Well they had to try to get her for stalking because there actually aren't any laws on the books against "telling someone to kill themselves" or "relentlessly teasing" or "being impolite". I highly doubt there was actually any real stalking going on. Stalking is when you sit waiting outside someone's house and follow them around everywhere they go. That's why the (then controverisal) stalking laws exist. To prevent that particular behavior. Using those laws to go after these little girls is absurd and a perfect example of why slippery slope legal arguments are so compelling. The police and courts will *always* eventually attempt to overextend laws for some purpose for which they were not intended. This case is a simple attack on the freedom of speech in the US.
Girls are verbal in their bullying. Guys are physical.
So IOW girls don't get bullied. Instead they get teased, insulted, and taunted and socially excluded by the more popular girls. Well guess what? Guys also get teased and taunted and insulted and socially excluded. Is it still bullying when that happens to a guy? Using the word 'bullying' to represent both physical intimidation and teasing is confusing. I suspect the confusion is intentional and politically motivated. It's an attempt to get around the first amendment and try to make certain kinds of speech that you don't happen to like illegal.
Look. I don't like people who tease other people either. I think they are assholes. I've never teased anyone in my life. But if we are going to put everyone who has ever teased someone else in jail we aren't going to have many people walking around in the outside world. If we are going to put everyone who has ever insulted someone else in jail then pretty much everyone would be in jail. I'm sorry, but that is just not the kind of world I want to live in.
I believe in freedom of speech and obviously you don't. What I want is the freedom to speak. To express myself. Without being locked in a cage for it. I know that you also believe in freedom of speech, but only speech that you happen to like. Only speech that you approve of.
Says the person who was never emotionally abused or built a mental wall to prevent it.
Says the person who was never physically abused or built a physical wall to prevent it. Teasing is a mean thing to do, but it is not in the same category as physically injuring somone. Words can just be ignored. Being physically injured cannot be. Sticks and stones can break your bones. It's pretty hard to do that with words.
Girls tend to bully though harassment and social ostracization.
At least where I grew up we didn't call this bullying. We called it teasing or just being a bitch. Now that teasing is considered the equivalent of physical violence it is treated more seriously, but teasing is not the same as bullying. Getting someone to obey you via physical violence, even torture, is just not the same kind of thing at all as saying mean things to someone. It just isn't.
One of the many differences between sticks and stones and words is that words don't cause any physical harm, any physical damage. In fact they don't have to cause any damage at all if you just ignore them. You can't ignore someone hitting you in the head with a rock or beating you in the face with a stick.
It is true that teasing someone can lead to their suicide, but not hiring someone for a job or rejecting someone or breaking up with someone can also lead to suicides. Even getting a poor grade on an exam can lead to suicide.
Those two girls are not responsible for that other girls death. Yes they contributed to it in the same way that a pretty girl rejecting an ugly guy can lead to his suicide, but they are not directly responsible for her death and cannot be held responsible for it. No one forced that girl to jump. It was a decision she made for herself and I suspect that the teasing was only one factor in that decision.
Well from what I understand the way to deal with bullies is to actually fight them. Were these two girls so much better fighters? This girl should have just kicked their asses and then no more bullying. Of course usually bullies pick on weaker victims they are confident they can best in a fight, but I haven't seen any evidence of that here. Even in those cases you can always just pull a knife and stab them a few times or just hit them in the face with a sharp rock. Problem solved. No one will ever fuck with you again after that. I was mercilessly bullied as a child, in the sense that I was beaten if I did not obey orders. I should have used a weapon to even the odds and told them to fuck off.
Seems like the meaning of the word 'bully' has changed since I was a kid. I was bullied for real. Meaning I was beaten up, as in like physically punched and put in headlocks etc if I didn't obey every order of the bully and not disrespect him at all. Of course I was also teased. For having a big nose. For being fat. For being ugly. Etc. When did 'bully' become a synonym for 'tease'?
I see a need to distinguish between physically beating someone into submission and just taunting or teasing them. We had two different words for a reason. Sticks and stones and actually breaking your bones is different from just calling someone names or saying bad things about them or to them. And yes I think physical violence is worse. Much worse. Physical violence vs. someone saying mean things to you? No comparison.
Sorry, but I don't feel sorry for people who get teased. They're just words. Yes, people told me I had a big nose. Well guess what? I did have a fucking big nose! Saying that I do should not be some sort of crime.
And telling me to kill myself should not be a crime either. What happened to freedom of speech? I guess people only want nice speech to be free. You people are just slaves at heart longing for a master to obey and seriously don't deserve *any* freedom.
To those of you who want teasing to be a felony do yourself and everyone else a favor and go kill yourself. Please. You really will be doing everyone else on the planet a favor. It really is for the best. Trust me on this. I would suggest drowning maybe or hypothermia. Possibly an overdose of some opiate so you can die with a smile. Surely you must see that this really is for the best?
This is slashdot - we believe in libertarian ideals.
Are kidding? Slashdot had an unusually large percentage of Libertarians back when I joined when there were only half a million members. Now that there are more than 3 million it's just mainstream politics here. Some mixture of Democrats, Republicans, and Greens. If anything I'd say the Green Party is unusually dominant now in terms of non-mainstream politics, but I'd say the vast majority of Slashdotters are Democrats.
This guy knew straight-up he was funding terrorist activities, and is trying to use a technicality to get out of it. This is an abuse of our legal system, but, that just goes to show what a good legal system we have.
It is not an abuse of our legal system and it does not demonstrate that we have a good legal system. Our legal system is shit. There are very good reasons for the various fruit of the poisoned tree rules of evidence gathering. In a good legal system only legally gathered evidence is admissible. It may very well be true that the guy was funding terrorists, but in our legal system the state must prove its case with evidence that was obtained legally. Evidence that was obtained through illegal dragnet surveillance should not be admissible.
So if a cop pulls you over asks if you have been drinking, and you haven't, you just remain silent? Even if you reek of alcohol because your girlfriend just threw up vodka on your shirt?
Uh huh. Good look talking your way out of a DUI charge in that situation. Try it and let us know how it works out for you. Here's a hint: when a cop suspects you've been drinking and you haven't and you say no he doesn't really take that as particularly strong evidence that you haven't. He's not really expecting you to be honest about it. It just makes his job easier when people are stupid enough to actually tell him that they've been drinking.
For example, if you locked your keys in your car and had to break a window to get them, would you really not tell the cop this and instead remain silent?
This is an exception, but only if you can prove that it is in fact your car presumably with a drivers license and registration. In the vast majority of situations it's best not to talk to them.
And they're not when you're guilty? Police are always bad news. Just being near them is one of the more dangerous things a person can do and one of the dumbest too. They are members of a legalized gang and like real criminals they worship violence. Being around a cop is like swimming with a shark. Most of the time he'll ignore you. Until he doesn't.
If someone doesn't want to talk how do you propose making them? Waterboarding? Removing their fingernails? Shearing off their fingers? What if it turns out that your suspicions about what you think they know turn out to be wrong? Do the torturers then go to jail for torturing an innocent person?
Yes. It's funny how people who like to use terms like "the top 1%" always exclude themselves from such percentages even though by world standards they aren't just rich, but obscenely so making in one week what it takes others a whole year to make.
turning in a criminal who lives next door to them, for example, and making themselves safer in the process
Ratting out a violent criminal makes you safer? What are smoking? There's a reason that people in bad neighborhoods run from crime scenes and avoid talking to the police or testifying. Do you have any idea of what that may be? Well aside from the fact that cops don't particularly care who they put in jail.
You put a violent criminal in jail and he isn't going to forget you any time soon. If he ever gets out you had better run and hide because he'll be coming to get you and he'll have a shovel in his trunk. And if you have a family? Kids? Better hope he doesn't include them in his plans to get some payback against the rat who fucked up his life.
Officer Bruch's rebuttal gave multiple real-life examples from his own career
No it didn't. Those innocent people would have been released anyway if they didn't have any evidence against them. Talking to Bruch in no way helped them. If anything they put themselves at risk by challenging a grand master to a game of chess that they couldn't possibly win. The only reason those innocent people didn't end up in jail is because they were damned lucky.
The only time that not talking to the police can hurt you in any way is when you encounter seriously corrupt and dangerous cops as I did. I followed Duane's advice and ended up nearly getting myself killed and have a violent criminal record due to the false cover charges. There is no one rule that you can follow in life that will always keep you out of trouble. I still think not talking to the cops is one of the better rules though, and I will continue to follow the rule because it makes sense.
No competent defense attorney is going to allow you to talk to them whether they happen to be in the room or not. If you are or could be a suspect in a crime. And pretty much anyone that has anything even remotely to do with an alleged crime can be a suspect.
So yes, if you find an irresponsible and incompetent attorney I'm sure he will let you be interrogated by the cops even though there is absolutely nothing you could possibly gain by doing so and the slightest wrong remark could hurt you very badly.
The defense attorneys know that the cops aren't there to help you. They are there to find someone to put in jail for as long as possible. If you say the wrong thing they could decide that you should be that person.
we need TV shows that glamorize, deify and glorify criminal defense lawyers
The Defenders I guess it's a remake, but I thought it was pretty good. Of course like nearly all good (non-AMC) television it was cancelled after the first season
I see. So you have no ability to actually weigh the truth or falsehood of the content of a speech, but you are capable of deciding whether or not to just accept what he says as true based on Argument from Authority. Have I got that right?
You're not impressed with the guy as a person because you don't trust people who talk fast and therefore the actual content of his argument is irrelevant because you wouldn't be evaluating the content itself anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Well they had to try to get her for stalking because there actually aren't any laws on the books against "telling someone to kill themselves" or "relentlessly teasing" or "being impolite". I highly doubt there was actually any real stalking going on. Stalking is when you sit waiting outside someone's house and follow them around everywhere they go. That's why the (then controverisal) stalking laws exist. To prevent that particular behavior. Using those laws to go after these little girls is absurd and a perfect example of why slippery slope legal arguments are so compelling. The police and courts will *always* eventually attempt to overextend laws for some purpose for which they were not intended. This case is a simple attack on the freedom of speech in the US.
Girls are verbal in their bullying. Guys are physical.
So IOW girls don't get bullied. Instead they get teased, insulted, and taunted and socially excluded by the more popular girls. Well guess what? Guys also get teased and taunted and insulted and socially excluded. Is it still bullying when that happens to a guy? Using the word 'bullying' to represent both physical intimidation and teasing is confusing. I suspect the confusion is intentional and politically motivated. It's an attempt to get around the first amendment and try to make certain kinds of speech that you don't happen to like illegal.
Look. I don't like people who tease other people either. I think they are assholes. I've never teased anyone in my life. But if we are going to put everyone who has ever teased someone else in jail we aren't going to have many people walking around in the outside world. If we are going to put everyone who has ever insulted someone else in jail then pretty much everyone would be in jail. I'm sorry, but that is just not the kind of world I want to live in.
I believe in freedom of speech and obviously you don't. What I want is the freedom to speak. To express myself. Without being locked in a cage for it. I know that you also believe in freedom of speech, but only speech that you happen to like. Only speech that you approve of.
Says the person who was never emotionally abused or built a mental wall to prevent it.
Says the person who was never physically abused or built a physical wall to prevent it. Teasing is a mean thing to do, but it is not in the same category as physically injuring somone. Words can just be ignored. Being physically injured cannot be. Sticks and stones can break your bones. It's pretty hard to do that with words.
Girls tend to bully though harassment and social ostracization.
At least where I grew up we didn't call this bullying. We called it teasing or just being a bitch. Now that teasing is considered the equivalent of physical violence it is treated more seriously, but teasing is not the same as bullying. Getting someone to obey you via physical violence, even torture, is just not the same kind of thing at all as saying mean things to someone. It just isn't.
One of the many differences between sticks and stones and words is that words don't cause any physical harm, any physical damage. In fact they don't have to cause any damage at all if you just ignore them. You can't ignore someone hitting you in the head with a rock or beating you in the face with a stick.
It is true that teasing someone can lead to their suicide, but not hiring someone for a job or rejecting someone or breaking up with someone can also lead to suicides. Even getting a poor grade on an exam can lead to suicide.
Those two girls are not responsible for that other girls death. Yes they contributed to it in the same way that a pretty girl rejecting an ugly guy can lead to his suicide, but they are not directly responsible for her death and cannot be held responsible for it. No one forced that girl to jump. It was a decision she made for herself and I suspect that the teasing was only one factor in that decision.
So now saying mean things to someone is attempted murder? Nice.
Well from what I understand the way to deal with bullies is to actually fight them. Were these two girls so much better fighters? This girl should have just kicked their asses and then no more bullying. Of course usually bullies pick on weaker victims they are confident they can best in a fight, but I haven't seen any evidence of that here. Even in those cases you can always just pull a knife and stab them a few times or just hit them in the face with a sharp rock. Problem solved. No one will ever fuck with you again after that. I was mercilessly bullied as a child, in the sense that I was beaten if I did not obey orders. I should have used a weapon to even the odds and told them to fuck off.
Now for a side rant. Suicide is a pussy way out.
So it should be perfect for you then. Now go do likewise. I suggest a knife to the side of your throat, but feel free to choose any method you prefer.
Seems like the meaning of the word 'bully' has changed since I was a kid. I was bullied for real. Meaning I was beaten up, as in like physically punched and put in headlocks etc if I didn't obey every order of the bully and not disrespect him at all. Of course I was also teased. For having a big nose. For being fat. For being ugly. Etc. When did 'bully' become a synonym for 'tease'?
I see a need to distinguish between physically beating someone into submission and just taunting or teasing them. We had two different words for a reason. Sticks and stones and actually breaking your bones is different from just calling someone names or saying bad things about them or to them. And yes I think physical violence is worse. Much worse. Physical violence vs. someone saying mean things to you? No comparison.
Sorry, but I don't feel sorry for people who get teased. They're just words. Yes, people told me I had a big nose. Well guess what? I did have a fucking big nose! Saying that I do should not be some sort of crime.
And telling me to kill myself should not be a crime either. What happened to freedom of speech? I guess people only want nice speech to be free. You people are just slaves at heart longing for a master to obey and seriously don't deserve *any* freedom.
To those of you who want teasing to be a felony do yourself and everyone else a favor and go kill yourself. Please. You really will be doing everyone else on the planet a favor. It really is for the best. Trust me on this. I would suggest drowning maybe or hypothermia. Possibly an overdose of some opiate so you can die with a smile. Surely you must see that this really is for the best?
This is slashdot - we believe in libertarian ideals.
Are kidding? Slashdot had an unusually large percentage of Libertarians back when I joined when there were only half a million members. Now that there are more than 3 million it's just mainstream politics here. Some mixture of Democrats, Republicans, and Greens. If anything I'd say the Green Party is unusually dominant now in terms of non-mainstream politics, but I'd say the vast majority of Slashdotters are Democrats.
You're really harsh. She's dead. Isn't that punishment enough?
Kill yourself. Drink some bleach and die. Now. Do it now. Now. Now. Now. Uh. Did I just commit a felony?
The one who killed herself because someone said some not nice things to her? I agree.
This guy knew straight-up he was funding terrorist activities, and is trying to use a technicality to get out of it. This is an abuse of our legal system, but, that just goes to show what a good legal system we have.
It is not an abuse of our legal system and it does not demonstrate that we have a good legal system. Our legal system is shit. There are very good reasons for the various fruit of the poisoned tree rules of evidence gathering. In a good legal system only legally gathered evidence is admissible. It may very well be true that the guy was funding terrorists, but in our legal system the state must prove its case with evidence that was obtained legally. Evidence that was obtained through illegal dragnet surveillance should not be admissible.
So if a cop pulls you over asks if you have been drinking, and you haven't, you just remain silent? Even if you reek of alcohol because your girlfriend just threw up vodka on your shirt?
Uh huh. Good look talking your way out of a DUI charge in that situation. Try it and let us know how it works out for you. Here's a hint: when a cop suspects you've been drinking and you haven't and you say no he doesn't really take that as particularly strong evidence that you haven't. He's not really expecting you to be honest about it. It just makes his job easier when people are stupid enough to actually tell him that they've been drinking.
For example, if you locked your keys in your car and had to break a window to get them, would you really not tell the cop this and instead remain silent?
This is an exception, but only if you can prove that it is in fact your car presumably with a drivers license and registration. In the vast majority of situations it's best not to talk to them.
Cops: bad news even if you are innocent.
And they're not when you're guilty? Police are always bad news. Just being near them is one of the more dangerous things a person can do and one of the dumbest too. They are members of a legalized gang and like real criminals they worship violence. Being around a cop is like swimming with a shark. Most of the time he'll ignore you. Until he doesn't.
If someone doesn't want to talk how do you propose making them? Waterboarding? Removing their fingernails? Shearing off their fingers? What if it turns out that your suspicions about what you think they know turn out to be wrong? Do the torturers then go to jail for torturing an innocent person?
Yes. It's funny how people who like to use terms like "the top 1%" always exclude themselves from such percentages even though by world standards they aren't just rich, but obscenely so making in one week what it takes others a whole year to make.
turning in a criminal who lives next door to them, for example, and making themselves safer in the process
Ratting out a violent criminal makes you safer? What are smoking? There's a reason that people in bad neighborhoods run from crime scenes and avoid talking to the police or testifying. Do you have any idea of what that may be? Well aside from the fact that cops don't particularly care who they put in jail.
You put a violent criminal in jail and he isn't going to forget you any time soon. If he ever gets out you had better run and hide because he'll be coming to get you and he'll have a shovel in his trunk. And if you have a family? Kids? Better hope he doesn't include them in his plans to get some payback against the rat who fucked up his life.
Officer Bruch's rebuttal gave multiple real-life examples from his own career
No it didn't. Those innocent people would have been released anyway if they didn't have any evidence against them. Talking to Bruch in no way helped them. If anything they put themselves at risk by challenging a grand master to a game of chess that they couldn't possibly win. The only reason those innocent people didn't end up in jail is because they were damned lucky.
The only time that not talking to the police can hurt you in any way is when you encounter seriously corrupt and dangerous cops as I did. I followed Duane's advice and ended up nearly getting myself killed and have a violent criminal record due to the false cover charges. There is no one rule that you can follow in life that will always keep you out of trouble. I still think not talking to the cops is one of the better rules though, and I will continue to follow the rule because it makes sense.
No competent defense attorney is going to allow you to talk to them whether they happen to be in the room or not. If you are or could be a suspect in a crime. And pretty much anyone that has anything even remotely to do with an alleged crime can be a suspect.
So yes, if you find an irresponsible and incompetent attorney I'm sure he will let you be interrogated by the cops even though there is absolutely nothing you could possibly gain by doing so and the slightest wrong remark could hurt you very badly.
The defense attorneys know that the cops aren't there to help you. They are there to find someone to put in jail for as long as possible. If you say the wrong thing they could decide that you should be that person.
we need TV shows that glamorize, deify and glorify criminal defense lawyers
The Defenders I guess it's a remake, but I thought it was pretty good. Of course like nearly all good (non-AMC) television it was cancelled after the first season
I see. So you have no ability to actually weigh the truth or falsehood of the content of a speech, but you are capable of deciding whether or not to just accept what he says as true based on Argument from Authority. Have I got that right?
You're not impressed with the guy as a person because you don't trust people who talk fast and therefore the actual content of his argument is irrelevant because you wouldn't be evaluating the content itself anyway.
I'm not sure I believe anything about that story, but if true you got very lucky. That's about the only thing that can be learned from it.