I Don't Care If Tobuscus Is Guilty Of Rape Or Not, I Don't Want To See Him Or ANYONE Burned At The Stake Like This Anymore Because It's Not Helping Anything.
*Ducks all the torches, pitchforks, and rocks, before narrowly sidestepping that knife to the kidney* At least hear me out before you put me on the pyre too.
I'd like to start by saying very clearly that I do not know anyone involved in this situation personally, though I know of them, we've never met or spoken. I wouldn't characterize myself today as a "fan of Tobuscus" as much as I was a couple years ago but that is because the more of him I saw, the more my perspective/opinion of him changed from Tobuscus: Awesome Perfect Youtuber Dude to Toby Turner, flawed human like anyone else (honestly, I'd come to suspect he probably did drugs before any of this ever came out) but still cool and switched from just passively enjoying his content to admiring his mind, in his creativity, as a comedian, as a businessman, etc. I do enjoy some of his content still, but I'm not a measurable chunk of his viewcounts. I am not making ANY statement toward his guilt or innocence on that because I believe a crime requires proper evidence and I haven't seen sufficient evidence to convince me that one has been committed, yet I must also admit that there is sufficient evidence of risk behavior to not dismiss the notion out of hand. This is the culmination of my thoughts on the situation at hand, and using it as a lens to focus on our societal handling of such issues, as well as my (probably very unpopular) opinion on how to fix these problems, or even prevent them, without grabbing torches and pitchforks every time someone does something bad to someone else.
For a long time we have dealt with crime in this country in one manner: like that of an old-fashioned parent punishing their child for "being bad". When someone breaks a law, they are “punished” by having their money and/or freedom, as well as other things, taken from them. They are publicly shamed, reduced to a one-word description, and then often secluded away from society, placed in a situation of isolation, confusion and danger. The more horrendous the crime, the more horrendous the punishment. The five minutes in the corner for a child becomes five years in the corner cell for an adult, yet people continue to commit crime. The prisons are overflowing, the system is broken and we need to find a better way.
One might try to argue that this system somehow is “working”, because it takes criminals off of the streets and prevents them from committing crime. This is analogous, in my opinion, to thinking a vermin problem is solved because you trapped a few rats. Those which are released are generally more wary, and smarter than before they were captured, and they share their knowledge with their nest. It is the mode of life to take the least-wasteful (time/energy/output/risk) course of action available for the most gain possible, so much so that once one has experienced an easier/better way, it is very difficult to bear the transition backward (this has been studied, but I can't recall the proper term for it). Because of these things, aside from outright killing them all indiscriminately upon capture (which I find rather distasteful whether we're talking about people or rats), there is no way to control an infestation in such a way. Rats (and criminals) did not evolve to their current state outside of our society, they evolved within it, and with it. There is no escaping them until we do something about the society of which they are a part and product.
Like rats, criminals suffer from the stigma of being the object of our projections (the childish black-and-white thinking our society-at-large is plagued with, that there are "good" and "bad" people and that only "bad" people do all of the bad things and "good" people never do. In such a world, criminals are martyrs to the madness, they hold the burden of all the evil, are forced to personify it.) when they are, in fact, the product of our mistakes. Like rats, who exist alongside us because we are dirty, wasteful creatures, criminals scurry in the margins of society where we have pushed them. Life is a struggle, and very few people are properly prepared for it, on top of this, the silly song and dance that is the social stage adds a further (yet nearly pointless) dimension to the difficulty. Our social order holds little room for compromise, and every inch that is gained is hard-won and often has someone's blood in the cost.
I could write a book about everywhere American society is screwing up the happiness and lives of it's citizens, and perhaps someday I will, but since that isn't today, I'd just like to summarize by saying that our society whether intentional or not, is almost a perfect machine for taking a human spirit, and crushing all individuality and joy out of it until there is nothing left but a shivering husk of resigned conformity huddled around an ember of the fire that once burned bright... or it fights back, stoking it's little fire at all costs- unfortunately, without guidance this often happens in a way that just ends up consuming their entire world in flames, burning them and everyone they touch to cinders.
My point, hopefully somewhat beginning to become clear now, is that we need to stop treating people who do bad things like vermin, or human cancer. They are not societal growths that need to be sliced off and biopsied. There are no bad people. There are only people who do bad things. There are no good people. There are only people who do good things.
The kicker is that you're never just one or the other, you're always both at the same time. People, even the “goodiest” of us, walk around in a constant shifting state amorphous "goodness" and "badness", always fluctuating. It fluctuates little for some and more for others...
Which brings me back to the original analogy of parents. In my opinion, that is what the government and laws and the bulk of societal "rules" should exist to be for each other: an extension of what parents should be, that is, existing to guide and support a person to achieve the best which we are capable, and in doing so, our society will flourish. The problem is that society, government and law are still behaving like old-school "bad" parents. We know now that the methods our parents and theirs resorted to were often harmful to developing people. We have discovered better ways in child-rearing, ways that aren't harmful, ways that help a person to grow and support others, rather than forcing them to conform just to be a cog and have no fulfillment in their life. It's about time that society admitted that this whole prison thing is just a bad idea, and always has been. People who do bad things do these things because, for one reason or another, they believe that is what they must do.
We need to fix the problems at their source. For those who are already past the breaking point, we need to find out WHY people did the things they've done, and help to correct the negative adaptations and thinking patterns that lead to these conclusions and behaviors in the first place. Only THEN can you break the cycle of repetition and ACTUALLY help this person to become a functional member of society, where they are personally empowered to grow, and to build, rather than merely taking what they can just to survive because they do not know, or are not capable of enacting a better way.
We also need to restructure our support systems to PREVENT these scenarios from even happening in the first place. As a society, we are extremely REactive, but we need to be more PROactive. We do not teach our children how to protect themselves from danger, rather naively expecting that goodness will simply prevail, and that if we just repeat "Tell bad people not to be bad" enough times into the void, suddenly all crime will cease and children can play hopscotch in Central Park at midnight while unicorns prance on the clouds.
Telling people not to rape has never prevented a rape. Telling people not to murder has never prevented a murder. Telling people not to drive drunk has never prevented a car crash. Wagging your finger at something does not make it disappear.
Frankly, in my opinion, it's nothing less than blatantly negligent to keep raising children who don't know (or have to learn from TUMBLR in their college years or later) how to recognize a potentially dangerous situation, get out of said [potentially] dangerous situation or defend themselves! ALL on the asinine assumption that everyone else is, not only ATTEMPTING TO (which is a BIG MISTAKEN assumption in it's own right) but will SUCCEED in raising their child not to harm others.
"Don't teach kids how to deal with bad things, teach kids not to do bad things."
By what drug-fueled fever dream did this mantra come to exist, and how on Earth did it pass mass inspection? We live in a society that teaches all (tell me if I'm wrong) children what to do if a BEAR attacks them, but not another human being. I was raised in Daytona Beach, Florida and I learned countless times, many different tactics for how to deal with a BEAR threat, but not a single time what to do if I'm cornered by a group of drunken tourists. Tell me how this makes sense, please? Because I've tried to figure it out for years and I can't. I just do not have the capacity to twist logic that far.
Make no mistake about my point, I know what people should and should not be doing. I don't think it's acceptable that murder and child molestation and rape happen, it's not. People shouldn't do those things. However, I am a realist and looking at the numbers, it's pretty easy to see that what people SHOULD be doing and what they ARE doing are two VASTLY different things. So, to raise your child (that is, to support and nourish and teach and inspire and influence and prepare a human being for life as a healthy adult in a world of other people) on the basis of "should" instead of "is" makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. It is a disservice to the child as a child, it is a disservice to the person they will become, and it is a disservice to society at large. In my eyes, teaching self-defense from human danger is no less valid, and no more victim-blaming than teaching a child how to safely navigate a street. Should cars stop and not run over children? YES, and yet we still teach children to look both ways before walking into the street, now don't we?
It is imperative that we stop raising helpless fledgelings that can only deal with a problem after the fact by getting help for the consequences of it. People should be empowered to navigate this world, dangers and all, in a way that is the best and safest for them, so that they can AVOID the worst of it. Danger is not going anywhere, and it's about time we stop living in that fantasy land and letting people come to harm because of the delusions and idealism.
On the flip side of the coin, we need to open more avenues for people on the brink of bad behavior to get help before they hurt others. I can not think of a single instance of an "evil" person. Even the ones who are probably coming to mind right now were not "evil", because there is no such thing, it is a word we use to describe negativity that we don't understand. That is all.
No matter how horrible a person is, they are not evil, they have merely found some manner of justifying their behavior in their mind. That is not evil, that is a broken mental process. The method by which the behavior started is the method by which it can be fixed. You cannot cure bad behavior with more bad behavior (there is nothing "good" about locking someone away in a horrible place), you can only cure it by understanding it's cause and fixing THAT. Our society only wants to deal with troubled people once they've done something wrong, and only then in as much as it takes to get them out-of-sight-out-of-mind. Drug addicts, violent people, abusers, even rapists, murderers and child molesters are nothing more than ill people that have not received the treatment they need.
Toby Turner is confirmed to have mental problems. He is confirmed to have drug problems. By all accounts both Toby and April were surrounded by multiple people who saw all facets of the problems, saw the damage happening all around, some of whom felt it personally, and apparently, not a single one did anything about it. Now, I'm not blaming anyone who knew them personally for that, even those who saw things themselves and knew something was wrong because most people plain do not know what they should do when they encounter something of that nature. They worry about causing trouble, making things worse, or losing a friend. It is just another thing that our society doesn't equip people with the tools they need to handle properly. Whether rape occured or it didn't, things were clearly wrong, and both April and Toby clearly needed help that neither of them received, and so things continued, feeding into themselves, growing worse (as untreeted problems tend to do) until now people are hurt, and lives are being ruined. This happens all over the country, it's most certainly happening while I write this and it's happening again while you read it and this vicious cycle of blame-punish-blame-punish is not making a dent in the number of occurences of anything. People are still being hurt. People are still hurting others. People are watching it happen and doing nothing and the only thing that anyone is doing about it is demonizing people out of their humanity, and throwing them into dark little boxes, as soon as possible so we can all forget about it and watch Spongebob Squarepants and pretend we live in a world where only bad people do bad things, and hope for the day when we just.. idfk, run out of bad people, I suppose? Find them all and lock them all up? I have no idea what the end-scene of this fever dream was supposed to be, but we're not getting any closer to it.
Punishment would not fix anything. It would not help April, it would not help Toby. It will not heal anyone who has been hurt or make any of it go away. It will fix nothing, save for slaking the vengence-thirst of a finger-pointing society that refuses to own a mirror, or pause for a moment of introspection. That's not a good enough reason to throw someone's life away.
We need to end this shit now. We need to stand up and say that it's NOT ok for things to keep on the way they have been. Things need to CHANGE. The way we deal with mental, emotional, physical and interpersonal problems needs to CHANGE. BOTH April AND Toby need help and compassion, not condemnation. Nobody is going to be a "winner" here, but if things are done properly, and we start changing the way we deal with things, the way we handle it at every level then, eventually, nobody has to suffer the crippling losses to health, happiness and dignity anymore either.
I know people will disagree with me, and that is fine. I know people will get mad about what I've said. I am fine with that. My goal here is, at minimum, just to get people to reconsider the way we do things and why. I am not against April, and I earnestly hope she is able to get help and move on past this, with happiness in her life. I just feel the need to publicly state that I also stand by Toby Turner because he is not a monster, he is a human being. I stand by him as I stand by her and every person who has CLEARLY cried out for help and gone unnoticed or ignored until someone got hurt.
When these things happen everyone is a victim in some way or another, the criminal is society and our crime is in our collective negligence in preventing these things from happening in the first place, the depraved indifference with which we withhold the tools people need to help themselves, and to help each other.
I like this, and it’s true. Think about it, how may characters come out and confirm their sexuality on screen unless they make an on-screen love connection? If heteroexual characters don’t have to “come out” on screen then no one else does either. A character doesn’t have to explicitly state their sexual orientation for someone’s head-canon to be valid, whether that head-canon is ace to pan.
Though, in the canon context of Star Wars, I’d have to say Luke's probably bi or pan, because he definitely had something for Leah at first there. ...Or maybe he was questioning at the time, or the sister-force-connection was confusing his brain. =P
tbh all i want is a movie where trump wins the election and the other candidates have to team up and go back in time to stop him but along the way jeb bush realizes his dream to dance and ted cruz goes rogue and becomes the zodiac killer
...and there is a dramatic sequence in the middle where Hillary struggles to not interfere with her own history (the Lewinsky thing), which causes a morality crisis about their entire mission.
are there actually people who don’t have any stuffed animals? like real people who decided once they hit middle school or something that they needed to sell all their cuddly friends because adorable plush puppies and bears are for children only? where are they? are they ok? do they need someone to talk to
They BOTH ran from Atlanta to Ferguson through rain, hail, sleet and snow over a time period of 20 days and their names are Londrelle Hall and Ray Mills. Respect.
Forrest Gump is a terrible example. Think more like Terry Fox. These kinds of things are important to people. It has symbolic meaning when somebody runs such a great distance. I don’t believe he was collecting donations for any organization but it shows commitment that he ran that distance to reach the memorial.
What’s important about it? That this man was so overcome with emotion that he abandoned all rationality? If it was so important for him to be there, why not take one of the many forms of transportation to get there sooner?
He showed commitment.. to what? Stupidity? To poor impulse control? To failing to think things through? This is nothing but a symbol of how people are becoming less intelligent and more emotional. Not a good thing.
Lol, no, I’m not boogie2988. I don’t know why that was ever started, or why his ED article and mine got merged. Exibit A: He was born male, with a penis (presumably). I, much to the disappointment of my little tranny heart, was not. Bam. Case closed.I do have a youtube channel, but I’ve never posted my face on it yet. Soon, though, probably. Then there will finally be legitimate shit for them to put in that sad little article, besides the butthurt ramblings of the guy I pissed off who made it..
Idk, I think that number would include Christian nations if the parameters were changed from: “Legal to do” to “likely to happen” and change “Atheist” to “Non-traditional/Non-Abrahamic”.
Just because it’s not legal doesn’t mean Christians aren’t doing it.
commission for @moronicgoldfish who wanted sherlock and john walking together in a forest :) i had a lot of fun with the background with this one! thank you for commissioning me!
They BOTH ran from Atlanta to Ferguson through rain, hail, sleet and snow over a time period of 20 days and their names are Londrelle Hall and Ray Mills. Respect.
jacobvanloon
theartofmadeline
areudirty
yousharknotpass
izzy806
titsay
