Vino Veritas (my arguments on the KSA bias incident summarized)

Been doing a lot of writing on this facebook group regarding a particularly nasty incident that my friends were unfortunately involved in. Two days ago I wrote about my initial reactions, but now that I've been engaged in a healthy amount of discussion with a number of people I'm just going to paraphrase/plagiarize myself for this entry.

First of all, the people who are accusing the fraternity associated with the freshman are just being puerile, immature hatemongers. There is nothing in any account of the events that say that they encourage or even tolerate this behavior. It is also too early to reasonably expect them to make a decision on whether or not to keep the accused freshman as a pledge. The investigation has not been completed and the severity of his actions has not been determined. Any anger towards the fraternity the kid is associated with and the entire Greek system is unjustified and inappropriate at this point. Greeks get a bad rap as it is in the court of public opinion. Their name being dragged through the mud is unfortunate, but just because it is happening does not mean any of us should encourage it.

There's also discussion on how much the drunkenness of the individual should mitigate any punishment heading his way. We assume that people's brains function at a higher level than animals, this is why we farm and fry chickens and not babies. But isn't everyone "a little bit racist"?

Racial bias is inherent in people in the sense that the stimulus of features from certain races elicit immediate thoughts associating particular characteristics with that person solely on race alone. It's almost all instinct. However, because our brains function at a higher level than the chickens we fry, we quickly dissociate those thoughts and replace them with the generally-held-rational belief that race in and of itself has no bearing on the intrinsic quality of a person.

The drunkenness argument points out that the alcohol removed his ability to function at a human level. Assuming but not conceding you believe any of the drivel I just spouted, then wasn't the kid's behavior inhuman rather than human? Don't we criticize people for "inhuman" behavior such as cruelty and ruthlessness? Should his lack of human levels of functioning excuse his actions? The only people whose actions can be excused when they're drunk are ancient chinese kung fu masters, but that's only because they're kind of unfuckwithable.

Lesson #358: In a martial arts tournament, don't fight the old guy.

Not that I actually buy it either way, I'm just saying that for the sake of this discussion, making it about his intentions is pointless if we're going to introduce drunkenness into the picture. To be honest, drunkenness isn't even that good a defense because it renders any account he gives of the events to be unreliable. Does he really want that to happen especially since even his girlfriend said he instigated the fight?

However I did say that his intentions were a moot point in this debate because there's really no proving what he thought of what he said either way. What actually manifested was a torrent of hateful messages that hurt some people very deeply. Drunk drivers don't want to hurt anyone but they're punished when they do, and just because people were not sent to the hospital doesn't mean that no damage has been done. For this, I believe, he should be made to answer. Regardless of his intentions, and even if he did not mean to cause pain on the level that he did, isn't there something wrong when people think they can throw around racial slurs when drunk and have everything be okay? I'm one of the least PC people out there (I love Chip Tsao) but when actual hateful messages are delivered, the people from whom they originate should be ready to answer for them.