From campbell Fri Jul 5 11:24:49 1996 Received: from quinn.physics.ncsu.edu by quinn.physics.ncsu.edu via SMTP (951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/951211.SGI.AUTO) for id LAA27352; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 11:24:48 -0400 Sender: campbell Message-ID: <31DD33BC.794B@quinn.physics.ncsu.edu> Date: Fri, 05 Jul 1996 11:24:44 -0400 From: Mary Pat Campbell X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b5 (X11; I; IRIX 5.3 IP20) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: ncsu.soc CC: campbell Subject: danger to ourselves and others Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO I've decided to just take on the role of periodic person-on-the-soapbox. The subject of today's diatribe is: people too stupid to live. No, I'm not talking about people who hold "stupid" opinions, write stupid posts and thus supposedly taking up precious bandwidth (which reminds me, I am so flattered that someone reposted my article. You _really_ love me!), do annoying things like cutting one off in line, or act downright rude. I am referring to those who are an imminent danger to those around them due to their ignorance. Case in point: the guy who lit a firecracker in a busy fireworks store. He claims he was goaded into doing in. My retort: sir, you are 24 years old. Aren't you a little too old to be giving in to peer pressure in an extremely dangerous situation? And now 8 people are dead due to one person's fatal stupidity. I'm sorry, but this kind of person makes me more nervous than those who are intentionally fatal; one can convict someone for attempted murder and have a long sentence, but I haven't heard much in the way of imprisoning someone for attempted stupidity for long periods of time. If it was just a matter of the stupid people hurting themselves, I wouldn't care, but too many of the stupid emerge unscathed as normal, responsible folks get killed. More examples of this type of person: a person with little expertise keeping large, wild animals such as a tiger; babysitters who shake babies way too hard to get them to stop crying; people who think they can drive after consuming quantities of alcohol and other movement-impairing drugs; people who hold guns carelessly or shoot upwards in a crowd (yes, the bullets do come back down -- they're not rockets). I think there should be a charge of criminal stupidity, with extremely stiff penalties. I think there can be a fundamental lack of thought that cannot be educated out of a person; people who possess this quality should be kept under supervision for the safety of the public. Perhaps they could be put into group homes for the common sense impaired. One does not light _anything_ in a fireworks store. Whew, one can lead a brain to a thought, but one cannot make it think. mp -- I am woman; open the door. Mary Pat Campbell campbell@quinn.physics.ncsu.edu http://www4.ncsu.edu/~mpcampbe/