No, it just adds an element of psychological torture to the physical torture that follows. “Here, choose which implement I’m going to torture you with” is just a sadistic mind game.
I like to think my response would likely have been to just keep walking. “Get it your self.” Why come back?
I’m sure we all would, but it’s much healthier to understand the terrible danger of positing “just don’t let yourself be abused” as a viable answer to abuse.
More directly, the answer to “why come back” is “if you thought it was gonna hurt before, just wait till I get my hands on you NOW.”
That makes sense, and of course someone who’s endured it before won’t consider leaving. I shouldn’t have been so flippant.
Training a child, or any human being for that matter, to do the right thing out of fear is totally the wrong approach. It also instills anger and resentment and, quite often, the individual in question will do the opposite as soon as an opportunity presents itself. It’s totally the wrong methodology.
That might have gotten me killed.
Reading through this thread is making me wonder is many people have any idea how physical abuse of a child (or an adult) actually works.
Jeez!
This is why I never write adults cites for not wearing a seat belt. If you want to smash through the windshield or go flying out of the car in an accident more power to you. Besides, if it’s so important why is the fine only ten lousy dollars?
Helmet and seatbelt laws are government meddling in natures master plan: eliminating idiots from the gene pool!
By that logic, might we infer pkbites doesn’t wear a seatbelt?
No. If you read his post, which really should be read in the context of the post he was replying to and agreeing with, he said
This was actually less offensive than his usual shtick.
But he’s an idiot! How does it square with the “master plan” he’s identified if he goes around wearing a seatbelt?
Sorry, but “I don’t bother enforcing laws would otherwise protect stupid people because it’s good if stupid people die” is pretty fucking chilling.
ETA: edited for clarity even though Babale quoted me below.
When you plan the demise
Of the group you despise
That’s Eugenics
He’s got a point – at least to me – though if the fine is only ten bucks. Who the hell is that going to deter? Why waste time writing a ticket?
While I do philosophically somewhat also agree with the idea that freedom also means the freedom to be stupid, when your body is ejected through a windshield and your remains splatted across the road, you are selfishly affecting other people’s lives and their freedoms from having to see/deal with your demise.
If the police can pull you over for not wearing a seatbelt (I know there used to be places you couldn’t - it was only an add-on offense for being pulled over for something else), the combination of the hassle of spending 15 minutes on a traffic stop plus $10 will probably deter a good number of people.
Plus, you know, you could get shot reaching for your seatbelt. So maybe it’s actually a good thing pkbites doesn’t pull people over for not wearing a seatbelt?
I wonder what other laws he personally disagrees with, and so refuses to enforce. It’s rather odd that someone who takes money from the government to enforce laws is as contemptuous of the law as he is.
It does make me wonder if he’s typical of cops, or if he’s just one of the “bad apples” that makes the rest of them look bad.
He says he has discretion on whether to enforce it or not. I wonder if his department leadership is also on the ‘haha let the idiots die lol’ train or if they have a more practical reason.
There’s something to be said for discretion of enforcement. A friend of mine was leaving work and going right next door to the gas station to pick up his smokes. He didn’t put his seatbelt on for the ~50ft jaunt and got a ticket for it. I can see an officer using discretion to let that go, but they didn’t.
But just a blanket refusal to enforce particalar laws that he doesn’t agree with, that’s not using discretion, that’s refusing to do your job.
I think my political axis has a small wobble. I think it’s OK to let people kill themselves not wearing seatbelts. I can handle seeing the ejected body.
I mean, where do we stop protecting people from doing things that can kill them? Smoking? Motorcycles? Cheeseburgers?
I still support this pitting, though.