"...she should be glad that this is all that happened to her."
But that's not how the law works. If I punch you in the nose, you call the cops and have me charged with assault, and a judge decides whether I go to jail, or pay a fine. If you decide not to press charges, that doesn't give you the right to find me later and hit me back on the grounds that getting punched back is better than being jailed.
Simply put, if there's a case for libel here, then let the principle press charges and the courts will sort it out. If there's no grounds for libel, then why should the principle be allowed to use his authority within the school to levy punishment for something that was done off school time and property?
I think the point the OP makes, though, is that if the claims the kid made on Myspace are truly that damaging, then the proper avenue is to prosecute the kid for libel, and to let a court decide guilt or innoncence. Whether or not the speech is damaging, allowing the principle to levy punishment for behavior conducted off school grounds is ridiculous.
Underage drinker doesn't necessarily mean bad student, but if you've got pictures of somebody getting wasted, hitting the beer bong, and pissing on a fire hydrant, then I think it's justified for an admissions officer to ask if that's really the kind of behavior they want to bring onto campus.
Of course, it's probably irrelevant anyway, because in my experience even the goody two-shoes in high school have a good chance of becoming raging drunk freshmen. To a certain degree, it's inevitable.
Thing is, though, she's not even for less government spending. She took plenty of handouts from Ted Stevens until his fortune started to sour, at which point she jumped on the bandwagon in labeling him a pork peddler. She was for the bridge to nowhere, until that became politically sensitive. And from what I've read of her time as mayor, she took a town that had a budget surplus when she came into office and squandered it, taking out loans to cover unnecessary civic works projects and leaving the city with massive debt. Hardly in line with even the most basic libertarian viewpoint.
I can't help but feel that a trailer beginning with the phrase "In an world..." is particularly poignant today, given that the real 'In a world' voiceover guy, Don LaFontaine, just passed away. Not the same without those gravelly, dulcet tones.
Ah, don't use a magnum. You blow a hole in the guy the size of the Holland Tunnel and he's not going to survive long enough to suffer all the misery his lame behavior warrants.
I've gotta say, though (Devin Faraci wrote a great article on this for CHUD.com) Moore is kind of a dick when it comes to the subject of adaptations, which he says are totally bankrupt at an artform. After all, 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is nothing if not an adaptation of classic literature figures into a new medium. Not to mention that even the characters in 'Watchmen' were adapted from other DC heroes. Moore may have the right to be cranky about how some of his stuff has been adapted, but to suggest that all adaptation is crap is a touch hypocritical.
But wait...the way you tell it, being responsible, alert, and sensible are more important to being safe than blind obedience to The Powers That Be. Could that be?
It's hilarious to me that an asshole who thinks it's appropriate to let off a few shotgun blasts at strangers should comment on the sanity or maturity of others. Enjoy life beyond Thunderdome.
No, he's just responsible for their exposure, which is the direct cause of the harm. Of course that doesn't completely ameliorate their responsibility, but where do you draw the line between 'innocent victim' and 'deserves whatever they get?'
"If there's absolutely no problem with what these men are doing, then making their behavior public shouldn't be considered a "punishment".
Oh, of course. After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Good citizens shouldn't have a single aspect of their lives that they wouldn't be comfortable sharing with the in-laws, their coworkers, the local newspapers. I mean, if you didn't want the whole world to know about it, you wouldn't be doing it, right? I mean, what could be more despicable than going to a website and trying to hook up with a willing partner for NAUGHTY THINGS?
And seriously, if you're going to invoke the concept of personal responsibility, then you can't avoid acknowledging Fortuny's role in all this. He made a choice to do something that negatively affected other people; those people may have been 'wrong' to make themselves vulnerable to him, but that doesn't make Fortuny less of a dickanus. So you can spout whatever BS you want about the morality of what these guys chose to do, but that doesn't let the asshole off the hook for what he chose to do.
Ah, so first I'm creating straw men, and now I'm trolling. Any other logical fallacies you'd like to apply?
"So, on the one hand, I think that there may be times when doing the wrong thing should result in some level of public humiliation, as a punishment and as a deterrent."
The problem is that last time I checked, trying to hook up with people on craigslist wasn't wrong--in fact, you might notice a large portion of the site specifically dedicated to that purpose. Posting personal info of any sort may be unwise, but that's not the same as 'wrong' or 'deserving of punishment.' The punishment levied against these guys was without mercy or pity, and for that reason I feel sympathy for them. You can talk all you want about how this serves as a lesson, but there are strong moral grounds for rejecting the idea of using people merely as a means.
In closing, I'm not trying to compel you to feel sympathy for these guys or their plight; I'm simply pointing out that a callous disregard for other people is exactly what Jason Fortuny displayed in pulling his obnoxious little prank. Maybe the world wouldn't be such a hard place if there weren't so many assholes out there trying to prove how hard it can be.
Let's make your beehive analogy a bit more accurate. Let's say that you're not all that knowledgable about bees, but you know that some people go into their hives and come out with honey. If you then get stung in your unwitting ignorance, is it any less painful than if you did it knowing full well what was going to happen?
Not everybody who uses the 'net is as savy as your typical slashdotter, which is why shit like phishing and e-mail scams still work. The people who fell for this jackass's stunt probably never considered the possibility that somebody would be fucking with them just for the hell of it. For me personally, the fact that somebody got burned through their own ignorance doesn't make cause me to disregard the fact that they got burned.
Oh, okay, so because they're not as smart as you, it's okay to hurt them. Do you steal change from mentally handicapped kids, too, because after all, if they're not smart enough to protect themselves, they're perfectly acceptable targets.
So, by your thinking, the woman who gets raped because she was in the wrong part of town doesn't deserve any sympathy either, because after all, she should have known better?
Were these people boneheads? Sure. And frankly, if it hadn't been this stunt, by this troll, their lack of discretion probably would have caught up to them sooner or later. Fact remains, though, they were lied to and their trust was abused for the purpose of hurting and humiliating them. They may have been complicit in their own victimization, but that doesn't mean they deserve what happened to them.
"The few times I've hung out with him I've found him funny and insightful. He just doesn't care to pander to people's feelings or their frequently false sense of security"
Yeah, not caring about other people's feelings is what some folks refer to as sociopathy. Most people don't really regard that as a funny or worthwhile trait.
And not to be all pop psych or anything, but it seems a little transparent that the kid who was sexually molested as a child now feel the need to act out hurtfully against other people. Nobody protected him when he was at risk, and now he feels justified in hurting other people who fail to protect themselves. Really healthy behavior, that.
I highly recommend it to those of you who have access. From the description given of this Fortuny guy, he deserves all the misery he gets and then some: the Craigslist stunt was far from the first time he's used the net to hassle people for the sheer hell of it.
I have no agenda here; if the flocks of sheep want to congregate for mutual support of their delusional belief systems, it certainly doesn't offend me at all. I was merely explaining, for someone who appeared not to understand, how the original quote could be interpreted as unfavorable to group worship. I'd certainly agree with you however that a single quote, taken out of context, can be misleading.
Wow, what a handy rejoinder for ducking essentially undeniable challenges to your moral behavior. Still, in terms of religious horseshit, it's nowhere near as good as the insistence that everything be taken on faith. If there's a better way to justify all kinds of batshit insanity without a shred of evidence or logic, it hasn't been found yet!
Maybe you need to work on your math rather than your theology. Claiming that 99% of Christians fuck up the world does not mean that 99% of the world's problems are caused by Christians.
Furthermore, what is 'the Catholic church' but the earthly union of Catholics? I don't see how even an almighty sky daddy could ask an abstract concept such as 'the Church' to answer for itself; ultimately it's the decisions of the people that matter. And while I can understand that the Church might need to maintain some capital to achieve it's mission of advancing Jesus's work, it's a little harder for me to understand how one justifies the riches of the Church when there are so many needy in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
"...she should be glad that this is all that happened to her."
But that's not how the law works. If I punch you in the nose, you call the cops and have me charged with assault, and a judge decides whether I go to jail, or pay a fine. If you decide not to press charges, that doesn't give you the right to find me later and hit me back on the grounds that getting punched back is better than being jailed.
Simply put, if there's a case for libel here, then let the principle press charges and the courts will sort it out. If there's no grounds for libel, then why should the principle be allowed to use his authority within the school to levy punishment for something that was done off school time and property?
I think the point the OP makes, though, is that if the claims the kid made on Myspace are truly that damaging, then the proper avenue is to prosecute the kid for libel, and to let a court decide guilt or innoncence. Whether or not the speech is damaging, allowing the principle to levy punishment for behavior conducted off school grounds is ridiculous.
Underage drinker doesn't necessarily mean bad student, but if you've got pictures of somebody getting wasted, hitting the beer bong, and pissing on a fire hydrant, then I think it's justified for an admissions officer to ask if that's really the kind of behavior they want to bring onto campus. Of course, it's probably irrelevant anyway, because in my experience even the goody two-shoes in high school have a good chance of becoming raging drunk freshmen. To a certain degree, it's inevitable.
I try never to look down on my plumber--too much ass crack. Bad for the stomach.
Thing is, though, she's not even for less government spending. She took plenty of handouts from Ted Stevens until his fortune started to sour, at which point she jumped on the bandwagon in labeling him a pork peddler. She was for the bridge to nowhere, until that became politically sensitive. And from what I've read of her time as mayor, she took a town that had a budget surplus when she came into office and squandered it, taking out loans to cover unnecessary civic works projects and leaving the city with massive debt. Hardly in line with even the most basic libertarian viewpoint.
Only downside I see to that argument is that McCain seems a lot more likely to kick the bucket in the near future than Obama.
Doctorow's work is pants, free or not. He gets way too much flogging on /. given the low quality of his work.
...or just go buy mineral oil and spare yourself some strange looks at the vet's office.
I can't help but feel that a trailer beginning with the phrase "In an world..." is particularly poignant today, given that the real 'In a world' voiceover guy, Don LaFontaine, just passed away. Not the same without those gravelly, dulcet tones.
Ah, don't use a magnum. You blow a hole in the guy the size of the Holland Tunnel and he's not going to survive long enough to suffer all the misery his lame behavior warrants.
I've gotta say, though (Devin Faraci wrote a great article on this for CHUD.com) Moore is kind of a dick when it comes to the subject of adaptations, which he says are totally bankrupt at an artform. After all, 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is nothing if not an adaptation of classic literature figures into a new medium. Not to mention that even the characters in 'Watchmen' were adapted from other DC heroes. Moore may have the right to be cranky about how some of his stuff has been adapted, but to suggest that all adaptation is crap is a touch hypocritical.
But wait...the way you tell it, being responsible, alert, and sensible are more important to being safe than blind obedience to The Powers That Be. Could that be?
It's hilarious to me that an asshole who thinks it's appropriate to let off a few shotgun blasts at strangers should comment on the sanity or maturity of others. Enjoy life beyond Thunderdome.
No, he's just responsible for their exposure, which is the direct cause of the harm. Of course that doesn't completely ameliorate their responsibility, but where do you draw the line between 'innocent victim' and 'deserves whatever they get?'
"If there's absolutely no problem with what these men are doing, then making their behavior public shouldn't be considered a "punishment".
Oh, of course. After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Good citizens shouldn't have a single aspect of their lives that they wouldn't be comfortable sharing with the in-laws, their coworkers, the local newspapers. I mean, if you didn't want the whole world to know about it, you wouldn't be doing it, right? I mean, what could be more despicable than going to a website and trying to hook up with a willing partner for NAUGHTY THINGS?
And seriously, if you're going to invoke the concept of personal responsibility, then you can't avoid acknowledging Fortuny's role in all this. He made a choice to do something that negatively affected other people; those people may have been 'wrong' to make themselves vulnerable to him, but that doesn't make Fortuny less of a dickanus. So you can spout whatever BS you want about the morality of what these guys chose to do, but that doesn't let the asshole off the hook for what he chose to do.
Ah, so first I'm creating straw men, and now I'm trolling. Any other logical fallacies you'd like to apply?
"So, on the one hand, I think that there may be times when doing the wrong thing should result in some level of public humiliation, as a punishment and as a deterrent."
The problem is that last time I checked, trying to hook up with people on craigslist wasn't wrong--in fact, you might notice a large portion of the site specifically dedicated to that purpose. Posting personal info of any sort may be unwise, but that's not the same as 'wrong' or 'deserving of punishment.' The punishment levied against these guys was without mercy or pity, and for that reason I feel sympathy for them. You can talk all you want about how this serves as a lesson, but there are strong moral grounds for rejecting the idea of using people merely as a means.
In closing, I'm not trying to compel you to feel sympathy for these guys or their plight; I'm simply pointing out that a callous disregard for other people is exactly what Jason Fortuny displayed in pulling his obnoxious little prank. Maybe the world wouldn't be such a hard place if there weren't so many assholes out there trying to prove how hard it can be.
Let's make your beehive analogy a bit more accurate. Let's say that you're not all that knowledgable about bees, but you know that some people go into their hives and come out with honey. If you then get stung in your unwitting ignorance, is it any less painful than if you did it knowing full well what was going to happen?
Not everybody who uses the 'net is as savy as your typical slashdotter, which is why shit like phishing and e-mail scams still work. The people who fell for this jackass's stunt probably never considered the possibility that somebody would be fucking with them just for the hell of it. For me personally, the fact that somebody got burned through their own ignorance doesn't make cause me to disregard the fact that they got burned.
Oh, okay, so because they're not as smart as you, it's okay to hurt them. Do you steal change from mentally handicapped kids, too, because after all, if they're not smart enough to protect themselves, they're perfectly acceptable targets.
So, by your thinking, the woman who gets raped because she was in the wrong part of town doesn't deserve any sympathy either, because after all, she should have known better?
Were these people boneheads? Sure. And frankly, if it hadn't been this stunt, by this troll, their lack of discretion probably would have caught up to them sooner or later. Fact remains, though, they were lied to and their trust was abused for the purpose of hurting and humiliating them. They may have been complicit in their own victimization, but that doesn't mean they deserve what happened to them.
"The few times I've hung out with him I've found him funny and insightful. He just doesn't care to pander to people's feelings or their frequently false sense of security"
Yeah, not caring about other people's feelings is what some folks refer to as sociopathy. Most people don't really regard that as a funny or worthwhile trait.
And not to be all pop psych or anything, but it seems a little transparent that the kid who was sexually molested as a child now feel the need to act out hurtfully against other people. Nobody protected him when he was at risk, and now he feels justified in hurting other people who fail to protect themselves. Really healthy behavior, that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?scp=2&sq=troll&st=cse
I highly recommend it to those of you who have access. From the description given of this Fortuny guy, he deserves all the misery he gets and then some: the Craigslist stunt was far from the first time he's used the net to hassle people for the sheer hell of it.
I have no agenda here; if the flocks of sheep want to congregate for mutual support of their delusional belief systems, it certainly doesn't offend me at all. I was merely explaining, for someone who appeared not to understand, how the original quote could be interpreted as unfavorable to group worship. I'd certainly agree with you however that a single quote, taken out of context, can be misleading.
Wow, what a handy rejoinder for ducking essentially undeniable challenges to your moral behavior. Still, in terms of religious horseshit, it's nowhere near as good as the insistence that everything be taken on faith. If there's a better way to justify all kinds of batshit insanity without a shred of evidence or logic, it hasn't been found yet!
Maybe you need to work on your math rather than your theology. Claiming that 99% of Christians fuck up the world does not mean that 99% of the world's problems are caused by Christians.
Furthermore, what is 'the Catholic church' but the earthly union of Catholics? I don't see how even an almighty sky daddy could ask an abstract concept such as 'the Church' to answer for itself; ultimately it's the decisions of the people that matter. And while I can understand that the Church might need to maintain some capital to achieve it's mission of advancing Jesus's work, it's a little harder for me to understand how one justifies the riches of the Church when there are so many needy in the world.