CNN Says 'White Men' are the Biggest Terror Threat in US

[Matnum PI]

For sure it was plausible. But when we looked closer at the specific boys, the facts started emerging, the boy(s) started talking, most knew this was a set-up.

[MDlaxfan76]

For sure it was plausible. But when we looked closer at the specific boys, the facts started emerging, the boy(s) started talking, most knew this was a set-up.

Agreed; as I'd said a couple of posts ago, the way the boys handled themselves, didn't obstruct the process, made it much easier to believe their adamant denials.

Unless you were actually rooting against these youngsters (and I don't recall anyone on LP doing so), it was not that difficult to see that there was a good chance they were innocent of the worst charges.

[Matnum PI]

I think one post-er is saying, today, post-ers would call them guilty. Which i dont believe to be true.

[MDlaxfan76]

I think one post-er is saying, today, post-ers would call them guilty. Which i dont believe to be true.

Indeed, he's very, very mistaken.
Back then as well.

He's not wrong, however, that there were some folks out on the left-outrage fringe (not our regular fellow posters, best as I can recall) who were adamant that, of course, these guys were guilty of the worst. But mostly it was just a horrifying story and it caught folks' attention in a way that a lot more mundane, though no less horrifying, stories do not.

[Matnum PI]

For sure the far-left exists. Just not at LP and not here.

[Trinity]

This is a lacrosse tailgate. Even our lefties are center-cut.

[a fan]

This is a lacrosse tailgate. Even our lefties are center-cut.

I'm stealing that line. Nicely done.

[jhu72]

Ultimately, 'civil liberties' and justice were upheld.

Gee, glad it worked out. It's not like they faced any massive punishment for the drinking, stripping, and raping thing.

Also, justice was upheld with absolutely no help by anyone here, people (lacrosse people! imagine the folks in non-lacrosse world who don't even know the story) who continue to drag these kids' reputations 15 years' post hence after knowing full well the facts of the matter...

I can only imagine what some of you said at the time Crystla and Mike made up their story (though it's not hard to truly imagine since many of you likely were on that other lacrosse website forum trashing the UVA fraternity kids too with the Rolling Stone story; it's a lock to bet on that).

Save the gracious welcomes...from what I can read, very few folks here deserve any praise for the Duke 3 being exonerated.

This topic has me so p.o.'ed. I really can't stand the it wasn't me vibe, when it was. If you weren't defending these kids, you were against them.

End of story.

Since you were responding to me (ignoring everything else I wrote, apparently), I'll just say that your vitriol at your fellow posters on here is misplaced.

Speaking solely for myself, I think these boys were very unfortunate to have had this thing blow up the way it did. Unlucky. But they were not innocent of stupidity and misogyny.

I don't know what the 'right punishment' should have been for their actual mistakes. Perhaps the loss of a season was appropriate; I supported the loss of the St. Paul's HS lax team's season when they filmed and then viewed as a team to much laughter a fellow player's sexual exploits with a HS girl. No one stood up and said stop. Made sense to me that they lost their season (though a whole lot of their parents disagreed, which I find somewhat disgusting). I also approved of the decision up at Harvard recently to rescind some recruits' admission when they came to campus in their senior HS year, got drunk, and harassed some young women (happened to be actual lax players at Harvard) in a pizza joint. Losing the opportunity to go to school there made sense to me.

These are tough calls to make, but I'm going to back the schools' decisions in those cases.

Now, what happened with the rape charges was outrageously bad. Horrifying charge, the credibility of which was only made possible by having hired a stripper in the first place. I blame the prosecutor, not the police, for what happened next. And, yup, he absolutely should have lost his job and license to practice. I haven't followed closely enough to whether he had further financial penalties, but I'd be cool if there were.

Ultimately the boys were vindicated on the rape allegation, I don't know any lacrosse people certainly who aren't aware of that outcome. And if I'm not mistaken a big cash amount was paid to them.

None of this fully compensates, much less excuses, what they went through.
On the other hand, a whole lot of folks don't have the resources to battle false allegations and end up doing serious time.
I'm more concerned for those folks.

But please stop with all the vitriol at your fellow posters.

My oldest son was impacted by the SP lax team scandal. He was a freshman at the time, playing on the JV. Not all the varsity players were in attendance at the party where the video was screened. When the season was canceled, the coaches arranged for a handful of boys who were not involved in the incident but on the varsity to play JV which resulted in a number of the freshman on the JV being sent to the Frosh team. My son was one. This somewhat impacted his "career".

Nonetheless, the school made the right decision to cancel the season. This decision was not universally accepted by the parents as the correct punishment. I still heard a significant number of parents grumbling and offering the "boys will be boys" BS. Just like the Duke case. Parents whose kids were on the varsity and just as many on the other teams (JV / Frosh) never felt the school made the right decision. I would say the parents feeling the school made the right decision were probably in the minority. Its a game for Christ sake. Seeing the behavior of some of the parents I could understand how the kids went wrong.

[Bandito]

Michael Bloomberg entering the race for the Dems. You know they’re in huge trouble!

Old, billionaire white male to get into the Democrat primary for President.

Democrats ... “Diversity is our strength.”

Hypocrites!

Dems are sounding the alarm. No hope for 2020

Bloomberg entering should help Trump:

-Knocks Biden out

-Forces other Dems to spend all $ they have to keep up with him, leaving them no $ for the general

-Too extreme on guns to win general election

-Too moderate to win a Dem primary

-Dem party too anti-Semitic to pick him

[holmes435]

Michael Bloomberg entering the race for the Dems. You know they’re in huge trouble!

Old, billionaire white male to get into the Democrat primary for President.

Democrats ... “Diversity is our strength.”

Hypocrites!

Dems are sounding the alarm. No hope for 2020

Bloomberg entering should help Trump:

-Knocks Biden out

-Forces other Dems to spend all $ they have to keep up with him, leaving them no $ for the general

-Too extreme on guns to win general election

-Too moderate to win a Dem primary

-Dem party too anti-Semitic to pick him

The elections really got your knickers in a twist. It's tough getting "owned by the "libs" I suppose. You made your bed, sorry you have to lie in it.

Us independents are just sitting back watching you eat yourselves. It's entertaining but kind of annoying.

[MDlaxfan76]

Ultimately, 'civil liberties' and justice were upheld.

Gee, glad it worked out. It's not like they faced any massive punishment for the drinking, stripping, and raping thing.

Also, justice was upheld with absolutely no help by anyone here, people (lacrosse people! imagine the folks in non-lacrosse world who don't even know the story) who continue to drag these kids' reputations 15 years' post hence after knowing full well the facts of the matter...

I can only imagine what some of you said at the time Crystla and Mike made up their story (though it's not hard to truly imagine since many of you likely were on that other lacrosse website forum trashing the UVA fraternity kids too with the Rolling Stone story; it's a lock to bet on that).

Save the gracious welcomes...from what I can read, very few folks here deserve any praise for the Duke 3 being exonerated.

This topic has me so p.o.'ed. I really can't stand the it wasn't me vibe, when it was. If you weren't defending these kids, you were against them.

End of story.

Since you were responding to me (ignoring everything else I wrote, apparently), I'll just say that your vitriol at your fellow posters on here is misplaced.

Speaking solely for myself, I think these boys were very unfortunate to have had this thing blow up the way it did. Unlucky. But they were not innocent of stupidity and misogyny.

I don't know what the 'right punishment' should have been for their actual mistakes. Perhaps the loss of a season was appropriate; I supported the loss of the St. Paul's HS lax team's season when they filmed and then viewed as a team to much laughter a fellow player's sexual exploits with a HS girl. No one stood up and said stop. Made sense to me that they lost their season (though a whole lot of their parents disagreed, which I find somewhat disgusting). I also approved of the decision up at Harvard recently to rescind some recruits' admission when they came to campus in their senior HS year, got drunk, and harassed some young women (happened to be actual lax players at Harvard) in a pizza joint. Losing the opportunity to go to school there made sense to me.

These are tough calls to make, but I'm going to back the schools' decisions in those cases.

Now, what happened with the rape charges was outrageously bad. Horrifying charge, the credibility of which was only made possible by having hired a stripper in the first place. I blame the prosecutor, not the police, for what happened next. And, yup, he absolutely should have lost his job and license to practice. I haven't followed closely enough to whether he had further financial penalties, but I'd be cool if there were.

Ultimately the boys were vindicated on the rape allegation, I don't know any lacrosse people certainly who aren't aware of that outcome. And if I'm not mistaken a big cash amount was paid to them.

None of this fully compensates, much less excuses, what they went through.
On the other hand, a whole lot of folks don't have the resources to battle false allegations and end up doing serious time.
I'm more concerned for those folks.

But please stop with all the vitriol at your fellow posters.

My oldest son was impacted by the SP lax team scandal. He was a freshman at the time, playing on the JV. Not all the varsity players were in attendance at the party where the video was screened. When the season was canceled, the coaches arranged for a handful of boys who were not involved in the incident but on the varsity to play JV which resulted in a number of the freshman on the JV being sent to the Frosh team. My son was one. This somewhat impacted his "career".

Nonetheless, the school made the right decision to cancel the season. This decision was not universally accepted by the parents as the correct punishment. I still heard a significant number of parents grumbling and offering the "boys will be boys" BS. Just like the Duke case. Parents whose kids were on the varsity and just as many on the other teams (JV / Frosh) never felt the school made the right decision. I would say the parents feeling the school made the right decision were probably in the minority. Its a game for Christ sake. Seeing the behavior of some of the parents I could understand how the kids went wrong.

Thanks for sharing '72. Quite agree.
I understand that my fellow Big Green goalie alum was very much in support of the tough, but right, call.

Hope your son and his friends, in the long run, were also positively affected by the decision.
I'd be willing to bet yes, in your family at least.

My wife was at the hair salon, two women started talking about it, so upset that their boys were going to lose their season, might have their recruiting impacted, "lacrosse is why we are at St.Pauls" "we were #1 in the nation".. 'school over reacted', very angry; not a word for the girl. My wife couldn't believe these gals. Brought to mind the "Yellow Tarts" of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities. Horrified.

My son was 9 at the time, playing rec ball, made for some very interesting, if seemingly premature discussions. It was a touch point in many a discussion over the following years. I'd like to think that he absorbed the right aspects from it, the importance of protecting victims, the importance of standing up when something is going wrong, saying 'stop'.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xp ... story.html

[Peter Brown]

I certainly can see the partisan reason for conflating the two incidents, but in case I don't understand, can you help me out here?

Are you equating the surreptitious video of an underage girl having sex played in front of an under-age high school team where no one spoke out, to the drinking of beer by and the hiring of a stripper by a legal-age group of men where no one did anything wrong other than the drinking of beer?

The same sentence was handed out of course, the canceling of a season. It seems that MDLax and JHU72 think these two 'crimes' are similar. Am I right? Are you suggesting, or claiming, that the two incidents were equal in the crime, and therefore the sentence for both was justified on an equivalency of crime standard?

In case you say 'no they are not the same but Duke's season should still have been canceled', are you suggesting that any time any player from any college lacrosse team is caught drinking beer, the team's season should be canceled? Or was it the hiring of a stripper?

I guess I could agree that hiring a stripper is demeaning of women and should not be tolerated, but a whole season canceled? Is there perhaps a lighter sentence that might be more appropriate, such as one game forfeit, or whoever's idea it was gets kicked off, or community service for the team? Is the punishment-mad ethos of our country at play here, or just more partisanship?

I am seriously interested in anyone addressing these questions.

[Peter Brown]

Dems are sounding the alarm. No hope for 2020

Bloomberg entering should help Trump:

-Knocks Biden out

-Forces other Dems to spend all $ they have to keep up with him, leaving them no $ for the general

-Too extreme on guns to win general election

-Too moderate to win a Dem primary

-Dem party too anti-Semitic to pick him

I don't agree with your last statement, that 'Dems are too anti-Semitic' to pick Bloomberg (whom I like a great deal). I do believe that should he win the nomination, he will spend half his fortune to try to win, and just may do it. His highest hurdle will be exciting the far left side of the Party, which in my estimation is no 40%-50% of the entire Party. Without them, he loses. And MB is not a panderer, so I see a difficult path.

[MDlaxfan76]

I certainly can see the partisan reason for conflating the two incidents, but in case I don't understand, can you help me out here?

Are you equating the surreptitious video of an underage girl having sex played in front of an under-age high school team where no one spoke out, to the drinking of beer by and the hiring of a stripper by a legal-age group of men where no one did anything wrong other than the drinking of beer?

The same sentence was handed out of course, the canceling of a season. It seems that MDLax and JHU72 think these two 'crimes' are similar. Am I right? Are you suggesting, or claiming, that the two incidents were equal in the crime, and therefore the sentence for both was justified on an equivalency of crime standard?

In case you say 'no they are not the same but Duke's season should still have been canceled', are you suggesting that any time any player from any college lacrosse team is caught drinking beer, the team's season should be canceled? Or was it the hiring of a stripper?

I guess I could agree that hiring a stripper is demeaning of women and should not be tolerated, but a whole season canceled? Is there perhaps a lighter sentence that might be more appropriate, such as one game forfeit, or whoever's idea it was gets kicked off, or community service for the team? Is the punishment-mad ethos of our country at play here, or just more partisanship?

I am seriously interested in anyone addressing these questions.

"partisan"???

No, the two events are not identical.
Both were stupid. Both involved underage drinking (I actually don't recall this from St.P event...but definitely the case at Duke).
But no, the underage drinking was not the cause for loss of a season. That indeed would have been forfeit of a game, or suspensions of specific players.

I don't 'equate' the videotaping and 'fun' of watching the tape by a large portion of the team, no one stepping up and saying 'stop', with watching a stripper...but both pass the threshold for egregious misogynistic conduct. I don't care whether the girl was "underage", that's not remotely the point. You do understand that it'd be wrong regardless of how old the girl was, right? Perhaps you don't understand that paying a woman to strip and act provocatively, degradingly, to the cheers of the crowd is wrong too?

I think the videotape was worse, but both go way past acceptable, and both were done by 'the team', with no one stepping up to stop it.

"boys will be boys" just doesn't cut it, PB...in either case.

Again, this stuff happens...and even worse.
I think schools have little choice but to come down hard when these events are brought to light.

These are learning opportunities not just for those caught, they alert others to consider their actions more carefully.
Ideally there's real introspection about what it means to respect others, protect those who are at a disadvantage.
In these cases, respect for women. Cultural issue, long overdue.

And again, I've done my share of stupid stuff.
Different era, but I regret it nevertheless.

[foreverlax]

I certainly can see the partisan reason for conflating the two incidents, but in case I don't understand, can you help me out here?
Saying this is a partisan is your first error. Rush to judgement would be a better assessment of what occurred.

Are you equating the surreptitious video of an underage girl having sex played in front of an under-age high school team where no one spoke out, to the drinking of beer by and the hiring of a stripper by a legal-age group of men where no one did anything wrong other than the drinking of beer?
No, they are not equivalent, no one said they were.

The same sentence was handed out of course, the canceling of a season. It seems that MDLax and JHU72 think these two 'crimes' are similar. Am I right? Are you suggesting, or claiming, that the two incidents were equal in the crime, and therefore the sentence for both was justified on an equivalency of crime standard?
Blame Duke for cancelling the season.

In case you say 'no they are not the same but Duke's season should still have been canceled', are you suggesting that any time any player from any college lacrosse team is caught drinking beer, the team's season should be canceled? Or was it the hiring of a stripper?
Ask Duke how they got to that decision.

I guess I could agree that hiring a stripper is demeaning of women and should not be tolerated, but a whole season canceled? Is there perhaps a lighter sentence that might be more appropriate, such as one game forfeit, or whoever's idea it was gets kicked off, or community service for the team? Is the punishment-mad ethos of our country at play here, or just more partisanship?
In hindsight, I am sure the players, Duke and Pifong all regret their decisions...the one person who really got screwed was Pressler.

Partisanship, means prejudice in support of a cause; strong and sometimes blind adherence to a particular party, faction, cause, or person...clearly not the correct word to use.

I am seriously interested in anyone addressing these questions.

[Peter Brown]

Perhaps you don't understand that paying a woman to strip and act provocatively, degradingly, to the cheers of the crowd is wrong too?

I'm not claiming Duke players exhibited 'good conduct', and certainly as time goes by and our culture rapidly evolves, it becomes worse if done in today's standards, but in case you think that hiring a stripper 14 years ago was worthy of having an entire season canceled, I'd like to introduce you to every fraternity in America. Would you like to revoke their charters, too?

The partisan slap comes from what I read here on these boards (maybe not this thread but elsewhere) as 'Republicans are the moral police blahblahblah' blather...maybe with that in mind, you could assess the Duke case in light of the time (2006) and perhaps a tad more nuance? I see some, perhaps not you, needing to conflate these two incidents for reasons of making the Duke kids look bad when they are anything but; to any objective eye, the two incidents are world's apart...Duke's Admin cut bait on the season and Coach P because the mob (the liberal mob if we are being honest) demanded heads. Bending to the mob is the worst way to run a civil society.

I agree about the St. Paul's season, and sure the age is not conditional on the underlying crime, but it sure adds points to the degradation scale.

[MDlaxfan76]

Dems are sounding the alarm. No hope for 2020

Bloomberg entering should help Trump:

-Knocks Biden out

-Forces other Dems to spend all $ they have to keep up with him, leaving them no $ for the general

-Too extreme on guns to win general election

-Too moderate to win a Dem primary

-Dem party too anti-Semitic to pick him

I don't agree with your last statement, that 'Dems are too anti-Semitic' to pick Bloomberg (whom I like a great deal). I do believe that should he win the nomination, he will spend half his fortune to try to win, and just may do it. His highest hurdle will be exciting the far left side of the Party, which in my estimation is no 40%-50% of the entire Party. Without them, he loses. And MB is not a panderer, so I see a difficult path.

Trolls, haters, should be ignored PB.
Pleased to be in agreement with you about MB.
If he's able to win the primary battle, it will be because of the imperative to beat Trump, 'trumping' all else.
He has enough 'left-leaning' street cred to mollify the hard left, and they'll be 'excited' to beat Trump.

I heard someone say that Trump will beat him around the ears for the soda tax, nanny-state, idea that didn't get off the ground in NY (but having great effect in Mexico experiment), but it happens to be another issue in which he was and is very much right. I think it would be very interesting to see what he would do with our food policies at a national level, flipping the ag subsidies from corn (sugar) to fresh vegetables, focusing on health promotion instead of disease care. Systematically focus on preventing the 50% of all healthcare costs, chronic diseases, caused by nutrition.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Perhaps you don't understand that paying a woman to strip and act provocatively, degradingly, to the cheers of the crowd is wrong too?

I'm not claiming Duke players exhibited 'good conduct', and certainly as time goes by and our culture rapidly evolves, it becomes worse if done in today's standards, but in case you think that hiring a stripper 14 years ago was worthy of having an entire season canceled, I'd like to introduce you to every fraternity in America. Would you like to revoke their charters, too?

The partisan slap comes from what I read here on these boards (maybe not this thread but elsewhere) as 'Republicans are the moral police blahblahblah' blather...maybe with that in mind, you could assess the Duke case in light of the time (2006) and perhaps a tad more nuance? I see some, perhaps not you, needing to conflate these two incidents for reasons of making the Duke kids look bad when they are anything but; to any objective eye, the two incidents are world's apart...Duke's Admin cut bait on the season and Coach P because the mob (the liberal mob if we are being honest) demanded heads. Bending to the mob is the worst way to run a civil society.

I agree about the St. Paul's season, and sure the age is not conditional on the underlying crime, but it sure adds points to the degradation scale.

There is a reason why frats are being shut down. Back in my day, my girlfriend’s roommate passed out at a frat house. Tons of Polaroid pictures of guys violating here in all manner of awful things. Nothing happened to any of the guys. I miss those days. Don’t you?

[RedFromMI]

Bloomberg would be an extreme long shot at this point within the D primary - his winning NYC coalition includes a lot of Rs that wont have any say in picking the D nominee. In reality, he and any of the other billionaires who are running/toyed with running would be better off pushing Senate races...

[MDlaxfan76]

Perhaps you don't understand that paying a woman to strip and act provocatively, degradingly, to the cheers of the crowd is wrong too?

I'm not claiming Duke players exhibited 'good conduct', and certainly as time goes by and our culture rapidly evolves, it becomes worse if done in today's standards, but in case you think that hiring a stripper 14 years ago was worthy of having an entire season canceled, I'd like to introduce you to every fraternity in America. Would you like to revoke their charters, too?

The partisan slap comes from what I read here on these boards (maybe not this thread but elsewhere) as 'Republicans are the moral police blahblahblah' blather...maybe with that in mind, you could assess the Duke case in light of the time (2006) and perhaps a tad more nuance? I see some, perhaps not you, needing to conflate these two incidents for reasons of making the Duke kids look bad when they are anything but; to any objective eye, the two incidents are world's apart...Duke's Admin cut bait on the season and Coach P because the mob (the liberal mob if we are being honest) demanded heads. Bending to the mob is the worst way to run a civil society.

I agree about the St. Paul's season, and sure the age is not conditional on the underlying crime, but it sure adds points to the degradation scale.

The age aspect is horrifying, but then again, these boys were even more "adolescent brains" than the older Duke boys, some of them 21-22. But the 'degradation' is not age-dependent, there is no 'of-age vs 'under-age'.

One can argue that a stripper as more 'agency' than a 'surreptitious' video. But that 'agency' is greatly reduced by economic realities, life circumstances.

Yes, if a frat hires a stripper, they should lose their charter. That's actually the position of national fraternities, as is their position on hazing. Even "14 years ago". BTW, in my 4 years in a frat, we certainly never hired a stripper! I don't recall any of the other frats on campus doing so either, and this was back in the late '70's. Gotta think the guys knew it would be asking for trouble, as it's not as if lots of other stupid stuff didn't go on.

But, yeah, it usually doesn't come to light. But if/when it does, closing that frat down sends a loud message to everyone else.

Now, your statement: "...making the Duke kids look bad when they are anything but" is exactly the problem. They screwed up. They had an off-campus, heavy drinking, team party, including youngest players...with a stripper. Misogynistic. Got caught.

Sure, the 'mob' got very worked up with the rest of the allegations, as well as the whole 'look' of these white, mostly wealthy boys of 'privilege' with a black stripper. Yes, there was lots of social pressure to take action.

But the boys weren't innocent of the underage drinking encouragement and most importantly the hiring and cheering of the stripper. No one stepped up to say 'stop'. Not the captains, not the seniors, not the star players, no one.

I think that, absent the additional allegations, had there simply been an incident with the police coming, stripper and underage drinking caught on the record, this would have still required the loss of the season...or should have.

Sometimes, indeed too often IMO, schools sweep this stuff under the rug, slap some wrists, and move on. Unless it captures the attention of the student body and faculty, or someone files a lawsuit. Schools protect their 'reputations' rather than doing the right thing...the momentum on that has indeed swung dramatically the other way over the past decade, but it's still the natural tendency at most schools. It takes serious effort to not.

I don't see any of the "Republican" aspects that you seem to see.
Are R's more likely to say 'boys will be boys' than Dems?

I guess the alignment between D's and R's has indeed tilted heavily with educated, working women nearly all D's these days...and misogyny being a serious issue from their perspective, but I don't really associate good parenting with D or R political affiliation...there are idiots who excuse their kids' bad behaviors in all political stripes.