There was a justified outcry recently when a video surfaced (below) of an Ohio man William Bailey making fun of a young girl with cerebral palsy at a bus stop. It is a brief video but enough to enrage a nation. Now, Canton Municipal Judge John A. Poulos ordered the maximum sentence for Bailey, who pleaded no contest to reduced misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and aggravated menacing. I realize how emotionally charged this case has become, but should mocking be treated as a criminal act?
Bailey insisted that he was reacting to name-calling directed at his 9-year-old son, but most people see the video has a direct mocking of the little girl with a pronounced limp.
The Knight family has lived next door to the Baileys for two years and the families had developed serious problems. The case is reminiscent of the Petkov case.
The film below does not show what normally passes for disorderly conduct or menacing. These terms have always been uncomfortably ambiguous for civil libertarians. Here they seem to be simply the most convenient way to vent well-founded anger at Bailey. The charges were reportedly based on the video, though originally the girl’s family said that Bailey threatened to choke the mother with a chain.
If mocking a little girl can be charged as disorderly conduct and menacing, how about mocking other people for political or religious reasons? This man appears a perfect tasteless cad. However, should he be criminally charged?
Source: ABC
@Bron: When it comes to subjective abuse, by an adult to an unrelated child, we should err on the side of the child.
Plus not all subjective issues are borderline cases, but I do not mind leaving the borderline cases up to a jury to sort out. This was not a borderline case, even you claim the guy was an aszhole that should be shunned by society. There is no question in anybody’s mind that his intent is psychological harm and degradation of a child.
So that IS what is at issue, whether an adult has that right with an unrelated minor, and I do not think an adult DOES have that right.
The rights you have for adult interaction with other adults do not extend to minors. Not in sex, not in speech, not in contracts or agreements or consent. Children are not adults.
The person doing the mocking needs to be chastised. Devils mock.
Jesus had his share of mockers. He knew their end.That end would be the ultimate end. Jesus did not want people to face that ultimate end saying woe unto you to people who look godly not in action being godly.
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Oh noes! Think of the childrens!
“Congress shall make no law [. . . .] abridging the freedom of speech” is a clear statement. Ask yourself what you are trying to protect children from in this instance. Words? The fact that the world isn’t always a nice place? The fact that the world isn’t always a fair place? It may be a noble desire, but we all know it is a futile desire as well. Kids are going to find out that the world isn’t nice or fair no matter what you do. Such an expectation is, in a word, unreasonable. It’s like the lie of Santa. They’re going to find out he isn’t real no matter what you do.
Yeah, this guy is clearly a douche bag for picking on a kid and that goes without question, but is adding to the notion that it’s okay for the government to use its force to censor merely because someone was offended a good idea? A lot of people here seem to get their dander up about that when it applies to religion, but it’s okay in this instance because it involved mockery and a kid? The guy is an idiot for picking on a kid, but guess what? Every neighborhood I ever lived in as a kid had an ass just like this guy. You know what we kids did? We gave the mockery right back. We were all taught that respect is earned, not due, and that if an adult acted like a jackass it was perfectly okay to treat them like a jackass. The adults? Ostracized the neighbors until they learned to keep to themselves or they moved.
Either you’re for free speech with reasonable restrictions like defamation and incitement or you’re not. This is not a false dichotomy but an actual binary choice. So the question becomes is criminalizing such speech reasonable and does it serve a legitimate purpose? Words are words. They don’t break bones, they don’t shatter organs and while they may upset, they don’t shatter the mind.
Civil rights are rarely just taken in one fell swoop. They are eroded like stone by water, slowly, insidiously, until there is a gaping chasm where your rights used to be. Look at what has been done to the 4th Amendment over the last 11 years for a perfect example of the phenomenon. That it would be done in the name of protecting children is the case of the 1st Amendment when the only real trauma is learning that people aren’t always nice is ridiculous. If we were discussing a prevalent pattern of psychological abuse in the home or institutionalized psychological abuse, you can make the case for child abuse, but that’s not the fact pattern here. A lone douche bag isn’t the equivalent of a lone gunman or an abusive parent or other authority figure. Criminalizing his speech not only erodes our rights, it teaches the same bad lesson that PC does: that Big Brother is going to protect your feelings.
Is that what you want?
Because the last time I read the Constitution (last night), I didn’t see anything in there about your feelings being protected.
tony c:
that is not what is at issue, abuse is subjective and verbal abuse or imitative abuse is very subjective.
@Bron: This was not her PARENT, it was not even a relative; and what constitutes abuse is intentional harm. Yes, quite often spanking a child is abuse.
…but individual rights will suffer in the end.
What, your individual right as an adult to intentionally harm, humiliate, or degrade children? I guess I don’t give a crap if that right suffers.
nick spinelli:
amen to dat.
tony c:
“No, I want to legislate against adults abusing children;”
good luck with that, if all of the parents and people who are guilty of abuse were arrested our jails would be full. What constitutes abuse? Spanking a child, calling them stupid, telling a daughter she looks like a tramp for wearing something, telling a boy he looks like a girl with his hair down to his shoulders?
We now have a government that wants to tell us what we can put in our bodies, now you want a government which can tell us how to parent and how to act?
It may feel good to put that a$$hole in jail but individual rights will suffer in the end.
Another form of bulling.This guy should be shuned by society not crimilized.
But, I guess we’ve become more civilized..err attorneyized.
There’s was a time not long ago where this guy would have gotten his ass kicked and that would have been the consequences for his actions and ended this despicable action.
The jail time was good enough. itchinBayDog gets riled up when there is a dog abuse item on the blog and then vents on all of the other perps. The dogpack took her off the blog for a week and I will have to sit in.
Pistol whipping is a good thing for some perps. This guy needs a good one. Stick the barrel up his nose when he is beat to a pulp and pull the trigger on an empty cylinder. Leave him tied up in front of a chimp cage at the zoo and let the guys humiliate him. Take his bus travelling rights away and break his legs so that he has to hitch hike in a wheelchair. And if that aint good enough for him then….
Well said, Blouise.
@Bron: While you have the dictionary out, look up “abusive” since that is the word that applies.
a good parent is an antidote to people like that man.
Perhaps so, and if the child does not have a good parent, or brave parent, or smart parent? What then? Why should a disabled child suffer at the hands of an adult bully because their parent does not know how to deal with the bully?
So now you want to legislate parenting?
No, I want to legislate against adults abusing children; because I believe that is the main purpose of the law, to protect the weak that cannot protect themselves. I do not believe in leaving that protection to the fates and luck of whether or not a child has a good parent or a fighting uncle, because not all do. Nature is inherently unfair in that way, and I believe that unfairness can only be corrected by humans banding together, and I believe all children (and all people) are entitled to equal protections.
Bullies don’t get tired, they enjoy the power. Even if they did, why wouldn’t that excuse work for thieves, rapists, or serial killers? “Oh, eventually the serial killer will tire of murdering people and the problem will solve itself.”
This adult bully is victimizing a disabled child. Your solution is to blame the victim for not being tough enough, let the victim continue to be victimized because her parents have failed her, or have some vigilantes go teach the bully a lesson with a little beating; necessarily breaking the law and violating HIS rights (not just his right to not be beaten, but his right to due process before being punished).
All of that is avoided by letting the law do what the law is supposed to do, protect children from adults that would abuse them.
I’ll echo Pete’s – ” the video clearly shows him driving off with his sons car door still open and the child not strapped in. looks like child neglect/endangerment to me.”
That looks like slam-dunk.
Add to that they guy’s worse ‘crime’ of getting his kid to do the limp walk. He’s breeding a clone of his own barbarism.
On the car business and on that, he’s clearly a developmental problem for his own kids as well as being a physical danger to them.
“he has a first amendment right to his opinions.”
Opinions are fine, but the how, where and when of expressing opinions may go beyond the exercising of a noble right.
Surely Shirley, the intent of the First Amendment centres on protecting policitical speech.
I would think that the limping shown in the video amounts to ‘disturbing the peace’ as it is clearly intended to be provocative.
It is absolutely divorced from political speech. It’s hate behaviour.
This is, as mespo said, child abuse and society should protect its most vulnerable members from such actions. Judge Poulos was correct in ordering the maximum sentence and for those civil libertarians who believe the First Amendment protects verbal child abusers (mere mockers, if you will), take heart … the charges were, after all, reduced.
Frankly:
I am not sure where the doubt is in this situation, the guy is wrong to mock but the law does not need to be involved.
The parents can reinforce the child and let the fool do what he does. He will stop after he gets tired and doesnt get a rise out of the family. Another way to handle it is to have the community shun him and his family.
Life is simple.
Will this lead to the extinction of The Mocking Bird?
Or, perhaps to the affirmative defense “birds do it”?
Keep me posted.
tony c:
a good parent is an antidote to people like that man.
So now you want to legislate parenting?
CHURLISH, a.
1. Rude; surly; austere; sullen; rough in temper; unfeeling; uncivil.