Short story: 18-year-old girl, pre-med student, went to the Cayman Islands to be with her 24-year-old CI native boyfriend during a jet ski competition. She agrees to self-isolate 14 days when she gets there, per legal requirements. After 2 days, she removes her location monitor and goes to the crowded competition without a mask for more than 7 hours. She and her boyfriend are caught and arrested. First they are given 40 hours of community service and a large fine, but the prosecutor is not satisfied with this slap on the wrist, so he asks for prison time, and they are then given 4 months, later reduced to 2 months, of which they will probably serve about 36 days total.
Here is what the dad said:
“I don’t know why someone is taking it so personal or [has] such a vendetta toward my daughter or toward an American 18-year-old girl who was there on a vacation and who made a mistake,” her father, Dennis Mack, who is a professional Jet Skier, told CBS 46 News. “It’s absolutely heart-wrenching that you take someone so special. … The rest of her life is getting torn away from her.”
Meanwhile Grandma is on TV saying the girl is “hysterical” and just wants to come home.
This is the way this looks to me: this girl led a privileged life, and displayed complete disdain and disregard for the health of the people who live in that country. She should sit it out, and the family should shut up. If she has suffered anything, it is clearly a lack of discipline, either from her parents, or instilled in her by them. Actually, I would be happy if she was allowed to come home as long as her parents and grandma took her place. There’s just no excuse for any of this.
And the thread title is because Dad’s reaction reminds me of the father of the college guy who raped an unconscious girl and was sentenced to OMG 6 months. It all seems of a piece and a pattern, how their children are so precious and special no matter how much they might hurt other people.
When you go somewhere, you have to follow their laws, like it or not. My niece went to Indonesia 2 years ago as an exchange student, and they all had to attend an orientation before going, one session of which was basically “don’t act stupid in a foreign country.”
I searched and couldn’t find it. Anyway, yes she acted like a mask-hole, but this thread is mainly about the parents, and others of that ilk.
I have to wonder: were they raised that way (no discipline, no responsibility) themselves? If Grandma is any indication, apparently they were. When does the pendulum swing back from
“my precious baby can do no wrong” to “sorry, kid, you knew the rules, now you have to pay the penalty?”
Almost all the college students I’ve taught have had American parents.
And I’m tempted to say American parents are passive, lazy enablers. But come to think of it, I only have to deal with the ones who raised entitled kids …
(like the mom who threatened legal action unless we’d raise poor little Brandon’s grade from a D to a C-…)
I agree that he’s probably an enabler, but on the other hand, 4 months in a jail for violating a quarantine is excessive - and I say that as someone who advocates a hard line against people violating quarantines.
A few nights, even a week or two in a country club clink? Fine, I get that. But four months? Excessive. She’s barely an adult.
It’s not only that he (and probably the rest of the adults in the family) are enablers, but look at the words he uses in his protest: “made a mistake” and “heart-wrenching” and “someone so special” and “The rest of her life is getting torn away from her.” Daddy’s little girl can do no wrong.
I would call what she did more than violating a quarantine. She agreed to the terms when she came into the country, she deviously asked for a wristband that didn’t fit so tight (“ooh, it hurts!”) which she was later able to slip off her hand and leave it behind so she could go and party, in complete and utter disdain for anyone she was putting in danger. Yes, she’s young, but she’s old enough to understand what she was doing. Her decision-making faculties are probably immature, something else that the parents (or at least daddy and grandma) probably contributed to.
Anyway, it’s not in my link but their sentence has been reduced to 2 months, of which they will probably serve 36 days total. That sounds about right to me.
Looking back on my heavy-duty parenting years (my son is now 22) I tend to think I was a bit over-involved and may have veered uncomfortably close to treating him like a special snowflake at times - exhibit A would be my near-hysteria over ensuring he got into a selective college, which in retrospect seems quite overwrought.
But I am quite certain I was never anything like the parent described in the OP. What is the matter with these people? They are not doing their offspring any favors. If you truly love your child you should be teaching them personal responsibility and how to cope gracefully with adversity. This father is doing neither.
I named the wrong thread. It was in the COVID-19 breaking news thread. And the only discussion was linking the story and then the post I replied to, so I won’t link it. I’ll just quote my post (which came a bit later than the others because I’m slow to catch up with faster moving threads).
Click the link to read more of my post or see the (very short) post I was replying to–if you’re even remotely interested.
Glad you made a separate thread so we could discuss it more.
Especially with the added part about how she manipulated the tag so she could get it off, I actually think it’s too short. Sure, I didn’t expect she’d spend the full four months in jail, but a quarter of that seems too short for such willful actions.
36 days in jail seems excessive if she didnt actually infect anyone. Hell, here in America you have people doing the same thing and not even being charged, let alone being given a month+ in jail.
Dont get me wromng, I agree she’s an over-entitled, selfish jerk who certainly deserves punishment. But if she’s not covid-positive and difnt infect anyone, a month in a foreign prison is excessive.
And the fact they wouldn’t be convicted in the US is the problem. It’s not remotely the way things should be. We treat far lesser offenses, like innocuous drug use, as reasons to pull out a three strikes law.
I’m also not on board with the idea that not hurting anyone should matter in this case, because that’s entirely coincidence. Her actions would be the same whether she killed someone or not, and it is her actions (conspiring to violate quarantine because she doesn’t care about other people) that is the problem.
It is infuriating to me how many people guilty of negligent homicide we have walking on the streets. That’s what not wearing a mask is. I allow the mitigating factor that our President joined an fake news campaign to convince these people, so some are just ignorant and not malicious. But, in aggregate, they’re still killing people, even if one individual doesn’t.
The same here. Quarantine has a real meaning, and only happens when things are really serious. So the consequences for willfully violating it should be serious.
I make the analogy to drunk driving, which we all tend to be willing to throw the book at people for, even if they don’t wind up killing anyone. But at least drunk driving usually isn’t premeditated.
She deliberately with planning and foresight broke the laws of a foreign country. TS rules apply since she ain’t in Kansas any more.
As other posters have pointed out. What she did was akin to driving drunk AFTER the bartender took away her keys, she blew way over the line on a BAC meter and “stole” her keys back from the bartender.
No wonder the US has 325k dead and 18 million confirmed cases.
[quote=“digs, post:13, topic:928772”]
Does anyone else keep seeing the thread title and singing “American parents, stay away from meeee…”[/quote]Guess who prolly saw what you did there
I thought that sentence was excessive too, but I suspect the fact that she removed her tracker played a big factor. Yep, it was justified, if the jurisdiction felt it was.
It’s not valid just b/c the defendant is a rich white girl from America and the jurisdiction says it’s a valid punishment. Four months for a single act of simply being human is insane, and it’s also the sort of thing that, if applied to people generally, is likely to get people to say “Fuck you” to future lock-downs. What’s the agenda? Nobody should be thrown in jail for four months for violating a goddamn quarantine and my posting history makes it clear I am very pro-quarantine, pro-public health, and the first to give the finger to anti-vaxxers and mask-holes.
The sentence is crazy. The defendant is the victim here.
