I am no fan of the actions of these kids, but I don’t know that calling any child “scum” aids in understanding the situation. While I may agree with Aristotle that we are what we habitually do, there is no evidence to suggest that these kids are habitual offenders, and, like you, I would prefer more evidence before making blanket pronouncements on their character or that of their parents.

Kids do bad things for lots of reasons including bad parenting, but that is far from the only significant cause. I suspect lack of full frontal lobe development can play just as big a role and that has never been fully studied or understood.

The interest in this case comes from the blatant stupidity of the aggressors who felt so justified in their actions that they recorded them for posterity. They appear unaware of the criminality of their acts and seemingly had no fear of punishment. Lest we forget, the murders of Blacks protesting their condition and civil rights workers happened not so long ago. When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s this type of attack, with varying modus operandi, was common. We called them gang fights. Thugs, male or female, have always been thugs, one measure of a society is how they’re dealt with.

Me too!

I wasn’t even close to the action, and still got my hair sizzed from the heat! I’m scared to even click on that thread!!

It’s scary but you’re right. Your reasonable, fun ,and do a fine job of advocacy. That makes you a kindred spirit in my mind — even if I have to gently correct you every once in a while. Yes and the reverse is true too, darn it.

DW:

I am just licking my wounds and trying to figure out the proper direction to point to Mecca.

But church/state separation may not be one of them!!

Seriously, Mespo is probably in ICU hooked up to IV’s and monitors after the titanic battles of the last few days. In the same unit, Anon and Awake are probably recuperating as well. He will return fit as a fiddle, as will we all, faster than you can say “Sami Al—-”

Oops!

Everyone knows we’re good ol’ friends! I’m sure we have lots in common.

An eerie silence grows over the land as I say once again that I have to agree with you once again. Not evrything done in the name of Christianity is “Christian” just as not everything done against the religion is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Every case stands on its own.

Hugh,

I think I understand your overall point, but most would agree that anything done by “Christians” in contradiction of the teachings of Christ Himslef is not Christian. Religion can really mess up Christianity if one is not careful.

I’m glad to hear you’re doing well. I like your idea of sharing this info with others. It will be interesting to hear their responses. I am wishing you all the best!

Jill

Thank you! No, I feel completely safe in my school but it’s just that uncomforting feeling. After reading this article, I posted something in my school website for other students and faculty to read. Many of them are glad that we live in safe environment but we all agreed that it is necessary to reinforce the danger of wrong internet usage. Personally, my friends and I would like to make a get-well card for Victoria to show her our support and concern. =]

Thank you,
Kate Sim

and Thank you mespo727272 for that information.

If she was singled out for her religion and less likely to fight back, I am with you that this is a hate crime. I suspect it has more to do with more mundane teenage issues however. We shall have to wait and see.

“I seriously doubt that these young ladies are “church-goers”. But even if they are, there is a significant difference between church-goers and believing, practicing Christians.”

Tomás de Torquemada is only the most famous believing, practicing Christian who illustrates such hypocrasy. History is replete with examples of Christian barbaric behaviour along with the required approval (direction) from Church hierarchy.

I seriously doubt that these young ladies are “church-goers”. But even if they are, there is a significant difference between church-goers and believing, practicing Christians.

I’ve heard that there’s the possibility that the Myspace posts may have been posted by someone else with access–a setup or mean prank. And after watching the video, I also noticed that the young lady receiving the abuse did not fight back or defender herself, but otherwise attempted to leave the situation. What if that young lady was the only church-goer? Now, wouldn’t that be even more interesting if there was an element of hate-crime, i.e. singling out a victim based on her particular faith knowing full well that she was not likely to fight back?

I hope you are not in any danger of being harmed by your friends or anyone else. No one deserves to be harmed or to be in fear of harm. If this is the case for you please bring it up, again and again, if necessary to your school, parent(s) and any adult you think will listen.

If you need referals to websites for help with violence against young women, post back at this site, and I (and I’m certain others) will link to them for you.

Jill

According to published reports, the victim suffered loss of consciousness, partial loss of hearing in one ear, blurred vision in one eye, was hospitalized (where she remains today) for trauma, and will not be permitted to return to her school by her parents. I agree that this is pretty serious.

This isn’t Darwinism at all. Darwinism deals with evolution of the species by means of natural selection. This incident was not evolution it was de-evolution into barbarism wrought by immaturity and the need to make a statement. “Survival of the fittest” is not a biological concept associated with evolution, but more associated with Social Darwinism, which of course deals with rapacious capitalism, and Malthusian notions of human competition.

Darwin used the term as a metaphor for natural selection. Biologists, like Darwin, use the term “natural selection” to mean that favorable traits will increase in successive generations of reproducing organisms. So Professor Darwin is off the hook here, although the moral bankruptcy you mention might be applied to unrestarined capitalism practiced by social Darwinists, but not Darwin himself who disagreed with its principles.

My reference to intelligent design was more directed to the state of planning and execution by the perpetrators (allegedly) of the crime. If the schools are teaching intelligent design this crew must be flunking, regardless of the merits of the curriculum. We can debate ID another day, my comment was merely directed to the apparent stupidity of the deed and its memorialization.

On the moral bankruptcy issue, I am sure you agree that the religious and the non-religious can both suffer from this affliction. But I would be interested to know how many of the perpetrators,and also if the victim (she also seems no stranger to conflict as she apparently has no trepidation concerning making inflammatory statements on her MySpace page)are regular church-goers. That would really get our usual debate off the ground! I bet most (and their families) are, what say you?

I apologize for not being your favorite partner in good-natured argument, Mespo. But until he appears, I will do my poor-man’s best!

We have seen societies in the past that were solicitous of the precepts of the Designer. And they took people, sealed them in barrels coated with tar and rolled said barrels, lit afire. down hills! They also practiced squasation, dunking, and of course live immolations! Not so different from our current era I suppose.

No, religion is no guarantee of humane behavior, though ideally it prods one toward it in the abstract.

My Dearest Mespo,

It might be funny if I didn’t think you were half serious. Really, how IS that education system in Florida? If anything, this incident is a pure, unadulterated, Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest, morally relative (and morally bankrupt) result of secular public education (undoubtedly with some poor parenting by similarly educated parents).

It’s really too bad that these young ladies haven’t been taught to respect people, all people, even people we don’t like or people with whom we don’t always agree because we are all created in the image of God. Evidently, these young ladies feel the need to find self-confidence by tearing down others, rather than understand that true confidence comes from a place of moral courage and inner beauty found in a life of purpose and meaning.

Ideas have consequences, and these ladies are but one example of a society that more and more rejects, to our own peril, the precepts of the Designer.

I didn’t actually look at the video. I have never, since coming to this site, looked at any of the videos that show cruel behavior. I imagine them pretty unbearable.

Softie DW

Your point is well made. There is a mix of good and bad, kindness and cruelty and the ratio favors the good side most times. With the 911 attacks on our country, we saw a flowering of over-responses and a kind of brutalization of the temper of the country as a whole. Normally it would have run its course.

I think of our country’s response to 911 as being amazingly similar to the body’s response to infection by a pathogen. Once the immune system gets going, there is an overproduction of tcells etc. that can lead to inflammation and fever and it is the body’s immune response that leads to the feeling of being “sick”. Essentially we over-react every time to infections.

And so America responded to 911, which was a system shock, with an enormous over-response on the part of our own immune system comprised of the police, military and intelligence agencies of the country. The only problem was that instead of a normal subsidence, we have embarked on a course of permanently being under siege of our own immune system even when the pathogens have been largely neutralized.

Too bad for our laws, our civil rights, our tempered approach to challenges, and our society of trust and privacy.

I had to get up my nerve to read this post and when I did I just felt like crying. It takes a whole lot of work to get young people to act that cruelly. They didn’t get there on their own.

I just had to focus on all the young people I know who would never do such a thing; who are funny, kind and compassionate. Those kids (and adults like them) are just as real as the others. So that’s my strategy. However, I’m coming back on a different planet!

Jill

And getting worse!