Pigskin pranksters' punishment postponed

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
“Don’t do x” and “Never do x” have entirely different meanings? Allrighty then.
[/QUOTE]

“Entirely” would be an overstatement, and I didn’t see the “entirely” in your post (despite quoting it). To me “never” means it’s always wrong. “Don’t” is advice.

I have not said “never.” I have not said there can be no exceptions. For every good habit, there are exceptions. (Perhaps there is even an exception to every good habit having exceptions. Ow.)

It is only in hindsight, after the driver managed to keep control of the vehicle and avoid all obstacles, that we can say swerving worked. The driver cannot know that he or she will or won’t lose control over the vehicle. Losing control of the vehicle isn’t planned.

The habit should be “don’t swerve.” These situations come up very quickly, and drivers have split seconds to make a decision. It’s instinct to swerve. It is safer to get into the habit of not swerving.

So, unless you can provide some support for your position, I’m sticking with mine. Don’t swerve for deer.

Swerve for elephants.

42

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
Swerve for elephants.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed. :slight_smile:

43

[QUOTE=FRDE]
Extrapolating ridiculously, you appear to be saying if I burgle a house, then everyone else in the town should spend a night in the cooler.
[/quote]

No.

If you burgle a house, you should be slammed into jail so everybody else in town knows they can’t get away with it.

If you burgle a house, your family may suffer incidental losses if you are no longer able to work to provide for them, but that is not the intention of the punishment. Nearly any substantive punishment you can imagine carries incidental losses. If I fine you $X,000, that’s money you would lose out of your household expense budget. If I make you do 300 hours of community service picking up trash, that’s 300 hours you’re not available to work or play or do household chores.

Your argument seems to be, “if you burgle a house, but you’re sufficiently important that other people rely on your presence, nothing will happen to you because it’s not fair to other people that you be punished.”

What’s being lost here is that it wasn’t fair to the victims to be injured in the first place. By the time those little punks were in court looking up at a judge and awaiting sentence, it’s a little too late for them to be complaining about what’s fair for other people.

I am a sports fanatic, as it happens. The punishment for these two is 60 days in juvenile detention. They just don’t have to serve it until the football season is over.

That means if the football team ends up going to some kind of playoff or championship, their punishment may even be postponed until after they win the championship. Then they do their 60 days.

It’s true that they’re gonna do that 60 days no matter what. They are being punished, presumably what any other pre-adult would be punished for the same crime. They’re just not being punished immediately like any other non-footballer would be.

And so the lesson is, “Football is more important than punishment.” Not only are the two kids being taught this, everybody in town is being taught that.

44

I think it sends the wrong message to kids. If you’re on the football team, you are entitled to special consideration.

I think too much emphasis is placed on sports in school, anyway. The schools here don’t have enough books for all the students, but the football team gets new uniforms.

45

[QUOTE=FRDE]
The kids are going to be punished anyway.
[/QUOTE]
No, the kids are going to be rewarded for being football stars. Everybody’s equal. Its just some people are more equal than others.

[QUOTE=FRDE]
The deferment prevents a whole load of other people being punished.
[/QUOTE]
The “punishment” would be due to the actions of the kids. And the word you’re looking for is “consequence”.

[QUOTE=FRDE]
It strikes me as a sensible approach.
[/QUOTE]
It strikes me as a greedy and self serving.

[QUOTE=FRDE]
Also any punishment they finally get is going to be trivial compared with the hostility that they will face from their team, coach and just about everyone down to the hot dog vendor.
[/QUOTE]
Wouldn’t want the kids to experience the consequences of their actions over a little brain damage. There’s that word again, “consequences”.

[QUOTE=FRDE]
I think I would give them three weeks scraping up road kill.
[/QUOTE]
That would be a great start along with serving in a hospital ward full of accident victims. But to be fair to the community, you might as well delay it until they retire in case they get picked on a college scholarship and then turn pro. We’ll call it the 401K of criminal justice.

46

[QUOTE=FRDE]
I get your point, but I don’t agree

Extrapolating ridiculously, you appear to be saying if I burgle a house, then everyone else in the town should spend a night in the cooler.

Probably, like me, you are not a sports fanatic

  • however, with a little imagination, bolstered by earlier posts, I can see that giving those two guys 60 days /deferment/ is not for /their/ benefit.

In 60 days they will get the book thrown at them, in the interim they serve as a warning to all those around them.

I expect that in 60 days, the judge will have thought up a really inventive and unpleasant punishment for them.

If one regards it as 60 days house arrest, interrupted by daily public beratings from the coach, then that /deferment/ is not exactly a favour.

In effect it is 60 days in the stocks, followed by an unpleasant punishment.
If they perform well on the pitch, I doubt that their ultimate punishment will be reduced, but if they do badly /for the team/ then it could be increased.

Actually this is more interesting than it appears on the surface

  • a Stakhanovite implementation of punishment
  • quite an interesting concept
    [/QUOTE]

I think I understand where FRDE’s ideas are coming from. These particular points stand out…

“…in the interim they serve as a warning to all those around them.”

In my experience, whenever someone fucks up but has to go through daily life, that wears on them and everyone around. Therefore, the effect has an overall negative gain to those being punished and positive to those observing them as an example. Unfortunately, the true outcome simply seems to be viewing the delinquents as assholes rather than a warning, but I suppose if you’re only looking for deterring the perpetrators from future bad actions, it might be a wash.

“If one regards it as 60 days house arrest, interrupted by daily public beratings from the coach, then that /deferment/ is not exactly a favour.”

I know that this is talking about the time leading up to their detention, but I agree wholeheartedly with this. Since they are sequestered, we’re talking no glorious pats on the back, dates with the cheerleaders, Homecoming or anything else that would be normal or fun for the duration. I believe that would have at worse a minimal impact on these doofuses (sp?). Furthermore, this means they’ll be dogged by their coaches, teammates, friends, family (maybe) and girls in general. That would hurt egos and pride, if not changing life behaviors.

Sadly though, it does send a bad message of preferential treatment to everyone else because I’m sure most won’t dig that deeply. Also, they should be treated really harshly for causing brain damage and three month’s worth of surgeries and hospital stays over something that any first year driver on a learner’s permit knows better to do. Overall, I’m appalled at the one father mentioned who wonders why football is the focus. Well dumbass, I doubt a great brouhaha would be wound up waiting for the debate team to finish their season with or without their star members. Last of all, why aren’t the parents demanding more from the boys themselves?? In my world, my mother alone would have led the crusade to have my hide flayed and the judge would’ve been superfluous.

I say they should serve a much longer sentence (as would’ve happened had they actually killed one or many of their victims), possibly as adults, with lots and lots of community service thrown in and some sort of repayment to those they’ve hurt. Perhaps the ‘shame’ approach could be a good one here? Wearing signs around town, while they scrape up said roadkill, proclaiming they are idiots and in t-shirts showing a dear with a slash?? Fuckin’ maroons.

47

[QUOTE=faithfool]
I think I understand where FRDE’s ideas are coming from. These particular points stand out…

[/QUOTE]

Thanks Faithfool, I was not making points very coherently.

I’ve just realized that I misread the original post, like an idiot I took it as 60 days deferment, not 60 days in the kiddy slammer. Beats me how I got that wrong, probably subconsciously I could not believe it.

I think the punishment is ridiculously light, it could, and should be a lot nastier and more inventive - emptying bed pans in a ward of brain damaged patients is just one of the many unpleasant things I would inflict on them.

I stand by the rowing metaphor, since I did row at Uni, I know that if two of our nine were ripped out of the team at the last minute, even ‘better’ replacements would have wrecked our chances.

American football appears to involve a great deal of teamwork, more than most other sports that I can think of - bar rowing.

The ‘Stakhanovite punishment’ bit was extremely obscure, but it strikes me as very silly having skilled workers locked up when they could be doing something useful. Not at all relevant to this thread, but it looks worth considering.

48

[QUOTE=FRDE]
I stand by the rowing metaphor, since I did row at Uni, I know that if two of our nine were ripped out of the team at the last minute, even ‘better’ replacements would have wrecked our chances.
[/QUOTE]
Which is all the better reason to not postpone the punishment. The kids let their teammates down. The time to worry about consequences is before you set up a potentially deadly prank, not after someone is brain damaged.

I think that punishing the kids immediately would have sent a better message to everyone, that you hurt others, in addition to the victims with your acts.

49

American football also involves a great deal of injuries. No team can possibly expect that all the players will remain healthy and uninjured throughout a season. If their poor team can’t possibly play without those two guys, they’re not a quality team in the first place.

And once again, I come back to the victims — what activities are they going to miss out on because of the two punks and their ill-reasoned prank?

Once they injured two people and caused one brain damage, it’s too late to start whining about how being punished isn’t fair to the innocent members of the football team.

This is a great lesson for a team, too: when somebody goes down with an injury or can’t play, you pull together and overcome that obstacle. Put in the backup quarterback. Dealing with player injuries is just part of the game.

50

[QUOTE=FRDE]

I’ve just realized that I misread the original post, like an idiot I took it as 60 days deferment, not 60 days in the kiddy slammer. Beats me how I got that wrong, probably subconsciously I could not believe it.
[/QUOTE]
I pointed it out to you 4 hours before you posted this.

So what? If two guys got injured what remedy would you suggest? Postpone the meet until all teams are in tip-top shape?

Injuries are part of sports. All players are not available all of the time. If your nine is undermanned for a particular event just suck it up and do better the next time. You play the guys who are suited up and ready to play. No excuses.
Your idea that membership on a sports team trumps the need for society to punish criminals is bizarre. No offense intended, but I cannot even follow the logic.

51

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
I pointed it out to you 4 hours before you posted this.
[/QUOTE]

I missed it, one tends not to notice things that stretch ones credulity.

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
So what? If two guys got injured what remedy would you suggest? Postpone the meet until all teams are in tip-top shape?

Injuries are part of sports. All players are not available all of the time. If your nine is undermanned for a particular event just suck it up and do better the next time. You play the guys who are suited up and ready to play. No excuses.

Your idea that membership on a sports team trumps the need for society to punish criminals is bizarre. No offense intended, but I cannot even follow the logic.
[/QUOTE]

I know very little about American Football, I related it to my sole real experience of a competitive team sport that one trained up to ‘play’ over a specific period.

In an Eight, the last minute loss of two rowers would be devastating.

If the loss of two players to an American Football team would not have a similar effect, then I would have jailed them immediately.

My assumption is that others would have suffered, if that is not the case, and the dispensation was for the two moron’s benefit, then I totally disagree with the decision.

I might have allowed them to sit University Finals … not sure.
( Finals are not very pleasant :-} )

52

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
So, unless you can provide some support for your position, I’m sticking with mine. Don’t swerve for deer.
[/QUOTE]
It seems like the quotes you included were recommending braking and stopping in your lane, as the favored alternative to swerving. They weren’t saying don’t swerve, and go ahead and hit the deer.

If you have time to brake and come to a controlled stop, of course that is the best choice. But it doesn’t look like they are favoring hitting the deer to swerving.

53

[QUOTE=gigi]
It seems like the quotes you included were recommending braking and stopping in your lane, as the favored alternative to swerving. They weren’t saying don’t swerve, and go ahead and hit the deer.

If you have time to brake and come to a controlled stop, of course that is the best choice. But it doesn’t look like they are favoring hitting the deer to swerving.
[/QUOTE]

Here is one of the three quotes from jsgoddess’s post which directly contradict your impression here:

-FrL-

54

I guess that’s right. But I just can’t see myself heading for certain damage and/or injury when there’s an alternative that could result in none.

55

[QUOTE=FRDE]
In an Eight, the last minute loss of two rowers would be devastating.

If the loss of two players to an American Football team would not have a similar effect, then I would have jailed them immediately.
[/QUOTE]

And this is where we differ. Compared to two injured people, one with brain damage, a rowing competition falls really, really low on the priority scale and shouldn’t get consideration by a judge. Same goes for a football game.

As you say, it would be “devastating,” but for a given definition of the word. “Devastating” is getting brain damage for the rest of your life. “Devastating” is having your insurance premiums jacked up because you got into a wreck.

“Devastating” is not ooooh, we came in second at the rowing competition. It’s just a sport and it does and should fall behind the injury of a human being.

56

From another account:

OK, Your Honor. Just one thing… if I tell you what I think of your decision, can I have my sentence postponed until after football season, too? :rolleyes:

57

[QUOTE=Fish]
And this is where we differ. Compared to two injured people, one with brain damage, a rowing competition falls really, really low on the priority scale and shouldn’t get consideration by a judge. Same goes for a football game.

As you say, it would be “devastating,” but for a given definition of the word. “Devastating” is getting brain damage for the rest of your life. “Devastating” is having your insurance premiums jacked up because you got into a wreck.

“Devastating” is not ooooh, we came in second at the rowing competition. It’s just a sport and it does and should fall behind the injury of a human being.
[/QUOTE]

I think this is where we differ, the fact someone has brain damage is utterly irrelevant. Nobody could have been hurt, or a bus load of people could have been killed.

What they did was incredibly stupid and deserves punishment.

All I am saying is, that if defering the punishment of those morons /avoids/ punishing a bunch of other people, then deferment is reasonable.

I am trying to avoid mixing the past and the future.

58

[QUOTE=FRDE]

What they did was incredibly stupid and deserves punishment.

All I am saying is, that if defering the punishment of those morons /avoids/ punishing a bunch of other people, then deferment is reasonable.

I am trying to avoid mixing the past and the future.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, other people should not be punished for the actions of these two boys. I will go so far to assume that the loss of these two boys will devastate the team and cause them to lose every single game.

However, the ones doing the damage would not be the judges putting them in jail. It would be the boys. Going to jail and depriving their team of their support is a consequence of the boys’ actions, not the judges.

They are the ones who have put their team at risk, not the judge.

Just as their victims’ injuries are a direct consequence of their actions so are the loss to their team and community.

If I commit a crime it will not only hurt my victims but it will negatively impact my friends and family as well. The source of the damage however, is my commitment of the crime, not the judge sending me to prison for it.

It was their stupid reckless act that hurt their team.

59

[QUOTE=FRDE]
I think this is where we differ, the fact someone has brain damage is utterly irrelevant. Nobody could have been hurt, or a bus load of people could have been killed.
[/QUOTE]

And if someone had been killed, they would have been charged with something a bit more serious — manslaughter, perhaps.

That’s because the law doesn’t deal in could’ves. You’re not charged based on what could’ve happened, but on what did. If nobody had been hurt at all, they probably wouldn’t have been punished at all. But somebody was.

Let’s look at it from another perspective: suppose the two victims that had been hurt had been on a football team. Therefore, the two pranksters had hurt a whole bunch of innocent people — apart from the two in the car, their prank would have caused the victims’ football team to be missing two players.

In such a case, would the pranksters deserve more harsh punishment because they inadvertently injured a whole football team?

I say no — football doesn’t enter into this at all.

60

[QUOTE=Fish]
And if someone had been killed, they would have been charged with something a bit more serious — manslaughter, perhaps.

That’s because the law doesn’t deal in could’ves. You’re not charged based on what could’ve happened, but on what did. If nobody had been hurt at all, they probably wouldn’t have been punished at all. But somebody was.

Let’s look at it from another perspective: suppose the two victims that had been hurt had been on a football team. Therefore, the two pranksters had hurt a whole bunch of innocent people — apart from the two in the car, their prank would have caused the victims’ football team to be missing two players.

In such a case, would the pranksters deserve more harsh punishment because they inadvertently injured a whole football team?

I say no — football doesn’t enter into this at all.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, I get your point about the punishment differing.

What I’m trying to get across is that the judge’s objective appeared to be an attempt to minimize ‘colateral damage’ to other people

  • they have brain damaged someone - fact
  • should their actions damage other people in the future ?

If it were a rowing eight, then I would say /no/
As it is I don’t know enough about American football, opinion seems divided on how important the makeup of the team is to the team’s performance.

My position is simple, regardless of what they have done, is it reasonable to defer punishment if deferal will save a load of other totally uninvolved people ‘punishment’ ?

I don’t care about the two morons, it is the other people I’m concerned about.