Does it actually hurt the tree? I thought that redwoods had very tough bark which allows them to survive forest fires, so it doesn’t seem that paint would do much harm.
Or is it just that the kid marred the appearance of something beautiful and majestic?
It’s still a “petty” crime, (When compared to selling drugs, rape, or murder.) which was my point. Yes, it needs to be stopped, but I don’t think it was “sweet justice” that some ignorant kid who happened to commit the crime of vandalism died in a terrible, gory, public way.
Graffii art that could genuinely be considered “art”, while still technically “wrong” I dont’ mind so much. It has an urban artstc anarchy to it. If it’s clever enough, it’s the kind of thing you briefly tip your hat to before you grumble about the costs of getting someone to come and remove it.
Tagging is just plain stupd. Wrinting your name or gang sympbol on eveything like a dog who is peeing on stuff to say :: whiz :: “Mine!”… :: whizzz :: “Mine!..”
:: reads IC’s mind :: Yup, that sounds about right.
What degree of vandalism would be worse than burglary? Are you honestly suggesting breaking into someone’s property and making off with their personal possessions is no worse than writing your name on their wall?
The beef I have with vanadlaism is that it’s senseless and benefits no one. It’s cold comfort, sure, think of it this way:
If someone steals my bike, then I hope they really needed my bike or money form selling it.
If someone just jumps up and down and destroys the forks of my bike so it’s compeltely unusuable… That’s senseless destruction. No one gets to use the bike, no one profits.
I realize this is a weird opinion. LIke some crackhead stealing my bike so he can buy more dope is hardly a comforting thought, but to smash my bike… There’s something demented about putting a lot of energy into destrying something when there no benefit (good or evil). Therefore I can see how vanadlism bother some people more than outright theft.
I doubt if it hurts the tree very much at all. You could probably strip off the bark with the paint on it, and it wouldn’t harm it. I just consider it an insult to spray “420 BOYZ” on a living thing that can’t protect itself.
Well, the tree could’ve fallen on him if it wanted.
I really hate vandals, but the one place I don’t mind seeing graffiti is on the side of train cars. It in no way makes the train cars less useful* and makes them more interesting to look at. I doubt many “taggers” restrict their painting to train cars, but I do feel rather sorry that this kid (who was only 13, people) was killed painting train cars (if that’s what he was doing.) And I feel sorry for the people who have to clean the mess up.
*I do realize that it is unsafe, as this story illustrates, to have kids running around train yards, but that’s not my point.
Around here, at least, we occasionally have some politically themed grafiti. For quite a while there was a highway overpass that had, along with some other rather cryptic messages, a message that “BUSH = QUAYLE”. More recently, after the passage of the MCA, the message “HABEAS CORPUS 1215-2006 R.I.P.” appeared all over town. Neither particularly bothered me.
I’ll second the notion on train cars–I often look at the tags on train cars while waiting at a crossing. It’s quite disturbing that anyone should think vandalism deserves a death penalty–but I guess someone is ‘without sin,’ so to speak.
Well one $5 can of paint (stolen) can probably lower property values by several thousand dollars.
A case or two of spray paint can lower a neighborhood’s property values by tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars cumulative. It can also promote other crime such as burglary, and drug sales.
So how is tagging any less of a crime than burglary? The financial impact is much greater.
To combat tagging in my neighborhood, one lady spent $15,000 of her own money to buy a wet sandblaster to clean off tagging. She got the court to staff her service with people doing community service. All it takes in one phone call and they come out and erase the tagging. But the point is, this should not be necessary in the first place.
Swallowed My Cellphone nailed it. Taggers are just like dogs peeing on fences. Except it does not evaporate, it can be seen for years, and it takes a fuck load of work to erase.
Do I advocate the death penalty for tagging? No, but on the other hand, I can’t generate much compassion for some fuckwit that A) is tagging, and B) jumps in front of a moving train. I look at this kid as getting a Karmic bitch-slap.
You three have serious mental problems and need to see about checking yourselves into an institution. I think anyone who would see physical violence or even death as an appropriate punishment for vandalism (vandalism for god’s sake) needs to be removed from society so their sociopathic way of thinking can’t infect others. Rule number one of society: people are more important than things. Even stupid teenagers who are pointlessly destructive. I know I committed a few pointlessly destructive acts in my younger days, and yet, by the end of my life I’m pretty sure I will have made a net positive contribution to society. Vandalism is a petty crime and should be treated as such. Sure, it’s ugly, but that doesn’t mean people deserve to die over it.
Whoa there!! Calm down… Though what I said seemed to have some venom behind it, it was a manner of speech not to be taken literally.
Tagging an ancient redwood and tagging a local seven elevenare two cmopletely different offenses in my book. Both vandals equally at fault, one is a little more beleaguering than the other wouldn’t you say? All mental institution talk aside.
I pray for any kids you have or potentially have. Because there’s a likelihood–however small–that your child could have a “fuckwit” moment and get themselves killed.
Will your compassion kick in then, or will your eulogy be as poetic as your vitriol in this thread? Will you stand there at the funeral and say “KARMA IS A BITCH”*? I really hope not. Will you call your dead thirteen-year-old kid a “fuckwit” who got what he deserved? I really hope not.
People only see karmic results when it happens to the other guy. For once, I’d like for someone to think about all the crappy things they’ve done when shit happens to them. Maybe then they’ll stop being so sanctimonious when it comes to someone else’s misfortune.
*I’m not up on my Buddhism, but isn’t karma all about an equal exchange of negativity? I mean, if I steal five cents from my father’s piggy bank when I’m a kid, does that mean I should expect to get mugged and raped as an adult? I don’t think karma, if it exists, is the one that’s the bitch. I think it’s this crazy sense of “justice” we’ve come to develop.
Moving thread from IMHO to The BBQ Pit.
I assumed you probably literally wouldn’t bloody a kid who spray painted a redwood tree, if it came down to it in real life. Just like I don’t literally think you belong in a mental institution. But that you would even express that desire is troubling to me. I’ve never seen a redwood, but I’ve been to plenty of other areas of natural beauty, and it pisses me off when I see where people have left their ugly mark, whether through littering or destruction or anything. There’s no reason for it, and it makes things worse for other people. But wishing them physical harm never crosses my mind. A fine and community service, but I don’t think blood should be involved. People are more important than things.
Oh, and sorry about insulting people outside the Pit, I was thinking it was already in the Pit, I should have checked.
No biggy - I’ve been called a dirt worshipping treehugger before, and that never bothered me. 
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The calibre of a crime doesn’t rest solely on the financial impact it has on the victim. At least in my experience, burglary has always been seen as an act of very intimate violation of personal space. You can always apply another coat of paint to a wall or rent a sandblaster, but you’ll never be able to purchase an unshaken sense of security. You’ll never be able to purchase priceless family heirlooms.
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And no, the financial impact is not much greater. Unless the severity of your crimes are disproportionate to one another, burglary is always going to come out on top. As I stated above, it’s relatively easy to remove spraypaint. It’s not so cheap to replace lost valuables.
I’ll ignore your stupid and misleading comment about the kid jumping in front of the train and focus on the more pertinent issue at hand.
As easy as it is to characterize those who engage in graffiti as dogs pissing on fences or malicious law-breaking hoodlums, to do so would be dishonest.
Graffiti is often the precipitation of corruption or poverty for those most affected by it. A method of expression for espousing political beliefs or bringing attention to dire social issues when no other outlet is availible. It’s immoral. It’s illegal. It’s often unsavory, yes, but it’s a product of crime not the cause of.
Nobody argues that graffiti carved into the walls of Pompeii is anything but an important statement on a socially turbulent era, but a kid from Queens spraypaints “Remember 9/11” on the side of a fucking train and people are saying “good riddance” when he’s torn limb from limb.
My first thought was that it was a suicide note. How high was the bridge?
Anyway, yeah I agree with everyone in the thread: graffiti is worse than gang rape.