Is this what americans think is need to know information in a murder case??

sarah

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http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNe...ramsey_flight_060820/20060820?hub=CTVNewsAt11
Honestly… does anyone here see any point to giving a crap what the suspect in the Ramsey case ate on his flight to the US?
There has been so much uproar about this in the past 24 hours and I just cannot see any point in worrying about what this man ate and drank on an airplane.

And while were on the topic if this man being flown back to the US, don’t you think he should have been flown back into the country in handcuffs?
Let me know how you feel about both of these issues.
 
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The reason people care about what he is being given on the flight is because these are generally seen as perks that a felon shouldn't be given. This involves the presumption that if good upstanding citizens do not have the opportunity to drink champers, then why should criminals!?

This in turn might stem from the use of the legal system as that of a vengeance distributor rather than a justice system. It's almost impossible for a plaintiff to say "I just want justice" and be completely honest, no matter what their aim or emphasis might really be. We see crimes like rape and murder as things that disgusting, sick people do, or perhaps the people who do them should be deprived of their rights, so that the justice system's punitive measures are really supposed to be a denial of various freedoms.

A more relevant application of this concern (the product of an extension of public hype) would be in terms of what effects granting perks to convicted felons/assumed criminals acheives. There is debate and outcry in Australia over the various perks granted to various criminals such as cable TV and a sandwich toaster- as a reward for "good behavior". This I suppose is justifiable only if the general behavioral problems in prisons were considered, but in terms of rehabilitation so that convicted felons will no longer run afoul of the law, the effectiveness of what are essentially temporary bribes must be questioned.

That said, a confession is not a guarantee of guilt, as the defendant's lawyers claim. Your apparent objection to his not being slapped in handcuffs is in fact almost exactly the same kind of thing as the objection to what he ate on the plane. He doesn't need handcuffs as he is not to be treated as a criminal until proven beyond reasonable doubt that he is in fact guilty of the crime he has been accused of.

All this said, I think most important is the criticism of the police handling of the whole deal which allowed the media scrutiny in the first place. This should not have been brought to public attention at all.
 
He is not a felon, nor has he been convicted of anything. He was not in custody at the time of this flight, and because of this he has the right to eat and or drink whatever he feels like.
 
Well that's right! Also, since he wasn't in custody at the time of flight, he shouldn't be in handcuffs. Perhaps because he made the confession, this is as good as guilty to a public that is primarily moved by emotion rather than the technicalities of jurisprudence.

That's why I went into that discussion of how one wants to treat felons. Because I think people just don't get the difference. Which is why this should have never gone to press.
 
I am consistently in awe of the fact that Americans generally pay more attention to the spin Fox news puts on a case, and the dinner being served than the actual facts in a case. It is simply mind numbing that most Americans are completely in the dark as far as many of the important facts of criminal cases, but if you ask them what celebrity couple is having a baby and what the kid’s name is… they would know.
Have some priorities people, I mean really.
 
Politics is a rather boring topic in general. After work the last thing on a lot of peoples minds is not to get into a debate but to have a little fun. Celebrities are practically Americas royalty. When they are doing things that are entertaining and controversial, people watch and listen. Drama = different and distracts from the mundane..
 
Politics is a rather boring topic in general. After work the last thing on a lot of peoples minds is not to get into a debate but to have a little fun. Celebrities are practically Americas royalty. When they are doing things that are entertaining and controversial, people watch and listen. Drama = different and distracts from the mundane..

No, Americans in general, are raised as sensationalists, and don't realize that Politics is actually an integral part of their lives. I know plenty of people that aren't keen to celebrity news, but are still oblivious to Politics. We are just so used to everything being handed to us, that any real thought or insight is unnecessary, or otherwise 'nerdy'. Welcome to the American Culture. In other words, the degradation of intellectualism as we know it.

I am consistently in awe of the fact that Americans generally pay more attention to the spin Fox news puts on a case, and the dinner being served than the actual facts in a case. It is simply mind numbing that most Americans are completely in the dark as far as many of the important facts of criminal cases, but if you ask them what celebrity couple is having a baby and what the kid’s name is… they would know.
Have some priorities people, I mean really.

:yesway:
 
No, Americans in general, are raised as sensationalists, and don't realize that Politics is actually an integral part of their lives. I know plenty of people that aren't keen to celebrity news, but are still oblivious to Politics. We are just so used to everything being handed to us, that any real thought or insight is unnecessary, or otherwise 'nerdy'. Welcome to the American Culture. In other words, the degradation of intellectualism as we know it.



:yesway:
I think you hit the nail on the head with the whole downfall of intellectualism comment.. regardless of what kind of pop culture news the masses finds solice in, they are still for the most part completely unaware of the world around them.
 
It's quite true.

Brandon, you yourself said that people like to entangle themselves in a good drama after work, but what is more dramatic about Hollywood, than say, Enron or other Corporate Scandals? Prudential Insurance was ordered to pay $600 Million dollars for fraudulent trading. Is that somehow less dramatic than finding out Joe Schmo, star of the best movie of the year is having a child?

This Pop Culture is ALSO degrading our youth. I'm still currently in High School, but it's generally an accepted 'truth', that anyone bearing any intellectual skills is regarded as a 'nerd' or a 'loser'. This goes for the past... 60? years or so? How is this Democratic? It's not. It's anti-Intellectualism spawned by PPP (Piss Poor Parenting) and Sensationalism. Not to mention--our horrible education system.
 
It's quite true.

Brandon, you yourself said that people like to entangle themselves in a good drama after work, but what is more dramatic about Hollywood, than say, Enron or other Corporate Scandals? Prudential Insurance was ordered to pay $600 Million dollars for fraudulent trading. Is that somehow less dramatic than finding out Joe Schmo, star of the best movie of the year is having a child?

This Pop Culture is ALSO degrading our youth. I'm still currently in High School, but it's generally an accepted 'truth', that anyone bearing any intellectual skills is regarded as a 'nerd' or a 'loser'. This goes for the past... 60? years or so? How is this Democratic? It's not. It's anti-Intellectualism spawned by PPP (Piss Poor Parenting) and Sensationalism. Not to mention--our horrible education system.
I don't think it is a matter of people not thinking that Enron and such are dramatic... I think it is just that most of the majority cannot or do not want to deal with things in the real world. People tend to want to disconnect and most people seem to take preference to mind numbing entertainment over reality.
Parenting is also not entirely to blame... after all parents only have so much say in what their children do. Most kids today would rather do whatever the "cool kids" are doing and not what their parents want them to do. Either way, people need to be more aware of the world around them.:twocents:
 
...Celebrities are practically Americas royalty...

There's some good reasons for this- one of them I'd like to suggest is a manifestation of secularism. What I mean is explained in the first half of http://dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com/110578.html (whee another self-reference! Sorry people, I'm too lazy to reiterate.)

George- the fall of intellectualism, IMO is a good (or at least convenient) way of summing up several problems into one:
  1. Tall poppy syndrome- where people can't bear having other people better than themselves because they have to be better than others i.e. the reason I was ostracised in school (until I went from "nerd" to "freak show"- and also to a private school where academic excellence was looked down upon somewhat less).
  2. Rationality is a primary value of our society today and from 1) this leads to its perversion for one thing.
  3. Future implications- the spoonfeeding of a generation of kids who will learn to exploit but not maintain a system, and an increasing gap between those that can and can't manage the infrastructure of society. To sound ominous- commercialism and popular culture will run our countries into the ground. Because economics is king, I'm not sure I see a way out of this...and this point now relates back to the other thread about the end of democracy.
Either way, the lack of intellectual direction and rigour these days I find extremely bothersome- this in fact relates back to my ranting on about ignorance and hypocrisy in the "Gay marriage" thread, so I think I'll stop there.
 
I am sticking with my oppinion that the American people as a mass feel the need to have an 'exit' from reality. they just seem to have little interest in anything from the real world.
 
Remember Furious George "a person is smart, people are stupid".

Humanity seems to gravitate to the lowest common denominator. Hence people with a higher IQ are viewed at differently then people who are retarded (I hate political correctness everyone).
 
Haha, just for anti-PC fun, I'll pull you on account of using the wrong term anyway! Mental retardation are for those who are developmentally deficient by normative standards. You probably meant "the laymen" :P
 
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