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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What's going wrong here?
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Stetson
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# 9597
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Posted
Sorry, my last post was in reply to tclune.
[ 18. June 2012, 15:19: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Soror Magna
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# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
One of the questions the community is struggling with is: Why didn't anyone at the party try to stop the fight or call 911? The underlying question is: Didn't anyone realize what they were doing was wrong? ...
Teen judgment and problem-solving, impaired by alcohol. Not reporting the incident and trying to destroy the body are kids' ways of avoiding responsibility and tring to make the whole thing go away. I'm not defending, I'm just describing. Teenagers really do think differently. That's not an excuse, it's just a reality of growing up that responsible adults must be aware of and take into account. A 22-year-old host with a houseful of underage drinkers is already off to a bad start. OliviaG
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
But Eliab, he lay there for hours. And the kids all have cellphones.
I don't know what sort of parties you went to as a teenager, but in my experience, the odd unconscious body in the corner somewhere didn't set alarm bells ringing.
Maybe it should've. But 99% of people whom one finds lying senseless on the floor end up with nothing worse than a bad hangover as a result.
Yes, with hindsight, this case looks terrible, but only because we know that this was a tragic exception to ordinary experience in which a man died. You seem to be judging the people at the party as if they we so morally depraved as to knowingly ignore a preventable murder. Perhaps they were, but I think it much much more likely that they are just ordinary human beings who never considered the possibility that someone was about to die. It is certainly not evidence of some new and troubling moral defect in young people today.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
But Eliab, he lay there for hours. And the kids all have cellphones.
I don't know what sort of parties you went to as a teenager, but in my experience, the odd unconscious body in the corner somewhere didn't set alarm bells ringing.
Maybe it should've. But 99% of people whom one finds lying senseless on the floor end up with nothing worse than a bad hangover as a result.
Yes, with hindsight, this case looks terrible, but only because we know that this was a tragic exception to ordinary experience in which a man died. You seem to be judging the people at the party as if they we so morally depraved as to knowingly ignore a preventable murder. Perhaps they were, but I think it much much more likely that they are just ordinary human beings who never considered the possibility that someone was about to die. It is certainly not evidence of some new and troubling moral defect in young people today.
Eliab, you might have missed this part. The young man had been severely beaten, then left in that condition.
From newspaper reports:
"According to the arrest affidavit, at least two witnesses, both juveniles, told authorities they saw him lying unconscious outside on the concrete, with blood on the back of his head, making moaning sounds and having a hard time breathing."
I do feel something went wrong here.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
Teenagers really do think differently. That's not an excuse, it's just a reality of growing up that responsible adults must be aware of and take into account. A 22-year-old host with a houseful of underage drinkers is already off to a bad start. OliviaG
Not THAT differently. A teenager is still far more like an adult than they are like a child. And even a child would try to help if they really thought someone was likely to die.
And even adults often don't. I;ve been at a party where a couplke were so out of their head that they could not be persuaded to pay attention to their own 12-year-old son who had fallen down the stairs and hurt his head. (One of the others present was a nurse and she looked after the kid while we waited for an ambulance)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
There is a huge issue with alcohol. The young people I have worked with would define a piss-up as a way to get drunk, bladdered, off their heads ... not as a few drinks to get merry. 15 year old girls talking about drinking bottles of vodka is not unheard of. And there is no shame in the memory loss, or defaecating or urinating in public, being found in a gutter or vomiting. It's part of a good night out.
Welcome to Newcastle upon Tyne
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) or should that be ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) ?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
There is a huge issue with alcohol. The young people I have worked with would define a piss-up as a way to get drunk, bladdered, off their heads ... not as a few drinks to get merry. 15 year old girls talking about drinking bottles of vodka is not unheard of. And there is no shame in the memory loss, or defaecating or urinating in public, being found in a gutter or vomiting. It's part of a good night out.
Welcome to Newcastle upon Tyne
or should that be ?
I'm talking Essex here - but I lived in Sunderland for a bit.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Full Circle
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# 15398
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Posted
How horrendously sad. However, the problem to my mind is not the alcohol but the standing by and doing nothing. I have met a few drug using and alcohol abusing Christians in my time: two specifically stand out as people whom I would trust to be the good samaritan in a time of crises like that displayed. Both people I thought showed more support to those in need than I do/did. My concern would be the lack of care/morality/connection not the alcohol.
I'm havering, but just so sad,sad, sad
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) Prayers for all in Grammatica's community trying to pick up the peices
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Beware the monocausal fallacy (Anon)
Posts: 232 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2010
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Chamois
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# 16204
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think it much much more likely that they are just ordinary human beings who never considered the possibility that someone was about to die. It is certainly not evidence of some new and troubling moral defect in young people today.
I agree, this isn't new. Do you know what this incident reminds me of? The scene in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet where the two rival gangs of young men are fighting and Romeo's friend gets stabbed more-or-less by accident and bleeds to death while everyone's standing around laughing.
But troubling, yes indeed.
Human nature and fundamental human behaviour doesn't change, sadly. This sort of thing has probably been going on since our species came down from the trees.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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cliffdweller
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# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Full Circle:
just so sad,sad, sad
Prayers for all in Grammatica's community trying to pick up the peices
Yes, this.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I've never been involved in addictions-recovery, but people who have report that you get a similar tendency in the therapy sessions. Like, guys whose main contribution consists of thinly disguised bragging about all the coke they used to snort.
When I was training to answer the phones for the Samaritans, I had to attend an AA meeting. People would get up and describe just how bad their behavior was before they joined AA. They boasted of how early in the day they began drinking, how much they drank, how they abused and neglected their families.
It sounded like, "Can you top this?"
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Gramps49
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# 16378
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Posted
There are several issues that come up for me as I read the OP and the responses.
One: Seems to me that Jesus was criticized for hanging out with the thug culture of his day, though, obviously his partying never got out of hand.
But that could also be because of the culture he was in. As I recall heavy drinking in Hebrew circles was very much taboo.
Second, I question the theology of the youth pastor. I for one do not believe that I can come to Christ by my own reason or strength come to Christ as my Lord and Savior except that I was called and enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.
Rather than praising the young man for "finding Christ" I think I would have concentrated on how God was continuing to reach out to the family and friends of the young man through the various means of grace--the hearing of the Word and the mutual consolation of the ecclesia in particular. I would also point out that this gift was still available to those who victimized the young man too. I would have encouraged people to act with the forgiveness of Christ in mind they deal with this tragedy as well.
I have preached at the funeral of a person who committed suicide. I said very little about the person or what he did. I chose to concentrate on the quintessence of the New Testament: that God loves us in spite of who we are or how we act so much so he gave his son to die for us.
Third; By all means those responsible for the death of the man should be held responsible to the full extent of the law--not only those who beat the young man up, but also the young people who did nothing. Also the people who allowed the party to happen in their home. Even if the home owner claims s/he did not know it was happening they are still responsible for what happens under their roof.
Four: I think the community should take this as a wake up call and find ways of preventing a repeat. More policing would be one thing, but also encouraging other, other more healthy, outlets as well. This might mean they need to put more money into social services for youth programs, but IMHO the benefits would far outweigh the costs. This would have to be a total community effort including the local government, schools, churches, and other non government organizations (YMCA, Boys/Girls Clubs, Youth Sports and the like) Businesses also have to be involved in prevention. Business also have to be involved as well. Also effective parenting programs should be offered to parents when their children are still very young.
BTW I have also worked in recovery. The most effective recovery sessions I have ever participated in dealt not so much as the amount of lines a person did, but the consequences of doing them had on the person. If a person was only going to boast on how much drugs he or she did, that was not recovery; looking at the outcomes was the beginning of recovery.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
One other point. While teens have nearly reached their adult size, their Frontal Cortex, which controls judgement and the ability to determine appropriate responses does not fully mature until their mid twenties. Combined with something that suppresses what judgement the kids may have had, I can see how the kid was beaten senseless, left for dead out in the back yard, and later torched without anyone even thinking to call 911.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
The pearl clutching on this thread is too much. What happened? He was a wannabe who swaggered into the lilons den and paid the price. It is an old story that exists in every culture.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
One other point. While teens have nearly reached their adult size, their Frontal Cortex, which controls judgement and the ability to determine appropriate responses does not fully mature until their mid twenties.
Sorry but you are building far too much on a few over-reported and over-analysed observations that almost certainly don't really mean what you were told that they mean. Maybe 50% of newspaper pop science is bollocks. When it comes to trying to relate neurology and behaviour that goes up to 99%. Unless about the differences between men and women when its 100% bollocks.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
From newspaper reports:
"According to the arrest affidavit, at least two witnesses, both juveniles, told authorities they saw him lying unconscious outside on the concrete, with blood on the back of his head, making moaning sounds and having a hard time breathing."
I do feel something went wrong here.
Of course something went wrong. A young man died needlessly. Lots of people could have done things which might have helped, but didn't.
Where I think you are wrong is in thinking that this has to be symptomatic of some gaping moral void in the lives of everyone involved. That strikes me as utterly improbable. I doubt that anyone (quite possibly including the assailants) intended the victim to die, or that more than a very few (the assailants and anyone who got a good look at the assault and was sufficiently sober to judge its severity) knew how badly hurt he was. Blood - even a lot of blood - and laboured breathing do not scream "impending death" at your average drunken youth. We've all seen injuries with exactly those features and not imagined for a second that the injured person was about to die.
I think we should take cases like this as a reminder to be more concerned for the wellbeing of others and the difference that prompt intervention might make, but accusing the people present of anything more than the ordinary human negligence that likely we have all displayed goes much further than the evidence warrants.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Maybe 50% of newspaper pop science is bollocks. When it comes to trying to relate neurology and behaviour that goes up to 99%. Unless about the differences between men and women when its 100% bollocks.
Is this the statistical analysis that we're waiting for in Kerygmania? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Alaric the Goth
Shipmate
# 511
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
There is a huge issue with alcohol. The young people I have worked with would define a piss-up as a way to get drunk, bladdered, off their heads ... not as a few drinks to get merry. 15 year old girls talking about drinking bottles of vodka is not unheard of. And there is no shame in the memory loss, or defaecating or urinating in public, being found in a gutter or vomiting. It's part of a good night out.
Welcome to Newcastle upon Tyne
or should that be ?
I'm talking Essex here - but I lived in Sunderland for a bit.
I grew up in Sunderland. I came from a 'good home'. When I was 16 and a half (in 1982) I first got drunk (on the way to/in Newcastle as it happens).
When not quite 17, I started to deliberately get drunk, usually on a Friday evening, in a way a friend taught me. This involved a pint in a pub followed by a visit to an off-licence to get a quarter-bottle of spirits each (usually vodka for me) followed by more drinks (e.g. sweet ciders, snakebite anyone? ) at a heavy-rock nightclub. I was not well the following day. This self-destructive behaviour lasted (IIRC) less than two years and is something that must have caused my parents no end of grief.
I doubt things re. alcohol and its abuse by the young in the towns of the North East have impoved since.
Posts: 3322 | From: West Thriding | Registered: Jun 2001
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
As Gramps has noted, in our tradition we have perhaps some different parameters for funeral sermons than other churches. Eulogizing the deceased -- not a priority. Comforting family and friends with the message of God's love and abiding presence and the hope of the Resurrection -- you bet.
But it seems that, in a situation where many people will be searching for a "meaning" to all of this beyond another senseless death, there is an opportunity for a sensitive, skilled preacher to point to a renewed reverence for life and greater concern for our neighbors as a way that the grieving can wrest some meaning from this situation. In other words: Our Christian hope tells us that this person has not died in vain in a soteriological sense, but by living life in a more sober (in all senses of the word) and compassionate way we can be a means of preventing this sort of thing from happening again in our community.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Maybe 50% of newspaper pop science is bollocks. When it comes to trying to relate neurology and behaviour that goes up to 99%. Unless about the differences between men and women when its 100% bollocks.
Is this the statistical analysis that we're waiting for in Kerygmania?
Just the result of long and bitter experience! And reading far too many newspaper articles and watching far too many TV programs about science.
Potted guide to the UK media reporting on science and technology issues:
Economist quite good.
Guardniana good in parts.
Surprisingly the freebie Metro that is left on trains sometimes has some genuinely good little graphics illustrating some scientific point or othr.
All other general-interest newspapers and magazines, crap. Except the Daily Mail which is worse than crap. A lot of its science coverage is a net negative, some is actual lies. If you read it and believe it you end up knowing less than you knew before you started.
The BBC, which is on the whole a far more reliable and less biased source of news than most British newspapers, has a huge hole in its news reporting of science. On TV and on the radio and on its website (arguably the world's single most read source of current news) it often talks complete bollocks. regurgitating press releases with the interesting bits (if any) taken out or misunderstood. The BBCs specialist scientific coverage is frequently brilliant - though the more obscure the digital channel and the later the programme is broadcast the better it gets - but its news coverage is all too often nonsense.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alaric the Goth:
I doubt things re. alcohol and its abuse by the young in the towns of the North East have impoved since.
What you describe was certainly par for the course five or ten years earlier. I don't think I ever behanved quite the way you say, but maybe that's just because I don't like strong drink much. I drank beer and wine and cider in even larger quantities than I do now.
And violence wasn't at all rare. None ever involving me, (well, almost none) but I saw much more violence on the street or at social events than I do in London nowadays (and I live in one of the grottiest parts of London and I stay out late at night. As well as going to Millwall matches.) I quite often saw people bleeding or staggering in both Durham and Newcastle.
I haven't thought about it for years but at least once I was present when someone was severly beaten and no-one called an ambulance or the police. When I was in my early tenties I was renting a room in a large house about half way between Durham and Sunderland and the bloke who lived in the next room to me, who was about 17 or 18 and came from a nearby estate, had a party. It turned nasty and a fight broke out. Cowardly as it sounds I just went into my room and locked my door. I didn't know most of the people, there were a lot of them, some of them had dogs with them - there was no way I could have done anything useful or safe. There was some fighting right outside my room and the next day I had to clean up some blood off my door. I didn't know whose it was or what happensed to him.
Haven't thought about that for years.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Is this the statistical analysis that we're waiting for in Kerygmania?
Just the result of long and bitter experience! And reading far too many newspaper articles and watching far too many TV programs about science.
Potted guide to the UK media reporting on science and technology issues: <snip>
Just wanted to add one of my favorite newspaper statistics stories. A number of years ago, the Boston Globe (a respectable paper on this side of the pond) printed a story on the front page of the Sunday Real Estate section with a headline trumpeting that housing sales were off by 127%! I was so shocked by the innumeracy of this that I contacted the paper. They actually claimed that it wasn't their fault -- they'd gotten the "statistic" from local realtors. I think this is the newsroom version of, "The woman gave it to me and I ate."
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Note to Ken: I am a trained mental health professional and addictions counselor. When I refer to the frontal cortex not being fully developed, I know of what I am talking about. It is not newspaper pop science I am quoting. I could have gotten into more detail on the science, but I did not want to be too technical.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Note to Ken: I am a trained mental health professional and addictions counselor. When I refer to the frontal cortex not being fully developed, I know of what I am talking about. It is not newspaper pop science I am quoting. I could have gotten into more detail on the science, but I did not want to be too technical.
I have to say. It was at about the age of 25 that I more-or-less stopped doing juvenile, stupid, and irresponsible things. Not that those had been a daily activity for me up to that time, but they happened frequently enough that I can notice a distinct break between how I acted in my mid-20s compared to how I acted in my late 20s.
So there might be something to this frontal cortex thing. Now, having said that, I'm not exactly sure what we're supposed to do with this information. Do we raise the age of majority to 26? I'm trying to imagine the public response if, say, an accused murderer, aged 25 and eleven months, gets the same mandated judicial leniency that would be shown(at least in some jurisdictions) to a 17 year old. Because you know, he's just a poor kid who didn't know any better.
Not to mention taking away voting rights, etc.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Overview of teen brain development, from what I would consider a good source: That teenage feeling
If a teen experiences social anxiety and a desperate need to fit in (and is plastered to boot), the last thing s/he's going to do is narc on friends, no matter what they've done. It's what my parents called "peer pressure".
Again, I don't believe any of this is an excuse; I think it tells us the onus is on grown-ups to reduce the chances of teens making bad decisions at the wrong time, while still giving them enough freedom to learn to make good decisions. No wonder parents go nuts. OliviaG
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Note to Ken: I am a trained mental health professional and addictions counselor. When I refer to the frontal cortex not being fully developed, I know of what I am talking about. It is not newspaper pop science I am quoting. I could have gotten into more detail on the science, but I did not want to be too technical.
I maybe would believe you if you could quote some convincing science on that. I suspedct that you can't. We still have only a very crude idea of how physical stgructures in brains map on to mental processes.
And as I assume you know perfectly well our brains go on developing all our lives, though it gets slower as we grow older so "fully developed" is a moving target. And most of it is done in childhood, so by late teens brain structures are pretty much adult. And our brains also deteriorate in varous ways as we get older - and that sets in before the age of 20 as well. That you can find minor differences between the brain of an average 18 year-old and an average 25-year-old is certainly true. The idea that you can say much about how thoise differences affect behaviour is, so far, a fantasy.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I'm not so sure that the ages of those at the party has a whole lot to do with the whole 'not reporting that someone is lying, apparently badly injured in a heap over there' thing.
I don't recall being told that the Levite and Priest were unthinking and irresponsible teenagers whereas the Samaritan was a fine, mature adult.
But I might have missed that Sunday School class.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
Yeah, but the Levite and the priest hadn't witnessed the beating.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Would it have changed the story if they had?
Seems to me the parable 'works' on one level because it exposes basic human nature - namely to avoid doing something about things you don't want to see. It is a bit like that thing in one of the Hitchhiker trilogy when the aliens land in the middle of the cricket game but nobody can see them because they are cloaked with a Somebody Else's Problem field.
I am not defending these young people, but it is hardly unique to hear of a story where people didn't do something when they should have. Indeed, I actually believe you have to be trained to react to such incidents, particularly when caught off-guard because the standard social pressure is to ignore situations on the periphery of your view.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Try
Shipmate
# 4951
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
My husband attended a lunch in the USA where he ordered a small glass of wine. A pastor (who was the size of two houses) looked down his nose and said 'Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?' My husband replied 'I'll race you up that hill and we'll see whose 'temple' has been cared for! (The same husband is currently cycling coast to coast - USA)
In addition to the fact that in the American Evangelical subculture drinking was totally taboo for a long time, there is also a growing taboo in the USA against drinking alcohol at lunch, even in great moderation. Most restaurant servers will not mention the wine and beer list when taking drink orders for lunch, and if you do order beer or wine and a co-worker sees you, you could be fired. It's part of a binge-drinking culture that assumes that once you've started drinking then you won't stop until you've passed out.
In terms of the situation described in the OP, I will say that as an American factory worker in his late 20s that it is quite possible to be a part-time participant in thug culture. I have been invited multiple times to go drinking with co-workers in various sleazy bars. I went once, to be friendly, but the excessive drunkenness and drunk driving made me decide "never again". It helps that I hate the rap music that their favorite bars play. I was also offered weed and invited to house parties.
If I was younger, and had not spent half a decade in seminary before working in the factory, and therefore did not have several years of intense discipleship behind me, I can imagine myself getting pissed with some very rough people on Friday and Saturday nights, then going to church on Sunday morning. I could have been that guy. As it was, I did my underage drinking with frat guys and sorority girls, not thugs, and fights didn't happen and friends made sure that if you were really drunk that you got home safe.
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“I’m so glad to be a translator in the 20th century. They only burn Bibles now, not the translators!” - the Rev. Dr. Bruce M. Metzger
Posts: 852 | From: Beautiful Ohio, in dreams again I see... | Registered: Sep 2003
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I'm not so sure that the ages of those at the party has a whole lot to do with the whole 'not reporting that someone is lying, apparently badly injured in a heap over there' thing.
I think it is possible that the fear of being busted for underage drinking could have been a factor, in which case the ages would have been relevant.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
This is all very painful stuff. I dislike very much the urge to "shame" young victims of crime or accidents. When I was 18, I lost a close friend in a car accident. Lacking any other way to make a story out of it - he certainly hadn't been drinking - the local paper reported that he may have been in a hurry to meet the midnight curfew set by his parents. There was in fact no evidence for this, but it was hurtful to his parents who felt that, not only was their son being blamed for what was an accident (in which he was the only victim) but also that the implication was that they too bore some responsibility, having set the curfew.
When it comes to violent crime, it is even harder. I think you have to be quite hard-hearted to think that anyone "is asking for it" because of the fact that they drink, or that they associate with people who have convictions for minor offences.
OTOH, it is a fact that - for example - the higher your blood alcohol content, the more likely you are to suffer a facial injury. So what do I say to my son in 10 years' time? Well, I won't be saying that people who get drunk *deserve* to be glassed, but I will be pointing out that it is *more likely to happen* to someone who has been drinking than someone who has not.
But is it then consistent for me to tell my daughter that people who have been drinking are more likely to be victims of a sexual assault? Or does this imply the victims are to blame? (And if it does imply the victims are to blame, why is that OK for victims of a glassing, but not victims of sexual assault?)
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
What we've been teaching is that alcohol reduces your inhibitions and your awareness, so if you drink more than a glass of anything you are more likely to be a victim of crime or an accident, male or female. And for men that's more likely to be an assault and women the risks are to do with rape. Both are likely to get involved in risky and unsafe sexual acts - risky to do with risk of pregnancy and STIs.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Five seconds with google.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Thirty-five seconds with google.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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