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The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

dallasobserver.com

301–310 of 356 posts

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#301
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hoping to live in some of these places in the future. Would you mind clarifying why the states on this list are especially bad rather than others?

It's a part of the US called "The South". Which has it's own cultural identity...

So far as I know New Mexico and Arizona aren't part of "The South" either culturally or geographically. If it was that simple, I wouldn't have asked the question.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#302
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! I think I can only visit the states again after I'm married and with kids, to go to Disneyland... it seems the only safe venture. I mean if you're single, go to a club and get into a fight, that would probably be enough to make your life hell already... going there is like russian roulette

You can't get into fights at Disneyland either. The best bet is to not assault people.

And why did you assume I would be the one to pick a fight? Even though I'm a peaceful person who never ever assaulted anyone, I've been assaulted several times for no reason, and in different countries. Friends of the aggressor can testify against you and then you're in trouble. I picked club fights as an example, but the point is that bad luck can put innocent people in trouble with the law in any setting...

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#303
post #286
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's no longer a minor, so does that still apply because he was a minor at the time it happened?

In Canada? Yup. The YOA is very expansive. For example, my neighborhood's most prolific tagger is in his mid-'20s and the press still isn't allowed to mention his name when he gets picked up for the nth time because he was previously arrested as a young offender. If they said "Joe Blow was arrested for writing tag X on an overpass" then everybody would know that Joe Blow is X and his young offenses of writing X on an…

I also feel that, if you are an adult and you've served your sentence and paid your debt to society, that your file is closed to the public. The only time it would be accessed is in determining the sentence for your next crime.

Adults deserve a second chance, too.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#304
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison in the US isn't about rehabilitation it's about punishment. No one goes to prison thinking they're going to come out as a better person with a new outlook on life. They're going to come out war-torn and barely above functional with little to no prospects.

Little to no prospects: right, because punishment doesn't stop when you leave prison. Punishment continues until the day you die: you can't get a good job because virtually no one will hire an ex-con.

And that's not just because employers are bad people - it's the propensity of people to sue and win against the employers if an employee commits a crime. The employer is even further liable if he knew the employee was an ex-con.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#305
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, people have children. The protection they feel must be absolute, and here is someone who threatening them. If someone came up to me on the street and screamed I'm going to fucking kill you, I wouldn't argue for his freedom of speech.

You just said "I'm going to fucking kill you." If context does not matter (which is the entire premise of this case), then you are just as guilty as Justin. Are you still so eager to police speech?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use-mention_distinction

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a criticism but how much time have you spent in the South?

My entire life. I've met some of the most viciously racist people that exist. And not just poor and uneducated people. Wealthy, educated people as well. There is an institutionalized racism that permeates most of the south. Not all southerners are that way. Some of us try to lift the south up into the 21st century. But it's a hard fight. And the resistance to change is strong.

Thanks.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#307
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just said "I'm going to fucking kill you." If context does not matter (which is the entire premise of this case), then you are just as guilty as Justin. Are you still so eager to police speech?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use-mention_distinction

This distinction is entirely a matter of context. Which is the point — it is not the words themselves that are outlawed, but the act of threatening.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#308
post #95
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an isolated case either. I don't mean facebook-comment-wise, but rather wtf-wise. From Internet, through airports and car stops to interacting with random strangers. Lot's of horrific stories where you end up in the justice system, while done absolutely nothing that breaks the law or would endanger someone in any way. But maybe because the US is so big it's bound to happen sometimes? I don't know, but USA…

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.

It's closer to Spain; Canada is somewhere in between CA and TX. http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/300*177/adambelz_13917...

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#309

When officers searched Carter's home, Flanary says, they did not find the hallmarks of a lunatic. "They found no guns in his house," Huh. Guns = hallmark of a lunatic?

I think they meant that they neither found evidence that he was a lunatic, nor any guns (i.e. not only did he not have the mental state for carrying out a shooting, he did not even have the means). I think either in his speech or during editing the conjunction was accidentally dropped. At least, that was my reading of it.

Re: The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life

#310
post #75

> 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…

> IANAL but I'm reasonably confident that a restraining order he received as a minor would not be admissible as evidence in this case, and thus should be irrelevant to the prosecution.

And yet it might be relevant to the reason he was arrested, if the quotation in the message above yours (which is unsourced) is true.

Kid gets arrested for Facebook talk: "INJUSTICE!"

...but he had a previous restraining order for similar threats: "They might have a point."

What's ridiculous about this case is that they kept at it.

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