Happy Slapping

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Taking things to extremes...Recently a man in my neighbourhood was swarmed by a gang of teens outside of a restaurant and beaten while some of them recorded it on their cell phone cams. I have no doubt that this what this slapping craze leads to.

The police say that it's a tough situation to be in, especially when you are being swarmed since you never know how many or if any of the youths have knives. It can get deadly very quickly.

Luckily the man who was swarmed suffered minor injuries as he was smart enough to curl up and cover his head to prevent the worst of it.

I think it's sick and a clear cut sign that kids are undisciplined, unsupervised and unparented too much these days. I think Singapore has the right idea with that caning thing. I know that a healthy fear of my father and my parents watching me like a hawk and being nosy did not hurt in the long run.

[ May 30, 2005, 22:21: Message edited by: Istolil ]

 

That's what you get after shows like those on MTV, the real new fashion nowadays is to go around punching people or being violent, like in every video of bands like Blink or Simple plan...

 

We even had students beating up teachers around here some time ago. My view is simple: give them a finger and they will want the whole hand. Zero tolerance for uncalled violence and invasion of personal space. People should be locked in jail, even for just a couple of days, for merely touching you against your express prohibition or for poking a stranger with a finger. Guys with "wandering hands" should also be sent to jail, fined, whatever. Zero tolerance for poking, prodding, groping, whatever such.

 

Even when you poke at someone mistaking him/her for a friend? I can hardly think that as criminal activity. Personally I think that your overly xenophobic about personal space and I can't imagine how you could survive a trip with public transportation during rush time. Also once again, even if those actions were punishable do you really think it's worth the time of the police or the courts to handle cases where someone has poked you with a finger? Completely ridicoulous in my opinion. Intentional groping and sexual harrassment is of course a different thing.

 

Seen that one?

Coming up with an exception to claim the general rule is ridiculous is, well, ridiculous. Especially out of your personal pet spite. Of course, such things as you mention are an exception. The general point is that the right to the integrity of the body, which is a basic human right, includes the right to decide if you want to be touched or not. The same way no one has the right to invade your personal space against your wishes. And, before you come up with another exception, this means the spiteful action of what could be called stalking if it were more serious. For example, if there's plenty of room, no one needs to stand or sit a couple of centimetres from you and follow you around like Neeber. Usually, it's psychos, but sometimes people do that just because they are being particularly stupid and they want to annoy someone. Basically, no one has any right intentiously to cause discomfort to others without a good reason. Being stupid and wanting to annoy people is not a good reason. The police has more important things to do than chasing dumb kids around but parents are responsible. If adults behave like dumb kids, they probably need a night in a small room with bars to cool down. You can't legislate niceness, but you can crack down on idiots who take pleasure in annoying other people.

[ June 06, 2005, 19:33: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

In my opinion this once again boils down to something either being undecent or illegal (about which I think we have discussed earlier in some other thread). If some stranger poked me once I would feel discomfortable but I would probably just move somewhere else, there are a lot of strange people around and there is not much the law can do to those. I would imagine that in Poland too you have to deal with all sorts of drunkards and there's really not much you can do to them. Having them in jails costs the society way too much and most of them are not really aggressive, just annoying and discomforting from time to time. If you fine them, they won't be able to pay it and if you put them to jail they will only cost much more. Useless buorocracy and costs and what good have you really achieved? In my opinion, nothing. I still find it ridiculous and useless to punish people for such small matters. Society will label them as freaks or scum if you will anyway and to me that is enough of a punishment.

If someone actually stalks you and follows you even if you try to go someplace else, then it's a different matter and that is definently illegal and should be dealt with accordingly.

You're vision of every small undecent act that someone finds annoying requireing punishment seems to me like a oneway street towards a police state, and I will rather tolerate a few pokes now and then than go down that road.