Today at lunch I sat over Chinese with my new associate 'G' who was a BMXer back in the day. We reminesced over ramps, Oakley grips and cracked frames. I raised my lament over the facts that kids today don't understand physical risk because we don't allow them to learn such things the hard way.
But there's the hard way of the law of nature and there's the hard way of felony conviction. Apparently, some legislators have got an itching to teach fraternities a hard lesson. In the Gator State, violent hazing is now a felony. The first example conviction is discussed over at Bomani's joint. I beg to differ.
In another discussion I just happened to have this afternoon right after lunch, another new associate of mine traded stories about violent crime in Brooklyn. My side of the story, you may have heard. Her's was a bit more frightening because she was confined to the back seat of a cab when the gaffling took place.
But the point I want to get to is that human life is violent. Our experience of pain and suffering is one of the things that separates us from machines. We learn from it, and what we learn isn't always avoidance. Hold that thought.
Now as for the specifics of pledging a fraternity, I'm of the opinion that it should not be any more violent than football practice. In case you have no idea of what that might involve consider the most healthy person you know running at you full speed in order to knock you on your ass. Now repeat that about 50 times a day for four months. That's football. The general consensus is that fraternity rituals are not so brutal. They don't need to be. That doesn't mean they don't get out of hand and shouldn't be regulated, but it doesn't mean that they are 'senseless violence'.
Florida A&M University students Michael Morton, 23, of Fort Lauderdale, and Jason Harris, 25, of Jacksonville, were led from the courtroom in handcuffs, as was Harris' lawyer, Richard Keith Alan II, who was charged with indirect criminal contempt.
The students were charged with hazing Marcus Jones, 20, of Decatur, Ga., who suffered a broken ear drum and severe bruising to his buttocks after he was punched and struck with wooden canes.
Circuit Judge Kathleen Dekker said that one year might have been sufficient to punish Morton and Harris but that she added a second year to make sure that their sentences serve as a deterrent.
Now I'm sure that the broken ear drum sealed this one, but the principle in question is whether or not violent action can or cannot be used in training or ritual. I have a problem with a 'no' answer, because I say it all depends upon the context of the violence. I am absolutely certain that the harshness of fraternity hazing builds brotherhood. Such knowledge is as old as the first army, and as contemporary as 'Remember the Titans'. It is entirely reasonable to expect university students to have an adequate sense of understanding this in administering fraternity hazing, the problem to me seems to be one of standards. So I would recommend that all fraternities who retain any sense of manliness to establish some relatively stringent guidelines along the lines of military training and hazing before the practice winds up in the hands of yet another judge determined to make couch potatoes of the lot of us.
If one of those university students gets sexually abused in jail, what are the chances he can sue the judge?
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