Dharun Ravi, 20, the Rutgers student who used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate, a roommate who killed himself shortly thereafter, has been sentenced to 30 days in jail, fined some $12,000, given three years probation and 300 hours of community service. This case in particular was not as easy as some suggested. Destroying the life of one very stupid young man would not have brought the other man back to life--if it would/could, I'd have advocated for a life sentence.
Ravi is not a good person, despite what his mother and his neighbors claim. He's an ass and a bully and will suffer for the remainder of his life for what he did. Since he's never apologized he may not feel responsible, but if he stays in this country, someone will always remember who he is and what he did. He'll never escape the consequences. Sending him to prison for ten years (the maximum sentence for invasion of privacy) would have served no purpose. As one gay columnist wrote, it won't end bullying as there's a bully in all of us. Perhaps it will encourage those of us who recognize our own internal bully to think long and hard before we disparage others who are different, in whatever way.
I think the sentence is appropriate but my heart still goes out to Clementi's parents. Their hurt is forever.
I'm getting tired, so I will slow down or even stop after this response. I am so tired, I did not even read this blog, beyond the first few opening lines of the first few paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion when you said "Ravi was not a good man or boy, no matter what his mom said", or similar, you pulled into the equation a variable that you had no right to introduce, Ms. Blogger. The quality of good, and judging equivocally (by yourself) who is good and who is bad.
Aside from my opinion that there are no good and/or bad people, and good or bad are relativistic, self-serving terms that serve no value to man; I also assert that even if Ravi was good or bad, you are not in a position of saying which he was of the two.
You condemned him as a wicked, evil man, on one of his expressions. The had millions of other expressions in his life, which you had to ignore, because there is no way you can account even for a small fraction of them.
It seemed to me (but I admit I could be wrong) that the rest of this blog was going to be using this original premiss, the "bad" of Ravi, so I aborted the reading of it.
I admit I jumped into foreconclusion, and I shouldn't have done so. But I am tired, and my judgment was that you used the Ungood of Ravi as a premis, and in logic if a false premise is used, the conclusion can only be correct if fallacious logic is used to operate the variables of the premiss or the premisses.
So I apologize, but I stopped the reading then.
If I may ask you to please get away from the "good" "bad" dichotomy in your future writing, then I would. Good and Bad do nothing to the issue, they are not arguments, but personal and relativistic judgments, which serve no useful purpose if you are trying to sound intelligent or are intelligent and your audience is made of intelligent people.
Good night.
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