LB: how about `not nearly long enough' ? I'm with you on the people suck. Problem with quiting and being an orangutan is those damn humans would kill us all of within a couple of decades, most like.
Was the judge in this case unusual in his tolerance for the defense's dirty tactics? Or is our culture really so misogynist that most judges don't see what's so deeply wrong with that?
I looked at the link just long enough to conclude that I had no idea who any of the people are, and no idea what is being written about, and don't care.
I don't even have cable tv, if that helps, which it may, since I'm guessing it had something to do with cable tv news. (Though in truth I'd have cable tv if I could afford it; but what I'd make of the modern state of cable tv news, I couldn't say, since aside from reading an occasional transcript of a political program, I know next to nothing about the topic these days; even when I've had cable tv in the past -- well, the mid-Eighties don't seem relevant to today, and even then I liked C-Span; when I briefly had cable again circa 2002-3, I pretty much ignored cable news, just as I've largely ignored local tv "news" broadcasts for decades, since I really have no interest in murders and fires and traffic accidents.)
Can't really tell what the judge was thinking without a transcript. I'd think that he should have been able to shut these tactics down, but depending on the skills of the defense, it can be very difficult.
It's a case in which an unconscious sixteen year old girl was brutally gang raped and then stalked, slandered, and harassed for four years by friends and counsel for the defendants. If you're not going to read the linked material, you probably oughtn't to comment on it. If your stated disinterest was arrived at after knowing the story, you still probably shouldn't comment on it.
I looked at the link just long enough to conclude that I had no idea who any of the people are, and no idea what is being written about, and don't care.
This was maybe not the best instance to publicize your apathy.
And trials. I don't follow trials. Never have been interested in trials. Even the Chicago 7 was only mildly interesting as a comedy. The whole OJ thing? Never followed any of it. When there are riots about something, I'm interested in the phenomenon; spending time on other details? Life is short. (Not that there's anything wrong with being fascinated with trials, of course; obviously they have all sort of points of utterly legitimate fascination, from the legal issues to the personal dramas to, sometimes, larger issues; I'm just saying that we all pick and choose what we're interested in, and that's all, and nothing more; being fascinated by crimes or fires or traffic accidents is fine, too, just as is being interested in slime molds, electrical wiring, cyberpunk, cozy British mysteries, Scrabble, Cubism, Russian history, Kant, Tolkien, laundry soap, Joss Whedon, whatever, whatever, whatever; I'm just saying I don't follow trials; that's all [and like any rule, there are probably exceptions, though none spring to mind at the moment].)
"If you're not going to read the linked material, you probably oughtn't to comment on it."
On a post whose topic is "I didn't need to read this"?
I guess I'm not getting that whole irony thing, or something. Heaven forbid I should comment on the stated topic, which is "not needing to read" something.
Not a good topic to trivialize or mock. If you like, go talk about how uninterested you are in Goths. in the next thread over. But I'd strongly prefer if you stopped commenting in this vein in this thread.
"If your stated disinterest was arrived at after knowing the story...."
Incidentally: although I'm definitely disinterested, you want to be on me for my uninterest; what would be wrong with my being objective and disinterested and unbiased?
Comment 22 is intended to apply to this thread, tonight, rather than to the blog globally. This is not a banning. We've never even talked about who has the authority to ban or what level of agreement we'd have to arrive at, I mostly don't think we should ban anyone, and I certainly don't intend to, or want to, ban Gary.
I haven't read the link (I can't bear to), but I've seen prior stories about the matter. The whole thing is so tragically sad. And, more horrifically, it makes me wonder what the right thing to do for her was. I can't imagine what I'd say to a girl in that situation; it's wrong not make sure the perps are punished, but it so difficult ask anyone, let alone a 16 year-old, to bear up under that. Clearly, you don't want to validate their gutter tactics, but I feel guilty even reading about her case.
Even the girl who discovered the tape and gave it to the police had several years of her life ruined.
This kind of thing is characteristic of societies where the big families are above the law. Mafia, Communist Party, Kuomintang, feudal lords -- they work this way.
Lessons to learn:
Don't make videos of your raping activities. If you feel that you must make videos, keep track of them and don't leave them lying around.
When people are talking about horrific crimes, don't tell people crime doesn't interest you unless you know one of the principals (i.e., the victim or accused.)
Why did MSNBC give a venue to the creepy lawyer? I don't know anything about the Abrams Report; it seems to be a fake-serious crime-scandal show, judging by a glance at the website.
Y'know, just this once, I'm glad that brutal prison rape is an unresolved problem. If there's any fairness in this universe, these guys will need many stitches.
Also, I suspect the lawyer will need to watch his back for years to come. I'm not sayin' it's right, but when we see his shattered face on the news, there won't be many tears shed. These things do have a way of working themselves out extra-legally. Not always immediately, but eventually.
The making tapes is the thing I haven't been able to get over. That was a feature of the just concluded Chicago trial as well, with somewhat similar facts, down to the well-heeled defendants and consequent agressive defense. How long has this been going on, that doing it isn't enough, you've got to have a tape to watch?
30-31: The perps' families are powerful, ruthless, wealthy hoodlums. They've probably got friends in the prison system, etc., and they probably already have enemies that they've taken steps to protect themselves against. So I imagine that they'll cruise right through this, though the prison time probably won't do the perps any good.
Having said on my blog that we all have a moral obligation to look at the Abu Ghraib pictures, I went and read about this case. I hadn't heard about it before. Now I want to crawl into a corner and die.
Oh dear god. I just don't understand this at all. They videotaped this? They had this on videotape and they could be out of prison in less than two years? I can't even begin to understand this.
Yeah, you know, this reminds me of the Ask the Mineshaft thread. Why aren't prison sentences longer for violent sex crimes? This seems like just the case where you'd want to separate them from the population for as long as fucking possible. It's not like a drug crime, that stems from circumstance; it's a hate crime, and goes to the essence of a person, and essence that, let's face it, is probably not going to be altered. Certainly not in jail.
Apostropher, thugs seldom die violently at the hands of nice people. If the girl's parents were thugs too there might be a chance that karma would have its effect. Otherwise, not.
Only nice people think that the rape of nonentities is a bad thing, but nice people never do anything. If the girl's family and friends are nice, nothing will happen.
If there is some dark feminist force out there to handle this, good.
43: putative dark feminist forces are unlikely to have much sway in a male prison.
These kids do come from money though, right? One can always hope they run afoul of real hard cases inside. Realistically, though, they are more likely to try and use (or at least their money) them than smack them around. There is a clash backlash in those circles, but it doesn't usually get in the way of self interest. On the other hand, could get lucky.
I didn't want to say anything substantive about the case because I wondered if it had been in some way misreported-- partly because it sounds too outrageous to be true. I read most of the linked (local) news coverage, but I couldn't figure out why there wasn't a conviction on the main rape charge. The defense seemed to be variations on "she consented," but if the linked description of the video was anywhere close to accurate, I don't see how that's possible. (It sounds like Jane Doe was clearly unconscious.)
Anyway, if this is all more or less accurate, it's nice that googling the defense lawyer's name brings up that blog post within the first handful of results.
I'm that much less enthused about working with young wealthy white people. We have incidents from time to time; no one is sure what happened; rumors abound.
41: God, yes. I don't have anything to say about the link that anyone else hasn't said (it makes me very angry, and shows a lot about sexism and privilege and how you can be punished for standing up for injustice). So may I rant about white-collar crime a bit?
That is: We don't really treat white-collar criminals as criminals. Someone who dies because the boss didn't shore a trench is just as dead as if someone was firing bullets randomly onto the construction site. But in only one of those cases will the killer get a violation. (Googling Yong Fa Cai's name doesn't reveal any criminal prosecution.) Ditto the difference between defrauding customers and picking pockets; the money's gone either way, and white-collar criminals get away with more.
And I'm pretty sure that serious jail sentences for white-collar criminals would do a lot of good. White-collar criminals are going to be people who won't enjoy jail at all, and have non-criminal options for making a living. If they really had to fear jail, they'd be walking the straight and narrow. And my accounting ethics students might take me a bit more seriously.
(Jordan Barab, who I linked above, is really goddamn good. I don't read him enough. You don't need to read this either.)
There is an argument, which the legal academy seems to take seriously, that a somewhat lesser sentence does as much to deter a potential white collar criminal as a a somewhat greater sentence would a street criminal. One major part of the argument is that the stigma of being branded a criminal has a far greater effect on the former group than the latter.
The defense seemed to be variations on "she consented," but if the linked description of the video was anywhere close to accurate, I don't see how that's possible. (It sounds like Jane Doe was clearly unconscious.)
You know, I had a post about the Chicago rape-of-a-minor-caught-on-video-case on my blog a week or so ago. In the comments people seriously argued that, yeah, maybe she was drunk to the point of blacking out, but if she'd consented *beforehand*, which was, you know, theoretically possible, then the boys weren't guilty of rape.
46: absolutely. Combine with the war-on-the-poor^W^Wdrugs, this make for some really baffling comparisons.
A non-contextual analysis based merely on outcomes would suggest that in this society, it is much better to steal someones life savings than their wallet....
48: some problems with that though. 1) sentencing for white collar crimes tends to be easier time, so why also make it shorter as well? 2) in at least some business sectors etc., the stigma doesn't seem to hurt much... might even help. certainly we aren't seeing the sort of deterrent affect you suspect such arguments claim 3) the comparison is hardly constrained to `white collar' vs. `street criminal' 4) you have to either argue that sentencing is providing a deterent/corrective function or a punative one, right? In the case of white collar crime, the former doesn't seem to be happening at all and the latter is laughably out of line with blue collar sentences....
B, I'm both intrigued by the defense, which raises interesting theoretical questions, and appalled that someone might bring it up as a live possibility.
At least Greg Haidl's life is permanently derailed. Imagine that Jane Doe had taken the $2.5m? And he goes off to college thinking, damn, that was a close call?
There is an argument, which the legal academy seems to take seriously, that a somewhat lesser sentence does as much to deter a potential white collar criminal as a a somewhat greater sentence would a street criminal. One major part of the argument is that the stigma of being branded a criminal has a far greater effect on the former group than the latter.
This sounds a lot like "My son is very sensitive. Don't beat him, beat the boy next to him." People who are friends of the legal academy are a lot more likely to be white-collar criminals (maybe not that judge in New York).
The problem is that white-collar criminals usually don't do any time at all. Also, even granting the facts about deterrence, there'd be a serious argument from justice that white-collar criminals should get comparable sentences anyway.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the argument of far greater effect on white-collar criminals actually has it pretty much backwards.
Ignoring for a moment the problem that a lot of this sort of crime isn't prosecuted, or results in no real sentence,
A white collar criminal who does gets caught and serve time is likely to lose some opportunities due to it. However, they likely have resources, education, etc. to make a go of something legal afterwards. If it isn't the high-flying career they once envisioned, who should really shed any tears?
By comparison, especially in the case of poor young men, sentencing to a high security system for any amount of time is extremely detrimental, particularly for those who aren't already career criminals. Couple this with the difficulty of getting any decent job with such a record, and you have a recipe for recidivism.
further musing: I know quite a few lawyers, and of all of them only one has any real idea of what the life of the working poor is really like, let alone the endemic poor. That's because he grew up there. Even the few lawyers and social workers I have known who work mostly with poor clients have had a pretty shocking lack of basic understanding of their lives. The numbers are similar when I consider academics & physicians I know. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my experience generalizes enough to suggest that any such arguments are made either through blatant self interest, classism, or people simply talking out of their backsides.
So as not to diminish the original post by the threadjack, let me repeat: Fuck the rapists, and their lawyer who trashed the victim's life in order to intimidate her, because he knew that if he kept it in the courtroom they had no chance.
If that's really true, the US sure must be a terribly stratified class society.
It always has been, and Reagan and both Bushes have worked to make it more so. Clinton was a terribly flawed figure, but he slowed the trend in some respects. Much of the Democratic Party has made its peace with increased stratification.
Lind's "Made in Texas" argues that Dubya's Texas oilman environment was a direct descendant of the plantation economy of the Old South. This way of life held that the mass of men, white or black, deserved to be dispossessed, uneducated, disenfranchised, brutish, and poor.
I read about this case a while back, and when I recognized it in the linked post I couldn't read about it again. But if I remember correctly, I think there may have been some Schiavo-diagnosis-by-tape-style thinking going on: not everyone agreed that she was really unconscious based on some very slim evidence.
Also, agreed on the need to punish white collar crime more harshly.
You know, I started reading comment 11. I assumed it would be very much like the comments I was familiar with from earlier in the thread. A couple of sentences in, I learned that the comment was in fact by Gary Farber. I lost interest at once, and stopped reading. I don't care about Gary Farber. Life is short.
The disparity in treatment between the criminal behaviour of the poor and the criminal behaviour of the middle and upper-classes is mind-boggling here in the UK, just as much as in the US.
I'd also be surprised if anything is EVER done about it. Both our societies are run by and for the middle and upper classes entirely in their own self-interest and those who are the victims of this sentencing disparity are unlikely to ever be in a position to exercise power in ways that will make for change.
It's all so depressing.
With the rape case, it really is unfortunate that this poor girl's family aren't in a position to bring to bear some real karmic retribution.
Alright, in my capacity as blog cohostess I'm going to call foul on 61. Gary is chronically incapable of striking a tone appropriate to the discussion at hand, and it was very unfortunately on display here tonight, but come on, but that's way beyond what is acceptable to say to someone on this blog, and disporportionate to what he did, which was mostly to take the wrong tone (the *really* wrong tone, in a discussion about a violent rape and harrassement campaign).
re: white collar crime. I suspect if that argument has any pull on the legal academy, it's because they, being the Best of the Best of the Best, and such overachievers that it's rather like suggesting a grade of C as a penalty to a straight-A student. The horrors! A full year behind bars! My dad would kill me!
White-collar crime is more harmful but it also seems to be the sort of thing that's always sneaky, behind the scenes, and not physically violent at all. Not even a broken window or a door or a missing wallet. It's hard for our animal brains to think of misreporting an insurance claim as a crime because it's a matter of writing a number down wrong.
Back on the veldt, we just fed the accountants to the tigers.
It's also possible that we want to punish and redeem the white collar criminal, not turn him into a better (more violent?) criminal. I suspect somewhere in there is an unspoken acknowledgement that time in prison correlates inversely with rehabilitation.
"Correlates inversely with rehabilitation" for white-collar criminals, but obviously not for other, really bad criminals.
It's hard to realize how brutal businessmen can be if you don't know them personally, or don't have first-hand knowledge of exactly what they're doing.
A lot of white-collar crime is just cheating on money, sometimes very large amounts of money, but some of it is pretty deadly. Systematic violation of workplace safety standards or consumer safety standards, flouting environmental protection rules (e.g., for mercury or lead), threats to whistleblowers and union organizers. And ripping off pension plans is financial and non-violent, but the victims are usually helpless workers at the end of their work lives who face destitution in their old age.
The second paragraph of 65 gets it exactly right, it seems to me. In my accounting ethics class we looked at a study that suggested that people's hypothetical willingness to fudge numbers was affected a lot more by whether they perceived fudging as unfair rather than by their alleged level of moral development. Which made me suggest that one of the reasons accounting fraud doesn't seem like such a big deal is you don't have any face time with the people who lose their money (and, I might add, the causal chain may not be so clear—if I steal your wallet it's clear that I am the cause of the loss of your money, if you bought stock that loses value because I cooked the books there's a much more complicated story of how you lost the money).
But I think we need to retrain ourselves, because what really matters is the consequences, and white-collar crime has worse consequences. (The point about physical violence is also well taken though.)
SCMT, I think the thing is is that 'we', the people who write the laws as per 63, want to redeem the white collar criminal and don't give a flying fuck about the nasty dirty horrible street criminal, who is Not Our Kind, Darling. I suspect that more time in prison is a lot more likely to make blue-collar criminals more well-connected hardcore criminals than it is for white-collar criminals. We have not yet reached the stage where white-collar criminals can network in prison.
Right, Weiner. I think psychology is against justice here. First, simple instances of theft, murder, etc., are prototypical instances* of wrongdoing, whereas the psychological salience of WC wrongdoing is different enough to undermine attempts to take it more seriously. Given that prosecutorial judgments of "how bad a crime it is" affects decision to charge, prosecute, cut deals, etc., this will affect outcomes. Second, the complexity of WCC often involves more costly prosecution.
*I mean this in a sort of term-of-art way, that is, I'm *not* suggesting that WCC is "less of a crime."
48: washerdreyer, can you name names for that argument? Because it really is scandalously bad, on a par with Jefferson’s argument that slavery is bad—for slaveholders; with various anti-desegregationists' arguments why white children can’t be switched to previously all-black schools (well, the black children are used to poor conditions, y’see). And people, but maybe especially people in the academy, who hold that position ought to be ashamed.
Further on that point: I find myself more and more saying, x ought to be ashamed. Nobody actually has any shame anymore, do they? I’ve seen grown people push ahead variously of the elderly, the handicapped, and small children in queues at airports, for god’s sake.
That’s my new political slogan: More shame, America!
Actually, it’s kind of on-topic with the post title, too.
56- There's that Peguy line, "Short of genius a rich man cannot even imagine poverty." That's the starting point and theme of that DeMott book I mentioned here.
71 -- I seem to remember reading a couple of years ago about a conservative intellectual movement to restore the tarnished role of shame in American society, and thinking, now there's a conservative intellectual movement I could get behind. And then not bothering to read anything more about it ever. So this is reconstructed from very hazy memory -- anyone have more of a clue than I, what I'm talking about?
69 -- "WC wrongdoing" == failing to put the toilet seat down when you're done.
SCMT, I think the thing is is that 'we', the people who write the laws as per 63, want to redeem the white collar criminal and don't give a flying fuck about the nasty dirty horrible street criminal, who is Not Our Kind
Agree entirely. I thought that was implicit. And it's not that street criminals are Not Our Kind; it's that they don't live on our street. Finally, there is something peculiarly troubling about violent criminals - I'm not sure it's a stand against immorality as a stand against chaos.
Yeah. I got pissed off, and swore at Gary -- I did not mean by that to declare open season on him. I generally like Gary, and like having him comment here, and "I hope you die" is really inappropriately unpleasant directed at anyone.
Sorry I had to quit this thread last night. I'm still stuck on the making of a tape. If this is a pattern, it seems to me the tape seals a bond between the perpetrators, and is important in their relationship to one another. It is closely related to the bond between soldiers, who through the ages and in our time have engaged in group rape, loving each other and hating the outside world. Perhaps, as we have seen already, in the age of the camera phone, the Nankings, Berlins and Sarajevos of the future will be copiously recorded. If as you say these are criminal families to start with, than the soldier-like mutual bonding and commitment to one another, which the tape ensures and seals because of it's shared triumph and potential threat are all the more obvious.
73: I vaguely remember it being Gertrude Himmelfarb promoting the Victorians' virtues of hard work, self-reliance, and deferral of gratification (for the peasantry).
See the second paragraph here, last three paragraphs here (note, the last link is a princeton site but gives me a weird certificate-related warning).
Or, "You are embarrassing the angels!"
[On preview: 74, cool; I thought it was worth making explicit. And I agree about the troubling aspect of violent crime, it's just that the disparity seems greater than can be accounted for by that factor alone.]
There's a non-psychological reason why white-collar crime seems less harmful than it is. White-collar crime is more often covered up entirely, and almost always gets less publicity and less dramatic publicity.
I'm alert to pension-looting, and for me it was a big part of the story, but in the media there wasn't a lot of stress on the older Enron workers who'd lost decades of contributions and in many cases were faced with trying to survive on Social Security alone.
I'm aware that a way has been found to blame the Enron workers for their fate, since many were cheerleaders for their crooked company, and since some of them missed chances to diversify their portfolio. But pension-looting is an example of a big story which is under-covered. For an individual it can mean the difference between trying to live on $1200 a month and $2500 a month, and that's an enormous difference.
Finally, there is something peculiarly troubling about violent criminals - I'm not sure it's a stand against immorality as a stand against chaos.
This may be the feeling, but it's wrong, though. It is easier -- much easier -- for an individual to protect themselves against violent crime in our society (I'm not talking about martial arts, just things like locked doors, etc.) than to protect themselves against white collar crimes.
And this:
It's also possible that we want to punish and redeem the white collar criminal, not turn him into a better (more violent?) criminal. I suspect somewhere in there is an unspoken acknowledgement that time in prison correlates inversely with rehabilitation.
Is also off-base practically. Prison time will turn someone into a low-level violent criminal, if they have the skills and personality for it, but it won't turn them into a WCC. Being a WCC is contingent on being able to hold down a job with a certain amount of power -- severe prison time is much more likely to incapacitate someone for life as a WCC (that is, he won't be able to get the next high-powered job) than as a low-level violent criminal. It's also, probably, unlikely to turn a WCC into a low-level violent criminal: no matter what you do to Ivan Boesky in prison, he isn't going to end up breaking windows or snatching handbags -- he doesn't have the personality or the skill set.
One reason that white collar crime probably feels different is that many of the SEC rules, for example, were written to stop widespread practices. That is, they weren't always crimes, and were activities responsible for creating some large American fortunes. Didn't Joe Kennedy make all his money in ways that he himself ruled against once he became head of the SEC?
Additionally, some forms of white-collar crime are so similar to standard accounting practices that it's impossible to tell that something's a crime unless something goes wrong and becomes public.
Enron and Arthur Andersen are two very good examples of this. It ended publicly, and badly, but the practices used at Enron weren't markedly different from the practices used at other companies audited by AA. Bad on AA then? Not really, as the rest of the Big Five have nearly identical procedures (and now, most of the AA personnel.) There's more than a bit of 'there but for the grace of God' in our intuitions toward this.
Plus a sense that a failure to file a 1325-Q form to replace the 1324-Q form within 18 months except when a 1332-Jv3 Extension has been filed really doesn't constitute a crime.
It is closely related to the bond between soldiers, who through the ages and in our time have engaged in group rape, loving each other and hating the outside world.
Ah, the good old days. I remember those special group rape classes in basic training. Oh my, I just cannot remember all the group rapes I participated in in my 20 years of service--each more special than the other--as my soldiers and I bonded in that unique military ritual. Yes, it is a special military tradition that we honor and love almost as much as baby killing, burning villages and torturing prisoners.
but the practices used at Enron weren't markedly different from the practices used at other companies audited by AA
Pardon? Accounting isn't enough my thing that I can talk in an educated fashion about what happened in Enron without going back and doing the reading over again, but I haven't heard anyone say it wasn't unusual. Do you mean that AA's practices that failed to catch the fraud weren't unusual? Because that seems more likely.
People who have influential friends on the outside will seldom be victimized in prison, especially not in federal prisons. The victims are usually nobodies who are completely on their own because they have no support on the outside.
The prison staff generally knows what's going on, and they turn a blind eye or intervene depending on what's in it for them. If the word comes down from high up that Prisoner X should be kept safe, he will be. And if Prisoner X has a string of high-powered visitors, the effect is the same.
Most WC criminals are sent to special WC facilities anyway.
I wouldn't be surprised if the families of the rapists have already worked their networks to contact people within the prison system.
and to 82: Yes, Ideal, Tingley should not have phrased his comments so as to imply that all soldiers routinely commit group rapes as a form of bonding. Given the fact that it is something that does occur in wars with a certain amount of regularity, and that he specified occasions in which it did, in fact, unquestionably occur, can we accept that he was not pointing a finger at you or all the non-rapists you served with?
Cala, I doubt at least some of that about Enron and Andersen. Check this and the whole series; there was a lot of deliberate and knowing deception going on. It may be that the difference is the line between bilking your stockholders in a routine legal way and bilking your stockholders in a way that's actually criminal, but if so that's one of these "The scandal is what is legal" moments. (And all this deception stuff is supposed to be a violation of the spirit of the accounting ethics codes, chortle chortle.)
I was a soldier myself, Idealist. All soldiers are no more rapists then all men are, but the pattern, the fact that the situation has led innumerable times to group rape, is there, and the need for discipline in just such situations palpable. As a former soldier, what do you think when you here of group rapes by soldiers? What did you think of Abu Ghraib?
83: Do you mean that AA's practices that failed to catch the fraud weren't unusual?
As I understand, AA did have an unusual organizational feature; I'd have to look it up, but it went something like the partner in charge of the audit was able to overrule the quality control partner when he objected to the, um, aggressive accounting tactics that were being used. The Final Four firms as I understand it never allowed the partner in charge of the audit to blow off ethics concerns like that all on his ownsome.
80 gets it exactly right. Insider trading was once lauded by someone important as simply the businessman's prerogative for being a well-connected businessman. 1929 put an end to that, of course.
But there's a sense in which it takes a superhuman effort to avoid these sorts of temptations. You're a businessman. So is your best friend. You like your friend, and you know he's a good businessman and so when he starts a new company, you invest some money. And his company does well. Because you're good friends, you always chat about your plans for your business and he chats about his plans for his; both of you are careful not to engage in insider trading. You might even help each other out by recommending lawyers and accountants. And one day your friend mentions that there's a problem, and he's worried.
Now, nothing you've done to this point is illegal or unethical, unless we expect businessmen not to have friends. But now if you sell your stock before the information goes public, you've done something wrong. There's good practical reasons for it, but it seems really weird that your only legitimate course of action is to watch your money go away.
That's the hard part about teaching business ethics. It's rare that the mob walks in, puts a million bucks on your desk, and asks you to doctor the books. Being careful and good at what you do can land you in an ethically tricky situation.
It is easier -- much easier -- for an individual to protect themselves against violent crime in our society
By chaos, I meant that a violent act is more likely to lead to some strange and unfamiliar series of unexpected acts. If someone hits you outside a bar, you might fight back, which might bring his friends in, etc. If someone embezzles your money, you go to the police. You're in less of a position for direct action.
eing a WCC is contingent on being able to hold down a job with a certain amount of power -- severe prison time is much more likely to incapacitate someone for life as a WCC
I suspect that most WCC is not the Fortune 500 CEO overstating earnings, but the junior accountant fiddling accounts. I could pretty easily see the junior accountant networking with other scam artists in prison. Also, I was thinking that normalizing sentences would including housing them with the people who've committed the sorts of crimes we're talking about normalizing them with. In such cases, and because I'm not the least bit convinced that personality is persistent, I could see the junior accountant becoming more criminal and more violent. I don't know, though - there must be studies. At present, my reference point is Oz.
Insider trading was once lauded by someone important as simply the businessman's prerogative for being a well-connected businessman.
Insider trading is a special case, though, of something that really wouldn't be criminal in another context. (That is, outside the securities context, there's generally nothing wrong with sharing information with your friends and not others, unless it's information that you are under some particular duty to keep secret.) Enron-style frauds aren't in that category -- they are literal frauds that would remain criminal if they were scaled down to a corner candy store.
Weiner, I was working for AA at the time. It's not a difference of kind. Everyone tries to use the complicated loopholes to their advantage. Before AA was brought down, E&Y had the biggest settlement against them.
The accountants & lawyers from the auditing firm are there not to ensure compliance with the spirit of the law, but to make sure the i's and t's are dotted and crossed, and the accountants are wholly dependent on what the client chooses to reveal. It's really pretty stupid.
I doubt that if E &Y, D&T or KPMG had Enron as a case that their oversight procedures would have caught any of the shady dealings going on, is all I'm saying.
I doubt that if E &Y, D&T or KPMG had Enron as a case that their oversight procedures would have caught any of the shady dealings going on, is all I'm saying.
Got it -- so I had you right in 83, saying not that Enron, but that AA, wasn't unusual. That's not that far off from my persection, with the caveat that 'not unusual' for auditors at this time does not mean that their practises were not (as I understand from what I remember of the case -- I'm recalling the opinions I formed, but really need to refresh myself on the facts) very obviously flawed.
the need for discipline in just such situations palpable
Absolutely true. One of the hardest things in war is dealing with a situtation where soldiers are expected to do things that would be considered horrible in any other context, but at the same time to refrain from doing other horrible things that are not considered OK. You are honored for killing the enemy in battle; it is a capital offense to kill the enemy after he surrenders. I further agree that the fact that this tension is a natural incident of war does not excuse the commission of horrible acts, such as rape or torture. (though it is not inconsistent with this to at the same time not be surprised that such things happen).
As a former soldier, what do you think when you here of group rapes by soldiers? What did you think of Abu Ghraib?
Seems like a pretty insulting question, if I understand its implications. If there is a civil point behind it, let me know and I will consider responding.
I doubt that if E &Y, D&T or KPMG had Enron as a case that their oversight procedures would have caught any of the shady dealings going on, is all I'm saying.
Yeah, I agree. It may be that the accounting ethics textbooks I teach out of make a big deal of that as a sort of pious lip service to the idea that Enron was doing something Bad and you should avoid doing Bad Things, like not letting the ethics officers run the company. I have a sinking feeling that these textbooks contain a lot of pious lip service that doesn't reflect the way accounting firms actually make teh profit. And, not knowing much about accounting besides the research I do to teach this course, I'm not at all in the best position to teach this. Want my job?
About the audit though, I think the issue here is that AA's problems wasn't really on the audit side. AA was not only doing the audit, they were also consulting with Enron–telling them how to set up those very shady dealings. I'm not exactly sure how the information flow worked, but I am pretty sure that with at least some of the people involved it wasn't a question of fraud slipping by the auditors, but of active collusion.
I once had an argument with my best friend's former girlfriend, who was a zealous young Republican, in which she stated that the Enron employees who lost their pensions were fools, because they should have invested their money more wisely. I said, so you're saying they should have known their employer was lying to them? She said yes, of course.
The young Republicans: striving for an America scripted by David Mamet.
To expand on 96, and in the interests of making peace --
Ideal: Can I ask you to assume that Tingley is not intending to insinuate that you personally, or that those who serve in the US military generally, approve of gang rape or of what happened at Abu Ghraib? And that the civil point behind his question, which seems glaringly obvious to me, is that such bad acts are a particular risk of wartime situations, as history has shown that they do, in fact, consistently happen in wartime, despite the disapproval of all decent and right thinking people?
And can we all just lighten up? There's an awful lot of overreaction going on in this thread, the first of which was mine in comment 22.
non-violent blue collar crime also has disparate sentencing (look at all the young men in jail for possesion or smale-scale selling of controlled drugs, etc.)
89: the `super human' effort needed to avoid insider trading etc. is miniscule compared to the effort needed to walk the straight and narrow growing up empoverished in a system that is in some ways designed to keep you there.
92 etc.: is it possible that the problem really comes down to institutionalizing corrupt practices?
Listen, you're the one who pleased himself to think I was accusing all soldiers of being rapists, when my point was that these relations are well-known and when you say not to be surprised that such things happen, I hear you saying the same thing. But your first reply was so defensive I wanted to see how much agreement we had on basic facts. Your first paragraph in #95 would have been a more-than-satisfactory answer to me.
And that the civil point behind his question, which seems glaringly obvious to me, is that such bad acts are a particular risk of wartime situations, as history has shown that they do, in fact, consistently happen in wartime, despite the disapproval of all decent and right thinking people?
I apologize if I misunderstood the point of the question. If what LizardBreath suggests above is the question, the first part of 95 is my answer.
I have to admit, I'm not overly impressed by the super-human efforts of those who are successful and have stayed on the straight and narrow. Most people have stories of shady successful co-workers, and, for the most part, people in an organization (IME) have roughly similar senses of who's shady and who's not. Something is driving that ability to distinguish consistently.
I just spent a little while digging through my class slides for this quote from the Powers Report postmortem on Enron:
The creation, and subsequent restructuring, of the Raptors was seen by many within Enron as a triumph of accounting ingenuity…. little more than a highly complex accounting construct that was destined to collapse. It is particularly surprising that the accountants at Andersen, who should have brought a measure of objectivity and perspective to these transactions, did not do so.… Andersen in fact offered Enron advice at every step.
Not sure whether "particularly surprising" translates as "shocked! shocked!" But Andersen knew what was going on. I'm not saying that AA was particularly unusual among the accounting firms here, but it isn't a question of auditors failing to catch the fraud, accountants as consultants are helping to perpetrate it. (And, so say my sources, auditors were being used to cultivate consulting customers; post-Enron this has been banned in theory but it's being got around.)
I totally agree with 89, though. You can't be expected not to be friends to the people you work with, and you can't be expected not to seek a profit. One of the themes that I always hear (including from real live accounting professors) is that hard and fast rules aren't enough but have to be backed by principles. But it seems to me sometimes that we really need to emphasize the rules and how circumventing them is Wrong, or there just won't be any brake on the forces pushing people to unethical behavior.
I'm fine with you, and I'll try to be more careful in my implications. And I do understand your prickliness on this subject; it seems that a generation ago a basic understanding of military realities was a common understanding of a large part of the population, due to mass participation in the wars, now not so much. I well remember how revolted I was in 1971, shortly after my discharge and when discussing the war (which I had always opposed) with my Canadian cousins. They took for granted a US Army of thugs and rapists, and the blythness of that assumption infuriated me.
A lot of white-collar crime isn't just about remote and essentially victimless financial crimes.
It's about people dying because of lax safety standards and corners being cut so the shareholders or the directors can make an extra pound or two or OAPs having their pension funds robbed.
Personally, I'm sure the sentencing disparity just comes down to members of the moneyed social class looking after their own.
Here, in the UK, when corporate killing or corporate manslaughter convictions get handed out, the sentences are laughable. Until some CEO gets 20 or 30 years in jail and all the members of the board 10 or 12 apiece, the legislation is largely toothless legislation.
First off, disclosure: I trained as an accountant with Andersen in London in the 80's. I left the profession as soon as was decently possible after qualifying. There are elements to auditing that made me feel I was taking a track that lead me to nowhere that was healthy to be. But that is essentially my problem.
Now the substance.
What I personally find to be innovative in the Enron/Anderson story is the paradigm shift from personal responsibility to corporate responsibility. Back in the day, there was a fine distinction between the financial protection a partnership offered an auditor (I am of course writing about engagement leaders) and his or her personal professional liability. Litigants would sue the firms because that was where the substance was, the tort though would always be with the individual audit partner.
The US Authorities broke that model it seems in the Andersen case and saw to it that the firm was brought down on the strength of the (albeit mighty) culpability of the Enron audit team (IIRC there was also some questionable guidance issued from Chicago too?).
Whereas the people involved ought to have been hung out to dry if even only the half of what was reported were true, it seems to me to be a very dangerous precedent to suggest that the firm is at stake if one of your teams screws up. I think the personal liability must be emphasised, not the corporate in this case. A logical consequence of this is now the growing refusal of the profession to provide audit services to mortgage banks in the US on the back of regulatory changes in that vein.
If the perceived risk to the firms in accepting a mandate becomes too high, their will be a spiral set in motion that does no one any good.
I say this despite the fact I find the terms accounting and ethics to be in comic opposition to one another...
If only I could tell the one about the plumbers wholesaler and the recycled radiators!...
As to the actual topic of the post... the whole aim of the fluff above is to hide my shame at being on the same planet as the people who perpertrated that, I have just realised.
116: I tend to make the distinction between white collar crime (i.e. individuals, small groups), and corporate crime (which is even less likely to have reasonalble outcomes, imo). I think we are in agreement on the relative damage....
One reason why financial crime is less shocking is that the ill effects are often distributed over large groups. If you fleece 100,000 people of $10 each few of them even notice, but you've got a tidy little chunk for yourself.
Pension looting is more shocking because a smaller group is hurt, and hurt more per capita. Destroying a pension fund may not kill anyone directly, but it can ruin lives.
Anecdote: the college library I used to use had terrible, inefficient, expensive, old-fashioned, badly-maintained copy machines. I just assumed that it was some kind of inefficiency problem and gritted my teeth. It turned out that the person in charge had been embezzling funds for over a decade, so they weren't able to upgrade, or even to maintain the machines they had.
So that was a case when the effects were visible, albeit small.
Sure! We can trade. You can write chapter one of my dissertation.
It's probably not a bad way to sell ethics. 'Enron got caught because they did Bad Things' is probably easier than 'Enron did Bad Things like everyone else but they got caught.'
For what it's worth, I think the biggest problem with auditing firms wasn't that the senior audit partner had the final ethical call on the quality control partner's recommendations, but that the accounting firms started to spin off all these small money-making extra services. (Hey, the i-bankers and the tech guys were getting rich. Us too!)
That in and of itself isn't a problem, as at AA, at least, the two businesses were relatively separate. The problem was that the client only buys extra services from the firm if they're happy, and that seems to be at odds with a hard-nosed audit. You make your client happy by finding ways to make their practices legal (the creative accounting you mentioned), not by saying, 'Guys, you're not making as much money as you want to tell your shareholders, and we have to tell them.'
Technically, AA was brought down on an obstruction of justice charge, just overturned on appeal, not a fraud charge.
Absolutely agreed with 121 as far as I can tell. That's part of the reason I suspect that the bit about the quality control partner is Pious Lip Service; the problem seems to be that there's really very little incentive for the auditors to find things out.
I would totally take that trade, although it may not be in the spirit of "you would probably do a better job teaching accounting ethics than I do."
I might go around writing people's dissertations in exchange for their teaching my classes (I had a bad teaching week -- realized I've been misinforming my class about quantified S5 for a while, and don't see any clear way to fix it), but I probably wouldn't be willing to trade salaries.
This talk of white-collar corporate malfeasance brings to mind something a friend of mine in law school here told me. He attended either a talk given, or a class hosted, by a lawyer who represented industry in a lot of environmental cases, and said that the companies he represented have gotten a lot better about environmental issues. For instance, people tended to be unhappy about giant tanks of oil at refineries, because they tend to lead to respiratory illness and other bad things.
So, the companies paint them brown, and plant nicely-landscaped bushes around them. Now, the people aren't as unhappy, presumably because they don't notice the tanks as much.
To me, this is like priasing a doctor who, when you go to visit him with a really bad multiply-broken bone, gives you morphine so you don't feel the pain, and sends you home, for having cured you.
76: I think this is right. It's pretty well-established that one of the more common and important aspects of male adolescence/young adulthood is bonding with other males (the jury's out, I think, on whether this is a neutral, a natural, or a patriarchy-reinforcing thing, or indeed whether it's all three). I've in fact used this bonding-against-authority behavior in the classroom; if you can get a group of students ticked off at you for being a tough grader, *and* you can get them to bond, they'll spur one another on to work harder just to show you they can do it. Obviously part of the role of the tape here is to cement the bond between the rapists.
As to the military stuff, I think it's ridiculous for any soldier or former soldier to take offense when people bring up the established tendency of military situations to create sex- and/or violence-reinforced bonding. First of all, that *is* how military brotherhood operates: you have to feel loyal to the soldiers in your unit above all. Second of all, the prevalence of such activity is well-known even in non-combat situations (Tailhook, the shenanigans in the AFA, your average jody chant). Pointing out that institutions operate with certain ideologies doesn't mean that every individual within those institution consciously holds, or approves of, those ideologies.
I've had some classes where I feel like by the end of it I should just quit because if Leibniz is the best we have and he doesn't make any fucking sense, I should go become an accountant.
I have just realized that some links to Jordan Barab's blog in 46 were off by one. I know you're shocked. The first should go where the last went, and the last should go here.
*smiles fixedly, pats pockets of tweed jacket absentmindedly, thinking of tobacco and a snifter; wonders why all the clever people don't make sense these days*
Whatever rhetorical victories you becry, ogmb, I must say that death-wishes are awfully rude, not cricket, and really unpleasant. I'm administrix on what could be called a hate site, and most regulars would call your 61 inappropriate even before I got to it. Let us be excellent to one another.
He's such a prolific writer and a talented analyst. It's hard to believe that his ear is that tin; charitably, I'll believe him, but it always strikes me as passive-aggressive, although I'm sure that's due to the limitations of tone in text.
Ogmb- I don't understand 135 with any clarity, but I really don't like 61. That, among other comments, one of which was mine, has ended up pissing off Gary enough that he doesn't intend to keep commenting here. I like having Gary around, and I'm sorry he won't be here, and I hope he rethinks that decision.
If your intention was to gloat about that, I wish you wouldn't, and I think ill of you.
Ok, I'm trying to post an apology based on what he's written in his post, but I can't get @#$& blogger to publish it. How did the other comments go up? Tia?
JFTR, I read 61 as an example of intentional tone deafness to illustrate tone deafness.
A negative comment I once made here about Starship Troopers was met with something along the lines of "I wish I could reach through the internet and punch you in the balls" from a regular (a remark uncommented on as I recall), so 61 didn't strike me as that unusual in the one way or the other.
I gave up trying to comment on his blog a while back -- it just never seems to work. I've actually managed to comment on other blogspot blogs that require registry, but on Amygdala the password won't work.
As the author of 62, even I thought 61 was going too far. And even though it's not a defense, 62 is patterned after this, which is what I thought of while reading 11.
LB, it means that what I wrote was on purpose over the top, inappropriate and rude, and it was also at that point my unfiltered reaction to GF's posts. It was, if you wish, an exercise in taking unfiltered exchange to absurd levels. And JM, I don't "becry rhetorical victories", whatever that means.
Honestly, folks, I think it's kind of crappy to talk about someone when they're not in the room. I remember it being done to me, and it felt a lot like being kicked while down.
I have a real blogspot account and a real blogspot blog and I can't seem to use them for the purposes of anything today. And I can't get hotmail to work on this computer in order to e-mail my comment to myself to try on another computer since I think this browser may be a problem.
I have a hell of a time commenting on blogspot blogs (that require registration). I've successfully created a phony account, and used it to comment at least once somewhere, but now the password (the same one I use for everything unimportant) doesn't seem to work.
A negative comment I once made here about Starship Troopers was met with something along the lines of "I wish I could reach through the internet and punch you in the balls" from a regular
What can I say? I really hate that movie, and really love that book. But my remark was intended to be obvious hyperbole, rather than vicious hostility. Sorry if you didn't read it the way I intended.
160 - I figured that (esp. as no one reacted) , but I wasn't 100% sure. The tone here is often difficult for an outsider to judge, and unless it's someone I know from ObWi I read all comments here with the understanding I may be dropping a sign. I've long wondered how Gary, with his literal leanings, makes sense of the dialogue here when I, trained to some extent from poetry in obfuscation and indirection and inflected irony, often find it hard to keep my bearings.
Anyway, I think my point stands that 61 isn't that far out.
Yeah, Idealist was at least once thoroughly offended by a comment addressed to him in jest here. (At least, I'm morally certain it was in jest.) If he sees this and wants to give details, he can, but as a non-participant, I'm not dredging it up.
I guess I started commenting heavily right around the time of the great Dr. B. banning, and figured that if I hadn't been asked to leave after the level of hostility that got to, that I was reasonably secure here. And I just can't think of when anyone here has said anything unpleasant to me.
I still don't understand why B was banned. She wasn't congenial? Whuh? I thought I might be banned after the gay thread, since I guessed I was being uncongenial too, but I wasn't. Hooray!
It was a conversation about torture, everyone was pissy, and I was probably inappropriately rude to everyone on the blog. If you google torture and Bitch, you'll find the relevant threads. But that'd be another thing which we could do without a rehash of.
Dredging things up serves no particular purpose. Let's just say that I sympathize with Gary (this is a comment about me as much as it is about the tone here). And at any rate, as LizardBreath has told me several times, if I want to police tone, I should go find a right-wing website to police the tone of. Not an unfair observation. As an outsider, I can cope or leave.
I have been commenting a lot more lately for a variety of reasons. If you all find it too annoying, let me know and I can revert to lurking.
If you all find it too annoying, let me know and I can revert to lurking.
Jesus H. Christ. No one wants anyone to stop commenting. Can everyone stop being touchy or I swear to god I'm starting my own blog, not telling any of you where it is, and not posting on it. That'll show you all.
179: LB, I'm really sorry we've all annoyed you so much, and I promise that I, for one, will be better from here on out. Unless you want me to leave, in which case just say the word. I'll totally understand.
Gee, not threatening to go off in a huff. I've been lurking here for almost a year. Just saying that sometimes too much drama is wearing. We can't have LizardBreath searching the Internet for kitten pictures to post three times a day.
re: 178
You'll still be first against the wall come the revolution, but you're cool.
That's cool. One of my partners said something similar to LizardBreath after the last Presidential election. I think she still has not seen the humor in the remark. But we're cool.
It was more along the lines of "We'll be rounding up your kind and putting them in camps soon." Not that I'm scarred for life or anything.
(The partner in question is the child of Holocaust survivors, and I'm pretty much SuperGoy. So no creepy anti-Semitic overtones. Just general creepiness.)
190: Alright, ac, so I'd been getting a little nookie backstage of Unfogged that I haven't confessed. Don't Ogged and I seem meant for each other? He'll rue his decision.
If one wants to be mean and personal, may I suggestHating on Charles Bird? Despite the name, the site really is available for everyone to hate on everyone else, if they like. Remember the not-yet official guidelines, though: mean and personal are fine, but we at HoCB take a moderately oppostional stance against petty and tedious.
if I want to police tone, I should go find a right-wing website to police the tone of.
Boy, I sure hope that's wrong. Tone and civility, let me suggest, are morally prior to partisan leanings. The idea that there's a "left" civility or a "republican" civility (not that I think idealist is suggesting this) makes me want to howl at the moon. Civility is real. Treating people respectfully is real (even virtual avatar people who may be 16 year olds in juvie like somecallmetim). Politics, by contrast, are mostly kabuki play. Sure we have preferences, we can organize, volunteer, or give money. Those things have meaning. But most of what I personally think, what I personally say, and 99.99% of anything I write on the web fulminating on Iraq, health care, or the sad deline of municpally-funded freakshows is just miles removed from the actual moral action of my life.
194: I've been lurking there for a while, on and off, but as someone without the energy to keep up with ObWi, I'd feel sort of out of place if I just jumped in and started hating. True hatred needs time to grow.
48: Sorry I dropped out of this thread after making that scandalous claim, I was mostly referring to things I saw cited in a different piece I was reading. Here's the entire text of one footnote I was thinking of:
See, e.g., Transcript of Sentencing, United States v. Daniel Bayly, No. H-CR-03-363 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 21,
2005) (on file with author), at 61 (judge reduced sentences of first executives convicted for crimes relating to collapse
of Enron Corporation from approximately 10 years to approximately three years because "ignominy of conviction" amply
punishes and deters successful people); David A. Skeel, Jr., Shaming in Corporate Law, 149 U. PA. L. REV. 1811, 1831-
32 (2001) (summarizing commentary supporting "shaming" sanctions); Richard A. Posner, Optimal Sentences for White-
Collar Criminals, 17 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 409 (1980) (fines superior to prison as method of deterring the wealthy).
Here's another one, though it's making a somewhat different and less controversial point:
See Sanford H. Kadish, Some Observations on the Use of Criminal Sanctions in Enforcing Economic
Regulations, 30 U. CHI. L. REV. 423, 437 (1963) (deterrence works not just because of fear of getting caught but also
because of desire not to violate law, especially among people who think of themselves as "respectable").
The Skeel piece is my best chance of having not been drastically overstating my point.
fines superior to prison as method of deterring the wealthy
I'm curious HTF he argues for that. The wealthy, it seems to me, have more money than time, and so would be less deterred by the prospect of losing $X than by the prospect of losing Y years, compared to poorer people.
I probably have access to this article, but you will also note that I am up way too late (doing something that I have to have done by tomorrow, alas).
Tone and civility, let me suggest, are morally prior to partisan leanings. The idea that there's a "left" civility or a "republican" civility (not that I think idealist is suggesting this) makes me want to howl at the moon. Civility is real.
Sure. All that I think Ideal meant is that it is much easier to be certain of your own good faith when one is policing the civility of people who agree with you. If I'm talking with conservatives (apart from close friends), I'm going to let a lot of rudeness pass, for fear that I'm confusing disagreement with abuse. With people who agree with me, I can tell them to keep it civil on much less provocation, because so long as I agree with the substance, I know that anything offensive must be in the tone.
While everyone should try to argue civilly, if you're going to complain about bad manners it makes sense to start with your allies, rather than your enemies.
Also, Unfogged has a special tone, and it's the job of relative newcomers to adapt, rather than the other way around. Some things are clearly wrong for the tone, like 61, which rang to my ear entirely different than most of the comments here: it wasn't adopting a playfully combative pose; it was hostile.
All that I think Ideal meant is that it is much easier to be certain of your own good faith when one is policing the civility of people who agree with you.
Uh, not really what I meant at all. I have a pretty firm belief in my own good faith.
However, it still is actually pretty reasonable to expect that if I want to be the civility police, I should go find a website where people otherwise agree with me, so that it can be clear to them that the disagreement is about the tone, not the substance of their arguments. Otherwise, the two things--disagreement about substance and disagreement about tone, get confused.
Besides, someone being a scold and getting their feelings hurt when the tone gets offensive is a pain in the ass. And who needs that?
Fair enough -- while I get neurotic about my own good faith sometimes, there's no reason everyone else should.
Also, Unfogged has a special tone, and it's the job of relative newcomers to adapt, rather than the other way around.
I'm not all that keen about this way of putting this. While I can't deny that I love the clubbiness around here, I don't like the idea of barriers to entry. I'd like to think that anyone who's enjoying the conversation felt welcome to join in.
It's not a barrier to entry, LB. It just means, for example, that it would be inappropriate for someone new to show up and say they were offended by profanity, or to pick a real life example, that no one should complain about formatting when their friend was getting hip replacement surgery.
But I don't think anyone should worry about being inappropriate. Someone who shows up and trolls like Mr. Hip replacement is going to get the response he got, and that's good -- I just don't like framing it as a responsibility on the part of new commenters to understand our specialness.
Thing is, I don't think there's many places on the Internet where it would be okay to tell someone 'I hope you die', or berate a poster for making a post about a frivolous topic because some people have hip replacements (and other people can't afford hips), or to wander into a discussion of a horrible crime and sigh about how much it bores you. It happens all over the place, but that doesn't mean it's welcomed.
In 1994, 800,000 Tutsis were killed in Rwanda in 100 days and my cat Hemingway got run over by a car. I am so terribly sad to hear of all the barriers-to-entry woes you guys suffer and I hope you all get over it in the near future without too much angst.
I think that's what tempted me to start commenting here. It's very difficult to find people who can get the tone of something, even when they gleefully ignore its content. It's a difficult reading skill.
Alright, LB, if you don't like it framed as a responsibility, I'll retract it. I was trying to mention this in the context of a discussion about civility. What counts as uncivil in another context could easily not so count in this one, though at the same time there is such a thing as unacceptable incivility here, and I think it's important that commenters try to understand that a) that people will be teased but b) that does not mean it's okay to say anything that comes to mind. For that matter, perhaps my real mistake was in referring to newcomers, because oldcomers are just as capable of erring in this regard.
Gary, based on my experience, you'll never entirely get away from the feeling that you're on probation and that people suspect you of being an asshole. Young people today are different. There's no way to understand them.
You just have to be what they think of as an asshole in controlled doses, and convince them that your being a supposed asshole is a feature.
And it doesn't always work. I created a terrible storm recently by making a rather obvious pun on Mrs. Zizek's first name. You'd think Freudians and Lacanians would be accepting of that kind of stuff, considering the way they themselves write, but no.
Yikes -- I just had a vision of looking up from my desk to see the MSNBC talking head telling me the missiles would arrive in 30 minutes -- and of then turning back to my screen, opening the Unfogged Innocence thread, and posting a comment to the effect that "Well I guess this is it -- our time done come" -- and then seeing that I had been pwnd by both Tia and Apostropher.
I see on preview that people have moved on, but let me try a little testifying.
The collegiality here is based on having a lot in common, though, which clearly shows in speed of reference, almost effortless literacy, and, um, complete sentences. What we have most in common is style of education, and the associated personality type that selects for and is selected by that education. It's probably not an accident then that most of us have gone on to be grad students, law students or both.
What strains our collegiality is an issue where some of us feel we can't assume the necessary knowledge and understanding from the group as a whole. Yet those are the most vital discussions, and the ones where a certain levity, in the presence of dead seriousness, is most valuable and appreciated, at least by me. It's a bit dangerous, but very satisfying.
An example of such an issue, prominent yesterday, is anything having to do with military service or experience. Idealist, and I would say this is true of Mr. B also, feel they understand this in a way the rest of us by and large don't; I'm impressed by their willingness to try persuading, despite ingrained doubts and suspicions of the kind of people we tend to be, rather than arguing entirely from authority. Other obvious examples, which cut the deck differently, are rape and abortion.
But if we don't stretch the envelope, and test the collegiality, whats the point?
Back in Portland I overheard two East-Coastish Reed College girls talking intently in a bar. One of them said, "OK, but if you're going to marry a rich guy, marry an old rich guy, because after awhile he'll be gone, and you'll still have the money.
So she-whose-name-can't-be-joked-about made a good choice.
They say that "She-Who...." is very sharp. Who is to say that she won't turn out like Hannah Arendt, with a reputation of her own? Do people make smutty jokes about Hannah and Martin? Besides me, I mean?
But you thought the rest of us did?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 5:41 PM
It's time to confront your inner misogynist, Ben.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 5:47 PM
That wasn't very congenial of you, B.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 5:48 PM
No, and it was in terribly poor taste. I ban myself.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 5:49 PM
Oh, god. I'd read that, and thought about linking it, and hadn't a single thing to say about it.
People suck. Can I quit this species and go back to being an orangutan?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 5:50 PM
LB: how about `not nearly long enough' ? I'm with you on the people suck. Problem with quiting and being an orangutan is those damn humans would kill us all of within a couple of decades, most like.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 5:54 PM
I've heard bonobos can be nice. The unsung primate.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:14 PM
You know, rape cases just make me want to beat the shit out of the rapists. Fuck jail time. I want some blood.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:14 PM
The post made me (makes one?) think the link was to something amusing, which is rather unfortunate. Luckily, I'd already read it through Atrios.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:15 PM
Was the judge in this case unusual in his tolerance for the defense's dirty tactics? Or is our culture really so misogynist that most judges don't see what's so deeply wrong with that?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:32 PM
I looked at the link just long enough to conclude that I had no idea who any of the people are, and no idea what is being written about, and don't care.
I don't even have cable tv, if that helps, which it may, since I'm guessing it had something to do with cable tv news. (Though in truth I'd have cable tv if I could afford it; but what I'd make of the modern state of cable tv news, I couldn't say, since aside from reading an occasional transcript of a political program, I know next to nothing about the topic these days; even when I've had cable tv in the past -- well, the mid-Eighties don't seem relevant to today, and even then I liked C-Span; when I briefly had cable again circa 2002-3, I pretty much ignored cable news, just as I've largely ignored local tv "news" broadcasts for decades, since I really have no interest in murders and fires and traffic accidents.)
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:39 PM
Can't really tell what the judge was thinking without a transcript. I'd think that he should have been able to shut these tactics down, but depending on the skills of the defense, it can be very difficult.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:39 PM
Gary-
It's a case in which an unconscious sixteen year old girl was brutally gang raped and then stalked, slandered, and harassed for four years by friends and counsel for the defendants. If you're not going to read the linked material, you probably oughtn't to comment on it. If your stated disinterest was arrived at after knowing the story, you still probably shouldn't comment on it.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:43 PM
I looked at the link just long enough to conclude that I had no idea who any of the people are, and no idea what is being written about, and don't care.
This was maybe not the best instance to publicize your apathy.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:44 PM
Sorry, didn't mean to pile on. Simulposted with LB.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:45 PM
And trials. I don't follow trials. Never have been interested in trials. Even the Chicago 7 was only mildly interesting as a comedy. The whole OJ thing? Never followed any of it. When there are riots about something, I'm interested in the phenomenon; spending time on other details? Life is short. (Not that there's anything wrong with being fascinated with trials, of course; obviously they have all sort of points of utterly legitimate fascination, from the legal issues to the personal dramas to, sometimes, larger issues; I'm just saying that we all pick and choose what we're interested in, and that's all, and nothing more; being fascinated by crimes or fires or traffic accidents is fine, too, just as is being interested in slime molds, electrical wiring, cyberpunk, cozy British mysteries, Scrabble, Cubism, Russian history, Kant, Tolkien, laundry soap, Joss Whedon, whatever, whatever, whatever; I'm just saying I don't follow trials; that's all [and like any rule, there are probably exceptions, though none spring to mind at the moment].)
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:46 PM
That's swell, Gary.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:47 PM
"If you're not going to read the linked material, you probably oughtn't to comment on it."
On a post whose topic is "I didn't need to read this"?
I guess I'm not getting that whole irony thing, or something. Heaven forbid I should comment on the stated topic, which is "not needing to read" something.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:48 PM
Let me say this again.
Not a good topic to trivialize or mock. If you like, go talk about how uninterested you are in Goths. in the next thread over. But I'd strongly prefer if you stopped commenting in this vein in this thread.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:49 PM
"If your stated disinterest was arrived at after knowing the story...."
Incidentally: although I'm definitely disinterested, you want to be on me for my uninterest; what would be wrong with my being objective and disinterested and unbiased?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:49 PM
the stated topic
Sometimes, the topic doesn't even appear as a literal phrase in the post. It's crazy but true.
I'm hoping 16 was written without having previewed.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:50 PM
Gary, shut the fuck up and go away.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:51 PM
Comment 22 is intended to apply to this thread, tonight, rather than to the blog globally. This is not a banning. We've never even talked about who has the authority to ban or what level of agreement we'd have to arrive at, I mostly don't think we should ban anyone, and I certainly don't intend to, or want to, ban Gary.
Just got pissed off.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:57 PM
I haven't read the link (I can't bear to), but I've seen prior stories about the matter. The whole thing is so tragically sad. And, more horrifically, it makes me wonder what the right thing to do for her was. I can't imagine what I'd say to a girl in that situation; it's wrong not make sure the perps are punished, but it so difficult ask anyone, let alone a 16 year-old, to bear up under that. Clearly, you don't want to validate their gutter tactics, but I feel guilty even reading about her case.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 6:59 PM
Baseball bat. Locked room. Five minutes. that's all I'd need.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 7:14 PM
25: Seriously. And not just the three rapists, but the attorney and that Haidl kid's evil father.
Posted by jms | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 7:22 PM
To the death? Or to the pain?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 7:23 PM
Even the girl who discovered the tape and gave it to the police had several years of her life ruined.
This kind of thing is characteristic of societies where the big families are above the law. Mafia, Communist Party, Kuomintang, feudal lords -- they work this way.
Lessons to learn:
Don't make videos of your raping activities. If you feel that you must make videos, keep track of them and don't leave them lying around.
When people are talking about horrific crimes, don't tell people crime doesn't interest you unless you know one of the principals (i.e., the victim or accused.)
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 7:25 PM
Why did MSNBC give a venue to the creepy lawyer? I don't know anything about the Abrams Report; it seems to be a fake-serious crime-scandal show, judging by a glance at the website.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 7:27 PM
Y'know, just this once, I'm glad that brutal prison rape is an unresolved problem. If there's any fairness in this universe, these guys will need many stitches.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 7:55 PM
Also, I suspect the lawyer will need to watch his back for years to come. I'm not sayin' it's right, but when we see his shattered face on the news, there won't be many tears shed. These things do have a way of working themselves out extra-legally. Not always immediately, but eventually.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:00 PM
The making tapes is the thing I haven't been able to get over. That was a feature of the just concluded Chicago trial as well, with somewhat similar facts, down to the well-heeled defendants and consequent agressive defense. How long has this been going on, that doing it isn't enough, you've got to have a tape to watch?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:03 PM
Your fratty friends won't believe you really did something so studly without evidence, dude.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:06 PM
30-31: The perps' families are powerful, ruthless, wealthy hoodlums. They've probably got friends in the prison system, etc., and they probably already have enemies that they've taken steps to protect themselves against. So I imagine that they'll cruise right through this, though the prison time probably won't do the perps any good.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:20 PM
Having said on my blog that we all have a moral obligation to look at the Abu Ghraib pictures, I went and read about this case. I hadn't heard about it before. Now I want to crawl into a corner and die.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:21 PM
Oh dear god. I just don't understand this at all. They videotaped this? They had this on videotape and they could be out of prison in less than two years? I can't even begin to understand this.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:24 PM
Don't underestimate the ubiquity of wanton violence, Emerson. Karma is a bitch.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:24 PM
Yeah, you know, this reminds me of the Ask the Mineshaft thread. Why aren't prison sentences longer for violent sex crimes? This seems like just the case where you'd want to separate them from the population for as long as fucking possible. It's not like a drug crime, that stems from circumstance; it's a hate crime, and goes to the essence of a person, and essence that, let's face it, is probably not going to be altered. Certainly not in jail.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:30 PM
Apostropher, thugs seldom die violently at the hands of nice people. If the girl's parents were thugs too there might be a chance that karma would have its effect. Otherwise, not.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:44 PM
I don't expect it to be nice people, John.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 8:46 PM
TIA: afaics, there is a similarly irrational disconnect between many (most?) `white collar' and `blue collar' crimes.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:03 PM
41 -> 38, of course. don't know where the all-caps Tia came from.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:04 PM
Only nice people think that the rape of nonentities is a bad thing, but nice people never do anything. If the girl's family and friends are nice, nothing will happen.
If there is some dark feminist force out there to handle this, good.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:10 PM
43: putative dark feminist forces are unlikely to have much sway in a male prison.
These kids do come from money though, right? One can always hope they run afoul of real hard cases inside. Realistically, though, they are more likely to try and use (or at least their money) them than smack them around. There is a clash backlash in those circles, but it doesn't usually get in the way of self interest. On the other hand, could get lucky.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:22 PM
I didn't want to say anything substantive about the case because I wondered if it had been in some way misreported-- partly because it sounds too outrageous to be true. I read most of the linked (local) news coverage, but I couldn't figure out why there wasn't a conviction on the main rape charge. The defense seemed to be variations on "she consented," but if the linked description of the video was anywhere close to accurate, I don't see how that's possible. (It sounds like Jane Doe was clearly unconscious.)
Anyway, if this is all more or less accurate, it's nice that googling the defense lawyer's name brings up that blog post within the first handful of results.
I'm that much less enthused about working with young wealthy white people. We have incidents from time to time; no one is sure what happened; rumors abound.
Posted by Bill Wang | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:24 PM
41: God, yes. I don't have anything to say about the link that anyone else hasn't said (it makes me very angry, and shows a lot about sexism and privilege and how you can be punished for standing up for injustice). So may I rant about white-collar crime a bit?
That is: We don't really treat white-collar criminals as criminals. Someone who dies because the boss didn't shore a trench is just as dead as if someone was firing bullets randomly onto the construction site. But in only one of those cases will the killer get a violation. (Googling Yong Fa Cai's name doesn't reveal any criminal prosecution.) Ditto the difference between defrauding customers and picking pockets; the money's gone either way, and white-collar criminals get away with more.
And I'm pretty sure that serious jail sentences for white-collar criminals would do a lot of good. White-collar criminals are going to be people who won't enjoy jail at all, and have non-criminal options for making a living. If they really had to fear jail, they'd be walking the straight and narrow. And my accounting ethics students might take me a bit more seriously.
(Jordan Barab, who I linked above, is really goddamn good. I don't read him enough. You don't need to read this either.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:25 PM
Also, is the bit about publicizing the victim's identity a violation of rape shield laws? Or some other kind of disbar-able offence?
And is Gary Comic Store Guy?
Posted by Bill Wang | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:29 PM
There is an argument, which the legal academy seems to take seriously, that a somewhat lesser sentence does as much to deter a potential white collar criminal as a a somewhat greater sentence would a street criminal. One major part of the argument is that the stigma of being branded a criminal has a far greater effect on the former group than the latter.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:30 PM
The defense seemed to be variations on "she consented," but if the linked description of the video was anywhere close to accurate, I don't see how that's possible. (It sounds like Jane Doe was clearly unconscious.)
You know, I had a post about the Chicago rape-of-a-minor-caught-on-video-case on my blog a week or so ago. In the comments people seriously argued that, yeah, maybe she was drunk to the point of blacking out, but if she'd consented *beforehand*, which was, you know, theoretically possible, then the boys weren't guilty of rape.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:30 PM
46: absolutely. Combine with the war-on-the-poor^W^Wdrugs, this make for some really baffling comparisons.
A non-contextual analysis based merely on outcomes would suggest that in this society, it is much better to steal someones life savings than their wallet....
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:32 PM
48: some problems with that though. 1) sentencing for white collar crimes tends to be easier time, so why also make it shorter as well? 2) in at least some business sectors etc., the stigma doesn't seem to hurt much... might even help. certainly we aren't seeing the sort of deterrent affect you suspect such arguments claim 3) the comparison is hardly constrained to `white collar' vs. `street criminal' 4) you have to either argue that sentencing is providing a deterent/corrective function or a punative one, right? In the case of white collar crime, the former doesn't seem to be happening at all and the latter is laughably out of line with blue collar sentences....
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:43 PM
B, I'm both intrigued by the defense, which raises interesting theoretical questions, and appalled that someone might bring it up as a live possibility.
At least Greg Haidl's life is permanently derailed. Imagine that Jane Doe had taken the $2.5m? And he goes off to college thinking, damn, that was a close call?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:43 PM
There is an argument, which the legal academy seems to take seriously, that a somewhat lesser sentence does as much to deter a potential white collar criminal as a a somewhat greater sentence would a street criminal. One major part of the argument is that the stigma of being branded a criminal has a far greater effect on the former group than the latter.
This sounds a lot like "My son is very sensitive. Don't beat him, beat the boy next to him." People who are friends of the legal academy are a lot more likely to be white-collar criminals (maybe not that judge in New York).
The problem is that white-collar criminals usually don't do any time at all. Also, even granting the facts about deterrence, there'd be a serious argument from justice that white-collar criminals should get comparable sentences anyway.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:48 PM
"which the legal academy seems to take seriously"
If that's really true, the US sure must be a terribly stratified class society.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:57 PM
The more I think about it, the more I think that the argument of far greater effect on white-collar criminals actually has it pretty much backwards.
Ignoring for a moment the problem that a lot of this sort of crime isn't prosecuted, or results in no real sentence,
A white collar criminal who does gets caught and serve time is likely to lose some opportunities due to it. However, they likely have resources, education, etc. to make a go of something legal afterwards. If it isn't the high-flying career they once envisioned, who should really shed any tears?
By comparison, especially in the case of poor young men, sentencing to a high security system for any amount of time is extremely detrimental, particularly for those who aren't already career criminals. Couple this with the difficulty of getting any decent job with such a record, and you have a recipe for recidivism.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 9:58 PM
further musing: I know quite a few lawyers, and of all of them only one has any real idea of what the life of the working poor is really like, let alone the endemic poor. That's because he grew up there. Even the few lawyers and social workers I have known who work mostly with poor clients have had a pretty shocking lack of basic understanding of their lives. The numbers are similar when I consider academics & physicians I know. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my experience generalizes enough to suggest that any such arguments are made either through blatant self interest, classism, or people simply talking out of their backsides.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 10:05 PM
So as not to diminish the original post by the threadjack, let me repeat: Fuck the rapists, and their lawyer who trashed the victim's life in order to intimidate her, because he knew that if he kept it in the courtroom they had no chance.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 10:12 PM
If that's really true, the US sure must be a terribly stratified class society.
It always has been, and Reagan and both Bushes have worked to make it more so. Clinton was a terribly flawed figure, but he slowed the trend in some respects. Much of the Democratic Party has made its peace with increased stratification.
Lind's "Made in Texas" argues that Dubya's Texas oilman environment was a direct descendant of the plantation economy of the Old South. This way of life held that the mass of men, white or black, deserved to be dispossessed, uneducated, disenfranchised, brutish, and poor.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 10:29 PM
Well, yes. We're too easy on white collar crime here too, but I optimistically hope you wouldn't often hear so absurd rationalizations here.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03-21-06 10:46 PM
I read about this case a while back, and when I recognized it in the linked post I couldn't read about it again. But if I remember correctly, I think there may have been some Schiavo-diagnosis-by-tape-style thinking going on: not everyone agreed that she was really unconscious based on some very slim evidence.
Also, agreed on the need to punish white collar crime more harshly.
And 57 gets it exactly right.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 12:29 AM
I hope you die, Farber.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 1:14 AM
You know, I started reading comment 11. I assumed it would be very much like the comments I was familiar with from earlier in the thread. A couple of sentences in, I learned that the comment was in fact by Gary Farber. I lost interest at once, and stopped reading. I don't care about Gary Farber. Life is short.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 1:29 AM
re: white collar crime.
The disparity in treatment between the criminal behaviour of the poor and the criminal behaviour of the middle and upper-classes is mind-boggling here in the UK, just as much as in the US.
I'd also be surprised if anything is EVER done about it. Both our societies are run by and for the middle and upper classes entirely in their own self-interest and those who are the victims of this sentencing disparity are unlikely to ever be in a position to exercise power in ways that will make for change.
It's all so depressing.
With the rape case, it really is unfortunate that this poor girl's family aren't in a position to bring to bear some real karmic retribution.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 3:37 AM
Alright, in my capacity as blog cohostess I'm going to call foul on 61. Gary is chronically incapable of striking a tone appropriate to the discussion at hand, and it was very unfortunately on display here tonight, but come on, but that's way beyond what is acceptable to say to someone on this blog, and disporportionate to what he did, which was mostly to take the wrong tone (the *really* wrong tone, in a discussion about a violent rape and harrassement campaign).
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 5:16 AM
re: white collar crime. I suspect if that argument has any pull on the legal academy, it's because they, being the Best of the Best of the Best, and such overachievers that it's rather like suggesting a grade of C as a penalty to a straight-A student. The horrors! A full year behind bars! My dad would kill me!
White-collar crime is more harmful but it also seems to be the sort of thing that's always sneaky, behind the scenes, and not physically violent at all. Not even a broken window or a door or a missing wallet. It's hard for our animal brains to think of misreporting an insurance claim as a crime because it's a matter of writing a number down wrong.
Back on the veldt, we just fed the accountants to the tigers.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 6:56 AM
It's also possible that we want to punish and redeem the white collar criminal, not turn him into a better (more violent?) criminal. I suspect somewhere in there is an unspoken acknowledgement that time in prison correlates inversely with rehabilitation.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:02 AM
"Correlates inversely with rehabilitation" for white-collar criminals, but obviously not for other, really bad criminals.
It's hard to realize how brutal businessmen can be if you don't know them personally, or don't have first-hand knowledge of exactly what they're doing.
A lot of white-collar crime is just cheating on money, sometimes very large amounts of money, but some of it is pretty deadly. Systematic violation of workplace safety standards or consumer safety standards, flouting environmental protection rules (e.g., for mercury or lead), threats to whistleblowers and union organizers. And ripping off pension plans is financial and non-violent, but the victims are usually helpless workers at the end of their work lives who face destitution in their old age.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:12 AM
The second paragraph of 65 gets it exactly right, it seems to me. In my accounting ethics class we looked at a study that suggested that people's hypothetical willingness to fudge numbers was affected a lot more by whether they perceived fudging as unfair rather than by their alleged level of moral development. Which made me suggest that one of the reasons accounting fraud doesn't seem like such a big deal is you don't have any face time with the people who lose their money (and, I might add, the causal chain may not be so clear—if I steal your wallet it's clear that I am the cause of the loss of your money, if you bought stock that loses value because I cooked the books there's a much more complicated story of how you lost the money).
But I think we need to retrain ourselves, because what really matters is the consequences, and white-collar crime has worse consequences. (The point about physical violence is also well taken though.)
SCMT, I think the thing is is that 'we', the people who write the laws as per 63, want to redeem the white collar criminal and don't give a flying fuck about the nasty dirty horrible street criminal, who is Not Our Kind, Darling. I suspect that more time in prison is a lot more likely to make blue-collar criminals more well-connected hardcore criminals than it is for white-collar criminals. We have not yet reached the stage where white-collar criminals can network in prison.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:13 AM
Right, Weiner. I think psychology is against justice here. First, simple instances of theft, murder, etc., are prototypical instances* of wrongdoing, whereas the psychological salience of WC wrongdoing is different enough to undermine attempts to take it more seriously. Given that prosecutorial judgments of "how bad a crime it is" affects decision to charge, prosecute, cut deals, etc., this will affect outcomes. Second, the complexity of WCC often involves more costly prosecution.
*I mean this in a sort of term-of-art way, that is, I'm *not* suggesting that WCC is "less of a crime."
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:23 AM
48: washerdreyer, can you name names for that argument? Because it really is scandalously bad, on a par with Jefferson’s argument that slavery is bad—for slaveholders; with various anti-desegregationists' arguments why white children can’t be switched to previously all-black schools (well, the black children are used to poor conditions, y’see). And people, but maybe especially people in the academy, who hold that position ought to be ashamed.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:23 AM
Further on that point: I find myself more and more saying, x ought to be ashamed. Nobody actually has any shame anymore, do they? I’ve seen grown people push ahead variously of the elderly, the handicapped, and small children in queues at airports, for god’s sake.
That’s my new political slogan: More shame, America!
Actually, it’s kind of on-topic with the post title, too.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:28 AM
56- There's that Peguy line, "Short of genius a rich man cannot even imagine poverty." That's the starting point and theme of that DeMott book I mentioned here.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:31 AM
71 -- I seem to remember reading a couple of years ago about a conservative intellectual movement to restore the tarnished role of shame in American society, and thinking, now there's a conservative intellectual movement I could get behind. And then not bothering to read anything more about it ever. So this is reconstructed from very hazy memory -- anyone have more of a clue than I, what I'm talking about?
69 -- "WC wrongdoing" == failing to put the toilet seat down when you're done.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:34 AM
SCMT, I think the thing is is that 'we', the people who write the laws as per 63, want to redeem the white collar criminal and don't give a flying fuck about the nasty dirty horrible street criminal, who is Not Our Kind
Agree entirely. I thought that was implicit. And it's not that street criminals are Not Our Kind; it's that they don't live on our street. Finally, there is something peculiarly troubling about violent criminals - I'm not sure it's a stand against immorality as a stand against chaos.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:40 AM
61, 64:
Yeah. I got pissed off, and swore at Gary -- I did not mean by that to declare open season on him. I generally like Gary, and like having him comment here, and "I hope you die" is really inappropriately unpleasant directed at anyone.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:44 AM
Sorry I had to quit this thread last night. I'm still stuck on the making of a tape. If this is a pattern, it seems to me the tape seals a bond between the perpetrators, and is important in their relationship to one another. It is closely related to the bond between soldiers, who through the ages and in our time have engaged in group rape, loving each other and hating the outside world. Perhaps, as we have seen already, in the age of the camera phone, the Nankings, Berlins and Sarajevos of the future will be copiously recorded. If as you say these are criminal families to start with, than the soldier-like mutual bonding and commitment to one another, which the tape ensures and seals because of it's shared triumph and potential threat are all the more obvious.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:47 AM
73: I vaguely remember it being Gertrude Himmelfarb promoting the Victorians' virtues of hard work, self-reliance, and deferral of gratification (for the peasantry).
See the second paragraph here, last three paragraphs here (note, the last link is a princeton site but gives me a weird certificate-related warning).
Or, "You are embarrassing the angels!"
[On preview: 74, cool; I thought it was worth making explicit. And I agree about the troubling aspect of violent crime, it's just that the disparity seems greater than can be accounted for by that factor alone.]
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:49 AM
There's a non-psychological reason why white-collar crime seems less harmful than it is. White-collar crime is more often covered up entirely, and almost always gets less publicity and less dramatic publicity.
I'm alert to pension-looting, and for me it was a big part of the story, but in the media there wasn't a lot of stress on the older Enron workers who'd lost decades of contributions and in many cases were faced with trying to survive on Social Security alone.
I'm aware that a way has been found to blame the Enron workers for their fate, since many were cheerleaders for their crooked company, and since some of them missed chances to diversify their portfolio. But pension-looting is an example of a big story which is under-covered. For an individual it can mean the difference between trying to live on $1200 a month and $2500 a month, and that's an enormous difference.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:50 AM
Finally, there is something peculiarly troubling about violent criminals - I'm not sure it's a stand against immorality as a stand against chaos.
This may be the feeling, but it's wrong, though. It is easier -- much easier -- for an individual to protect themselves against violent crime in our society (I'm not talking about martial arts, just things like locked doors, etc.) than to protect themselves against white collar crimes.
And this:
It's also possible that we want to punish and redeem the white collar criminal, not turn him into a better (more violent?) criminal. I suspect somewhere in there is an unspoken acknowledgement that time in prison correlates inversely with rehabilitation.
Is also off-base practically. Prison time will turn someone into a low-level violent criminal, if they have the skills and personality for it, but it won't turn them into a WCC. Being a WCC is contingent on being able to hold down a job with a certain amount of power -- severe prison time is much more likely to incapacitate someone for life as a WCC (that is, he won't be able to get the next high-powered job) than as a low-level violent criminal. It's also, probably, unlikely to turn a WCC into a low-level violent criminal: no matter what you do to Ivan Boesky in prison, he isn't going to end up breaking windows or snatching handbags -- he doesn't have the personality or the skill set.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:51 AM
One reason that white collar crime probably feels different is that many of the SEC rules, for example, were written to stop widespread practices. That is, they weren't always crimes, and were activities responsible for creating some large American fortunes. Didn't Joe Kennedy make all his money in ways that he himself ruled against once he became head of the SEC?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:53 AM
Additionally, some forms of white-collar crime are so similar to standard accounting practices that it's impossible to tell that something's a crime unless something goes wrong and becomes public.
Enron and Arthur Andersen are two very good examples of this. It ended publicly, and badly, but the practices used at Enron weren't markedly different from the practices used at other companies audited by AA. Bad on AA then? Not really, as the rest of the Big Five have nearly identical procedures (and now, most of the AA personnel.) There's more than a bit of 'there but for the grace of God' in our intuitions toward this.
Plus a sense that a failure to file a 1325-Q form to replace the 1324-Q form within 18 months except when a 1332-Jv3 Extension has been filed really doesn't constitute a crime.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:59 AM
It is closely related to the bond between soldiers, who through the ages and in our time have engaged in group rape, loving each other and hating the outside world.
Ah, the good old days. I remember those special group rape classes in basic training. Oh my, I just cannot remember all the group rapes I participated in in my 20 years of service--each more special than the other--as my soldiers and I bonded in that unique military ritual. Yes, it is a special military tradition that we honor and love almost as much as baby killing, burning villages and torturing prisoners.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:59 AM
but the practices used at Enron weren't markedly different from the practices used at other companies audited by AA
Pardon? Accounting isn't enough my thing that I can talk in an educated fashion about what happened in Enron without going back and doing the reading over again, but I haven't heard anyone say it wasn't unusual. Do you mean that AA's practices that failed to catch the fraud weren't unusual? Because that seems more likely.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:02 AM
People who have influential friends on the outside will seldom be victimized in prison, especially not in federal prisons. The victims are usually nobodies who are completely on their own because they have no support on the outside.
The prison staff generally knows what's going on, and they turn a blind eye or intervene depending on what's in it for them. If the word comes down from high up that Prisoner X should be kept safe, he will be. And if Prisoner X has a string of high-powered visitors, the effect is the same.
Most WC criminals are sent to special WC facilities anyway.
I wouldn't be surprised if the families of the rapists have already worked their networks to contact people within the prison system.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:05 AM
and to 82: Yes, Ideal, Tingley should not have phrased his comments so as to imply that all soldiers routinely commit group rapes as a form of bonding. Given the fact that it is something that does occur in wars with a certain amount of regularity, and that he specified occasions in which it did, in fact, unquestionably occur, can we accept that he was not pointing a finger at you or all the non-rapists you served with?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:06 AM
Cala, I doubt at least some of that about Enron and Andersen. Check this and the whole series; there was a lot of deliberate and knowing deception going on. It may be that the difference is the line between bilking your stockholders in a routine legal way and bilking your stockholders in a way that's actually criminal, but if so that's one of these "The scandal is what is legal" moments. (And all this deception stuff is supposed to be a violation of the spirit of the accounting ethics codes, chortle chortle.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:07 AM
I was a soldier myself, Idealist. All soldiers are no more rapists then all men are, but the pattern, the fact that the situation has led innumerable times to group rape, is there, and the need for discipline in just such situations palpable. As a former soldier, what do you think when you here of group rapes by soldiers? What did you think of Abu Ghraib?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:09 AM
83: Do you mean that AA's practices that failed to catch the fraud weren't unusual?
As I understand, AA did have an unusual organizational feature; I'd have to look it up, but it went something like the partner in charge of the audit was able to overrule the quality control partner when he objected to the, um, aggressive accounting tactics that were being used. The Final Four firms as I understand it never allowed the partner in charge of the audit to blow off ethics concerns like that all on his ownsome.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:13 AM
80 gets it exactly right. Insider trading was once lauded by someone important as simply the businessman's prerogative for being a well-connected businessman. 1929 put an end to that, of course.
But there's a sense in which it takes a superhuman effort to avoid these sorts of temptations. You're a businessman. So is your best friend. You like your friend, and you know he's a good businessman and so when he starts a new company, you invest some money. And his company does well. Because you're good friends, you always chat about your plans for your business and he chats about his plans for his; both of you are careful not to engage in insider trading. You might even help each other out by recommending lawyers and accountants. And one day your friend mentions that there's a problem, and he's worried.
Now, nothing you've done to this point is illegal or unethical, unless we expect businessmen not to have friends. But now if you sell your stock before the information goes public, you've done something wrong. There's good practical reasons for it, but it seems really weird that your only legitimate course of action is to watch your money go away.
That's the hard part about teaching business ethics. It's rare that the mob walks in, puts a million bucks on your desk, and asks you to doctor the books. Being careful and good at what you do can land you in an ethically tricky situation.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:13 AM
It is easier -- much easier -- for an individual to protect themselves against violent crime in our society
By chaos, I meant that a violent act is more likely to lead to some strange and unfamiliar series of unexpected acts. If someone hits you outside a bar, you might fight back, which might bring his friends in, etc. If someone embezzles your money, you go to the police. You're in less of a position for direct action.
eing a WCC is contingent on being able to hold down a job with a certain amount of power -- severe prison time is much more likely to incapacitate someone for life as a WCC
I suspect that most WCC is not the Fortune 500 CEO overstating earnings, but the junior accountant fiddling accounts. I could pretty easily see the junior accountant networking with other scam artists in prison. Also, I was thinking that normalizing sentences would including housing them with the people who've committed the sorts of crimes we're talking about normalizing them with. In such cases, and because I'm not the least bit convinced that personality is persistent, I could see the junior accountant becoming more criminal and more violent. I don't know, though - there must be studies. At present, my reference point is Oz.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:19 AM
Insider trading was once lauded by someone important as simply the businessman's prerogative for being a well-connected businessman.
Insider trading is a special case, though, of something that really wouldn't be criminal in another context. (That is, outside the securities context, there's generally nothing wrong with sharing information with your friends and not others, unless it's information that you are under some particular duty to keep secret.) Enron-style frauds aren't in that category -- they are literal frauds that would remain criminal if they were scaled down to a corner candy store.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:20 AM
Weiner, I was working for AA at the time. It's not a difference of kind. Everyone tries to use the complicated loopholes to their advantage. Before AA was brought down, E&Y had the biggest settlement against them.
The accountants & lawyers from the auditing firm are there not to ensure compliance with the spirit of the law, but to make sure the i's and t's are dotted and crossed, and the accountants are wholly dependent on what the client chooses to reveal. It's really pretty stupid.
I doubt that if E &Y, D&T or KPMG had Enron as a case that their oversight procedures would have caught any of the shady dealings going on, is all I'm saying.
Posted by Alac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:22 AM
I doubt that if E &Y, D&T or KPMG had Enron as a case that their oversight procedures would have caught any of the shady dealings going on, is all I'm saying.
Got it -- so I had you right in 83, saying not that Enron, but that AA, wasn't unusual. That's not that far off from my persection, with the caveat that 'not unusual' for auditors at this time does not mean that their practises were not (as I understand from what I remember of the case -- I'm recalling the opinions I formed, but really need to refresh myself on the facts) very obviously flawed.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:26 AM
Gregory Haidl, who at seventeen years
Had a father assistant district attorney
With rich wealthy lawyers who provide and protect him
And high office relations in the politics of Orange County
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders
And swear words and sneering, and his tongue it was snarling,
In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:27 AM
the need for discipline in just such situations palpable
Absolutely true. One of the hardest things in war is dealing with a situtation where soldiers are expected to do things that would be considered horrible in any other context, but at the same time to refrain from doing other horrible things that are not considered OK. You are honored for killing the enemy in battle; it is a capital offense to kill the enemy after he surrenders. I further agree that the fact that this tension is a natural incident of war does not excuse the commission of horrible acts, such as rape or torture. (though it is not inconsistent with this to at the same time not be surprised that such things happen).
As a former soldier, what do you think when you here of group rapes by soldiers? What did you think of Abu Ghraib?
Seems like a pretty insulting question, if I understand its implications. If there is a civil point behind it, let me know and I will consider responding.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:29 AM
Oh, for Christ's sake, Idealist.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:31 AM
I doubt that if E &Y, D&T or KPMG had Enron as a case that their oversight procedures would have caught any of the shady dealings going on, is all I'm saying.
Yeah, I agree. It may be that the accounting ethics textbooks I teach out of make a big deal of that as a sort of pious lip service to the idea that Enron was doing something Bad and you should avoid doing Bad Things, like not letting the ethics officers run the company. I have a sinking feeling that these textbooks contain a lot of pious lip service that doesn't reflect the way accounting firms actually make teh profit. And, not knowing much about accounting besides the research I do to teach this course, I'm not at all in the best position to teach this. Want my job?
About the audit though, I think the issue here is that AA's problems wasn't really on the audit side. AA was not only doing the audit, they were also consulting with Enron–telling them how to set up those very shady dealings. I'm not exactly sure how the information flow worked, but I am pretty sure that with at least some of the people involved it wasn't a question of fraud slipping by the auditors, but of active collusion.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:32 AM
I once had an argument with my best friend's former girlfriend, who was a zealous young Republican, in which she stated that the Enron employees who lost their pensions were fools, because they should have invested their money more wisely. I said, so you're saying they should have known their employer was lying to them? She said yes, of course.
The young Republicans: striving for an America scripted by David Mamet.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:36 AM
To expand on 96, and in the interests of making peace --
Ideal: Can I ask you to assume that Tingley is not intending to insinuate that you personally, or that those who serve in the US military generally, approve of gang rape or of what happened at Abu Ghraib? And that the civil point behind his question, which seems glaringly obvious to me, is that such bad acts are a particular risk of wartime situations, as history has shown that they do, in fact, consistently happen in wartime, despite the disapproval of all decent and right thinking people?
And can we all just lighten up? There's an awful lot of overreaction going on in this thread, the first of which was mine in comment 22.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:45 AM
Couple of comments:
non-violent blue collar crime also has disparate sentencing (look at all the young men in jail for possesion or smale-scale selling of controlled drugs, etc.)
89: the `super human' effort needed to avoid insider trading etc. is miniscule compared to the effort needed to walk the straight and narrow growing up empoverished in a system that is in some ways designed to keep you there.
92 etc.: is it possible that the problem really comes down to institutionalizing corrupt practices?
84: unfortunately gets it right.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:45 AM
Might one of you front-page posters get down to business and move this post away from the top?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:48 AM
Listen, you're the one who pleased himself to think I was accusing all soldiers of being rapists, when my point was that these relations are well-known and when you say not to be surprised that such things happen, I hear you saying the same thing. But your first reply was so defensive I wanted to see how much agreement we had on basic facts. Your first paragraph in #95 would have been a more-than-satisfactory answer to me.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:48 AM
Oh, and this
gets it exactly right.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:49 AM
And that the civil point behind his question, which seems glaringly obvious to me, is that such bad acts are a particular risk of wartime situations, as history has shown that they do, in fact, consistently happen in wartime, despite the disapproval of all decent and right thinking people?
I apologize if I misunderstood the point of the question. If what LizardBreath suggests above is the question, the first part of 95 is my answer.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:51 AM
I have to admit, I'm not overly impressed by the super-human efforts of those who are successful and have stayed on the straight and narrow. Most people have stories of shady successful co-workers, and, for the most part, people in an organization (IME) have roughly similar senses of who's shady and who's not. Something is driving that ability to distinguish consistently.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:53 AM
I just spent a little while digging through my class slides for this quote from the Powers Report postmortem on Enron:
Not sure whether "particularly surprising" translates as "shocked! shocked!" But Andersen knew what was going on. I'm not saying that AA was particularly unusual among the accounting firms here, but it isn't a question of auditors failing to catch the fraud, accountants as consultants are helping to perpetrate it. (And, so say my sources, auditors were being used to cultivate consulting customers; post-Enron this has been banned in theory but it's being got around.)
I totally agree with 89, though. You can't be expected not to be friends to the people you work with, and you can't be expected not to seek a profit. One of the themes that I always hear (including from real live accounting professors) is that hard and fast rules aren't enough but have to be backed by principles. But it seems to me sometimes that we really need to emphasize the rules and how circumventing them is Wrong, or there just won't be any brake on the forces pushing people to unethical behavior.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:56 AM
102, 104:
Excellent. Now hug and make up.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:56 AM
It's frightening to think of what Gary could do, if he decided to actually troll us. He knows our truenames.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:57 AM
Can we not go there? I'm feeling bad enough about that little interaction already.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:59 AM
I'm fine with you, and I'll try to be more careful in my implications. And I do understand your prickliness on this subject; it seems that a generation ago a basic understanding of military realities was a common understanding of a large part of the population, due to mass participation in the wars, now not so much. I well remember how revolted I was in 1971, shortly after my discharge and when discussing the war (which I had always opposed) with my Canadian cousins. They took for granted a US Army of thugs and rapists, and the blythness of that assumption infuriated me.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:01 AM
Now hug and make up.
I thought the Mineshaft bylaws mandated an exchange of fluids during reconciliation.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:04 AM
Sorry, LB. It wasn't the time, place, or manner.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:05 AM
Gary knows your truenames, Standpipe?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:06 AM
I was wondering about that -- possibly he can be bribed...
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:06 AM
Fortunately, my truenames bear no resemblance to my legal ones.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:07 AM
Emerson gets it right in 67.
A lot of white-collar crime isn't just about remote and essentially victimless financial crimes.
It's about people dying because of lax safety standards and corners being cut so the shareholders or the directors can make an extra pound or two or OAPs having their pension funds robbed.
Personally, I'm sure the sentencing disparity just comes down to members of the moneyed social class looking after their own.
Here, in the UK, when corporate killing or corporate manslaughter convictions get handed out, the sentences are laughable. Until some CEO gets 20 or 30 years in jail and all the members of the board 10 or 12 apiece, the legislation is largely toothless legislation.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:16 AM
First off, disclosure: I trained as an accountant with Andersen in London in the 80's. I left the profession as soon as was decently possible after qualifying. There are elements to auditing that made me feel I was taking a track that lead me to nowhere that was healthy to be. But that is essentially my problem.
Now the substance.
What I personally find to be innovative in the Enron/Anderson story is the paradigm shift from personal responsibility to corporate responsibility. Back in the day, there was a fine distinction between the financial protection a partnership offered an auditor (I am of course writing about engagement leaders) and his or her personal professional liability. Litigants would sue the firms because that was where the substance was, the tort though would always be with the individual audit partner.
The US Authorities broke that model it seems in the Andersen case and saw to it that the firm was brought down on the strength of the (albeit mighty) culpability of the Enron audit team (IIRC there was also some questionable guidance issued from Chicago too?).
Whereas the people involved ought to have been hung out to dry if even only the half of what was reported were true, it seems to me to be a very dangerous precedent to suggest that the firm is at stake if one of your teams screws up. I think the personal liability must be emphasised, not the corporate in this case. A logical consequence of this is now the growing refusal of the profession to provide audit services to mortgage banks in the US on the back of regulatory changes in that vein.
If the perceived risk to the firms in accepting a mandate becomes too high, their will be a spiral set in motion that does no one any good.
I say this despite the fact I find the terms accounting and ethics to be in comic opposition to one another...
If only I could tell the one about the plumbers wholesaler and the recycled radiators!...
As to the actual topic of the post... the whole aim of the fluff above is to hide my shame at being on the same planet as the people who perpertrated that, I have just realised.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:25 AM
116: I tend to make the distinction between white collar crime (i.e. individuals, small groups), and corporate crime (which is even less likely to have reasonalble outcomes, imo). I think we are in agreement on the relative damage....
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:41 AM
I was gonna say that I find it odd that "corporate killings" is referred to as white collar crime. Is that really standard usage?
I think 118 should be followed regardless of if it is.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:44 AM
One reason why financial crime is less shocking is that the ill effects are often distributed over large groups. If you fleece 100,000 people of $10 each few of them even notice, but you've got a tidy little chunk for yourself.
Pension looting is more shocking because a smaller group is hurt, and hurt more per capita. Destroying a pension fund may not kill anyone directly, but it can ruin lives.
Anecdote: the college library I used to use had terrible, inefficient, expensive, old-fashioned, badly-maintained copy machines. I just assumed that it was some kind of inefficiency problem and gritted my teeth. It turned out that the person in charge had been embezzling funds for over a decade, so they weren't able to upgrade, or even to maintain the machines they had.
So that was a case when the effects were visible, albeit small.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:00 AM
Want my job?
Sure! We can trade. You can write chapter one of my dissertation.
It's probably not a bad way to sell ethics. 'Enron got caught because they did Bad Things' is probably easier than 'Enron did Bad Things like everyone else but they got caught.'
For what it's worth, I think the biggest problem with auditing firms wasn't that the senior audit partner had the final ethical call on the quality control partner's recommendations, but that the accounting firms started to spin off all these small money-making extra services. (Hey, the i-bankers and the tech guys were getting rich. Us too!)
That in and of itself isn't a problem, as at AA, at least, the two businesses were relatively separate. The problem was that the client only buys extra services from the firm if they're happy, and that seems to be at odds with a hard-nosed audit. You make your client happy by finding ways to make their practices legal (the creative accounting you mentioned), not by saying, 'Guys, you're not making as much money as you want to tell your shareholders, and we have to tell them.'
Technically, AA was brought down on an obstruction of justice charge, just overturned on appeal, not a fraud charge.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:01 AM
Absolutely agreed with 121 as far as I can tell. That's part of the reason I suspect that the bit about the quality control partner is Pious Lip Service; the problem seems to be that there's really very little incentive for the auditors to find things out.
I would totally take that trade, although it may not be in the spirit of "you would probably do a better job teaching accounting ethics than I do."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:06 AM
Why not? You'd probably write my dissertation better 'n'at.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:07 AM
re: 119
It certainly seems to be described as a white-collar crime and there's no question it's punished like one.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:14 AM
I might go around writing people's dissertations in exchange for their teaching my classes (I had a bad teaching week -- realized I've been misinforming my class about quantified S5 for a while, and don't see any clear way to fix it), but I probably wouldn't be willing to trade salaries.
And I'm sure I wouldn't write it better.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:21 AM
re: 110
They took for granted a US Army of thugs and rapists, and the blythness of that assumption infuriated me
Sorry.
You have lived this too--maybe more than I, because I did not enlist until 1974, and my war (Desert Shield/Storm) was fairly popular.
If we ever meet IRL, I owe you a beer.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:27 AM
This talk of white-collar corporate malfeasance brings to mind something a friend of mine in law school here told me. He attended either a talk given, or a class hosted, by a lawyer who represented industry in a lot of environmental cases, and said that the companies he represented have gotten a lot better about environmental issues. For instance, people tended to be unhappy about giant tanks of oil at refineries, because they tend to lead to respiratory illness and other bad things.
So, the companies paint them brown, and plant nicely-landscaped bushes around them. Now, the people aren't as unhappy, presumably because they don't notice the tanks as much.
To me, this is like priasing a doctor who, when you go to visit him with a really bad multiply-broken bone, gives you morphine so you don't feel the pain, and sends you home, for having cured you.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:44 AM
76: I think this is right. It's pretty well-established that one of the more common and important aspects of male adolescence/young adulthood is bonding with other males (the jury's out, I think, on whether this is a neutral, a natural, or a patriarchy-reinforcing thing, or indeed whether it's all three). I've in fact used this bonding-against-authority behavior in the classroom; if you can get a group of students ticked off at you for being a tough grader, *and* you can get them to bond, they'll spur one another on to work harder just to show you they can do it. Obviously part of the role of the tape here is to cement the bond between the rapists.
As to the military stuff, I think it's ridiculous for any soldier or former soldier to take offense when people bring up the established tendency of military situations to create sex- and/or violence-reinforced bonding. First of all, that *is* how military brotherhood operates: you have to feel loyal to the soldiers in your unit above all. Second of all, the prevalence of such activity is well-known even in non-combat situations (Tailhook, the shenanigans in the AFA, your average jody chant). Pointing out that institutions operate with certain ideologies doesn't mean that every individual within those institution consciously holds, or approves of, those ideologies.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 10:55 AM
Oh, sure. Salary considerations. Sophist!
I've had some classes where I feel like by the end of it I should just quit because if Leibniz is the best we have and he doesn't make any fucking sense, I should go become an accountant.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 11:04 AM
I have just realized that some links to Jordan Barab's blog in 46 were off by one. I know you're shocked. The first should go where the last went, and the last should go here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 11:05 AM
*smiles fixedly, pats pockets of tweed jacket absentmindedly, thinking of tobacco and a snifter; wonders why all the clever people don't make sense these days*
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 11:09 AM
damn it! 131--> 129
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 11:10 AM
I'm sticking this link in here because I think he wants to be heard.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 6:15 PM
Aw, heck. Can I ask as a personal favor that no one leave any hostile comments?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 6:29 PM
64: That was the purpose of the exercise.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:41 PM
Whatever rhetorical victories you becry, ogmb, I must say that death-wishes are awfully rude, not cricket, and really unpleasant. I'm administrix on what could be called a hate site, and most regulars would call your 61 inappropriate even before I got to it. Let us be excellent to one another.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:50 PM
He's such a prolific writer and a talented analyst. It's hard to believe that his ear is that tin; charitably, I'll believe him, but it always strikes me as passive-aggressive, although I'm sure that's due to the limitations of tone in text.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:52 PM
Ogmb- I don't understand 135 with any clarity, but I really don't like 61. That, among other comments, one of which was mine, has ended up pissing off Gary enough that he doesn't intend to keep commenting here. I like having Gary around, and I'm sorry he won't be here, and I hope he rethinks that decision.
If your intention was to gloat about that, I wish you wouldn't, and I think ill of you.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:55 PM
JM -- I'm pretty sure the word you want is administratrix.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:57 PM
O Becksuna administratrix lundi?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:58 PM
Ok, I'm trying to post an apology based on what he's written in his post, but I can't get @#$& blogger to publish it. How did the other comments go up? Tia?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 7:58 PM
JFTR, I read 61 as an example of intentional tone deafness to illustrate tone deafness.
A negative comment I once made here about Starship Troopers was met with something along the lines of "I wish I could reach through the internet and punch you in the balls" from a regular (a remark uncommented on as I recall), so 61 didn't strike me as that unusual in the one way or the other.
Posted by rilkefan | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:00 PM
I gave up trying to comment on his blog a while back -- it just never seems to work. I've actually managed to comment on other blogspot blogs that require registry, but on Amygdala the password won't work.
I apologized in email.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:01 PM
As the author of 62, even I thought 61 was going too far. And even though it's not a defense, 62 is patterned after this, which is what I thought of while reading 11.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:05 PM
And on 142: Sure, I think Gary's being unreasonably touchy, given the standard of discourse around here -- I'm just sorry about how that's played out.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:05 PM
I created a little fake blogspot account for the purposes of commenting.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:06 PM
charitably, I'll believe him, but it always strikes me as passive-aggressive, although I'm sure that's due to the limitations of tone in text.
Physician, heal thyself.
(It's a joke.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:07 PM
I'll stick up for ya, Rilkfan! Or, at least, try to enforce genial disagreement.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:07 PM
LB, it means that what I wrote was on purpose over the top, inappropriate and rude, and it was also at that point my unfiltered reaction to GF's posts. It was, if you wish, an exercise in taking unfiltered exchange to absurd levels. And JM, I don't "becry rhetorical victories", whatever that means.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:07 PM
Oy. "Rilkfan" in 148 should be "Rilkefan."
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:09 PM
147: It was also wholly intentional. Why don't you read my comments?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:09 PM
Honestly, folks, I think it's kind of crappy to talk about someone when they're not in the room. I remember it being done to me, and it felt a lot like being kicked while down.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:09 PM
I have a real blogspot account and a real blogspot blog and I can't seem to use them for the purposes of anything today. And I can't get hotmail to work on this computer in order to e-mail my comment to myself to try on another computer since I think this browser may be a problem.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:10 PM
And JM, I don't "becry rhetorical victories", whatever that means.
cf. 20. We become what we fight.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:15 PM
151: Fuck! I hate thinking I'm being clever, and then finding I'm just slow.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:15 PM
I have a hell of a time commenting on blogspot blogs (that require registration). I've successfully created a phony account, and used it to comment at least once somewhere, but now the password (the same one I use for everything unimportant) doesn't seem to work.
And I think 152 is right. Can we drop this?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:16 PM
On preview, dropping this.
Cala, what's 140? I thought it was "Carmina Burana," but it appears not to be.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:22 PM
It's a calapwn version of Carmina Burana, with made-up Latin for 'O Becks, admin of the world.'
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:24 PM
Oh, and 27: I'd leave them their ears, but it would be more of 'To the Calabaseballbat!' rather than 'To the pain!'
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:26 PM
A negative comment I once made here about Starship Troopers was met with something along the lines of "I wish I could reach through the internet and punch you in the balls" from a regular
What can I say? I really hate that movie, and really love that book. But my remark was intended to be obvious hyperbole, rather than vicious hostility. Sorry if you didn't read it the way I intended.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:29 PM
Cala- is a violent prefix!
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:31 PM
It's awesome to have a prefix-friendly handle. Supercalapwnalicious!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:34 PM
158: Then I deploy my prepared remark: You could have left it here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:35 PM
The Gary incident reminds me how I always felt closer to Ogged after we fought.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:38 PM
That doesn't seem like a good sign for your love life.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:39 PM
[Imagine some remark here more clever than I can currently come up with about exciting make-up sex.]
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:43 PM
Slathering foundation on each other? Lewd uses of the mascara wand?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:45 PM
160 - I figured that (esp. as no one reacted) , but I wasn't 100% sure. The tone here is often difficult for an outsider to judge, and unless it's someone I know from ObWi I read all comments here with the understanding I may be dropping a sign. I've long wondered how Gary, with his literal leanings, makes sense of the dialogue here when I, trained to some extent from poetry in obfuscation and indirection and inflected irony, often find it hard to keep my bearings.
Anyway, I think my point stands that 61 isn't that far out.
Posted by rilkefan | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:45 PM
I'm going to have break up sex this weekend! Woo hook em!
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:46 PM
I think I felt inhibited from making a joke by the purity and asexuality of my regard for Ogged.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:48 PM
Yeah, Idealist was at least once thoroughly offended by a comment addressed to him in jest here. (At least, I'm morally certain it was in jest.) If he sees this and wants to give details, he can, but as a non-participant, I'm not dredging it up.
I guess I started commenting heavily right around the time of the great Dr. B. banning, and figured that if I hadn't been asked to leave after the level of hostility that got to, that I was reasonably secure here. And I just can't think of when anyone here has said anything unpleasant to me.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:51 PM
I still don't understand why B was banned. She wasn't congenial? Whuh? I thought I might be banned after the gay thread, since I guessed I was being uncongenial too, but I wasn't. Hooray!
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:53 PM
It was a conversation about torture, everyone was pissy, and I was probably inappropriately rude to everyone on the blog. If you google torture and Bitch, you'll find the relevant threads. But that'd be another thing which we could do without a rehash of.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:55 PM
by the...asexuality of my regard for Ogged.
Gawd, I hope he still reads the comments.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 8:56 PM
Yeah, leave it be. I'd been bulldogging stuff once too often, and O. got fed up. But it's all in the past now.
Or was, until he dumped us all. And now I hate him again. Or I would, except that I miss him too much. Damn Ogged!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:01 PM
I'm sure he does still read them. Ha.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:04 PM
re: 171
Dredging things up serves no particular purpose. Let's just say that I sympathize with Gary (this is a comment about me as much as it is about the tone here). And at any rate, as LizardBreath has told me several times, if I want to police tone, I should go find a right-wing website to police the tone of. Not an unfair observation. As an outsider, I can cope or leave.
I have been commenting a lot more lately for a variety of reasons. If you all find it too annoying, let me know and I can revert to lurking.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:04 PM
Nah, Idealist, you're cool. You'll still be first against the wall come the revolution, but you're cool.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:06 PM
If you all find it too annoying, let me know and I can revert to lurking.
Jesus H. Christ. No one wants anyone to stop commenting. Can everyone stop being touchy or I swear to god I'm starting my own blog, not telling any of you where it is, and not posting on it. That'll show you all.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:07 PM
Or was, until he dumped us all. And now I hate him again. Or I would, except that I miss him too much. Damn Ogged!
When he comes back, he'll have great makeup sex with us all.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:07 PM
That is the nature of Cargo!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:08 PM
If you all find it too annoying, let me know and I can revert to lurking.
Is that like, "It's not you, it's me?" Typical. Men!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:10 PM
I'm starting my own blog, not telling any of you where it is, and not posting on it.
Hey, I have one of those!
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:11 PM
179: LB, I'm really sorry we've all annoyed you so much, and I promise that I, for one, will be better from here on out. Unless you want me to leave, in which case just say the word. I'll totally understand.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:11 PM
Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:13 PM
Hehehehe. I vote we have a new running joke.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:14 PM
Yet another sign of the New World Order: apparently all of our PMS cycles have synchronized.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:15 PM
LB, you're forgetting the teachings He left us before He ascended.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:15 PM
re: 179, 182
Gee, not threatening to go off in a huff. I've been lurking here for almost a year. Just saying that sometimes too much drama is wearing. We can't have LizardBreath searching the Internet for kitten pictures to post three times a day.
re: 178
You'll still be first against the wall come the revolution, but you're cool.
That's cool. One of my partners said something similar to LizardBreath after the last Presidential election. I think she still has not seen the humor in the remark. But we're cool.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:16 PM
180, 188- Just who is your break up sex with, Tia?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:20 PM
It was more along the lines of "We'll be rounding up your kind and putting them in camps soon." Not that I'm scarred for life or anything.
(The partner in question is the child of Holocaust survivors, and I'm pretty much SuperGoy. So no creepy anti-Semitic overtones. Just general creepiness.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:20 PM
190: Alright, ac, so I'd been getting a little nookie backstage of Unfogged that I haven't confessed. Don't Ogged and I seem meant for each other? He'll rue his decision.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:24 PM
Geez. Catch me sitting on the couch in the Poster's Lounge anymore.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:33 PM
If one wants to be mean and personal, may I suggestHating on Charles Bird? Despite the name, the site really is available for everyone to hate on everyone else, if they like. Remember the not-yet official guidelines, though: mean and personal are fine, but we at HoCB take a moderately oppostional stance against petty and tedious.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:34 PM
Dredging things up serves no particular purpose.
A forum where you can't revel in the ridiculousness of past spats is usually not worth reading.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:35 PM
Don't Ogged and I seem meant for each other?
That's exactly what I thought when I read your post about the restraints. But exactly.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:36 PM
I thought I'd embedded a link in my previous, but it's ihatecharlesbird.blogspot.com for anyone interested. I hope that's not not many, frankly.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:40 PM
if I want to police tone, I should go find a right-wing website to police the tone of.
Boy, I sure hope that's wrong. Tone and civility, let me suggest, are morally prior to partisan leanings. The idea that there's a "left" civility or a "republican" civility (not that I think idealist is suggesting this) makes me want to howl at the moon. Civility is real. Treating people respectfully is real (even virtual avatar people who may be 16 year olds in juvie like somecallmetim). Politics, by contrast, are mostly kabuki play. Sure we have preferences, we can organize, volunteer, or give money. Those things have meaning. But most of what I personally think, what I personally say, and 99.99% of anything I write on the web fulminating on Iraq, health care, or the sad deline of municpally-funded freakshows is just miles removed from the actual moral action of my life.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:45 PM
When he comes back, he'll have great makeup sex with us all.
For where 15 or more are gathered in his name, he is there among them.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:46 PM
200?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:55 PM
He didn't give an upper limit.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-22-06 9:57 PM
194: I've been lurking there for a while, on and off, but as someone without the energy to keep up with ObWi, I'd feel sort of out of place if I just jumped in and started hating. True hatred needs time to grow.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 12:37 AM
48: Sorry I dropped out of this thread after making that scandalous claim, I was mostly referring to things I saw cited in a different piece I was reading. Here's the entire text of one footnote I was thinking of:
See, e.g., Transcript of Sentencing, United States v. Daniel Bayly, No. H-CR-03-363 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 21,
2005) (on file with author), at 61 (judge reduced sentences of first executives convicted for crimes relating to collapse
of Enron Corporation from approximately 10 years to approximately three years because "ignominy of conviction" amply
punishes and deters successful people); David A. Skeel, Jr., Shaming in Corporate Law, 149 U. PA. L. REV. 1811, 1831-
32 (2001) (summarizing commentary supporting "shaming" sanctions); Richard A. Posner, Optimal Sentences for White-
Collar Criminals, 17 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 409 (1980) (fines superior to prison as method of deterring the wealthy).
Here's another one, though it's making a somewhat different and less controversial point:
See Sanford H. Kadish, Some Observations on the Use of Criminal Sanctions in Enforcing Economic
Regulations, 30 U. CHI. L. REV. 423, 437 (1963) (deterrence works not just because of fear of getting caught but also
because of desire not to violate law, especially among people who think of themselves as "respectable").
The Skeel piece is my best chance of having not been drastically overstating my point.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 12:54 AM
fines superior to prison as method of deterring the wealthy
I'm curious HTF he argues for that. The wealthy, it seems to me, have more money than time, and so would be less deterred by the prospect of losing $X than by the prospect of losing Y years, compared to poorer people.
I probably have access to this article, but you will also note that I am up way too late (doing something that I have to have done by tomorrow, alas).
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 1:12 AM
152: The other day, I was re-reading , and got to the point where I was jokingly scolded for leaving . It was strange to contemplate that jokes late that made sense at the time.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 1:37 AM
Tone and civility, let me suggest, are morally prior to partisan leanings. The idea that there's a "left" civility or a "republican" civility (not that I think idealist is suggesting this) makes me want to howl at the moon. Civility is real.
Sure. All that I think Ideal meant is that it is much easier to be certain of your own good faith when one is policing the civility of people who agree with you. If I'm talking with conservatives (apart from close friends), I'm going to let a lot of rudeness pass, for fear that I'm confusing disagreement with abuse. With people who agree with me, I can tell them to keep it civil on much less provocation, because so long as I agree with the substance, I know that anything offensive must be in the tone.
While everyone should try to argue civilly, if you're going to complain about bad manners it makes sense to start with your allies, rather than your enemies.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:04 AM
Fair enough!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:17 AM
Has Bitch left yet? Because there's something I want to say about her.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:19 AM
Also, Unfogged has a special tone, and it's the job of relative newcomers to adapt, rather than the other way around. Some things are clearly wrong for the tone, like 61, which rang to my ear entirely different than most of the comments here: it wasn't adopting a playfully combative pose; it was hostile.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:23 AM
Unfogged has a special tone
And several medals from the special tone olympics.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:29 AM
I have a Silver in the "Joke about sex to conceal how little of substance you have to say" competition.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:33 AM
All that I think Ideal meant is that it is much easier to be certain of your own good faith when one is policing the civility of people who agree with you.
Uh, not really what I meant at all. I have a pretty firm belief in my own good faith.
However, it still is actually pretty reasonable to expect that if I want to be the civility police, I should go find a website where people otherwise agree with me, so that it can be clear to them that the disagreement is about the tone, not the substance of their arguments. Otherwise, the two things--disagreement about substance and disagreement about tone, get confused.
Besides, someone being a scold and getting their feelings hurt when the tone gets offensive is a pain in the ass. And who needs that?
Well, maybe at the Mineshaft, but not otherwise.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:36 AM
Fair enough -- while I get neurotic about my own good faith sometimes, there's no reason everyone else should.
Also, Unfogged has a special tone, and it's the job of relative newcomers to adapt, rather than the other way around.
I'm not all that keen about this way of putting this. While I can't deny that I love the clubbiness around here, I don't like the idea of barriers to entry. I'd like to think that anyone who's enjoying the conversation felt welcome to join in.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:42 AM
213: but then the place would go even more to hell.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:46 AM
It's not a barrier to entry, LB. It just means, for example, that it would be inappropriate for someone new to show up and say they were offended by profanity, or to pick a real life example, that no one should complain about formatting when their friend was getting hip replacement surgery.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:49 AM
I am insecure because 75% of my comments contain anecdotes!
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:52 AM
But I don't think anyone should worry about being inappropriate. Someone who shows up and trolls like Mr. Hip replacement is going to get the response he got, and that's good -- I just don't like framing it as a responsibility on the part of new commenters to understand our specialness.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:55 AM
Thing is, I don't think there's many places on the Internet where it would be okay to tell someone 'I hope you die', or berate a poster for making a post about a frivolous topic because some people have hip replacements (and other people can't afford hips), or to wander into a discussion of a horrible crime and sigh about how much it bores you. It happens all over the place, but that doesn't mean it's welcomed.
At least I hope it's not unique to Unfogged.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:58 AM
75% of my comments contain anecdotes
Is that data?
Posted by chris | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:58 AM
In 1994, 800,000 Tutsis were killed in Rwanda in 100 days and my cat Hemingway got run over by a car. I am so terribly sad to hear of all the barriers-to-entry woes you guys suffer and I hope you all get over it in the near future without too much angst.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 7:58 AM
I think that's what tempted me to start commenting here. It's very difficult to find people who can get the tone of something, even when they gleefully ignore its content. It's a difficult reading skill.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:00 AM
Alright, LB, if you don't like it framed as a responsibility, I'll retract it. I was trying to mention this in the context of a discussion about civility. What counts as uncivil in another context could easily not so count in this one, though at the same time there is such a thing as unacceptable incivility here, and I think it's important that commenters try to understand that a) that people will be teased but b) that does not mean it's okay to say anything that comes to mind. For that matter, perhaps my real mistake was in referring to newcomers, because oldcomers are just as capable of erring in this regard.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:01 AM
213: LB, as a data point, it took me approximately 3.7 s after finding this place to comment. Perhaps that's just me, though.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:03 AM
Damn, I wish I could reach through the internet and punch you all in the balls.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:03 AM
221- A lot of the arguments here seem to be matters of tone and nuance.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:05 AM
And I'd like to note that I only thought about and got the joke in 167 at about 6 am this morning. Last night I was distracted by memories of Ogged.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:09 AM
224: So you're for or against us forming a share circle and describing how we feel about all this?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:11 AM
227: a share circle sure would make it easier to punch everyone in the balls.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:13 AM
224: "punch" s/b "gently caress"
227: for
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:14 AM
"caress us all in the balls"?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:20 AM
Oooh, if Ogged were here you would be in such trouble for that, missy!
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:21 AM
I don't like the idea of barriers to entry.
I think of it as the Unfogged hymen. Sure the first comment might involve some discomfort, but successive comments will be more pleasurable.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:21 AM
I tried to post this on Gary's site:
Gary, based on my experience, you'll never entirely get away from the feeling that you're on probation and that people suspect you of being an asshole. Young people today are different. There's no way to understand them.
You just have to be what they think of as an asshole in controlled doses, and convince them that your being a supposed asshole is a feature.
And it doesn't always work. I created a terrible storm recently by making a rather obvious pun on Mrs. Zizek's first name. You'd think Freudians and Lacanians would be accepting of that kind of stuff, considering the way they themselves write, but no.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:23 AM
I hate that formatting feature. S/B all italics after the colon.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:24 AM
I approve of Tia's efforts at impersonation, as well as her fandom of Taylor Hicks, in which I wholeheartedly join her.
Posted by Ogged | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:26 AM
(Ogged and I discussed his misguided hatred of Taylor via email.)
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:27 AM
Lightning bolts, I'm telling you. Since his apotheosis, Ogged's powers have only grown.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:27 AM
I should try to comment at Gary's place one more time and see if I can make it work.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:29 AM
Once upon a time we discussed how etiquette would have us congratulate a man, but give a woman our best wishes.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:34 AM
Is that her dad, or is that Zizek?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:37 AM
I'm afraid this Zizek is quite operational.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:40 AM
Zizek has apparently seen some hard wear. As have I, of course.
"Her wedding is the happiest day of a girl's life".
Pretty chilling, huh? Sort of like "Get ready for 40-60 years of misery, little girl!"
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:43 AM
236 - Ogged watches American Idol? That's going in my Matt Weiner cat file for things that just seem wrong.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:45 AM
That Zizek wedding photo cracks me up every single time.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:46 AM
(Via, via.)
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:47 AM
243: Yup. I wonder if he will consider this a Tia Indiscretion Error. But I can only keep secrets when I'm told not to tell.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:51 AM
Sort of like "Get ready for 40-60 years of misery, little girl!"
Judging from the picture, Zizek doesn't have 40-60 years left in him.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:51 AM
Wow. Comb your hair, dude, it's your wedding! Also... does he have a black eye in that picture?
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 8:55 AM
Yikes -- I just had a vision of looking up from my desk to see the MSNBC talking head telling me the missiles would arrive in 30 minutes -- and of then turning back to my screen, opening the Unfogged Innocence thread, and posting a comment to the effect that "Well I guess this is it -- our time done come" -- and then seeing that I had been pwnd by both Tia and Apostropher.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 9:02 AM
I see on preview that people have moved on, but let me try a little testifying.
The collegiality here is based on having a lot in common, though, which clearly shows in speed of reference, almost effortless literacy, and, um, complete sentences. What we have most in common is style of education, and the associated personality type that selects for and is selected by that education. It's probably not an accident then that most of us have gone on to be grad students, law students or both.
What strains our collegiality is an issue where some of us feel we can't assume the necessary knowledge and understanding from the group as a whole. Yet those are the most vital discussions, and the ones where a certain levity, in the presence of dead seriousness, is most valuable and appreciated, at least by me. It's a bit dangerous, but very satisfying.
An example of such an issue, prominent yesterday, is anything having to do with military service or experience. Idealist, and I would say this is true of Mr. B also, feel they understand this in a way the rest of us by and large don't; I'm impressed by their willingness to try persuading, despite ingrained doubts and suspicions of the kind of people we tend to be, rather than arguing entirely from authority. Other obvious examples, which cut the deck differently, are rape and abortion.
But if we don't stretch the envelope, and test the collegiality, whats the point?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 9:02 AM
Cultural theory takes its toll.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 9:02 AM
Back in Portland I overheard two East-Coastish Reed College girls talking intently in a bar. One of them said, "OK, but if you're going to marry a rich guy, marry an old rich guy, because after awhile he'll be gone, and you'll still have the money.
So she-whose-name-can't-be-joked-about made a good choice.
They say that "She-Who...." is very sharp. Who is to say that she won't turn out like Hannah Arendt, with a reputation of her own? Do people make smutty jokes about Hannah and Martin? Besides me, I mean?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 03-23-06 9:04 AM
The best thing about that wedding photo is, the woman is actually Alan Sokal.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate |