The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life • Hacker News Board

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#171

Post by mcv » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:19 PM UTC

jaegerpicker wrote: post #164

billyjobob wrote: post #9

Wow, I didn't realise US police were that bad. After reading this I don't think I could ever feel safe enough to visit the US. Sounds like you'd have a better chance of getting justice in an African dictatorship where at least the dont-rape-me bribe would be affordable. Tourists really should be warned about this, because it's not the image the US tourist boards present to us at all.

Don't be a complete Ass. The US is a a big place, really big and there are vastly different types of states and situations. Any country in the world has fucked up abuses of power, name where you live and I guarantee that an example exists. Comparing Maine (where I live, which has the lowest crime rate and rate of prisoners per 100,000 in the US) to Texas is like comparing Switzerland to Russia based on the size and p…

Note that though Maine has the lowest incarceration rate of the US, globally they're only average. Most countries in Europe still have a lower incarceration rate, for example.

And every other US state has a higher incarceration rate than Maine. Many 3 times as high, some 5, one even 10 times as high. The US as a whole has by far the highest incarceration rate of the whole world.

Maybe Maine is the exception as the only sane state in this regard. As a whole, the situation in the US is attrocious.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#172

Post by scarmig » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:23 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #161

mjolk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is pretty good -- don't anecdotes from the internet says deter you. We're a collection of states that each are allowed to do things more or less their own way. Texas is one of the states with serious issues surrounding illegal immigration, income, and education, but has about the same economic power as Canada.

> America is pretty good -- don't anecdotes from the internet says deter you. It's not merely anecdotes; there's plenty of hard data. The US locks up more people in absolute numbers than any country in the world, including China, which has 4 times the population and a totalitarian government. Per capita, the only countries with more inmates are a handful of tiny Carribean islands, I believe. Law enforcement is struct…

Fun fact: the USSR under Stalin and the gulag incarcerated fewer people than does the contemporary United States.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777...

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#173

Post by gyepi » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:24 PM UTC

minimize_me wrote: post #159

gyepi wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid you don't know what you're talking about. Genocide is not common in Africa. It's happened, but it's not common.

But didn't you see that movie about the guy with the hotel?

I think you are referring to Hotel Rwanda. No, I didn't. I am hopeful that this is a joke and not an attempt to disprove my point or a demonstration of your range of knowledge on the subject.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#174

Post by janj » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

This country has its fair share of over zealous prosecutors and out of control cops. We need a way to track these events to the individual to make it easier to identify patterns. When deputy Erik Gelhaus shot and killed an innocent 13 year old boy here in Santa Rosa I tried to find out if he had a history of violent interactions with the public. That's when I realized no one seemed to be tracking these events. There should be a service where I can look up the prosecutors in this case and see if they have a history of this type of behavior. I should be able to look up any cop and find their history of violent interactions with the public if there is one. How can we trust these people with power if we can't hold them accountable?

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#175

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

jaegerpicker wrote: post #164

billyjobob wrote: post #9

Wow, I didn't realise US police were that bad. After reading this I don't think I could ever feel safe enough to visit the US. Sounds like you'd have a better chance of getting justice in an African dictatorship where at least the dont-rape-me bribe would be affordable. Tourists really should be warned about this, because it's not the image the US tourist boards present to us at all.

Don't be a complete Ass. The US is a a big place, really big and there are vastly different types of states and situations. Any country in the world has fucked up abuses of power, name where you live and I guarantee that an example exists. Comparing Maine (where I live, which has the lowest crime rate and rate of prisoners per 100,000 in the US) to Texas is like comparing Switzerland to Russia based on the size and p…

You're cherry picking. Maine has half the population of Chicago. More importantly, Texas is 20x the size of Maine, and represents over 8% of the population of the US.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#176

Post by taejo » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

minimize_me wrote: post #159

gyepi wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid you don't know what you're talking about. Genocide is not common in Africa. It's happened, but it's not common.

But didn't you see that movie about the guy with the hotel?

That was the Rwandan genocide. It's the same incident.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#177

Post by jtheory » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

xtrumanx wrote: post #114

rmc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to an Africa country. A friend was almost robbed by a member of an ethnic minority. The police brought the suspect in, beat the crap out of him until he confessed. My friends were down the hall while they heard the police beat him up and heard his cries. In the 1990s during the Rwandan Genocide, neighbours turned on neighbours and a million people were hacked to death with machetes. Get real.

I hope you're not implying situations found in the Rwandan Genocide are typical in Africa.

They're not typical in Rwanda, for that matter.

I'm visiting friends there for the second half of March, and one of the first things you're told by online guides, etc. is "don't ask people to talk about the genocide, or what ethnic group they are from".

There was a horrific series of events with long-term repercussions and damage, no one wants to see anything like that again, and no one wants to discuss such things in idle chitchat with tourists.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#178

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:31 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #147

Don't make threats if you don't intend to follow up on them. Also, from his lawyer: "They didn't find pentagrams and candles. He wasn't listening to Judas Priest." WTF does that have to do with anything? Do only Judas Priest fans shoot up kindergartens? Is there something wrong with liking pentagrams and candles? I think that lawyer is the real creep here, and that kind of defense deserves to be ineffective. In any c…

The point is that this is a stupid moral panic, which is why he was referencing past stupid moral panics. He's not trying to imply that Judas Priest is staging a comeback.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#179

Post by madaxe_again » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:31 PM UTC

bhitov wrote: post #75

nopassrecover wrote: post #26

> Until that point, his only brush with the law was a temporary restraining order two years earlier. > "He started threatening me, saying that he would kill me. ... I told the school officers, [and] they started watching him really closely. He would say that he would shoot up the school." So I'll start by playing Devil's Advocate very briefly. It's interesting how facts can be shaped with different language ("his onl…

> So I'll start by playing Devil's Advocate very briefly. It's interesting how facts can be shaped with different language ("his only brush with the law"): it appears the restraining order from two years prior related to similar threats to those alleged in the Facebook comments (although in a remarkably different context). IANAL but I'm reasonably confident that a restraining order he received as a minor would not be…

It is, however, when you're subjected to Trial by Media.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#180

Post by Jehar » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #147

Don't make threats if you don't intend to follow up on them. Also, from his lawyer: "They didn't find pentagrams and candles. He wasn't listening to Judas Priest." WTF does that have to do with anything? Do only Judas Priest fans shoot up kindergartens? Is there something wrong with liking pentagrams and candles? I think that lawyer is the real creep here, and that kind of defense deserves to be ineffective. In any c…

Look into != jail for several months.

There are (supposedly) fairly well-defined use cases for probable cause and sufficient evidence to prosecute, and it seems these were all trampled over in this case.

In regards to the Judas Priest comments, I think that may have been some unintentional hyperbole/satire, pointing at the widely disproved profiling of school shooters. The Harris/Klebold case had a lot of cultural baggage of that type, most of which was fabricated by journalists. Citing them as fans of Marilyn Manson is one example; they possessed no Manson albums or memorabilia.