Not even as a sign of likely racists? I mean it is almost literally a red flag.
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Exactly. There are at least 15 good symbols of states’ rights and/or Southern pride you could put on the back of your pickup instead. Hell, just show your own state flag (gives a mean look to Mississippi.)
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This scene really resonated with me when I saw the film:
“You never meet anybody that thinks they’re a bad person.”
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I see everyone is getting a kick out of these people’s misery, but I think that is a ridiculous and disproportionate sentence. It’s 3X as long as what a 3rd-strike DUI Drunk Driver that killed my in-laws and injured the driver of a second vehicle received. These people didn’t do crap compared to that guy. Brandishing, taunting, threats. Did I miss something? What about the rest of the ppl in their little parade? Did they all walk?
You people are just a little too happy about these folks miserable future. Do you really think when they get out they will somehow be reformed? You are the same crowd that is aghast at the rise of the private prison industry, but I don’t hear any calls for rehabilitation. You’re freaked out that they pointed guns at people, but it won’t be a week before there is an article on here fawning over some violent movie or steampunk ray-gun. Serving time is supposed to make you look in the mirror, I recommend it for people on the outside too. Keeps the hypocrisy at bay.
See what I did there? And that’s just a start.
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I’m sorry for your loss. My condolences.
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Yes, of course we’re freaked out that they pointed guns at children. We can identify more closely with the birthday party-goers than racists who terrorize children.
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Exactly.
If the shoe were on the other foot and it were black people driving by a white child’s party pointing guns and making threats, would you be so dismissive?
There’s some of it in this thread. Not much, but you’ll have to forgive us for not feeling sufficient sympathy for violent criminals who show no contrition. These aren’t kids who got caught with pot or something and got absolutely flattened by an unjust legal system, but grown-ass adults who pointed weapons at children and showed no remorse, just are sorry they got caught. Your equivalency could not be more false.
If you want sympathy from me, fine, I hope that guy doesn’t get raped in prison. I sincerely do. That’s the extent of my sympathy.
You know us so well. And those two things are totally equivalent.
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Here’s a fun note:
In Georgia, manslaughter while in operation of a vehicle and driving under the influence would be classed as “First Degree Homicide by Vehicle”. It carries a penalty of between three and fifteen years in prison, with no possibility of parole during the first year. If it’s a “habitual violation” (as would be the case for someone who had just done it for the third time), those penalties escalate to between five and twenty years.
That’s per instance. So multiply by two for two in-laws. Non-fatal injuries to another driver would tack on a smaller amount. So we’re left with something in the 10-40 year range, plus some more for the other driver.
Both people sentenced in this story were given sentences at the low end of the sentencing range that Georgia law proscribes for the crime you cite. (In fact, below the bottom of this sentencing range, since part of these sentences are apparently to be served outside jail) Just for what it’s worth, for the sake of comparison.
Since you brought it up and are apparently upset by the severity of these sentences, please be reassured: Georgia’s sentencing guidelines provide substantially higher penalties for the crime you describe, than the ones given in this story.
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The former is an act of racially motivated terrorism committed against innocent people including children. The latter is fiction. It’s possible to enjoy Star Wars without actually approving of planetary genocide.
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And yet armchair libertarians are likely to argue that this is at the intersection of the first and second amendments.
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Not even. I’ve found that they’re pretty proud to get it out there without needing the flag.
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Yeah, but authoritarian followers don’t give a flying fuck; any debunking you do merely signals to them that you’re from the other tribe, and hence must be resisted.
It’d take one of their leaders to do it, and that’s never gonna happen while this cheap grace malarkey is such a convenient foundation for so much right-wing bastardry.
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It’s not that simple, is it. The ‘authorities’ in question are likely multiple and are probably primarily parents, followed by the arseholes on Fox.
The inescapable cognitive dissonance is simply a result of cherry-picking whatever bullshit appeals to their prejudices, without any aim of constructing a coherent worldview. These turkeys are compartmentalised out the wazoo.
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Yes.
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Well actually, terrorism is pretty serious stuff.
Drunk driving resulting in multiple deaths is obviously more serious in a way, but it doesn’t really speak to the vicious prejudices of a subset of the populace, and encourage similar behaviour, let alone deliberately and systematically ensure that certain people live in fear.
Terrorism is a far more public thing than negligent manslaughter, and I’d hazard a guess that sentencing for it factors in a much greater degree of deterrence.
But yeah, I think maybe you have a bit of a point. I even would’ve given your comment a like if you hadn’t gone so hard.
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If only we had been more responsible, they wouldn’t have done it? What an asshole everyone but you is.
These people didn’t do crap compared to that guy.
They got convicted, compared to that guy. Want to convict people, I’d go with “why not both” over “nothing can be done”. Your Mileage May Vary.
I’m not freaked out, at all. Because I know fact from fiction!
I also know (not firsthand like you must though) that pointing guns at kids is super extra damaging, and that scaring kids while crime-ing is extra super criminal.
Sounds like you have experience fighting that creeping tide. Get back to that.
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It was something about me having a delicious candy shell, wasn’t it?
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it’s quite appropriate for bringing guns and racist taunts to a childs birthday party, though.
it’s not too much. Georgia does really pretend to offer rehabilitation, punishment in GA is for deterrence. Take that up with Georgians, I wish it were different there.
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…It is interesting to me that the actual Confederate National flag is rarely used, except by reenactors. It’s historically more correct than a rectangular “battle flag” and it doesn’t have the association with the fight against civil rights in the 50s and 60s…
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It is interesting to me that the actual Confederate National flag is rarely used . . . . it doesn’t have the association with the fight against civil rights in the 50s and 60s…
If that was a question, I think you just answered it.
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