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Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

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Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#201

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

OtomotO wrote: post #99
teekert wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is extremely car focused, which they often don't really realize. Things that are normal here (like everybody has a bike) conflicts with their cyclers vs drivers culture. Such a distinction simply does not exist here. Instead we have roads that are red with signs "Cars are guests". Or indeed city centers where cars aren't allowed. When I go to the US I'm often surprised that you can't get to things that are onl…

The last time I was in the US - a couple of decades ago, I admit - people were aghast that we walked to a store just a few hundred meters away. 3 people stopped and asked whether they can drive us somewhere... I mean, super friendly people, but... it's just a few hundred meters, come on! You were the wild west, once!

Well, everybody rode their horse everywhere in the Wild West.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#202

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

eudamoniac wrote: post #186
GeoAtreides wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you asking if it's ok to acknowledge the upsides of racial purity? the things i read on hn...

It isn't ok to acknowledge that racial (cultural) homogeny has any benefit to a society whatsoever?

Wait. Is it racial or is it cultural? There's a difference there.

Do you believe it's possible to have cultural homogeneity without having racial homogeneity?

Btw I think you're wrong: people can be extremely xenophobic with the folks from the next village over who are their cousins thrice removed. It's nothing to do with race or culture, just who's in the in-group and who's in the out-group, and what those are depends on a myriad of factors that "race" and "culture" are only convenient, but inaccurate, proxies for.

Another example: Greek football fans from Athens will literally murder their counterparts from Thessaloniki, and they're all just as Greek as each other [1]. You just have to draw a line in the sand and people on either side of it will start throwing stones at each other.

__________________

[1] Culturally of course. We're not a "race". Tiny little rant but with Nolan's Odyssey, there were the usual complains about Helen being played by a black woman etc. and people all over the internet were having fights about what real Greeks look like. Oh they have fair hair and light skin. No they have dark hair and olive skin. And so on. The truth is that most Greek families are like mine: one parent is fair-haired and light skinned (my dad: blond hair, green eyes, goes red in the sun; his mom: blond hair, blue eyes, skin like yogurt) and the other is dark-haired and dark skinned (my mom: brown hair, brown eyes, goes brown in the sun; her mom: black hair, black eyes, never sat in the sun). But stereotypes persist so me and one of my friends were asked how come we're both fair-haired with light-coloured eyes when true Greeks are brown and at the same time a friend recommended to me a concealer that was three tones darker than my actual colour even though I was standing right there in front of her eyes with my pasty-white skin. Race is not what it's made out to be. End rant.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#203

Post by profsummergig »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #169
profsummergig wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a high trust homogenous society without lots of different groups with all kinds of grievances about the past, present and the future. And it's probably rural, where everyone knows each other. When I read the headline, I sided with the mother. But a five-year old having to cross four roads in total to and from (with vehicles going up 25 mph legally, and who knows how fast illegally) is a bit much.

>homogenous society this is a racist dogwhistle. _Homogeneous_ is code for racial or ethnic purity.

^^^ This is exactly what I meant.

People and groups with unlimited grievances (and, unfortunately, associated revenge fantasies).

Switzerland has less of this. So you can send your 5-year old for a long walk alone, knowing that your neighbors will be looking out.

(PP: even the word "rural" is seen as a dog-whistle, e.g. by the NYTimes.)

Listen: I'm a visible minority where I'm a citizen of, myself. I'm not shilling for racial homogeneity or totalitarian philosophy at all. I'm just sharing my lived experience that when there are lots of groups with lots of grievances against each other, there's less ambient, latent trust.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#204

Post by profsummergig »

Gud wrote: post #176
zetanor wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that you have to be around Germans, Austrians, Italians, Spaniards, and—worst of all— the French . Nobody should ever go through that.

There are 150 nationalities in Zurich.

They are also the cream of the crop from their respective nations. Diplomats and bankers.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#205

Post by eproxus »

thewillowcat wrote: post #48
armchairhacker wrote: post #16

How does this happen? There’s no silver lining which makes this conviction reasonable. If they can’t appeal, I hope they use Streisand to get the town or state of Virginia to vacate everything.

It happened because a neighbor was so disturbed by a child walking alone to report it, the police thought it was serious enough to refer for prosecution, and a prosecutor decided it needed to be charged using their office's limited resources. All insane. The part that really gets to me is that the neighbor was so "concerned" about the child's safety that they called the police, but for some reason, in their urgent co…

What's even worse is that they now probably made it a lot worse for that family, adding stress and trauma (at the very least). So in fact, the neighbor made the kid more unsafe than they originally were.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#206

Post by MasterYoda »

Cant american see how really fucked up usa have become in soo many ways? Or way have america become how it is today? They was a great country in many ways, but nowdays everything is just fucked up. The sad thing is that they dont seem to see it themself, the majority atleast. They just see them self as the bigest and greatest country in the world, so the dont look outside, and dont see how the rest of the world passed them long time ago in many ways and how much greater things is, like in Europe. And how people support trump is unbelievable.

He is just a trojan horse that have trown usa under the bus. His agenda is not make amerika great again, just make trump great/rich again and the goverment is just a joke. Usa is just crazy, like kids cant play alone outside without parents gets called police on and gets sentenced.

We see usa as crazy, but one american that lived here in Europe told, its much crazy than we think. Then its really bad. At least there is some americans that still is sane.

Sorry for the rant, but it is so crazy to see the severe self-harming behavior usa is doing to themself.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#207

Post by jawns »

I'm no lawyer, but I can't see how the judge is able to square this with a plain reading of the law.

Here is the Virginia code on contributing to the delinquency of a minor: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter5/secti...

The only portion that is even remotely relevant is:

> (b) renders a child delinquent, in need of services, in need of supervision, or abused or neglected as defined in § 16.1-228;

However, here is that section: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/16.1-228/

Paragraph 2 is the relevant one:

> No child whose parent or other person responsible for his care allows the child to engage in independent activities without adult supervision shall for that reason alone be considered to be an abused or neglected child, provided that (a) such independent activities are appropriate based on the child's age, maturity, and physical and mental abilities and (b) such lack of supervision does not constitute conduct that is so grossly negligent as to endanger the health or safety of the child. Such independent activities include traveling to or from school or nearby locations by bicycle or on foot, playing outdoors, or remaining at home for a reasonable period of time.

I would think that in order to justify a conviction, prosecutors would have had to overcome the above by showing evidence that this particular child is INCAPABLE of safely walking to a nearby location within his neighborhood, or that the child ACTUALLY DID put himself in danger, i.e. by entering the pond.

Something tells me that evidence does not exist, and the judge ruled based on something other than a correct reading of the law.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#208

Post by Supermancho »

giarc wrote: post #65
ortusdux wrote: post #55

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Enough ! Old Enough! is a Japanese reality show that has been aired irregularly since 1991 on Nippon Television. The program depicts, in a documentary manner, the efforts of toddlers going on an errand on their own, buying groceries and delivering packages, accompanied by the camera crew. The American version - https://youtu.be/VhGTtWsW9F8

https://www.netflix.com/title/81506279

Netflix link above, is correct.

SNL parody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhGTtWsW9F8

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#209

Post by Huarache1 »

mcphage wrote: post #197
Huarache1 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I said it was a harsh sentence for a probably safe area at the end of my statement, why so angry?

Because even beyond this area being safe, your claim that "There is likely too much crime in urban areas for children to walk freely" is wrong.

I would argue it depends on where. Most of the rural areas are likely too loosely populated to commit any serious crimes, especially against children. And it is a large part of the United States.

However, looking at say, Downtown Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, the amount of crime does seem to increase overall. This is partially due to density, and also poverty. Saint Louis, a good chunk of Louisiana, parts of the South (Not including Texas), the Appalachian region, a good chunk of the Eastern United States barring New England, many of these regions have had issues with crime.

There's also the issue of crime happening in schools, including but not limited to drug sales (mostly between teenagers and not generally violent), and shootings (which is rare but far more common compared to other similarly wealthy nations).

Also I said Sometimes the Adults are scared due to truths, and exaggerations.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#210

Post by stormbeard »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #200
Aurornis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young children also walk to the elementary schools near me. When I’m at the park with my kids, it’s common to see other very young kids show up alone on their bikes or on foot to play in the park. This is in the US. I think international readers see these headlines and assume the entire US is like this, but the reason the story is a headline is because it’s a dumb sentence. This is going to get appealed. The US is a…

As an international reader I'm missing some context here. Isn't a gated community supposed to be singularly safe? With private guards (like the guy who took the kid to his mom) patrolling and no strangers allowed in etc? Why did the guard tell the kid that "bad people" might take him? Where would those bad people come from? It really all does sound very weird.

Yes. That's why this is so dumb.
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