More evidence that you can’t contend w/ the likes of me. You’re a punk.
Stick to the Pit where this kind of shit is closer to acceptable. The bar is so much lower here. You’ve shown that you don’t belong in GD. It’s too hard for you. Maybe if you practice here in the Pit long enough you’ll learn from some of the other posters who know how to put together a series of thoughts, facts and sentences in a logical and meaningful way. Keep you eyes open. These kinds of posters are all around you. Look and learn. If you hadn’t been such a weak-minded prick in your delivery, I’d’ve had sympathy for you.
Since you’ve not addressed in any substantive way the questions and issues that I brought up in the feminazi thread, I have to assume that you’ve realized that you are indeed a punked-out bitch.
I’ve chewed you up and spit you out.
Unless you acquire some skills, I doubt if I’ll have the time or concern to do so again. Keep working on it. And, you’re welcome for the attention I lavished on your measly, wormy self. Too bad you don’t have the sense or the class to recognize the favor I’ve done you, you punk.
Mr. Evil Breakfast, while I admit (and did admit), that statistics don’t necessarially mean much, and can be gathered/interpreted in many ways, let me tell you what that survey says, since you seem incapable of understanding it:
In one particular high school in MD, high school seniors were given a questionaire from the years 1975 through 2001, and asked (though we don’t see the actual questions) about how much/often they drink.
Compared to the student responses in 1975, there was a 12% drop in the percentage of students who have ever had alcohol, a 14% drop in the percentage of students who had had alcohol within the past year, a 27% drop in the percentage who had had alcohol in the past month, 37% drop in the percentage who had had alcohol in the past day, and a 19% drop in the percentage who had had more than 5 drinks in a row in the past 2 weeks (or perhaps who had had alcohol for more than 5 days in a row for the past two weeks, I’m not that clear on that).
So, I hope this was informative for you. Perhaps MD lives in a weird dimension where everything is backwards, but it looks to me like teenagers are drinking less. And, even if you wanted to argue that, it certainly doesn’t look like they’re drinking more than other generations of teenagers, as you suggest.
Fuck off. Actually, I said, “And, in fact, statistics (which do lie, I know) disagree with you.” Doesn’t look like I call it a vaunted study in any way. Or hold it up as any kind of uber-benchmark. My point is that general information from what I could gather online in the 15-30 mins I spent hunting, seemed to contradict what you had implied.
Don’t give me this old line equating dislike for teenagers with dislike for gays, blacks, etc. It’s nothing alike.
Over time, the law has recognized that discriminating against people on the basis of race was wrong-headed, but the law continues to withold from teenagers full rights until they’re almost in their 20’s. Why? Because the law recognizes, just as I do, that teenagers are not responsible enough to act in the adult world. For sure, teens don’t have a monopoly on immaturity and irresponsibility, but they sure have a pretty big slice of that pie staked out.
I was one of those teens that fancied myself more mature and responsible than others, I thought myself the exception to the rule. What I found out is that you don’t really know what responsibility is until you strike out on your own, and that you build all your character in those years after you become independant. You can give them a job and/or all the charity work in the world, but as long as they’re still living at home they simply will not grow real-world skills. In America, if not elsewhere, teens are being increasingly sheltered from the realities of life by a public school system that acts like a Baptist parent. I even see this sort of mommy-state control seeping into college life, and colleges increasingly acting like babysitters in loco parentis for 18-year-olds.
In order to develop life skills, you have to be let free to fall and fail, to recover, and grow from the experience. Teens simply haven’t had that chance in modern America. Consequently, they lack responsibility and maturity, and treat every little problem that comes their way as if it were the end of the world because they have no perspective on real life.
I don’t fault them for this, but I see no reason to simply pretend there are no important differences between teens and adults. I think it’s as justified for me to discriminate against them in some things as it is for the law to do so, and for the same reasons.
What about people who live with their parents into their twenties? should it actually be a legal requirement that you have your own residence before you can drink?
Here’s a thought: How about you figure out what you want to argue before you post?
Your first post in no way insinuated that you merely thought teenagers were inexperienced in life, and needed a few more years to adjust. The only thing it expressed was pure contempt and disdain for teenagers.
That sounds reasonable. You have to admit though, your previous post (this board would be better off without teenagers posting, and the other well, frankly, assholish things you said about teenagers in general) was a bit overboard.
So your solution is to shelter them from the realities of life using a legal system that acts like a Baptist parent?
Here in Australia, people recieve full rights the moment they turn 18. Why is our society not being destroyed by idiot teenagers?
Odd. You deride the self-centredness and stupidity of teenagers, yet imagine that what was required to dislodge your own head from your arse (“I was one of those teens that fancied myself more mature and responsible than others” - seems you were an unbearable prick even then) is necessary for everyone else.
lezlers, yeah my first post was a little overboard. I usually prefer to compose longer, more nuanced opinions, but I figured “what the hell, it’s the Pit” and just went ahead with blowing off some anti-teen steam.
Well, aren’t the teenagers who think themselves more mature and responsible, who think themselves the exception to the rule, exactly the group of people we’re talking about here? Nobody would deny that on the whole teens are not a particularly responsible group of people, so clearly what we’re talking about is whether there are sufficient exceptions to the rule to justify removing a categorical prohibition of certain activity by teens.
By noting that my attitude as a teen made me an “unbearable prick”, then aren’t you saying the same thing about all these current teens that claim to be the exceptions?
I don’t base my entire opinion of teens and responsibility on myself, I only used that as my case so as to remove the notion that I was being elitist or excusing my own past from the condemnations I make today. I level no complaint at today’s teens that I wouldn’t level at my own self when I was that age.
For 5 undergraduate years and 3 years in law school, I have been quite active in a service fraternity and thus been closely involved with several years of freshman classes. As a service fraternity, responsibility is key and the people who join do so because they are eager to take on more responsibility than the average Joe. I have consistently observed a pattern of increasing maturity and responsibility that seems to change most drastically in the first few years of college, which would be 18 --> 20.
I haven’t observed every 18-year-old in existence, but when I see the same pattern over and over among students who are probably at the high end of the responsibility-curve among their age-group, I feel like I can make a pretty good generalization about the subject. I find that the same conclusion I draw about drastic development between ages 18 and 20 is echoed by people older and more experienced than myself, and by my parents and grandparents. I’ve watched the exact same change occur recently in my younger brother.
I think the reason that these teens are rapidly maturing in those years is that they have alot of responsibility forced upon them and have to learn to adapt to it or else suffer personal failures, and thus they seem to quickly mature over those years. But before they become independant they lack perspective on life, have unrealistic expectations about the world, and are generally not dependable.
Tell me how this is different than noting the average income of black people and deciding whether or not there are enough ‘exceptions to the rule’ to offer, say, medical service to a black person.
You wanna say that lots of teens are asses? I’m with you. Hell, I’m even a datum for you for the next couple months. You wanna argue that teens house more asses than the general population? Based on my limited experience, you’re probably right, but I’d like to see a cite about the type of assery to which you refer. But arguing that the assiness of some or even many teens gives you insight into any or all teens without showing that assiness is a necessary part of being a teenager is bigotry, plain and smelly.
Except for those who thought they were and actually were. I’m almost four years out from my teens, and while I know I was inexperienced in many ways, I was more mature and responsible. What also about those who didn’t think so but were anyway? You seem to be positing a catch 22, where if you don’t think you’re more mature you obviously aren’t, but if you claim you are you must be an arrogant prick and obviously not more mature.
Umm, the only rights that are withheld from teenagers until they are almost 20 is the right to vote.
There isn’t any constitutional right to drink, it’s a privilege, just like having a drivers license. If you abuse it then it can and should be taken away from you.
The only rights that are withheld from teenagers until they are almost 20 is the right to vote?
A person legally becomes an adult when they are 18, and is entitled to all of the rights of adulthood. I think that’s more than just the right to vote.
(bolding mine - since it’s what I’m commenting on)
I don’t deny that teenagers can be stupid, that there are a number of stupid teenagers, and that since most people mature around that time, there will be a higher proportion of idiots amongst the teenage population than in the general population. However, unlike you, I do not dismiss an entire segment of the population as primarily being idiots. Most teenagers are reasonable, sensible members of society. It was the condescending attitude your younger self held that caused me to call you an unbearable prick.
And, as Eonwe pointed out, there are teens who believe they are more mature than their peers, and actually are.
I also note that you failed to acknowledge my points regarding youth in Australia and your desire to see the law ‘act like a Baptist parent’ which you complain about schools and colleges doing the same thing.
Time for another one of my non-sequitur “aw shucks” hijacks:
A couple of years ago when I went back to my hometown, I dug through my mom’s storage shed and found my high school annual from 1979. After looking through it and reading all the STUPID, INANE COMMENTS my friends wrote, all the parroting of TV sitcom catchphrases, all the what we considered to be thoughtful and experienced outlooks on sex and drinking, all the continuing points of those really really stupid debates we had way back then, and then the killer, seeing where a band geek friend wrote “alto sax solo” next to songs that were on a page of top 20 hits for that year, I quietly closed the book, buried it back in the storage shed, locked the door, and then proceeded to burn the whole goddamned thing down. Mom was pretty upset until I got her an insurance check.
One of these days you teenagers will look back on these years and realize how stupid you were. And it won’t be a pretty sight.
Yo Garfield, just ignore Mr Evil Breakfast; he’s just a dick who enjoys getting a rise outta folks. A little hamster-abuse on the search will show you…
So what’s your point? People tend to get wiser as they get older (you seem to have gone from making ridiculous yearbook comments to bigger and better things, like arson and insurance fraud).
Just because some teenagers think they know it all does not justify the nasty comments that have been made here.
You keep talking about stupidity, Knowed Out. Do you want to know what’s stupid? School administrators forcing teen-age girls to undergo invasive gynecological exams.
Knowed Out, in 25 years you’ll look back on the posts on this message board and think about how stupid you sounded here.
People grow, and change, and it is often for the wiser. Just because it is possible to be wiser doesn’t mean that your opinions and thoughts and arguments should be considered invalid until you are.
