I don't know why I stay here. I mean aside from being too broke to move.

This kid killed 4 people because he's never been held accountable for his actions, so they're not going to hold him accountable for killing 4 people. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
I initially thought "Affluenza" was just your snarky commentary on this story.

It's like the fuckin Illuminati or whatever was sitting in their smoke-filled room inventing the latest news to keep us distracted from their looting of the species, and they just decided to come up with something designed as a giant 'fuck you' to the povs just to infuriate us all.

I'll turn the snark off for a moment to make the following obs.

Money is a powerful, addictive drug. Like heroin or cocaine, the money addict will lie, cheat, steal and kill to feed the habit. No thing or relationship trumps money. The addict exists in a bubble, insulated from the world and other people, and sees them as only a means to the end of more money.

Unlike similar drug such as heroin or cocaine, money addicts are celebrated in our culture. Consequently, money addicts are extremely refractory to treatment, although there is no cultural recognition of the addictive disease so what treatment there is tends to orient around some of the side effects of the addiction ( like this boys alcoholism ).

But make no mistake. We are suffering the consequences of a nation of addicts. Until we have that "moment of clarity" where we collectively acknowledge the nature of money and it's addictive and corrosive influence, we'll slide further and further into third world status.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled cartoon horse vaginas.

So what are you proposing here? That money should be regulated by the FDA? And that anyone caught using it without a prescription should face jail time and be forced into religiously-affiliated rehab programs?

Don't be so concrete. Think though the analogy, and the answers will be obvious, even to army intelligence.

The simplest way to achieve positive results is to reinstitute a progressive taxation system. This doesn't solve the cultural problem, but it does help reduce the baneful effects of the most dangerous addicts. As I said before, the Federal Gov. can burn the money, it doesn't matter, just so long as it becomes increasingly difficult to isolate yourself from the rest of the human race with more money.

The SEC currently regulates the financial sector; this needs to stop being a lapdog and start being a pit bull. That would be the FDA in this case.

The first step is that moment of clarity. Right now, you're still swimming in the denial stage. Then comes anger. Finally, acceptance. Let's see if we can get past the first step, eh?

So what happens to the government when it jams all this addictive money into it's veins? Does it OD and die? Or is money like cocaine; it's bad when irresponsible plebs get their hands on it, but for professionals, like former Walmart executives and unelected financial policy experts, it's totally OK?

Also, pitbulls are sweet, loveable dogs. A pitbull SEC would spend all it's time licking your face and trying to get you to play tug-o-war with it.

No. It builds roads, fights fires, provides a justice and policing system, puts men on the moon, builds the internet, and pays your salary. It also does other unsavory things, and is often corrupt, but on balance it does a lot more beneficial things than the Koch brothers or the Walton family.

You really are in denial here, aren't you? I seem to be hitting a nerve.

Right, you're saying it's a nasty addictive drug that magically loses it's nasty addictive properties when given to the 1%. Sorry, the "good" 1%, those who work in the government instead of in the private sector. Because there's a big difference between, say, the Jim Walton, who is rich and works for Walmart, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is rich and only *used to* work at Walmart.

As I've said before, Mister Wildcat, if you can guarantee me that the money the government is "burning" (good choice of words there) will go towards things like putting people on the moon (love how often THAT happens) and a flat, basic income for all citizens, and not towards things like drone strikes, domestic surveillance, welfare for favored corporations, and a "justice and policing system" that spends more than three-quarters of it's resources going after victimless crimes, criminalizing things the state has no business involving itself in and turning record numbers of citizens into slave laborers, then we might be able to arrive at some kind of gentleman's agreement on utilitarian grounds. Unfortunately, until that happens, I don't see how your critique of money (which is somewhat on target, by the way) should lead us to conclude that the proper course action would be to give even more of it to even fewer people - people whose hierarchical power is not the result of voluntary interactions between free individuals, but rather a function of their ability to coerce obedience from the masses, through threats, violence, and rote tradition.

Now you are resorting to the "if it can't be perfect, it must be awful" argument. that's an improvement, but we've still a ways to go...

I don't much like the Tea Party, but I've come to greatly admire the whole "shutting down the government" thingy. We need more of that. I cheered the first shot, and after a week or two, you needed armed guards outside your workplace. I, on the other hand, pruned my heirloom roses. I suggest a good couple of months this time, to really help educate people who disproportionately pays for your salary ( me ) and who disproportionately benefits from it ( you ).

So, let's go with your argument. Government is less than perfect, let's shut it down entirely. I _love_ playing chicken!

To put it another way, Princess Celestia has too much power already. We might like to see Rarity lose some of her wealth, because we're jealous of her dresses and we wish Applejack had a nicer barn, but I fail to see how giving Rarity's bolts of silk to Princess Celestia would help the situation. All you're doing is enriching the Alicorn monarchy. What's more, entrusting these bolts of silk to a non-expert, like career bureaucrat Twilight Sparkle, can not help but harm the pony fashion industry. Society is not an engineering problem that can be solved by concentrating power into the hooves of a tiny cabal of elite alicorn debuggers. Society is an evolutionary ecosystem that blooms naturally from the collective endeavors of all ponykind.

that has got to be some new version of godwin's law

I've never advocated shutting down government completely. I just don't advocate expanding government, which is what you seem to be proposing here. And, for the purposes of this exchange, a big part of why don't support expanding the government's role is because I don't see why we should exempt the government from our belief in the corrupting nature of money and power.

If money is a drug, it is a drug. Giving it to one group of people instead of another does not change this state of affairs, and indeed, given the inherently coercive nature of the state ("come see the violence inherent in the system!") we have good reason to suspect things would actually get worse.

I think outreach to the Libertarians qualifies OscarWildcat for Sainthood. Oscar's patience is supernatural in the face of those willingly selecting themselves out of nature.

No, no, no, Godwin's Law would be me comparing American society to the Crystal Empire, and saying that Obama is King Sombra, the middle class are the crystal ponies, and something like, I dunno, the mainstream media and our public education system are responsible for "white guilting" the Crystal Ponies into their colorless form. That would make the Mane Six part of this whole neo-patriot movement, paleoconservative cultural critics and historical counter-revisionists or whatever.

But I'm not going to say that, because that would be retarded.

Meme - It's true that anti-authoritarianism is a memetic dead end; it's hard to get your views across when you can't just kill or imprison your ideological enemies! This is one of the reasons why human societies have almost always been run by paternalistic systems of varying degrees of brutality. But just because liberalism is probably doomed in a macro-historical sense, that does not mean that rational, educated individuals such as ourselves need embrace Caesar.

OK Homer, I shouldn't be lazy, and I need to address your last argument head on.

Our system of government was formed by the founding fathers with a great many parts that provide checks and balances against one part dominating the rest. No part is assumed to be "good" or moral, all parts can be corrupt or quite evil at times. But by pitting the elements against each other, beneficial progress is made. This is hardly the best of all possible worlds, but as Churchill once pointed out, democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Consider for example, the relation between the Soviet Union and the US. Blood enemies, bent on destroying each other. Yet, due to their interaction, the space age was achieved. The internet was built. And numerous other beneficial things. The key was that there was never any collusion between the two sides. That's key. Neither side needs to be "good" or moral, but both sides need to be honestly competing. Sounds a little like free market capitalism, no? I'm hardly a communist, Homer.

Now without the Soviet Union, we see how poorly the US is faring. Nothing to check our rampant desires, no need to show the world we are any better than anyone else. In defeating our enemy, we have defeated ourselves. In this way, I see the rise of countries like China as a good thing, even if it means more tension and uncertainty.

So, we need some counterbalance to the wealthy. Historically, that has been the Federal Government. It's hardly a "good" entity as you point out, but if you follow my argument, you can see how that doesn't really matter, so long as it functions to counter the opposition. That changed in the 80's with Reagan, and the corporations have now effectively captured the regulatory parts of our government entirely. This is Really Bad. I am not suggesting growing the government, just restoring it to 70's level. Something where a politician like Richard Nixon can get the Clean Air act passed.

As an aside, I like these kinds of discussions and get a lot of pleasure out of them. Homer is a good egg, and I know he thinks about these things even if he likes to troll ( Lord knows, I've encouraged him in the past to do just that, so I can hardly complain ). Frankly, talking to people who just agree with me is boring and I feel hardly worth the trouble. At the very least, I can more clearly formulate my own ideas. At best, I can influence the rest of you.

Nature is the champion god of all brutality. Libertarians would put us back at its mercy and forbid banding together in any way large enough to do big things against it due to the possibility of lopsided creature comfort (which nature never considers, never).

Oscar could say this better.

"America something, something; third world status."

"Berky berky liberty, rich people."

"Herp berp, money...root of all evil."

"Glerp purp touchn' nerves and shit fuk u."

Goddamn my palms are burning after all this fapping. Such pseudo intellectualism.

What's wrong, Beav. Cat got your tongue?

Have these.

Man, fuck the world.

Man, this would have been a perfect opportunity to revive the Fox or Onion game, now that you mention it. I was way too pissed off at my entire state at the time to think of that.

Great article; thanks for the link!

Oh yes, you're quite right. If you agree with what I wrote above, you can probably see that a far worse punishment for all involved would be to sue the parents ( and consequently the boy ) into poverty. I can't begin to explain to people how severe a punishment this is. But a crude analogy would be to lock a family of junkies in a room and force them to go cold turkey. And rather than receive the support and love of their friends and family, they will be ostracised for being poor. Pretty good punishment, no?

I think the judge did the right thing here. Making the boy plead guilty will make the civil suits a slam dunk. Killing the youth pastor was a nice touch. That will prevent the usual support for money addicts from the church.

And the civil suits are a-comin'.

http://kfor.com/2013/12/16/victims-families-file-multimillion- dollar-lawsuits-against-affluenza-teen/

Apparently its not a good idea to let your spoiled son joy ride in a vehicle registered to your business.

'But I thought I could buy a truck, register it to my company, write it off in taxes as a company expense, and then give it to my son, in all but title, to use exclusively"

Yes sir, you can! But now not only can you be personally sued as the parent of said spoiled son, but now your company is liable!

I bet ol' dad's monocle popped out when he found out he may actually lose everything.

Of course now he'll want to settle. Puffing out his chest while he tosses nickels on the ground at the feet of the surviving family members. All the while shedding crocodile tears at the camera and blubbering about how terrible greed is, and how money won't bring their family members back.

Yeah, but look at all the jobs created from this. The rehab center alone will be able to afford two or three new therapists. Then the hospitals that take care of the crippled boy, the lawyers involved in the civil suit, etc. They deserve another tax cut for all that, no?

It's a grave cautionary tale!

These are yours.

P.S. We need a "Why We Hate Us" tag just for shit like this...

Oh...nevermind. Didn't see "Why I Hate Us"

Come on by, we can plan a riot together.

i spent from about 2004-2007 in the DFW, i probably knew about 40 kids exactly like this, it was kind of ridiculous how many times i had to avoid gang rape so i went to austin

still, it was kinda fun to hang out in their mansions

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you're referring to possibly either Southlake, Keller, Colleywood, or Westlake. The teen-twenty something birthdays I've seen there are far worse than any bridezilla you can possibly imagine.

Arlington and "Rapevine" THE KIDS ACTUALLY CALLED IT RAPEVINE

There's a follow-up in the related videos where CNN points out the same judge had a suit last year where a black kid killed someone with a punch in the face (They didn't say what the punch was thrown over, knockout game, argument, bullying, etc, but apparently the kid threw one punch, and the guy fell in just the right way to bash his skull on something during the fall). Anyway, one punch that ended in a horribly unfortunate accident landed this kid over 10 years juvenile prison, while Couch's quad-manslaughter and fleeing the scene to leave his injured friends to deal with it ended in probation.

Have you read about this kid? He doesn't feel guilty about what happened so much as he feels annoyed and inconvenienced by everything expected of him now.

it's good that the way you feel when you're 16 never changes, unless you're sent to our unquestionably effective prisons that magically turn everyone inside of them into sympathetic, productive members of society (but only if left there for enough time to quench the laughably transparent rape fantasy that most of our country refers to as their sense of justice)

Rich people do not mature.

If he's going to mature emotionally, he's going to need to be able to come to terms with something that would give most people nightmares for the rest of their lives. I don't think I could do it, I would probably kill myself just to silence the guilt, and I can't imagine how this kid could grow a functioning conscience that could process it. More likely he'd lose himself in some opiate or other, or just not try to mature at all.

Not if you remove them too soon from the oak cask.