# For giggles, let's publicly pillory some teenagers for drunkenness. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 3, 2004, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865 "2004-12-03T06:03:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/21 "2004-12-04T17:38:03Z")
High school kids drinking. Big fucking deal. If they were snorting lines off the Gatorade table right there at the game, then maybe there would be a story here. You could argue that cursing out cops is bad and they ought to be embarrassed over that- but don’t fucking tell me that two 17-year-olds knocking back a couple of beers are _bad people_. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/22 "2004-12-06T15:58:20Z")
> [@Really Not All That Bright](#): > > but don’t fucking tell me that two 17-year-olds knocking back a couple of beers are _bad people_. Nice to see there are at least a couple of people with some perspective. Which leads me to an incidental pit - I pit everyone who thought they deserved this. And your ilk. (Your ilk being the audience of the Montel Williams show and possibly the Taliban) Not just because you’re callous bastards with no sense of punitive proportion (were all of you beaten by drunken cheerleaders as children or something?). No the real reason I pit each and every one of you is because you’re all hypocrites and you know it. Hello? nobody here got drunk when they were 17? Throw the first stone much? If only we could dredge up a video of you the first time you made an idiot of yourself drunk and broadcast it top story on the local news. I think that would help you all become better people. Especially if it would come up every time prospective employers googled you. For all time. I think that would make the world a better place. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/23 "2004-12-06T16:09:09Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > Nice to see there are at least a couple of people with some perspective. > > Which leads me to an incidental pit - I pit everyone who thought they deserved this. And your ilk. (Your ilk being the audience of the Montel Williams show and possibly the Taliban) > > Not just because you’re callous bastards with no sense of punitive proportion (were all of you beaten by drunken cheerleaders as children or something?). > > No the real reason I pit each and every one of you is because you’re all hypocrites and you know it. Hello? nobody here got drunk when they were 17? Throw the first stone much? > > If only we could dredge up a video of you the first time you made an idiot of yourself drunk and broadcast it top story on the local news. I think that would help you all become better people. Especially if it would come up every time prospective employers googled you. For all time. I think that would make the world a better place. **uglybeech** , I don’t think that too many people were advocating this at all, I certainly wasn’t. I live in the Boston area and I saw the newscast. I was laughing at the news, not at them. I did so many things during my teenage years that the nightly news could have dedicated a segment to all my indiscretions. It would have been just as stupid. There are millions of people in the Boston area and they could come up with stories like this and much, much worse every night if they wanted to (Look who we caught your daughter sleeping with. News at 11). It boggles the mind why the picked this particular incident. I don’t think anybody disagrees that the evening news has morphed into tabloid TV. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/24 "2004-12-06T16:45:13Z")
Shag, wasn’t pitting you. Oink oinks to you but no pitting. Was pitting: \*\*Valgard \*\* > [@](#): > > Feeling a little public humiliation is a pretty powerful motivational tool for a teenager. **Clothahump** > [@](#): > > But there’s nothing wrong with posting their names and pictures all over the place. There is not enough shame in today’s society. If you know that you are going to be publicly humiliated if you screw up, you’ll be less likely to screw up. And even **CanvasShoes** > [@](#): > > Too many kids nowadays are just determined to do what they want, and be “bad as they wanna be”. They don’t care…much as we wish that this sort of thing would “teach them a lesson” it won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/25 "2004-12-06T18:31:19Z")
According to a quick google search, the age of majority in MA is 18. However, from my own mis-spent youth living in the state I can tell you first hand that the age of adulthood for criminal purposes is 17. I’m not sure which age should be used by the media to regulate giving out names. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/26 "2004-12-06T18:52:38Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > No the real reason I pit each and every one of you is because you’re all hypocrites and you know it. Hello? nobody here got drunk when they were 17? Throw the first stone much? I never got drunk when I was 17. And I bet I know a lot of other people who also didn’t. I’m not coming doqn for or against the OP, I just wanted to make this point. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/27 "2004-12-06T22:35:07Z")
> [@Really Not All That Bright](#): > > High school kids drinking. Big fucking deal. If they were snorting lines off the Gatorade table right there at the game, then maybe there would be a story here. > > You could argue that cursing out cops is bad and they ought to be embarrassed over that- but don’t fucking tell me that two 17-year-olds knocking back a couple of beers are _bad people_. No, that’s NOT what _I_ at least was saying. What I was talking about was their behaviour, not the mere beer drinking. Some teens manage to drink responsibly, the ones in the story didn’t. First off, they’re supposed to be representing their school, but instead, they get drunk, go to the game and act like idiots, then, when they’re caught and the cops try to remove them so that they’ll no longer act like idiots in front of everyone at the very least, they escalate the situation and behave even worse. People who can’t drink responsibly shouldn’t be drinking AT ALL, teens or otherwise. Teens, as insurance (and other) statistics show, tend to die or be injured accidents and “misadventure” a HELL Of a lot more when alcohol is involved. Yes, that’s unfair to the few who do drink responsibly, but what should we do? Start tankin’ 'em up from the bottle on? Sheesh, the line has to be drawn somewhere, and I’m sorry, like it or not, kids do tend to be less able to handle that sort of responsibilty. That’s why the laws are in place to begin with. And that doesn’t mean that adults don’t drink and do stupid things. But at least they can be held accountable and have more of a chance to make restitution in strictly monetary cases (NOT of course in injury or death cases). ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/28 "2004-12-06T22:42:05Z")
Oh, and please note I was not “gleefully advocating punishment”. I thought it was a stupid idea because it won’t change their behaviour at all. Those type of people don’t care how they act no matter what. ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865/29 "2004-12-06T22:51:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Danvers lost the game, 19-to-14. I can hear the cheers now: _We got spirits, yes we do! We got spirits, how 'bout you?_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-giggles-lets-publicly-pillory-some-teenagers-for-drunkenness/277865.md?page=1)