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Death sentence for British woman

(94 Posts)
Kali Tue 22-Jan-13 18:26:05

Why cannot I not feel any indignation at this? I know I should be more sympathetic but my gut reaction is 'she ought to have known better'.

petallus Fri 25-Jan-13 08:33:32

No I agreed with you once before. I hope it's not too unsettling smile

Grundies is another name for knickers.

Nothing to do with the Archers!

The grundies remark was in response to the exasperation in the last sentence of your previous post.

absent Fri 25-Jan-13 08:23:53

Yes I saw that you agreed with me petallus. Is that a first? grin. What on earth are grundies and how do you twist them?

petallus Fri 25-Jan-13 08:17:29

I knew i agreed with you Absent

No need to get your grundies in a twist though grin

Riverwalk Fri 25-Jan-13 08:11:07

Absent said ' .... young people can be' - I took that to mean at times they can be self-righteous.

And I agree with that - I remember when DS1 was a teen and came out with a few remarks that surprised, and disappointed, me - wondered where I'd gone wrong!

absent Fri 25-Jan-13 08:09:54

Oh for goodness sake. I said "Isn't it interesting how self-righteous young people can be?" in direct response to dorsetpennt's report of her younger colleagues' comments. I think the way that question is worded suggests that sometimes some young people are self-righteous.

My response was not because I "label anyone who disapproves of another person's behaviour as self-righteous" but because to say that someone deserves to be shot is an outrageously disproportionate judgement.

For the record, I disapprove of drug smuggling too.

Is that enough now or do we need to carry on analysing every last word that I post?

petallus Fri 25-Jan-13 08:00:45

Dorsetpenn said her younger ( not young) colleagues all approved of this woman getting the death penalty. I thought absent's 'self righteous' comment referred to that. I was agreeing with her about.

The 'walk a mile in another's shoes before judging them' post is a very good guideline IMHO.

Ceesnan Fri 25-Jan-13 07:59:00

I would just like to point out that absent didn't actually say some young people, she said young people which I took to be a rather sweeping generalisation. Ho hum!

JessM Fri 25-Jan-13 07:42:07

I think absent starting point was that she was expecting younger people to be more tolerant than older ones and was saying that she was surprised some were not. Not a very contraversial position and I think several of us agree with her. And are bemused by ceesnan 's comment.
Yes quite petallus - would those who think she should be executed think that the same punishment should be part of UK justice system - death penalty for drug smuggling. And would they say that she should be executed if, instead of a middle aged woman, we were talking about a doe eyed young person who had been to a local school?

Orca Fri 25-Jan-13 07:29:36

That's not how I read it. I don't agree with capital punishment. But I think the argument had strayed into something else. Absent had asked wasn't 'it interesting how self-righteous young people can be?' Ceesnan had queried the fairness of that. Then as I saw it others jumped in to say that young people only see things in black and white, and how much older and wiser they all were now they were older themselves and that Ceesnan had no right to 'disapprove' of Absent's initial statement. I thought Petallus was going level the playing field by saying that people were being too judgemental but them her last sentence left me wondering.
I worked with university student for many years. I did not find them self-righteous, on the contrary it's a trait I more often associate with older people who are set in their ways and intolerant of views that don't match their own.

Ana Thu 24-Jan-13 22:23:34

Orca I think it was ceesnan's post of 11.04.
Jess's response at 11.57 seemed to me to have been spot-on.

jeni Thu 24-Jan-13 21:58:49

I don't agree with the death penalty

petallus Thu 24-Jan-13 21:56:53

Never mind young people being judgemental there's enough of it going on on this thread.

I have been amazed at the number of posts saying this woman deserves to be executed, she knew what to expect etc.

I agree with absent

Orca Thu 24-Jan-13 21:36:59

I'm trying to figure out what Ceesnan said that upset the last few people.

janeainsworth Thu 24-Jan-13 20:21:13

Ceesnan Since you ask, I got the impression that you disapproved of absent's observation that some young people could be self-righteous.
Actually I agree with her.

JessM Thu 24-Jan-13 19:20:30

I think a counsel of perfection is the saying "never judge someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes". I can't say I manage to achieve this on all occasions but it is a better starting point, I think, than making snap judgements based on incomplete information published in the press.

Ceesnan Thu 24-Jan-13 18:36:11

Did I give the impression that I thought absent was accusing other posters? If I did I certainly didn't mean to.

absent Thu 24-Jan-13 18:14:57

Ceesnan To suggest that someone deserves to stand in front of a firing squad as a punishment for smuggling drugs or, in my opinion, for any crime seems pretty smugly moralistic to me.

Buntybunny Thu 24-Jan-13 12:07:58

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Barrow Thu 24-Jan-13 12:05:56

I agree Jess, when I was 18 everything was black and white, now I am older I also see a lot of grey areas!

Bags Thu 24-Jan-13 12:05:43

Political ones too. I think things often seem much more black and white to young people – this is good, that is bad – with no room for manoeuvre, until they learn from experience that there are large grey areas about nearly everything.

JessM Thu 24-Jan-13 11:57:53

I think it is fine to make a generalisation ceesnan - it is not as if absent is accusing other posters is it. If someone thinks younger people can be self righteous why should they not express that view?
It is interesting absent but then they are drawing on a fairly narrow experience of life when they are making judgements. I find it is less easy to be polarised in my views as I get older because I have the life experience to help me see various sides of an argument. When I was 18 it was much easier to be emphatic on moral questions.

Ceesnan Thu 24-Jan-13 11:04:48

Is it fair to label anyone who disapproves of another person's behaviour as self righteous? One dictionary definition is 'smugly moralistic' - I would find that a difficult judgement to make unless I was actually there and could hear the tone.

absent Thu 24-Jan-13 10:10:52

On the contrary, I doubt if her children (grown up now I think) will ever be involved in drug smuggling.

Isn't it interesting how self-righteous young people can be?

dorsetpennt Thu 24-Jan-13 09:32:53

I talked to a number of our younger members of staff at work yesterday about this. They all thought that she 'deserved' the sentence she received and that she had set an appalling example to her children. I haven't read any reports by neighbours and tend not to take much notice of these reports, I don't have much respect for the British press.
If you visit a country with draconian laws, it doesn't matter if you believe them or not, you have to obey them or suffer the consequences. We expect travellers to this country to obey our laws afterall.

JessM Thu 24-Jan-13 08:29:13

Yes indeed. The papers print a lot of damn lies - particularly about powerless people who have no way of challenging them. One of our members had a family member who was harrassed by the press rather badly and the issue was nothing at all to do with crime.
Drug trafficers would not make a living if there was no market. there are a lot of arrogant young people on good incomes who think it is sophisticated and clever to use cocaine. And a lot of "celebrities" make no secret of their using it.

I wonder who the target market is in Indonesia - young westerners on holiday in Bali? Just maybe?