Originally posted by Viking
Neubob, if I tell you to go kill yourself (or go to Hell or something similar), am I then responsible if you actually kill yourself?
I don't think you would be, no. But it's not what I think that matters. It's not what's true or right or reasonable that matters. All that matters is what can be proven. Courts are often looked to to right a wrong, to make an injured party whole again. They try, but more often than not I think they just do a token job. In this case, hitting every possible defendant with a law suit will likely be that token job.
Personally, I think that all this coddling and passing off of responsibility is counter-productive. Blaming myspace, or even the people that humiliated this girl is missing the point entirely. Blaming the deceased girl's parents may be closer to the point, because it's likely that their upbringing contributed more to her being a mess than anybody else... However, in reality, there is no single person, group or act to blame for this. She was either born or made tragically defective. The fact that somebody set her off was inevitable. Tragic, yes, seemingly appalling, given how it happened, yes, but she was not right inside--as isn't anybody who would kill themselves or anybody else after being made fun of... I was made fun of too, just as most of us have. I've been mad, enraged, depressed and alienated, just as most of us have. I refuse to believe that she had it so much worse than the average person.
I don't think that every generation is weaker. I think that every generation is more and more sheltered by their parents. It has a lot to do with paranoia, with the sensationalization of violence in the media... It has to do with a lot. Physiologically and psychologically we are born very similar to any other group at any other period. It's what happens immediately after that corrupts people.
