Boy Delivers Blow in the Groin Of Common Sense

[ed84c]

Now its against human rights to give kids a bed time.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4580305.stm

[H2SO4]

so......

[Dak]

i see the point. if theyre not causing any trouble, then why should they be denied the right to stay out after 9?

[donkey]

curfew zones are a blunt tool: they criminalise and punish a whole group of people to target a few.

 

Sure some kids are bad but so are plenty of other people that belong to wider groups. For example, some terrorists are muslims. You wouldn't suggest we prevent all muslims from using planes or the london underground, would you?

[ed84c]

curfew zones are put into places where there are lots of bad kids, you would allow the taliban on a plane, even if some wouldnt try and blow it up.

[AzurePhoenix]

Curfews are actually pretty good. Not only are they good for helping to minimize the damage punks can cause, but the curfew offers a measure of protection to young kids. What's a yob?

[SorceressPol]

Pronunciation: (yob), [key]

—n. Brit. Slang.

a teenage lout or hooligan

 

This what you mean?

[AzurePhoenix]

Thanx, we yanks don't know nothin' 'bout thems cultural goin's-ons.

[ydoaPs]

curfews were ruled illegal in Indiana last year, yet my twon still has one. it doesn't apply to me since i am over 16, but it is odd that we have one when it is illegal.

[Dak]

Curfews are actually pretty good. Not only are they good for helping to minimize the damage punks can cause, but the curfew offers a measure of protection to young kids.

 

how would you feel if you werent alowed out after 9pm, on account of a local prostitution problem. and, you know, the fact that most prostitutes operate after dark and are female, like you are.

 

keeping females indoors after dark would not only minimize the amount of prostetution, it would also protect you all from being dragged into dark alleys and raped by strangers.

 

Or we could curfew black people. i hear that in some areas, most crime is (proportianately) committed by blacks...

[AzurePhoenix]

Ah, but they are adults with at least marginal life experience. Under sixteen, you're still the primary responsibilty of your parents, and normally can't tell the difference between a major life experience and a particularly nasty sneeze.

 

If I decide to go out at night to wander the streets (a hypothetical thought, because where I live is more a supersuburb rather than a city, of course, you have just as good a chance of being raped in a park as in a back-alley) I as a legal adult am deemed by society as being capable of making my own decisions, whether or not I deserve it. If I get killed or raped, it's my own fault, but if it happens to a kid, the blame suddenly falls onto the parent's, and the local government.

[Dak]

but the primary motivation for the curfew is to reduse crime... its still limiting the freedom of the majority to prevent the actions of a minority.

[AzurePhoenix]

Difference is, this minority will one day grow out of their minority-hood. Point is, they're kids, they're stupid, they have to be told what to do. It's just like the leash law; it's there to protect people from dogs, as well as protect unsupervised dogs from harm.

 

Edit: Sorry, misread your meanign of "minority" (I'm working on overdrive right now)

 

My thing, is that no matter wha the initial intention (oppress that said minority that commits crimes) it still works to protect other kids, even giving them a slightly better chance of actually reaching adulthood (I know, a dramatic comparison, but even if the curfew saves just one kid, its certainly worth it to him or her, whether or not they ever know it)

[Callipygous]

theres a curfew in my area for everyone under 18, not sure if its set to 10 or 11 pm. if your out after that the cops escort you home. not that that ever stopped us, or that i ever actually got taken home... : P

 

tell the kid to get over it. i have the freedom of speech but if i swear at school i still get in trouble for it. part of being underage is having your "rights" trampled. always has been, always will be.

 

9 seems a bit extreme, but overall, cry me a river.

[Phi for All]

Now its against human rights to give kids a bed time.

This has nothing to do with going to bed, just when you have to be off the streets.

 

This is an age-driven phenomena. All I can say is that it's nearly impossible to tell a human being they're doing something stupid when they're doing it. It only sinks in when you can look back in a few years to see just how stupid it was.

 

When you're 10 you can look back at the crap you used to do when you were 7 and just shake your head. When you're 14 your actions are perfectly justifiable but you can ackowledge you were a complete goober when you were 10. When you're 20 you know everything, including what a dangerous late-night street-walking idiot you were when you were 14.

 

And it really never ends. I look back at some of the things I was doing when I was 35 and wonder how I'm still alive....

[ed84c]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_slapping

 

more worryingly, off another forum;

 

have seen them, in fact I have them on my phone, just like u I was shockingly surprise, must admit the first time I saw, I bust out into laughing, but "it was of a man sleeping on the bus", I haven't seen a female geting beating up.

[/Quote]

 

Look at it this way. Not everybody who speeds, or would speed, would kill somebody, yet still we have speed limits. Discuss.

[Callipygous]

people who are going to do such things as "happy slapping" arent going to be deterred by a curfew.

 

they are assaulting people on the street, you think they are going to care about bedtime laws?

[[Tycho?]]

Thats a really good way to get kids to go out and defy the curfew just because its the rebellious thing to do.

[AzurePhoenix]

Not if parents were allowed to put shock collars on their kids - possibly the kind that are set off by straying past certain borders, just set them to operate at the desired times. I've always supported that.

[jdurg]

How about we just banish all laws and allow everybody to do anything they want? Why should we not allow 10 and 11 year olds to drive cars, but we can allow 16 and 17 year olds to drive? That doesn't sound fair. (end sarcasm). Frankly, as a kid you need to have rules set forth for you. It teaches you discipline and teaches you how to act in society. When you get older and get a job, you will have rules and regulations that you have to follow if you want to keep your job. These things which seem 'ridiculous' to the kids are early training for keeping a job and being a productive member of society later on in life.

[Jeff Stallar]

The price of society is rules. If you don't like rules, remove yourself from society. But this goes beyond that; these are children we're talking about, not adults. Yes, it's the parents' responsibility to control their children, but if the parents don't (and many don't), then someone else has to step in and define their boundaries.

 

On a side note, I was at the market at 11:30pm one night, and I saw MANY todlers and young children there. Wow! When I was that age, I had to be in bed by 7:00pm!

[Dak]

tbh, i think kids who commit crimes get off too lightly... like those 'happy slappers' atm mentioned, refered to as 'towny little f***s' where i come from. they dont seem to ever get punished, and thus have little deterrent.

 

I say, punish the kids who commit crimes more and leave the rest alone. there really is no reason that they (law abiding kids) shouldnt be able to see a late-night-movy at the cinema, or walk back from their mates at late o'clock.

 

Personally, the one guaranteed way to make me completely disreguard any given authority is if that authority punishes me when im following their rules.

[ed84c]

sad times.

 

Bring back corpral punishment!

 

Heres some food for thought;

 

http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/everyday_life/control/1750-1820/TL.0049/

[Rakista]

Curfews of any kind that discriminate are wrong and if they don't discriminate there had better be a civil war going on. In AZ they used to round us up 5 a peice in the back of police cars taking us to caged dirt areas so we would break the back windows out of police cars to get air when they were taking us. Costs 150 dollars a peice per window but we were all rich kids, so it did not matter. Cops get what they deserve when they abuse their powers. Police should have no right to do anything unless someone is commiting a crime, if you give them any power they are likely to abuse it and any reaction even violent is justified in such a case. I was arrested pry dozens of times on curfew violations but the family lawyer always got me out. Besides underage smoking, drinking and the like we never were violating any criminal code besides curfew. We were just being harmless kids but were never arrested on anything besides curfew because they were given the right to cage us up like animals when accused of it. One of my friends without an ID card after the age of 18 was picked up one night and taken in. He sued the police dept and won an apology and a few thousand dollars.

[AzurePhoenix]

Can you blame the cops? They take alot of garbage from smartass disrespectful punks who think they can do whatever the hell they want. And kids get off on basically any minor law they break, short of being hauled home or getting a ticket, maybe some community service. Did you ever consider not breaking curfew in the first place? Or not smoking? Or drinking? If you wanna break the damn law fine, but don't get mad at cops if you're too stupid to not get caught doing something you're not supposed to be doing in the first place.