So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

[igotrhythm]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

This may or may not be relevant to the topic, but it's still a powerful read.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/02/abusive_parents_what_do_grown_children_owe_the_mothers_and_fathers_who_made.single.html

(single-page format for your scrolling convenience)

This might be an extreme case, but it does go some way towards examining the long-term aspects of an abusive relationship between parent and child. In particular, it's weird that in the same situation, you would give an abusive parent another chance, but replace the word "parent" with "spouse" and suddenly everyone's yelling at you to run for the hills.

As I've said before, the reason they resorted to this punishment IS due to a lack of trying on their part. Did nobody tell them that you shouldn't air out your dirty laundry? However, from the standpoint of a parent at the end of their rope, this makes perfect sense. It's nonviolent and gets the message across that they find their child's behavior unacceptable. This doesn't justify what they did, but in their situation I imagine I would have done something far worse.

[Mollocephalus]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

It's called an opinion, and everyone's entitled to one. Don't like mine? Sucks, don't read it or ignore it.

This is not CT, but starting your reply with this line only shows that you're a presumptuous and self-referential person, which are both fantastic ways to end up with skewed and irrealistic worldviews. Try to man up a little and actually read what others have said, and think again. If you can.

[eastsideman09]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

If you do something wrong, you deserve to be punished relative to the act you committed.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[adlp]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

I'm sticking to my guns when I say this country needs severe punishments to straighten some people out.

show me your moves

[ssbmchamp]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

This is not CT, but starting your reply with this line only shows that you're a presumptuous and self-referential person, which are both fantastic ways to end up with skewed and irrealistic worldviews. Try to man up a little and actually read what others have said, and think again. If you can.

Well on this site it makes no difference because if your not "mr. popular," people will automatically come after you, which I've found out. Sure it won't help any but like I said even if I didn't say that people would still gang up on my "opinion" because I'm an under dog on this site. I've said it before in the forums but for example: MrPopadopalis and I could make the same exact negative post and everyone would attack me while they say "lmao, etc." to him. That's the shit that pisses me off, but oh well it's all FFR politics at their finest.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Yeah and beating someone up only to get off the hook with detention (no punishment) IS right.

[eastsideman09]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

Yeah and beating someone up only to get off the hook with detention (no punishment) IS right.

Never said it was, especially when you put it like that. Not sure how it is where you went to school, but people got suspended/expelled for that stuff at my school.

I can understand how you would feel about this way about this form of punishment, or whatever you want to call it... But, at least with this example, it's very one sided. It might bring about 'justice' from a certain perspective, but solving violence with violence still leaves you with violence in the end. Let's say the principal takes the paddle to the bully who beat up the kid. What about the principal? Fact of the matter is, he beat up a kid too, regardless of the reason. So should he have to get the same consequences? Why not? Says who? Where does it end? Why should it end there?

[A2P]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

Oh my fucking God.

[ssbmchamp]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

Never said it was, especially when you put it like that. Not sure how it is where you went to school, but people got suspended/expelled for that stuff at my school.

I can understand how you would feel about this way about this form of punishment, or whatever you want to call it... But, at least with this example, it's very one sided. It might bring about 'justice' from a certain perspective, but solving violence with violence still leaves you with violence in the end. Let's say the principal takes the paddle to the bully who beat up the kid. What about the principal? Fact of the matter is, he beat up a kid too, regardless of the reason. So should he have to get the same consequences? Why not? Says who? Where does it end? Why should it end there?

I guess the school I went to wasn't as strict as yours. Anytime fights happened, the instigator, if not both participants, would get detention, which always bugged me because all detention is, is someone being forced to stay after school...so nothing basically. Honestly I could see some kids wanting to get suspended as a form of "vacation" for them so that doesn't seem to be effective either.

You do bring up a really good point as to where does it end, and with that I do somewhat agree with. I guess if I had to dispute that I would just say there would have to be some contract written up in each school that parents are fully aware of that clearly states: "The principle reserves the right to beat anyone they feel is deserving for committing an action that threatened or caused harm to another individual." At least with a contract or something of the sort, it isn't an "unexpected or uncalled for beating" and would bring awareness to the school. Although it's not the same thing, I look at it similarly to how a police officer has the right to shoot and kill anyone who they feel is an immediate threat to them. It's not right to kill, but they can do it if need be and it's something that the public is aware of so it's "accepted" if you will. You follow me?

[eastsideman09]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

I guess the school I went to wasn't as strict as yours. Anytime fights happened, the instigator, if not both participants, would get detention, which always bugged me because all detention is, is someone being forced to stay after school...so nothing basically. Honestly I could see some kids wanting to get suspended as a form of "vacation" for them so that doesn't seem to be effective either.

I was never suspended or anything in school, and I saw it as a 'vacation' type thing as well, but I believe your grades suffer as a result, because I don't think you're allowed to make up what you missed in your time off... I'm not sure though, it's been a while since high school :s

You do bring up a really good point as to where does it end, and with that I do somewhat agree with. I guess if I had to dispute that I would just say there would have to be some contract written up in each school that parents are fully aware of that clearly states: "The principle reserves the right to beat anyone they feel is deserving for committing an action that threatened or caused harm to another individual." At least with a contract or something of the sort, it isn't an "unexpected or uncalled for beating" and would bring awareness to the school. Although it's not the same thing, I look at it similarly to how a police officer has the right to shoot and kill anyone who they feel is an immediate threat to them. It's not right to kill, but they can do it if need be and it's something that the public is aware of so it's "accepted" if you will. You follow me?

I get what you're saying, and even then more questions could arise (especially the part about 'the principal reserves the right...' lol). Rather than discussing what it would take for a new policy to work though, I just wanted to demonstrate the difficulty of implementing a system like that. Those were just questions with respect to something on a smaller scale... Imagine what you would run into if you had to implement this system on a national/universal level, like (I assume) you were suggesting in your first post in the thread.

[Reincarnate]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

Let's say for example a teenager in school beats some kid up for no reason, he should be brought to the principles office and the principle should get out a paddle and hit him repeatedly until until they get the message. Sounds cruel right? Fuck it, how do you think the kid who got his face beat in would feel to know that in today's society all that happened to that kid was he got detention (which is the biggest joke of a punishment).

This is more than just an appeal to "detention." For one thing, if that crap took place at my school, such a bully would get expelled or suspended. That's not something you just take a time-out for. If your school did that, then I'd agree: They went way too light on people and didn't adequately remove the incentives for bullies to attack people.

But it goes deeper than that. What exactly do you value more? Getting even or solving the behavioral problem? If all you care about is "eye for an eye" then sure, paddle away -- but the data would say that this isn't the best way to actually address the core of the issue, and at that point it's no longer "up to opinion" when the same trends are corrected with the same tested measures again and again. The idea that we need to simply push forth really harsh punishments is an old, traditional, outmoded idea that is simply ineffective (and in most cases counterproductive) if your goal is to change behavior for the better.

[Twomorelovely]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

This is more than just an appeal to "detention." For one thing, if that crap took place at my school, such a bully would get expelled or suspended. That's not something you just take a time-out for. If your school did that, then I'd agree: They went way too light on people and didn't adequately remove the incentives for bullies to attack people.

But it goes deeper than that. What exactly do you value more? Getting even or solving the behavioral problem? If all you care about is "eye for an eye" then sure, paddle away -- but the data would say that this isn't the best way to actually address the core of the issue, and at that point it's no longer "up to opinion" when the same trends are corrected with the same tested measures again and again. The idea that we need to simply push forth really harsh punishments is an old, traditional, outmoded idea that is simply ineffective (and in most cases counterproductive) if your goal is to change behavior for the better.

indeed

[ssbmchamp]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

I get what you're saying, and even then more questions could arise (especially the part about 'the principal reserves the right...' lol). Rather than discussing what it would take for a new policy to work though, I just wanted to demonstrate the difficulty of implementing a system like that. Those were just questions with respect to something on a smaller scale... Imagine what you would run into if you had to implement this system on a national/universal level, like (I assume) you were suggesting in your first post in the thread.

I believe somewhere earlier I said there is a 0% chance this would ever be able to happen lol, this is just what I personally thought. There's a ton of things I'd LOVE to see change, but the controversy they would stir up would be enormous haha.

This is more than just an appeal to "detention." For one thing, if that crap took place at my school, such a bully would get expelled or suspended. That's not something you just take a time-out for. If your school did that, then I'd agree: They went way too light on people and didn't adequately remove the incentives for bullies to attack people.

But it goes deeper than that. What exactly do you value more? Getting even or solving the behavioral problem? If all you care about is "eye for an eye" then sure, paddle away -- but the data would say that this isn't the best way to actually address the core of the issue, and at that point it's no longer "up to opinion" when the same trends are corrected with the same tested measures again and again. The idea that we need to simply push forth really harsh punishments is an old, traditional, outmoded idea that is simply ineffective (and in most cases counterproductive) if your goal is to change behavior for the better.

To be honest I strongly support the "eye for an eye" system. Call me crazy or anything else you might feel the need to, but with how things are today, I think it would definitely help. People get off way too easy nowadays with most crimes.

[Reincarnate]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

To bring up another example:

This reminds me (in terms of comparable logic) to the whole welfare drug testing thing they tried to pull in Florida. There was this notion that "Welfare recipients are drug-abusing leeches, so we should drug test them so we ensure our tax dollars are not being abused."

Sounds defensible on paper -- except that drug use is actually lower in welfare recipients than it is the general population. They performed the tests, and surprise!... Only 108 of 4,086 tested positive (2.6%) which is indeed less than the general population's rate (some 8-9%), and most of it was marijuana. At the end of the day, performing all the tests / going through all that hassle / etc cost nearly $50k more than it would have saved had it just paid out welfare as it would have done otherwise (cost to the state was some $120k).

So, what was achieved here? If the goal is to inconvenience welfare recipients and demonize them for the sake of ideology, then, well, mission accomplished. If the goal was to save money, then it failed miserably.

Personally, I'd rather pay for solutions than ideology. Same goes for bullying. I'd rather address the problem and not perpetuate it just to "get even." The "eye for an eye" approach is not the optimal one.

Again, this isn't opinion. It's what the data/studies show. If it was shown that beating the snot out of your kids when they fuck up was the best way to raise happy, healthy, productive, intelligent, respectful adults, I'd have to accept the findings. But that's not what we see.

So when you say "I think it would help," the data would say "it doesn't help, and in fact it hurts quite a bit much of the time." So do you favor reality or ideology?

[ssbmchamp]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

To bring up another example:

This reminds me (in terms of comparable logic) to the whole welfare drug testing thing they tried to pull in Florida. There was this notion that "Welfare recipients are drug-abusing leeches, so we should drug test them so we ensure our tax dollars are not being abused."

Sounds defensible on paper -- except that drug use is actually lower in welfare recipients than it is the general population. They performed the tests, and surprise!... Only 108 of 4,086 tested positive (2.6%) which is indeed less than the general population's rate (some 8-9%), and most of it was marijuana. At the end of the day, performing all the tests / going through all that hassle / etc cost nearly $50k more than it would have saved had it just paid out welfare as it would have done otherwise (cost to the state was some $120k).

So, what was achieved here? If the goal is to inconvenience welfare recipients and demonize them for the sake of ideology, then, well, mission accomplished. If the goal was to save money, then it failed miserably.

Personally, I'd rather pay for solutions than ideology. Same goes for bullying. I'd rather address the problem and not perpetuate it just to "get even." The "eye for an eye" approach is not the optimal one.

Again, this isn't opinion. It's what the data/studies show. If it was shown that beating the snot out of your kids when they fuck up was the best way to raise happy, healthy, productive, intelligent, respectful adults, I'd have to accept the findings. But that's not what we see.

So when you say "I think it would help," the data would say "it doesn't help, and in fact it hurts quite a bit much of the time." So do you favor reality or ideology?

Well since I tend to be an extremest and work hard for everything I have, I tend to not feel sorry for a single person in this country and I think we should get rid of welfare and food stamps altogether and resort to a "survival of the fittest" society. Call me heartless or whatever you want but I'm sick of seeing our country pay for people that got themselves into hard times or just don't "feel like" working. If some trashy people wanna fuck each other and have more kids than they can handle financially, we as tax payers should not have to forward a single penny towards helping them out. That's their problem, and it should be 100% on them to get themselves out of that mess. If they can't, well, they don't deserve to live. You don't have to worry though because nothing I say would actually happen and we will continue to help out people who don't deserve it. I think it should be everyone for themselves and if you want to help someone out by all means go for it.

[Spenner]

Re: So my hometown made it into Yahoo News...

We would be nowhere if it were an everyone for themselves scenario. Sometimes it takes two people to lift something up. I think you are taking for granted the system we have that works on the support of everyone in society working together, providing services for each other and the like. You can't wish a more individual system just because not EVERYONE is the high roller, and that some people are slacking. That's just the diversity we live in.

You're still dodging the fact that statistically there's a better solution than taking an arm from someone who's taken an arm. Repeating the same irrational mentality that fueled it to happen in the first place- while it does give them exactly a taste of their own medicine- does not confront them with the fact that it shouldn't be done. There's more of a lesson to be learned other than to enlighten to the fact that "Hey man, that shit hurts. How does it feel to you?". Something more productive and of positive outcome is available, rather than just childishly responsive.