After reading some recent threads, like White only prom I’ve gotten really pissed about people (in general, not specific people) and the way they spout off about something they know little about. It wasn’t until black455 said
that I felt I should start a rant.
Like after the Rodney King verdict* in 1992, people were complaining that justice was not served. Jesus-fucking-tap dancing-Christ, they weren’t on the jury. They didn’t see all the evidence. They don’t fucking know the facts. They know only what the media decided to tell them. They don’t know how it is slanted (if it is). They don’t know shit. Were people saying “Given what I saw, I think the verdict was wrong”? No, they were saying “The fucking verdict is fucking wrong.”
Then there was the OJ Simpson verdict* in October 1995. Again, there were some that said there was a travesty of justice. However, the syphilitic assmonkeys saying the verdict was wrong weren’t on the jury. They don’t know all of the forensic evidence that was presented. Again, they only know what the media showed. Sure, they could have been watching Court TV all day long every day and had a good idea, but I doubt many people did. If they did, they have a right (IMHO) to complain about the verdict as if it were facts and not opinion.
And now in the thread linked above, people are talking about what is happening in Georgia without knowing exactly what is happening. Assumptions about school sponsorship and/or approval and the reasons behind the different proms are being made but from the articles linked, nobody knows what is happening.
And then there is black455, he/she is being rational - a welcome change to “Get Pissed Off Fest Of The Week” seen in the Pit. Before rushing to judgement he/she looks as the facts presented (which in this case are slim) and caveats and statements with the assumptions he/she is using. And to that, black455, I commend you.
Note: I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with either of the verdicts. I am only using them as examples.
You don’t need to be on the jury to come to the conculsion that it was wrong when there’s a video of a person on the ground being beaten that’s offering no resistance by a group of police officers. John Hinckley didn’t even get beat down like that and he shot the president.
EasyPhil: it is in extremely bad taste for you to leap to the specific from the general; Fin_man has a good point, which you have completely ignored with your highjack.
If your basic point is that a trial can be fair and just yet still seem to the majority of people to be at odds with the facts, I agree. Trials, conducted by humans, are bound to lead to opinions in both directions. Yes, the media distorts things also.
In the OJ case I could easily see how a jury could find a reasonable doubt in the case and acquit him. By a preponderance of the evidence standard, however, it made sense for OJ to be found liable for wrongful death.
Different standards of proof can yield different results.
One OJ aside, if Marcia Clark or Chris Darden had objected to some of the compound questions F. Lee Bailey threw at Mark Fuhrman it’s possible that things would have been different. The question that hung Fuhrman could have been interpreted to mean had Fuhrman ever addressed a black person as the N-word to their face. But, the question contained the “referred” language. So, basically, one simple compound objection could have changed the whole case, IMO. We’ll never know.
As for the Rodney King cop case, I thought it was excessive force based on the video. But, yeah, I didn’t sit on the jury for that one either.
But that is the point, NoClueBoy. You don’t have the facts of the case nor could you ever get all the facts seen by the jury (well, I believe you couldn’t get everything).
The OP did not ask if the verdicts were wrong or right. But EasyPhil didn’t respond to the OP regarding whether or not people should comment/protest a verdict without knowing the facts but instead gave his opinion on the verdict. Unless he was a jury member (which probabalistically is low), he (in my opinion) cannot question the verdict - since he doesn’t have the information to make a proper decision.
And Beagle, your question about my point is a good summary of what I mean but I would change “facts” to “facts presented by the media” since those might not always be the “facts”.
I think more people should be like Beagle and say
In my opinion, this is much better than saying “The verdict was wrong.” (as some did say)
Wait a minute, the only way to have an informed opinion on the OJ Simpson trial, which was the most widely scrutinized trial in American history since the last days of Bruno Hauptman, is to have been personally involved in the trial? Is it just me, or does that sound really, really stupid? Don’t get me wrong: an uninformed opinion is worse than useless, but if we have to have first hand experience before we offer our opinion on something, these boards are going to get really quiet.
So, I guess it’s safe to assume that Fin_Man is a medical doctor working for the treasury department. 'Cause otherwise, he sounds like a bit of a hypocrite.
No you goat felching idiot. Did I say you can’t have an opinion? No. I didn’t think so. What part of the OP did you not understand? It seems that Trinopus and NoClueBoy understand. When you spout of about facts not in evidence without knowing the facts, you are an idiot (and here, I mean you specifically). You can spout opinion but don’t go off on tangents (like talking about the two class presidents in the high school in Albany, GA) without knowing what the fuck is going on. Where in the two threads to which you linked did I spout off about some “facts” not in evidence?
[hijack]
And you are the fucktard that brings up non-existent facts. In the thread White only prom you say
Now where did I say anything about bring up a lawsuit? I said
Does this say somebody is bringing up a lawsuit? No, didn’t think so.
Now what the fuck did I do to you? Why all this vitriol from you towards me? Did I step on your dick recently? Was that your mother I ass-fucked the other night? Please explain your anger.
[/hijack]
Fin_Man: You seem to have a very extreme sense of what is “enough information” to have an opinion or make a decision. No one will ever know “all the facts,” but that doesn’t mean they won’t have ENOUGH facts to make a correct decision or know what’s going on. One didn’t need to watch the entire OJ trial to know whether he comitted the crime or not with a sufficient certainty level. One needn’t have been on the Rodney King jury to form an opinion, based on the videotape, on whether or not excessive force was used.
Was that you from the other thread? I’d completely forgotten.
At any rate, you should perhaps stop trying to parse English, as you’re really bad at it. I mean, you have that quote, by me, asking why you’d brought up law suits. And as proof that what I wrote is stupid, you quote yourself, from earlier in the thread, bringing up lawsuits. Thus neatly answering your own question. Convenient for me, but it doesn’t cast you in the best light, intellectually speaking. And then there’s earlier in this thread, where you have a quote from Beagle saying, in his opinion, that the Rodney Kind verdict was wrong, and contrast that with a hypothetical quote of somebody else, saying the Rodney King verdict was wrong.
Oh, and let’s not forget this gem of a thread, where you pit DanielWithrow because you don’t know what the definition of “stray” is. It’s even funnier when you realize that DanielWithrow works at an animal shelter. Uninformed opinions are bad enough, but pitting somebody who’s arguably an expert in the very field in which you have no experience… that’s just fucking hilarious.
Yes, they are facts and not opinions. Have you ever read a newspaper article or seen a TV news item that had all the facts?
Alereon, I never said you must have a specific amount of information to have an opinion. Opinions are great, opinions are fine. But don’t spout off as “fact” when you can’t possible have the information to make a factual statement. The reason the jury must be in the courtroom during all testimony is so they get all the facts (or at least the facts that are deemed legal) to make the informed factual decision. And as you say
But one needs to be on the Rodney King jury to form a verdict. Opinion is one thing - stated as fact is different.
I can see from Fin_man’s later posts that this is going to cause him some confusion, similar to what happens to him when confronted by doorknobs and untied shoe-laces. Allow me to elaborate. The following two sentences are functionally identical:
“The Rodney King verdict was wrong.”
“In my opinion, the Rodney King verdict was wrong.”
See, even though the first sentence doesn’t state it explicitly, it’s still an opinion. Most people (you being the obvious exception) are bright enough to understand this, so conventional use allows for people not to explicitly state that an opinion is an opinion. This allows for greater brevity and more flexibility in expression. The downside is, every now and then some moron stands up and shouts, “Oh yeah? Well that’s just your opinion!” At which everyone rolls their eyes and goes back to the discussion. Because if someone is stupid enough to think that needs to be pointed out, odds are they don’t have anything worthwhile to contribute.
So, in your “English”, me saying that in America people like to sue is the same as saying somebody is going to sue them? I don’t see it but that’s fine.
And as for the Beagle quote - can you not fucking read? Beagle said
versus saying “The verdict is wrong” - stated as fact and not opinion. Understand yet? And in preview, I see that you don’t understand. So, all those people that rioted in LA after the King verdict were only killing people and burning buildings to show their opinion and not showing that they believed whole-heartedly (as in, say a fact) that the verdict was wrong?
And do you have a hard-on for me doing all this searching for my posts? Yes, I pitted DanielWithrow and I knew he worked in an animal shelter. Yes, the dictionary definition of stray includes a pet that has escaped BUT as I found out in this IMHO thread, the “common” definition of stray (as in animals) is wild or feral, and therefore, in my opinion an error in knowing your audience.
Both the Rodney King case and the OJ case were really decided by venue and not by evidence. The King case was moved from LA to lilliy white, conservative, cop-friendly Simi Valley. They probably thought they weren’t racist, but they were willing to buy any kind of flimsy-ass justification for what was undiably a bunch of white cops beating the living shit out of a black guy.
In the OJ case, the trial was moved from OJ’s cushy Brentwood neighborhood to downtown LA, which assured of him a more street level. racially mixed jury. I think something that got undersold in the OJ verdict was that the jury wasn’t so much nullifying a case on racial grounds, but that black people in LA just didn’t trust the cops.
I think to some degree it’s a class thing more than a race thing. middle or upper class white people don’t get hararssed by the cops for no reason and so they don’t want to believe it actually happens. Minorities (and poor whites) know better. They aren’t automatically going to take a police officer’s word for something, and they jknow damn well that the cops can get out of hand and bust heads once in a while.
The Simi Valley jury just waqsn’t willing to accept that cops might act like assholes, even when their noses were rubbed in the video tape. They were perfectly willing to accept some long-winded, convoluted “technical” explanation of why a bunch of white cops had to beat the living shit out a black guy.
As to the OP. I don’t think you have to be on a jury to form an opinion of a verdict. I saw the videotape of the King beating. Excessive force. Case closed. I don’t give a fuck what their excuse was.
I also think OJ did it, but a lot of the reason I think that has to do with his history of domestic violence and stalking. I thought the cops didn’t help themselves by some of their actions, I thought they were arrogant, I thought they shaded the truth to suit their own purposes and I didn’t completely trust them. I thought that the forensic evidence was incredibly strong if the cops could be trusted/. I thought the chance they had actually tampered with evidence was low but not zero. We have had precedents. Look at the Ramparts scandal for instance. There was also a case in New York around the time of the OJ trial where several officers pled guilty to a conspiracy to plant fingerprints.
I thought there was maybe a 2% chance that the cops had messed with the blood in the OJ case, and even though I thought he was guilty (I was 99% sure then, I’m 100% sure now) I could understand why the jury would find doubt.
I can’t make it any clearer. I did not state in the OP that people can’t have opinions about verdicts without knowing all the facts. I did state that (in my opinion), people can’t talk about things as if it were fact without knowing all the facts. And that is it.
In my opinion, the verdicts were wrong in the trials BUT THAT IS MY OPINION. PERIOD! No, I’m not going to protest. No, I’m not going to riot. No, I’m not going to write a letter to somebody in power. I cannot say the verdict was wrong since I don’t know the facts. I can say I believe the verdict was wrong BUT THOSE ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SENTENCES.
