Adults dupe teen into MySpace-assisted suicide

[bigmonkey]

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And wtf is going on with the parents. I do not want to hear anyones argument for doing anything else, but physcially hurting or killing some member of the offending family. Let the mom take care of the younger daughter. The dad is struggling at work? Depressed? Take a god damn handgun, wait outside the "killer" families house and [censored] waste their daughter. Period. Thats it. How can you let this go?

My father lost his brother to a tragic accident in India, when my dad was 21 and his bro was 18. He still thinks about him, but has moved on. But my grandparents have never forgotten and each day it hurts. Maybe they forget for awhile, but whenever they have time to think the pain never goes away. Never. I would never wish on my worst enemy to lose a child.

Now, if this ploy was by the young girl who was "un"friended, then it becomes murky. But the ADULTS were involved. They perpetuated the account.



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So you wouldn't wish the death of a child on even your worst enemy? And yet you advocate going around and killing this family's daughter?
Furthermore, the daughter could be entirely innocent. And even if she isn't she hardly deserves to die! Yours is the stupidest and most disturbing response I've seen in this thread.

[xorbie]

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yeah exactly. Sometimes the "choice" that GOT thinks people are making, they arent actually making, because they don't see any other options to choose from. It annoys me when people who are of a different mental state cast their own mental state onto someone else. Sure its obvious to us that she chose to kill herself because we can easily see not doing it, or the girl who goes back to the BF that beats her is choosing to do so, because to us, she obviously doesnt have to. But that doesnt mean they see it as a choice, they are suffering from mental illness or the trauma of extreme abuse, who the [censored] knows whats going on in their brain, its not like she calmly and rationally went "gee this really sucks, I feel humiliated now, guess I better go kill myself".

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If you agree (not saying you necessarily do) that people should be morally responsible for their own actions except in cases of mental illness or severe emotional instability, then how does the blame suddenly shift over to the last person to impact their psyche (seems borderline arbitrary; straw, camel, etc)? Why wouldn't it logically be shifted to the chemical imbalance itself?

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You're talking about it as if there needs to be some sort of hard and fast law, some "Blame Calculator" that we can just apply.

The fact is, these adults are despicable specimens of the human race. I don't know why we have to argue about this.

[Zygote]

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Great [censored] analogy, comparing a gf breaking up with a boy she doesnt love with adults who knew a THIRTEEN year old girl was suicidal/depressed and messed with here because she unfriended their daughter. Do you think me having drunk sex with my gf is akin to me having drunk sex with a 14 year old?


And for everyone talking about civil court etc. wtf do you know. Are you a lawyer? I took two intro level law classes at school and even from that little amount I know there is a least a decent chance of proving some type of causal liability. I distinctly remember a chain of reactions case study we did.

A doctor stopped by the side of road to help out an accident victim. He did some relatively minor thing to help her broken arm, apparently didnt set it right and grew back slightly twisted and he was liable. Some guy misused a nail gun when he was drunk got a settlement. Some chick split coffee on herself and McD made a settlement. Those all happened.

I agree there is no way the "evil" parents could face criminal charges, but they could at least try to show they were liable. Knew the childs history, manipulated others to help perpetuate the account, etc.

Man I cannot believe stuff like this happens. Unreal. The guy lost his wife, his job, he is too old to start over. I cant read this thread anymore.

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another case is when barmen get convicted for their patrons who drive home drunk.

[Zutroy]

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yeah exactly. Sometimes the "choice" that GOT thinks people are making, they arent actually making, because they don't see any other options to choose from. It annoys me when people who are of a different mental state cast their own mental state onto someone else. Sure its obvious to us that she chose to kill herself because we can easily see not doing it, or the girl who goes back to the BF that beats her is choosing to do so, because to us, she obviously doesnt have to. But that doesnt mean they see it as a choice, they are suffering from mental illness or the trauma of extreme abuse, who the [censored] knows whats going on in their brain, its not like she calmly and rationally went "gee this really sucks, I feel humiliated now, guess I better go kill myself".

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If you agree (not saying you necessarily do) that people should be morally responsible for their own actions except in cases of mental illness or severe emotional instability, then how does the blame suddenly shift over to the last person to impact their psyche (seems borderline arbitrary; straw, camel, etc)? Why wouldn't it logically be shifted to the chemical imbalance itself?

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Well, it largely is the fault of the the chemical imbalance but at the same time the parents had it within their power to prevent her suicide and didn't. They chose to seek revenge on a girl they knew was mentally unbalanced.

If someone leaves a glass on a edge and you come by and purposely knock it down, who is responsible for the glass getting broken? If you hadn't knocked it down, it wouldn't have broken. The opposite is arguably true of course (if they hadn't left it on the edge it wouldn't have gotten broken) but your intent is purposefully malicious while theirs might simply be misguided.

Also, on a more philosophical level, people aren't rational all, or even most, of the time. They make stupid or difficult to explain decisions based on their relationships with other people. The actions you take can directly influence the actions of others. I have only hypothetical examples to back my claim but say a boy falls madly in love with a girl. The girl, who hates her boss, tells the boy to kill the boss. He isn't thinking rationally and is blinded by his love. He kills the boss. Is she in any way responsible in you mind?

[AlexM]

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we're talking about a child here and there's no way that she got depressed before she got fat.

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Am I missing something here everyone?

And please note, the italicized part is lunacy. You're a good troll. I got sucked in.

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No, the italicized part is correct. I said there is no way this child got depressed then got fat, but it's certainly possible for adults. To weigh 200 pounds at age 13 she has to have been putting it on for several years. She was almost certainly a fat 10 year old and a fat 8 year old. I have never even heard of a depressed 7 year old, so the idea that this child could have gotten fat because she was eating due to depression is flat out absurd. This does not mean that it's not possible and even normal in other much different situations.

[AlexM]

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I think what AlexM is saying in his unnecessary belligerent fashion is that poor eating habits can certainly follow depression, but that in all likelihood a girl who is 13 and already weighs 175 (and used to weigh nearly 200 it seems) has probably been overweight for a long, long time and this has probably led to a lot of negative social consequences, which therefore led to depression.

For this child to be overweight due to bad eating habits from being depressed, the child would have had to have serious depression from a very early age.

And yes, the parents should notice at some point that Megan was getting overweight and stepped in. Period.

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Yes, this is exactly what I was saying. Dunno what was "unnecessarily belligerent" about the way I said it, but whatever.

[wet work]

Just because you've never heard of childhood depression doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This girl was already talking about suicide in the 3rd grade. And was in counseling because of it.

[AlexM]

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Just because you've never heard of childhood depression doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This girl was already talking about suicide in the 3rd grade. And was in counseling because of it.

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True, and it's almost certainly because she was way overweight then too and incessantly harassed for it. The main thing that makes children depressed is being treated like crap by their peers and being fat is a sure-fire way for that to happen.

[Alobar]

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yeah exactly. Sometimes the "choice" that GOT thinks people are making, they arent actually making, because they don't see any other options to choose from. It annoys me when people who are of a different mental state cast their own mental state onto someone else. Sure its obvious to us that she chose to kill herself because we can easily see not doing it, or the girl who goes back to the BF that beats her is choosing to do so, because to us, she obviously doesnt have to. But that doesnt mean they see it as a choice, they are suffering from mental illness or the trauma of extreme abuse, who the [censored] knows whats going on in their brain, its not like she calmly and rationally went "gee this really sucks, I feel humiliated now, guess I better go kill myself".

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If you agree (not saying you necessarily do) that people should be morally responsible for their own actions except in cases of mental illness or severe emotional instability, then how does the blame suddenly shift over to the last person to impact their psyche (seems borderline arbitrary; straw, camel, etc)? Why wouldn't it logically be shifted to the chemical imbalance itself?

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I'm not saying they arent responsible if they have a mental illness or whatnot, I just think there are circumstances and instances where whats a clear choice to those of us who are stable, might not even register as a choice to the person its happening to. I don't think the blame just shifts over to the last person to interact with them, or some incident that sets them off. If I call you ugly and you snap and kill yourself, I don't really think im the cause. But thats not what happened here. The fact that this was an elaborate and lengthy premeditated plot to bring this girl crumbling down, knowing full well she was suffering and being treated for a mental illness makes this situation much different, and I think what they did to her is enough to place blame on them for being responsible.

Say I don't like you, and I decide I wanna cause you some emotional duress. I come up with this big elobarate plot that takes me weeks to prepare where I convince you that aliens have taken over the town and are going from house to house systematically torturing everyone in the most painful way possible and there is no escape. Say I know you are bit crazy and are fearful of aliens taking over the world and that you go to therapy for that reason. Well you end up killing yourself in your basement because you dont want the aliens to torture you. Am I not to blame for that at all? My intent wasnt for you to kill yourself, only to cause you some anguish at the thought of your fears coming true. And since you chose to kill yourself, im not at all responsible.

What if I know you have a weak heart and take medication for it, but I decide to play a mean prank on you were I explode a huge firecracker under your bed while you are asleep, the adrenaline dump causes you to have a heart attack and you die. I shouldnt be to blame because it was your heart condition that killed you?

[PRE]

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yeah exactly. Sometimes the "choice" that GOT thinks people are making, they arent actually making, because they don't see any other options to choose from. It annoys me when people who are of a different mental state cast their own mental state onto someone else. Sure its obvious to us that she chose to kill herself because we can easily see not doing it, or the girl who goes back to the BF that beats her is choosing to do so, because to us, she obviously doesnt have to. But that doesnt mean they see it as a choice, they are suffering from mental illness or the trauma of extreme abuse, who the [censored] knows whats going on in their brain, its not like she calmly and rationally went "gee this really sucks, I feel humiliated now, guess I better go kill myself".

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If you agree (not saying you necessarily do) that people should be morally responsible for their own actions except in cases of mental illness or severe emotional instability, then how does the blame suddenly shift over to the last person to impact their psyche (seems borderline arbitrary; straw, camel, etc)? Why wouldn't it logically be shifted to the chemical imbalance itself?

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You're talking about it as if there needs to be some sort of hard and fast law, some "Blame Calculator" that we can just apply.

The fact is, these adults are despicable specimens of the human race. I don't know why we have to argue about this.

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Neither do I.

And I'm not sure why people aren't smart enough to realize that projecting their own mental state (as mentioned by another poster) on someone else, let alone a child, is illogical.