Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Robot Parade Leader]

http://news.yahoo.com/video/arrest-made-video-shows-california-131905775.html

WTF? So wait a minute. This one guy is beating up on a blind kid. Some other kid punches the guy hitting the blind one, to stop it. Somehow they suspend the one who broke it up?

I guess you just can't do anything anymore even when it's pretty blatant. Christ, they're beating up the blind kids even? Still? After years of anti bullying and everything else there are still guys who haven't gotten the message. And, you can't do jack about it when you see 'em punching a blind kid? Great. We wonder why nothing gets done and nothing gets better....

[Loud Whispers]

Remember kids, if you're bullied the response is not to defend yourself, because that is bad. Just be snarky and sarcastic, that probably won't work but at least you'll learn how to be a flop faster

[Rolan7]

Some people are saying the visually-impaired kid provoked the fight.  Also, sucker-shoving someone onto the pavement such that their head bleeds is really serious...  That's not "breaking up a fight", it's a dangerous assault.

Also the kid might not be fully blind.  Even the reporter called him "visually impaired", and at least one kid claimed he just had weak vision.

I don't know what the truth is, but it's not an inexplicable situation.  Unless you decide that the kids providing a reason are obviously lying.  In which case, yeah, how strange that the system would only punish that one kid for no apparent reason.  The police should have formed the same conclusion that we jumped to.

[ArKFallen]

Rolan is right. The thing about jumping to conclusions is that often you don't know if you missed solid ground.
It's not like I've never abused my weaknesses to harass someone unopposed before

[Robot Parade Leader]

So the answer is to just sit there and watch it happen if there isn't anyone in authority you can get to intervene? Harming the attacker is a serious assault but the blind kid being assaulted is what? I for one am getting sick of people looking out for criminals but not victims. Criminals get lawyers appointed; victims get crap. Blind people aren't always pitch black blind, there's legally blind. If it's bad enough that he's known as "the blind kid," then close enough for me, because if people are trying to stop you from fighting somebody by saying "he's blind...." You should consider stopping. The rest, I fear may be victim blaming, and more justification for standing by and doing nothing.

Don't defend yourself; sit there and take it. Don't defend anyone else. Watch as the world goes to hell. Complain.

[Rolan7]

Not sure where you and LW got "Don't defend yourself" from.  IF (big if) the sight-impaired kid really was the instigator, then the victim *was* defending himself.

It's possible to break up a fight without shoving someone onto concrete.  Particularly from behind - it's practically instinctual, just grab the person and pull them away.  That's why it happens constantly.

What this third kid did instead looks like escalation, and he's really lucky that kid #2 was hurt just enough to stay down temporarily, and not permanently.  Of course, it probably wasn't malicious...  Good odds he was just angry (possibly justifiably so).  Still made a bad move.

[Robot Parade Leader]

If Kid #3 gets arrested and I'm on the jury, then automatic not guilty. If I'm on Kid #2's jury, automatic guilty. From that video? No exceptions if I'm there.

Let's say you're right and the "blind kid" (#1) "started it." So what? Really? Kid #2 had "no choice" but to hit the one they called the "blind kid?" He was in some real danger from that was he? HE (#2) couldn't have walked or run away and gotten a teacher? Kid #3 (Hero) couldn't have just walked away without leaving the blind kid to get wailed on.

I don't buy it. Forget kid #2. Praise kid #3, alter the law and student handbook to severely punish anybody who hits a "blind or visually impaired" person so it's a felony. Minimum jail time 6 months, automatic expulsion. Family of kid #2 tries to sue kid #3 because their "precious angel" who was hitting a guy everyone calls "the blind kid," couldn't have been bad (awwwwwwwwww, poor bully who can't even beat up on the blind kid without being stopped), then they get sued. That's what I think should happen. It won't, but that's my opinion.

That's the last thing I'm saying on it. Am I "closed minded?" O well.

Solved. Next problem?

I'm out.

[ArKFallen]

Don't defend yourself; sit there and take it. Don't defend anyone else. Watch as the world goes to hell. Complain.

Hah. And if the blind kid fought back until the other kid slowed his violence and the blind kid got cold clocked by the new arrival? Or if the blind kid started it but stopped when he could hear people? Is that level of violent retaliation an appropriate first move to defusing a situation? Only if you know you are willing for someone to not walk away from it or are being stupid.

[Robot Parade Leader]

Don't defend yourself; sit there and take it. Don't defend anyone else. Watch as the world goes to hell. Complain.

Hah. And if the blind kid fought back until the other kid slowed his violence and the blind kid got cold clocked by the new arrival? Or if the blind kid started it but stopped when he could hear people? Is that level of violent retaliation an appropriate first move to defusing a situation? Only if you know you are willing for someone to not walk away from it or are being stupid.

I'm just gonna read your words back to you and look up at you from the paper from time to time and I'm going to empathize "blind kid." That is all.

Good day sir.

[ArKFallen]

Don't defend yourself; sit there and take it. Don't defend anyone else. Watch as the world goes to hell. Complain.

Hah. And if the blind kid fought back until the other kid slowed his violence and the blind kid got cold clocked by the new arrival? Or if the blind kid started it but stopped when he could hear people? Is that level of violent retaliation an appropriate first move to defusing a situation? Only if you know you are willing for someone to not walk away from it or are being stupid.

I'm just gonna read your words back to you and look up at you from the paper from time to time and I'm going to empathize "blind kid." That is all.

Good day sir.

I find it beautiful that you think someone being legally blind makes them too incompetent to be a threat in close quarters.

[Bauglir]

why would you find that beautiful

[SalmonGod]

It's possible for the blind kid to have started the conflict by some sort of emotional abuse or something, but consider this:

If that relationship were a long-standing and one-sided issue between these two, other students who knew them would probably not be reacting to this situation the way they did.  I can have some sympathy for a self-defense argument in the case of long-term emotional abuse, but that just isn't what this smells like.  Add that the person's own claim on twitter is that he didn't know the kid was blind, and in my opinion, that interpretation is done for.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If there was not a long-term issue between the two of them, then reacting to the immediate situation with violence was wrong, and the guy should have expected stitches as a potential consequence when he put up his fists.  Whether those stitches came from the person he thought he was fighting or someone else intervening doesn't really have any ethical bearing on the value of the "bully's" actions in this case.


Now consider that the person who intervened knew that one of the participants was blind.  If he was just entering the situation, without knowing how it began, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that a blind kid caught in a fight is being subject to bullying.  It would also be common sense to realize that the blind kid is in much greater danger of much more serious harm than his opponent.  The blind kid won't have the same awareness of his environment.  If it was the blind kid who took a fall, it would have been likely to result in more serious injury than what ended up happening.  It makes sense to want to end the situation as quickly and effectively as possible.

Rolan,  I'm especially surprised at you.  In our debates on police violence, you've taken the stance that responding to a violent threat with a higher level of force is acceptable, and if I remember right, you're one of the types who will argue that an unarmed person can be surprisingly dangerous and close distances quickly and that's why it's ok to shoot them if they show any sign of aggression... but here we have an actual physical fight fully in progress, and your sentiment completely flips when a police officer isn't involved.

Finally, I dealt with some fairly serious bullying for several years of my childhood.  It would have been huge -- HUGE to me on many levels if anyone had ever stuck up for me the way that guy stuck up for the blind kid.  That would have rocked my fucking world.

[ArKFallen]

It's possible for the blind kid to have started the conflict by some sort of emotional abuse or something, but consider this:

My beef is that the default assumption is that the blind guy did not start the physical fight. By say trying to start and end it at once but fucking it up.

Whether those stitches came from the person he thought he was fighting or someone else intervening doesn't really have any ethical bearing on the value of the "bully's" actions in this case.

Yes, it has bearing on the ethical value of the interloper's actions. I expected at least one of the original participants to get fucked by the authority (rightfully or wrongfully) and that the disadvantaged one would be less likely to be punished.

Now consider that the person who intervened knew that one of the participants was blind.  If he was just entering the situation, without knowing how it began, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that a blind kid caught in a fight is being subject to bullying.  It would also be common sense to realize that the blind kid is in much greater danger of much more serious harm than his opponent.  The blind kid won't have the same awareness of his environment.  If it was the blind kid who took a fall, it would have been likely to result in more serious injury than what ended up happening.  It makes sense to want to end the situation as quickly and effectively as possible.

Just as it would be common sense to assume that an 110lb teenager isn't going to pick a fight with someone 160lb+. It being common sense makes it more likely you'd get away with it.
That guy's face was slammed into the concrete faster than he could react. He didn't have some advantage to hitting the ground in this case. Fucker didn't even make a noise until the guy did a nose dive. No "Stop!" just the assumption that a blind kid would never do something so stupid like try to fight a sighted person and start getting his ass handed to him.

why would you find that beautiful

Because it is a very good reminder that humans go through life with blinders on.

[i2amroy]

Remember kids, if you're bullied the response is not to defend yourself, because that is bad. Just be snarky and sarcastic, that probably won't work but at least you'll learn how to be a flop faster

Don't defend yourself; sit there and take it. Don't defend anyone else. Watch as the world goes to hell. Complain.

The idea here isn't "don't defend yourself", it's "don't attack back, and do only the things necessary to defend yourself (including getting the hell out of there if possible)". Once you're out of there, then you can contact the authorities who are responsible for dealing with aggressors (be they school authorities or the police), and they can take the person in for appropriate punishment. It's like, if someone shoots a gun at you, your first response shouldn't be to open fire with your own gun aiming to kill, because at that point you are essentially acting as a vigilante and taking the law into your own hands. Instead your job should be to get out of there while only doing what is necessary to defend yourself, then contacting the actual law force, who is trained to carry out the law, and let them deal with it following the proper rules set up by our country.

It's just like how if someone breaks into your house it's still illegal for you to break into theirs to get your stuff back, because you are essentially shortcutting the law. Two wrongs don't make a right, and just because someone punches you doesn't mean that it's suddenly okay for you to punch them back in the eyes of the law.

[SalmonGod]

I'm completely unsympathetic to the argument that the proper response is to contact authorities.  Calling police into a heated situation is very likely to only make things worse, and many schools are horribly incompetent or corrupt in how they handle cases of bullying.  I myself went to a school for 8 years where teachers blatantly supported bullying.  There have also been cases in my own state recently where teachers stood by and watched passively watched vicious fights until they ended with serious injury, because the teachers were too afraid of getting in trouble for laying hands on a student to stop it.  The assumption that there is reliably sane recourse to higher authority in these situations is incredibly naive.

Could the interloper have handled it better?  Probably.  But that doesn't mean what he did was wrong, and certainly not more wrong than the other two students involved.  If he deserved anything, it's coaching on what he could have done better.  Not punishment for good intentions.  That shit is precisely what breeds the society we live in where everyone believes no good deed goes unpunished, and very few are willing to try.