Boys Attack Cyclist Who Fights Back (Page 6)

Are you suggesting eliminating no fault divorce, or encouraging it (in instances involving children)?

Eliminate it.

In my opinion, if you have children you should have to show cause for a divorce.
To my mind, the only justifiable cause would be abuse.

I agree with you completely on the role of fathers.  However, I don't think the government can do much to fix the situation.  I certainly think forcing parents to remain married, despite their own wishes, is counterproductive.

PA governor Corbett signed a Castle doctrine law this past summer.
The new law includes a no duty to retreat clause.

My opinion now is that increased concealed carry by law abiding citizens
is a good thing and will lead to reduced violent crime.

I didn't always think that way.

It's often said that you can't change someone's opinion,
but the arguments of others here on BT helped change my opinion on this matter.

I use to be generally neutral on the 2nd amendment
and definitely against anyone's need to carry a gun.

Of course being on the receiving end of a gun crime
woke me up to challenge my thinking.
I was still against guns in general and carrying in particular
even after my attack.
I mean, after all I survived with no one being hurt.

But it was on a thread here that those opinions of mine were challenged
by 2nd amendment supporters. 
As I worked through the problem over time,
I came to see that they had a much better argument than I had.

So people's opinions can in fact be changed through conversations such as these.

No one I know who carries wants to have to use their gun in a self defense situation.
They will of course, but it is a last resort.

The increase in carry permits is not the cause of the coarsening of the culture,
as my friends to the north might think about the US.
Rather it's a reasonable reaction to the effects of the coarsening that are the result of other factors.
Maybe it will even lead to a more polite society. 

Safe guess that I'm in the minority about this.

I put that out there because in my opinion
addressing the structural problems that would lead boys to be prone
to do what they did in Reading is going to require some difficult decisions.

Economics is certainly part of it.

I think though, the real problem is the breakdown of the family.
That's the primary institution where you learn right from wrong.
It's the primary institution where a boy learns to be a man of character
in pursuit of virtue.

In the meantime good people have the right to defend themselves,
even with the use of deadly force,
from the effects of the breakdown of the family.

I don't think that's the legal standard. The standard I have seen frequently quoted is that a reasonable person in this situation would believe they were in danger. This rules out off-the-wall "feelings" or distorted perceptions like someone who has an irrational fear of polka dots or something. It has to be a realistic threat.

I agree with the assessment of the problem, but not its root causes. If by sexual revolution, you mean the disconnect between sexual activity and marriage, I think there is not really anything new under the sun. People have been having sex outside of marriage (both before and in the Newt-onian sense), and it did not lead to fatherlessness. 

And if you mean the disconnect between sexual activity and procreation, I would disagree even more strongly - have sex without having a kid, and the issue of a fatherless kid is moot.

However, if by the sexual revolution you mean the idea that I should get to indulge my every pleasure without regard to others, then I will wholeheartedly agree with you.

I think the problem is that we have so glorified the individual at the expense of the collective (I think we all know where I stand on the Ayn Rand idealization of the individual in society) that people do not consider how their actions affect others. Thus the man fathers a child that he leaves behind so he can chase more women. The woman rolls through a string of men without considering the impact on the children. The children feel disconnected from the start and have little incentive to meet social demands. And the cycle continues.

I also think that if we appropriately educate our children about their sexuality and reproductive health that we would see fewer children born outside of commited relationships (marriage, civil union, or simple promises). Which is what I interprete the sexual revolution to really have been about - the ability to have recreational without procreational sexual activity. 

Well I disagree.  If you're saying that the lay persons "view" or "opinion" of the extent of a Right may vary, I would agree.  However, this is different from constitutional interpretation.  The lay persons belief or view or opinion regarding the extent of a constitutional right is often incorrect; based upon a lack of actual legal knowledge and based upon supporting their own personal views on the issue.  Typically, the state of the law, as in constitutional interpretation, is far more stable than the views, beliefs, or opinions of a lay person.

This of course doesn't mean that Constitutional issues don't come up before the courts. (And the TSA hypo, it's not "illegal search and seizure", the right is against "unreasonable searches and seizures.")

I don't know if any of you have read the freakonomics correlation between the legalization of abortion and a drop in crime.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/

D'oh!

LOL I fixed it, thanks for pointing it out

Eugenics is a nasty, nasty, road to go down to solve the problem.

It is one of the more controversial correlations that Dubner draws, and he has said as much. But I would not characterize it as eugenics. If anything, given the predictions of Idiocracy, we tend to be practicing malgenics.

I don't know if I would call it Eugenics, all it did is look at the numbers of a crime drop and compared it all at many of the known factors at the point in time. I think it more spoke to the huge impact that family and good roll models makes on the path of a child.

Just for the record the economists only found at 2% drop in crime associated with stricter gun laws.

I can't speak for HoganBC, so here's my response.  Violent criminals deserve no leniency.  btw, to take it a step further, I'd also want the parents of these kids to be fined.  Perhaps if parents took some ownership of what their children pulled, there'd be a little more thought going into both reproducing and parenting our society's children.

Well, the kid who was wounded and the one who was uninjured had no criminal records. Unless they had been truant enough days to warrant a fine, what basis would you have to act?

And the kid who died? He was already on probation - his mother called the PO from her workplace about the kid being truant to respond. It was apparently a half day at the school, so they could not make him go to school. They put a monitor on him, having determined that the violation (truancy) did not warrant a trip to the detention center. Are you saying the mother should not go to work? Many of the working parents I meet here have to be at their jobs before the kid has to leave for school - so all they can do is have good communication with the school.

Or do you think the parents of kids with these sorts of behavior problems should stop working, and become another drag on our economy?

So then you advocate capital punishment for every violent crime? This case met the criteria for justified self defense... it is prudent to not wait to see if you are going to die.... but the fact is  robbery is not a capital offense. Assault and battery is not a capital offense. Even agrivated does not elevate it to a capital offense.

So no matter who the person is or what age... every violent offender in the country should be put to death? Pretty extreme stance. No lenience and all....

That's absurd. So you believe it is better for two people to be in a dysfunctional relationship, miserable, fight, and subject the kids to that until they are adults? What kind of lesson does that impart?

Or are you implying that people who are divorced cannot properly raise children? As a divorced father of two who is deeply involved in parenting and raising my kids I would find that insulting and untrue.

I know my opinion's probably not the most popular...it definitely sounds extreme.  But, it's as if folks looking at the case are focusing too intently on the short-term.  "What could the parents do that day..." to me, it takes 5,840 days to live 16 years.  

The parent may have been doing all they could that day, but I'm willing to bet that when your kid is out violently attacking and stealing from peaceful citizens, the overwhelming majority of those 5,840 days were not filled with good decisions by the parents/sperm/egg donors.  I am willing to bet the overwhelming majority of parents (or in many cases out there, sperm and egg donors) do not do their very best to raise humans that can function peacefully within society.

Responding to powerman, no.  I don't believe formalized capital punishment is how you deal with every violent crime.  In the case of self-defense though, mow them down.  My liberal side believes you should have your firearm registered...and my conservative side says, "don't be a jerk, and you won't get shot."  I believe violent criminals (when the crime is heinous enough) belong in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.  I am willing to give a first offense, minor violent crime a smaller sentence, but definitely jail time.  If it happens again, you're going away, and it aint gonna be fun.

btw, if we are that concerned about the economy, I'd be more than happy to stick deadbeat parents and violent criminals in labor camps.  I bet we could turn a profit from their labor...and if not, hellooooo solitary.

Brian, I understand where you're coming from.
I've been through divorce. 

You know when someone comes out against gay marriage,
someone will inevitably bring up how screwed up the institution of traditional marriage is.

I agree with that charge.
One of the reasons for that in my opinion is no fault divorce.

Marriage is such an important foundation to our civilization,
and it transcends the individual man and woman within a marriage to such a degree,
that I think you ought to have to show cause as to why it should be dissolved.
I'd put the bar at abuse.
Maybe you'd move it someplace else.
I can appreciate that. 

It's important to me because I think one couple's divorce has an effect on other marriages.
A divorce culture weakens the institution.
No fault divorce helped ramp up the divorce culture to large degree. 

Further, I believe that children have a natural right to be raised by a mother and a father in a family.
Doesn't work out in all situations, and there are plenty of examples of kids doing well in non normative families.
But on the whole, a child growing up in a home with their mother and father is the best situation.
So no fault divorce contributes to upending that norm.

I believe that love is a decision and not a feeling.
Marriage ought to be held as a covenant.
When we marry and especially when we have children,
our life is not our own anymore.
So tough beans if we find ourselves in a marriage that is not making us happy.
It's not suppose to be about us.

Having said all of that,
I trust that you did everything you could to keep your marriage together,
and that you're a great father.
No doubt.
We can admire people who do good things in a bad situation
and at the same time negatively critique the dynamics that allow those situations to happen in the first place.

I brought this up because the point was raised about what would stop incidents like what happened in Reading.
My opinion is that the heart of the problem in situations such as those in Reading
is the breakdown of the family and fatherlessness.
My opinion is that no fault divorce contributes to that.

BTW, you mentioned other incidents on the Schuylkill trail.
What are some of those incidents?

Alright Bud, fair enough. That is a bit more reasoned than the other comment.... I get it. I'm not trying to defned their actions.

And if they were 22 and 23, it would be cool?