Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 04:50 PM) Because I dont think its a waste of time. You say there is no question of guilt, but you have no idea if there are outstanding circumstances. What if it was shown that the molester had been drugged by a criminal who kidnapped his family and threatened to kill them unless he molested that girl. Its extremely unlikely, but in a situation like that, it would be unlikely that the molester would get a death sentence, which you are saying is okay. The other problem is that child molestation generally does not carry a life sentence, so you are giving the public the right to punish worse than the actual system can, which is another issue. Your making a lot of assumptions on what my beliefs are. Guns in the home is much different than guns on the street. Being a police officer who is imbued with the power to use deadly force, is different than being a regular person and making that decision. Mistakes will always happen, the only thing we can do as a society is try and prevent the most mistakes as possible. It is my opinion that the way to prevent the most mistakes is to completely remove guns from society. But that is likely impossible, therefore we have to come up with another alternative, to which I believe the reasonable answer is to remove guns from the street, but allow people to have them in their homes as long as they have been properly trained on safety (that includes use and securing the weapon.) The actual reality is, I dont really care. I care more about the hypocritical nature of people who support gun rights, but dont support other personal freedoms. I supported gun rights for a long time, I just got sick of gun rights activists who are against all other rights. Bitter hypocrisy to the end, but sometimes the ends justify the means. I do really believe that the world would be better off without guns, I just dont think you can put that back in the box though. That's a pretty far fetched scenario. Is Steven Seagal working as a cook somewhere too? And yes, I do have problem with the sentencing guidelines for rapists/molestors. Short of being shot they should have their balls removed. But anyways. I'm talking even in the streets. A well trained private citizen is every bit as safety conscious as someone we've given some authority to. That's the point. If society would get off this "oh well police are safe but private citizens would just keep shooting each other" thing then this whole issue would become moot. We trust individuals to carry around guns and shoot people and if they kill someone innocent it's not ok, but it's acceptable. Now take that badge off and it should be the same situation.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 04:49 PM) And that classification of homicides in those states accounts for 10% of the total increase in homicides. Which again means that it could have been entirely justified, so the 7-9% increase isn't "2 innocent people a day are dead now." Just 2 people a day that have been labeled in the SYG area of homicides. I also had an issue with them using pre-2005 data. Isn't that sort of bogus since SYG laws have pretty specific language in the statutes and that's the language the state prosecutors use to bring the type of charge they're going to bring?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 04:40 PM) Well, it basically is 2 additional cases where the states with SYG laws wind up filing the case as a murder, not as a justifiable homicide or as a lesser offense (only about 10% of the increase was taken up by justifiable homicides). So yeah, according to those states, yes. Lots more murders. But that doesn't concern people because guns make them "Feel" safer. I'm pretty sure i've made the point before that the use of SYG defenses has also risen, which makes sense because it's now available. That inherently would increase the rate of homicides in this area of the law. They've created a new classification for a crime.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 04:31 PM) Once again, fundamental difference in belief. You believe that people should have the right to kill someone as judge, jury and executioner. I believe that all Americans, regardless of how heinous they are deserve a trial and are innocent until proven guilty. That is important to me, innocent until proven guilty. Why am I concerned with the well being of criminals? Its simple, if you protect the worst of society, if you give the worst rights, then you ensure everyone gets rights. Police shooting innocent people isnt okay, its not okay at all. But they are acting within their legal rights and humans are imperfect, so mistakes will happen. The entire point is that even the police, with all of their training, make mistakes, so its likely that non-trained civilians will also make mistakes. There's no question of guilt there. None. Why waste the time/money and resources on that? As to the bolded, that's the point. They ARE acting within their legal right and they still make mistakes. So what's the big deal? Make them take mandatory training classes. I'm fine with that. You say that like it would make a difference in your opinion. I could mandate 100 hours of gun safety classes a year and you still wouldn't like the idea of people being able to use a gun to protect themselves. They could be MORE safety conscious than police (who btw, understand they're on the benefit side of the law there) and you still wouldn't be ok with it. I fail to see why the designation of being a cop or a private citizen has any relevance to the main moral issue here. Being a cop is a man made construct: Here, you're a cop. You're still human, you're still prone to mistakes, you're still just as likely to make a bad decision as the most highly trained private citizen. Yet for some reason the badge means it's an acceptable loss, but being a private citizen it's not. Makes no sense to me.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 04:30 PM) I'm pretty sure that you have the right to shoot an intruder in your home and I haven't here challenged that right, and I don't really plan to. However...yeah, that is "vigilante justice" by it's very definition. And furthermore, not it's not "once in a while". The data I posted yesterday says it's more like "twice a day, on average". No, that's the total number of people dead, including the felony criminal. That's not 2 innocent people a day die because someone decides they need to shoot their gun without provocation. You're concerned with criminals being shot. I'm not. So that skews the data right away.

I would like it on the books that anyone who steps into their home and witnesses their 4 year old being molested by someone has the full, federal and state constitutionally protected right to take a shotgun and blow the guys head off. Hell, make it a mandate that that person is also guaranteed a town parade in his/her honor. That is not vigilante justice. If the Guardian Angels here in town wanted to arm themselves and start shooting any would-be criminal at CTA stations then you might have a point. It just sickens me so much that you guys are concerned with the well being of criminals. Yes, every once and a while there's an unfortunate situation, and hopefully the justice system will work out IF Martin was actually innocent. But that sort of unfortunate result happens all the time and we're ok with it. Police shoot innocent people daily. Why is that ok but private citizens making the same mistake, probably less frequently, such a huge deal?

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 03:28 PM) Damn right it is possible, and desirable. You enter my house to rip me off or harm my family, then damn straight I want to see a body pile up. There was a case yesterday where a dad caught some perv molesting his 4 year old daughter and killed the guy. Yeah, add that body to the count and I'm fine. But you want the world to be safe for those guys and more dangerous for honest people. In Balta's world he should have called the cops and run away. That would have been the safe thing to do.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 03:40 PM) The other thing that really drives me nuts about this is that it is again, not what this data says. This data says quite clearly that the more rights people have to use guns, the more dead bodies there are...and that those dead bodies aren't made up for by a decrease in any other crime. So I want to walk down the street with my family, you want to have a gun, you're putting my family in harm's way by doing so, and I have zero recourse. Carry a gun and it evens out.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 02:14 PM) Law School is the biggest joke ever. With Bar Bri I could have passed the Bar in High School, and if I had just clerked/interned for the next 7 years I would have been amazingly more prepared on the first day of work. Exactly, so to bring my point back full circle, don't you see the problem with college now? That the entire economy is basically requiring that you get a piece of paper that's essentially pointless**? Why not push vocational schools which are essentially apprenticeships? Why don't employers view that as a positive? Laziness? Don't want to check into your job candidate, better to weed them out based on where they got a degree? I don't know, but that's where we're at. More "educated" but inexperienced people looking for jobs. **and yes, you obviously learn skills and other useful information in college. But a lot of that can be learned through internships/early jobs. But the problem is if you go that route you're limiting your future earning potential in 95% of cases.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 02:00 PM) This coming from a law grad? You could self-teach yourself everything you learned in law school. Hell, I never attended one Con law class, and got B+'s in both I and II. Law schools is 100 times worse than college are preparing you for the real world. Nothing I learned in law school, except for abstract ideas, prepared me for anything I do on a day to day basis. There was no course like "how to present a motion in the circuit court of cook county." That's sorta my point here - learning some abstract ideas in college doesn't help with the day to day. With something like business you couldn't do that because there a million "business" jobs. But even lawyers, in a very specific profession, aren't well prepared coming out of school. School is almost secondary to that first clerk job you can get, and yet the entire industry requires you to have that degree. Why isn't it enough that I can teach myself and pass the bar and have the same clerk experience? Why do I have to shovel over 120k+ to get that piece of paper when I could have self-studied and taken the Bar/Bri course I paid for anyway and ended up in the same place?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 01:56 PM) Most business schools have concentrates, some ones like USC, I believe, have a more general business degree but you take electives in a certain area that you are interested in, so it's a less formal concentration. At U of I, you go into Accounting, Finance, or Business Administration (International, Marketing, IS/IT, SCM, BPM, etc). I guess i'm not communicating clearly. By focus I mean on actual skills, not learning the theory behind an abstract concept like globalization. Is some of that necessary as background info? Yes. But where I went to school they didn't do things like case studies or running a fake company or whatever. It was all textbook based. When you became a senior there was a little more of that real-world application, but it was still basically "learn X theory." I wish it was more case study based so that on a resume I could put did X and won X reward for being awesome. And again, yes, there are schools that do this. But the college experience for the vast majority of students, even good students, doesn't involve any of this. And it's partly the way the whole system is designed, which is just to establish that you went to school and got a degree, not how much you actually learned and can apply after graduation at your first job.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 01:47 PM) Ummm what!? Business majors are some of the best majors to have to get a job. But they're so worthless. No one I know LEARNED anything that they later used. Yes, you could self teach yourself all you want. You can do that for free without going to college. Unfortunately employers require that you show them a degree. This has nothing to do with what a student can/can't do, and everything to do with the way the entire system is set up - go to a bulls*** college and get a piece of paper and 4 years later pray you can get a job. Is this the case for all students? No. But the vast majority that's the way it works. And then 4 years later it's a big surprise when those bills start becoming due every month and you don't have a meaningful job because you thought getting a business degree would make you the next CEO of a company.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 01:32 PM) See, this is where I agree with Badger. This is the kids' problem...students go and get these majors and then they come out and expect to go stand in the line where the other Poli Sci majors are at and wait for their job to be handed to them. Use the freaking skills you learned and go apply them to whatever job you can get your hands on. If our college grads aren't seeing this, then they probably shouldn't have gone to college. But my point is the skills in those courses don't provide you with anything. College education should be more focused, and SOME schools do that, but not all. "Business" could apply to anything, how can a degree in "business" classes provide you with any skills in the real world? Same with political science.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 01:21 PM) Why shouldnt I attend a $50k school if I can pay for it? Who are you to tell me how to spend my money and what I can spend it on? People complain about everything. People complain constantly, so we are going to change things to stop people from complaining? Thats ridiculous, so far no one has explained to me why we need to coddle these kids. Its so frustrating, from preschool through law school they just coddle everyone. Such a waste. Well, to be fair to those kids, they're being lied to. "Get a college education and your life is amazing" is the message, from teachers to the President. In reality, the education that students receive (for an insane amount of money) doesn't guarantee anyone that, and what's worse is that it barely prepares them for a future career. Specific education in specific fields should be how the system is set up, not a generalized post-high school education like we have now. Two of the most popular majors, Business and Political Science are 100% worthless in trying to get a job.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 09:47 AM) I wonder what everyone majored in when they went to high school. For many positions a college degree fulfills the same role. College isn't a vocational school, it isn't always a job training program. Some employers are looking for employees who have a deeper and wider range of knowledge than a HS graduate. Those future employees demonstrated they can world to achieve a longer term goal, voluntarily. It can be easy, very easy, it can also be very affordable. I'm certain that America's future is more dependent on a higher skilled, higher trained workforce than a less educated one. We will lose our asses to China and other less skilled countries for those jobs. We need to leverage our education system into a stronger future. Instead we seem to be trying to lower our incomes and lower our standard of living. 100% agree. We need to shift our post-high school education model to something that's not dominated by the liberal arts schools. They are good for social development, terrible for career development.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 11:31 AM) We have a fundamental difference with our belief in humans. I believe humans are imperfect and prone to mistakes. A bullet is also a cheap price for an innocent victim who is killed when someone misses their intended target. 1 innocent life is not worth 700 criminals. And what are the odds those 700 criminals will take an innocent life if they're still around?

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jun 13, 2012 -> 11:31 AM) I just buy my suits from Jos A. Bank whenever they have their ridiculous sales, like Buy 1 Get 2 Free. The suit retailed for like, 675, end up paying like 225. I'm accounting for the fact that Westbrook's glasses probably cost $50 and he probably has $100 skinny jeans. Jos A. Bank suits are cheap. That price tag (normal price tag) is ludicrous. I did the same thing, spent $7-800 or whatever and got three suits. A year in two of them lost the stitching in the cuffs and one pocket is all jacked up. Now, I wear suit upwards of 5 times a week so they get used a lot, but still. I'm not at all impressed with their quality.

I'm sure it's all a joke for the attention he gets from it.

When Westbrook wins the MVP while taking a team full of no all-stars to the eastern conference finals, then he can be compared to Rose. Until then he's a great guard with a great burst who has the best player in the game, the best sixth man in the game, and the best shot-blocker in the game on his team. So.... yeah.

wow, game was over but the heat give up with 30 something seconds to go.

Good win here by OKC. Looked tense the first 2 quarters, then found their groove in the 3rd.

What a horses*** foul call. Zero contact on that call.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 10:29 PM) Lebron doesnt have the jump shot Durant has. Miami is being broke down on the dribble and giving up wide open jump shots or easy lay ups. Then post up. Oh wait, everyone has been telling Lebron that for 2-3 seasons now.

Lebron a solid 1 for 5 in the fourth so far. Durant 6 for 10.

Good read on the importance of this Finals for Lebron's legacy: http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle...-finals-preview