Citing Maxine Waters is not going to help your argument.
The UCMJ gives you the same or more protections as civilian courts. It is true that there are some things that are illegal under UCMJ. Telling off your boss, having sex with your subordinates, adultery. All are poison to a military organization.
What argument? I didn’t say the men were being prosecuted because they were black.
I simply pointed to the 1997 Aberdeen Proving Ground case to demonstrate how military justice can be much harsher than civilian justice.
I referred to an article by Hanna Rosin in The New Republic entitled Sleeping With the Enemy, wherein she pointed out that the prosecutors were able to convict men of rape in situations that they wouldn’t have been able to in civilian courts. The reason was because the women didn’t physically resist and according to the laws in ever state of the country(at least in 1997), even such liberal states as New York required that if the woman didn’t physically resist she would have to be either unconscious or do so because she feared that physically resisting would lead to death or serious physical injury.
In the Aberdeen case the women “consented” largely because of the power disparity that existed and they feared the consequences of refusing.
To give one example, one of the Sergeants, Delmar Simpson, was convicted of raping a woman who went over to his off base apartment with the intention of sleeping with him after first showering in order to prepare for sexual intercourse and freely admitted that he never resisted or even told him she didn’t want to.
As Rosin pointed out, Sergeant Simpson was sentenced to 25 years in a military prison for a number of different sexual encounters with women that would have been considered consensual sex had they been civilians because civilian prosecutors couldn’t use the “constructive force” argument that that military prosecutors could wherein due to the power disparity between the people involved even seemingly consensual sexual encounters can be classified as rape.
Now, personally I disagree with Hanna Rosin and think that the military has a better view of rape and think that employers who threaten to fire women if they don’t have sex with them or landlords who threaten to “throw them out on the street” unless they have sex with them should be prosecuted for rape and hope that civilian laws regarding rape have evolved since 1997.
I simply pointed to that case to show that military justice can be much harsher on defendants than civilian justice.
Anyway, back to the OP.
I’d be cautious about jumping to conclusions when we don’t have all the facts.
If you look at the video, the guy who’s freaking out seems to have flipped out because they supposedly rear-ended him and his wife. You’ll notice he especially seems upset by the fact that his wife was in the car and she could have been injured.
I’m certainly not going to say that he didn’t overreact and I’m not married, but I can certainly understand how someone who was married would freak out in a situation like that.
That said, I also am not going to assume that he was rear-ended and the initial victim just because he claims that.
I love the fact that
a) AC/DC is playing on the truck stereo the whole time (“Shoot To Thrill”)
and
b) the driver of the truck just coldly stares at this raving psychopath like he’s a bug on his windscreen.
That Marine is a capital D douchebag.
Right, what the hell does his job have to do with anything?
What next, I Pit this US plumber
Ibn Warraq: You seem to be confusing legal definition with right. The legal definition for rape under the military law is different evidently than that under civilian jurisdictions. The accused’s rights remain the same: right against self-incrimination, right to legal representation, right against unlawful search, etc.
Sitnam: Good point. The individual’s job has nothing to do with it other than the possibility of facing “Office Hours” or court-martial for the offense.
Pretty sure there’s already a pit for Joe around here somewhere.
Thanks for making your psychopathy so obvious , Zebra. I’ll be sure to avoid walking down the same aisle as you…
You are a class-A fucktard. I’d write a separate pit thread, but I’d rather just walk away from you and try my best to forget that there is actually a person who thinks the way you do - which implies that there are probably OTHER people who agree with you too.
What the hell is this world coming to?
How come that video is so steady and sure. It looks like it’s on a tripod. Some sort of stabalizing software?
Or just somebody that actually knows how to run a camera. Much nicer and better than all that jittery-for-no-apparent-reason bullshit that normally gets put up on youtube.
I find it amusing that “what his job is” doesn’t matter if he’s acting like an asshole, but if he’s just standing around in the stands in hockey game and his face is plastered on the big screen over center-ice, his job matters a great deal. Or did we give that guy a standing ovation because we all really like people named, “Jeff” or something?
With a little geo-sleuthing, looks like this happened on base (defined by google maps borders), but on the public access portion of the base. North bound on Vandegrift Blvd., although there may be added pavement on the right side of vehicle that I can’t really explain, but the buildings, palm trees, signal, telephone poles seem to be correct.
As for PTSD, some civilians as well as military are susceptible to PTSD…it doesn’t mean that it is your free “Get out of jail card” when shit like this happens. You still are responsible for your actions. The rules and laws may be different, but my guess is that responsibility for your actions will still prevail when making a decision on this guys fate.
Screaming “You fucking whore bitch cunt!” to the passenger…yeah, PTSD all the way!..:rolleyes::dubious:
Makes me wonder what his wife has to endure with this loose cannon.
Looks like an adult throwing a tantrum, to me.
He didn’t really start “wailing” on the truck until three bystanders showed up. (Before that, he was only saying “Get out of the truck. I’m gonna beat your ass.”) He also retained enough presence of mind to NOT take a swing at any of the people pulling him away from the truck.
But I am not a psychiatrist, I don’t play one on TV, and all those other caveats.
She “falls down” a lot.
Um, no - he was kicking the truck repeatedly in the first part of the video way before any bystanders intervened.
This is what I was thinking. I feel bad for the people in the car, and I can’t appologize for the guy dropping his chalupa on them–he was clearly out of line for the escalation, irrespective of the lead-up we don’t get to see.
But I’d love to compare notes with this guy WRT flipped-out rage. When I’ve gotten that way, there was always a tiny, nagging little shred of sanity begging me to stop because I was being crazy. That little nag actually made things worse because it humiliated me during the incident, as did people trying to remain calm and refusing to get as worked up as I was. In the moment, I would take it as a mockery of what I had determined to be a Very Big Deal. The folks in the car–just sitting there passively and filming–would have absolutely driven me up the wall. There’s just not much you can do against a massive surge of adrenaline, anger, frustration, absolute certainty that you’re in the right, and who knows what else? Paranoia? Personal animosity? except to let it burn itself out. My experience with Marines is that they may not always be brilliant, but they are quite mentally disciplined and can check their emotions when they need to. That this guy was unable to rein it in…sympathy. No appologies or excuses, but sympathy.
Ahh Marines…sigh
And that’s the beauty, if you want to call it that, of the UCMJ. The Commanding Officer has a range of “corrective measures” which he can employ, beginning with ordering counseling and ending with referring the Marine to court-martial. There should be some consequence, though, for:
[ul][li]Intentionally causing an accident, noting that he had a passenger in his vehicle[/li][li]Communicating a threat[/li][li]Destruction of private property[/ul][/li]
That’s assuming that he did, in fact, cause the accident. For the offenses of Communicating a Threat and Destruction of Private Property, there’s no need to assume.
I seriously can’t believe anyone would try to excuse or condone the behavior of this man.
There is nothing I hate more than a hot head. To me, he came across like a big baby having a temper tantrum. I really hope he is at least embarrassed.
Stand him before a firing squad. That’ll teach him not to over-react!