What the hell is wrong with Steubenville, OH?

Hypatian wrote:

Semi-relevant. Ouch.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor...

It's a nice thought, but it's not particularly accurate. Some things it's overestimating, others it's underestimating.

Two were just found guilty of rape. One will have to spend a minimum of one year in juvie lock up and the other has to spend two (because he distributed the pictures). Three others got immunity for testifying.

OG_slinger wrote:

Two were just found guilty of rape. One will have to spend a minimum of one year in juvie lock up and the other has to spend two (because he distributed the pictures). Three others got immunity for testifying.

Good. I hope they get raped in prison so they can understand what they put that girl through. Unfortunately footage of their torture won't appear on YouTube.

Nevin73 wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

Two were just found guilty of rape. One will have to spend a minimum of one year in juvie lock up and the other has to spend two (because he distributed the pictures). Three others got immunity for testifying.

Good. I hope they get raped in prison so they can understand what they put that girl through. Unfortunately footage of their torture won't appear on YouTube.

I would like to see the boys (and all involved) take the time to truly consider the wrong they have done, perform proper sh'uvah, and do all they should to make things right.

Nevin73 wrote:

Good. I hope they get raped in prison so they can understand what they put that girl through. Unfortunately footage of their torture won't appear on YouTube.

...

Moving on...

The fact that the unconscious and conscious goal of our penal system is to invoke terrible punishments on those confined within and not simply remove them from society until they can be rehabilitated is a pretty enormous problem with far reaching consequences.

I mean... Rapes for everybody! Well, ok, just for the people that deserve to be raped. Some people, you just know they need to be raped to really understand the lesson that I think they should be learning about their behavior.

I've never really understood that part of your culture. My efforts at advancing a rehabilitative solution are often seen as soft, naive, horrific, or moralistic. I'm just concerned with costing, honestly. Maintaining a living hell gets really pricey.

Yonder wrote:

The fact that the unconscious and conscious goal of our penal system is to invoke terrible punishments on those confined within and not simply remove them from society until they can be rehabilitated is a pretty enormous problem with far reaching consequences.

I'm conflicted on this because, while I don't personally wish that they get raped in jail, I also can't help feeling that a one year sentence in juvenile prison is woefully inadequate justice for an all night gang rape. I also can't help feel that the justice system horribly failed the victim by granting immunity to most of her rapists. Those little sociopaths are literally getting away scot-free.

I can only hope that the victim sues the sh*t out of all her assailants in civil court. She's going to need lots of time, care, and help to rebuild her life and the least those monsters and their families could do is pay for it.

I feel no remorse for my statement. A little digging into what evidence was presented in the trials shows two young men who have no empathy for the victim, and were only worried about how getting found out would impact their lives (and football careers). Even the statements they read at the verdict didn't seem truly honest. Maybe being victims themselves would teach them empathy. Hell, as juevies, this conviction won't even have to appear on job applications. Do they have to register as sex offenders? I doubt it.

I just asked my rabbi the following question:

If one of these boys were in your congregation and you were advising him on the proper sh'uvah to perform, what would your advice be?

She responded with the following.

What a super question. traditionally, tshuvah (repentance, for the non Jews on this post, among which I do not really count Paleocon, and which is correctly related to the root shuvah, as he mentioned, which means return.) requires specifically the following steps: acknowledgment to God that one has done wrong; acknowledgement to the wronged that one has wronged them; restitution - this is a tough one. The final step required is that in the same circumstance, one does not recommit the same offense.
So, if I had to advise these boys, I would require them to first take part in one of the feminist based programs that talk about male privilege and the culture of violence, followed by therapy with some specific models (like that my spouse used to do). The point of this is to get them to understand their actions and motivations. what's inside their head is between them and God of course, but understanding the enormity of their actions might help them to acknowledge to themselves at least, what they've done. Second the boys would, individually, have to go to the victim, look her in the face, and express genuine remorse and ask the woman what, if anything, they can do to ameliorate what they had done to her. In addition to that, they should be obliged to work on programs that work to teach men and boys to take responsibility for themselves and their actions and work to end sex privilege (e.g. Good men project). If all goes well, they'll never do it again, and hopefully, that will show true repentance.

There is a pretty good reason why I tend to tolerate practice based religions more than faiths.

Side question: why do you have a rabbi?

What the hell is wrong with CNN?

Jesus. There needs to be a version of Poe's law for the media, they basically turned into this Onion clip.

Nevin73 wrote:

Hell, as juevies, this conviction won't even have to appear on job applications. Do they have to register as sex offenders? I doubt it.

From what I heard on CNN, they do have to register as Sex Offenders. That is going to be the real punishment.

Vector wrote:

Side question: why do you have a rabbi?

Old friend who woke spiritually a few years after college.

Robear wrote:
Vector wrote:

Side question: why do you have a rabbi?

Old friend who woke spiritually a few years after college.

The rabbi right, not Paleocon? Because the idea of Paleo being a Jewish Chinese-American married to a Christian Korean-American makes all other lives seem uninteresting.

Vector wrote:
Robear wrote:
Vector wrote:

Side question: why do you have a rabbi?

Old friend who woke spiritually a few years after college.

The rabbi right, not Paleocon? Because the idea of Paleo being a Jewish Chinese-American married to a Christian Korean-American makes all other lives seem uninteresting.

The real questoin is "why don't you?"

Vector wrote:
Robear wrote:
Vector wrote:

Side question: why do you have a rabbi?

Old friend who woke spiritually a few years after college.

The rabbi right, not Paleocon? Because the idea of Paleo being a Jewish Chinese-American married to a Christian Korean-American makes all other lives seem uninteresting.

I came to the conclusions that Paleocon makes all other lives seem uninteresting a long time ago.

The rabbi right, not Paleocon? Because the idea of Paleo being a Jewish Chinese-American married to a Christian Korean-American makes all other lives seem uninteresting.

I'm only his answering service when he's likely to be offline.

Nevin73 wrote:

I feel no remorse for my statement. A little digging into what evidence was presented in the trials shows two young men who have no empathy for the victim, and were only worried about how getting found out would impact their lives (and football careers). Even the statements they read at the verdict didn't seem truly honest. Maybe being victims themselves would teach them empathy. Hell, as juevies, this conviction won't even have to appear on job applications. Do they have to register as sex offenders? I doubt it.

Taking twisted individuals and twisting them even more doesn't sound like a path to sincere reform to me. It does jive with what I know about our penal system, though. Garbage in, garbage out.

Yonder wrote:
Vector wrote:
Robear wrote:
Vector wrote:

Side question: why do you have a rabbi?

Old friend who woke spiritually a few years after college.

The rabbi right, not Paleocon? Because the idea of Paleo being a Jewish Chinese-American married to a Christian Korean-American makes all other lives seem uninteresting.

I came to the conclusions that Paleocon makes all other lives seem uninteresting a long time ago.

Do I need to start doing Dos Equis commercials?

Stay shivgee, my friend.

It's not shocking, but still quite sad to see the level of pity bestowed by CNN on the rapists.

Tanglebones wrote:

Stay shivgee, my friend.

It's not shocking, but still quite sad to see the level of pity bestowed by CNN on the rapists.

I have no idea what it is about our species/culture that deifies athletes so much. If those two had been in their high school theater club that segment would have had a very different feel.

I tried to find that clip on CNN.com to see if I could find some sort of updated response from them. I couldn't find that clip, but I did find a clip of Piers Morgan doing the same thing.

Piers Morgan wrote:

Young kids do behave badly, I'm not going to keep saying the same thing, but they do behave in a ridiculous manner when they are intoxicated. They all seem to be deeply regretful about what happened. The taking of pictures and everything is a modern day curse, if you like, it's what they all do, with everything. Do you have any sympathy at all with these two young boys?

Yonder wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Stay shivgee, my friend.

It's not shocking, but still quite sad to see the level of pity bestowed by CNN on the rapists.

I have no idea what it is about our species/culture that deifies athletes so much. If those two had been in their high school theater club that segment would have had a very different feel.

Very true and very much part of the problem.

It isn't so much, to me, the pity on the rapists part that troubles me most (though it does) as much as it is the complete lack of attention being paid on the plain and simple fact that the system and the community in which they live failed those young men so spectacularly that this behavior was a natural outgrowth of it.

The whole "win at all costs" and "it is good to be a winner" mentality is precisely what leads to immature folks like this honestly believing they live in a world of impunity and entitlement.

Certainly these boys acted like monsters and should be punished for it, but, by most external indications, they were manufactured monsters.

Paleocon wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Stay shivgee, my friend.

It's not shocking, but still quite sad to see the level of pity bestowed by CNN on the rapists.

I have no idea what it is about our species/culture that deifies athletes so much. If those two had been in their high school theater club that segment would have had a very different feel.

Very true and very much part of the problem.

It isn't so much, to me, the pity on the rapists part that troubles me most (though it does) as much as it is the complete lack of attention being paid on the plain and simple fact that the system and the community in which they live failed those young men so spectacularly that this behavior was a natural outgrowth of it.

The whole "win at all costs" and "it is good to be a winner" mentality is precisely what leads to immature folks like this honestly believing they live in a world of impunity and entitlement.

Certainly these boys acted like monsters and should be punished for it, but, by most external indications, they were manufactured monsters.

That and where the hell is the sympathy for the *actual* victim?

Dr.Ghastly wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Stay shivgee, my friend.

It's not shocking, but still quite sad to see the level of pity bestowed by CNN on the rapists.

I have no idea what it is about our species/culture that deifies athletes so much. If those two had been in their high school theater club that segment would have had a very different feel.

Very true and very much part of the problem.

It isn't so much, to me, the pity on the rapists part that troubles me most (though it does) as much as it is the complete lack of attention being paid on the plain and simple fact that the system and the community in which they live failed those young men so spectacularly that this behavior was a natural outgrowth of it.

The whole "win at all costs" and "it is good to be a winner" mentality is precisely what leads to immature folks like this honestly believing they live in a world of impunity and entitlement.

Certainly these boys acted like monsters and should be punished for it, but, by most external indications, they were manufactured monsters.

That and where the hell is the sympathy for the *actual* victim?

Precisely.

All I know is that people seem to forget about justice in their desire for vengeance.

Hmm, it occurs to me that on CNN's part there is probably something else going on that has a much bigger impact than sports culture. This is an extreme example of CNN's (and modern journalism in general) to tell two sides of the story without judging either party.

Who is more at fault, the high school girl who got drunk and was publicly raped? Or the star-athletes that allegedly did the raping on this footage we are going to show you?

We report, you decide!

In my opinion there is no reasonable justification to treat a person as if they have no basic level of human dignity. It was wrong when it happened to the victim, and it would be just as wrong if it happened to the perpetrators.

Paleocon wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Stay shivgee, my friend.

It's not shocking, but still quite sad to see the level of pity bestowed by CNN on the rapists.

I have no idea what it is about our species/culture that deifies athletes so much. If those two had been in their high school theater club that segment would have had a very different feel.

Very true and very much part of the problem.

It isn't so much, to me, the pity on the rapists part that troubles me most (though it does) as much as it is the complete lack of attention being paid on the plain and simple fact that the system and the community in which they live failed those young men so spectacularly that this behavior was a natural outgrowth of it.

The whole "win at all costs" and "it is good to be a winner" mentality is precisely what leads to immature folks like this honestly believing they live in a world of impunity and entitlement.

Certainly these boys acted like monsters and should be punished for it, but, by most external indications, they were manufactured monsters.

Maybe if these kids had come from dire poverty or had been repeatedly sexually abused themselves I could buy into the whole "manufactured monsters" argument. But unless I missed it appears both boys came from solid middle class homes and of course lived a privileged existence as football stars. We talk a lot about privilege on this forums, and these boys had it in spades. That's why I would have much preferred to see them tried as adults and spend the next 20+ years in prison. Check that - I'd prefer to see them face justice Stannis Baratheon style. Snip snip.