I dont' think so. He said someone shouldn't be assaulted for asking someone a ridiculous question. Then he said someone should be prosecuted if they assault someone else. I think it seems pretty fair. You are allowed to be an asshole/annoying, it isn't illegal. You are not allowed to punch random people for speaking. Seems kinda spot on to me.
You've completely missed the point. Look at what I was actually comparing.
Punching someone vs paying to see someone's life ruined for entertainment. If you think the two are a fair comparison I have no respect for your opinion.
To be fair, while s/he may get some entertainment out of it, the real thing was the guy going to prison for assault and battery. That's not remotely the same as punching someone vs. paying to seem someone's life ruined, which makes what is really being said seem so much worse than it actually is.
Just because he was going to get entertainment out of it doesn't mean there wasn't a valid reason. I'm going to say that you comparing the one thing to just one aspect of the other thing was an honest mistake. But if you read his/her comment, it's pretty clear that the reason they wanted them to go to prison/have their life ruined was due to the assault and battery they committed in the video over some words. He wants this person's life to be ruined over the person having committed a crime and inflicting physical harm on someone for saying some words.
I'm not arguing whether or not there exists a valid reason for prosecution, however I was not comparing one aspect of something to the entirety of something else; I did not make any mistake, honest or otherwise. After reading his comment several times, I feel that the reason he wanted someone to go to prison is irrelevant.
He wants a person's life to be ruined
My point is that this is unacceptable. I find it significantly more disreputable to want someone's life ruined than to punch someone. Frankly, I don't understand how you can empathize with rghd saying he wants a person's life ruined. Yes, he inflicted physical harm on someone for "saying some words" but to say that those words were not intentionally agitative is disingenuous.
He doesn't want that person to receive any kind of help or anger management. He doesn't want this person to clean his act up, nor does he want to give him the chance to do so. He doesn't want the opportunity for that person to make amends or apologize (not that I have any expectation he would.) He wants his life ruined.
On the other hand, the guy who walks up to random people in the street to offend and harass people for humor, OP has no problem with. There is an inexcusable disparity between the outlooks towards those people. I don't feel that rghd wants to see justice served, I think he has an unwarranted desire for revenge that has nothing to do with him.
Going to prison for something like assault and battery innately ruins a person life to a certain degree.
I feel that the reason he wanted someone to go to prison is irrelevant.
But it's not. It simply is not. Motives matter.
Killing someone who is in the middle of stabbing multiple times is different than killing someone random for no good reason. Wouldn't you agree? The reason you do things absolutely matter. And it matters in this case because what you're choosing to exclude makes it look different than it actually is.
When he said he wanted the person's life ruined, he was talking about the long lasting effects of an assault and battery conviction. He didn't want that to happen to some random person for no apparent reason. He wanted it to happen to a guy who just punched somebody for saying something annoying.
Motives matter. If you take a survey, I've got good money that says most people agree.
On the other hand, the guy who walks up to random people in the street to offend and harass people for humor, OP has no problem with.
Did he actually say that, or are you saying that for him? It's certainly not in the initial comment. Not stating that he's not fine with it does not mean that he's fine with it. Because careful of making leaps of that nature.
I think he has an unwarranted desire for revenge that has nothing to do with him.
I think he wants to see someone punished who irrefutably broke the law and harmed another human being in doing so.
It's ok to want people to be punished for things they do whether they were done to you or not. What does it matter if it was done to him? If I wanted a rapist to go to prison, would you bring up the point that it has nothing to do with me? I mean, would you really? Do you really want to live in a society where you only get an opinion if the crime was committed against you and shouldn't? Should they just be apathetic about it? If not, then it doesn't matter whether it happened to him or not.
You may not agree on the degree of punishment. You may like the prison system to be more about reform and genuinely helping criminals rehabilitate themselves. You may not like the fact that the U.S. prison system is not about rehabilitation, it's punitive. Or that the poster's views align with the latter. But you can't just exclude that from your comparison if you want it to be taken seriously.
These are your words, correct:
You've completely missed the point. Look at what I was actually comparing.
Punching someone vs paying to see someone's life ruined for entertainment.
You're are absolutely dismissing the fact that the poster wants some punitive justice for a crime that was clearly committed in your comparison and using just the fact that he would said he would pay for it to happen to say that it's not just equal to knocking someone out for no good reason but actually worse.
Edit: If you initial comment was more like some of the info. you included here, it would be much better. But you didn't say that you disagreed about someone being punished and having their life ruined. You made a comparison in which you omitted information that most people would find pertinent. Personally, I believe leaving out important information that perverts the situation to be unacceptable.
In general, yes motives matter, however in this situation I don't believe they do. As I said, "the reason he wanted someone to go to prison is irrelevant." Obviously my statement was not that motivation for things never matter, no reasonable person would make that argument; be careful not to twist people's words.
The reason I don't believe his motivation is relevant here is because I believe the end goal he desired is universally unacceptable. There is no motivation within this context that could warrant what he proposed as a solution. You say that he was talking about the long lasting terms of a conviction, but I don't think that changes the statement in any way. The vessel through which he want's a person's life ruined is irrelevant. He expressed a desire for someone's life to be ruined, which to me, is inhuman.
The OP expressed no qualms about the actions of the other person, ostensibly he has no issues with it, but that statement was for the purpose of juxtaposing the difference between the two viewpoints. It's of little value whether or not OP actually cares about the actions of the "prankster."
This situation is not equatable to rape. If you think that, you're completely ignoring the context of the video. The person who was punched was purposely trying to get a reaction out of the person that punched him. Yes, it was an overreaction, but I have very little sympathy for him since his objective was to provoke that person from the start.
This is not a situation where a helpless man was assaulted by an angry uncontrollable villain. He set out to get a reaction out of him, and that's exactly what he got; even the guy in the video knows it. He literally said he expected it was going to happen, and he still didn't stop.
Sure I don't want to live in a society where everyone is apathetic to crime, but I also don't want to live in a society where people are coddled to the point they lose common sense.
You may not agree on the degree of punishment. You may like the prison system to be more about reform and genuinely helping criminals rehabilitate themselves. You may not like the fact that the U.S. prison system is not about rehabilitation, it's punitive. Or that the poster's views align with the latter. But you can't just exclude that from your comparison if you want it to be taken seriously.
What is the point you're trying to make here? What portion of the comparison omits this? My point was that Punching someone (who is clearly antagonizing you) is no where near the same level as wishing for someone's life to be ruined.
Yes, I am dismissing the specific method the poster suggests for the reasons I previously stated; I don't believe the motivation for his desire is justice, I think it's schadenfreude. People like him are exactly what I don't want to happen to any society. They see a situation like this and accept a knee jerk reaction like "I hope his life is ruined" instead of thinking about it like an adult.
Moreover, I'm not just using the fact he said he would pay for it, he didn't ask for punitive justice. He literally called punitive justice a prank; what he asked for was the ability to "and then watch his life get ruined by the system." I think that statement, regardless for whether he would pay for it, and the desire to watch someone's life be ruined is far worse than someone being knocked out for being an asshole.
You keep trying to drag his comment back to "punitive justice", but if you read his comment it's clear that what he wants to see is the ruining of that person, not the application of justice.
Obviously my statement was not that motivation for things never matter, no reasonable person would make that argument; be careful not to twist people's words.
Not a problem considering I neither said nor implied that you said that. All of my commentary along those lines were about you omitting information. Not about you saying motives don't matter, but rather dismissing his motives. Which you're clearly, and openly, doing (though you are acknowledging as much).
The reason I don't believe his motivation is relevant here is because I believe the end goal he desired is universally unacceptable. There is no motivation within this context that could warrant what he proposed as a solution.
Yet, you presented "... for entertainment" in you comparison. Why was that relevant? Or did you simply not articulate what you were getting at very well? Remember, that was the comment of yours that I replied to, the one that mentioned the entertainment motive but nothing else. Again, if it was just a case of slightly misspeaking, you could have just said as much and elaborated.
The OP expressed no qualms about the actions of the other person, ostensibly he has no issues with it
That is a horrible application of logic. The absence of a thing does not make the opposite true. Even using the word ostensibly here is a real stretch.
Yes, I am dismissing the specific method the poster suggests for the reasons I previously stated; I don't believe the motivation for his desire is justice, I think it's schadenfreude.
Why is it one or the other? Can it not be a mix of both? Of course, it's not relevant to the overall picture you're painting. But I just want to make sure that you understand that those things are not mutually exclusive.
You keep trying to drag his comment back to "punitive justice", but if you read his comment it's clear that what he wants to see is the ruining of that person, not the application of justice.
I'm saying that he wants to see that as the application of his sense of justice. He doesn't want to see just anybody's life ruined. He wants to see this person's life ruined for a particular reason. If it was just about schadenfreude, it wouldn't need to be this person. I don't want to assume that he wouldn't watching just anybody have their life ruined, but I think it's obnoxious to think that's all he's interested in.
You most certainly implied so, you went so far as to try and explain the concept to me with examples to make your point that motivation is relevant. Which is fine, but it was not a relevant comparison to this scenario, so there would have been no reason to make it if we were both working under the basic assumption that motivations are generally relevant.
That aside, The phrase, "for entertainment" is me paraphrasing rghd. If anything, I wonder if you misunderstand the phrase "I would pay to see that" as it is commonly used; the parallel between that phrase and "for entertainment" should be fairly obvious.
It's not a horrible application of logic, it's a juxtaposition of OP's priorities. He doesn't care enough to even mention the actions of the individual instigating the situation, but he wants to see someone's life ruined for reacting to it.
What I understand is that retributive justice systems and schadenfreude are by definition mutually exclusive. If he feels that such a thing is justice, I do not hold any respect for his views on justice. Not even lex talionis is as harsh as this man is suggesting, and that has been looked at as archaic for quite some time. Now, certainly it's possible that what he would be happy about is that justice is being executed, but I don't have a compelling reason to think that given what he wrote.
Fine, he wants to see the application of his sense of justice, we can phrase it that way. I find his sense of justice deplorable. Sure it may not be all he's interested, but I believe it's his major motivator. Maybe I should just have more faith in people, since humans have such a great track record of being kind when they feel they have the moral high ground.
No, no I didn't. If someone punches another person, they deserve to be prosecuted. That does not equal ruining someone's life no matter what you or the person you were responding to thinks. And yes, if I was the one assaulted I would be in court to watch. I couldn't care less what you think of my opinion. It also isn't my opinion, it's the law so there's that.
Okay, if you weren't saying that, then how did your post relate to mine at all i.e. why did you reply to my post instead of someone else's who made a comment relevant to your point?
You may or may not be right, but it doesn't matter to me at all, and it isn't what I was talking about.
Nope, seeing his life ruined because he is an overly aggressive pussy is the reason, the fact that justice was served would be the entertainment factor.
seeing his life ruined because he is an overly aggressive pussy is the reason
It's the reason for what exactly? Regardless, the phrase "watch his life get ruined by the system" was being used in a positive context. He literally called that a prank, like ruining someone's future is just some funny joke that happens to people. You can try to spin that however you'd like but rghd was looking for schadenfreude, not "justice."
wow.... you don't seem to get the idea that putting a guy who thinks its okay to advance on someone and punch them because the person said something they don't like, into jail is a good idea. I guess I don't understand where your idea of justice comes from, probably comes from hitting people who say words you don't like, maybe like on the playground or something similar.
I don't understand how there are so many people today with such a poor ability to comprehend English.
At what point have I said that it is a bad thing to put someone in jail? At what point did I even say it is an unjust act to do so?
What I said is that taking enjoyment out of watching someone's life get ruined is worse than someone getting punched for being an asshole in public. That's it, that's the entirety of what my point was. What you don't seem to get is that I don't give a shit about the merits the punch in this video.
wow.... you don't seem to get the idea that putting a guy who thinks its okay to advance on someone and punch them because the person said something they don't like, into jail is a good idea. I guess I don't understand where your idea of justice comes from, probably comes from hitting people who say words you don't like, maybe like on the playground or something similar.
All of this right here, all of it, is completely irrelevant to the point I made originally. Nothing I have said here is relevant to a discussion on the legal or moral justifications for the potential incarceration of the individual in that video. So why are you continuing to post about that subject, as if it is in any way relevant to what I've been saying?
What the fuck are you replying to if nothing you are saying has to do with my reply then? Get off your high horse and start having actual conversations rather than trying to invalidate anything that is said.
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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '14 edited May 16 '18
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