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There has been a lot of talk about jury nullification regarding Peter Watts conviction.
The first thing that I want to say is that I completely agree with truepenny . (Plus some added stuff floating around in my head about how, you know, this is essentially what is going on in a lot of rape trials, and what happened a lot with lynching trials, so while I am ( Read more... )
The first thing that I want to say is that I completely agree with truepenny . (Plus some added stuff floating around in my head about how, you know, this is essentially what is going on in a lot of rape trials, and what happened a lot with lynching trials, so while I am ( Read more... )
Yes, he was high at the time, but part of the original charges/defense's argument - if I'm remembering correctly - were that RK was resisting arrest, the "proof" partly being his not remaining perfectly still in a prone position while he was being "detained" aka beaten up.
What has changed is that the margins of society have been redefined to include a lot of people that wouldn't have been considered part of it before - such as white, middle class, male, Canadians who are crossing the border and not being excessively obsequious while doing so.
As far as it only getting more terrifying, well...being the person who is kinda stuck here, I sincerely hope not. I'm actually kinda hoping that what is actually happening is that we are hearing more stories because people are becoming less afraid to tell them.
But I certainly not counting on that and I don't blame you for not taking that chance.
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I was in ninth grade and living in SoCal when the Rodney King beating and subsequent trial and riots - and moralizing by people vastly more privileged than those involved in the riots - occurred.* I also had a friend whose brother was murdered when the three of us were in high school - and I had to sit in class and listen to one of my teachers talk about how the kid brought it on himself because he was a (very small time) drug dealer. Both incidents affected me a lot and shook me quite a bit out of my middle class "punishments always fit the crime" bubble.
*I still vividly remember *screaming* at the TV reporters as they taped a guy being beaten to death, and did nothing to stop it. (FYI, someone else came along and saved him.) And I'm not the kind of person to yell at the TV, normally.
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(I suppose mostly actually trusting most of the gardaí not to hurt people unnecessarily is probably naive. On the other hand, I'm acquainted with a couple of people who've thrown things at and splashed vomit on officers without so much as getting arrested. Although they may be exaggerating their drunken misdemeanours for effect. Still.)
The mainstream - at least in news-reporting terms - attitude towards "crime and punishment" in America seems somewhat different to the one I'm acquainted with in Ireland and the UK, at least outside the really old-style Tory British newspapers.
Which is to say, I wish your country didn't worry me so much as it does. Especially when I know so many pleasant, mostly sane Americans.
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The really interesting thing about that, though, is that at the same time that all that was happening in LA, there was still a lot of talk about all the violence happening in parts of Ireland. So much so that it was almost a bit of a shock when I went to visit several years later - amid warning from paretns and others to be careful and avoid certain parts of the country - and it was, I swear to god, one of the most peaceful weeks in my life.
With regards to the normalization of violence in America, I think part of the problem is that our news about other countries is skewed in a way that makes outside of the US seem more dangerous than it is. And makes us blind to the danger in our own country.
Perfect example of that btw: In the weeks prior to 9/11, the US picked up chatter suggesting that something was about to happen. So much so that the US State Department issued a general warning to all Americans - or, at least, all Americans living abroad.
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(The most annoying thing was the bomb threats on the northern commuter rail line, because that could mean up to a four hour delay. It's the little things in life that really makes terrorism annoying, you know? Speaking as someone who wasn't even old enough to be a regular commuter, back when it was a semi-regular occurence.)
(Even the competent kind of terrorism is far more annoying than dangerous, to the vast majority of people who have no choice but to get on with their lives while it's going on around them. Unless you've gone past terrorism and into a reasonable facsimile of open civil war.)
With regards to the normalization of violence in America, I think part of the problem is that our news about other countries is skewed in a way that makes outside of the US seem more dangerous than it is.
Huh. That's interesting. Because a little googling gives me figures for intentional homicides per 100,000 persons, and the US is up there with 5.4 (as well as the highest number of persons per 100,000 incarcerated of any list I've yet found, with over 700). Whereas most of (western) Europe, and a large part of the Middle East and Asia, comes in at something under 3.0.
Not sure this is in any way connected to the point you're making, but, well. I didn't know that, and it's interesting.
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"Not sure this is in any way connected to the point you're making, but, well. I didn't know that, and it's interesting."
It is, and it's also the best part of Bowling for Columbine, when Moore and and Barry Glasser talk about the difference between perception and reality when it comes to the things we are afraid of. Which reminds me that I really need to read Glasser's book The Culture of Fear.
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