He's lucky a suspension is all he got wearing that shit.

[Margalis]

I'm pretty damn liberal and I'm not a big fan of hate crime legislation. Murder is murder and rape is rape and all that. Now you hear things about how for example the guys that beat Mathew Sheppard to death didn't do it because he was gay - ok, so what? They chained the guy to a fence and beat him and now he's dead, what changed exactly?

I also agree that cop killers shouldn't get worse sentences. Nor should victims of terrorism get special treatment for anything. If you lost a father/husband you lost one either way.
---

About the school stuff again. So the kid with the hair got a message. What message did the other kids in school get? It's ok to disrupt class if you have a weak excuse?

[Hanzii]

As evidenced by Murgos thinking a shoplifter should get the death penalty (in an ironic attempt to show a broken person).

I don't see the irony... I've always thought Murgos was broken.

[Nazrat]

What message did the other kids in school get? It's ok to disrupt class if you have a weak excuse?

Don't act like a fucktard or you are next.

[Paelos]

We have degrees of murder because not all killings are black and white. Motivations have to be taken into account or the guy defending himself gets the sentenced along with the planning killer. Also, it's a good thing people are prosecuted harder for killing cops and members of the justice system that let you sleep at night without clutching a gun and hoping the raving mob doesn't decide your house is next. You can be liberal about sentencing, but not going after copkillers is a stupid way to run a society.

[Margalis]

What message did the other kids in school get? It's ok to disrupt class if you have a weak excuse?

Don't act like a fucktard or you are next.

Is that supposed to be a threat of some sort? I'm shaking. Seriously...wake up on the wrong side of bed?

How is what I asked acting like a fucktard? That is what they learned, isn't it? That it's ok to not learn in school as long as you can say it's because you just couldn't stop looking at the kid with red hair.

Like I said before, when I was younger if I had pulled that shit my parents would have told me they expected better. That's just weak. Set the bar low and people will stoop to meet it.

[Margalis]

We have degrees of murder because not all killings are black and white. Motivations have to be taken into account or the guy defending himself gets the sentenced along with the planning killer. Also, it's a good thing people are prosecuted harder for killing cops and members of the justice system that let you sleep at night without clutching a gun and hoping the raving mob doesn't decide your house is next. You can be liberal about sentencing, but not going after copkillers is a stupid way to run a society.

Self-defense of course I think everyone will grant you. Same with people who mean to brawl but accidentally end up killing a guy. But in my mind there is not a big difference between "let's go kill that guy because he's gay" and "let's go kill that guy, just because." If anything the people doing the latter are even more screwed up than the former.

As far as going after cop-killers, I'm all for going after them the same way you go after anyone else who kills somebody. I know the idea is to drill into people that if you kill a cop you are fucked, so don't do that - but shouldn't that be the message for killing anybody? That doesn't mean we have to weaken some murder laws; it may just mean we should strengthen others. But killing another person is pretty much the worst thing you can do, WHO you killed is really just splitting hairs next to the gravity of the crime itself.

[Samwise]

What message did the other kids in school get? It's ok to disrupt class if you have a weak excuse?

Don't act like a fucktard or you are next.

Is that supposed to be a threat of some sort? I'm shaking. Seriously...wake up on the wrong side of bed?

I think he was saying that's what the message was, rather than directing that statement at you in particular.  (Speaking of waking up on the wrong side of the bed.   )

[stray]

What message did the other kids in school get? It's ok to disrupt class if you have a weak excuse?

Don't act like a fucktard or you are next.

Is that supposed to be a threat of some sort? I'm shaking. Seriously...wake up on the wrong side of bed?

I think he was saying that's what the message was, rather than directing that statement at you in particular.  (Speaking of waking up on the wrong side of the bed.   )

That's fucking hilarious.

All of the posts today were funnier than usual. Thanks guys.

[TheWalrus]

"Why did you shoplift that pen?"
"Dunno, nothing better to do."
"You're broken.  Death penalty.  Next case."

Beautiful.

[Gong]

Though I fear it may be a bit late, here's my two cents on the dresscode issue.

Like a few others in this thread, I went to a fairly nice, fairly expensive private school populated mostly by rich spoiled white kids. Yes, there was a dresscode but it didn't do anything to eliminate the distinction between the haves and the have-nots.

I ran with the group of social outcasts for a couple of reasons. One of the biggest reasons was that we were interested in more than getting drunk/high every weekend at the age of 15. We didn't give a shit about football games and cheerleaders; we liked reading, acting, learning how to take computers apart and put them back together, learning how to program, etc.

Yes, we listened to typical angsty anti-authority teenage industrial/punk, but we didn't dress to the extreme. The dresscode itself was pretty lax; boy's shirts had to have a collar, boys couldn't have hair that went past the collar of their shirt, couldn't have earrings, and so forth. I did take a particular joy in pushing it as far as it could go, starting off with Hawaiian Shirts and eventually buying whatever ridiculous button-down shirts I could find at TJ Maxx or similarly 'classy' stores. My main reason for dressing differently was that I didn't want to be mistaken for the typical spoiled private-school asshole. Of course, I was picked on for formulating opinions and beliefs that differed from my parents, for listening to DEVIL MUSIC  and being of ambiguous religion, and for actually wanting to DO something other than party my life away on daddy's dollar.

I'm not sure if anyone here has read anything by Paul Graham, but I largely agree with what he writes. To paraphrase some of his work, teenagers really have no place in modern society. School is little more than a holding pen to keep kids busy so that adults can actually get things done. The idea is to keep the kids busy with school until they (hopefully) age and become mature enough to contribute to society in some meaningful way. The problem is that schools basically become like a prison. The teachers enforce the surface-level rules and keep the kids on the premises until 3pm, but the kids create their own barbaric cut-throat society with its own set of rules. It really sucks being a kid who actually wants to do something with their life. For the most part, adults will assume you're just a stupid kid who as Paelos said "pays for nothing, eats for free, and has no job to support themselves".  At that age, it's really tough to get a job that will help you develop useful skills. Besides working dead-end retail jobs or dead-end physical labor jobs (this was my route), there isn't much else. So, most adults blow you off, most other kids your age hate you because you're not interested in being cool like them. Not exactly the greatest place to be.

After spending the first two years of highschool Fighting the Man in full teenage rebel glory, I realized the best course of action was to slog through the bullshit and try to learn the things I wanted to learn in my spare time. I'm now finishing my second year of college, and I can't help but chuckle while watching others struggle through programming class. There's still certainly a contingent of the fratboy/party crowd who gets drunk and parties while failing all their classes while daddy foots the bill, but at least they're easy enough to avoid now.

I realize this post is somewhat lacking in focus, and for that I apologize. I'll try to summarize it a bit: Not all kids suck. There's a severe lack of opportunities for kids who actually want to do something constructive with their time. They are going to be antagonized by their peers for not being interested in the popularity game. Being able to get away with wearing funky clothes makes the ride at least somewhat more tolerable until they get to the point where they can say "Fuck You" to the harsh popularity-driven society of grade school. While it does seem that the kid on the front article is something of a loser, there is some value in his cause.

[Nazrat]

Thanks, Samwise. 

Hey, Margolis, back away from the keyboard.  You are taking this issue a little too personally.  I was trying to communicate the message to other students that can be taken from this kid's suspension.  I'm sorry that your highschool flashback has you in the fetal position.  However, I am fairly sure that I had nothing to do with it.

[Murgos]

But mostly, punish according to the crime. Someone with a truck full of marijuana shouldn't be looking at time anywhere near anyone who ever violently injured another human being, the american sense of justice and punishment is severely out of whack. As evidenced by Murgos thinking a shoplifter should get the death penalty (in an ironic attempt to show a broken person).

I'm broken for riffing on 'hate crimes' and thier ridiculous penalties with an absurdity and yet you're sane for thinking a truck load of Marijuana is less damaging to our society as a whole than a simple battery case?

Right, ok.  Maybe you should lay off the ganja for a while hippy.

[Jayce]

But mostly, punish according to the crime. Someone with a truck full of marijuana shouldn't be looking at time anywhere near anyone who ever violently injured another human being, the american sense of justice and punishment is severely out of whack. As evidenced by Murgos thinking a shoplifter should get the death penalty (in an ironic attempt to show a broken person).

I'm broken for riffing on 'hate crimes' and thier ridiculous penalties with an absurdity and yet you're sane for thinking a truck load of Marijuana is less damaging to our society as a whole than a simple battery case?

Right, ok.  Maybe you should lay off the ganja for a while hippy.

Recommend pre-emptive thread bifurcation for imminent legalization derailment.

[Shockeye]

Recommend pre-emptive thread bifurcation for imminent legalization derailment.

Request denied. Buckle up folks, let's see how far this ride goes.

[Sky]

Yes. Here's an example:

I show up at your house and kick your ass until you can't walk.

I show up at your house with copius amounts of weed and we smoke a couple and play some video games.

Which one should be a crime? The only crime in the prohibition of marijuana is the prohibition of marijuana.

Note I do not smoke marijuana, but nice try.

[Murgos]

Actually, I'll go ahead and nip that fork in the bud right now.  If Mary Jane were legal then I wouldn't bat an eye at a truck load of it, it would be no more damaging to society than a Bud-weiser Truck with women in bikini's painted on its side, damaging in a long term lessening of ability to contribute by a few overindulgers but otherwise mostly harmless.  The thing is that its not legal, so a truck load of 'bud' is actually several cases of young men being imprisoned for years for distribution for the ones that don't get away with it and is a general lessening of regard for this society and contempt for it's laws (some of which are actually important to maintaining the society) for those that do.

What it comes down to is that a large enough portion of the population feels that recreation use of marijuana is detriment and that they wish to discourage that practice so, yes, a truck load of bud is more harmful to society as a whole than simple battery.  Thats one of the problems of living in a republic, your personal beliefs tend to get stepped on by the majority.

[Sky]

Thanks for making my point again.

[Sky]

Thats one of the problems of living in a republic, your personal beliefs tend to get stepped on by the majority.

If by majority you mean rich white guys who make laws, sure. You obviously have no grasp on the issue whatsoever, I should have stuck with my original position of not wasting my time with you.

[Murgos]

Thanks for making my point again.

Nope, your point was that a truck load of marijuana was not as damaging as a case of battery.  You are obviously wrong - the prisons are full of dope-peddlers sitting out long term sentences while people who get in bar fights walk the streets after a slap on the wrist.  You wish it were otherwise but wishing just doesn't work in the real world.  You actually, you know, have to live here which means abiding by the rules even if you personally don't agree with them.

I smoked plenty of pot when I was a teenager, now that I am an adult though my own sense of enlightened self-interest keeps me off that path and I don't mean keeping myself out of jail, I mean doing the little bit I can do to keep the structure of society that supports me strong and best able to provide for my needs.  Grow up and live within the system until you can affect a change because by breaking the systems rules in fits of petulant self-gratification all you are doing is making the whole structure weaker and less able to provide for you.

[Samwise]

I'm going to ignore the pot debate in the hope that it just goes away.  Back to hair!

Except that the mohawk kid is a kid who won't get many more chances in life to sport a bad haircut (which I actually think is cute, btw) than right now.

I disagree.  There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college.  

My high school had a dress code that was fairly relaxed but did prohibit overly "distracting" getups, which included excessive makeup and unnatural hair colors.  So I went through my "bad hair" (dyed it bright blue) phase in college.  Waiting the extra 4 years to do strange things to my hair didn't scar me for life.

[Sky]

Murgos, you are truly a douchebag who's ignored what the fuck I wrote. Time wasted, I'm done with it.

I really can't believe the idiocy you just exhibited. Fuck, man.

[voodoolily]

I appreciate the point Murgos is trying to make (if perhaps for the sake of making one), but I am appalled that he thinks there is no difference between violent crime and use of a controlled substance. Seriously, dude.

And I noticed that when talking about hate crimes, some of you like to bring up gays as the primary target, as if it's no big deal to kill someone just because he/she is homosexual. Again, I ask: do you really think there is no difference between a murder and a lynching? How can you say a "regular" murder is more forgivable than a when a neo-nazi beats an Ethiopian man to death with a baseball bat (which happened in Portland 10 or so years ago)?

[Margalis]

Ha ha, never mind, reading comprehension is my mortal enemy.

PS: My name is not Margolis!

Thanks, Samwise. 

Hey, Margolis, back away from the keyboard.  You are taking this issue a little too personally.  I was trying to communicate the message to other students that can be taken from this kid's suspension. 

[Margalis]

Again, I ask: do you really think there is no difference between a murder and a lynching? How can you say a "regular" murder is more forgivable than a when a neo-nazi beats an Ethiopian man to death with a baseball bat (which happened in Portland 10 or so years ago)?

I don't think either is forgivable at all. Again, have you been following the recent Mathew Sheppard stuff. It was a big story a few weeks ago when the guys that attacked him said it wasn't because he was gay. Does it really make a difference? Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

[voodoolily]

Again, I ask: do you really think there is no difference between a murder and a lynching? How can you say a "regular" murder is more forgivable than a when a neo-nazi beats an Ethiopian man to death with a baseball bat (which happened in Portland 10 or so years ago)?

I don't think either is forgivable at all. Again, have you been following the recent Mathew Sheppard stuff. It was a big story a few weeks ago when the guys that attacked him said it wasn't because he was gay. Does it really make a difference? Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

Okay, first of all, that kid was killed like, 10 years ago, before hate crime legislation was in place. Second, of COURSE those motherfuckers are saying it wasn't because he's gay! They don't wanna get popped for a hate crime. At the time of the murder, one of 'em admitted that the murder was partially due to Sheppard (spelling?) hitting on them (as if).  It totally DOES make a difference. That kid was singled out and murdered simply because he was queer, not because he did anything to bring it on.

[HaemishM]

After spending the first two years of highschool Fighting the Man in full teenage rebel glory, I realized the best course of action was to slog through the bullshit and try to learn the things I wanted to learn in my spare time. I'm now finishing my second year of college, and I can't help but chuckle while watching others struggle through programming class. There's still certainly a contingent of the fratboy/party crowd who gets drunk and parties while failing all their classes while daddy foots the bill, but at least they're easy enough to avoid now.

I realize this post is somewhat lacking in focus, and for that I apologize. I'll try to summarize it a bit: Not all kids suck. There's a severe lack of opportunities for kids who actually want to do something constructive with their time. They are going to be antagonized by their peers for not being interested in the popularity game. Being able to get away with wearing funky clothes makes the ride at least somewhat more tolerable until they get to the point where they can say "Fuck You" to the harsh popularity-driven society of grade school. While it does seem that the kid on the front article is something of a loser, there is some value in his cause.

Your first paragraph illustrates what I said. You fought the law, realized that the law is always going to win until you grow out of its clutches, and decided to better yourself without making a spectacle. You win.

The thing this kid doesn't and probably won't realize, because he's too busy playing the victim, is he CAN say "Fuck you" to the popularity-contest right now, without ever having to make an ignorant-looking fucktard of himself. He doesn't have to be "different like all the other different people." The shit you put on your face, or the color or length of your hair, or whatever earrings are tattoos you sport are not who you are, and if they are, YOU ARE A SAD, HOPELESS LOSER. It doesn't make you more or less "hardcore," or "wiccan" in this guy's case, to not look like a clown, because it doesn't define who you are, you define who you are.

His cause has no value because: 1) He's playing the victim card practiced by eons of pussies before, which only makes him an even bigger target for the predators; 2) 'The man's oppressing my religious beliefs!' is his calling card, which if the kid knew anything about Wiccan, would know it doesn't require the wearing of clown makeup. Ergo, he's not just a self-made victim, he's a dumbass, and full of shit; 3) his 'cause' does not help the state of education, or of his education, it is a further distraction to education, both his own and the students around him, because wearing clown makeup or not wearing clown makeup won't make you learn any better or worse, but it will distract others.

[voodoolily]

I still say rebellious youth are better than regular youth. But Sonic Youth is better still.

[HaemishM]

Rebellious youth are fine, it's a part of growing up. It's learning the boundaries of your existence and the society you live in.

This kid is just a fucktard, though, for the reasons I've mentioned above.

And Sonic Youth are teh win. One of the best rhythm sections I've ever heard out of a "punk" band.

[Paelos]

If your rallying cry in America is "They are persecuting my religious beliefs" it better be because you are Islamic or Jewish and because you are actually under harassment. Those two groups I could believe. Other than that, I don't care about your feelings that you should be able to sacrifice dogs every Tuesday on your front lawn because your Voodoo priest says it's cleansing.

[schild]

And Sonic Youth are teh win. One of the best rhythm sections I've ever heard out of a "punk" band.

Want to fuck up, drop out, never trust a fucking hippie.
And for that matter don't trust anyone.
Quit school, don't work, livin' up your music to punk.
If I could do it so could anyone.

Drugs are good, they let you do things that you know you not should.
And when you do 'em people think that you're cool.
And when you do 'em people think that you're cool.

[Margalis]

It totally DOES make a difference. That kid was singled out and murdered simply because he was queer, not because he did anything to bring it on.

There are already laws to deal with things like aggravated assault and the like. If you "do something" to bring on getting yourself killed the law already views that differently. Manslaughter vs. murder or self-defence or whatever.

Currently the law distinguishes between pre-meditation and spur-of-the-moment, and factors in explanatory circumstances like "he attacked me first" or "he threatened to kill me" or "he was just REALLY annoying" or whatever.

If you kill someone on a whim who wasn't doing anything wrong, I don't see why it matters if you did it because the guy was gay or said he didn't like your shoes or whatever.

[Shockeye]

It totally DOES make a difference. That kid was singled out and murdered simply because he was queer, not because he did anything to bring it on.

There are already laws to deal with things like aggravated assault and the like. If you "do something" to bring on getting yourself killed the law already views that differently. Manslaughter vs. murder or self-defence or whatever.

Currently the law distinguishes between pre-meditation and spur-of-the-moment, and factors in explanatory circumstances like "he attacked me first" or "he threatened to kill me" or "he was just REALLY annoying" or whatever.

If you kill someone on a whim who wasn't doing anything wrong, I don't see why it matters if you did it because the guy was gay or said he didn't like your shoes or whatever.

I'm with Margalis on this. It shouldn't matter if someone kills someone because of their race or because of the color of their shoes. It should matter if they woke up that morning deciding to kill someone or if it just "happened".

[voodoolily]

The decision, or forethought, was always already there: that certain people, because of the race or preferences, deserve to die. In a way, all hate crimes are premeditated, regardless of who the actual victim ends up being. If someone goes out with the intention of beating a fag, it doesn't matter that the fag they actually ended up killing was someone they didn't know. It's not incidental, it's purposeful.

[Fargull]

Hmm... so looking at the murder debate, I think every post agrees that the punishment should equate to the same, or am I reading wrong.  Are we saying, murder for murder's sake should only end up with a leathal injection, while a hate murder should end up getting flayed?

Aside from that, I enjoy the debate on the kid with the mohawk, but I don't think the article is deep enough for judgement calls on whether the kid is bucking the symp card or just bucking the system.  With out that level of rebellion though, the world would miss the Bob Marley's, Clash's, and Blacksabbath's.  The arguments that keep pounding the kid for not wearing the white wool of the sheep nation make me chuckle though.

By the way Gong, I liked your post.

[stray]

With out that level of rebellion though, the world would miss the Bob Marley's, Clash's, and Blacksabbath's.  The arguments that keep pounding the kid for not wearing the white wool of the sheep nation make me chuckle though.

Rock on! 

For the rest of you: Shame on you. You got old.