Recently I've been watching Terrible Writing Advice YouTube channel and let's just say many writers should be watching his videos. One thing he said on his Official website about Bullies.

I had my share of bullies in high school, but there was one in particular who I had to deal with the most. The poor guy had a rough home life, a huge inferiority complex, and was horribly impulsive. I hated him when I was in high school. After high school I would occasionally keep track of him through the local paper’s arrest reports. This is the part where I should say “serves him right!”, but all I feel now (now that I’m older with more experience and perspective) is sadness.

He had been dealt a crappy hand and was not able to rise above it. He never needed to be put in his place because he started at the bottom and stayed there. Society is not kind to people with poor impulse control and an inability to take even a single perceived slight without starting a brawl. Sometimes bullies go on to become CEOs or succeed in other highly successful careers. But a lot just go to prison or end up abusing their families, perpetuating the cycle of violence for another generation. My main point about all of this is that it is a real shame that more authors don’t go deeper into the psychology of bullies and handle this subject with more respect rather than using bullies as cheap strawmen to work out their own pent up resentment over their rough school years.

I suppose I am not one to talk. I added a bully character to the first Aeon Legion book. Vand wasn’t exactly a character brimming with nuance and deep characterization. He only lasts for like three chapters before the academy kicks him out for his sociopathy. The reason I did add Vand though was to show that a bully as terrible as him would not last long in an institution with high standards and values. Bullies either adapt or are crushed.

One of the strangest things I have experienced (and that very few books ever touch on) is meeting a bully years later only to find that they have actually become decent person. Like I said, bullies adapt or are crushed. Some of them adapt by getting over whatever insecurity they suffered from or gain the experience and perspective to move on. I sometimes wonder if the artificial bubble of schools is what creates some of these bullies in the first place. It is similar to how captive wolves treat each other compared to wild wolf packs. Turns out if you lock a bunch of young stupid people in a tight space and restrict their freedom they get rather cranky. Imagine that.

I guess I should also address the other elephant in the room. Yes, Harry Potter is good. It does commit a few of the sins on my list, but it balances them out well enough for those flaws to not detract from the work as a whole. Even the book’s bully character, Draco, was nuanced enough (especially in the later books) to spawn a massive glut of fanfics that swoon over him. However, Harry Potter is the exception to the rule and I feel like many of its copies miss the point. Inspired works have a bad habit of copying components without understanding why those components work in the first place. The character of Harry Potter himself is not awesome because he killed the dark lord when he was just an infant, turns out to be really good at wizard football, is already a celebrity, inherited his family’s wealth, and has a great destiny ahead of him. Harry Potter is a compelling character because even though he gets everything he could possibly want, he doesn’t get the one thing he wants most. He would happily trade in his fame and fortune if he could have his family back. He is defined not by what he has, but by what he lost and can never get back.

What can I say except we can lean a lot from this guy. Future writers could learn a lot about writing bullies and how to make them nuanced characters and not just a caricature to be taken down so the author can live his petty power fantasy.

Looking at you Derek Savage.

7253478
Nicely said. Thank you for the example that you provided here.

And you also, in my opinion, make a good point about Harry Potter and how its imitators or follow-ups miss the point of the themes at work there. (Another point to consider about that series' bully characters is Dudley. He's a horrible, spoiled asshole for so much of the series... but he ultimately comes around and learns to be a bit more of a better person. And that is not an easy feat to pull off considering the parents that he had!)

7253481
You're welcome.

Anthropologist David Graeber about the artificial bubbles of schools I'll take a scalpel to it here

I am speaking, of course, about schoolyard bullying. Bullying, I propose, represents a kind of elementary structure of human domination. If we want to understand how everything goes wrong, this is where we should begin.

[...]

Today, most schools are not like the Eton and Harrow of William Golding’s day, but even at those that boast of their elaborate anti-bullying programs, schoolyard bullying happens in a way that’s in no sense at odds with or in spite of the school’s institutional authority. Bullying is more like a refraction of its authority. To begin with an obvious point: children in school can’t leave. Normally, a child’s first instinct upon being tormented or humiliated by someone much larger is to go someplace else. Schoolchildren, however, don’t have that option. If they try persistently to flee to safety, the authorities will bring them back. This is one reason, I suspect, for the stereotype of the bully as teacher’s pet or hall monitor: even when it’s not true, it draws on the tacit knowledge that the bully does depend on the authority of the institution in at least that one way—the school is, effectively, holding the victims in place while their tormentors hit them. This dependency on authority is also why the most extreme and elaborate forms of bullying take place in prisons, where dominant inmates and prison guards fall into alliances.

Even more, bullies are usually aware that the system is likely to punish any victim who strikes back more harshly. Just as a woman, confronted by an abusive man who may well be twice her size, cannot afford to engage in a “fair fight,” but must seize the opportune moment to inflict as much as damage as possible on the man who’s been abusing her—since she cannot leave him in a position to retaliate—so too must the schoolyard bullying victim respond with disproportionate force, not to disable the opponent, in this case, but to deliver a blow so decisive that it makes the antagonist hesitate to engage again.

I learned this lesson firsthand. I was scrawny in grade school, younger than my peers—I’d skipped a grade—and thus a prime target for some of the bigger kids who seemed to have developed a quasi-scientific technique of jabbing runts like me sharp, hard, and quick enough to avoid being accused of “fighting.” Hardly a day went by that I was not attacked. Finally, I decided enough was enough, found my moment, and sent one particularly noxious galoot sprawling across the corridor with a well-placed blow to the head. I think I might have cracked his lip. In a way, it worked exactly as intended: for a month or two, bullies largely stayed away. But the immediate result was that we were both taken to the office for fighting, and the fact that he had struck first was determined to be irrelevant. I was found to be the guilty party and expelled from the school’s advanced math and science club. (Since he was a C student, there was nothing, really, for him to be expelled from.)

“It doesn’t matter who started it” are probably six of most insidious words in the English language. Of course it matters.

[...]

The first thing this research reveals is that the overwhelming majority of bullying incidents take place in front of an audience. Lonely, private persecution is relatively rare. Much of bullying is about humiliation, and the effects cannot really be produced without someone to witness them. Sometimes, onlookers actively abet the bully, laughing, goading, or joining in. More often, the audience is passively acquiescent. Only rarely does anyone step in to defend a classmate being threatened, mocked, or physically attacked.

When researchers question children on why they do not intervene, a minority say they felt the victim got what he or she deserved, but the majority say they didn’t like what happened, and certainly didn’t much like the bully, but decided that getting involved might mean ending up on the receiving end of the same treatment—and that would only make things worse. Interestingly, this is not true. Studies also show that in general, if one or two onlookers object, then bullies back off. Yet somehow most onlookers are convinced the opposite will happen. Why?

[...]

A second surprising finding from recent research: bullies do not, in fact, suffer from low self-esteem. Psychologists had long assumed that mean kids were taking out their insecurities on others. No. It turns out that most bullies act like self-satisfied little pricks not because they are tortured by self-doubt, but because they actually are self-satisfied little pricks. Indeed, such is their self-assurance that they create a moral universe in which their swagger and violence becomes the standard by which all others are to be judged; weakness, clumsiness, absentmindedness, or self-righteous whining are not just sins, but provocations that would be wrong to leave unaddressed.

[...]

Here we come to a third surprising finding of the psychological literature—maybe the most telling of all. At first, it’s not actually the fat girl, or the boy with glasses, who is most likely to be targeted. That comes later, as bullies (ever cognizant of power relations) learn to choose their victims according to adult standards. At first, the principal criterion is how the victim reacts. The ideal victim is not absolutely passive. No, the ideal victim is one who fights back in some way but does so ineffectively, by flailing about, say, or screaming or crying, threatening to tell their mother, pretending they’re going to fight and then trying to run away. Doing so is precisely what makes it possible to create a moral drama in which the audience can tell itself the bully must be, in some sense, in the right.

This triangular dynamic among bully, victim, and audience is what I mean by the deep structure of bullying. It deserves to be analyzed in the textbooks. Actually, it deserves to be set in giant neon letters everywhere: Bullying creates a moral drama in which the manner of the victim’s reaction to an act of aggression can be used as retrospective justification for the original act of aggression itself.

[...]

And this, I propose, is the critical human flaw. It’s not that as a species we’re particularly aggressive. It’s that we tend to respond to aggression very poorly. Our first instinct when we observe unprovoked aggression is either to pretend it isn’t happening or, if that becomes impossible, to equate attacker and victim, placing both under a kind of contagion, which, it is hoped, can be prevented from spreading to everybody else. (Hence, the psychologists’ finding that bullies and victims tend to be about equally disliked.) The feeling of guilt caused by the suspicion that this is a fundamentally cowardly way to behave—since it is a fundamentally cowardly way to behave—opens up a complex play of projections, in which the bully is seen simultaneously as an unconquerable super-villain and a pitiable, insecure blowhard, while the victim becomes both an aggressor (a violator of whatever social conventions the bully has invoked or invented) and a pathetic coward unwilling to defend himself.

[...]

This is difficult stuff. I don’t claim to understand it completely. But if we are ever going to move toward a genuinely free society, then we’re going to have to recognize how the triangular and mutually constitutive relationship of bully, victim, and audience really works, and then develop ways to combat it. Remember, the situation isn’t hopeless. If it were not possible to create structures—habits, sensibilities, forms of common wisdom—that do sometimes prevent the dynamic from clicking in, then egalitarian societies of any sort would never have been possible. Remember, too, how little courage is usually required to thwart bullies who are not backed up by any sort of institutional power. Most of all, remember that when the bullies really are backed up by such power, the heroes may be those who simply run away.

7253478
I think he forgot about the part where some bullies go on to found street gangs that are still terrorizing and murdering people to this day.

Yeah, that’s sympathetic.

7253502
No, but it's pitiful - part of the cycle of abuse he mentioned.

7253502 As he said "Bullies either adapt or are crushed". For some, that adapting means coming to the realization that they're a terrible person, but for others they continue to internalize and turn to other methods. Street gangs are either a way to continue picking on those they perceive as hurting them, or a way to find acceptance with those who think the same way they do.

"All happy families are alike. Unhappy families are all unhappy in their own way."

Tolstoy's words are easily adapted here to represent people on a more individual level, and that's something important to remember - and that I have to bring up in relation to the argument here.

Sure. Bullies are all unhappy people. Sure, some of them have miserable home lives they never got the chance to rise above.

Mary Bell is probably one of the most horrifying stories in British history for much this reason.

But y'know something? Unhappy people are all unhappy in their own way. Which, particularly on this topic, brings me to my least favorite moral in all of MLP.

Babs Seed.

I've gone off about this in the past, but to keep this shorter, the misunderstood, sympathetic bully is just as much of a harmful trope as the remorseless one. Why?

Because the sympathetic bully concept - where you realize that they never really had a chance,and that the poor bully is just as much of a victim as their targets - forgets one key thing. One thing that should never be forgotten.

They. Had. A. Choice.

To quote retired profiler, prosecutor, and screenwriter Jim Clemente, "genetics loads the gun. Environment cocks it. Free will aims it, and pulls the trigger."

Sure, the bully is unhappy. Sure, they have a miserable life.

They still choose to take that unhappiness and misery, put it in a box, and force it on others.

A lot of peop!e have miserable lives. A lot of people are the victims of bullies. A lot of people come from broken, miserable, hellaciosuly abusive homes where they sleep with knives in case a family member gets horny during the night, or where they literally don't realize that it isn't normal to be beaten for using the bathroom at night. Where they routinely face the knowledge that, today, Dad might decide it's time to follow through ans j ll them.

And they don't cross that line. They don't take their misery and give it to people who haven't done anything to them. They don't become the monster.

They break the cycle, all without anybody helping them to do it.

Bullies have just as much agency in how they handle their misery as their victims do.

And I refuse to be told that responding to a bully is as bad as being the bully in the first place. Because that's saying that I did something tp draw that pain on myself. It's saying that defending myself is wrong. That responding to violence by protecting myself is morally equivalent to being the aggressor.

And I DOUBLY refuse to be told that taking out my frustration on a fictional character - one who does not exist to suffer pain - is inappropriate.

Because if every would-be bully took their misery out in "adolescent power fantasies" instead of in adolescent rampages that take theur pain and inflict it on - y'know - real fucking people? The world would be a vastly better place.

And that's not even starting on, say, the asinine equivalency in lumping all bullies into the "never had a chance" category.I

Bullies are all people who are hurting. But so are their victims.

And taking out that hurt on fictional words on a page is infinitely better than even the least action against real people who actually fucking exist.

Signing off before my battery dies.

7253570
I cannot believe that. Street gangs, especially the most infamous examples, exist for one real reason. Because Evil Feels Good.

They chose. They chose poorly. And they must be held responsible and exterminated if needed. Very few have enough of a conscience and self awareness to eventually find the drive to get out.

And even then, there is still one question every single ex bully/gangster/etc must be asked and deliver an answer for.

"Why did you do it?"

7253570
I suppose it doesn't contradict your statement, but street gangs also gives people a chance to be important and a force to recognize.

Also, I suppose "why did you do it" is supposed to be an armor-piercing question, but I can't say I agree, considering that the answer could be anything from "dunno" to "felt for it", "wanted to see a guy die" and "I don't like mondays."

7253641

But evil doesn't feel good. It doesn't! If you don't believe me, try running an all-evil game of Dungeons and Dragons. Or read about how players internalized a game like Kill Puppies for Satan. People think they like the idea of it, but honestly, they almost always burn out on it after a session or two.

"But those are just games" - Yes. Games are where we're most free to explore those feelings without consequence. And it turns out that when we play games, most people desire to be good, or at least good at what they do. When you say "Evil feels good", what do you do that's evil that feels good to you?

If your answer is; "Well, I know better, I'm not evil" then saying 'evil feels good' is a just-so explanation - because now you have to ask what makes other people feel good about what you consider evil, and why you don't feel good. Is it environment? Upbringing? Because if so, then it's not an immutable truth to the human condition. It's not a universal drive towards evil. It's an emergent quality, something we can fix.

Because I'm sorry but;

They chose. They chose poorly. And they must be held responsible and exterminated if needed. Very few have enough of a conscience and self awareness to eventually find the drive to get out.

If your means of social change is just "kill all the subhumans" then you're not a moralist, you're a fascist.

7253699
Sadly, some really do get off on crushing people under there feet. I know some people are too idealistic to comprehend that, but it’s a legitimate phenomenon. The many atrocities of this world’s history stands as testament to that.

7253701

[Citation needed]. Show your working here, show how you reached this conclusion. What's your readings on this, your research?

7253704
Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jon Un, etc. Even small time crims like Ted Bundy are gleefully vile and can exhibit such evil tendencies at a young age, as Bundy did. Even towards the end of his life, Bundy sought suicide to prevent the law from getting to him first as a means of spiting his victims’ families. He failed, thankfully.

Stalin in particular was an infamous anti intellectual who hated people who were smarter than him and is a big reason of why Russia’s infrastructure took decades to catch up to the rest of the 1st world. And that’s without bringing up the gulags.

If you’re going to respond to keep this argument going, don’t. I’m not going to be held responsible for a flame war in a thread I barely care about from someone who does not want to acknowledge uncomfortable realities.

I was going to comment one past time on this thread, but since it is locked... Nah, I’ve got to say this.

And I thought this thread was a clusterfuck the last time I stuck my head in here.

It really is hilariously spectacular that the issue of bullying is one of those little real world problems that absolutely fucking nobody can come to an agreement on in terms of dealing with it. Just like gun control, abortion rights, weed, illegal immigrants, presidential impeachment, and whisky or scotch.

Really, you guys are hilarious.

Just a reminder to people to play nice and avoid fighting and name calling. This is a group about writing first and foremost.

7253713

So the violence of street gangs is explained because... Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler exist too?

Stalin in particular was an infamous anti intellectual who hated people who were smarter than him and is a big reason of why Russia’s infrastructure took decades to catch up to the rest of the 1st world. And that’s without bringing up the gulags.

I mean you can bring them up. I'll just point out that US incarceration rates are higher, and US prisoners have a lower life expectancy than Russian prisoners did at the height of the gulag system. Was Stalin good? Of course not. The gulags were terrible. The point is that explaining the existence of Stalin as 'evil feels good, some people are just evil' is not a useful context to work from for what 'evil' is, how it emerges, and most important, it shouldn't be an argument for 'exterminating the subhumans'

Anyway, if you want to actually understand the significance of those names and the context of any of this, I'd probably recommend:

On gang violence:
Documentaries:
Bloods and Crips, Made in America

Books:
Black Against Empire, Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin

Articles:
The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luthor King Jr
The World Bank report on Crime and Inequality, which finds that income inequality - not absolute poverty - predicts more than half the variance in murder rate both within and between countries, stating;

“Crime rates and inequality are positively correlated within countries and, particularly, between countries, and this correlation reflects causation from inequality to crime rates, even after controlling for other crime determinants.”

Legalize It All by Harpers, for this quote from a Nixon collaborator;

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

This is starting to look racialized, isn't it? It is. But, from Project538, Where Police have Killed Americans:

Black Americans were especially likely to be killed in poorer neighborhoods. Of the 136 African-Americans killed by police who are in the Guardian’s database, 56 — more than 40 percent — died in tracts in the poorest 20 percent nationally. But that may say more about overall racial inequality than about policing per se: African-Americans were killed in low-income areas at roughly the same rate that they live in them.

More mandatory reading on the link between racialized poverty and gang violence: The FBI assassination of Fred Hampton, who prior to his death, had organized the Rainbow Coalition to reorganize gangs towards community work. It was successful. That was the problem.

In short: Gang violence is largely caused by a state using violence to enforce inequalities, and greater inequalities lead to greater violence; Both in learned behaviours and in the amount in the amount the state inflicts to 'dissuade' crime. This is why countries like Sweden have to close so many prisons - switching to a rehabilitative justice system lowers the crime rate overall, as that violence is socialized out of people rather than reinforced. Meanwhile, at the height of "stop and frisk" in New York City, the amount of random body searches on black New Yorkers was greater than one per capita per year.

But what about white gangs? Skinheads and the like?
Personally, I'd works like Hunter Thompson's book on the Hell's Angels for that. I also recommend Innuendo Studio's White Fascism and Shaun's mini-doc Charlottesville: The True Alt Right. We find recurring themes time and time again from organizations like Life After Hate as well; It is indoctrinated, and it targets the disaffected and the precarious. Violence is about power.

"Evil" is largely emergent antisocial behaviour. It doesn't just 'feel good' - it should feel bad. To most people it feels bad. So there become two contexts where what you're calling 'evil' here emerge; When it is socially good, and when it is self-actualization - this is why the word 'humiliated' is associated with so many atrocities. In a few cases, especially serial killers, it's extreme mental illness; but they're notable because they're exceptional. it is also why Graeber emphasizes the role of the audience as necessary for bullying to exist.

We also see both of these cause gang violence; A social context that rewards it in an environment of subjugation.

This also means blaming the violence of a state or society on its leaders is backwards. They needed a base of support to do these things, or else at any time someone could have just shot them. Why didn't they? Why did Hitler survive until the end, but Thomas Sankara got capped by one of his own generals?

If you would like to read more about the role of the state and state actors in atrocities and cycles of violence, both in inflicting it and in indoctrinating it, I would like to provide this entry point. They are responsible in the ways that Graeber outlines above; They are the context that leads to what is socially good and bad violence, and they are the context that organizes it.

Resources on "Evil", its history and rationale:

Documentaries:
Prosecuting Evil, World of Ben Ferencz, Netflix
The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia, Vice
The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012 - about getting agents of genocide to recreate their actions

Books:
Debt, David Graeber - Innocuously named, but probably the best and most relevant read in here
The Power Broker, Robert Caro
The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
Imperial Life in the Emerald City; Life in Baghdad's Green Zone, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran - for Hussein
Blackshirts and Reds, Micahel Parenti, on the comparative atrocities of Hitler and Stalin, and the ideologies that contextualize them.
The Dictator's Handbook; by Alastair Smith and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, probably the entry level reading I recommend most highly

Articles:
This Isn't Sparta, about the historical role of slavery and the cycle of violence in antiquity.
What We Did, Current Affairs, on atrocities in Vietnam
Law and Authority, Pyotr Kropotkin
I also cannot recommend highly enough LawComic's current series for an anthropological perspective for the evolution of the state and of law, from the paleolithic to today.

7253730

I would rather you remind people to not advocate for exterminating portions of the population than about keeping a civil tone.

7253641
Gangs? Often because of basic human drives - power, community, peer pressure. Even if each individual member isn't that terrible on their own, they won't dare to look weak in front of their fellows - the same fellows they cling to becasue they know they can't go it alone. It's a dark, cracked mirror to the concept of friendship as seen in FIM.

7253576
The way fictional bullies are treated can affect how people act towards real bullies, though. So best to show functional strategies - with the caveat that not all methods will work in all situations.

7253699
Given the variance in both the types of people out there, and the types of evil out there. I'd say some kinds likely feel good for some people.

7253743
Asking people to be civil also includes not advocating atrocities. I hope that it is clear enough.

I'll repeat, keep it civil, stick to the topic at hand and writing. I don't want to see drama or accusations and name calling, take that outside of the thread.

7253756
Alright. I'll stick to the topic at hand, and use this as a teaching example to bring context to my Graeber quotes upthread. Here we see the initial agressor, the response, and the authority figure that Graeber describes in his triangle of abuse. Let's take the three most relevant parts of the initial exchange:

Humanity:

I cannot believe that. Street gangs, especially the most infamous examples, exist for one real reason. Because Evil Feels Good.

They chose. They chose poorly. And they must be held responsible and exterminated if needed. Very few have enough of a conscience and self awareness to eventually find the drive to get out.

Me:

If your means of social change is just "kill all the subhumans" then you're not a moralist, you're a fascist.

You:

Just a reminder to people to play nice and avoid fighting and name calling. This is a group about writing first and foremost.

I don't want to see drama or accusations and name calling, take that outside of the thread.

And finally, Graeber, with me bolding a line for emphasis for what I feel like just happened here:

“It doesn’t matter who started it” are probably six of most insidious words in the English language. Of course it matters.

And this, I propose, is the critical human flaw. It’s not that as a species we’re particularly aggressive. It’s that we tend to respond to aggression very poorly. Our first instinct when we observe unprovoked aggression is either to pretend it isn’t happening or, if that becomes impossible, to equate attacker and victim, placing both under a kind of contagion, which, it is hoped, can be prevented from spreading to everybody else.

7253756, you gotta admit, 7253761 just schooled you hard. That was an epic burn.

7253761
And I could argue that you are the initial aggressor in the example you gave. His action was stating his opinion, your action was calling him a fascist and accusing him of advocating the killing of subhumans. His action was isolated, yours has a target. Now maybe you think that having a wrong opinion = aggression but I am personally am not comfortable being thought police, even if I do not agree with what he said.

Now, I admit. I am trying to treat both of you carefully and equally. By intention I did not single out him or you because I didn't want to make you feel threatened and my intention is to prevent drama that I believe has a good chance to happen but it hasn't. Also he decided to stop and not push the issue further, you for some reason are interested in continuing.

So please, calm down.

7253770

Again, this is a fabulous example of the role of the audience in the context of bullying, and so it remains on topic.

The opinion they expressed was that criminals are of a lesser conscience, and might need to be exterminated. I accused him of advocating killing the subhumans because, again their exact words were;

And they must be held responsible and exterminated if needed. Very few have enough of a conscience and self awareness to eventually find the drive to get out.

That is what those words mean. What other possible connotations do you think extermination has? What other contexts do you see it used in? It is explicitly the language used in the context of genocide. To quote from "Stage 7" of "The 7 stages of genocide":

It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human.

You can see that context in the comment I am pointing to.

That's why I'm interested in continuing, as well. Because in calling that out, I am being treated 'carefully and equally' with someone who uses genocide rhetoric, because theirs was more ambiguous, while mine was more targeted. It was necessary for mine to be more targeted, because it is a response to that.

Honest question: Would you have addressed their "opinion" if I hadn't called them a fascist? Would you have addressed that "opinion" you disagreed with unless you saw it "start drama"?

I don't think you would have. You said so yourself; You don't want to be thought police. It is only because I have responded that they have been dragged into the principal's office with me.

7253779 They've actually been left out of the principal's office because you walked straight in on your own.

Something, something, legend of Solomon's judgement. At least give the other guy a chance to escalate so we can get mad at him instead of you. Like, for real, he was basically doing the forum equivalent of running away to mummy by saying he didn't care about the thread, but now look what I have to deal with this fine morning. And I'm running out of coffee.

But please. You're in the principal's office now, even if you have managed to lose the other guy on your way here, which is a shame. I do so love explaining why comparing every criminal to dictators and tyrants is stupid. Make yourself comfortable! As you know, admins are famous bullies, so I view this wonderful spotlight as delightful on-topic discussion. What would you like to chat about?

7253782

The context of what I was saying isn't that admins are bullies. In this context, that was Humanity. I was giving you the role of the authority figure who only steps in once there has been a response, to punish everyone involved "for fighting", while the initial aggression would have gone under the radar without intervention.

So, the irony is, in saying

You're in the principal's office now, even if you have managed to lose the other guy on your way here

you're kind of bolding and underlining my ongoing point, and the point of what I was originally quoting.

EDIT: Also?

Honest question: Would you have addressed their "opinion" if I hadn't called them a fascist? Would you have addressed that "opinion" you disagreed with unless you saw it "start drama"?

I don't think you would have. You said so yourself; You don't want to be thought police. It is only because I have responded that they have been dragged into the principal's office with me.

At least give the other guy a chance to escalate so we can get mad at him instead of you

Do you not see the issue here?

7253782
Letting a bully (i.e. someone who's okay with exterminating people here) loose in a school, loosing them on the way to the principal, and the laziness to not deal with them is fully the school administration's fault — aka yours.

It's not 7253779's responsibility if you're complacent. But it's his duty to show you are, show you're brushing the ash under the rub.

7253784 Not really. He's run away because he knew he was losing an argument and was looking like an idiot. Look, he's gone. There's just you. I can't see him any more, and that means that, frankly, he was warned and backed off. Exactly what we wanted, right? That's, like, optimal authority-ing, as far as I'm concerned. Issue warning, problem resolves. Not even a ban necessary! How delightful indeed.

If he comes back spouting the same crap, well, that's another issue (and if he's reading this, I can advise that advocating for genocide and crap doesn't go down well), but I'll cross that bridge when I fall in the water, I guess.

So I suppose I'm just a bit puzzled that this is the timeline you chose to go down. It seemed to be going all so well from what I was seeing. Why am I here? Why should I get angry at a guy who has left the server?

I'm not being facetious. I'm genuinely a bit curious. I find these kinds of chats fascinating, so don't take my devious british demeanor for malice. I may be cold-blooded, but I am not so vicious that I would try to trap a user I think is smart and correct like that.

7253808

I've just been using the situation to explain my original point. I'm just doing my best to stay on topic.

7253809 You know, I was thinking that how reducing villainous actions to a very basic 'evIl fEeLs goOd' really reduces the spectrum of characters one would be able to write. I got a bit distracted on my way there, though.

Even Sauron had a bit of depth to him. Not much, but it's there.

7253812

I think it's because "evil feels good" is so alien and weird and shallow that we find it compelling; It's why serial killer media and fiction is so popular, ditto true crime.

To tell a good story, a villain should have a clearly understood motive; "It feels good" is easily understood, and it's not a transmissable worldview. Villainous characters with depth can have a problem of making you sympathize with someone who does horrible stuff, and I think that's something you always have to take into consideration. You just need to look into neo-nazis embracing American History X to see that.

There is a problem if it's your only view of what evil is though, or it's the only one you can conceive of. There's three Terry Pratchett quotes I think of;

Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.

So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

“History was full of the bones of good men who'd followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.”

“There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

Needless to say, it's probably why most of my villains are cops

Well this thread turned into quite the clusterfuck overnight.

7253782

Like, for real, he was basically doing the forum equivalent of running away to mummy by saying he didn't care about the thread
[...]
Not really. He's run away because he knew he was losing an argument and was looking like an idiot.
[...]
If he comes back spouting the same crap, well, that's another issue (and if he's reading this, I can advise that advocating for genocide and crap doesn't go down well), but I'll cross that bridge when I fall in the water, I guess.

Seriously ? An admin calling other user names, and then threatening to ban him if he decides to defend his point ?

I get it, the guy stated one baseless opinion about Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. Plus another - not so baseless, albeit controversial - one, about how society should have the right to kill bad people, doing bad things. But do you really think that mocking him about how he was 'running away to mummy' or was 'looking like an idiot' is an appropriate response, especially from an ADMIN ?

7253779

So basically you read this:

They chose. They chose poorly. And they must be held responsible and exterminated if needed. Very few have enough of a conscience and self awareness to eventually find the drive to get out.

And jumped to the conclusion that he meant this:

Let's open concentration camps and fill them with criminals big and small and start slaughtering them and making soap!

Right? Well, here is another way to look at what he said:

Even if we take the environment into account, these people choose that way of life. If given all the help from the society available to them - all rehabilitation programs, and handouts, they still refuse to change, instead preferring to continue their criminal activity. Then the society should not hesitate to use all the force necessary - including lethal force - to protect innocent people from their actions.

That's how I read his statement in the first place. It so happens that I (as well as about half of the world) share these beliefs too.

Do you find that less controversial? Or am I, and everyone else with similar beliefs a fascist too, according to your standards, just because we think that the life of an innocent person is worth more than the life of a criminal who refuses to change ?

7254074 I am summoned again! Why do you do this to me?

In my defence, that was largely to go along with the schoolyard bully analogy and drive home the idea that the bully might not have been them from an adminny perspective. Not that I agree with, well, much of what they said. But I'm not a monster. I would hope that's not the impression I gave (EDIT: at least, not overly salty, since I am admittedly very tired of that kind of inflammatory argument bouncing around my threads), and if that's so, then I apologise to poor wee Humanity.

Unfortunately that's the last nice paragraph out of me this evening here. I am out of patience. I would like to see the instruction Cinder gave eleven hours ago upheld. This is not directed specifically at you, Huk, since you are likely just reacting to the content of the thread. It is directed at everyone and anyone.

Don't bother replying to this, either. You have a complaint, send me a PM. I love receiving PMs. This is my last effort to salvage a, as 7253965 puts it, 'clusterfuck'. There will not be another. Save the thread or let it die. I don't care which. Bedtime for me is coming, and I don't want to go to sleep wondering what will happen to this thread whilst I doze peacefully. It would absolutely ruin my rest.

7253782
Wow, you’re an immature jackass. Color me surprised, I didn’t think you had it in you.

I didn’t back off because I was “losing an argument”. I left because I was getting too annoyed with a less than mature and overly self righteous user to keep having to provide citing for my points in a thread I just happened to stumble across in my feed that discussed a topic that does get my blood boiling depending on how it is used. I’ve dealt with kids like Numbers before in recent months and I am not in the mood for a repeat. And I don’t need shit like this from you too.

I’m out. The lot of you just aren’t worth this headache. Someone lock this thread already.

*edited to avoid bumping the thread with a fresh comment*

Yes, I saw it. And I couldn’t care less about your apology. If you’re going to be that obnoxiously infantile and, as a group moderator, unprofessional in your conduct, don’t expect any good will for it.

7254257 What did I just say in the above comment?

Like I said, I'm out of patience. I'll let you back in in 48 hours. Probably enough time to cool off.

7253478

Pity is just barrel-aged contempt.

And it tastes damn good.

7253498

People really are...interesting.

Just woke up and checked my messages here.

7253816
No surprises this comment seems to be unpopular, so I'd like to emphasize what James Cameron said, about the making of Terminator 2:

7254074

I also note your usage of terms like 'handouts' when you define a failure that has justified lethal force to 'protect innocents'.

If your question is what I would label people who share similar beliefs then you might not like the answer I have to give.

If you would like to understand what I mean when I say this is fascist or "genocide rhetoric", I'd like to again point to many of the resources in my earlier post, most specifically Blackshirts and Reds which has been linked to in its entirety, and White Fascism by Innuendo Studios.

I say this because of what Vlade was saying above. This is a reductionist view of what these ideas mean in the real world, outside of stories, and it reduces the mindset to that of cartoon villainry. If your view of what I mean when I say "fascist" is "wants to immediately build the fourth reich" then you are bringing a storybook morality to the conversation.

BUT HOLD ON! I'M STILL ON-TOPIC! I'VE BEEN ON TOPIC THIS WHOLE TIME!

This is something that the topic of bullying does badly, I think. It reduces these conversations to cruelty is just an innate quality of specific people, and that therefore these are only the ideas of bullies. Graeber argues it a lot. Here's the intro I cut from my quotes:

In late February and early March 1991, during the first Gulf War, U.S. forces bombed, shelled, and otherwise set fire to thousands of young Iraqi men who were trying to flee Kuwait. There were a series of such incidents—the “Highway of Death,” “Highway 8,” the “Battle of Rumaila”—in which U.S. air power cut off columns of retreating Iraqis and engaged in what the military refers to as a “turkey shoot,” where trapped soldiers are simply slaughtered in their vehicles. Images of charred bodies trying desperately to crawl from their trucks became iconic symbols of the war.

I have never understood why this mass slaughter of Iraqi men isn’t considered a war crime. It’s clear that, at the time, the U.S. command feared it might be. President George H.W. Bush quickly announced a temporary cessation of hostilities, and the military has deployed enormous efforts since then to minimize the casualty count, obscure the circumstances, defame the victims (“a bunch of rapists, murderers, and thugs,” General Norman Schwarzkopf later insisted), and prevent the most graphic images from appearing on U.S. television. It’s rumored that there are videos from cameras mounted on helicopter gunships of panicked Iraqis, which will never be released.

It makes sense that the elites were worried. These were, after all, mostly young men who’d been drafted and who, when thrown into combat, made precisely the decision one would wish all young men in such a situation would make: saying to hell with this, packing up their things, and going home. For this, they should be burned alive? When ISIS burned a Jordanian pilot alive last winter, it was universally denounced as unspeakably barbaric—which it was, of course. Still, ISIS at least could point out that the pilot had been dropping bombs on them. The retreating Iraqis on the “Highway of Death” and other main drags of American carnage were just kids who didn’t want to fight.

[...]

But there is something more at work in circumscribing our empathy for the fleeing Iraqi massacre victims. U.S. news consumers were bombarded with accusations that they were actually a bunch of criminals who’d been personally raping and pillaging and tossing newborn babies out of incubators [See footnote] (unlike that Jordanian pilot, who’d merely been dropping bombs on cities full of women and children from a safe, or so he thought, altitude). We are all taught that bullies are really cowards, so we easily accept that the reverse must naturally be true as well. For most of us, the primordial experience of bullying and being bullied lurks in the background whenever crimes and atrocities are discussed. It shapes our sensibilities and our capacities for empathy in deep and pernicious ways.

Footnote: This was proved to be a hoax; One bit that sticks out from memory is that something like ten times more babies were reported thrown out of incubators than there were incubtators in Kuwait. This is to emphasize that the media narrative was deliberate and organized, here.

7254542
You are an absolute legend. Bully for you.

This is actually super fucking relevant. Writing bullies is one of those things that get as complex as you want them to -- if they're secondary enough and they exist as an obstacle rather than a character, I feel they can be rather simplistic. If you want anything remotely realistic, though, yeah, motivation's a big one.

I think most of the messages written in this thread are very very useful, especially the ones that don't call for genocide. Loved the messages that don't call for genocide, those are my jam. But also -- deadass the biggest problem I've seen when writing school bullies is lackluster motivation. Bullying as a phenomenom is complex, but I'm genuinely surprised at how many books just, have shitty bullies who are bullies because, idk, they were born evil or something? And it always takes me away from the book so much, because everybody else is a person -- but this character, who's given as much focus as the others, is a caricature of a saturday morning cartoon villain.

Shoutout here to Ender's Game, which is like, the one thing Orson Scott Card ever did that doesn't suck massive fucking balls. It has a bully, hilariously named Bonito Madrid, whose entire reason for kicking the shit out of the protagonist is "Spanish pride" and "the pride of the Spaniards; you can't cross them, they never forget". You thought Draco Malfoy was bad? Oh boy come check this one out.

Like, motherfucker, talk about deep characterization. I still quote Bonito Madrid sometimes. He's got a special place in my heart, for all the wrong reasons. He sucks so fucking much.

7254074

Hey, so this is like, wrong. I was kind of mulling over this comment going "ah fuck should I source everything I'm about to say" cause that's a lot of effort, and nobody's going to read the sources anyway, they'll just glance at the link.

So you know what, nah, fuck it, appeal to authority. Sources: got a Law Degree at the best Law University in Europe, halfway through Judge School to become a judge of criminal law. That should be enough.

Anyway yes. So this comment is very wrong on multiple levels. I'm just going to break down the last sentence cause it's like, the cherry on top.

Or am I, and everyone else with similar beliefs a fascist too, according to your standards, just because we think that the life of an innocent person is worth more than the life of a criminal who refuses to change ?

• "Or am I a fascist too, according to your standards" -- Re-read what you said, realize you're defending the right to kill the people you deem unworthy, and then miss the point again by a mile. It's really funny when people do that. (The answer to your question is yes).

• "Because we think the life of an innocent person" -- Define "innocent". This is not me playing rhetorics, this is an actual problem: while we tend to think that every time there's a crime there's a very clear-cut victim, and a very clear-cut aggressor, the line muddles often. First, because you can never be entirely sure of what happened, and there's always room for error; second, because real life is complicated, and often the situation is very complex.

  So defining an innocent person here is key because you go on to say we kill the ones who aren't. Who's innocent? The one the jury says wasn't at fault? Bingo bango, sure hope you've got a completely unbiased, foolproof system to short one from the other.

  A person is driving on the highway at twice the allowed speed, but there's nobody around. Suddenly, a dude jumps right in front of the moving car without looking both sides, which is equally illegal, and so we have an accident. The driver loses his car and suffers long-lasting brain damage-related trauma; the other guy ends up in a wheelchair. Should we kill both of them?

• "the life of an innocent person is worth more than" -- The problem with systems that dehumanize criminals, or people we deem beyond redemption, is that you're giving them a Catch-22. You committed a crime, so you're worth less than a person, and I'm not going to treat you with dignity -- so why would you not commit another crime? A system where anybody with a criminal record suffers to find a job will probably see a spike in relapsed criminality (people who went to prison, got out, were unable to find a job or a life, had to commit crimes again to survive). God this sounds familiar but idk why. Someone help me here. I feel there's a connection to be made.

  So yeah talking about whose life is worth more is icky, especially when you're using this kind of rhetoric that is blatantly based on nothing other than a vague feel for crime being bad. It is bad! Crime is bad. We should try to stop crime as much as possible. Criminals, however, are not monsters that hide under our beds and try to eat our children. There are sociological reasons for criminality, and often they're linked to poverty, opppression, lack of education, extraneous circumstances... It's a whole thing, and reducing it to "they're just worth less" is definitely not going to help anyone.

  I'm wondering if you refer to every criminal in existence here, or exclusively murderers and stuff? I'm hoping it's murderers, cause otherwise, phew. Phew.

• a criminal who refuses to change -- So this one's the kicker. There are two issues here: A) the "need" to kill criminals, B) their "refusal" to change.

  Did you know executing a criminal is actually more expensive than imprisoning them for life? I know it sounds backwards, but if you remember the first point in this message (the one you absolutely 100% didn't read, who am I kidding, you skimmed the fuck out of this) actually knowing exactly what happened in a crime is difficult; real life has a shitton of complications. How do we know the person with the knife wasn't having a psychotic attack which prevented them from controlling their actions, for example? Stuff like that. So to execute someone, you have to be really really sure that you're in the right, and that takes a lot of time, and a lot of resources.

  Sources: dude, trust me. Look it up. It's insane.

  Related to this: Prison and punishment is one of those things that one doesn't think about much? It's like oh yeah, fifteen years of prison, that's not enough for what they did. But that's fifteen years. Anything past ten years pretty much destroys the life of a person; society changes while they're away, people grow old and die, technology advances. If you spend tend years in prison, adjusting to life outside of it is so traumatic, so daunting, that a sizeable number of people commit a crime again to be thrown in jail a second time. You've ostracised them from society so much they can't ever go back.

  So that's fucked up, when you try to put yourself in their shoes. A death sentence also brings desperation to the issue: if you know they're gonna kill you if they catch you, ho ho, that's a lotta stress. This is a person who's already done something extreme enough to throw the death sentence at them, and now you're putting them under that kind of pressure. Surely nothing will happen and they won't go on a frenzy, or have an actual genuine stress-induced psychotic attack.

  Second: refusal to change -- there are two factors that justify prison or punishment: dangerousness and responsibility. Dangerousness is the easiest to see; criminals are dangerous, and criminals who can't control themselves due to mental issues, drugs, or similar circumstances (see "psychotic break" above) are especially dangerous and hard to control. So we take them away from society and place them in a secure place (prison, and if they're mentally ill, a mental hospital, ideally) so they can't hurt anyone, and we try to treat them so they stop being dangerous. If they sadly suffer from something incurable, you might need to keep them in the specialized facility forever, and hopefully they're treated with dignity and can live a good life in a controlled, secure environment.

  Second factor is responsibility: you did something bad, so to the naughty box you go. It's more an intimidation thing than anything ("don't rob this liquor store, or you'll go to jail!") but sociologically speaking it does very little once the crime has already happened. It doesn't stop the criminal from potentially keeping their criminal ways in the future, it doesn't address the source of the crime... It's just, "well, now I'm angry, so you get to suffer because you made me suffer."

  It's a very human sentiment, and that's valid, but it also doesn't fix shit. Punihsment is satisfying, but rehabilitation is what actually stops crime from happening; I said earlier that crime is bad and we should stop it, and evidence shows rehab is the way. Just randomly going "what about the people who REFUSE TO CHANGE" as if we'd given them a choice, instead of literally just throwing them into prison for fifteen years and then shake our heads in disapproval when they're unable to adapt back to society, is laughable. Did you know that countries that specialize in rehabilitation have a super low rate of criminality? Cause the people who are arrested don't commit crimes immediately after going to jail, so you address that bit.

  I'm bringing all this up because "killing those who are beyond redemption" sounds good and satisfying when you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, and you believe what your gut tells you. When you're a kid, if Johnny hits you, you tell the teacher and Johnny has to sit out Recess and write an apology letter. This won't make Johnny stop hitting people if he wants to, but you feel it's fair, because you suffered--and now he suffers too.

  Only yes, no, at a societal level this is bullshit. If you just kill the people you think refuse to change, but give them no actual chance to rehabilitate themselves and stop depending on crime, you're not being the good guy here. You're not defending the innocent. You're killing the people you don't like, the people in need because the system didn't favor them.

• Just to be clear: I am very clearly referencing the US prison system, which is absolute fucking dogshit, and anybody who's studied even a fraction of Criminal Law is keenly aware of it. And, whaddayaknow. The US prison system is based literally on the rhetoric this message uses.
  I am aware that you specified "the people to whom we give every chance at redemption" in your message; I would love to know, exactly, what "every chance of redemption" means in this case, because empirical evidence shows that once you address the cause of criminality, people stop committing crimes unless there's a genuine mental illness.

  In which case, this becomes a philosophical debate: is Johnny responsible for the punch, when he literally, physically, cound not stop himself? Should he be punished for something he did not choose and can't control? This is why dangerousness is seen as separate from responsibility, because not everybody who's dangerous should be punished for it. Do not be mistaken: if someone is so detached from reality that they genuinely cannot tell why killing someone is bad, this person needs to be contained and taken away from society, but they also need help, because either something massively fucked up happened and made them this way, or they are mentally ill, and then the situation gets super fuzzy.

This kind of speech comes from a place of not quite understanding the matter at hand; as I said, feeling hatred for criminals, seeing people murder others on the news every day and wanting justice to be brought on them, is absolutely human, and entirely fair. But your gut reaction doesn't always align with the right course of action, here.

Society isn't as simple as a classroom, and you can't expect to have everybody sit Recess out. I hate crime as much as you, but precisely because of that I want to stop it. Emphasize education, have social programs that tackle people in need, create a robust safety net so people stop falling into a life of crime, and focus on therapy and psychological treatment for the criminals whose actions derive from that, and then crime halts. Advocate for killing the ones you think are worth less, and crime spikes up.

This is an icky topic, but precisely because of that, one has to be careful when talking and thinking about it. "Let's kill the real evil criminals" victimizes the people who should be helped instead, because it paints a picture of responsibility where there's none. If someone is given every single chance at redemption and still fails at it, this person is not inherently evil and ought to be killed; this person needs professional medical help and, if possible, treatment.

7254542
7254727

... given the number of upvotes your posts got, this will probably be downvoted to high heavens, but what the hell. The way you guys write, you probably think bloody red is my favorite color, anyway...

Where to begin... I thought what I said was clear and simple, but apparently, it was not... Either we're talking about two different things entirely, or you guys pushed the envelop so far that marks ANY form of retaliation against the criminal as fascist thinking.

I really hope it's the former so let me try that again... Few facts first:

1. I'm from Poland, a country in Europe. You know, that continent that was burned to the ground so many times over that we lost count. That one place that actually tries to REHABILITATE their prisoners for real, and do all those things @MrNumbers listed in that post. Granted, Poland is a rather crappy example (our politicians really love the USA's approach). Still, even here, a prison sentence does NOT have the same repercussions as in the USA.
2. Given your answers, you sound as if you assume the person on the other side is a complete moron with zero knowledge... Sorry to disappoint you both, but I actually read and watch a lot of documentaries about this subject. I'm not an expert by a longshot, no, I may know less then you do. But most of the things @MrNumbers listed, I knew beforehand. I'm also well aware that this shit is complicated, and there are no easy answers.
3. I have NEVER stated that society/country/state/vigilantly should just mark criminals as some 'sub-humans' and start exterminating them. Not that it technically wouldn't work - Brazil is currently doing something like that - but that wasn't my intention at all! If you read my answer like that, then either I was not clear (although, this seems like a pretty plain English to me), or you both projected your own thoughts on my words.

Now, with that out of the way, let me clarify what I meant by that:

Even if we take the environment into account, these people choose that way of life. If given all the help from the society available to them - all rehabilitation programs, and handouts, they still refuse to change, instead preferring to continue their criminal activity. Then the society should not hesitate to use all the force necessary - including lethal force - to protect innocent people from their actions.

1. 'Even if we take the environment into account, these people choose that way of life.' - should be pretty self-explanatory, but to make it more clear let me just quote to the post of @Shrinky Frod, from upstairs:

They. Had. A. Choice.

To quote retired profiler, prosecutor, and screenwriter Jim Clemente, "genetics loads the gun. Environment cocks it. Free will aims it, and pulls the trigger."

I agree with the above completely. No matter how you look at it, no matter how much you twist it, in the end, you have criminal/bully X, holding a gun/knife, and making a CHOICE. And YES he ALWAYS has a choice at first (and outside the USA, many choices, even after leaving prison because your employee cannot check your criminal record).

2. 'If given all the help from the society available to them - all rehabilitation programs, and handouts, they still refuse to change, instead preferring to continue their criminal activity.' - I was referring to the situation from the European perspective. Again, over here, you CANNOT easily check the criminal record of an individual. This means that once you're out of prison, you paid your debt to society, and you have access to the regular pool of jobs. Some limitations do apply, of course - you cannot be a cop for a while, for example, but they're based on common sense.

This gives the criminal a choice - get a crappy but honest job and build your life from there, just like the rest of us average Joes do. OR... get back to your 'profession' and make 10 times the cash but risk ending up in prison again.

Now, I am well aware that you have a law that makes it a shitshow for any former convict to get back to normal life in the States. This law allows an employer to check anyone's record. That leaves many former convicts without a job and without a choice. I'm also aware of the very crappy rehabilitation approach, and the fact that most prisons are private (seriously, WTF...), thus less spent on rehab = more profit. But these are 'only in the USA' problems that don't happen anywhere else as far as I'm aware.

3. 'Then the society should not hesitate to use all the force necessary - including lethal force - to protect innocent people from their actions.' - Now, here is the kicker. Both of you apparently interpreted that as some call for the extermination of 'sub-humans'... How anyone could read that in that way, I have no idea, but, to clarify. What I meant here were situations such as these:

One:
- average innocent John Doe, who works at Wallmart and pays his taxes on time, is walking down the street.
- mister 'unhappy bully' criminal Bob pops out from the bush, pointing a knife at him, demanding his wallet.
- too bad for him, John is a former soldier. John grabs Bob's knife, and in the act of self-defense, thrusts it into his guts, killing him.

Two:
- average innocent Jane Doe, who works at Wallmart and pays her taxes on time, is walking down the street.
- mister 'unhappy bully' criminal Bob, pops out from the bush, pointing a knife at her, wanting to have 'some fun.'
- too bad for him, Jane has a gun and unloads the entire clip at Bob, killing him instantly.

Three:
- same as one of the above, but a police officer sees the entire thing and mows the criminal Bob down.

You can use any variation of weapon/skin color/circumstance of the meeting. In all three instances, we have John and Jane - your ordinary, people who never did anything wrong - and a criminal Bob who - for whatever reason - CHOSE life of crime. Bob is CAUGHT IN THE ACT and is an imminent DANGER to the innocent people.

Maybe, Bob had a rough childhood, maybe his daddy abused him, maybe the prison life is all he knows. Or maybe he has a kid needing a heart transplant and is trying to raise the money by any means necessary. NOTHING OF THAT SHOULD MATTER in the given situation or in the aftermath. When Bob starts threatening two innocent people with violence, he has crossed the line, and society should protect John and Jane from him, using ANY force necessary.

THIS is what I meant before. In a situation where a criminal tries to violate person X, that person and/or the society (represented by the police) should have the right to retaliate - nothing more, nothing less. I hope you admit, this is far away from calling to exterminate someone.

We have an alarming trend in western society that pushes the envelope further and further away, taking more and more of the right to defense from the victims, because 'criminals are people too!'

In the above examples, Jane would probably be OK because, thankfully, rape is still considered a nasty crime (although, I'm not sure what would happen if a country has the 'run away first' requirement...). On the other hand, in some states, John would be charged with 'exceeding the limits of necessary defense,' manslaughter, or even murder because it was 'just money.' The last time I checked, you needed this 'just money' to feed your kids, but I guess criminal's life is more important than Joe's kids, so fuck them...

This is WRONG, telling the victim of a violent crime that he cannot defend his property, health, or life is WRONG. Telling the victim that he should run away first is WRONG. Telling the victim that he can only defend himself in a 'proportional manner' (whatever the hell this means) and expecting him to keep a cool head is WRONG. And all of this is largely the result of research that tries to justify the criminal's behavior.

YES, society should try to fight inequalities with all its strength and rehabilitate criminals the way Norway and Sweden do. But, at the same time, it should fight hard to protect your average, innocent Johns and Janes, when they're getting violated in ANY way. If person 'A' tries to harm person 'B,' and 'B' harms 'A' - then using the same standard to judge both of them is WRONG.

And before someone jumps me again. In the case of the police force, there is/should be a higher standard than in the case of an ordinary citizen. In other words, the police should try to disarm people first if possible, and shoot second. And they usually do in most countries around the world. The 'I shot that unarmed guy in the car while he was reaching for his license and insurance because I was in fear for my life!' excuse, is another 'only in the USA' thing that needs to change.

OK, this is as clear as it can get. If you still want to say that's the fascist way of thinking, go ahead. I shall wear that label proudly!

7254997

This is WRONG, telling the victim of a violent crime that he cannot defend his property, health, or life is WRONG. Telling the victim that he should run away first is WRONG. Telling the victim that he can only defend himself in a 'proportional manner' (whatever the hell this means) and expecting him to keep a cool head is WRONG. And all of this is largely the result of research that tries to justify the criminal's behavior.

Let me guess, you think Frank Castle is a hero.

7255014

... because I want to have the right to defend my family, or my wife from rape I must be a punisher fan? Interesting. I honestly don't get it. What should be the proper response when someone threatens you, your wife or your kid with violence then? Let him do it? Harsh language? What?

Seriously, I'm asking because I honestly thought defending yourself and/or your family is pretty much basic logic, but looking at what people say and do here, apparently it's not. What am I missing?

EDIT:
I really love people who downvote the question without giving an answer. Tells you more than a thousand words about the crowd you're dealing with...

7254997

Telling the victim that he can only defend himself in a 'proportional manner' (whatever the hell this means) and expecting him to keep a cool head is WRONG.

Please, please tell me that you do not own firearms.

7255024

I don't but... care to explain why you ask that? Or are you assuming that I would go on a killing spree for some reason?

7255014
Frank Castle isn't called "The Defender".

7255031
Because escalation is bad, and guns make for nasty escalation.

7255022
Self-defense is a common idea, but so is the exercise of restraint when doing so, at least as an ideal.

7255031
Because you think it's okay to end someone's life just because they threatened you.

7254997
I fucking love that your core argument is "every criminal is secretly Skeletor".

I have NEVER stated that society/country/state/vigilantly should just mark criminals as some 'sub-humans' and start exterminating them.

We have an alarming trend in western society that pushes the envelope further and further away, taking more and more of the right to defense from the victims, because 'criminals are people too!'

Hahah. Fucking yikes.

7255031
to keep it on topic ... say someone goes "your hair is stupid" and dumps juice on my head is not grounds for firing an RPG at his house.

7255038
I have a feeling Huk's ideal world is one where everyone has a six-gun and they duel at noon for wrongin' each other, and by God if them Clantons show up in town we'll take justice into our own hands!

7255022
Dude, you have an almost sexual self-defense fantasy where you're the good guy with the gun. It almost never happens in the real world, and the very first thing they teach you in self-defense classes is that the first thing you should do is run away.

Bringing this back to the topic, I released a story earlier this month about bullying!