Because I didn't call the victim that. I would have sympathy for someone going through that. But I would also advise them to man up and fight back and not cower behind the law nor take advantage of the law in such a petty case of a prep school prank.
But by extension you
did call every victim a "pussy" who actually calls an assault an assault. You didn't call this
one victim a "pussy," but your reasoning leads you to be calling a large subset of other victims pussies. Myself included. That's wrong.
The law isn't something you "cower behind." I'll admit that not all laws are good laws, and I'd absolutely participate in jury nullification were I part of a jury on a relevant case. But if you're not "cowering behind" the law when you call to report a rape or a murder, I fail to see how you're "cowering behind" the law if you call to report an assault.
Technically, me pushing you at the mall to get to a shirt I want is assault. But if you came up to me as my friend and told me you were just assaulted, then told me it was because someone pushed you, I'd have a hard time agreeing with you. Even though you are technically right about calling it assault if this was brought to court.
There are degrees of it. In the courtroom, or in a law class, techincality matters. In the street you know it doesn't. Calling a shove at the mall assault is accurate in law classes, not in the street. So while a spade is a spade in the classroom, it is not a spade in the street.
I understand what you're saying. But I firmly believe that, at the point where you're being
held down against your will by a group of guys that line has been solidly crossed, regardless of their intention. I've been ganged up on, for "pranks" and for violent assault. It doesn't feel much different, except for the physical injury.
I wouldn't call shoving in a line assault any more than you would. I
do call an incident involving a group physically attacking an individual an assault. Yes, even if they just want to cut his hair. Their intent and the effects of their actions are little different from an assault that actually involves a severe beating - they are attempting to intimidate their victim, to make the victim afraid. They want to
hurt the victim, and just because not all hurts leave physical scars doesn't make them any less real.
You can still call it a prank, absorb all the trauma, and fight back. What you want is to make this victim sound like MORE of a victim and to make Romney sound like MORE of a terrible person.
He was a victim of events that are precisely described as an assault, possibly with a deadly weapon, and almost certainly a hate crime. The degree to which he was wronged certainly says nothing negative about
the victim; if he was "more" or "less" a victim, that reflects nothing bad about
him. It only reflects the degree to which the
assailants have transgressed.
And since I've only ever used the accurate and precise terminology when describing these events and have not at all exaggerated what actually happened, I think that young-adult-Romney needed no help at all in appearing to be a terrible person. I think he managed that just fine all on his own. Well, maybe with a few of his friends to help hold the other guy down for him.
You are using over dramatic words such as "assault" and "deadly weapon" to make "prank" and "cutting hair" sound worse than it is. And THAT is disingenuous.
Yet those words are not dramatic - they are
accurate. You've even admitted as much yourself. It was an assault - a group of guys attacked the kid and held him down. If that, by itself, doesn't qualify as an assault, then I don't know what does.
If I were being "dramatic" and exaggerating the actual events, then I;d be saying things like "they beat the shit out of him" or some other
inaccurate description.
Instead, I've used only precise and accurate terminology. You've even agreed to that. Your only problem is that you feel like the attack was insufficiently bad to warrant the terms...but
you don't have sole right to define terminology and the degree to which events match that terminology.
quote:
willfully and unlawfully use force or violence upon another. You can be convicted of this offense even if you don't harm or injure the other person, as long as you make some type of unwanted physical contact.
From a
law firm in California. Technically, that was "battery," at least in this state.
To anyone actually
familiar with the use of the terms I have used, I have accurately and precisely conveyed my meaning. I have not exaggerated. I have not been overly dramatic in describing these events as an assault, or to be
more precise, assault and battery. If I, even alone, did
exactly the same thing these boys did, but to my fiance (holding her down and cutting her hair against her will in an attempt to frighten and intimidate her), I would rightfully be charged with spousal assault and battery. It may have been possible to plead down to a misdemeanor version of the same charge (yes, assault and batter of a spouse in California can be either a misdemeanor or a felony depending on
severity among other factors), but I would still be guilty of having committed an assault. And battery. And very few people would have a problem with voting "guilty" in a jury if the events were not in question.
I simply cannot see how describing a group of people attacking an individual, holding him down against his will, and cutting his hair as assault can possibly be any form of overdramatism or hyperbole or exaggeration whatsoever. By every definition I know, it fits perfectly.
While I sympathize with what you went through, I can assure you a lot of what you're feeling as far as humiliation, etc., would go away if you had stood up for yourself.
In the case of assault from other boys? I did. But they were many, and I was one. When a bunch of other kids start throwing
rocks at you, there's not a lot you can do. I don't feel particularly humiliated about those.
The one that gets to me is the girls. Maybe it was because it was a
sexual offense, and boys aren't "supposed" to be victims in that sort of case. I was tall but scrawny and underweight as a kid, but I was still stronger than any of the girls...just not four of them at once. And I couldn't hit a girl - I was raised to believe that was absolutely wrong and unacceptable, and if I
had fought back violently,
I would have wound up suspended or expelled or even charged with a crime. I
did try to resist - I just didn't throw any punches. I had grabbed two wrists and was trying to hold them back, but combined the four of them were too much. I tried to slide off the chair even when it became apparent I couldn't hold them off for much longer, but I moved too late, and it wouldn't have done much to move anyway. It was quick, and wasn't in any way as bad as what a lot of people go through - some (you?) might even question calling it a sexual assault. But I was touched, sexually, against my will, saying "no, stop, quit it, get the hell off me" and physically resisting. If I had grabbed some girl's crotch while she yelled at me to stop and tried to hold me back, I would have been in pretty big trouble. Instead, the "incident" was treated as "no big deal." As an adult, I'm now sure the school administration was actually thinking "hey, a group of girls grabbed his junk, that's a
good thing." I felt humiliated and embarrassed and emasculated. And worse. After the results of reporting it, I didn't talk about it any more, because of people who treated it like it wasn't a big deal, or that I was a "pussy."
But, see, saying "you should have fought back," particularly when you didn't have enough of the details to know if I
had, is just another way of blaming the victim. If some guy on the street gets attacked by a group of guys, they assaulted him
whether he fought back or not. He shouldn't be told that he'd "feel better if he had fought back," he'd
actually feel better if those assholes hadn't attacked him, and no part of that attack is the fault of the victim.
You say all of that as though it makes you special in some way, as though I wasn't bullied, jumped in school by ten dudes, picked on for wearing glasses, made fun of for being in drama, fucked with for having long hair, beat up because I was with the girl some other guy simply wanted... All of those things happen to most of us. But I fought back. I didn't go to the authorities and make myself the victim to seek justice that I could have taken myself. It is what makes you who you are as an adult, in my opinion.
We have the burden of being men. We also need to act like it.
In other words "Rahvin, you're a pussy because I don't think you stood up for yourself sufficiently."
Going to the authorities doesn't make one a victim. A rape or assault victim, as an example, does not become a victim when he/she
calls the police. He/she is a victim when the rape or assault happens. The actions of the victim after the attack are irrelevant to their status as the victim of that attack.
Going to the authorities does not make one a "pussy." It's the appropriate response when someone has done something seriously wrong to you and you don't want it to happen again, to yourself or others.
In fact, in many cases, it takes more courage to stand up and tell otehrs what happened and admit to a humiliating experience than it does to remain silent.
I think it's wrong to encourage silence. I think victims of assaults, even minor ones, should be unashamed to tell others, including the authorities, what happened.
The
victims shouldn't be the ones who are afraid. Or humiliated. Or embarrassed.
The
assailants should be afraid. And humiliated. And embarrassed.
And for the record, Oni...I
didn't go to the authorities when kids threw rocks at me. The only time I went and told a teacher was when I was groped by a group of girls who wanted to humiliate me, and had been doing so verbally for an extended period of time without stopping regardless of what I did until it culminated in what I described above.
They even waited a whole school year after I told before starting again.
Because you were over reacting to something I didn't say. It is not like you to react on emotion and not comprehend. I stand up to bullies means I would have stood up for YOU in any givien situation had I walked in on you being assaulted.
I reacted, Oni, to your actual words. I reacted to the fact that you identify anyone who calls getting attacked by a bunch of bullies as an assault a "pussy."
What we are discussing however is the use of words to make a case against Mitt Romney seem worse. You can just say, Romney played a prank on a gay kid for being different. That's already shitty to do. Instead you are opting for the over dramitic assault with a deadly weapon to add sting to it.
Romney's prank
was an assault, and he brought what may have been a deadly weapon along to pull it off. I think that conveys exactly the right amount of "sting," because it's what
actually happened.
I think that calling it "just a prank" is like calling spousal battery a "marital dispute." I'm not exaggerating - you're
minimizing. You;re portraying it as less than it really was because "hey, they were jsut kids and they didn't intend any real harm."
...Except to scare and humiliate and intimidate their victim.
Probably not, since he went through it. But if he didn't call it assault with a deadly weapon, and instead called it a prank. Then years later it was being evaluated and people decided to call it assault with a deadly weapon, I would call those people pussies.
Hope you see the difference.
I do. But I still think you're absolutely, completely wrong. And I still think that you're indirectly saying that any
future victim of an identical "prank" who
does call the "prank" what it is - an assault, possibly with a deadly weapon, and very likely a hate crime - is also a "pussy." And I think that's wrong.
And again, I have not said you and crash are wrong in what you have accurately described as assault with a deadly weapon, in the most technical of terms. But so would be me pushing you at the mall. And since there are degrees in real life situations outside of the classroom, technical talk, I can see the difference between actual assault with a deadly weapon and a prep school prank, or a push at the mall.
Except this was not a push at the mall.
This was a group of guys, holding another guy to the ground against his will. One of them was armed with scissors, which may or may not have been sharp and dangerous, and which were used to cut the victim's hair in a blatant attempt to humiliate and frighten him.
I hope you see the difference.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
™ Version 4.2
