Columns Apr 4, 2012 at 4:00 am

Addiction Sucks, But You Suck Worse

Comments

1
Junkies got tasers?
2
Sounds more like it could've been some off-duty SPD thug with criminal and personal issues.
3
Why don't criminals victimize themselves? In the end they do.
4
Anyone else seeing these "front sight firearms institute" and "support our 2nd amendment" ads to the right of the comments page?
Gun freaks read the Stranger? Was that one of them bitching to Savage about his "boy toy not being GGG enough"?

Now a taser ad. That I could understand. Cruely ironic, but understandable.
5
@4 - I believe those ads target users based on their browsing behavior. Mine are all Abe's of Maine and Wayfair.
6
@4

Ads are sometimes triggered by words on the page. Discussion of crazy right-wingy subjects makes for crazy right-wingy ads.
7
@myself - shit, I could be mistaken, since now I'm seeing a Volkswagen add in the mix.
8
Also, you lose any "I'm addicted, oh god I need help" points when you start assaulting other people to support your habit, whatever that habit is. Compassion starts to lose traction in blood.
9
So the LW is kinda insulting people who suck cock either for fun or for a living. I get the anger at the horrible crime, but suggesting that cock-sucking is barely a step above thievery feels a little hateful to a bunch of people who had nothing to do with this crime.
10
Because sucking cocks for a living is dirty, degrading, and a thing that women do, and women are gross, and it's even worse when a dude does it, and ... damn it, why do we use prostitution as an insult? Stop this.
11
My ads are all Disney, all the time.
12
Shit Scums and Heroes, sounds like another match made in heaven.
13
@Allyn, totally agree.

Personally, I don't think you can really say you've lived until you've orally worshipped the turgid thrusting man unit until your nose runs snot like a faucet.
14
@9, thank you.
15
@9, 10, thanks.
16
@8
"Compassion starts to lose traction in blood."

100% agreement. Thanks!
17
is it supposed to be more egregious because it was a Desert Storm vet?
18
What ads?
19
My main issue is the thought that it's somehow worse to assault a veteran than anyone else. If the victim were in middle management at Boeing should we condone the assault? What does being a veteran have to do with anything? Was this man wearing fatigues? Are we to assume he was targeted specifically because he is military?

Isn't attacking anyone awful? If I were assaulted would I be treated less kindly as a non-veteran?
20
@17: "is it supposed to be more egregious because it was a Desert Storm vet?"

Yeah, perhaps if he was still homeless afterward, or someone who just returned from his last tour, but it's been quite some time since Desert Storm. I don't see what that adds.
21
Comment 1, ' AlaskanbutnotSeanParnell':

Now we have to kill you.

(R.i.P. Johnny Hart---I'm sorry you outlived your sense of humour, though.)
22
Ah, prostitution. The oldest insult.
23
@10 true, that.

@19 agree completely. shouldn't the outrage be that the attack was against another human and not so much a veteran? it seems in-line with our apparent need to sensationalize things in order to get a charge out of people.
24
Does this veteran have a history of missing job interviews and kids' birthday parties because he was hit by a bike messenger, ensnared on a rose bush or tased by a junkie?

Being assaulted and your meager possessions stolen or rifled through is a big-time suck but I'm just sayin' ...
25
@19,

Not only that, but does this guy wear a sign around his neck saying that he's a veteran? How are criminals, assuming they give a shit (which I'm sure they don't), supposed to identify victims it's not okay to assault and rob from all the rest of us, who apparently do deserve a tasing?

This reminds me of another I, Anon from a while back wherein the mother of a special needs teenager lambasted some unknown pickpocket for stealing the teen's wallet while she was shopping in the U District. Unless the girl was visually identifiable as being developmentally disabled, how was the pickpocket to know he/she was targeting someone who was incapable of protecting herself?
26
This sounds like more a matter for the police than for "I Anonymous."
27
right on, @19

28
@25: "Not only that, but does this guy wear a sign around his neck saying that he's a veteran?"

I assume either these people are all acquaintances, the Anon's associate bragged about the act afterwards, or the Anon is friends with the vet.
29
@28 I think the point was that the theif had no way of knowing if the man was a vet or not and that it shouldn't matter one way or another - that we should be upset about this crime not because the victim is a vet, but because he is a human and that is a beyond shitty thing to do to another human.
30
I'm also a little thrown off by all the bro-ish machismo in this. GRRRR SUCKING COCKS, GRRR WEAKNESS GRRRR.
31
@ #13 You just gave me a boner
32
You know why it matters? Because being a vet is a fucking awful thing to have happen to you. Being tased is also awful, and probably PTSD triggering. She's saying he's had enough an awful enough time already, and the last thing he needs is to be tased.

But right, it's more important that she slighted prostitutes who turn tricks for drugs. Hao dare she.
33
Could be it's the vet/victim who wrote this I Anon.
34
@25: I think the girl was visibly special needs, but the commenters' consensus was that pickpocketing did not merit the punishment the mom had cooked up, which involved cancer in some way.

I don't think IA thinks the mugger should've known this guy was a veteran. But some consider it extra-bad to hurt someone who's done good for others, and many people think of military service as a service to the country as a whole.

35
@32: Not every vet is a good person.

http://harpers.org/archive/2012/04/hbc-9…
36
What is with the recent spree of crime in Seattle lately? Just brazen attacks that display no conscience at all. I fucking hate homeless people so much it's not even funny. Could we please just put them on an island and let them kill each other so I don't have to feel worried every time I/my girlfriend go out to get something out of the car at night?
37
Also, thank you, Caralain, for being the one person who doesn't try to find one way in which to turn this into a feminist rant. Maybe I'm the only one who's heard of junkies sucking dick for money though. Must have been something Anon made up because she hates women.
38
FertheloveofGahd...

Nowhere does Anon (or any sane and rational being) argue that it would've been okay to just tase any old citizen. There are people in our society that we, rightfully or not, assign a special status to because we find them to be more selfless/innocent/defenseless/wise/brave, etc. No one is making the claim that they are truly more valuable or that you or I (normies) are more deserving of a random tasing. Anon expected that we would understand that for the most part, veterans have made a sacrifice not all of us would make because they believe in the core ideals of a free society. (Or they have been duped into it.) And they then get shit on by the very government and citizens they have put their lives on the line for. So you know, what the fuck. Then they get tased on their way to a job interview? Does that not seem just a *tad* shittier than if a middle-class, comfy life fella gets tased by a a junkie? Would it make a difference if it was an elderly person? Or a clergyman or a charitable atheist?

I don't think anyone is arguing that any individual should get a tasin, just that it feels worse to see it happen to an unemployed vet; a person who risked a lot and got little in return. I don't think all vets are good people, just like I don't think all elderly people are sweet and wise, or all pregnant women are gentle and glowing. But I allow myself to have such a presumption when I read I, Anonymous because arguing it is, you know, stupid. Especially when you consider the actual incident, not some abstraction of it, which was pretty fucking lame, right?

39
And ditto goes for that disabled girl who was pick-pocketed. I remember that one as well. And I remember a lot of Sloggers somehow blaming her or Anon because that's what happens with IA.

"It's real shitty that you stole from my disabled daughter" =/= "It's okay for non-disabled people to be stolen from.
41
@32...thank you. I'm not a vet but I recognize the selflessness it takes to risk your life for a meager paycheck...and I do think vets deserve a little more credit than the average resource-sucking American who can't be bothered to sacrifice anything of themself for the greater good of anyone. So yeah, it's worse to assault a vet, IMO, but does that mean it's "right" to assault a non-vet? Of course not, and I really don't think that's what Anon was trying to say. But hey, why try to ascertain what someone's actual point is when you can just take their words out of context in a juvenile attempt to denigrate the service of others, of which you were a beneficiary?
42
@41: I appreciate military service (family in and out of the service), but I'm not going to react to a vet who's been assaulted any differently than a non-vet.

"of which you were a beneficiary"

You think any of our middle-east meddlings have benefited us? Give me a fucking break. Benefited a few people in the US, sure. But not the citizens.
43
No one is making the claim that they are truly more valuable or that you or I (normies) are more deserving of a random tasing.


Of course they are. Look at any number of political candidates who use past military service as an example for why they are *entitled* to hold public office. Never mind their actual policies. Hell, never mind how they actually behaved while in the military.

If this country had any sensible notions about military service members not being inherently more deserving than the rest of us, that scumbag Allen West would never have won a Congressional race.
44
@42, I know all that. I'm no yellow ribbon toting type who thinks all soldiers are angels or that everything they do is "for our freedom." Where did I say "of which you were a beneficiary"? I might be missing it, or you are extracting something I did not intend. The last 10 years have been one disaster after the other overseas, and the military's "work" has done much more harm than good. Not that that was any vet's decision. But most people join the military with pride and belief in our country's foundation and feel they want to serve, which I'm sure you know. It is good there are people who do that.

My point is: Why beat everything to death when Anon is absolutely correct in saying that someone who attacked a vet is a fucking scumbag? And then draw the conclusion that such a statement implies attacking a non-vet is okay? It's false and unnecessary and even self-absorbed ("Would it be okay if *I* was attacked?!"). You didn't do that and my statements weren't directed at you. Maybe I'm asking too much, but one day I'd just like to see people say "That sucks, I hope he was okay" instead of making it all about them and whatever the hell else their pretty little brains can shit out.
45
@34,

How do you know that? The girl had brain damage from an accident, she didn't have Down's syndrome or some other condition that's easily recognizable.
46
@44,

Undead ayn rand wasn't responding to you.
47
Well now I'm a jackass. ThankssorryI'llreadbetternexttime.
48
@44: "Why beat everything to death when Anon is absolutely correct in saying that someone who attacked a vet is a fucking scumbag?"

Because quibbling is the domain of the Internet.
49
@48, yes, you are correct.

Quibbling by itself doesn't bother me. I love a good quibble. But the "What about ME?!" variety is a bad quibble, and I feel that I see it a lot, along with blaming the victim and "you should be better than that." It's not so much intriguing philosophizing as it is wordy self-centeredness and haughtiness.

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