# Idiot college students arrested for setting church fires in Alabama **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 9, 2006, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646 "2006-03-09T04:51:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/41 "2006-03-09T21:18:34Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > I burning your dogma! Dang, that’s funny, but I’m embarassed for laughing. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/42 "2006-03-10T04:43:56Z")
This won’t stop right wing demagouges from exploiting the issue into the “War on Christianity” seminars though. [http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/03/exploiting\_the\_alabama\_fires.php#more](http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/03/exploiting_the_alabama_fires.php#more) How long before these dickwiches end up as part of Brickers unorganized but commonly directed anti-Christian conspiracy? ---
**Author:** ![MaryEFoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/43 "2006-03-10T05:34:21Z")
Guess what. All the burned churches were Baptist, and the boys’ college is Methodist-affiliated. You think? ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/44 "2006-03-10T06:35:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Outside court, a 16-year-old friend of the accused said he was “very surprised” by the charges. > > [1]“All I can say is that they are young, fun-loving kids who respect their parents,” he said. “And they don’t deserve to be in the place where they are right now.” > > Two 16-year-old girls who also said they were friends of the accused, and had gone to school with a couple of them at J. Percy Page senior high school, defended them. > > [2]“They are good people,” said a tearful Nikki Smale. > > [3]“We know them inside and out and they are good people and they didn’t mean to do it,” said Kayla Sabatine. > > Both girls said they hadn’t spoken to the accused since Wednesday, but had heard from other friends they had been drinking on the night of the alleged slaying. > > [4]“They were drinking and I guess one thing led to another,” said Sabatine. “It was an accident.” [1]: They _repeatedly burn down churches_, and they "don’t deserve to be where thye are. **Correct** : they deserve to be in a worse place. [2]: “Good” people don’t run around burning churches. unless of course “good people” has somehow come to mean future felony arsonists. [3]: They _didn’t mean to do it?!_ The mechanics of burning a fucking building down aren’t attributable to an accident. Assembling fuel, placing it, lighting it: all deliberate acts. [4]: Ah, the “Boys will be Boys, Especially When They’re Drunk” defense. Since when has being drunk and maliciously careless become a basis for extunation in a criminal proceeding? Might I add that the critical thinking skills of these 16-year-olds frightens me? ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/45 "2006-03-10T06:57:02Z")
Comon, lighten up. It was obviously a joke. Just like the bombings of Dresden and Tokyo. Those bomber crews didn’t mean anything by it, they were just playing. And it was fucking hilarious, just like this was. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/46 "2006-03-10T06:59:13Z")
> [@cerberus](#): > > [3]: They _didn’t mean to do it?!_ The mechanics of burning a fucking building down aren’t attributable to an accident. Assembling fuel, placing it, lighting it: all deliberate acts. If it had been a single chuch, it might conceivably be an accident. There’s no way 10 torched buildings could be construed as an accident, unless you’re a member of the fantastic 4. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/47 "2006-03-10T08:22:01Z")
**cerberus** , I think you’re getting your stories mixed. The quotes are from a separate story **nanoda** posted about 4 teens in Edmonton who ganged up on a stranger and beat him to death. Just replace “burning down churches” with “murdering a random person you’d never met before.” Makes the excuses even scarier, don’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/48 "2006-03-10T13:45:01Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Holy crap, these four kids swarm a guy on a bus and beat him to death, and their friends say shit like this? Apparently, it was a “nice kid’s crime” that one of them had already committed. After all, he was on probation and “he’s a good kid.” ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/49 "2006-03-10T15:14:53Z")
Mandatory sentence: 45 years w/ parole. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/50 "2006-03-10T15:17:34Z")
45 years before parole. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646/51 "2006-03-10T16:10:53Z")
Mea Culpa on that. The arguments work even better when someone is “accidentally killed.” I can see not wanting to see the evil in people, but at some point, there it is, to be recognised or ignored. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-college-students-arrested-for-setting-church-fires-in-alabama/347646.md?page=2)