Post #259,440
6/20/06 6:59:28 AM
6/20/06 7:02:24 AM
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Not to use the Mark Twain (or Disraeli) line, these stats...
...are, while probably pretty far from being lies in any sense, just plain irrelevant. Benny boy goes twittering along: Suppose that you have a highschool with about 200 people per grade. That's 100 potential couples. Let's say that 20% of them are having somewhat regular sex, and they're using condoms. Let's use the 5% failure rate figure. That's an average of one pregnancy, per year, per grade.
Those figures are pretty close to what happened in the highschool that I went to in Canada. At least the number of kids and pregnancies are about right, I'm guessing at the rest. Based on that, I figure that in a nice middle-class highschool, most pregnancies are quite likely to be due to equipment failure, and not failure to try equipping. Which means that you are wrong to assume that these people don't know what condoms are. That would probably mean something, if it had the least thing to do with what we were talking about. But since when were North American high school kids in general the subject of this thread? We're talking about one single guy, "Rat Bastard", of whom A) we *don't* know that he was in high school at the time, and B) we *do* have every reason to believe that, while he may well have *known* what the heck a condom is, he just plain wasn't using one. In bad areas of town, of course, the story is very different. Given the makeup of this board and the fact that the mystery father actually made child support payments, it is likely that he came from a reasonable background. Therefore I'd give him some benefit of the doubt as to how the pregnancy happened. Well, silly you for that -- he doesn't deserve any such benefit. What part of, "YOU don't want to become a Dad, YOU get a rubber and put it on YOURSELF"[*] did you have trouble understanding? As for mentions of mitigating circumstances, I'd pay attention to, Her "father" was little more than an unsuspecting sperm donor, as far as I can tell. That strongly suggests to me that he felt in some way tricked by her into donating sperm when he didn't realize that he was doing so. Because unless the guy is an idiot, he should suspect that something is going to happen if there is no birth control present. Personally, I'd A) suspect that he's quite possibly exaggerated the degree of trickery, up to and including having modified his own memory of events, and above all, B) focus on the "as far as I can tell" bit. What the fuck is THAT about? Was he too drunk to know what he was doing, or what? Well, tough titties: That'll teach him not to fuck around blind drunk. And I happen to personally know multiple dads who were tricked into donating while they thought they were protected. Plausible enough that I'd again say you should give the benefit of the doubt. Then those idiots you personally know probably didn't even actually think *they* were protected, did they -- they thought the *woman* they were with was, right?[+] And no, I honestly can't see how such utter fucking stupidity "deserves" *anything*, be it the benefit of any doubt nor, heaven forfend, any sympathy at all. You make a baby, you get to BE A MAN and be a father to that baby -- and that means more than JUST paying money. You don't want that, then YOU make sure you DON'T become a father -- and that means more than JUST taking someone's word that she's on the pill. Funny, how it's usually you Yanks[$] who are so macho about being able to look out for yourselves, and scoffing at us wimpy denizens of European welfare states -- but how foreign the concept of personal responsibility suddenly seems to be, when it comes to the most personal thing one could ever be responsible for. WTF is up with that? [Edit: Added missing pronoun.]
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Yes Mr. Garrison, genetic engineering lets us correct God's horrible, horrible mistakes, like German people. - [link|http://maxpages.com/southpark2k/Episode_105|Mr. Hat]
[*]: Quoting myself from memory there, so possibly not 100% exact.
[+]: Because using a condom provided by a woman who's pricked it with a needle must be a lot rarer than buying -- or, in the heat of the moment, *deciding* to "buy"? -- the li[n]e "I'm on the Pill", I figure.
[$]: And no, I haven't forgotten that you're actually about half Canuck (especially not with the none-too-subtle reminder in the very post I'm quoting) -- it's just that "Yank" usually, for all practical purposes, can be used to include those formally-independent provinces to their immediate north.
Edited by CRConrad
June 20, 2006, 07:02:24 AM EDT
Not to use the Mark Twain (or Disraeli) line, these stats...
...are, while probably pretty far from being lies in any sense, just plain irrelevant. Benny boy goes twittering along: Suppose that you have a highschool with about 200 people per grade. That's 100 potential couples. Let's say that 20% of them are having somewhat regular sex, and they're using condoms. Let's use the 5% failure rate figure. That's an average of one pregnancy, per year, per grade.
Those figures are pretty close to what happened in the highschool that I went to in Canada. At least the number of kids and pregnancies are about right, I'm guessing at the rest. Based on that, I figure that in a nice middle-class highschool, most pregnancies are quite likely to be due to equipment failure, and not failure to try equipping. Which means that you are wrong to assume that these people don't know what condoms are. That would probably mean something, if it had the least thing to do with what we were talking about. But since when were North American high school kids in general the subject of this thread? We're talking about one single guy, "Rat Bastard", of whom A) we *don't* know that he was in high school at the time, and B) we *do* have every reason to believe that, while he may well have *known* what the heck a condom is, he just plain wasn't using one. In bad areas of town, of course, the story is very different. Given the makeup of this board and the fact that the mystery father actually made child support payments, it is likely that he came from a reasonable background. Therefore I'd give him some benefit of the doubt as to how the pregnancy happened. Well, silly you for that -- he doesn't deserve any such benefit. What part of, "YOU don't want to become a Dad, YOU get a rubber and put it on YOURSELF"[*] did you have trouble understanding? As for mentions of mitigating circumstances, I'd pay attention to, Her "father" was little more than an unsuspecting sperm donor, as far as I can tell. That strongly suggests to me that he felt in some way tricked by her into donating sperm when he didn't realize that he was doing so. Because unless the guy is an idiot, he should suspect that something is going to happen if there is no birth control present. Personally, I'd A) suspect that he's quite possibly exaggerated the degree of trickery, up to and including having modified his own memory of events, and above all, B) focus on the "as far as I can tell" bit. What the fuck is THAT about? Was he too drunk to know what he was doing, or what? Well, tough titties: That'll teach him not to fuck around blind drunk. And I happen to personally know multiple dads who were tricked into donating while they thought they were protected. Plausible enough that I'd again say you should give the benefit of the doubt. Then those idiots personally know probably didn't even actually think *they* were protected, did they -- they thought the *woman* they were with was, right?[+] And no, I honestly can't see how such utter fucking stupidity "deserves" *anything*, be it the benefit of any doubt nor, heaven forfend, any sympathy at all. You make a baby, you get to BE A MAN and be a father to that baby -- and that means more than JUST paying money. You don't want that, then YOU make sure you DON'T become a father -- and that means more than JUST taking someone's word that she's on the pill. Funny, how it's usually you Yanks[$] who are so macho about being able to look out for yourselves, and scoffing at us wimpy denizens of European welfare states -- but how foreign the concept of personal responsibility suddenly seems to be, when it comes to the most personal thing one could ever be responsible for. WTF is up with that?
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Yes Mr. Garrison, genetic engineering lets us correct God's horrible, horrible mistakes, like German people. - [link|http://maxpages.com/southpark2k/Episode_105|Mr. Hat]
[*]: Quoting myself from memory there, so possibly not 100% exact.
[+]: Because using a condom provided by a woman who's pricked it with a needle must be a lot rarer than buying -- or, in the heat of the moment, *deciding* to "buy"? -- the li[n]e "I'm on the Pill", I figure.
[$]: And no, I haven't forgotten that you're actually about half Canuck (especially not with the none-too-subtle reminder in the very post I'm quoting) -- it's just that "Yank" usually, for all practical purposes, can be used to include those formally-independent provinces to their immediate north.
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Post #259,482
6/20/06 3:34:53 PM
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Since you seem to be slow on comprehension
You continue to think that we have every reason to believe that he wasn't using a condom. In fact we don't. I personally know enough people who got pregnant while using condoms that I know that from direct experience.
General statistics show that you don't know that he wasn't using a condom. Perhaps you should ask him? Before flaming him?
As for being tricked, it is easy to blame someone for not doing more and for believing a woman. But how many men here can honestly say that they've never been in a position where they had sex and depended on the woman for birth control? When they weren't married to that woman?
I, for one, sure can't put my hand up.
I find it hard to come down like a ton of bricks on someone who probably just took a risk like ones that I know I took. And was unlucky and got burned while I didn't. And I don't like watching others come down like a ton of bricks on them as well.
Cheers,
Ben
The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. -- Adolf Hitler
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Post #259,488
6/20/06 6:05:10 PM
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There you go again... No, I'm not. YOU, OTOH, definitely are
Ben blithers on: You continue to think that we have every reason to believe that he wasn't using a condom. In fact we don't. Other than the fact tht he didn't say a single word about using one, in his initial diatribe, you mean? Sure, that may not be "every" reason... But it is *one* reason to believe he didn't, and he hasn't given *any* specific reason to believe he *did*. Am I being "slow on comprehension" again, Mr Mathematician, in thinking that one is more than zero? I personally know enough people who got pregnant while using condoms that I know that from direct experience. Yeah, you keep gibbering about that, as if it had anything to do with anything. I must admit, in this particular respect, I *am* slow on comprehension -- because I still can't see WHAT, exactly, this fascinating anecdotal evidence has to do with this rat bastard's behaviour towards his daughter. General statistics show that you don't know that he wasn't using a condom. Perhaps you should ask him? I've got one number for you, fuckwit: 259437. WHO, exactly, was it that was "slow on comprehension", again? Before flaming him? Uhh... Do you have *any* idea what you're saying, you *total* fucking moron? As for being tricked, it is easy to blame someone for not doing more and for believing a woman. And even easier, for not being a man afterwards, taking his responsibility for the life he created; and, easier *still*, for whining about having been "tricked" in stead. But how many men here can honestly say that they've never been in a position where they had sex and depended on the woman for birth control? When they weren't married to that woman? Not too many, at a guess. So fucking what? The pertinent question would be, how many men here have had sex, depended on the woman for birth control, lost that gamble, and *not* shirked their responsibility and whined about being "tricked"? And you know what? That's a trick question. Because the ones who did that, lost the gamble, and *did* shirk their responsibility and whine about being "tricked" aren't men, they're arseholes! I, for one, sure can't put my hand up. Well, bully for you, that you've had a life. And congratulations on not screwing it up, i.e, on not winning the Who Wants To Be A Daddy lottery at an inopportune moment. Even more congratulations are apparently in order, for the fact that this spared you from having to find out if *you* would have been a man or an arsehole in that situation. I find it hard to come down like a ton of bricks on someone who probably just took a risk like ones that I know I took. And was unlucky and got burned while I didn't. Then don't; nobody is asking you to. And I don't like watching others come down like a ton of bricks on them as well. Well, tough fucking titties, baby. Just because *you* aren't up to telling these arseholes the unpleasant truth about what they are (possibly because it entails facing an unpleasant truth about what you would have done yourself?), doesn't entitle you to denying the truth when someone else tells it. Also, it's not like he wasn't ASKING for it, posting his tale of woe on the fricking Intarweb -- and in this particular forum -- now is it? Cheers, Switch to something more appropriate, fuckwit. The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. -- Adolf Hitler BTW, I've been wondering (since I first noticed your new .sig, actually, a while before this thread started): Are you sure that should be "victims", in the plural? I thought "to fall victim to something" is a fixed expression, the form of which doesn't change however many people are falling victim to whatever it is they are falling victim to.
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Yes Mr. Garrison, genetic engineering lets us correct God's horrible, horrible mistakes, like German people. - [link|http://maxpages.com/southpark2k/Episode_105|Mr. Hat]
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Post #259,498
6/20/06 9:18:03 PM
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I began a complete response to this
And then decided not to bother.
You don't understand the difference between a reason and every reason. You refuse to see that there are reasons to give him any benefit of the doubt. As far as you're concerned, he's an evil person and obviously a complete asshole.
You're unable to even consider the possibility of trying to see the world from the point of view of a person who has spent 15 years paying a substantial sum to a person he's not even allowed to meet! After a few years of this, I would expect that some resentment would set in. After 15 years I have no idea what it would be like.
None of this surprises me. You've always been one of the fastest people around here to judge others, and you seem to always judge harshly. In fact it seems that you've got all of the intolerance that made the German people infamous, only it has gone into being aggressively politically correct. The result is that you're a stiff-necked, politically correct arsehole.
And now I leave you to deliver another of your rambling replies that completely misses the point. Since you are pretty much guaranteed to again miss the point, I'll just pre-emptively point you at the second and third paragraphs of this post and not bother replying.
End of thread (for me).
Ben
PS I am giving the quote as it appeared on CNN. If there is a grammar error, blame them. I don't care.
The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. -- Adolf Hitler
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Post #259,529
6/21/06 5:52:49 AM
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That might be true
but he shouldn't carry resentment against the person who did not make the decision: to wit, the child, the one person we can safely say has not behaved badly in this situation.
As for Mom and Dad, I think we can safely assume that at points both of them have.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #259,552
6/21/06 12:57:35 PM
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He shouldn't, but I'm not surprised if he does
The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. -- Adolf Hitler
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Post #259,576
6/21/06 3:21:59 PM
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That doesn't change the fact that he's still punishing the
one person that is not at fault in any way... and that people are going to judge that action by those lights.
He may have a reason, but I personally don't see how one can possibly argue that it is either necessary or sufficient.
He may have very good reasons to be pissed at the Mom; projecting that onto his child is just bad.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #259,583
6/21/06 3:40:21 PM
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Agreed, but emotions are not logical
Somewhat predictable, yes.
Logical, no.
Cheers,
Ben
The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. -- Adolf Hitler
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Post #259,651
6/21/06 9:14:38 PM
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You sound like Mr. Spock
Sometimes.
When a man is alone in his room...
he wears stretchy pants.
It's for fun.
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Post #259,654
6/21/06 9:22:33 PM
6/21/06 9:37:18 PM
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/me raises an eyebrow
Fascinating.
Cheers,
Ben
The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. -- Adolf Hitler
Edited by ben_tilly
June 21, 2006, 09:37:18 PM EDT
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Post #259,655
6/21/06 9:28:18 PM
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Fascinating.....
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Post #259,670
6/22/06 8:07:47 AM
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Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor! Not a Greenblood!
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyFreedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;
0 rows returned.
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