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Taking the sting out of stinging

PostPosted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 8:06 am
by tubeswell
http://newsok.com/portland-residents-co ... le/3519193

Truth be told, how many slightly deranged and deluded 19 year olds, who are barely out of teen-aged adolescence, and are at the best of time highly confused about the world, dream of taking out their teen-angst on something or other? If it was the late '70s, he might have dyed his hair crimson and got a mohawk and a nose-ring and smashed foreheads with such peers on friday night whilst high on whacky backy and gone largely unnoticed.

Or maybe even in this day and age, if he had gone undetected, (and who knows how many other kids in similar straits are lurking out there?), he might just have grown up and led a normal life, and looked back on his foolish youth for the folly that it was.

As it is, he has had 'help' from the finest secret service money can buy to indulge in his childish fantasies, and now he must go to prison for ... (life?).

No wonder the world is coming apart if this is how we treat our kids.

(Okay I will take the hits now folks)

PostPosted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:21 am
by Enzo
No hits from me, Tubes, I think it is sad too. I don;t know all the details, but we do have a stripe of paranoia over here. And as long as we find someone to point a finger at, we are happy. We have idiotic "zero-tolerance" rules for our schools, and children are suspended or even expelled for little things. Bringing aspirin to school from their parents because they have a cold, or the kid whose mother packed a plastic butter knife in with lunch to spread some peanut butter. They are kicked out of school on drug and weapons violations. One that really rubbed me wrong was a kid thrown out of school on a weapons violation. His crime? Drew a picture of a gun. It is one thing to me to sting a guy planning mayhem, and yet another to arrange for someone to fall into a created situation.

And yet no one is surprised when federal drug agents and city drug agents bust one another in an undercover sting.

PostPosted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 7:17 pm
by MM_Dandy
Right or wrong, we also consider 19 year-olds to be "grown-ups," despite knowing that for most, the part of the brain that makes judgement calls isn't fully developed, yet.

I wonder what the "tip" was. It's entirely possible that Mohamud had bad intentions to begin with, and may have acted had he had the means to carry them out. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if the FBI involvement not only provided means, but escalated his intentions, as well.

Re: Taking the sting out of stinging

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 2:56 am
by KLA2
tubeswell wrote:Truth be told, how many slightly deranged and deluded 19 year olds, who are barely out of teen-aged adolescence, and are at the best of time highly confused about the world, dream of taking out their teen-angst on something or other? If it was the late '70s, he might have dyed his hair crimson and got a mohawk and a nose-ring and smashed foreheads with such peers on friday night whilst high on whacky backy and gone largely unnoticed.

Or maybe even in this day and age, if he had gone undetected, (and who knows how many other kids in similar straits are lurking out there?), he might just have grown up and led a normal life, and looked back on his foolish youth for the folly that it was.

As it is, he has had 'help' from the finest secret service money can buy to indulge in his childish fantasies, and now he must go to prison for ... (life?).

No wonder the world is coming apart if this is how we treat our kids.

(Okay I will take the hits now folks)


Are you nuts? :shock:

As a teenager back in the ‘60’s, I had long hair, a headband, fringy suede boots, a guitar slung on my back, may have smoked stuff rolled in Zig Zags and been opposed to the war of the day. (Vietnam) My parents did not approve.

If anyone had approached me and offered to provide me with the necessary to blow up anything, let alone innocent men, women and children I would have told my parents, who would have gone straight to the police – or I would have done so myself!

Would you have committed such a nefarious act, for any money or incentive???

I cannot believe anyone would see this as manipulation and entrapment of an innocent by the “evil authorities.”

Give your heads a shake.

Do you think the police should have taken the attitude, “we cannot do anything until the crime is committed?” :roll:

The fact that he MIGHT not have succeeded on his own is irrelevant. Intent is what matters here.

I am appalled that anyone would support or make excuses for this vile person and condemn the authorities who stopped him once and for all.
:evil:

ETA: Enzo, what the hell are you talking about, comparing this to those idiotic zero-tolerence policies? You are way too smart to draw such illogical parallels.

Good thing this is the Infuriati thread. :x

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 4:45 am
by tubeswell
I did things at 19 I'm not proud of (admittedly not acts of terrorism, but things that were nevertheless fuelled by my childish anger at the world). Boy am I glad that I was given a 2nd chance. Maybe if my skin had been another colour, it could have turned out different.

Even tho' the law says we are liable at 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever, it doesn't mean that we are fully functioning adults who can make informed judgements. Now it is one thing to sting a known gangster who has a history of murder and mayhem, but another entirely to fuel the fantasies of a deluded adolescent in order to fulfil your quota of terrorist crackdowns. Whatever else he may have been able to become in the future before this, his future as a martyr is assured now.

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 4:54 am
by KLA2
Come on now, tubes. Take a deep breath, and read my post. We all did stupid things at 19.

But would any of us "have committed such a nefarious act, for any money or incentive??? "

I sure as hell hope not. You draw a line. Between stupidity and outright evil, you draw a line.

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 7:44 am
by tubeswell
KLA2 wrote:Between stupidity and outright evil, you draw a line.


Ah to quote the bard - "Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil."

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:58 am
by Lance
<uninformed opinion>
(I didn't read the article)
If it was so easy for the FBI to recruit him then it likely would have been easy for Al-Qaeda as well, with a different outcome.
</uninformed opinion>

PostPosted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 2:10 am
by KLA2
tubeswell wrote:
KLA2 wrote:Between stupidity and outright evil, you draw a line.


Ah to quote the bard - "Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil."


Ah to quote Meatloaf "But I won't do that."

:P

PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:04 am
by KLA2
tubeswell wrote:
KLA2 wrote:Between stupidity and outright evil, you draw a line.


Ah to quote the bard - "Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil."


This is the first time I have heard of Albert Camus being referred to as "the bard". :wink:

However, Camus did say “Life is a sum of all your choices.”

PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:31 am
by Мастер
KLA2 wrote:As a teenager back in the ‘60’s, I had long hair, a headband, fringy suede boots, a guitar slung on my back, may have smoked stuff rolled in Zig Zags and been opposed to the war of the day.


I really wish I were skilled with Photoshop or some other image editing software, because I'd like to incorporate elements of the above quote into your avatar :P

KLA2 wrote:This is the first time I have heard of Albert Camus being referred to as "the bard". :wink:


Le bard :P

KLA2 wrote:However, Camus did say “Life is a sum of all your choices.”


But he said it in French :P

PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:41 am
by KLA2
I really wish I were skilled with Photoshop or some other image editing software, because I'd like to incorporate elements of the above quote into your avatar

Now that is just mean. (Although ... I would kind of like to see it :lol: )

But he said it in French

Not nice to pick on the disadvantaged. :P

Did I kill a relative of yours, or something? :shock:

{What movie is that from? Wrong thread, I know. :lol: }

PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 4:09 am
by Мастер
KLA2 wrote:Now that is just mean. (Although ... I would kind of like to see it :lol: )


See, even you can't resist the thought :P

KLA2 wrote:{What movie is that from? Wrong thread, I know. :lol: }


I suspect it was from a book rather than a film, but a quick bit of Googling failed to turn up anything.

Personally, I disagree with the quote - it wasn't by choice that I was born into a modern industrial civilisation rather than in a cave during the neothilic era when I would have had to catch the day's food myself. (Although if I did have the option, I would not change that particular outcome.) I tend to think of it as being the sum of two things - there is the hand you are dealt, which may be good or bad, and there is the skill with which you play it.

ETA - word "not" missing from the parenthetical remark!

PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:12 pm
by KLA2
It was from "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World".

I misquoted slightly.

Captain Aubry: What is it with this man? Did I kill a relative of his in battle, perhaps? His boy, God forbid?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311113/quotes

PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:42 pm
by tubeswell
KLA2 wrote:
tubeswell wrote:
KLA2 wrote:Between stupidity and outright evil, you draw a line.


Ah to quote the bard - "Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil."


This is the first time I have heard of Albert Camus being referred to as "the bard". :wink:

However, Camus did say “Life is a sum of all your choices.”


Yeah well Camus, Shakespeare - I haven't read much of either of 'em - that's what happens when you google for Shakespeare quotes about morality. Happy Now?

It still doesn't change the fact that the young guy was misled, and then further misled. 2 misleadings don't make a 'right'.