Hey, you’re the one who says that it’s OK to break the law if someone else breaks the law first. I’m just trying to get an idea of what if any limits you put on it. So I take it from your weak attempt at sarcasm (coupled with the “tard” slur, very classy) that you do agree that the soldiers did not have the moral right to beat this person to death. Can you clarify exactly how badly you believe they are entitled to injure him before the soldiers should themselves be subject to punishment?
Furthermore, can you answer the question from some time ago, as to why you think that four soldiers who were not themselves crime victims have the right to exact punishment on behalf of the fifth?
See, now I’m really confused. You think it’s all right to break the law to punish some lawbreakers but not others? Could you explain maybe which crimes warrant punishment from non-police and which don’t?
I for one say they were behaving like thugs. People who engage in five-on-one beatings are absolutely correctly classified as thugs.
Finally. Thank you for finally acknowledging this.
Could you point out to me exactly where anyone in this thread is saying that Bennett was acting properly when he stole the wallet? Of course Bennett stepped over the line by stealing the wallet and he should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. He should have been transported directly from the hospital to a jail cell. Why won’t you admit that five people attacking one over a stolen wallet is also stepping over the line?
The US Military is made of of the same people that live and work here. We don’t have some lab where we raise genetically engineered clones that meet your dumb-fucking expectation of what a soldier should be. These people are brought up in some controlled environment where the Mil breeds them into robots.
EVERYONE should have a high standard of self-control and lawfulness, soldier or not.
No the fact that they are soldiers doesn’t hold them to any higher standard (in this officers opinion) UNLESS they are on duty. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be prosecuted under the UCMJ for things that they wouldn’t be prosecuted for in the civilian sector. It just means that I still expect them to be human beings and am not shocked when I have to bail an airman out of the fucking clink for drunk driving, assault or theft.
The fact that these guys are soldiers has NO bearing on any of this and if I had to bail these guys out of jail knowing what I know at this point I would have probably put them on confinement for 3 days and put them into an alcohol education class and that’s it.
Quit saying the guy was nearly beaten to death because he wasn’t.
Quit saying that this was a gay bashing because it wasn’t.
Quit saying that this is related to the fact that they are soliders because it’s not.
The guy got his ass kicked (and rightfully so) for lifting a wallet and WAS CAUGHT IN THE FUCKING ACT. If they hunted him down later and planned an attack then I could see some sort of displeasure at their actions, but in this case no.
Question-aren’t you technically violating patient confidentiality by reporting what you learned while working at the hospital where he was treated? Repeaing gossip from ER nurses?
Otto’s right about this matter. The five individuals who allegedly assualted the purported thief were most definitely in the wrong. They broke a particular law and committed an act of violence, an act of excessive violence. The purported thief committed a non-violent illegal act.
If you feel the victim of theft should have the right to beat the perpetrator to death, then, IMHO, you were born in the wrong era. Cro-magnon is down the hall to your left, timewise.
True, however in the heat of the moment, after having been violated by a thief, after drinking until the wee hours, overreaction is understandable. I don’t believe from this incident that I can say these 5 are dangers to society who need to be incarcerated.
I’m not surprised that the charges were dropped, I AM surprised it was at the behest of the victim.
I don’t need to skew it from what it is: five guys on one guy. I’m against that, unless the one guy has an edge or did something much worse than wallet stealing. What questions did you have that I haven’t answered?
First, do you know that all five were big. I’ll give you strong given their training?
Second, do you know the degree of the assault committed by each of the five? Do you know that they all were participants in the actual beating? As opposed to one, two, three, or four of participatiing in the chase and just standing by to make sure that justice was served?
Third, do you know that the thief was a weak and wittle faggy boy? Or even that he is gay? and that five guys knew it?
First, okay, maybe not big. Strong men trained for combat all right with you?
Second, no, I do not. Do you? This discussion has been assuming that they were piling on. If they weren’t, then it’s all moot. They were all charged before Bennett asked for the charges dropped, at any rate.
Third, I don’t see what difference it makes if he was really gay or not, once we’ve eliminated pure homophobia as a motivation, which we did pages ago. He doesn’t have to be unusually powerless for it to be not a fair fight when five guys jump him. I happen to be a ‘wittle faggy boy’ myself but I’ve been in a few scraps, so I have some idea of how things probably went down. And when I think about the range of average guys I know, few of them would have any chance in such a situation either.
Fourth, what difference does any of this make to you? I thought you were fine with what happened as stipulated.
Oh, I am fine with it. Completely. I’d like to buy these guys a beer for making a thief less likely to victimize someone else. These guys didn’t go over the line. The thief deserved a good beating—nothing more, nothing less. But everyone, starting with the OP—and definitely you—has continually attempted to portray the thief in the best possible light and the soldiers in the worst. You gave the thief every benefit of the doubt and the soldiers none. As facts were revealed (which we still don’t have in total) you, and others, grudgingly inched away from your position. I was just shedding light on your bias dressed up as love of fair play.
Please show me where you see this. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve made several posts explaining that the biggest problem is with the five-on-one aspect, regardless of who the victim is, and the problem of people dealing out ‘justice’ outside of the system we have in place to do that. What witchcraft have you used to divine my true inner thoughts?
I am as firm on my position as I have been from the start. Beating up a guy because he tried to steal your wallet is criminal and wrong, and a bunch of soldiers (professional fighters) beating up one lone non-professional is criminal and wrong.
Christ. Send these guys back to Basic. Five veteran soldiers couldn’t do more than give him a few bruises and a black eye, even after drinking for a few hours?
Sounds to me, in other words, that their response was pretty restrained. They went to get the guy, he probably resisted, and one of them popped him in the beak.
Regrettable, but hey, no real harm done. This whole thing pings pretty goddamn low on my outrage meter.
I knew I’d regret the ‘one fag’ crack. The trouble with me is I think I’m funny. Look, you’re not fooling anyone. Everybody reading this thread knows you’ve pulled that out of context. The enormous majority of my posts are very clear about whether it matters if the guy’s big or small, gay or straight.
If saying that “five guys on one guy” is thuggish is making them look “as bad as possible”, then reality condemns them.
The third is from early in the thread, obviously, but I too remain undecided about whether homophobia lurked behind the viciousness of the attack. One, I don’t know if they thought the guy was gay, and two, now it seems like nobody knows how vicious the attack actually was. If they’d really beaten him nearly to death, as we thought way back on post 53, then yeah, I’d say probably they had a little gay panic moment and decided to see if it would fly in court this time because the guy gave them an excuse when he lifted the wallet. But since it looks like they didn’t reach the level of rage usually seen when hate is hiding behind violence, I have no opinion, personally.
No, no one that I can recall has attempted to explain away his thievery. That’s not what I meant by giving him the benefit of the doubt. If you read my last post you should be able to see that I meant that some were eager to paint the soldiers as brutal—and beyond—and the thief as the meek, albeit guilty, victim. Post 118 that is quoted above is a prime example.
If it makes you feel better, I will once again make myself clear: I don’t think it matters if the guy’s gay, and I only implied that it did in jest. Because it’s comical for someone like me to imply such a thing, and also because one of the soldiers did call him a ‘fag’. Maybe it was just another word, but if he were telling me this story, I would say to him, ‘It took five of you guys just to get a wallet off one “fag”?’ I would use his own professed belief about his victim, that the victim was a sissy, against him in order to highlight the absurdity of the situation.