First off: Fuck Romney. I don't care to defend him.
What matters is the fact that he hates homosexuals to the degree that, as a late-teenager, he assaulted a boy with scissors because he was gay.
It doesn't read like that at all to me.
From the article in the OP:
quote:Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him! an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann
...
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
He assaulted the guy to conform his appearance, not just because he was gay. Its not obvious that it was because he hated gays. And the scissors were there to cut his hair.
When I read the dialog between you and Bluejay before I read the article in the OP, you were making it seem like they beat the guy up and stabbed him with scissors in a gay bashing incident. That's not what happened at all.
I'm with Bluejay on this one, you're making it out to be worse than it is.
The fact that he was stupid and reckless enough to bring a deadly weapon into his assault says something about his character in general,
How else were they going to cut his hair? Seriously, the scissors were brought for a specific reason.
Mitt Romney assaulted a boy with scissors because he thought the boy was gay, full stop.
Um, no. What does scissors have to do with being gay? He assaulted a boy with scissors to cut his hair because he didn't like the way he looked. Too, he was gay.
You have 20/20 hindsight and that's why you don't think anything of it.
Mind-reading error; I do think something of it.
I just don't think holding a gay guy down and cutting off his hair because you don't like the way he looks is accurately described as assaulting him with scissors because you hate gays.
And I think he's lying when he says he doesn't remember it.
They usually have metal on the inside edge like this:
And did plastic safety scissors exist 40 years ago?
I dunno. I'm not saying he used safety scissors, and we all know he would never touch pink ones... I'm just saying its not so cut-n-dry as definately being assault with a deadly weapon
It's assault with a deadly weapon because it meets, in every respect, the characteristics of that class of crimes. Your argument seems to be that it's not technically an assault because it happened 40 years ago, or that the actors involved were all rich kids at prep school, or something. I'm not really clear on your legal reasoning, there.
Its not legal reasoning... its non-legal reasoning. The legal classifications of "assault" are less than the classifications are for not just being a whiny bitch about it.
A lot of things technically count as legal assault that don't count as assault for people who aren't whiny bitches.
And I'm not talking specifically about the kid in this case. (Were charges even filed?)
Do you have a problem with calling an incident in which several people held a man down an cut the man's hair against his will a real assault? That appears to me to be what you are saying in this post, but that impression does not jibe with other things you've said about the incident. And in fact you yourself have used the term assault in Message 81.
I totally understand the reluctance about calling scissors a deadly weapon was used, but I don't get the hesitancy to call the incident a real assault.
No, they assaulted the guy. "Assault" to some people conjures up horrific imagery, like beating the shit out of somebody. But technically, assault can be from just the way your posturing yourself towards another person.
When I use the word assault, I know what I'm referring to but when I see other people using it, I don't know if they're thinking bloody murder or a gentle shove. When they're using it in hyperbolic spin, it seems like they're crying bloody murder.
Would your opinion be different if the participants were all adults and they held down another adult to cut his hair?
And yet that was not what I said, as you would know if ... well, if you were able to read things written in the English language, a faculty which you appear to have abandoned in the course of your quest to exonerate a criminal assault.
The part where I said that's what you said. The semicolon was intended to seperate independent clauses.
You're right.
Because of the things that you did say, that were right, it is stupid to label things as "hate crimes", even though you didn't say that it was.
Does that help?
But regardless, you're arguing against a strawman anyways. I know that technically/legally its accurate to say they assaulted the guy with a deadly weapon and have already admitted that. I've already further explained my reasoning in the susequent posts to the one you replied to. You can quote me from those in your reply to this.
What I said was (let me provide subtitles for the hard of thinking) that it is stupid to exonerate a man of a hate crime on the grounds that he was not absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his victim was a member of the group that he was attempting to victimize.
That's neat... not quite sure why you're saying it to me though.
And he's got a good point. Let me know if you don't want to watch it and I'll paraphrase for you.
When there is a discussion about which dark skinned social activists Obama shook hands with when he was younger, you can't say that the crimes someone commits when they are younger are off limits.
Alright, lets talk about how bad it is that Obama did coke and has a policy of incarcerating people who do. If he'd have gone to jail for it, do you think he would be president? His policies want to offer "treatment" to drug users. He used drugs and became the President! How much treatment did *he* need?
I happen to think that if you choose to run for president, that there is very little that is off limits. That is especially true of conscious decisions you made (repeatidly) as adult.
By all means, have it on limits, but don't expect anybody to be convinced by anything like pranks in college decades ago.
When it comes to the aspects that has respect for other people and the law, my character since college is unchanged.
Grow up already! I keed, I keed
Sure, Romney may have changed. I am not here to convict someone for their entire life. Presidential candidates simply SHOULD be deeply scrutinized and I just don't have any positive reason to believe that has changed.
Scrutinize away, I don't have a problem with that. You asked specific questions and I answered them: Pranks you pulled in college decades ago do not exemplify your character today.
Didn't realize that something that would be a felony if he had been caught is just a prank. You might want to tell this to people that have been seriously hurt by people impersonating an officer.
That's quite possibly the stupidest thing you could have replied with...
For one, I can think on many hilarious pranks that could count as a felony, BFD. What they can be is not what they is.
For the second part, how does that follow in any way? Or is that just some meaningless emotional appeal?
"Oh, you drove 5 mph over the speed limit? ZOMG! TELL ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIED HORRIBLY IN CAR CRASHES!!!"
WTF man, are you even trying? Seriously, walk me through your thoughts while posting please. Did you actually think that was a meaningful reply? Or are you just throwing the first thing that comes to you mind no matter how retarded it is?
Classic case of IOKIYAR
If this is a classic case then IOKIYAR is total bullshit.
I keed, I keed
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