Purely out of curiosity...

[ish mailian]

How is it a straw man?


On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 12:25 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Straw Man: "but as far as I can tell, the boy broke the law."
>
> Translation: "I pulled this out of my ass."
>
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 10:58 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> No. I didn't start the discussion. As stated in my post, I don't have all
>> the facts, so I said, but as far as I can tell, the boy broke the law. I
>> don't support the zero tolerance policy or the law that books kids for
>> bringing a toy bomb or toy gun to school. That said, as far I an tell, and
>> there have been lots of cases of this in Texas and in other US states, a
>> high school boy who does what he did will be arrested and charged with
>> breaking a law. It's insane, but that is how it is in schools today. I
>> think.
>>
>> Some here seem to be experts so....but I would think that teachers who
>> teach Brown kids, Muslim kids, Black kids..would be trained and educated in
>> how not to judge their students by their names and facial features. And,
>> experienced teachers are, well, experienced so they know, bot only that the
>> suspension and arrest percentages of children, and especially boys of color
>> are dangerously high, not because teachers are idiots or racist but because
>> they have lost the struggle to the idiots and bigots and experts.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 10:54 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This whole stupid discussion begins with this statement, which I've
>>> never heard before, and is of dubious veracity:
>>>
>>> "Whatever his intentions, if he re-assembled clock parts in a box and
>>> took them to school, he broke the law."
>>>
>>> Chapter and verse, please?
>>>
>>> David Morris
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick <
>>> petopoet at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>> From: Peter M. Fitzpatrick <petopoet at gmail.com>
>>>> Date: Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:43 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: Purely out of curiosity...
>>>> To: ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     I am not quite sure about this particular case, but as an American,
>>>> I am aware that the "zero tolerance" policy has been used to replace
>>>> education with discipline in not a few cases that smack of the truly
>>>> bizarre and Orwellian, if not completely scripted from some absurdist
>>>> scriptwriter in the sky.Case in point, when I lived in a Atlanta some years
>>>> ago, the news broke that a young 6th grade black girl was facing severe
>>>> disciplinary actions for bringing a "Tweety-bird" keychain to school.
>>>> "Tweety-bird", the cartoon character from, I believe, Porky Pig, was the
>>>> culprit. How or why or what they were thinking that she would do with this
>>>> nefarious bird replica, I do not venture to guess.
>>>>     Ahmed's case is perhaps more understandable, but he is innocent
>>>> before guilty, even if he is considered a child in the eyes of the law.
>>>> Authoritarianism in the name of safety should not substitute the sanctity
>>>> and value of  freedom, regardless of how dangerous the times might be. If
>>>> he was a white teenager, I don't believe the "terrorism" image would
>>>> immediately come to mind. Level heads should prevent a possibly misguided
>>>> adventure being misconstrued as a nefarious terrorist plot. This will
>>>> probably follow him for the rest of his life now.
>>>>      Again, what is never brought up again after perhaps a quick
>>>> mention or two, the mental health problem in this country is woefully
>>>> underfunded by insurance companies and difficult for moralists to face.
>>>> Many of the school shooters were and are mentally ill, perhaps criminally
>>>> so, but if involved parents, teachers, and yes, medical professionals, were
>>>> more involved and concerned, these tragedies could perhaps be averted. No
>>>> one wants to be mentally ill. There are wonderful drugs that can treat the
>>>> disease. But the arcane bureaucracies of school, hospitals, and insurance
>>>> companies almost guarantees that none of these kids will get these drugs.
>>>> Personally, I believe that even so called "terrorists" meet the standards
>>>> of being mentally ill, at least by the standards of in most societies, or
>>>> at least those that are not sociopaths and criminals in the first place. I
>>>> am aware that leads into the quandary of mental illness vs. criminality,
>>>> rehabilitation vs. punishment, and ultimately free will vs. determinism,
>>>> something we cannot solve in discussion list.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:13 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Was the clock a school project? In other words, did a teacher, a club
>>>>> adviser, any adult in the school assign a project, and did the clock fit
>>>>> the assignment? Or did the young man make a clock and bring it to school?
>>>>>
>>>>> As far as I can tell the young man did not build a clock or make a
>>>>> project, or in any way bring something to school that was part of an
>>>>> assignment from any adult in the building. It was not a project. It was not
>>>>> show and tell. It seems the student took apart a clock, re-fashioned it and
>>>>> put in in a box and brought it to school.
>>>>>
>>>>> Why did he do this? What was his motivation?
>>>>>
>>>>> Whatever his intentions, if he re-assembled clock parts in a box and
>>>>> took them to school, he broke the law. While 14 year old boys, and
>>>>> sometimes 14 year old girls, are instructed that bringing a clock in a box,
>>>>> a plastic gun, a plastic sword, a paper bomb or dynamite  etc..., even on
>>>>> Halloween is dangerous and against the law, young people do make these
>>>>> kinds of mistakes, from time to time. Best if they make them in school as
>>>>> school is the safest place in the world for students. Obviously, doing so
>>>>> in the street may get one killed by a police officer or even a gun toting
>>>>> citizen.
>>>>> In a school the child, age 14, will be interrogated, handcuffed,
>>>>> probably, and asked to write a statement explaining his or her intentions
>>>>> and the police will contact the guardians and book the kid. This is the
>>>>> law. It matters not the race or religion of the child.
>>>>>
>>>>> From time to time, a  brave administrator, more likely an experienced
>>>>> teacher will protect the child with a slap on the wrist, but the current
>>>>> mood in the country and in schools is making this a rare act of....welll
>>>>> not courage, but decency.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:02 AM, The Jonathon Hunt Experience <
>>>>> newtalkingwall at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Is there any evidence that the kid "only" took apart a store bought
>>>>>> clock and put it back together, beyond people online pointing out that
>>>>>> doing so is a thing that people can do? Beyond that, if the child acted as
>>>>>> maliciously as Richard Dawkins and others would like to believe, this means
>>>>>> his whole plan hinged on the knowledge that his teachers and police would
>>>>>> confuse a circuit board and some wires with something that can explode. If
>>>>>> our teachers and police are this stupid (which seems to be the case, here),
>>>>>> then we are lucky in getting off with a $15 million dollar fine.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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