Re the Hikers snagged by Iran near the Iran-Iraq border and being effectively held hostage for over a year now. Sarah Shourd has been released, but the two men are still in Iran’s custody.
How much sympathy do people deserve who (effectively) decide to put thier head into the lion’s mouth by hiking or exploring in extremely dangerous areas.
Their being locked up is unjust, but I’m having some degree of trouble not thinking they brought most of this mess on themselves through stupid and arrogant decisions to go hiking in a very dangerous place for westerners.
I would tend to agree with this, and judging by reader comments (including some way over the top stuff) in news stories about the trio, I don’t think the average American is especially sympathetic towards the three hikers, with a seeming consensus that they brought this situation on themselves with thier own foolishness/recklessness.
My sympathy quotient is fucking zilch for the douchebags.
Seriously, they couldn’t find someplace else on the entirety of the planet to go hiking other than along the border of one of the fucking craziest nations on Earth?
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a matter of “if you play with fire, don’t go bitchin’ and moanin’ when you get burned.”
although if they’d appear at their tribunals and claim “I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque” in Bugs Bunny voices, it would score some points.
Yeah, it was a risk and probably a really stupid one. But everyone has a different level of risk they are willing to take. I’ve heard from a number of people that I was taking a stupid risk by joining Peace Corps, which from my point of view is one of the safer ways to see the world. We had a poster a while back who said he had no sympathy for anyone who gets in trouble while visiting South Africa, when others were saying South Africa is a great vacation destination.
Anyway, if nobody took any risks we wouldn’t have any reporters, aid workers, storytellers etc. Yeah, this particular group seems like a bunch of yahoos. But I don’t think being a yahoo should get you thrown in jail forever, either.
Anyway, being in jail as a spy sucks, especially if you are not really a spy. Sympathy is pretty cheap and I’m not going to be stingy with it.
I have a lot of sympathy for their families, though. Except for the family who let their teenage daughter try to sail around the world. Not so much sympathy there for their concern when she was missing.
Most of these trips don’t end in tragedy, and people who go on them will milk their experience for street cred (and chicks) for all it’s worth. Since they have no compunction about reaping the upside, I see no problem with them having a chance of reaping the downside as well - they chose to go for their own benefit.
I’d have a bit more sympathy if they were working for an aid foundation or something. But no, they wanted to hike someplace where they really shouldn’t have been.
And tell me again why their being locked up is unjust? They were aught over the border in Iran … and I doubt they had an Iranian stamp in their passports … they were in the country illegally and the Iranian government has every right to pop them into the nearest slammer.
I feel incredible sympathy. My heart goes out to them. I don’t care if it was stupid of them to go hiking near the border, they didn’t deserve what happened to them. They’re human beings who, as far as I know, weren’t up to anything evil or intentionally illegal and now they’re in a worse hell than I can imagine. I hope the other two guys get back safe soon.
I agree that it’s similar to Chris McCandless (the kid who starved to death in Alaska in Into the Wild). It’s roughly analogous to somebody cashing their paycheck and walking down the roughest street in town with a fist full of hundred dollar bills- it doesn’t give anybody the right to rob them and it should be seen as a crime and it’s regrettable, but the sympathy quotient isn’t on par with that of somebody whose house is broken into.
Wow, I’m pretty surprised by the responses. So anyone who goes around the world doing their (peaceful) thing and doesn’t cower in fear at hostile/violent/psychopathic people deserves whatever happens to them? Sounds a lot like blame the victim to me. Would it be John Doe’s fault if he drove through Compton, even knowing it has a high crime rate and he could have taken an alternate route, and gets carjacked and shot?