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Chilling

Video of Teen Beating Death Released

Four teens have been arrested for the brutal murder of Chicago honor student Derrion Albert, CNN reports, following the release of a digital video recording of Albert’s death. Nineteen-year-old Silvanus Shannon admitted during police questioning on Monday night that authorities correctly identified him as the man in the video who jumps on Albert’s head while he is lying on the ground, cracking his skull. Prosecutors say that Shannon and his alleged accomplices—16-year-old Eric Carson, 18-year-old Eugene Riley, and 17-year-old Eugene Bailey—have been charged with murder, and at least three are being held without bail. Prosecutors say Albert was an “innocent bystander” on his way to the bus stop when a street fight broke out near his school in Chicago’s South Side. The video, shot by a witness, has appeared on national television and YouTube, and was also turned over to the police. It depicts Riley hitting Albert on the head with a railroad tie, Shannon stomping on his head, and others kicking him while he lays in varying states of consciousness. In the background, a female voice says “Derrion, get up!” as several teens struggle to help Albert as his attackers dissipate.

Posted at 11:10 PM, Sep 28, 2009
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Comments ()

Wetpixels

This seriously pisses me off.

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1:45 am, Sep 29, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

n--Y--nightdragon83
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1:52 am, Sep 29, 2009

Maezeppa

Anybody who watches such a video is sicker than the lowest porno creep.

Chicago is a magnificent, world-class city and will be an excellent Olympics host.

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5:08 am, Sep 29, 2009

Johnnyappleseed

Surely you jest, there is absolutely nothing classy about Chicago, it's a dump.

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9:49 am, Sep 29, 2009

hfb1053

Not all of Chicago is a dump so don't write off the entire city because of the actions of a few. This area is indeed dangerous and something surely needs to be done but controlling one's children really starts at home and most of these kids are being raised by a single mother with virtually no education and thus, low income producting jobs. We need to not be so cavalier about life in general and about gangs in particular.

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3:45 pm, Sep 29, 2009

SocialSecretion

To nightdragon and everyone who is asking why nobody stepped in to help him...
Would you have jumped in there? With a dozen men brawling? You wouldn't have been able to fight them off. You would have been beaten down as well. And even if you are superman and think you could have stopped them, did you see the people who were standing around and eventually dragged the kid indoors? Young kids, mostly girls...like hell they're gonna step in with a bunch of bigger stronger men fighting. I don't know where you people grew up, but brawls like this happen in every city, town, and village across the country. Black people, white people, asian and otherwise. I've seen several people get kicked while they're down. I have personally been beaten up badly twice and kicked in the head, because I got involved where I shouldn't have. So, nightdragon, when you call these kids animals, you are calling almost all American teens and young adults animals. Grow up. I'm not excusing the behavior, but this is a problem that goes much deeper than this part of Chicago or any other "bad" neighborhood anywhere. It happens just as often in the suburbs.

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8:09 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Aslanleon

"It happens just as often in the suburbs." Actually it doesn't. We don't have thousands of funerals for young people who have been murdered like this poor fellow every year-- the inner cities do. You can walk around at night with impunity in most small towns and suburbs-- not in the inner cities. Whites and Asians have a very low violent crime rate compared to inner city Blacks. One of many statistics that bears this out is that inner city blacks are far more likely to be the victims of crime than whites and blacks who live elsewhere. Multiculteralism is all right in its place, but let's be serious and scientific about which group disproportionately commits violent crimes and who the victims are-- in both cases inner city Blacks.

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9:20 pm, Sep 29, 2009

SocialSecretion

I didn't say anything about murder rates. I said kids beat each other up in the suburbs as well. I've lived in south side Minneapolis for years, walk the streets at night, and never once have had a problem. Both times that I have been jumped and beaten have happened in suburbs of Minneapolis by white kids. Plus I think its funny that you say "You can walk around at night with impunity in most small towns and suburbs-- not in the inner cities". Cities are great for living in andwalking around! I walk to restaurants, parks, bars, etc...I feel sorry for you if you don't get to enjoy that sense of community. On the other hand, almost every suburb I have been to nobody walks around because nothing is in walking distance! Quite often they don't even have sidewalks. People only leave their property when they pull out of the garage in their car....sad.

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10:15 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Aslanleon

Social Secretion: ""You can walk around at night with impunity in most small towns and suburbs-- not in the inner cities". Cities are great for living in and walking around!" Some parts of some cities, are, SS. If you want some good running instead, try walking around in my grandmother's old neighborhood in Philadelphia. Fifty years ago it was lovely. It was all working class. People sat on their porches, walked down to the deli and movie theatre, and so on. Not any more, and not at night. It's inner city. Don't even drive through it, especially if you are white and your car breaks down. You die. On the other hand, I live in a small town where I can walk to the deli, the coffee shop, the library, the bank, the grocery store, the hardware store, the theatre-- well, everything-- any hour of the day or night. This has been true of most places I have lived. The difference isn't wealth, poverty or race-- it is that the community is small enough that everybody is pretty much known to each other, and the bad boys are well known to the police. The BB's generally move to the city eventually-- more scope for their mischief.

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11:01 pm, Sep 29, 2009

keepakeeper43

Blood-Boiling Madness.
Horrific Bastards.

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2:55 am, Sep 29, 2009

winston1

This is a disgusting act all to common in Chicago; instead of worrying about longer school days do something about these tribal gangs. Where are the parents????

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6:06 am, Sep 29, 2009

olddog65

Probably down at the local whatever doing that 6.50/hr job and trying to raise two kids in a one room apartment, because that is all they can afford, if they are lucky enough to actually have a job.
We would be better off pushing hard to insure that all our children get top notch educations, and have the ability to work at a job that pays enough to support. Guess we will have to teach them all Chinese or Erdu so they can emigrate to China or India to find those good jobs. Ah the fruits of trickle down economics.

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9:02 am, Sep 29, 2009

theoPitt

glad to see someone blaming those pesky conservatives for the actions of sub-human gang bangers.

If we only made minumum wage $20/hr, there would be no crime.

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9:44 am, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

Let's see flipping burgers for $250.00 a week, OR selling drugs for $250.00 a day?
Which do you think the "Free Market" would advocate?
Maybe there should be a third option. But that doesn't jibe with your black hat/white hat paradigm does it? How do you manage your day to day with such an infantile perspective?

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10:35 am, Sep 29, 2009

DD3075

When America offers free education to everyone, I have to wonder why anyone puts blame on America for a lack of education, instead of where it belongs, on the kids who dropout, and the parent(s) who allow it.

A job flipping burgers is for kids who need their first job, so they can move into the adult workforce understanding the prerequisites. It''s not meant to support a family.

To progresiveaggressive, why stop at comparing burger-flipping to selling drugs? If the value of respecting law is out of the picture, then why not go to bank-robbing at maybe $250,000/hour.

I'm guessing that some here tend to believe that the only thing that predominantly poor black neighborhoods are capable of producing are burger-flippers and drug-dealers. Did you MISS the point that the kid who was murdered was an honor student? He was someone who was making something of his life without planning to be on welfare. In other words, the message is don't do well in school, don't excel, 'cause our "hood" won't permit that.

Why anyone chooses/plans to live their life on minimum wage and welfare, is beyond me. Maybe the word "minimum" is just too difficult for the uneducated to understand. For those who don't get it, that means bottom of the bucket, bottom rung, can't get any lower.

And don't try responding with something like "you have no idea what it's like to be poor" That's BS. My mom grew up in a sod house in the Dakotas, her dad was a sharecropper, raising 5 kids. When I was young, they had moved to the city, with grandpa working as a janitor, and grandma cleaned houses. They all came through the real depression, and nobody in my family ever resorted to illegal activities. Some people just don't know what hard work is. The world doesn't owe you a living, you EARN it.

I hope the brutes get the death penalty. I feel so sorry for the dead kid's mom, who did everything she could to raise a wonderful, intelligent, compassionate son, only to have him murdered by worthless thugs. .

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4:55 pm, Sep 29, 2009

adlerman

olddog65
They'll need Chinese but not to get a job in China- they'll need Chinese just to live here when the Chinese foreclose.

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5:07 pm, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

DD
I understand what you are saying. I understand the need to work to succeed.

But what you don't seem to understand, is that many teenagers CAN'T get those "first time on the job market" burger jobs anymore. Because many adults need to work two and three of them to support their families.

If the playing field was anywhere close to being level. I would be on your side advocating personal responsibility. But the field is NOT level.

Wages have been stagnant for the past two decades, though costs have risen, especially health care dramatically.
Mothers would love to stay home with their kids can't afford it, but neither can they afford childcare for their kids when they go to work.
So what do we do?
How do we expect TEENAGERS to figure out solutions, when we can't?

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5:50 pm, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

DD Your story is just one of many like it in this country, the difference is in whether or not one was brought up to respect others , or whether or not, like you at some point, entitlement set in with your pathetic justification for such a life.
And if you had gone to an inner city school, how do you explain some students having books as opposed to students not having them. And who do you think were the ones who got the short shrift. Certainly not you, because you are so unaware of others. The education whine was as far as I could get in you post because your up in the air nose was in the way of your sob story which you think is heroic.

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6:25 pm, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

On the other hand, DD, maybe you are just someone who hates their life because you cannot connect.

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6:35 pm, Sep 29, 2009

pricklypear

Pure evil.

The 21st century version of lynching.

I challenge anyone to refute it.

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6:48 am, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

It did not take you long pricklypear, to equate this incident to "the 21st century version of lynching", what a revolting deduction. If the whites didn't lynch blacks they would have done it to each other. You are indeed a brilliant maven of urban life.

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2:17 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Czarkazem13

"The 21st century version of lynching"? Huh, what?

Was he singled out for his race, nationality, religion or views?

People - kids - being murdered in brawls is nothing new. Technology to capture and show it is.

The death penalty is more of an example (a group decides this person needs to die). As lynching was the more modern form to say, crucifixions.

Not to take anything from the brutality of this, but don't see your connections. Plus you did leave an open challenge out.

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3:05 pm, Sep 29, 2009

hfb1053

prickly - this is black on black crime and not a lynching of any version. You are completely off base.

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3:46 pm, Sep 29, 2009

felixsama

Prick- The death penalty is the 21st century version of lynching. This is another symptom of how sick our society is (I mean the murder, not your ignorant comment).

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12:29 pm, Sep 30, 2009

progressiveaggressive

I don't need to watch the video to know this was a horrifying act of violence.

I don't need to be reminded that violent acts are more common amongst those without hope, who feel they have no control in a complicated world.

I DO have to remind some on this board who have railed incessantly about the "corruption" of community organizations like ACORN, that THIS is what those community groups are TRYING TO END.

Loose gun laws DO NOT reduce urban violence.
But you know what does?
HOME OWNERSHIP. COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT. COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILTY.

So congratulations you myopic, conservative retards, you applied enough pressure to end funding for a group that was actually doing something to end this kind of violence.

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8:35 am, Sep 29, 2009

theoPitt

Again, impressed that conservatives are blamed for the criminal actions of these low-lifes.

If ACORN had only been able to advise these upstanding young men how to establish some sort of business, legal, semi-legal, illegal, and avoid paying taxes, they'd have been too busy with "business" to pound some poor honor students head into paste.

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9:47 am, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive


You know what's telling about your post?
That you NEVER bothered to find out what ACORN does.

Instead you celebrate your ignorance and regurgitate the blasphemy of modern day idols.

It is so much easier to throw a brick than build a house.

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9:53 am, Sep 29, 2009

Wetpixels

If ignorance were light, you'd be really, really bright.

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12:10 pm, Sep 29, 2009

theoPitt

You realize how your ignorance is brought to light with your posts?

IF ACORN were the super-de-duper organization you seem to be hinting to, are your actually trying to say that their very, very recent public embarassments un-did all their good and allowed these fine young men to go bad in just a week or two and decide murdering honor students was okay?

So if ACORN had not been so recently embarrased this episode would not have occured.

Remember, YOU are the idiot that tried to make this MURDER a political event by blaming the conservatives.

Is there anything in this world that you will not blame conservatives for?

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2:20 pm, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

theoPitt
Another absurdity you conservatives like to pass along, is that Acorn was overly endowed with your tax dollars, and you resent any money that is spent to help urban communities, your idea of a proper expenditure is spending gross amounts chasing illegal immigrants down. We've got your number.

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2:30 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Czarkazem13

Actually, the two that went "undercover" were turned down many times by ACORN employees. Some even called the police on them.

Also, what about Pfizer, Gambro Health Care, National Medical Enterprises and other organizations that have ripped us off, but for some reason the same people that were k'vetching about ACORN were quiet on these companies that were convicted in a court of law and still aren't banned from future government business?

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3:10 pm, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

theoPitt is a puppet on a string.
Dumb and deaf and wriggling for the amusement of his masters, yet the whole time convinced he's a REAL boy.

So let me break it down for you. Better run and get your dictionary.

The first mistake you made was arrogantly misunderstanding reasoned logic.
You began your response with a statement I never made, "recent public embarrassments un-did all their good".
You then go on to refute the false statement "So if ACORN had not been so recently embarrassed this episode would not have occurred."

This is what grown ups call a straw man argument. YOU build a "straw man", which you falsely claim is my position, and then you tear it down. But I am not an idiot, so it doesn't really work.

What I DID say was that part ACORN's purpose is to reduce urban violence. Such as the violent instance mentioned in the article. They do this through home ownership, community involvement, and collective responsibility.
I then went on to say that some of the people who CLAIM this instance of violence is bad. Are, in fact, the SAME people who helped apply pressure to end funding to ACORN. Remember, its an organization actually doing something to reduce the instances of urban violence.

Are you still with me theo?

I did not blame conservatives for the MURDER. I am blaming the conservatives for taking away the money from a group that was trying to PREVENT murders.

Stay tuned for next week's episode, in which I will try to teach theopitt how to wipe his ass.

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3:19 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Johnnyappleseed

Progressive, you are not really that stupid to think it's the conservative's fault, that a gang of thugs with a railroad spike killing some kid on his way home from school?..... then again maybe you are.
It's tradjedy no one stepped in to help.

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9:55 am, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

"It's tradjedy no one stepped in to help."

My point that you so deliberately missed, was that there ARE people who are stepping in to help. The pathetically paranoid, right wing of this country just helped to defund said people's efforts.
So good job. Way to blame the chemo for the cancer.

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10:26 am, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

I live in WDC, DD, and those nasty signs were thrown all over the place when they left, and they were too cheap to buy anything while they were "guests" of the city. Usually, people spend money when they come to town, not those cheap a$$es. However, it was a small crowd complaining about money as instructed by Beck and Armey.

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6:47 pm, Sep 29, 2009

T1Brit

Ha ha ha. The liberal, faced with an act of undeniable simple bloody evil by thugs intent on simple bloody murder...

... insists that it's all the fault of the Government.

- Beyond parody. Bordering on mental illness.

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10:35 am, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive


Ha ha ha
The conservative faced with the fact that people are inextricably linked to their environments, can't see the effect of community organizations on the reduction of urban crime. OR that the Fauxtards just helped defund one of the most effective community organizations out there.

What do you want?
Do you want to end instances of this kind of violence or not?


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11:07 am, Sep 29, 2009

aluxeterna

The conservative, faced with an act of undeniable simple bloody evil by thugs intent on simple bloody murder...

...starts his response with a laugh.

The only border here is your borderline personality disorder, you sick sick person.

Look, progressives are just as capable of being horrified as you. We're not denying the evil that happened. We just prefer to respond proactively, trying to do something about the horrors, rather than sitting back and saying "I gots mine don't worry 'bout yers." The conservative movement's bankrupt ideas have been ruining this country for far too long. MOVE OVER, FAILURES.

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11:17 am, Sep 29, 2009

DD3075

Well, p-a and alux, let's look at the recent protests....1 in DC and 1 in Pittsburgh.

In DC.........primarily conservatives and independents. Maybe 80,000 or more. No violence. No trash left behind. A demonstration of rational behavior.

In Pittsburgh at the G20.........primarily liberals. Maybe 8,000. Over 100 arrests, plenty of violence, and plenty of destruction. A demonstration of irrational behavior.

Which demonstration do you think shows and gets respect?

"Proactive responses" from the progressives? I don't think so.

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5:21 pm, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

I take back any sort of effort to reason with you DD.
I thought you were just some misguided but well meaning baby boomer.

I did not realize DD stands for Double Douche.

(Holla! D'Souza bloggers- you know who you are)

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6:41 pm, Sep 29, 2009

DeliaK

There is a real lack of civility in our world today. We need to do something to address it. This disgraceful incident, must be used to judge ourselves and initiate change.

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8:46 am, Sep 29, 2009

KateTheGreat

I've long wondered why gangs are tolerated. Gangs are criminal enterprises, destroying/terrorizing communities and businesses. I am always struck how these criminal nobodies continue their memberships, or strengthen their memberships in prison. Gang membership in itself should be a crime.

Punishment for membership in a gang: not sitting around watching TV, exercising, hanging with the rest of the degenerates in prison, but HARD LABOR 8-10 hours a day with no talking...make them too tired to cause trouble, and perhaps it will make membership seem less appealing.

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10:22 am, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

And how would we go about pre-emptively identifying the gang bangers from all the other residents of the urban jungles?
You got a test?
Some special screening?
Maybe if we make them take off their shoes?

Or perhaps we should make them wear stars on their shirts?

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10:40 am, Sep 29, 2009

parkerchgo

Hear, hear! The cons are convinced that each person acts completely by free will, and that environment plays no part in anyone's behavior.

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12:55 pm, Sep 29, 2009

shortcourse

Try branding....

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1:33 pm, Sep 29, 2009

shortcourse

oh wait...branding won't work...too many tats already on them.

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1:34 pm, Sep 29, 2009

DD3075

parkerchgo..........every behavior is a result of choice.

P-a..........stop tolerating gangs and gangbangers.

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5:27 pm, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

Again, no one is endorsing gangs, you are yourself on crack.

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6:37 pm, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

OK DD

I NO LONGER TOLERATE GANG BANGERS!!!
(Did it work? Are they gone? Have their gangster leans, and hard hitting fists morphed into plucky, go-gettum attitudes? Is the world their oyster yet? Let me know, I'm afraid to look.)

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6:45 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Aslanleon

How do we stop the gang bangers? Send them to a work camp like Sheriff Arpaio runs instead of letting them walk ten times when they appear in court. If they repeat, send them to prison. Give the people of the inner city their community back.

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9:47 pm, Sep 29, 2009

NO-BAMA

Where's the problem? This is just a group of future ACORN thugs with 2x4's, engaged in community reform.

What would you expect from the peeps in Obozo's old congressional district? Instead of Al Sharpton.Jesse Jackson and Obozo appearing non-stop on TV calling for an end to this shit, Obozo is off to Europe to promote the games.

Hey Olympic committee, bring the games to Chicago, what could possibly go wrong.

Welcome To NOBAMA'S Amerika.

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10:52 am, Sep 29, 2009

onesec

It just like Bush off to the ranch instead of stepping in when we lost 5000....brave soul that he was.

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11:09 am, Sep 29, 2009

squiggy

The kid killed was an honors student. The other kids on the block were gang members in a violent mood. Is this where we applaud diversity? Is this where we sing praises for "we are all the same", ghosts in the machine kind of thing or is this where maybe those few bad apples pay dearly for their crimes and in the future the community polices it's own? Where is the outrage from Sharpton, Jackson and the media for this kind of behavior, this murder? Imus repeats something from a gang song and get's canned! The outrage goes on for weeks!!!! An honor's student gets killed at a bus stop and there are arrests but where is the national outrage!!!!

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11:35 am, Sep 29, 2009

shortcourse

Sing it out...and sing it loud....hope and change....yes we can....yes we can kill....destroy the community....sell drugs....be a gang....poverty?...some of those gang members make more in a day than I do in a year.

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1:30 pm, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

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6:38 pm, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

You are way off key.

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7:09 pm, Sep 29, 2009

guerrilladude

Checking out this really tragic story, and then I read this chain of comments and I'm not sure which is more disgusting - watching a group of soul-less youth devalue a peer's life so completely or listening to a bunch of whiny adults 'blame' political ideology for it.

I wish stuff like this were so simple to just say "well its all the conservative's fault" or "liberals asked for a country like this". WTF people?! How old are you? Can you step outside your selfish worldviews for one moment and have some empathy across the board for how tragic it is that situations like this occur in America with increasing frequency?

You want to know who is at fault for this fellow Americans?! WE ARE. I don't care what your political leanings - we are all complicit in the world we have created for ourselves. Stop trying to pass the buck and feel smug that YOU have nothing to do with this sickening display of what America has been reduced to. It's all on display in a few grainy minutes of video - the despair, the results of decades of "me first" indoctrination, the selfishness, the sense of "I'm not getting involved because this isn't my problem", the gross violence (reflected 24/7 in so many aspects of our pop culture), the hopelessness that is given face when a man STOMPS on the head of another (do you think he does that because he values life?!).

Where does the anger come from that would lead a group of young men to brutally and systematically SMASH the life out of someone who might just as easily been a friend?

Why don't more people come to a person's aid when they are in trouble (there have been numerous studies and cases where bystanders turn a blind eye to the violence being perpetrated right in front of them - and it doesn't have anything to do with race or economic status)?

Why is it easier to sit at your computer and try and lay blame for this at the feet of your political enemy rather than to go out and demand that we provide young people with good education, supportive communities, a feeling of trust and love in a country that is devaluing all of these qualities at an exponential rate?

Heck, we can't even agree that we all deserve to have our health taken care of, so why should we expect these youth (most of whom I'm sure have no access to decent health care or information) to value life? Our society pummels them with the message that you don't matter, you're just a cog in the machine that creates profits for someone else, and even if you do everything right with your life, it is still up to YOU to deal with all the inequalities and injustices you will be faced with.

Sheesh - I could write pages here, but none of you really want to hear this - you just want to sit in your comfy armchair, tapping away are your keyboard, convinced that this is not your fault and not your "reality".

Well, this is YOUR/OUR fault and this is YOUR/OUR reality.

Now what are YOU/WE going to do about it?

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11:51 am, Sep 29, 2009

parkerchgo

Precisely well said!!

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12:57 pm, Sep 29, 2009

dirtyrita

exactly!

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1:24 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Aslanleon

Total, complete nonsense. We are responsible for what we do. Claiming that it is society's fault is a dodge. I worked as a teacher and probation counselor in a maximum security prison for years. Most inner city kids don't make these choices. They do their best to get an education and get a job. The ones that don't become criminals.

I grew up in a poor community at the pithead to a coalmine. Some of my friends chose to drink, be thugs, and ignore education. Some did not. They chose their lives. Society had nothing to do with it except that they were dealt a bad hand. Any poker player will tell you that you can play out a bad hand and still win.

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4:18 pm, Sep 29, 2009

DD3075

Excellent post, Aslanleon.

According to parkerchgo - "The cons are convinced that each person acts completely by free will, and that environment plays no part in anyone's behavior."

Parker apparently needs to believe in victimhood, while you are proof that we CHOOSE how we react to our environment, and thus, make our own lives through choice.

The thugs made their choices. They will either be executed, or spend the rest of their lives in prison.

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5:46 pm, Sep 29, 2009

guerrilladude

I could give you 100 examples of the opposite for your ONE story of escaping a "bad hand" (WTF?!). Is that all this is to you - tantamount to a friggin poker game?! I laud your ability to rise above the challenges that life presented you, but that in NO WAY excuses society from providing social justice, educational opportunity, and RESPECT to all citizens. Imagine how many people might make different "choices" if so...

Yes, we are each responsible for our individual actions, and I in no way implied or stated that the perpetrators of this crime should get off scott free. I was responding to the blame game going on between conservatives and liberals here. But obviously you relish blaming the person (fine) while ignoring any other influences that may be in play. You proved nothing with your response (and DD3075's cheerleading) but highlighting how naive (or is it just plain ignorant?) you both are.

Thanks for proving my point.

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6:19 pm, Sep 29, 2009

cbeenthere

African Americans have been criminalized in this society whether they are criminals or not. Aslanleon you have admitted you were lucky. DD is just a jackass.

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6:40 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Aslanleon

Guerilladude-- You can give a hundred examples of the opposite of what I say? Fine. I can give a thousand. Every decent, hardworking person in the ghetto and who have escaped it supports my thesis The one thing I noted in ALL of the criminals I gave psychological evaluations to and worked with was that they blamed others for their problems. That was the common thread regardless of their original social status. Now, even if what you think were true-- that environment is the big determinant of how we turn out-- believing that this was true would be the biggest barrier to actually making the right choices in life. If you believe that your environment has doomed you, you are truly and completely doomed.

Not being poor is very, very simple. Finish school. Take any job you can get until you can get the job you want. Don't get pregnant or get anybody pregnant before you're married. Stay married. Don't abuse drugs or alcohol or tobacco. Follow those rules and you will prosper. Maybe you won't be rich, but you sure won't be a gangbanger or a welfare dependent. And don't bother me about people who are genuinely unable to work. Everybody is willing to help them.

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8:01 pm, Sep 29, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

n--Y--squareyellowpaper
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12:07 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Kevlar

A Clockwork Orange

Lord of the Flies.

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12:20 pm, Sep 29, 2009

barrett

One of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago, I know that because I went to Fenger H.S. If the city spent as much there as they have on Millenium park you can bet there wouldn't be those kinds of problems.

Poverty and violence go hand in hand.

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12:36 pm, Sep 29, 2009

shortcourse

If I remember correctly....the killers at Columbine High School came from relatively well to do families.....and they were white.

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7:19 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Aslanleon

A lot of rural school districts spend far less than Chicago does on schools and doesn't have gang murders and high dropout rates, but rather a modestly high level of school completion and academic achievement. Washington DC spend several times more than most rural school districts, more than any school district in the country and gets lousy results. IF money were the answer, DC would produce the most college bound students and have highest completion rate. In fact, both are far below average. Society or the culture hasn't done this to the kids-- their toxic subculture has. Money is not the cure.

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9:29 pm, Sep 29, 2009

winston1

This young man was killed because he tried to better himself, honor student, this is what happens, they call you Uncle Tom, Don't hand me poverty B.S. pull yourself up by the bootstraps like everybody else and make something of your life. This is not racism so don't start quivering liberals, this is the TRUTH face it!

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1:18 pm, Sep 29, 2009

barrett

Bullshit. He got into the middle of a brawl between thugs in the free market drug business - the only business left in that neighborhood.

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1:33 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Ritarita

Winston
Is a reaction troll
And a phony.
Responses to Winston
Are an unnecessary waste
Of time.

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4:57 pm, Sep 29, 2009

progressiveaggressive

Hey Everybody!
winston's got the answer!
Pull yourself up my your own bootstraps!
Just. Like. winston.

Because winston knows that key to success is to ...

1. Spring forth fully formed from the sea.
2. After emerging whole from nothing; teach yourself how to read, and then the principles of accounting and gun maintenance.
3. Utilize the infinite glory of free markets to start your own business, in which you are the ONLY employee and the ONLY customer.
4. Makes tons of money from said business, but be sure to withhold actual earning from the eee-vil government!
5. Sleep well at night knowing that YOU NEVER NEEDED ANYONE OR ANYTHING that you didn't provide for yourself.

Its so simple, Gawd I feel like SUCH a fool.

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3:21 pm, Sep 29, 2009

Ritarita

Understand
That Winston entertains himself
By picking the wings
Off of flys.

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4:57 pm, Sep 29, 2009
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