It looks like he made his choices all the way through.  Yes, society gave him a bad bill of goods, but he made the choices to steal, and to be violent as well.  Sorry, fail.  Frustration or no, he had the power to do differently.

I get all that, but there are 30 thousand or more kids in Oakland, raised in the same circumstances who will not do the same bullshit.  Yes, the system is loaded against them, but they figure it out, or their families are there for them to help them figure it out. 

I have known guys who had the most horrible childhood's, and they ended up doing wonderful stuff.  Nothing is etched in stone.

I wonder how many bullets ended up in him.

The guy is linked to the rape of a 12-year-old girl just prior to the shoot out.

We're better off without him.

Some dogs are just born bad and eventually end up taking a walk out behind the barn with the master and his shotgun.

That is the long and the short of it...

Dmtdust wrote:

I get all that, but there are 30 thousand or more kids in Oakland, raised in the same circumstances who will not do the same bullshit.  Yes, the system is loaded against them, but they figure it out, or their families are there for them to help them figure it out. 

I have known guys who had the most horrible childhood's, and they ended up doing wonderful stuff.  Nothing is etched in stone.

Didn't anyone tell you?

You are no longer responsible for your actions!!!

Dmtdust wrote:

I have known people who were horribly sexually abused as children, and yet didn't do the same.  Kids whose father was a major criminal, beat them, fucked them, and the mother just stood by her man... Yes, I have seen it all.  But in the end, you are saying someone at 21 years old or older doesn't have the ability to make choices?  Please.

By 21 you can be too far gone to come back.

By the way, I can't say I remember ever "choosing" to not fuck a child, rob a bank, or kill a cop. My point was that these options aren't naturally on the table; they're put there. Being chained to a radiator and gang-raped by bikers when you're 5 puts a lot of options on the table that aren't there for other people.

What do you think happens in somebody's mind when they make the choice to rape a kid? Really--how do you see that internal monologue playing out? Do they do it because they're working with bad data, or a bad processor?

ah297900 wrote:

Dmtdust wrote:

I have known people who were horribly sexually abused as children, and yet didn't do the same.  Kids whose father was a major criminal, beat them, fucked them, and the mother just stood by her man... Yes, I have seen it all.  But in the end, you are saying someone at 21 years old or older doesn't have the ability to make choices?  Please.

By 21 you can be too far gone to come back.

By the way, I can't say I remember ever "choosing" to not fuck a child, rob a bank, or kill a cop. My point was that these options aren't naturally on the table; they're put there. Being chained to a radiator and gang-raped by bikers when you're 5 puts a lot of options on the table that aren't there for other people.

What do you think happens in somebody's mind when they make the choice to rape a kid? Really--how do you see that internal monologue playing out? Do they do it because they're working with bad data, or a bad processor?

Yes, but do they all go down that path?  No.  There is much to sympathize with in the plights you are bringing up.  No child should have that happen, but not every child will come out with a "faulty processor" as you posit.  How do I see the inner monologue play out?  Simple.  They make a choice to enforce the past, or to go beyond it.  To become human, or not.

ah297900 wrote:

Emmeran wrote:

This isn't societies fault, he had his choices and he chose wrong.  Just a bad bit of humanity from the word go.

If only his mother had met Ted Bundy at an early age...

Sure, some people are born psychopaths, but don't you think they can be made too?

Some people are born homosexual, do you think they can be made too?  I don't think so, you may release a latent tendency but you do not "make" that person.

Environment might make a person bisexual and environment might make them a minor criminal, but you don't make that person be repulsed by the opposite sex and you don't make that person rape 12 year olds and kill 4 cops.

Last edited by Emmeran (2009-03-26 08:57:11)

For every Scott Peterson, who you could argue was just born a sociopath, there are 100 guys who were absolutely made into cop killers/ losers/rapists etc through their experiences. Of course that doesn't mean as a society we let them run loose, but I am interested in this idea that this Mixon guy (wtf is up with this weird last name, too-you know it was probably a typo on a food stamp form several generations ago that just got adopted as their real name) had any choice but to be a monster.
He made poor decisions all the way through. Yes. But for chrissakes, you soak a baby-a fetus even-in the brine of ignorance and poverty, and some of those babies grow up to be the same as our man Mixon. Not everyone, but some. And like sometimes you find a future Pele on the sixth grade soccer team, in a group of fucked up fatherless children you will sometimes have a "star" as well- a Manson or a Mixon.

At one school I visit, I know a six year old boy who has basically raised himself-and is a budding sociopath-if not future cop killer. He learned from birth that to get what you want, you have to get it yourself, since you can't trust people like your heroin dealer Mom or your Mexican Mafia dad to bring you a clean diaper or warm milk when you cry. Now, this kid deals lunch tickets, steals, lies, cons, and looks about 65 years old. He's six.
This kid's sister-she had the same kind of childhood. But she's a different sort. she's 10 and has been caught blowing the fifth grade boys behind the basketball courts. She's going to be pregnant soon-and probably not a serial killer or even anything but a welfare mom.

But the boy, he's smart. Too smart. And you tell me he has the same free will that, say, your boy does, and I'd say sure. On paper anyway.  But this kid's future is shackled to his past as surely as your own boy has been given the wings inside himself to fly.

That's all I'm sayin'. A little less judgement, a little more compassion. Isn't that an Elvis song?

Last edited by icangetyouatoe (2009-03-26 12:59:44)

So let me see if I understand you Toe.  Because Scott Peterson is White, we will just write him off as a sociopath and not look at his childhood in order to excuse him from guilt for what he did.  However Mixon, who is suspected of being a serial rapist, was freed from a murder rap only because the DA didn’t have a good enough case to go to trial, and ended his life with a murder spree, must be the unfortunate victim of an awful childhood. Of course he didn’t have a chance; he had a terrible childhood in an awful country run by White racists who spend all their time screwing up the lives of black people.  Give me a break.  Your PC biases are showing, and frankly it’s nauseating the way the White do-gooders fall all over themselves to excuse the rampant criminality of the black community.

There was a huge public memorial for this loser.  The community marched in solidarity to show their support of him.  When Whites or Asians or a member of any other racial or ethnic group harms society, the other members of his group do not have a solidarity march and hold him up as a hero.  Unlike blacks, members of every other group can’t disassociate themselves from their groups’ criminals fast enough!  The newspaper article that tried to make him appear to be a poor victim instead of a major fuckup is symptomatic of the  PC glorification of black criminality and the failure of blacks to take responsibility for their decisions and actions.

Last edited by fnord (2009-03-26 15:30:25)

ah297900 wrote:

Fnord:

I don't think I or tojo were talking about race--we both brought up Manson as an example of a shitty upbringing. I'm guessing tojo brought up Scott Peterson as a born sociopath because he's working from the assumption that he didn't have a childhood of poverty and abuse. I have no idea about the solidarity march; that's a separate issue.

Here's what I think me and tojo are saying: If you raise a child in a severely fucked up environment, you're liable to end up with a fucked up adult.

This seems self-evident.

As goes the reverse of your assumption, we'd have no fucked up adults if we made the world perfect.  This is where I disagree, some people are just bad - nothing you can do to change that. You see these conniving little assholes at 3yrs old, with wonderful siblings above and below, causing hate and discontent at every turn; but suddenly this is societies fault that you can solve with just a little more taxation on me.

At the same time you will be able to fix that fucked up environment with more money, money will fix the slut whore of a mother and pig-fucker of a father and create a wonderful fucking world.

Come talk to me after you've had a few of those genetic time-bombs in your house as foster children; tell me some truths then.

Genetic time bombs run counter to the idea of free choice that Dusty floated. Are you saying some people are destined to be bad? If so, that would seem to excuse them even more than a shitty childhood-they're disabled, in a way, so they can't help it.

I think the answer is somewhere in between. How to fix it is beyond me-it's probably a universal truth that any society is going to have some haves and have nots, the fucked and the fortunate.

If you look at IQ research, you find that there are identifiable, direct numbers gains in children taken out of shitty environments-and direct IQ number losses in kids who are returned to, or stay in the crappy ones. Meaning, if you take a kid in a orphanage whose IQ is testing at say, 65, and put him in a richer environment with caring people, good nutrition, less stress, etc, you maximize his potential and his IQ leaps twenty or so points higher next time he's tested. Put him back in the orphanage, and his IQ goes down again.

That has pretty major implications for people who live in shitty areas or environments. -blacks, mexicans or those goddamn micks...

Last edited by icangetyouatoe (2009-03-26 16:47:30)

Old questions, old arguments. Meh.

Emmeran wrote:

Some people are born homosexual, do you think they can be made too? I don't think so, you may release a latent tendency but you do not "make" that person.

Environment might make a person bisexual and environment might make them a minor criminal, but you don't make that person be repulsed by the opposite sex and you don't make that person rape 12 year olds and kill 4 cops.

I don't think homosexuals can be "made" either, but that most people have a latent bisexuality that requires certain [individual] circumstances. Men checking out other men in the locker room may have its various explanations, but it may also fulfill whatever "homosexual quotient" they have in their sexualities; i.e., looking but not touching is enough, maybe a guy in the occasional porn scene suffices too, etc.

A man/boy like Mixon may well be made, but there were probably as many missed opportunities to "rescue" him as there were personal endeavors toward antisocial behavior. Was he born that way? We'll never really know because he's been properly aerated, but when it came right down to his final hours, he behaved like a trapped animal (an animal with automatic weapons). Very few could say, facing what we figured to be a fate worse than death, that they might not respond similarly, dispatching anything that cornered us.

Emmeran wrote:

You see these conniving little assholes at 3yrs old, with wonderful siblings above and below, causing hate and discontent at every turn; but suddenly this is societies fault that you can solve with just a little more taxation on me.

Yep... Gotta agree with this guy.

All the "middle children" I knew, growing up, were way fucked up.

Just look to Jan Brady, for example... That bitch was crazy!

Dirckman wrote:

but I got over that in a big hurry when I suffered the consequences....  This dude has suffered the consequences over and over again and still took the initiative to fuck up....

See, toe, I think this is where your argument falls apart and fnords actually gains a little more traction.  "Normal" people understand the consequences of actions and either make choices to avoid those consequences altogether or once they suffer them, i.e. Dirck here, they THEN begin making correct choices.

I would have no qualms whatsoever about killing many, many people I come into contact with on a daily basis because I believe they need to be eliminated.  Just for being simple dumb shits.  It isn't the idea of killing or "living with what I did" that stops me.  It is the thought of jail and jail only.

Scotty wrote:

Dirckman wrote:

but I got over that in a big hurry when I suffered the consequences....  This dude has suffered the consequences over and over again and still took the initiative to fuck up....

See, toe, I think this is where your argument falls apart and fnords actually gains a little more traction.  "Normal" people understand the consequences of actions and either make choices to avoid those consequences altogether or once they suffer them, i.e. Dirck here, they THEN begin making correct choices.

I would have no qualms whatsoever about killing many, many people I come into contact with on a daily basis because I believe they need to be eliminated.  Just for being simple dumb shits.  It isn't the idea of killing or "living with what I did" that stops me.  It is the thought of jail and jail only.

What am I, the Tard Defender? Of course people are fucking stupid. Maybe it is genetic-it probably is genetic. But it's not limited to black folk, there are plenty of stupid annoying fuckers of other races and creeds as well.

ah297900 wrote:

Fnord:

I don't think I or tojo were talking about race--we both brought up Manson as an example of a shitty upbringing. I'm guessing tojo brought up Scott Peterson as a born sociopath because he's working from the assumption that he didn't have a childhood of poverty and abuse. I have no idea about the solidarity march; that's a separate issue.

Here's what I think me and tojo are saying: If you raise a child in a severely fucked up environment, you're liable to end up with a fucked up adult.

This seems self-evident.

Well, shit.  I was going to think of something to say, but it looks like people already know what side I'm on without having to participate in the conversation.

Taint wrote:

tojo2000 wrote:

ah297900 wrote:

Fnord:

I don't think I or tojo were talking about race--we both brought up Manson as an example of a shitty upbringing. I'm guessing tojo brought up Scott Peterson as a born sociopath because he's working from the assumption that he didn't have a childhood of poverty and abuse. I have no idea about the solidarity march; that's a separate issue.

Here's what I think me and tojo are saying: If you raise a child in a severely fucked up environment, you're liable to end up with a fucked up adult.

This seems self-evident.

Well, shit.  I was going to think of something to say, but it looks like people already know what side I'm on without having to participate in the conversation.

It's OK Tojo. I'll pretend I don't know what you're going to say and you can tell me.

Well, I doubt we'll settle the nature vs. nurture debate here tonight.  It's a complicated issue, and the morality that leads down that road is paved with muddier choices.  Dirckman talks about consequences, but for many of the poor in this country the consequences are a foregone conclusion.  When you are convinced the end result of your actions is inevitable and unlivable, it is easy to start making the little decisions that lead down the path of aggressively antisocial behavior.  If I could know what the formula was that makes it click for that rare person who turns around and uses their oppressive past as fuel for bettering themselves, I would willingly give up everything I own.

Clearly by the time someone is raping and killing people they've passed any reasonable threshold, but the continuum of potential outcomes is vast, and I wonder about the motivations of people who try to boil it down to binary choices.

Scotty wrote:

ah297900 wrote:

By the way, I can't say I remember ever "choosing" to not fuck a child,

Am I reading this wrong or did AhPook just admit to being a kiddie fiddler?

The former, scooter.

I don't know what causes a person to kill four cops, but I doubt it's entirely nature or entirely nurture. It seems to me, though, that if you want to reduce the incidence of this kind of thing across the whole of society, the only thing you can attack is the abuse & neglect in the home. The whole "Just say no to sociopathy" approach is likely to be as effective as it was with drugs or teen pregnancy.

This thread has become unlulzy, and I shall thus retire from it.