>Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons?
Hell yes. We should get involved. Every. Single. Time. This stuff thrives on people just shrugging their shoulders and moving on, reminding themselves to keep their heads extra down. If we made a stink every time, there wouldn't have to be many times.
When you donate, or even just take the time to get involved, think of it as raising your own taxes just a smidge to actually make the system better.
I don't think of it that way. I think of it as giving money to someone I don't know, so that person can forward (with my trust) it on to someone else who didn't ask for it and potentially doesn't need it (what if her family are billionaires?), to defend against charges that I don't have the full story on (and it's part of my DNA to wait for the facts, sorry if you guys are a little more hasty), for a person I'll never meet and who will be fine from this either way.
Making the system better isn't a legal fund for a kid. Making the system better is a legal fund for anybody that ends up in this situation. That's my point, but apparently I'm not allowed to share it since I wasn't educated in private school[1]. I'm not fiscally conservative, but donating to someone's legal defense personally doesn't sit right with me in the general, even more so if the only reason most people are doing so is because the news made them aware of it and dictated the story that you heard.
I think to a lesser extent there's a little bit of overcompensation going on here since it was revealed posthumously that Aaron Swartz needed money for his legal defense but couldn't ask for it. A Cmd+F of his name around this thread should provide that evidence.
All I ever advocate for is caution. If you see a news story and go "wow, that sucks, I'm going to give her some money," the news media successfully manipulated you. I used to work in print; there are Hollywoodesque people that will send press releases to news organizations on behalf of families in this situation, with promises of tearjerking interviews. I'm serious. I'm just advocating for caution, and in the more broad the trend of Internet lynch mobbing and culting that potentially cost a missing Brown student his life recently. The Internet is graduating into a much more powerful force, particularly here on Hacker News and other sites like Reddit, and I worry about the long-term consequences of acting without full facts of a situation.
She's already been removed from school. That's significantly disruptive to her.
She faces criminal prosecution. That's significantly disruptive.
If convicted, as an adult, she'll have a criminal record. Of federal crimes.
I'm baffled how you can say that she'll be fine from this.
> That's my point,
Well, this is the first post you've said that, so you're not doing such a great job of making it. Instead of your strong positive point[1] you've attacked this girl, and the people who feel sorry for her and who want to try to help her.
Of course you're going to face opposition for your views if you go about it like that.
[1]Injustice is widespread. We've heard about this girl, but there are many other children facing similar injustices. It's great that she's being offered help, but we need to work as a society to temper our reactions to youthful indiscretions. Getting the police involved in stuff that can be dealt with by school is wrong, and we need to try to stop it happening."
Hell yes. We should get involved. Every. Single. Time. This stuff thrives on people just shrugging their shoulders and moving on, reminding themselves to keep their heads extra down. If we made a stink every time, there wouldn't have to be many times.
When you donate, or even just take the time to get involved, think of it as raising your own taxes just a smidge to actually make the system better.