give context and who adore even the vilest hadith. They either say "No that's wrong" because they haven't actually ever read the Koran in a language they understand (just recited the Koran in Arabic as children) or they say "Whatever Mohammed did was done for Allah and is good!" The latter people I don't know in real life, just online forums.
In theory, yeah, but who knows what lies in men's hearts? We have to judge using our human faculties, and when someone says they repent that has to be weighed against the crimes they committed, the manner in which they committed them, their (and all people's) history of lying to benefit themselves, etc.
Only an anti-religious bigot could conclude that praying for a dead person (an act which has absolutely no consequences from an atheist perspective) is "very negative in the end."
Instead of wasting your time commenting on slashdot you could use your impulse to argue to go advocate for children in Africa. You're an immoral person by your own logic. But somehow I suspect that you reserve that judgment for groups you don't like.
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Ha, no, the Tea Party wants to protect future generations.
Look, it's nice to raise taxes to address spending problems. But the problem is, the people who are going to benefit from "saying no to spending cuts" are mostly the Baby Boomers who are about to retire. If we raise taxes, and then they all retire, guess what -- they have basically voted to pay themselves on the backs of the next few generations.
The Tea Party opposes tax increases because of that. The people who have benefited from the MASSIVE debt in the last few decades should share in the hardship that goes along with that debt. That means they need to suffer from spending cuts, not live in a bubble where taxes go up to preserve their benefits *just* as they're about to retire.
1. An entitled juvenile with no boundaries decides she really want to use the internet late at night at a sleepover and comes up with a cunning plan. They do not think far enough that the drugs may kill.
I also believe it's likely she did not think that her actions could kill her parents, but that it was a cunning plan to get away with something.
2. Juvenile "Hey Mom, we are making milkshakes. Want one?". Parent "sure". It takes almost no time to dissolve drugs in a blender especially if they have been crushed before hand..
That sounds like a friendly open relationship, which doesn't fit how the parents react in #3 and #4.
You could be right, of course, and the teen got the parents to drink the milkshake by being manipulative like posing it as an attempt at making up and being friendly after a long history of doing weird things with a disregard for potential consequences. There is a narrative where I would support arresting her, but we don't know that stuff.
I think it's more likely that parents become controlling and almost abusive of a teenage girl than that a teenage girl becomes a sociopath who poses a mortal risk to her parents.
In overdose to a person not aware that they are under the influence of the medication they are incredibly dangerous.
How do you know she gave them an overdose? It doesn't say that in the article.
Not knowing they had been administered the sleeping pills the parents may have taken another central nervous system depressant, alcohol, antihistamines, etc. All of which are normal events on most household from time to time. That combined with the overdose of sleeping pills may have stopped their breathing. There are also other medications such as antidepressants that interact with certain sleeping pills and can kill. The drugs were administered before 10PM. The parents may have decided to make a quick run to the store for something "Hey we're out of ice cream lets get some more" and had an accident. There have been instances where people have taken too much sleep medication, gone to sleep in the bath, slipped under the water and drown. There are several ways the parents could have died and the juveniles didn't care about that; they just wanted their fun.
That's all true, and goes back to your #1 point about the teen's lack of judgment. That doesn't show intent to hurt her parents, though, and also we don't know how the girl would have reacted if her parents did one of those things. If they said "Just remembered I need to run to the store" or "Time for a few beers before bed" she might have stopped them with much shame. This is just speculation.
There is a point in many families where the juvenile realizes that parents have no power. If a juvenile does something wrong what can a parent really do? Ground them? The child just walks out? Tie them to their bed? No. Hit them No. Talk to them. They just ignore the words.
If done excessively it's abuse obviously, but how is it abusive to give your child a timeout in their room, or a spanking that doesn't leave bruises etc?
Anyway the kind of child you're talking about doesn't mesh with your point #1 about an entitled girl with poor judgment. Sounds more like a budding street thug who doesn't get anything positive from his parents that could be withheld (like internet access), doesn't care about family-style punishment, and in fact doesn't even care about being welcome at home. In this case, the girl apparently respects the 10pm internet curfew enough that she feels she has to incapacitate her parents to get around it. Not sneak out to a friend's house, not openly walk out with a big "fuck you," not trash the house, not push her parents until they relent or become abusive and she calls the cops on them, but do something very non-confrontational that she thought would be undetectable. To me that's evidence that she was scared of them and of their
You're being an idiot in calling me a troll.. maybe you don't have experience with actual trolling (taking a controversial or emotionally charged position in order to get a response from your target).
You said. "Letting this slip would be a major failure at parenting."
"This" = the teen's actions, drugging her parents.
"slip" = the op's suggestion, not arresting the teen.
My argument is that the teen's actions are not a serious crime that deserves arrest but a family issue that should have been dealt with internally.
If you think I'm putting words in your mouth by recharacterizing your argument as suggesting arrest as a response to a discipline problem, not a serious crime, you should say that and we can discuss whether I'm justified. Not fall back on words you don't understand like trolling.
But it's about what I expect from someone whose style of "debate" is to call his opponents tards who shouldn't have kids.
If you're trying to be fair you'd also have to add a Z term to account for the natural degradation of the road that happens even if nobody is driving on it. Things like rain, freeze/thaw cycles, and sunlight.
How do you figure I'm a troll? This thread started with someone saying they shouldn't have called the cops because it will interfere with the kid's future life and career.
Another guy comes around and says no it's a serious crime, so they should be arrested.
You agree with that person, adding that "Letting this slip would be a major failure at parenting."
To me, it's a major failure in parenting TO CALL THE COPS on your kid when nothing bad actually happened. All the hand waving about this being a serious crime and that it endangered the parents is irrelevant.. lots of people do irresponsible, reckless, dangerous things when they are kids, and most families deal with them internally.
What is this, opposite day? I suspect that the people bravely saying they'd arrest their own children are the actual trolls, since it goes against human nature. When it came down to it, when you realized you're going to give your child, whom you supposedly love... well yeah right. Such people are a small minority.
Who is betting the kids were doing poorly in school due to late night gab sessions on the internet and the restriction was a justifies response to the situation?
I wouldn't bet that. Consider the facts:
1. The girl drugs her parents
2. The parents have the girl make them milkshakes (didn't make them together as a family since the girl was able to put drugs in them, wait for them to dissolve, etc)
3. The parents are paranoid enough, or knowledgeable enough about drugs, that they immediately suspected drugs based on how they felt, and got a drug kit
4. The parents chose to bring their daughter to the police
We have more knowledge of abnormal behavior from the parents than from the girl.
The reaction may seem excessive to you but not to me. The juveniles put the parents' lives at risk. A day or two in juvenile detention pales before that.
With your incomplete knowledge of the events, you think she put her parents lives at risk? Is that just a gut reaction because the word "drugs" is in the article? Do you think all sleeping pills are incredibly dangerous for all people and the parents are lucky to be alive today?
She probably put her parents' lives more at risk when she was getting her driver's license (if she's 16, we don't even know that). Should that be added to her charge list?
It's bizarre. Most people feel sympathetic towards their own children and don't want to hurt them, even when they make mistakes, even when those mistakes could have hurt the parents, even when they aren't mistakes. The family is such an important unit of society, I feel sorry for this girl to have grown up with such horrible parents.
And yeah I know parents can't always be friends with their children, that's not what this is about. It's about recognizing the family bond, recognizing your responsibilities as a parent, and not relying on Officer Joe and Taxpayer Wendy to raise your children! There are things parents do to their children that would be illegal for others to do to them, and would be illegal for them to do to others.. and that's fine, because that's the special allowance of family. To turn around and call the police when your kids do something bad that had *no actual negative effects*? It's such a betrayal, it's really crazy.
Not because I think I need the state to get involved with my parenting, but because chances are pretty damn good that the friend put my child (in the story the friend provided the sleeping pills) up to this
Chances are good? How did you calculate that? I can't see past 50/50 -- your child was almost certainly the one complaining about the internet curfew. Whether they said "I should slip them something so they just chill out for once" or the friend says "You should slip them something so they just chill out for once" is impossible to determine.
and I need the state to force the friend's parent to seek help.
Really, it sounds like you would do all this for the best interests of the children involved. I have to wonder why you didn't do consider this: The other girl's parents probably aren't any worse than you, probably aren't proud of their daughter's role (whether she instigated the whole thing or just provided the pills) and, assuming they aren't sociopaths like some of the commenters here, would be more than willing to work with you privately instead of immediately calling the cops and throwing their child into the system. Failing that there's the threat of "Do it or I'll call the police on BOTH our daughters" which would make you sound totally insane, but would probably coerce them into doing what you wanted.
But no, none of that, you need to call the cops on your own daughter to force the friend's parents to get involved. Interesting.
It might very well be, that the parents didn't even choose to press charges against their kids. A doctor might have reported the incident
TFA clears this right up. The parents bought a home drug test when they were suspicious. It tested positive. There was no doctor involved. From TFA: "After the parents got the results, they brought their daughter to the police station."
Let us not forget that a very serious crime has been committed. The kids probably didn't know and didn't intend it, but they might have easily killed one of the parents.
Like you said, we don't know the whole story. Without knowing the details of the drugs involved, how do you know they could have easily killed one of the parents? Maybe the girl knew her parents take sleeping pills occasionally so the odds of it leading to death were very low indeed.
Not many people consider speeding 54 in a 45 to be a very serious crime even though it could also lead to someone's death. Are sleeping pills more dangerous than cars?
Here here!
YOU. DON'T. DRUG. PEOPLE.
Unless you're the adult and you need to drug your kid, or you need to drug your parent, because you know what's best.
These tards talking like it was a prank either don't have kids, or shouldn't.
Does that sense of self-entitlement feel good?
These idiots talking about who should have kids should be cut off from the internet, they never contribute anything useful.
That does feel good.
Responsible parents make sure that their kids learn basic decency, like never ever drugging people.
So the parents in this story, who failed to make sure kids learned basic decency and are now turning to the taxpayer for help -- should they have had kids? If they're such irresponsible parents, can you really blame the kid for being messed up?
Letting this slip would be a major failure at parenting.
Ah. So not responding to a discipline problem by calling the police is a major failure in parenting. Got it.
By the way, do you have kids? You shouldn't.
Still feels good. I get it.
Who are you? Who are you speaking for? I read some of strikethree's comments and concluded he probably knows what he's talking about.
A sociopath is someone with extreme anti-social behavior and a lack of conscience. Given only what we know, it's more likely that the parents are sociopaths for having their child arrested. Historically families are very reluctant to punish family members legally. It's even true for extreme intrafamily problems like child abuse and spousal abuse. For many people, "family problems" are nobody else's business and it would be far more damaging to bring in the law than to cover it up and deal with it privately -- especially when it comes to their children.
Arresting your child for something that *could* have had bad consequences but *actually* didn't is sociopathic in our society, unless there's information we don't know like the child has a history this stuff and it's been escalating.
I think the idea of people owning large scale atomic weapons is kind of silly. It's a slippery slope fallacy -- guns don't lead to nuclear weapons, just like legally owning dynamite or some other explosive doesn't lead to nuclear weapons, and books that teach you how to build nuclear weapons (or regular explosives) don't lead to widespread nuclear violence.
Your choice of an atomic bomb is a good choice because it plays to the irrational fear people have of anything nuclear. Realistically, the type of atomic weapon you could buy for $500 (like a nice handgun) wouldn't be the type of atomic weapon that could level a city.. maybe it would be useful for blowing up tree stumps or something, like dynamite. Why would I be against a tree-stump-destroying atomic bomb? Just because it's atomic? Because you could pile together a million of them and make a bigger atomic bomb? I mean you can already do that with fertilizer. What's the point?
The modern and affluent parts of those countries aren't where the majority of the jihadists are coming from. They're being recruited from and in parts of the country that are at least "backwater" by any modern nation's description.
The people who push for youtube to be banned in Pakistan are:
1. Media organizations
2. Lawyers, judges, e.g. the judicial establishment
3. Political parties within the government (notably excluding the largest, the PPP, from what I can tell)
4. and yes, the poor people in the backwaters
Really, the poor people aren't the problem. Like you said, they're being people. And really, by themselves they have such little power, they don't do anything more than low level violence (honor killings, tribal punishments, etc). That's not a huge world-wide deal, though it obviously sucks for the people who live there who are always on the wrong end of that violence, such as the few remaining Christians.
Even when it comes to outright jihad, you're mistaken in thinking that the modern and affluent parts of Pakistan are not a problem. That's exactly the problem. The small middle and upper classes in Pakistan hate India, hate Jews, and hate America. They see conspiracy theories everywhere -- ever heard of HAARP? Probably not.. I hadn't until I started reading Pakistani news and seeing articles EVERYWHERE (mainstream papers and websites) that HAARP is a secret US weapons program that controls the weather, causes earthquakes, etc. Do a search for "haarp pakistan" and you'll see what I mean. It's been going on for years. And I only read the English-language papers, which are frankly much more moderate than the Urdu ones.
That kind of 24/7 irrational fear and hatred breeds a support for terrorism. If you talk to the average rich Pakistani, and bring up the Taliban, they will stop you and let you know the first thing to learn about the Taliban is that there is the Good Taliban and the Bad Taliban. The Good Taliban are the lions of Islam who fight for speedy justice, the rights of the oppressed, and so on. They do that outside of Pakistan. The Bad Taliban are the ones who fight inside Pakistan.
Many middle and upper class Pakistanis will tell you they support terrorism as long as it's not against themselves. Terrorism against India, Israel, America (especially in Afghanistan) is fine because it's the only thing they CAN do against these shadowy, cowardly enemies who collude with each other to keep Pakistan weak, to keep Muslims everywhere weak. This is not a joke. Their government, military, and media talk about it all the time. Google "pakistan strategic depth" -- that's a codeword for supporting terrorist groups in other countries to maintain Pakistan's influence. Their army commanders give speeches about it and how proud they are that they have held the gigantic enemy of India at bay despite being so much smaller. I suggest you read this blog: http://criticalppp.com/ It began ostensibly as a watchdog of the PPP, the biggest political party in Pakistan, but I'd say it's not about that anymore. They do a good job pointing out problems in Pakistani society -- media, judiciary, military. They do a good job sourcing evidence like videos and quotes from speeches showing the widespread support for terrorism, blasphemy laws, oppression of minorities like Shias, and conspiracy theories. They'll also have translations of Urdu-language articles sometimes.
This is getting too long, but I wanted to comment on your mention of Saudi Arabia. I wasn't sure if you were joking, to be honest. I've never heard anybody seriously call Saudi Arabia more "chilling out" and "adjusting" than other Muslim countries. Surely you know that's incorrect, right? What you may be seeing is that Saudi Arabia is more stable than other Muslim countries, and mistaking that for "chilling out". Really they have more control over their population than other Muslim countries, harsher laws, and more
More specifically, how the "religious authority" handle and guide their flock.
One problem with changing Islam is there isn't a religious authority as such. Anybody who preaches the Koran is an Islamic cleric. Even in Shia Islam where you have titles loosely based on how influential you are like "ayatollah" and "grand ayatollah" -- well there are 70 grand ayatollahs alive today, right now. Change in Islam won't come from the top because there isn't a top.
The people are easy to control, it's how the authority figures wield their power and control their faithful. You can't really blame the people, it's human nature.
I agree with what you said before -- "what really matters is how the followers behave." I'm not sure what you mean by not blaming the people.. after all the authority figures are people too.. I guess you're saying nobody can be blamed? I disagree -- I don't think blaming people is that big of a deal, so it's perfectly fine to blame Islam's problems on Muslim people.
It's just islam's turn to grow up and evolve. The problem I think is the basic conditions of the people. Uncivilized control can't easily exist inside a civilized and modern society. The easiest way to "fix" them is to bring them into the 19th if not the 20th century.
What if you are ARE seeing the grown up and evolved form of Islam? Is there some rule that says when religions grow up they have to become peaceful and tolerant? The typical Muslim today has more access to knowledge, technology, entertainment, and so on than any Christian 150 years ago... just by virtue of being alive today. Electricity, TV, radio, cell phones.. look at the penetration rates in even poor countries like Pakistan.
Islam doesn't reject science. Muslim countries crave the fruits of science like nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Given that, how can you claim that "they" are not in the 19th if not the 20th century?
Not sure what you mean by people going about their business, and the country not having active wars. Afghanistan and regions of Pakistan are in states of war, whether it meets the definition of a "conventional" war is irrelevant. We're talking about places that harbor terrorists, experience bombings (performed by locals) every few days, and produce jihad videos recruiting soldiers. I don't know what you're imagining that you would think it's a country at peace.
Also I wonder how you're getting your information about the targets of drone strikes being innocent. Some of them are, of course, and I have heard acknowledgments of non-combatant deaths in drone strikes. But in the cases where the US claims it hit terrorists, or soldiers, or combatants or whatever, and you claim it hit children, where is your proof? Replacing bodies is a well known tactic by terrorists groups with good PR machines (e.g. Palestinian groups) so it's like the boy who cried wolf -- not a lot of people believe what terrorists say about innocent casualties.
As illegal as breaking and entering into someone's home and stealing photos from a bedroom safe
I don't think it's as illegal as that. If someone breaks into your home and goes into your bedroom, that's scary not just because they stole your photos or money, but they could have easily run into someone and had to decide -- do I attack this person, do I turn this burglary into a rape, do I leave witnesses, etc.
I just looked up common sentences for burglary, and found an article that discusses burglary laws in New York (http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/burglary-penalties-and-sentencing.html ). As I suspected, the main differences between degrees of burglary are whether it was a dwelling where someone lives and whether a weapon was involved. Both combined is first degree. One or the other is second degree. Neither (breaking into a store for instance) is third degree with a maximum sentence of 7 years. Hacking a phone should be the LEAST serious of any of those, really a fourth degree.
The reality is that hacking isn't that bad.
No, that's only illegal if there isn't actually a fire, and you did it to cause a panic and injure people. Even if there isn't a fire, you might think there is (smoke, but no fire) and it still wouldn't be illegal. So it's not the word "fire" that is illegal, it's the intent and circumstances of its use. That's how guns are -- and should be. Why should owning a gun be illegal if you don't misuse it?
Perhaps they should have a line item for building a storm recovery fund. They do happen from time to time, why not save up for them?
Polytheists also have the "one truth" thing. If you look at the plight of Christians in India you'll see it is pretty bad. A lot of Hindus are very angry when Christian missionaries try to convert low-caste Hindus. Why? Who knows. They hate the lower caste, but don't want them taken away to possibly have a better life. They *certainly* don't say "Excellent, those poor people are simply on another path to the truth!" Nope, they have riots, burn churches, etc because "they" are taking "our" believers away from the true religion.
Sikhism is much younger than Islam, yet it isn't batshit crazy like Islam. I don't think the age of the religion is important today because regardless of the original teachings, it exists in the modern world which is highly interconnected. It's not like 1000 years ago where ideas spread slowly on the backs of trading caravans and the occasional crusade/jihad.
What makes you have so much faith in the purity and upright moral fortitude of American politics?
Look at the reality - people are seriously debating whether we should limit OUR OWN FREE SPEECH because somewhere around the world, crazy Muslims might start rioting. You have high level government officials and generals making appeals to preachers in Florida to not offend Muslims. Supreme Court justices pondering whether offending Muslims is like shouting fire in a crowded theater.
Salman Rushdie recently released his autobiography called "Joseph Anton - A Memoir". In reading commentary about it, I was thunderstruck at the difference in tone that politicians had back then. He was put in protective custody and given a 24 hour armed guard. Today, as soon as the identity of the maker of the "horrible, distasteful film" was determined, Obama sent the FBI to investigate him for possible parole violations! Times are changing. Rushdie himself recently commented (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19600879) that today his book would probably not be published, because people are more afraid of Muslims.
With that in mind it's not a stretch that not far from now we'll be releasing terrorism "suspects" (especially with people moaning about how they aren't given fair trials) to "save lives" and "show that we're not Islamophobes" etc.
Ah, but you see, there is still a fundamental difference, and that is what makes religion so bad. The former can not, and will not, change unless you alter the texts that state what is stated.
No there are other ways. The text can stay the same and the interpretation changes. The text can stay the same, the interpretation can stay the same, but it becomes accepted that the text and its interpretation were tied to a specific time. Or it's determined that it no longer applies because you broke a covenant with your god. All of those are common.
The latter can change with new data. That is what Christians often call moral relativity, claiming they have no such thing, and then professing it being bad.
Moral relativity is the belief that the morals of different cultures are all valid and should be respected even if your own culture has conflicting morals. If some culture believes in child marriage, that's "good" for them and who are we to judge -- our morals are not better, just different. It has nothing to do with changing your morality based on evidence from the real world, that's just pragmatism or something.
Those verses are not out of context, but in any case it's not ironic, it's good. Christians are often challenged defend parts of the Bible, and that leads Christians to learn about the Bible, and forces (most) them to say "Yeah, you're right, that sounds bizarre and I don't believe that... I guess Christianity changes with the times!"
Muslims aren't at that stage. It's rare to find a Muslim who says the Koran is out of date and doesn't apply to modern life.
Of course, there's almost nothing that Jesus does in the Bible that is bad, so Christians have it easier -- they don't have to confront an idea that Jesus was not a very nice guy. Hence the very common: "Sure the Old Testament is weird, but the main part of Christianity for me is Jesus, and he's a great guy!" and the "WWJD?" bracelets.
Muslims can't say that. The Koran portrays Mohammed, in terms of modern culture, as an insane monster. For an ancient culture, Mohammed is a strong male leader with admirable (to them) qualities -- he was tough, good at fighting, good at intimidating and getting his way, good at taking wives, good at meting out "justice," good at controlling his women. But clearly that's a problem for Muslims living in the modern world who don't want to sound like insane monsters themselves.
So people like you give "context" and that's cool. It means you are not crazy, even if in my opinion the context you end up providing is incorrect. You understand that when Mohammed beheads people and then turns their wives into slaves, and sleeps with them, but offers them freedom if they'll become his wife and follow his rules, that needs CONTEXT, because it's not OK as is. Maybe you even dismiss things in the hadith that are widely accepted in the Muslim world. Both are steps in the right direction.
I've met plenty of Muslims who don't give context and who adore even the vilest hadith. They either say "No that's wrong" because they haven't actually ever read the Koran in a language they understand (just recited the Koran in Arabic as children) or they say "Whatever Mohammed did was done for Allah and is good!" The latter people I don't know in real life, just online forums.
Manson is evil
But if he repents, he's not?
In theory, yeah, but who knows what lies in men's hearts? We have to judge using our human faculties, and when someone says they repent that has to be weighed against the crimes they committed, the manner in which they committed them, their (and all people's) history of lying to benefit themselves, etc.
TL;DR: evil is subjective
So? Judgment and forgiveness are also subjective.
Only an anti-religious bigot could conclude that praying for a dead person (an act which has absolutely no consequences from an atheist perspective) is "very negative in the end."
Instead of wasting your time commenting on slashdot you could use your impulse to argue to go advocate for children in Africa. You're an immoral person by your own logic. But somehow I suspect that you reserve that judgment for groups you don't like.