How Professor Maynard burned down
nymag.com
nymag.com
I don't want to live in a world where people won't take responsibility for their actions, so penance is needed (and therefore prison). But equally, I want to see people helped and reintegrated into society (therefore treatment in an institution).
If people are really broken to the point of not being able to understand or control their actions-- what is the value of the prison time? Would you send a small child to prison for a criminal act? How is it different if someone is involuntarily mentally impaired?
In this case, it's not clear to me what is right.
The second masters could have been a false-start at an academic career (change discipline/university part way through study and exit with an MA), a holdover from a pre-academic career, or just done for interest.
I've got a BA in politics, a PGDip (2/3 of an MA) in local government management, an MSc in Internet social sciences and a DPhil. I currently work as an academic. I paid only for the BA and the MSc, and under slightly different circumstances wouldn't have needed to pay for the latter. It's not uncommon.
It's pretty hard to miss.
Yep - totally what some non-left winger would do.
The only meaningful mention of Trump in the article is:
> They commiserated about their hatred of Donald Trump, going deep down all the resistance rabbit holes. “We would sit across the table and talk for hours,” Kate says. “I was just soaking it in.”
That's not typical but not "nutjob" behavior. I'm not even sure it is "eccentric." Oodles of stable people spent a lot of time worrying about Trump while he was president (and still worry about him). Talking about how Trump is a mess for a long time is not evidence of a mental break or predictive of criminal arson or a reason to fire somebody.
And yeah, I think it is thoroughly reasonable to have a more extreme opinion about Trump than Gates, seeing as Trump has considerably more influence on my life than Gates does.
As opposed to Dubya, or Reagan, or Nixon? Every president with an R next to their name is supposedly the downfall of society, and their voters are all just rubes who were taken in by white supremacy?
I'd love to hear more of these "many examples" of Maynard being a left-wing nutjob, but my definition of "left-wing nutjob" doesn't include possessing opinions that might normally be associated with the run-of-the-mill Democratic voter.
The guy is obviously an asshole and needs help but if there was ever an argument for privacy this should be it. Basically all they have on him is him being close to the fires. Location data being used in this fashion is scary.
And a video of him shouting about how he will burn down the house of someone.
Does your conclusion change if he is in fact guilty? What of the homes that didn’t burn, the lives that were not destroyed because he was caught?
This also goes into the direction of why Lady Justitia wears a blindfold. The facts matter, other things should be ignored. His likeableness should be irrelevant in a court case.
>The government alleges that, after Maynard departed, the agents monitoring him went to check out his campsite and ran into a pillar of smoke. At least a half-acre of the forest floor was burning. Maynard’s car proceeded to a spot six minutes away, according to tracking data, where a second fire was discovered.
>In a government filing, several videos shot by Maynard are described in damning detail. One allegedly shows him threatening the home of a person who had erected a gate that prevented him from driving across private land. “I’ll just burn this to the ground,” he allegedly says. “That’s what you win. You win a wildfire right in your house.” Then the video allegedly captures the sound of Maynard rolling down a window and striking a match.
>A second video allegedly shows him chasing down a mother and three children he had seen at a gas station. “What’s wrong, kids? What’s wrong?” he whispers as he drives. “Maybe you should stop pissing people off and they won’t fucking follow you to their house.” When the frightened mother pulls into a police-station parking lot, Maynard allegedly screams, “I will kill your fucking family right in front of you, bitch.”
He claims, unconvincingly, that the videos were essentially just a prank. Between that, the fires, his phone's location data, and his long history of lying, mental illness and violence, I think there's enough solid evidence for Lady Justicia. The videos on his phone would never have been discovered without the arrest based on location data. So we return to the question of my original comment.
Sorry, what's the argument? The '00-'10 libertarians on Slashdot never gave arguments.
He IS being well-advised not to talk to anyone, though.