What the hell is wrong with Steubenville, OH?

Weird: Tracy Lords grew up in Steubenville. From what I've learned of her childhood from her book, it sounds like the only difference is that this got national attention. No wonder the citizens of Steubenville are so confused; they really consider this behavior normal.

http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1289435

Hypatian wrote:

So that's two cases of statutory rape that were B.S. but were in fact, under the law, statutory rape? That's not exactly the same thing as false accusations of rape.

That's two cases of rape that he was directly involved with. The rest are the statistics that he is knowledgeable of. /criticalreadingskills.

Jonman wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

What really makes me furious about this is that when two guys rape a girl they get one to two years. When a guy hacks AT&T servers to troll iPad users he gets more than 3 years. Yeah, that's justice.

Was the hacker also a minor? If not, apples and oranges (legally, not morally).

The guy that did it to me when I was 5 got 2 months probation because he was 13 at the time.

nel e nel wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

So that's two cases of statutory rape that were B.S. but were in fact, under the law, statutory rape? That's not exactly the same thing as false accusations of rape.

That's two cases of statutory rape that he was directly involved with. The rest are the statistics that he is knowledgeable of. /criticalreadingskills.

FTFY. This is one rather significant part you left out. The other is that by the law, [em]they were not false cases[/em].

The law may be stupid, and these cases may not have involved sexual assault, but these are not false accusations of rape by any definition. Definitions: First: Statutory rape is legally rape, but I think most of us would consider consensual sexual contact involving a minor to be a different class of problem. One participant is a minor, and not legally considered capable of giving consent. This is why we call it "statutory rape", because it is recognized as such by statute, not by the ordinary definition. Second: These cases were in fact statutory rape as defined by the law. Third: These cases did not involve false accusations.

I also suspect that most of us agree that while there are good reasons to have statutory rape laws on the books, such laws also create some ridiculous problems. "Romeo and Juliet" exceptions, when they exist, handle some of those.

So this muddies the waters significantly--most of us would not consider these to be rape, and most of us would look at the situations and say that the accused were unjustly punished. By claiming these as examples of false accusations of rape, our ideas about the frequency and severity of unjust false rape accusations are called into question.

But those ideas should not be called into question, because these are not actually false accusations of rape. They're valid but unjust accusations of statutory rape, and problematic in their own way. But our feelings about the injustice of these cases and the frequency with which such cases happen should have no bearing on the question of the extreme rarity of false (not valid) accusation of (not statutory) rape, and the major social ills are created because there's a wide-standing and incorrect belief that false accusations of rape happen [em]all the time[/em].

The lengths you go to in order to be right are impressive, even for someone like me.

My God.

Lisa Green, a legal analyst for NBC News, made the following statement on that program tonight regarding the Steubenville verdict:

"But y'know in the end, a cautionary tale for teenagers and their parents: memorializing your every move and then sharing it with people on the web can be a tragic mistake for everyone involved."

Are you kidding me? That's the takeaway?

"Hey kids! Be smart and don't use social media because it can cause you all sorts of problems!"

Again, my God.

*brain ragequits*

Phoenix Rev wrote:

My God.

Lisa Green, a legal analyst for NBC News, made the following statement on that program tonight regarding the Steubenville verdict:

"But y'know in the end, a cautionary tale for teenagers and their parents: memorializing your every move and then sharing it with people on the web can be a tragic mistake for everyone involved."

Are you kidding me? That's the takeaway?

"Hey kids! Be smart and don't use social media because it can cause you all sorts of problems!"

Again, my God.

So the moral isn't "don't rape people", it is "don't get caught raping people".

What. The. f*ck.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be raping slutty Female Doggoes who's asking for it, and I'm not saying you shouldn't take pictures of it. I'm just saying, don't email those pictures. Those are for your personal use, you know, for those nights when you're horny, but there ain't no unconscious Female Doggoes to stick it in. Right click, Attributes, Hidden. I'm pretty sure that's the lesson.

I'm Lisa Green, and I approve this message. Wait, is my name Lisa, or Satan? I get confused sometimes. Also I'm so superlatively stupid that sometimes I get distracted and forget to breathe unt-akjasdfkjhgsdfkawehklasduyhfa

Demosthenes wrote:

*brain ragequits*

Oh, that's nothing. Twitter, if you will...

Prederick wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

*brain ragequits*

Oh, that's nothing. Twitter, if you will...

In spite of most game announcements for a lot of companies being easier to track via twitter than the companies own websites, I have yet to join specifically to avoid having to see the masses' reactions to something like this.

Wow.

If I strangled all these people to death with my bare hands, I would be considered the monster.

Yonder wrote:

If I strangled all these people to death with my bare hands, I would be considered the monster.

Only if you posted it on You Tube or Twitter.

Ego Man wrote:
Yonder wrote:

If I strangled all these people to death with my bare hands, I would be considered the monster.

Only if you posted it on You Tube or Twitter.

Yeah, at the least, think of your victims, because preserving evidence is a "tragic mistake for everyone involved."

Speaking to a similar point in Rollin's editorial, at some point we do have to empathize with the perpetrators in an effort to understand how they were able to treat a human being in such a grotesque manner and not feel guilty about it. These kids do not strike me as psychopaths and if we, as a society, are going to affect real change we need to know why they felt justified enough in their actions to share it with other people openly. I am less disturbed by what they did, I know how brutal human beings can be (we are still animals after all), but the lack of shame is disturbing to me. It reminds me of the cheering crowd in The Acussed.

I get what you're saying Heavy. Understanding the motivation for crime allows us to combat that motivation. I suspect, however, the lack of shame is probably having been treated, for the last couple of years, like they were rockstars due to their ability to handle a football in a town that apparently thinks high school football stars are god-like and infallible.

I think it goes a bit deeper. I think it is how we view children and childhood in general. Children are often given our sympathy and the benefit of the doubt, even when those children commit crimes.

We do not want to admit that "our" children are capable of really violating or hurting someone else and we also do not want to think that terrible things can happen to our children. We assume that everything is okay and this stuff is all just growing pains. It is a head-in-the-sand mentality. I think the sport star explanation is just superficial. There is something bigger at work.

Children, from infancy till they leave the house need constant supervision to make sure they are always making the right decision. We let them "run wild" and shield them from consequences. Yet, at the same time, they are the only class of citizen in our culture you are allowed to assault (martial punishment by adults/playground fighting between kids). It is a crazy, f*cked-up, very adult world children live in and parents tend to let their vigilance slide as the kids get older. Yet, they are faced with all the challenges of adulthood; pregnancy, jobs, drugs, relationships, crime, violence, etc. and we still think they live in insulated and protected environments. They do not and we send them out into the wild everyday to face all that sh*t and laugh when they talk about how hard their lives are, "just wait till you're forty kid and have real responsibilities."

heavyfeul wrote:

We do not want to admit that "our" children are capable of really violating or hurting someone else and we also do not want to think that terrible things can happen to our children. We assume that everything is okay and this stuff is all just growing pains. It is a head-in-the-sand mentality. I think the sport star explanation is just superficial. There is something bigger at work.

Well, here's problem #1: Richmond's father, who believes that his son is innocent and this was all just his son getting caught up in "a love triangle." (Yes, those are his words.)

Phoenix Rev wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

We do not want to admit that "our" children are capable of really violating or hurting someone else and we also do not want to think that terrible things can happen to our children. We assume that everything is okay and this stuff is all just growing pains. It is a head-in-the-sand mentality. I think the sport star explanation is just superficial. There is something bigger at work.

Well, here's problem #1: Richmond's father, who believes that his son is innocent and this was all just his son getting caught up in "a love triangle." (Yes, those are his words.)

[clip]

Year after I left high school, 4 senior girls showed up to a dance wasted. One threw up, followed by the other 3. They stank of alcohol and blew over the limit when the cops showed up. Their parents claimed and screamed and threatened to sue the school and the police force because their daughters had only drank diet coke all night.

Diet Coke. Not even once.

Demosthenes wrote:

In spite of most game announcements for a lot of companies being easier to track via twitter than the companies own websites, I have yet to join specifically to avoid having to see the masses' reactions to something like this.

I'd just like to point out that's not how Twitter works. You're not being bombarded with random people's opinions on your Twitter feed, you either have to be following them, they have to specifically mention you (with an @name in the title) or you have to search our these sorts of comments (generally using the #hashtag you can see on many of the tweets).

Personally I follow mostly video game reviewers and creators that say amusing things. Therefore on my feed I see... the people I follow saying amusing things. And those things that THEY think are amusing and "retweet". All the idiots and racists and bigots and whatnot that exist are off in their own little world and I don't choose to visit them.

bnpederson wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

In spite of most game announcements for a lot of companies being easier to track via twitter than the companies own websites, I have yet to join specifically to avoid having to see the masses' reactions to something like this.

I'd just like to point out that's not how Twitter works. You're not being bombarded with random people's opinions on your Twitter feed, you either have to be following them, they have to specifically mention you (with an @name in the title) or you have to search our these sorts of comments (generally using the #hashtag you can see on many of the tweets).

Personally I follow mostly video game reviewers and creators that say amusing things. Therefore on my feed I see... the people I follow saying amusing things. And those things that THEY think are amusing and "retweet". All the idiots and racists and bigots and whatnot that exist are off in their own little world and I don't choose to visit them.

Yeah, I may use Twitter and still be a bit ambivalent on its overall usefullness, but unless someone I follow is retweeting the trolls, I don't hear from them. (Now, mind you, I do follow a few accounts dedicated to RTing the awful dregs of humanity on Twitter, but that's because it's hilarious/I hate myself.)

I think I just figured out why Steubenville is so caught up on these pictures.

Son: Dad, I raped a girl last night.
Father: son, that was a horrible and despicable act, nothing you will ever do can atone for this. I suppose the only bright side is that you only transgressed against her body, and not her immortal soul.
Son: yeah, well mainly I'm worried about getting caught, there were a lot of pictures taken.
Father: You took pictures of her?! No! Her soul itself has been trapped in your camera! She will know endless torment now, in this life and the next! OOOOOKKK OOOOOHHHHH AAAAAAAHHHH. AAAAAHHHHHHH AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.
Son: Dad, calm down! No, please, not the poop throwing!

Color me NOT surprised.

Apparently, CNN reporter Poppy Harlow is shocked - SHOCKED! - that people are taking issue with her coverage of the Steubenville rapists:

Meanwhile two insiders at CNN exclusively told TheWrap that the controversy had hit reporter Poppy Harlow, covering the events in Steubenville, particularly hard.

“Poppy is taking this extremely personally as a woman,” said one executive. “She’s outraged that someone would think she’d do such a thing” as slant her coverage toward rapists. “It’s gotten so out of control.”

The outrage stemmed from Harlow standing outside the courtroom after the verdicts were read on Sunday, visibly moved by watching the young men collapse at the news of conviction. “I’ve never experienced anything like it,” she said on the air. “It’s incredibly emotional, even for an outsider like me. These two young men, with promising futures, star football players, A students, literally watched as their lives fell apart.”

She's outraged that someone would think she'd do such a thing?

Even though she did do such a thing.

Wouldn't it be nice if she'd take some personal responsibility and flat out say that, yes, in retrospect her words did come from a personal bias and that she was emotionally overcome by the events that unfolded in the courtroom. Why dance around it?

Phoenix Rev wrote:

She's outraged that someone would think she'd do such a thing?

Even though she did do such a thing.

It just goes to show you that you need to be careful about what you videotape yourself doing and air on cable news.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Phoenix Rev wrote:

She's outraged that someone would think she'd do such a thing?

Even though she did do such a thing.

It just goes to show you that you need to be careful about what you videotape yourself doing and air on cable news.

Yeah, these news anchors today need to learn that documenting their every move can really backfire on you.

Phoenix Rev wrote:

Color me NOT surprised.

Apparently, CNN reporter Poppy Harlow is shocked - SHOCKED! - that people are taking issue with her coverage of the Steubenville rapists:

Meanwhile two insiders at CNN exclusively told TheWrap that the controversy had hit reporter Poppy Harlow, covering the events in Steubenville, particularly hard.

“Poppy is taking this extremely personally as a woman,” said one executive. “She’s outraged that someone would think she’d do such a thing” as slant her coverage toward rapists. “It’s gotten so out of control.”

The outrage stemmed from Harlow standing outside the courtroom after the verdicts were read on Sunday, visibly moved by watching the young men collapse at the news of conviction. “I’ve never experienced anything like it,” she said on the air. “It’s incredibly emotional, even for an outsider like me. These two young men, with promising futures, star football players, A students, literally watched as their lives fell apart.”

She's outraged that someone would think she'd do such a thing?

Even though she did do such a thing.

Even though she did it again in her comments about doing it the first time.

Yonder wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
Phoenix Rev wrote:

She's outraged that someone would think she'd do such a thing?

Even though she did do such a thing.

It just goes to show you that you need to be careful about what you videotape yourself doing and air on cable news.

Yeah, these news anchors today need to learn that documenting their every move can really backfire on you.

Oh, snap. I did a double-take before I caught what you did there, and... ouch.