[*BCM*] Motorist gets slap on the wrist for killing a cyclist

[Rachel Elizabeth Dillon]

On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 11:11:12AM -0800, turtle wrote:
> She's a teenager, she has little to no sense of her place in the world. 
> Teenagers, for the most part, just don't have the brain development to
> be capable of seeing the world through anything but their own eyes, and
> haven't yet learned to see beyond their limited life of raging hormones
> and the need to figure out what the heck they are supposed to do to be
> popular in their friend's eyes.  That's why they send teenagers off to
> war, because they will do pretty much anything to feel important, and
> can't think very much.
> 
> I don't mean to say that teenagers are bad or anything, because it's
> just a part of growing up, just like the terrible twos.  We all have to
> go through it sometime before we can make it into a mature mindset,
> where we honestly care about other people.  To expect teens to behave
> maturely is just delusional.  But we give them drivers' licenses and
> cars and guns nonetheless.  What does that say about us?

It says that we encourage young people to behave irresponsibly by
holding them to lower standards and letting them get away with said
irresponsibilities? Five hundred years ago, teenagers behaved maturely
and worked jobs just fine; it's nurture, not nature. If we allow people
to continue being children older and older, most of them will happily
continue. Then, when things like this happen, you say that "to expect
teens to behave maturely is just delusional." Like, seriously? 

Hormonal or not, limited or not, the vast majority of teenagers are not
_killing people with cars._ Maybe they're not behaving as maturely as
me, and maybe I'm not behaving as maturely as you, and maybe you're not
as mature as an octagenarian, but we're all able to exist peacefully in
society and deal with the responsibilities of our shared environment. That
this girl has failed is damning of her and her upbringing, not of
everyone in her age bracket. 

-r.


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