As an aside, why is it that we never hear about someone going in and shooting up a convalescent home? (Not that I look forward to it.) I suppose that it is this simple fact that outrages me the most about all of this. Too often, it is our children that are suffering at the hands of these madmen. Old folks are just as defenseless as little kids, but these maniacs continue to slaughter our future. The repercussions of a child’s death resonate so far beyond the boundaries of any single crime.
I realize that on some occassions the perpetrators are children themselves but this recent machete attack, at an effing kindergarten no less, is really too much!
I am also obliged to point out that Duck Duck Goose’s argument about machetes is supercilious. There is absolutely no comparison between a single man armed with a single blade and some imbecile plotting to carry nail studded bombs and sawed-off high power weapons into a school cafeteria during its peak occupancy.
A final point is that whether or not deGuzman was serious in his attempt to murder so many young people in their prime, there is the simple and vital consideration that he, by all appearances, was totally immersed in a complex and highly effective plot to do so. Any sincerity of intent or lack thereof is almost wholly beside the point.
The marshalling of so much illegitimate destructive force towards such nefarious ends is reason enough to exclude such a person from regular society. So what if his button wasn’t pushed all the way this time? Shall we wait around for him to finally realize his dreams and then wail while we mop up the blood of a hundred children?
The profound disregard for human life exhibited by this defendant’s alleged activities (if only in the accumulation of illicit weaponry), should be sufficient to deem him a permanent threat to society. Do we need another hundred headstones as proof?
Your emotionalism doesn’t excuse this sort of unwarranted attack, Snooooopy. I neither said nor implied anything of the kind. I simply want any defendent to have a chance at a fair trial. Would/will I be “satisified” with the outcome of the trial? I dunno. The system isn’t perfect. I believe that OJ Simpson is an icy, amoral killer who beat the system and walked away a free man. Am I “satisfied” with that verdict? No–but I accept it. No matter whether I “like” the outcome, he was given the trial our system ensures as his right and that was the verdict.
I doubt many people in prison say, “yep, I did it; guilty as day-old sin so gotta serve my time.” If they maintain their innnocence there are appeals processes, etc. And just for the record, a reasoned appeal for restraint and fairness isn’t “railing”.
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Are you seriously drawing a parallel between pre-trial hype and brouhaha and factually reporting a verdict that is filed and on record? The media overall does not have a lovely track record for investigating this type of incident with much impartiality or balance. I’m thinking here of 1.) the witchhunt for “Islamic terrorists” right after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in OK. There was widespread speculation–barely covered with “alleged”, “possible”, etc. disclaimers–that proved to be completely false. The evil was purely homegrown but that was not the focus in the early days after the bombing. 2.) Richard Jewell, the hapless man pilloried, flayed and held up for public hatred as the Atlanta Olympics bomber. He and his family came in for the full dose of “righteous” public outragage. Law enforcement led the witchhunt but the media trailed after like baying dogs. It was such a lovely soundbyte: the supposed hero unmasked as the warped, sicko bomber. It all looked so obvious, so patently obvious. Trouble is, he was completely innocent, just a decent man whose honorable actions were used against him in the “court” of public opinion.
There were financial settlements to Jewell and his family, but I doubt any amount of money can make up for the bitterness and disillusionment. No amount of money can buy back belief in the basic decency and fairness of other people; neighbors, co-workers and general citizens.
The media does not exist to inform. It exists to make money. Some manage to do both better than others. There is ample room for skepticism applied to popular reportage but equating that to disbelief over a verifiable court verdict is ludicrous–and unworthy.
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Again, you’re warping the discussion to serve your own ends, projecting unwarranted assumptions and passing a few judgments in the process. Your choice. Please take this as I intend it, with absolutely NO desire to be hostile or provocative, but it doesn’t reflect on me and it doesn’t have much effect, either.
Look, I do understand the horror, sickness and outrage Zenster’s expressing. The insanity has struck very close to home indeed asthis may show. (Not the best link; sorry, my computer is hiccuping again.) My reaction to the hate and the violence, at Columbine and schools and elsewhere, bounces between fury, disbelief, outrage and hits fury again a few times along the way. I can’t even look at photographs of McVeigh, the Columbine killers, etc. without wanting to grab them by the throat. They, and other hatemongers, outrage my whole definition of humanity, i.e. some acts are so blatantly evil and conscienceless they shake my concept of what it means to be considered human. It’s supremely unsettling to look at a human face and wonder, geuninely wonder, if what’s living behind that face and looking out through its eyes is still essentially human–whatever that might be. It’s the queasiest, ground-shifting feeling that boils down to “how could they do that?” What’s mental illness and what’s just crime? It’s mind-bogglingly complicated to grasp even when facts are known.
I’m in no way negating or minimizing Zenster’s outrage; been there too many times myself. The ONLY thing I’m questioning is his timing. The label is too horrific, in some ways the worst possible, to apply prematurely. Not just for what it says about the accused but what it says about the way fallible, furious, confused ordinary people handle affronts against humanity. Is Guzman guilty of the intent to slaughter? Could well be; I dunno. I’m mostly grateful to that girl working at Long’s who acted on a reasonable possiblity in the interest of saving lives. The details, privacy issues, etc. are already being hashed over even herethe Guzman photos would you rat?.
It’ll settle out, all of it, given some time, sense and restraint. I may be wrong–won’t be first time, or the last–but strong passions need equally strong self-restraint sometimes. Forget revenge; justice is a dish best eaten very cold indeed.
Thanks for seeing things from my perspective Veb. However virulent my original reaction was to deGuzman’s alleged actions were, it was driven by an identical set of emotions that you have felt as well.
I will say that the concentration of evidence and effort, all within the purveiw of one invidual (deGuzman) is one of the things that has made me quick to judge him. This is not like other conspiracies you cite above. We are talking about the concerted actions of a single person where there is much less chance for distribution or mitigation of blame and culpability.
I’m sorry to see that tragedy has left its mark on your life as well. The incident you linked to was sad indeed.
You want to talk to me about definitions? Great. For the record, my relatively restrained remarks that don’t happen to agree with your point of view do not constitute an “attack.” Geez.
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Well, you’re not going to go look it up yourself, are you? You’re going to go down to the courthouse, are you? You are, in some fashion, going to depend on the media that you simultaneously have little faith in. If everyone in the media got together and decided to lie about something, how would you know? You might not find out for months, years, or ever.
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Good point. Did any innocent Muslims get thrown in jail over this, by the way? Spend years in jail until some crusading journalist sprung him? I think your case is going to be stronger if you can produce more serious damage than a few hurt feelings.
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You’ve pointed out two hideous examples, no question about that. Maybe I can point out a couple of examples about how young children have been run over by drunk drivers – does that mean I should swear off alcohol and/or automobiles? Journalism can be used for evil, alcohol can be used for evil, automobiles can be used for evil.
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All I can say is, as a journalist, every now and then I do throw in a few facts in between my relentess and cold-blooded attempts to destroy anyone in my path. It’s the least I could do.
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As you’ve probably noticed, Zenster can wax a little melodramatic. You should see the virulence he reserves for people who make salsa with canned tomato paste! However intense his OP might have been, he nonetheless has not been sufficiently bothered to get a gun, head down to the jail and blow the guy away. Not that I know of.
I’m not sure how anybody can believe it’s ok to lock someone up for life for possession, and possession with intent. It really doesn’t matter what he was planning on doing, since he didn’t do it yet, you can’t punish him for it. So if he can’t plead Dim Cap, he’ll get five or fifteen years, and that will be enough, becausse that will be legally appropriate.
Veb, your citing of the Richard Jewell case is not entirely pertinent or relevant to the deGuzman arrest that is being discussed here. However badly Richard Jewell was manhandled by the press and law enforcement authorities, there is no comparison to the circumstances surrounding the apprehension of deGuzman.
One of the sole “incriminating” features of the Jewell case was the statement by an acquaintance of Jewell’s that he owned a backpack similar to the one used in the bombing of the Olympic games. That’s it, no bomb making materials were ever found in his possession, no self portraits of him in possession of the bomb, no cache of illegally modified weapons, no detailed plans specifically laying out the time, location and method of the assault, no taped confession to his relatives apologizing for what he was about to do and no attempt to escape apprehension by the police when confronted.
That Jewell was lynched by the media has absolutely no resemblance to the deGuzman case. Here we have a suspect who was found in possession of all of the evidence mentioned above. The difference between these two cases is like night and day and I challenge you to come up with a better example than Jewell’s.
Please submit an example where a suspect has been linked to the possession of so much self-incriminating evidence only for it to turn out that there was no intent or culpability.
If you are incapable of doing so then I am obliged to dismiss your citing of Jewell’s case as a disingenuous attempt at criticizing the valid information that I supplied to back up why I had reached my own personal conclusions in this case. However premature my own opinions may seem, they are based upon much more solid evidence than the tissue of innuendo and speculation that was used to railroad Richard Jewell.
I have interacted with you enough Veb to know for certain that you are not doing any of this out of animosity or antagonism towards me. Nonetheless, I feel that you have attempted to sidetrack the central issue of this discussion with an irrelevant example of professional misconduct when no such thing has occurred in the case at hand.
To disprove your statement it is only necessary to take the example being discussed out to a logical extreme.
Let us imagine a person is caught with one of the many briefcase-sized nuclear devices currently missing from the defunct Soviet regime’s atomic arsenal. Furthermore, that person is found in an apartment near the Capitol building with detailed plans for the detonation of this device during a full session of the house and senate.
I do not think this person would ever see the light of day again, ever. I fail to see why should someone who has elaborately plotted and prepared for the slaughter of hundreds of innocent young people be treated much differently. Both are enemies of the state and their actions represent a certain and consistent threat to society. With no way to accurately determine when or if their motivations will ever change, they should be treated largely the same.
On a facetious note, I think that our current crop of politicians would be missed far less than the children that narrowly escaped being gunned down at De Anza junior college.
Sorry for the delay in responding; board was down and I’ve been at a dead run trying to catch up.
Look, my example of Richard Jewell was not an attempt to sidetrack the issue. The cases are not exact parallels, of course. I chose it more to illustrate how badly and quickly public opinion can be led awry. * The handling (mishandling, whatever) of evidence is just one factor that can effect a considered verdict. No matter what, the huge issue of deGuzman’s mental state and capacity is still outstanding as well.
As stated earlier, I’m hugely ambivalent about the concept of mental illness vs. responsiblity in cases such as this. As a layman my general reaction is usually something along the lines of, “sucker’d have to be mad as a damned parrot to even consider something this horrific.” But there are medical and legal realities that most certainly apply, even though I’m not expert in them. And yes, the simple reality is I KNOW that I don’t know enough about these facts, and others, to rush to judgment. All I’ve ever suggested is to give the system a chance to work. Evidence, intent, mental capacity, etc.–all of it will be addressed in time.
Snooooopy, I didn’t know you’re a journalist so your reaction is little more understandable now. Please re-read my post where I specifically noted that some media handle the information portion of their task better than others. Again, I’m generalizing but my perception is that overall the print media handles balanced, fair information better than the electronic media. In fairness, I’m not saying anything that some reflective members of the media haven’t said themselves about the mistakes, ommissions and lack of thought that can happen in the rush to “be first”. (The two that come to mind offhand are Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppell.)
Of course the media doesn’t deliberately mislead. (I’m excluding obvious fringe-idiocies like the tabloids.) The pressures the media deals with really deserves a separate thread. On balance mainstream media–particularly print media–is pretty reliable, IMO. Sorry, but I’m still somewhat skeptical over what passes for reporting and analysis in some of the television and “news” magazines. There’ve been too many flagrant mistakes made, especially by some of the higher-profile electronic news folks, to not apply at least a little caution. Again, they aren’t deliberate mistakes and they’re issues under careful, concerned examination by responsible journalists.
I’ve really said about all I can on this; I’m just repeating and clarifying and re-clarifying by now. (I mostly followed the thread over to GD so Zenster didn’t think I was disapproving, just disagreeing.) Could be there are fundamentally different approaches being applied. Bottom line: I simply am not comfortable with applying labels to anyone before due legal processes have had a chance to work.
I don’t know if you noticed, but in another GD thread, I argued my skepticism of the media just as you have done here. Of course, when someone else expresses skepticism of the media, I must rise to defend.
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I’m a print journalist, so when I say “rise to defend,” I don’t mean television journalists.
I hadn’t seen the thread, Snoooopy. I read GD when time allows but the discussions here aren’t “quick scans” so I miss a lot of threads. I sincerely apologize for any offense; it wasn’t intentional. Of course you must rise to defend, and rightly so–even more so because I wasn’t very clear in my examples in the first place.