Last year my Hotmail account got hacked and I had to make a new one. I have exactly two people in my list now, one who rarely comes on if ever. Funny thing is that it doesn't feel any different from before. It was that dead.
Huh? You care about her, you genuinely want to spend time with her...and you are jealous. They aren't mutually exclusive. And before you start feeling like you are the worst person in existence, let me tell you that this is just fine as long as you don't cross the line. Treat her relationship seriously by not making moves all of a sudden. When push comes to shove, you were too late and that's that. The only thing you can and should do at this point is being the person she's used to and feels comfortable with. That includes spending time with her, but not outrageously more than before. All the while you can secretly hope that their relationship falls apart at some point. Scrap that last part. Wait until it's really over, period. Duking it out over a girl may have been the standard in the Dark Ages, but it's at least as inappropriate as trying to pick her up after a rebound. And no, she won't care who punched first. You'd both be pricks in her eyes.
Rise Against --- Bricks
Yes, I admit that my first post where I said that alcohol isn't part of the problem was very wrong. It certainly played a part. It most certainly isn't, but I'd let them free to make stupid decisions. They will face the natural consequences of that decision and will have to take responsibility for that, after which they can decide whether it was worth it. As a father I would dissuade it with a passion, but I'm savvy enough to know that outright forbidding something to sixteen year olds can have the opposite effect of what you're going for. I still stand by the idea that she should only take responsibility for the natural consequences, but I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this one. Replace rape with any other criminal offense, even stealing her wallet, and the analogy would still stand. The situations are different, but not fundamentally so. I could bypass the technical issues like waking up by coming up with a more outrageous hypothetical situation in which the girl falls unconscious due to her own stupid fault, but that would hardly be elegant and I thought this would be enough to get my point across. I acknowledge that, and realize that discussing this further would eventually lead us far away from the actual topic. I'll leave it at this.
This cunt of a board messes up my quotes and won't let me edit my post properly. Fuck it then. It ought to be clear.
Did you really fail every comprehensive reading test in grade school ever? Not once have I even implied that their actions are justifiable. I only present another probable cause for those actions than the one you so blindly blame. I honestly can't think of a person who would rather talk to a wallflower than to someone who actually bothers to get to know people. "I"m sure they...", I'm sorry, were you there? If we're gonna make assumptions here, I might as well join in. I'm going to assume that you are not a regular or even a casual user of alcohol. In fact, I suspect you've never been drunk in your life. That is commendable, but that does mean that you don't know what the hell you're talking about when discussing drinking experience. For further reflections on mistakes due to lack of experience, see below. Actually... This is the exact sentence in which I acknowledge that no, not everyone responds to alcohol like I do. Seriously, do you just read what you want to read? Also, there was no sarcasm in that part of my post. For someone dead set on using sarcasm, you know awfully little about it. If my analogy is unsatisfactory or invalid as an argument, you might as well give reasons why rather than "pushing it to the side", otherwise I will treat it as valid until schooled otherwise. That's only natural. I was afraid you might give me the "Opinions can be different" argument. Ten to one that this never gets resolved then. I like giving people some credit and leave some space for people to err. They aren't machines after all, nor are they perfect, especially without prior experience. It just so happens that some of those innocent mistakes come with grave consequences. I'd write more about why your opinion comes off as spiteful and bitter and mine as holy enough to make a halo appear above my head, but I don't have the time. I have to go to help out at a bar and get people drunk, funnily enough. I didn't say distasteful or offensive, I said "not funny". Until further notice, they aren't the same.
I'm going to address both of these quotes here because my reply to them would have been very similar anyhow. The latter is a bold generalisation that makes no sense. I started drinking when I was 16. My cousin started when he was 14. Our friends started at similar ages (that's about 20 more people, give or take a few). Think we ever molested a girl? No, because we respect women. We've never been so far gone that our moral compass just vanished into thin air. When I said that alcohol isn't the problem, then I meant that alcohol alone could never have caused this. I suspect that the actual cause is a deeper lying sense of superiority, a twisted mindset or at the very least a lack of respect. I take back that it wasn't "part of" the problem. That little sentence fragment should really not have been there. You are right that this wouldn't have happened if they weren't as drunk as they were. So of course it is part of the problem, but it is not the main issue, and it shouldn't be zoomed in on at the expense of the problem's core. I'm sick and tired of booze being demonized more than it should be. Rather than saying "This wouldn't have happened if they stayed home/sober" it would be better to say "This wouldn't have happened if they respected women in the first place."... Hedonism is the culprit; alcohol was the weapon. All of this being said, "staying at home" is still a ridiculous suggestion. Word of advice: do not use sarcasm when you're twisting someone else's words. When they see through it (like me), then you fall flat on your face twice over (like you). Yes, the girl had every intention of getting drunk, but no one deliberately passes out. It is a side effect of not knowing your limits, probably because they are minors or at least not experienced drinkers. By the time I was 19, I knew which cues told me I had enough whenever I was out getting drunk. I too had crossed the line before, but this was hardly ever more troublesome than giving an occasional tactless sneer and being overly stubborn in drunk debates on whether tomatoes are fruits or vegetables. Indeed, the behavioral effects of crossing that proverbial line vary greatly. This has further led me to believe that alcohol cannot be blamed for all the wrongs you do when you are drunk, driving my previous point home. This is where the sleeping subway girl analogy comes in, which you conveniently ignored. I'll spell it out for you because I'm such a nice person. When you see a girl fast asleep on the subway, she isn't awake to say no either. It is very plausible to assume that this is her own fault due to not going to bed on time or whatever. When you'd cop a feel on such a girl, you're a sick perv. Do the same thing to a drunk girl, and she gets part of the blame. That is hypocritical. This is related to what I said above. There is a world of difference between making a bad decision and being at fault. If I find it funny to flip off Hell's Angels passing by and they wreck my car and face for it, then I have done something incredibly stupid, but I was not at fault for the resulting violence. I'm sure that kids half your age get this, so I wonder why I even have to explain. When I quote a post, I might as well address everything I disagree with. Whether it was meant to be serious or not is often lost to me because I've read some pretty stupid things in my life and your joke simply wasn't funny. If you can't take any headwind against your opinion, then maybe you should indeed refrain from giving it.
Staying home instead of going out will keep you safe from a lot of things. It also makes you not worth talking to, because what interesting news could you possibly have to tell if you're not leaving the house? Outgoung behavior and alcohol aren't part of the problem here. Here's the thing... The key factor isn't the presence of alcohol, but rather the lack of consent. A yes is a yes whether you're drunk or sober; you still made a conscious decision even if it is under the influence of behavior-altering substances (that you chose to down). Passing out (and thus keeping you from saying yes or no) is an accident: it is no longer part of the desired effect of alcohol. Yes, you chose to drink and yes, it's your fault that you don't know your limits. You should face every natural consequence that that comes with (passing out, blacking out, nausea, hangover) but anything that someone else does is beyond your control and therefore not your fault. You wouldn't molest a girl that's fallen asleep in the subway, even if her being tired is her own fault. I don't see why this should be any different when alcohol is involved. Wrong on so many levels that I don't even know i can count 'em all. Drinking a jock thing? Seriously? You have no idea...
Yeah, we have a case like that in Belgium too. His trial is currently ongoing as a matter of fact. Just yesterday he smiled widely and waved at the cameras. He disrespects everyone, from the families, jury, judge to even his own lawyer. Oh, and the thing he's being put on trial for is murdering and wounding toddlers in a creche. And one of the caretakers of that creche. And a random old woman. All planned out meticulously. I really don't see the benefit of lifetime imprisonment in cases like this where his guilt has been proven.
This is the snippet that made me say that. Of course, much has happened since then, so I hope you're right.
This would either mean executing this penalty for relatively mild transgressions (single first degree murder included) or having such a small dataset that it becomes statistically irrelevant. There's that, and the fact that your test subjects aren't part of a random sample (I predict a relative deficit of female subjects, for example). Then there is the matter of the criminal's family, who I imagine can sometimes barely stomach an execution, let alone agonizing experiments. This is hardly a viable option, much less a betterment to humanity. I think scrapping an option altogether because it sounds icky is stupid in general, and it's no different here. I wouldn't use the death penalty lightly but extreme cases such as mass murder, serial murder, genocide, serial rape and some forms of terrorism should be punishable by death in my opinion. I don't see this as a method of vengeance, but rather as the only surefire way to remove a person from society. Belgium has got a serial child rapist/killer that not only escaped in the 90s after his first period of imprisonment (after which he continued doing what he did before he was caught again), but he goes as far as to provoke the victims' parents from within prison. I don't care what Gandhi says; nothing good comes or has come from keeping this man alive.
I bet they're more sorry about throwing their careers out the window than they are about actually abusing the girl. I feel sorry for her, and the lack of attention she gets compared to the pricks that did this to her.
