Neverfly, it was against medical advice, and I was very hesitant about removing you from my ignore list. However, in doing so, that was me accepting your apology. I'm sorry if you don't like the manner in which I did it; I don't like that you're still posting in the way that made me put you on my ignore list in the first place.

For heaven's sake, though, this was an infant. How many people have you seen leave infants alone in public pools? I started being left alone in a pool after I'd had extensive swimming lessons, but never before then. At the pool I attended, if anyone left any kid under perhaps four unattended, that person got a serious talking-to from the lifeguard. That, therefore, is a different situation from leaving an eleven-month-old baby alone in a bathtub for ten to twenty minutes.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

This is illegal. The definition of manslaughter was posted in this thread already. To paraphrase, it is illegal to put another in a situation that kills them.
Last I checked, it is not illegal to lie and cheat or be manipulative as long as there is no other crime involved. How do you prosecute something which is not a crime?
I dont think there are any laws against hitting yourself with a hammer. So what exactly is there to prosecute?
You are completely missing the point that the legal system is about laws, not right or wrong. She is getting prosecuted for causing a death. Which is illegal. That is all the law looks at. The fact that the death was her child is not considered. This is not frivolity, but the way the law is supposed to be applied. If it goes that far, a jury of her peers will make a determination that in their opinion, her actions were or were not the direct cause of the death of another person. It is not until this point that the fact that it was her child becomes important. It is not until this point that the punishment is determined. A trial is not a punishment, but the determination as to wether punishment is needed. It may not be a nice thing to go through, but it is needed if we are going to live in a society ruled by laws.

Gillianren, yes- It was an infant.

Looking at my own son, I asked myself last night- Could I have left him alone in the tub at that age?
I couldn't. Not a chance. In fact at that age I didn't bathe him in the tub. I bathed him in the sink! I even had bought one of those plastic infant tubs where they lay with their head raised. He didn't like it though and neither did I. Hard to wash a babies back when they are laying on it.
He's four now and he still doesn't get left alone in the tub.

Since he was about two, I've never left him alone in the tub for more than 3 seconds before rushing back. I always had his toy's, soap and towel ready so I wouldn't have to leave. I never really actually thought about it before. It's like it was automatic.

All this time, I have been equating what she did with the simple mistakes we all make. From almost hitting someone changing lanes (I've done it twice in my life and it scared the heck outta me- I checked my blind spot even- Afterward I couldn't figure out where the guy came from!) to sending a text message from my cell phone while driving.
I've climbed ladders in some precarious ways...

I've been under plenty of vehicles without a proper jackstand.

I've driven with hot chocolate in my lap.

So why didn't I ever leave my son alone in the tub?

While working today, I chatted idly with one of my customers about her kids. Small talk, you know, talked about dangerous toys and how kids have a tendancy to get bumps and bruises when you aren't looking. And I was thinking about 'simple mistakes.'

Some mistakes aren't quite that simple. I never left mine alone in the tub. Why didn't I?

Ok.
Now the hard part.

I was wrong. I still don't agree with the full extent of the prosecution- but I was wrong.

Leaving an infant alone in a tub - is a bit beyond looking at your cell phone while driving. I've made some dumb mistakes in my life. But it was automatic that I never left my son alone in the tub.

Tog, You are right. There is some difficulty in quantifying right from wrong. But I believe right and wrong exists. That is exactly why I hash it out. So it can be quantified. Someone was wrong - and it was me.

Now the even harder part.
Why have I been so adamant?
Taking that moment to reflect on that I have no personal experience of leaving my own son ( Or for that matter- when I watched other peoples kids- I never let them play in the pool at all and I watched them like a hawk) I asked why was it so important?
Remembering what my own mother did- she didn't just leave me alone- she held me under.
And I think the lizard part of my brain that accepted that part and decided to forgive her for just being sick- wanted to equate that. That I just want to forgive. For me- personally - I think this thread helped me overcome yet one more obstacle of 'letting go.'

Ok, so I'm not good at agreeing to disagree.
I'm not very good at following proper debate.
I'm not too quick to accept that there is such a thing as an opinion. There is only what is real and true.
I don't let go of a disagreement easily because I want to know that real truth.

It isn't fun.
But it can be productive if one side or the other can learn something about it.
Sometimes things just gotta be hashed out. And I have a very hard head. I had a moderator put a hammer to it - the warning did not go unheeded and I stopped myself from posting a lot of what I wanted to - several people PM me, but in the end- I just had to bull forward until I got the answer.

It's never easy to acknowledge when one is wrong, and it takes a lot of strength to do so openly. Congratulations, Neverfly; that took a lot of courage, and I really admire it.

Do, however, remember that she hasn't been prosecuted yet. However, that being said, it is legally manslaughter. You're right; it should be unthinking that you don't leave your eleven-month-old alone in a bathtub. You're right; you shouldn't be bathing your eleven-month-old in a bathtub in the first place. And it is, I think, much worse to go shoe-shopping online when your infant is alone in a bathtub than to do anything else brought up as a parallel other than drunk driving, and that only because drunk driving might kill more than one person. Sending a text message while you're driving doesn't take very long--it is stupid and dangerous, but it doesn't take very long, and there's nowhere near as great a likelihood that you'll hurt someone than there is when you leave an infant alone in a dangerous situation for ten or twenty minutes.

If it had been a minute or two while she looked out the door to see what the older kids were up to, that would engender pity on my part. But shoe-shopping? That's inexcusable. I can't even except the argument that it was the only time she had; surely finishing the infant's bath and lying it down in its crib has to happen either way, as--as has been pointed out--the infant assuredly cannot bathe itself.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Neverfly, I'm glad you were able to come to that conclusion. Even gladder that you were able to admit it, especially to those who you fought so hard against. It gives me some hope, to know that sometimes there's a way to find argreements even in the hardest fought arguments.

And searching for the truth is a goal I can definitely relate to. It's hard to admit, but sometimes I've also been prone to do what was done here; to hold onto a position so hard that I felt like everyone was against me, which made me hang on harder (does that make any sense?). But you should never stop searching for the truth, just remember that sometimes, the truth isn't what you expect it to be. And sometimes the truth isn't simple. So it can sometimes be a good idea to listen to those with other viewpoints, they might have something to say after all! Or not, of course.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Neverfly, did you mean this literally? Your mother held you under water?

If so, and it's a true memory, I can certainly understand why this discussion touched a nerve with you. It sounds like you had some serious challenges in your early life. Those things tend to sink in deep.

I hope you have, or will, find some peace with those memories.

__________________
Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Whoah, I completely missed that part. Man, no wonder you were so angry about this story!

Damn, I don't know what to say.
I hope you can find a way to make peace with that memory.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Ok, now this is really embarrassing...

Yes, I had mentioned it in a couple other threads too.
I was just thinking - what was it about mothers, tubs and drowning kids would cause a strong reaction?
It doesn't tie in very well- but maybe I'm just trying to forgive my own.
I thought I had- years ago- But now I'm wondering if maybe I haven't completed it yet.

I thought I was worked up because anyone can make a dumb mistake and if we all get prosecuted over it- what a terrible world this would be.

But I had to step back and analyze myself first before I started thinking I was a loony nutjob.

Ok, so a simple apology or a post saying I was wrong would have seemed very shallow- without an explanation.


That is exactly why I hash it out. I'm not always going to subjectively analyze myself and other people aren't either. But just agreeing to disgree doesn't solve anything; it just avoids conflict.
It makes sense. And sometimes the popular view is still wrong too. You have to fight it harder. Sometimes we are just stubborn. Sometimes we are right. You just gotta get through it if you're gonna figure it out.

But yeah, this post was a bit of wisdom on your part.

Thanks. It's never easy, is it?

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Bite me.

Wow. I had a feeling that there was something personal going on with you on this, but if I'd known what it was I would have chosen a different set of examples in my posts. I sincerely hope that you work though that.

As for the debate, I'm glad it's over. I had some concerns about moderator action coming into play, and while that is good thing for the forum and the thread in many cases, it isn't always best for the discussion.

I have always seen opinions as being very different from facts. A fact is a universal thing. It can't reasonably be argued. If you fall, you will fall "down", for example. By my definition, and opinion can never be a fact. Even if a billion people out of a billion and 1 have the same opinion about adding onions to a stew, it's still an opinion that it's the right thing to do, not a fact. Laws are opinions. They have to be. If everyone on earth had the exact same definition of right and wrong, enough to make it a fact, there would be no need for trials or interpretations. Everyone would just "know" if someone were guilty or not. I think that one of the strengths of the legal system, well juries, is that it forces people with different opinions to have to work together and hash out ides, much as we've done here.

For the future of this thread, I'd really like to see it run out of material for the original topic. Sad to say, I don't see that happening. So if must keep going, let's keep it going with something we can all agree on.

Neverfly, and anyone else that might have an interest in it really, there is a book called Aikido in Everyday Life you should look into. Aikido is a martial art built on conflict resolution through harmony. The amazing thing about this style is that the principles can be applied in verbal, or even online conflicts just as well as they can in physical ones. It's the verbal conflict resolution that is the focus of the book. It's not very long, and you don't need to know anything about martial arts to follow it, but it's been very helpful to me. The basic premise is that in order to end the conflict, you use your opponent's argument to unbalance them. You do this by getting on their side and understanding their point of view. Once you see the situation from their side, you can either accept that they are correct, or you can use their point of view to lead them to that point where their argument falls back on itself. There are other times you should attack outright, but the book explains these, and even has little scenarios you can use to test yourself. I've only pulled it off twice, and both were in face to face discussions with irate customers, but when it works, it's like magic. They main thing stressed in the book though is to recognize that whatever view your opponent has is valid to them, and can't just be dismissed out of hand.

So, I'm all for letting this thread die until something new comes along. I'm also glad to see that everyone that started it got to finish.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Hear, hear! Makes me proud to be a BAUTer, actually.

*pours oil on troubled waters*

*gets arrested for polluting*

__________________
Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Now what's wrong?

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/28/chi....ap/index.html

Just...wow...

Oh dear. My heart was broken again. <sigh>


But.. the bail is too big.
Is it really the amount appropriate for the case?

__________________
Jean
-----
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einsteiin

Yes. Once again, we've encountered people I'm not going to feel sorry for.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

After reading that? Easily, if not more. I wouldn't want to see them (or one of them) scare up a bail from a sympathetic relative and run off.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

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