In the US, you can get sued for defending yourself against a burglar. They say to avoid that, you might as well kill the person. Are you saying that the old man could have beaten the guy to death and not been liable?
As I see it, I am morally responsible for what I understand to be the likely consequences of my willful actions. You are talking about a more strict sort of responsibility, where I am responsible for only the justifiable response to my willful actions. But then, this second definition seems rather circular to me. When is a response justified? If two people feel any reaction from the other would be unjustified because of a prior slight, they may take turns sniping at each other. Neither wants to accept "responsibility", because they feel the opposition's response is unjustified. See the problem there? Examples of this abound in international conflicts. Free will doesn't stop existing once the conflict becomes physical. I may throw a punch, thinking the other guy will exercise his "free will" and back down. Perhaps another difference for you is that physical violence is not a justifiable response to verbal sparring (though it became increasingly likely), while it is a justifiable response to a first punch (self defense). Again, I think there are issues with looking at moral responsibility in this way. I mean, I understand self-defense to be justified, but only to the extent that one can be reasonably sure the threat has been dealt with. If I am "attacked" by a person who is very unlikely to do me much harm (a 6-year old girl, for instance), disabling them is probably not justified. If I am attacked by Jason Voorhees, then I may need to kill him before he kills me. The level of the threat one is under has to be a consideration. Alright. If people want to insist that the initial punch-thrower is more at fault, I don't have a problem with that. I never tried to dispute or argue that point. But just because the law may not find any fault with someone, that does not absolve him of all moral responsibility as well.
Epic Beard guy should press charges against Pinky for assualt as well as against that other chick for theft.
So reactions seem to range from he's a hero! to the RIGHT thing to do is roll over & pee in submission... ...but will anyone here dispute the fact that this thug got exactly what he deserved? Anything less than self defense? Who, if anyone, should go to jail?
The legal responsibility for the fight would fall on the black guy. It may be possible they are both fined for disturbing the peace, I don't know. As others have said, both are to blame for the "verbal confrontation". Where I depart with most here is that I believe the following: if you share responsibility for A, A leads directly to B, and you should have known that the chances of B happening goes up with A, then you should also share some responsibility (not legal responsibility, necessarily) for B. I think that is true, generally speaking, and I am merely applying that principle to the current situation.
wrong they we're both having a discussion in the beginning. do you think people shouldn't engage with discussion with strangers now? it's when the black guy threated with violence then it became a verbal confrontation
I know that I am late to this thread, started reading it last night when it was still in the Hangout and not D&D (thanks to the people that caused it to get moved ). A couple of comments in watching the video and reading through the thread: 1) Why would anyone want to mess with someone who has a shirt on that says "I AM a MOTHERF**ER"? That should have been a tip right there to Beetlejuice that the guy is crazy 2) There is no way that Beetlejuice is 50 years old; he looked more like he was in his 20s, possibly in his 30s. 3) Santa or Epic Beard Man's beard didn't look real to me when I first watched it (the wife said the same thing) 4) If it is to be believed that Santa is 67 (I read somewhere that he really is 62), then he comes from a generation that doesn't understand the PC world we live in and as a result are insensitive to people of other races and ethnic backgrounds. This was very obvious when he told Beetlejuice that he wasn't racist and would ask a "ch***man" the same thing. 5) Granted that ignorance was the catalyst for the argument but it escalated when Beetlejuice went up to the front of the bus and confronted EBM. Both dudes needed to shut the hell up but it was only when Beetlejuice went to the front to get in EBM's face and throw that ridiculous punch, that this became a physical encounter. 6) Cameragirl (the Washington chick) played a HUGE role in this. It is unclear to me if Beetle did what he did to impress her or he is just an idiot or a little bit of both, but her egging him on and saying "beat his white ass" certainly didn't help things - if anything she is guilty of inciting a riot here. Going through his bag later was also a damnation on her whole role of this incident. Reading her weak sauce explanation of why she did all of this is laughable at best. 7) durvasa - wow, dude, I don't know what else to say other than it looks like you were trying to play devil's advocate and got carried away with it. I am still in shock that you cannot see (or appear that way) that Beetlejuice going to the front of the bus and throwing the weak ass punch is what escalated this whole situation. Who cares about who was saying what - when you have a person that physically violates another person's space and commits a physical act of violence towards that person, then that person is the one that will be held accountable for starting the fight. That is a point that really can't be argued.
Allow me to summarize your position: In "the real world", behaving in a moral manner is irrelevant as long as you can't be held legally liable for your actions. I take it most of the people in this thread agree with you. I am astonished by that.
Really, what was wrong in my transcript? Thanks for the input. And the black guy said he was fifty in response to EBM saying he was 67. Obviously he's not fifty. I'm guessing it was said to bridge the gap between their ages to make it seem like he wasn't picking on some old dude.
If two people are engaged in a pointless conflict, and both are in a position to end it but choose not to, they both share responsibility for it. That one person might have "started it" does not absolve all responsibility from the other for choosing to participate. "He started it" is not a legitimate excuse for dumb behavior. I understand what you are saying, except I disagree with the comment: "Who cares about who was saying what." If I'm in the old guy's shoes, and my goal is to diffuse a potentially volatile situation, what I say matters. Some may think that it wasn't his responsibility to quiet the situation because the other guy started it. I don't see it that way, because he was still an active participant in the spat and he was clearly in position to settle the situation if he chose to.
read this transcript. can we both agree that they were having a normal conversation and had a misunderstanding/miscommunication at worst? Santa: "..charge for a shoe shine?" DeeJay: "AC Transit" Santa: "How much you charge -" DeeJay: "AC Transit." Santa: "Let's get back to this. How much you charge me for a spit shine? DeeJay: "What?!" Santa: "How much you charge me to do my Stacy Adams? [a brand of shoe] I'm going to a funeral on Friday" DeeJay: "What?.... What?" Santa: "You said you'd..." ????? DeeJay: "Did you hear what I said just now?" Santa: "Yes" DeeJay: "Why a brother gotta spit shine your shoes?" Santa: "You offered!" DeeJay: "I didn't offer you s**t" Santa: "What'd you just say when you walked by me?" DeeJay: "I said why.. why a f**kin brother gotta spit shine your shoes?" Santa: "No - you don't have to" DeeJay: "Why a white man can't spit shine shoes?" Santa: "It could be a Chinaman, it don't matter!" DeeJay: "Look dude..." Santa: "I ain't prejudice. What'd you think I'm prejudice?"
As I've said before I do think the old guy bears some responsibility but greater fault has to be assigned to the guy who went out of his way to escalate to the physical confrontation. I am not sure I follow you. My point is fairly simple. A violent response towards physical violence is justified under the principle of self-defense. Physical violence isn't justified in regard to rhetoric. You are ignoring self-defense. You do have a right to protect yourself from a physical assault. As much as you can claim that someone was attacking your ego with their words that isn't a valid argument for resorting to violence but in response to a physical assault that is universally recognized as self-defense. Again you are trying to draw an equivalency between speech and action. The only thing the black guy was responding too was speech. The old guy was responding to action. Physical violence isn't justifiable to verbal sparring. I mean if that argument held Zidane would've never gotten tossed in the last world cup for headbutting the Italian who was insulting his mother. You can talk about moral responsibility and I agree the old guy shouldn't have been arguing with the other guy but you cannot ignore who started the physical confrotation. The level of threat has to be considered and in thise case I don't fault the old guy at all. He took the guy down and then backed off when the guy was down. I am frequently very critical of people resorting to violence and have frequently criticized the police who seem quick to resort to Tasers in a situations that aren't violent. This situation though is very clear cut in regard to the justification to use force and in a reasonable use of it. In this case the law makes a distinction between rhetoric and physical violence and in my opinion that is a very reasonable distinction. We have an open society that values speech, even when it is immflatory. The problem that I see with your argument is that you are continually placing speech with action as equivalent. They aren't and while I can agree with you that we should be careful and show restraint in our use of speech to say that is they are morally equivalent that leads to a lot more problems.
Two things I noticed... people dissing public transit as some kind of hell where people beat on others nearly all the time (IT'S NOT A MESSAGE BOARD, IT'S PUBLIC TRANSIT). no. I take public transit everyday. I'll tell you guys the next time I get shot at or roughed up. that said, black guy was an asshat but I think the reason why he was so pissed was that the white guy came up with the shoeshine thing out of the blue, like "hey, can you shine my shoes?" That is kinda really insulting. I would definitely not appreciate it if someone came up to me and asked me to shine their shoes. I wouldn't be dumb enough to escalate it but it would piss me the hell off.
It seems to me at least, the part we missed at the beginning was the black guy saying something to the old man. The old man misheard and thought he said something about shining his shoes, and he wanted his shoes shined for a funeral he was attending. Innocent enough until the racism card was pulled.
Sure. Neither man was threatening the other at that point. After this point, DeeJay tells Santa to get out of his face. Santa, if I remember, says you don't scare me or you're not scaring me. Something like that. But he also moves away, which was the right choice. Both men wanted to be in control of the situation and didn't want to look weak. DeeJay was essentially insisting on the other guy to get out of his face and shut up, or he'd come over and punch him. Santa was insisting that if DeeJay tried it, he'd get put down. The simple fact is that both were issuing challenges to the other, and neither wanted to back down. DeeJay was wrong for initiating it. Both were wrong for allowing it to persist. Santa should have known that his words would only increase the change of DeeJay acting on his threat, and that is why I find fault with him for not just letting it go. But then, the guy was also apparently off his meds, so I can fault the behavior but maybe not the man. DeeJay was wrong for acting on his threat. Santa did what he had to do at that stage, I don't blame him for defending himself. His rampage after the fact was a little much, but again he was apparently off his meds.
No, you've completely misinterpreted what most people in this thread have been saying. In the "real world", behaving in a moral manner depends on your environment and situation. If you're stranded on a barren island with another human being and you're both dying of hunger, with no vegetation or animal life around you, what do you think is going to happen? Have you read the Lord of the Flies? It's not morally correct, but it's justifiable. In this case, you have a black guy fully responsible for getting into an argument with a 67 year old tough guy (clearly off his rocker) with "I AM A MOTHER****ER" written on his shirt. He allowed it to escalate by going to the front of the bus and throwing the first slap/punch. It's shocking that you can't see this yet go on and on about morality and other rubbish that isn't relative. You come off as an extremely sheltered or spoilt person who's never been out of his comfort zone. Public transportation is very different depending on where you live. This took place in Oakland.
