fwiw, Thompson is doing really well amongst the nativists online - he handily walks away with la Malkin's reader poll here

It might be Huckabee, or some organization which supports Huckabee. He advocates replacing the income tax with a blatantly regressive 23% national sales tax. Contrary to what he calls it, it is an extremely unfair tax. (e.g., people who are too poor to pay income tax today would experience a net increase in the taxes they pay.) Advocates of this sort of system suggests that the government could mail subsidies to the poor to make the tax less regressive. But one of the reasons they advocate this tax is so that they can abolish the IRS. In that case, who's going to keep track of who gets these subsidies and how much they get?

That Huckabee can support such an unworkable proposal and not get called on it is one of the reasons why I dislike him. (Another reason is that he's one of those people who can hateful things about others and get away with it because he's "just joking." )

I guess Mitt had a coupon to Smear one candidate at full price and smear a second free.*

* Second candidate must be of equal or lesser popularity.

John @ 2:

Oh, don't get me started. I live in Linder's district. The part that really makes me howl with laughter is where they explain that since businesses won't have to pay any taxes any more, they'll obviously pass the savings on to the consumers and prices will plummet!

John @ 2: No kidding. Huckabee is Bush Mark 2, down to the asinine press people who think that his crudity is a mark of authenticity.

Did you read about the deep-fried squirrels?

A friend of mine in Iowa is getting them too.

Scripted drama

I'm calling on behalf of [fake name here]
I'd like to ask you "questions" meant to slur
I hope you'll vote for [our guy] out of fear

Their candidate supports [insert claim here]
And holds [claimed views] to which you would demur
I'm calling on behalf of [fake name here]

The other candidates [put false claim here]
And [other claims which border on slander]
I hope you'll vote for [our guy] out of fear

Their candidate has said [insert lie here]
And [other lies to which I will refer]
I'm calling on behalf of [fake name here]

The other candidates support [lie here]
And [still worse things I want you to infer]
I hope you'll vote for [our guy] out of fear

In closing please support [our guy's name here]
Whose positions I want you to prefer
I'm calling on behalf of [fake name here]
I hope you'll vote for [our guy] out of fear

#5: Have you heard about Huckabee's Christmas pheasant hunt with the media?

"Don't get in my way," he said while pointing to the three dead birds.

"This is what happens…You vote for me, you live. You don't…there you go."

There was a lot more on NPR, including "That way you prove that you can shoot, and if somebody really messes with you with negative campaign ads, they just need to be prepared."

This is what NPR calls a "sense of humor."

It was a joke, of course. But I hear these jokes from the right a lot, and every time I get a little closer to thinking they might be serious.

Pete @ 7

Very nice!

Huckabee sounds like a horrific combo of Bush and Cheney, all masked behind those "cute" dimples.

Faren @ 10 -- Yes, and that is why I am currently very, very frightened by his popularity.

Pete, #7: Cute! One caveat -- the inverted stress on "slander" clangs oddly to the ear; is there a reasonable way to rewrite that line?

Katherine Mankiller #4: Whatever it is Lindner and Boortz are smoking definitely ought to be illegal. The idea of a tax that would intentionally keep the poor poor, and fix the class system into place even more firmly than in nineteenth century Britain, is appalling.

Pete #7: Nicely done!

Pete @ 7: Sweet! I'm jealous.

>>2

Advocates of this sort of system suggests that the government could mail subsidies to the poor to make the tax less regressive. But one of the reasons they advocate this tax is so that they can abolish the IRS. In that case, who's going to keep track of who gets these subsidies and how much they get?

Advocates of the one detailed proposal I've heard propose that the government mail "prebate"[1] checks to everyone with a Social Security number. This reduces the problem to maintaining a list of everyone, which the Social Security department already does. It probably is cheaper to generate 12 checks even for rich people who can wait until the end of the year than to set up a system to send monthly checks only to the poor.

It nets out to be progressive: people get a check to cover the tax on the first ~$10k/year of spending (so they don't pay the sales tax out of pocket), then they pay the tax on everything else. Details here.

[1] What an ugly neologism.

[2] The 23% number advocates throw around actually means that 23% of the retail price of everything is tax. This is parallel with how income taxes are figured now (income tax percentages are based on gross pay, not net), so it's fair, but if you started with the net sale price the merchant gets to keep, then you'd get a 30% tax.

Pete 7: Me likey!

#8 -- Not only did Huckabee make that not laughing over here joke about shooting dead those who don't do as he says, he also shot in the direction of the journalists. A pheasant got flushed either in front or right behind them, and he pulled the trigger! Number one rule of hunting is that you never, ever, ever, shoot in the direction of other people. Right. He shot over their heads. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

This tells you all you need to know.

Like the first mention of dub in the NY Times -- defending his frat's right to burn freshman with red-hot coat hangers.

Love, C.

Constance Ash @ 18:

Like the first mention of dub in the NY Times -- defending his frat's right to burn freshman with red-hot coat hangers.

I would suggest if you came to my campus and suggested to the black fraternities that they have no right to brand their members, they'd consider that an unreasonable intrusion on their organization, and I'd agree with them.

John 19*: I would not agree with them. Hazing is a bad thing and needs to be stopped. Fraternities can practice it if they want, but they should be banned for doing so from any university that holds with any kind of humane ethic.

In other words, a fraternity is not quite a private club, and college freshmen are not quite adults; a university that allows fraternities to live or function on campus, or recruit its students, has an obligation to prevent hazing and protect students from fraternities that practice it. IMO, VWPOT.

*Isn't that where sentence is pronounced? Coincidence, I promise.

Wesley @ 8: Creepiest far-right joke I've heard was in the documentary Diary of a Political Journalist, where one of the GOP hacks enjoying BBQ on the White House lawn says, "It's all over but the countin'...and we'll take care of the countin'."

It's a lot harder for me to believe Huckabee is serious about shooting voters than it was to believe this guy.

(Apologies in advance to anyone offended by my punctuation.)

On the other hand ... trying to shoot a pheasant that's flying toward reporters (or anyone else) qualifies Huckabee as 'unthinking' in my book. Even if he tried to make a joke out of it - it isn't funny.

Re the "sales" tax --

A distressing amount of our politics is based on the assumption that nobody can do simple arithmetic. From what I've heard, the real tax rate to replace the current income tax varies between 40% and 100%, depending on assumptions.

Gimmick with the "prebates" (ecch!) is that, the poorer you are, the more of a hassle it is to cash checks. ID? Permanent address? Mail theft? Problematical to the poor. So fewer of the checks will get cashed.

Now, the way to go is to tax only savings & investment ...

Fragano #13:

I don't claim any special expertise here, but I think you could make a list of problems with our current tax system at least as long as the ones you could make for a national sales tax, VAT, or other idea. If you tax consumption, you have a problem with regressive taxes, since richer people save more back than poor people. If you tax income, you have a different problem, because you make working less rewarding, and you also have a regressive tax at the far end of the income distribution, where people can take their "income" as appreciation of an asset or the ability to get more income later.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the tax system we have is rotten, subject to all kinds of gaming by wealthy people, full of goodies handed out to whoever got the right bribe to the right congressman, and complicated enough that a lot of middle-class educated people pay someone else to do their taxes. Another thing I'm pretty sure of is that any attempt to change that system will be really hard, because so many different people get some kind of benefit from the way it works now, and it will be very difficult to avoid having a new tax code end up with the same bad properties.

#19 -- Would it be out of bounds to ask what university this would be and which fraternities, where branding of members as initiation is considered a terrific thing to do?

Constance Ash @ 25: Would it be relevant? I've seen this practice at many universities and among many fraternities. (And not limited to black fraternities, but I had a point in mind in making it specific to them.)

Let me ask you this: Many (I'm told--sadly, I've never had the chance to investigate) Chi Omegas have sorority tattoos on their inner thighs. I suspect that's more painful than a brand on the upper arm. Do you object to that practice.

John 26: You didn't address your comments to me, or refer to mine at 20, but I'd object to it being done as part of initiation, yes. If the Chi Omegas have it done themselves, later, it's subject to the same principles as any other tattoo. But if it's done at initiation then it's hazing and should be stopped.

Xopher @ 27: You've caught me palming a card. The Chi Os (if rumor is correct) do get their tattoos after initiation. I believe the same of most (if not all) of the fraternities I'm aware of who practice branding.

I guess my personal experience makes me unable to see reason on this point, because being hazed during freshman initiation (college initiation--we didn't have frats) was one of the most enjoyable experiences of that part of my life.

The problem isn't (from my point of view) so much hazing as it is abusive hazing. There are lines one doesn't cross. Both in the old wide-open days and (I believe) currently in the underground days, hazing did sometimes did cross those lines. I understand, though, the value of a shared ordeal in social group formation, and I think it's a good thing to create artificial ordeals which, under controlled conditions and within appropriate limits, provide that value.

Lee @ 12: Yeah, it's not ideal.
Trouble is I can't think of that many words which have the right stress on the trailing "er".
I wonder; this sounds like a question for the Oracle at Mountain View...
[Pete queries]
Ye gods - I had no idea there were dictionaries for rhymes.
[Pete bookmarks RhymeZone]

Okay, how about:
And [slanderous claims with which you won't concur]

Welcome to the club*, Pete. I use rhymezone too.

-----
* The Worshipful Company of Making Light Versifiers and Doggerel-Smiths, if you're wondering what club.

John 28: Well, there's a slight difference of language here. My 'hazing' is your 'abusive hazing'; my 'non-hazing initiation' is your 'non-abusive hazing'. I think. I would regard branding as abusive hazing. I infer from your statements that you do not, or is that another card I see in your palm? :-)

Some of my friends have told me what their initiation into a fraternity consisted of (gasp!), and I found them appalling and disturbing. But without exception they described their initiations as overall a positive experience. I think perhaps that the kind of person who belongs in a fraternity (or whatever) may benefit from such an experience, whereas the kind of person I am would not. I strongly suspect it's a "mileage varies" kind of thing, in other words.

A couple of other thoughts: when I was in seventh grade, a group of larger guys grabbed me and tried to stick my head in the toilet. I fought tooth and nail (and I do mean tooth: I bit several of them) and successfully avoided being dunked. I later found out that this was a game these guys played, that several of them had had it done to them too, and that in fact they stopped just short of the surface of the water in every case. I succeeded in making them give it up way before that point.

I expect most victims of this would not have fought as hard, nor been as terrified as I was. I expect most victims thought they were fighting to keep their hair from getting wet, and YUCK IT'S A TOILET.

I was fighting for my life, or so I thought, because I thought they would hold my head under the water until I died. This is one of those things that people from happy backgrounds just don't get. You all trust people not to kill (or seriously harm) you unless you have reason to think they're homicidal. I assume anyone I meet might want to kill (or seriously harm) me unless I have reason to trust them.

Or did, back then. I've had decades of therapy since, and a breakthrough a few years ago ("Most people don't want to hurt me, especially total strangers").

The only other thing is this: I heard of one initiation that seemed to consist primarily of leaving the initiates pledges tied to chairs in a dark room with annoying music and a strobe light for some extended period (not an excessive one in terms of bodily needs). That seems tame to the point of being pathetic. In fact the only problem I have with it is that they left the pledges alone. My younger brother, in that scenario, would have had a grand mal seizure triggered by the strobe light, and might have died.

So while I agree in principle with your last paragraph, in practice I think properly controlled conditions are unlikely to occur in a fraternity house. They just don't have the knowledge or experience to know what's dangerous.

Wait, you said most of the fraternities do the branding later too. Ignore that part.

abi @ 30: I gratefully accept this honour, and vow to use my abilities (such as they are) for the greater good...

Xopher @ 32:

So while I agree in principle with your last paragraph, in practice I think properly controlled conditions are unlikely to occur in a fraternity house. They just don't have the knowledge or experience to know what's dangerous.

True enough, which is where university supervision comes in, or should, or would, if universities hadn't abdicated this responsibility. The college I first went to didn't have frats, but they did have social clubs similar to frats but without frat houses, and they were fairly closely supervised by their faculty advisors. (Freshman initiation, which was optional--if you weren't wearing a beanie, you were off limits--was similarly supervised.) Possibly the lack of a frat house helped in that.

Albatross, #24: If you tax income, you have a different problem, because you make working less rewarding

Not if you tax ALL income, from whatever source. Right now, one of the largest problems in the system is that wage income is fully taxed, while many other forms of income available only to the rich are taxed not at all or very lightly -- and it's exactly those forms of income that Republicans keep wanting to reduce taxes on even more, pretending that those changes will benefit people who make less than $100K/year. Take out those loopholes for tax-free income, and you could probably cut the tax rate on wages!

(Not tackling the rest of your sentence because I'm not sure I understood it.)

John, #26 & 28: It doesn't matter whether the tattooing/branding is done before or after the initiation. If self-mutilation of any type is mandatory for belonging to the organization, it's wrong. If it's voluntary, then it's up to the individuals involved whether or not they want to do it.

I am deeply suspicious of the concept of "a shared ordeal in social group formation" precisely because it is so easily and frequently subject to abuse... and also because it leads so very easily to an equally-abusable "us vs. them" mentality, wherein anyone who is not a Member of the Club is viewed as somewhat less than fully human.

I will also admit to having a gut-deep reaction of "appalled" to your statement that you found hazing to be enjoyable. Military training (a similar "bonding ordeal") has at least the ultimate practical goal of giving one the skills necessary to be a soldier. What practical purpose does frat hazing serve, beyond "I had to do it, so now they have to do it too"?

Pete, #29: Oh yes, that's much better! Aren't rhyming dictionaries wonderful?

John 34: Well, if it were done that way I could see it. I think it's in frat houses where the really bad shit happens.

If I'd gone to such a college, I definitely would not have worn a beanie, and I would have had a very difficult time understanding why anyone would. I understand better now, but it's still quite an alien mindset. A shared ordeal is one thing, but to voluntarily seek one out? I just can't wrap my mind around that at all.

oddly enough I'm' watching a program on hazing.

One of the reasons I ignored any of the offers of sororities is that I knew they did this shit. And it's shit. Humiliating oneself to 'get into a group' is so alien to the sense of self-respect I was brought up with that it's offensive.

"We're following a set thing that's gone on for semesters, I've done the same thing as the guys before me. How can any one person be held at fault?" (said by members of a fraternity that insisted their pledges drink lots of water, after one pledge died of water poisoning. It resulted in the first felony manslaughter charges re: hazing in the United States (Chico State).).

abi @ 30

I've been alternating between RhymeZone* and Poetry.com, hoping to figure out if one is better than the other. No conclusion as yet.

Would it be helpful to put together a list of poetry resources for those who want to versify but may not have extensive google-fu?

* That sounds too much like rizome, making me wonder if the poetry doesn't end up a bit vegetative. "My vegetable lover" and all that.

The most progressive tax I can think of is a percentage tax on corruption. Any bribe or kickback to any government or corporate official would be taxable at some base rate, possibly with risers above some truly obscene amount like $10e6.

The concept is simple: take the money to run the government from the people who gain the most from access to the government.

Accurate reporting is obviously the problem here, so I propose the Government and Corporate Surveillance Act of 2008, whereby we surveil all government and corporate officials authorized to receive bribes. Each one of them wears a camera 24 hours a day, so the IRS can monitor compliance with tax law. This might be a problem for Republicans with variant sexual habits; it might be necessary to tax them too.

Taxation -- I pay almost no federal income tax now and no state tax because I don't get much money and some of it goes for my mortgage and a lot of it goes for medical stuff. If I was taxed on what I bought, instead, I wouldn't have the money to buy stuff, including the medical stuff. Death by taxation.

Hazing -- I went for one year to a small religious liberal arts college in Seattle. When I got there, I found out they had a number of "celebration rituals" and I made it clear that I wouldn't be involved in them. Then my birthday came and women from my dorm were let in by my roommates and told me it was time to get up and get tied to a tree in my nightgown until a passerby let me loose and then we'd have breakfast at Sambo's. (This was the female birthday ritual.) I had refused to tie other women to trees, etc., and I had made it clear that I wasn't going to participate in any way so when they came in that morning, I said "No." They said "Everybody does this! Come on!" I said "No, I'm not doing it, I told you that." When they started pulling me out of the bed, I punched one of them in the stomach and they went away.

I found out later that they had complained to the resident director that I had punched the girl. She told them that I had always said I wouldn't do it and hadn't and that if they were physically moving me out of my bed, she wouldn't punish me for the punch. They were still annoying for a while.

The male birthday ritual: Wake him up on his birthday, drive him to SeaTac and leave him in the terminal in his skivvies, to get home on his own.

The engagement ritual: Both parties were carried to a canal on the property and thrown in.

(This punch is the second of three on my "eights" -- 8 years old, 18 years old, and 28 years old. When I was 38 and 48 years old, I was disabled and retired. I'm not sure that's it's that I got sick so much as that abuse and hazing has become less common.)

Apologies to Jim for hijacking his thread. It crawled into my hand, honest.

Lee @ 35:

If self-mutilation of any type is mandatory for belonging to the organization, it's wrong. If it's voluntary, then it's up to the individuals involved whether or not they want to do it.

Belonging itself is voluntary, isn't it? So I'm not sure I see the distinction.

I am deeply suspicious of the concept of "a shared ordeal in social group formation" precisely because it is so easily and frequently subject to abuse... and also because it leads so very easily to an equally-abusable "us vs. them" mentality, wherein anyone who is not a Member of the Club is viewed as somewhat less than fully human.

My thought is those abusive potentials are part of group dynamics, period.

I will also admit to having a gut-deep reaction of "appalled" to your statement that you found hazing to be enjoyable.

Freshman initiation barely qualified as hazing: Wear the beanie, sing the school song on demand, walk on sidewalks and not the grass, and, at worst, being tossed in the school lake. I enjoyed it enough that I volunteered to be a freshman again the next year.

Why did I enjoy it? I'd always been very much an outsider in school. Not hated or shunned, just not part of the crowd. Here, for a very small amount of effort and silliness, I was taken into the group. That felt good, very good, and was cheap at the price.

What practical purpose does frat hazing serve, beyond "I had to do it, so now they have to do it too"?

Up in Fayetteville, where all the kids of the state's rich scum rise, the white fraternities are the primary place where the next generation of powermongers socialize and learn class solidarity, against we common people, of course.

From my point of view, that's like practicing up for genocide. From their point of view, that's valuable. I see (but do not share) their point: If I'd wanted to be a bond daddy, I'd've done my damnedest to pledge a fraternity.

Xopher @ 36:

A shared ordeal is one thing, but to voluntarily seek one out?

People do it all the time, don't they? Wildnerness camping and hiking. Lodge initiations. Road trips. The Dead. Startups. (Okay, maybe I'm raving now.) Picket lines. Civil disobedience, including not bailing out and staying in jail. Political campaigns.

Paula Helm Murray @ 37:

"We're following a set thing that's gone on for semesters, I've done the same thing as the guys before me. How can any one person be held at fault?" (said by members of a fraternity that insisted their pledges drink lots of water, after one pledge died of water poisoning. It resulted in the first felony manslaughter charges re: hazing in the United States (Chico State).).

I'm curious--was there a conviction? I think that'd be a pretty tough prosecution.

(No one goes after the organizers of marathons when a runner dies of electrolyte depletion because of too much water and not enough Gatorade. Not quite the same thing, I know, but close enough to make a comparison.)

Arkansawyer, there was a conviction. It was (according to the show) the first successful hazing conviction in the U.S. (look up Chico State and hazing conviction in Google). The program I was watching had several other criminal cases involved in hazing

We may think kids are being brought up with enough self-esteem not to be wooed by this kind of pressure, but I'm positive that they're not. Peer pressure is hard to fight against, but the kids today may be more susceptible because as long as things are going their way, they won't protest they expect life to be easy. Unless they have an adverse outcome.

Just saying.

John 41: People do it all the time, don't they? Wildnerness camping and hiking. Lodge initiations. Road trips. The Dead. Startups. (Okay, maybe I'm raving now.) Picket lines. Civil disobedience, including not bailing out and staying in jail. Political campaigns.

Except for lodge initiations, which AFAIK are the same as fraternity initiations, these are not chosen to be ordeals. People do the things on this list despite the fact that they are ordeals, not because they are.

Voluntarily seeking out an ordeal qua ordeal is the part I don't comprehend.

Marilee 40: What an appalling group of numbskulls. I'm glad you punched one of them. Too bad you couldn't have punched them all.

Xopher @ 44 re: Marilee @ 40: Yes, they were jerks and deserved to be written up by the resident director.

But Marilee, do you think that your attitude could be felt as a rejection, possibly an offensive one, of them?

John, I'm not Marilee, but of course it could! It was one. I can't speak for Marilee, but I will offensively reject anyone who tries to kidnap me and leave me tied to a tree or abandoned in my underwear at an airport. I will offensively reject them with any degree of force necessary to ensure that their efforts to do so fail.

And no, I don't care if I hurt their feelings. If someone's doing violence to me (and Marilee had made it very clear she was not a willing participant) then break their knees and run, I say.

Xopher @ 46/47: No, I don't mean the punch. They clearly had that coming and were lucky to just get one. I meant the rejection of the ritual, long before their dumbass ill-advised attempt to pull Marilee out of bed.

John A Arkansawyer: I should think Marilee's rejection of that was seen as such. They assaulted her, were attempting to physically force her to do something she wasn't willing to do.

That deserves to be rejected. She, to borrow an example, wans't wearing the beanie.

As for the branding/tattoos; if remaining a member of the group is predicate on getting them, it's abusive.

Re militaries:

Having undergone a Basic Training, it's not a bonding ritual, per se. It's an attempt to instill certain ways of thinking; one of which has to be a generic loyalty to the group.

Because it's quite possible for you to end up someplace where your life depends on people whom you don't, or barely, know.

I can't see that a frat has that justification for things, and I can't see that what frats do would instill it. Worst thing for, (apart from some of my juvenile fellows) was the dragging my ass out of bed at 0330, too damned often.

The bonding was of shared hardships, not of enduring things on our own, but accomplishing them together.

The Drills weren't against us (though some thought so), there were encouraging. It wasn't the best sort of encouragement, but there is something to be said for "train as you fight" and combat zones are places where loud things happen, and people yell at you.

John: Oh. Well, I feel almost the same about that. That kind of thing has to be voluntary; if she didn't want to be part of it, they should just respect that.

And yeah, it's a rejection, but it's a rejection of something really stupid.

I guess I don't see these group-bonding things as important unless they're doing something worthwhile. The bonds my friend Alex has formed with the people he works with in Habitat for Humanity are excellent, and may have helped him get into West Point (*crosses fingers*). That's an ordeal (especially in Texas), but with a worthwhile object.

An ordeal withOUT a worthwhile object seems pointless and stupid. To me. IMO. YMMV and all that.

Terry Karney @ 49:

As for the branding/tattoos; if remaining a member of the group is predicate on getting them, it's abusive.

Serious question: Why? (It's wrong in a different way, as it discriminates against orthodox Jews and others who cannot be tattooed for religious reasons, but that's another story.) How different is that from having (for instance) a dress code?

I take your thoughts on military training to be accurate, as you're not only more knowledgeable and experienced than me on the subject but also long been shown to be a thoughtful poster, but I will answer one thing you've said therein:

The bonding was of shared hardships, not of enduring things on our own, but accomplishing them together.

I was not supposed to see the ending of one of the social club initiation exercises, but I was up in the dorm lobby reading at some godawful hour of the morning when the pledges walked in. I was asked (and agreed) not to repeat the specific details of what I saw (nothing scandalous, just their trade secret), but I will say that the exercise was clearly a group exercise, one which forced the pledges to cooperate and work together to overcome a hardship.

Why do I see mandatory branding/tattooing to be abuse?

Becuase it's mandatory. If one has to do it to remain a member of the group, then when the mark has to be acquired isn't relevant (we know what's going on, all we're dickering about is price).

In some ways I would see the later marking to be more abusive than an earlier one.

Those who want to belong to a frat/sorority go to a lot of effort to do so. They are intiated. They may be hazed. They pay dues.

Having done all that, to then tell them they have to get a permanent (and uncomfortable) mark, or give it all up, after they have made the personal, social, and economic investments?

They have to look thier friends in the face and say, "No, you guys aren't wrorth a tattoo."

That's asking a lot, and it's asking a hell of a lot from an 18, or 19, year old kid.

John, #41:
Belonging itself is voluntary, isn't it? So I'm not sure I see the distinction.
The distinction is, who has control over my body? The idea of a mandatory brand or tattoo for membership in a social club resonates on the same level as the idea that I shouldn't be allowed to buy Plan B in the event of a contraceptive failure. Both of them are examples of other people exerting control over my physical person against my will. Dress codes, etc. only exert control over my actions, not my body itself.

My thought is those abusive potentials are part of group dynamics, period.
Okay, but I don't see how that makes it right to do something which greatly increases the risk of the potential for abuse becoming actualized. That's like refusing to wear your seatbelt because there's still a risk of becoming involved in a collsion that wasn't your own fault.

Up in Fayetteville, where all the kids of the state's rich scum rise, the white fraternities are the primary place where the next generation of powermongers socialize and learn class solidarity, against we common people, of course.
My immediate reaction to this was along the lines of, "See, you've just answered your own question." I can't articulate it more fully than that, although I think it ties in with my previous point.

Freshman initiation barely qualified as hazing: Wear the beanie, sing the school song on demand, walk on sidewalks and not the grass, and, at worst, being tossed in the school lake.
Whoa, we're using VERY different definitions here. IMO, only the "being tossed in the lake" part of that would truly qualify as hazing. See this list of definitions for an overview of how most of us are interpreting the word. Okay, I'm no longer appalled; you weren't saying that you enjoyed physical mistreatment and/or public humiliation, and that's a very large difference.

I do want to ask, though -- were there any significant social consequences to those who chose not to participate? Because if there were, then it starts to look like some of those "voluntary" high-school Christian groups, where not "choosing" to belong makes you a target for bullying or worse.

Xopher, #43: In the interest of nitpicking accuracy, I'll point out that some people do indeed undertake wilderness camping and other athletic pursuits (triathlons, anyone?) because the ordeal is a personal challenge. But the dynamic in those cases is still very different from that involved in hazing.

Terry @ 52: You're making a reasonable argument, but you've got a factual premise I'm not sure I share:

If one has to do it to remain a member of the group...

Having done all that, to then tell them they have to get a permanent (and uncomfortable) mark...
Why did I place emphasis on two of your words? Because, at least in the case of upper arm brands, it's a practice which is well known and hard to miss. It's not a question of remaining a member, but of becoming a member.

Given that, I think your argument loses much of its force.

(Where I was, the arm branding was optional, at least for the clubs I knew enough about to ask about. I saw members both with and without brands. Let's leave it as mandatory for entry, though, for the sake of discussion.)

John @ 51

If it's mandatory, yes, it is abuse. Because you shouldn't have to get a brand or a tattoo to belong, and requiring it of someone who is still a teenager (and not thinking long-term) is skating close to criminality, IMO. (This is exactly the sort of thing that makes schools ban fraternities, as opposed to Greek-letter honor societies.)

John A. Arkansawyer: If it's part of becoming a member, then you palmed the card, The Chi Os (if rumor is correct) do get their tattoos after initiation. I believe the same of most (if not all) of the fraternities I'm aware of who practice branding.

If the practice is a requirement of membership (about which you being quite confusing, since you say 1: it is, and 2: there are those who don't have them]), it's abusive.

The "voluntary" nature of the frats is, at best, a red herring. These are kids. They are still only half-formed. It's very easy to get them to do things, and a lot of those things are those which better judgement would probably cause them to refuse.

One could take that "voluntary" rubric and stretch it way out of shape. All manner of, "harmless" things could be made requirements. If you can think of one, perfectly legal thing, which you would think beyond the pale to demand of someone before they can be allowed to join a club, then all of them are suspect, because the difference isn't one of kind, merely degree.

I see a difference between hazing, and initiations. Where Lee see being tossed in the lake as a hazing ritual, I can see it as an initiation; so long as it is known in advance that one is going to be tossed in the lake.

That doesn't mean I think merely knowing about it takes it out of the realm of hazing (and the brand/tattoo issue isn't hazing either, that's a bit of social control in/out grouping which is well past hazing and in completely different category, IMO), but being able to decide, in advance, what one is going to have to deal with is a big part of the difference to me.

For hazing I'd go with the degrades, exposes to harm. Being challenged to recite things, not hazing. Being chucked in a pool/lake, probably not hazing (if the lake is 40F, that's a different story). Being forced to clean urinals with a toothbrush: hazing. Being made to lap things out of bowl: hazing. Having to walk on the sidewalks, instead of the grass: not hazing. Having to weed the grass with chopsticks: hazing.

Xopher @ 50:

That kind of thing has to be voluntary; if she didn't want to be part of it, they should just respect that.

I agree. But what I'm getting at it, do you think they might've been offended by her refusal? Possibly even hurt? As the Excitable Boy tells us, "Rich folks suffer like the rest of us." (Except surrounded by luxury and privilege. But I digress.)

And yeah, it's a rejection, but it's a rejection of something really stupid.

I happily attend a Unitarian Universalist church, at which I get to see the smorgasbord of stupidity at which so many lovely and likeable people dine. Next to any given belief in the supernatural, group bonding activities look smart and rational.

Or let me put it another way:

The college I first attended was a religious school. It was a requirement to take a couple of courses in religion to graduate. I'm an atheist and religion offends me, but I never quarrelled with that requirement*, as I was there (sort of**) voluntarily.

*I think. Memory is tricky.

**Going to college got me out of high school two years early, with the interesting result that I'm the only person I know who attended college for two years and flunked out, all before the age of eighteen.

Oh, fer chrisake, John A, if idiots are offended by someone's sensible ideas, that does not give them any right to impose their idiotic ideas on a person. So what if they were "offended"? Some people are offended because others wear jeans, or want to go to college although they do manual labor. I'm not responsible for the peace of mind of idiots.

Terry @ 56: I don't doubt that I'm doing a poor job of going through the issues. It's not a major concern of mine or an area I know from experience, but I have always been vaguely offended at anti-hazing. This became my opportunity to think it through.

If the practice is a requirement of membership (about which you being quite confusing, since you say 1: it is, and 2: there are those who don't have them]), it's abusive.

I honestly don't know the facts of the matter for certain, which is why I said let's take it as mandatory for the sake of discussion.

The "voluntary" nature of the frats is, at best, a red herring. These are kids.

I appeciate that you're recognizing the coerced consent implicit in these activities. I wish people would recognize that phenomenon when it occurs in other places. It might take that old killer Milton Friedman off his pedastal.

But are these really kids?

They're right at old enough to vote, to join the armed forces, to drive, to get married, to smoke tobacco, and to play football (both sorts), all of which, with the possible exception of voting, carry a signficant risk of killing you or screwing you up forever.

Next to that, a little tattoo on the inner thigh or a burn scar on the upper arm looks trivial.

For hazing I'd go with the degrades, exposes to harm. Being challenged to recite things, not hazing.

I know people who might break down and cry if you tried to make them perform in front of people.

Being chucked in a pool/lake, probably not hazing (if the lake is 40F, that's a different story).

The very cold winter night I got thrown in the lake, the water (golf course pond*, really, not much more than knee-deep where people were thrown in) was probably that cold. It was much less unpleasant than standing outside a grocery store a few weeks earlier in the spitting sleet to hand out pamphlets** the night before the election. At the lake, I got to strip to my underwear first***, and when I got out, there were towels (or something--again, memory is tricky) to help warm and dry me.

*Paula, if you're reading this, and, and if my memory is correct that you're in Oklahoma, you might know the spot--it was in Enid at the now-defunct Phillips University, which is now a satellite campus for Oklahoma State

**for a Republican, as a favor to my old junior high math teacher****, who was the faculy sponsor for our chapter of the Womens and Childrens Temperance Union, members of which weren't allowed to drink or smoke, I might note

***don't try this at your local grocery store

****I guess she was a Republican, but my hair was awfully long and my "beard" was scraggly, so who knows?

John: Childhood is a cultural construct. Like all such constructs it has artificialities, and concrete manifestations.

We, as a culture, don't teach our children independence. Some parents do better than others, but the culture leaves that blossoming until kids are in college, and to some degree beyond.

I don't know many kids (and I've known a lot) who just left home, joined the army and never looked back. Joining up takes a few days (at the very least, for me it took a week, but there were hiccups, absent the hiccups it would have been three days at MEPS, and a prior day taking a test at the recruiters, after we talked about what I was interested in).

In those few days (and usually before) people talk to other people about what they are doing. At the very least they talk to recruiters. Good recruiters (of which there aren't as many as I would like) look at people and help them decide if the service is right for them. I've known them to discourage people.

So I don't see an equivalence to people, who are still young, and away from home, being told to mark themselves; for life, to join a club.

I've explained what I think are the limits to acceptable rites, and how that differs from "hazing".

You seem to think a club has the right to force people to do such things, as I would call hazing, because the association is voluntary.

So, again I ask you, what are the limits you find to be unacceptable demands, and how do they differ from the things you do accept?

John 57: I did understand what you were getting at. If people are offended by my refusal to participate in their stupidity, so what? They deserve to be offended. And perhaps my refusal will encourage some of them to be more sensible.

Them: Hey, we're going to go [do something stupid].
Me: No thanks.
Them: Oh, come on, everybody's doing it!
Me: Not everybody. I'm not, because [sensible reason explained politely].
Them: [offended comments]
Me: I'm sorry you feel that way. Good night.

In short, I don't give a flying fuck if people are offended when they try to get me to do something stupid and/or wrong and I refuse.

Terry @ 60:

So, again I ask you, what are the limits you find to be unacceptable demands, and how do they differ from the things you do accept?

I'm not sure I can draw the line, but I can mention some things that are over it. Some fraternities are alleged to have initiation practices that involve sex. That's over the line in almost any case I can think of. Forced binging on alcohol, certainly. Have you read Chris Miller's "Night of the Seven Fires"? I'm pretty sure (it's been a while since I have gotten it out, but that box of NatLamps is in plain sight and crying like Pandora* to be let out) everything in that would be over the line.

How do they differ?

I don't know that there's a qualitative difference so much as one of degree, but I'd have to think that over. The Penn and Teller** "No permanent damage" rule comes to mind as one possibility, but then we'd argue over whether a tattoo is damage.

*yes, I know the actual story, but I've admired the expression "a whole box full of Pandoras" ever since I first read it

**two more guys, this time ones I admire greatly, who would benefit from having the concept of coerced consent

Xopher @ 61: Back during the nuclear freeze days, I remember people who would say emphatically, "We shouldn't demonize the Russians." Fair enough. Then they would turn around and demonize Reagan. That seemed to me to be a double standard.

So when you say you don't give a flying fuck about some peoples' feelings, that's fair enough. Going on to say those people should take other people's feelings into account, however, comes back to that double standard.

A little later in the eighties, I spent some time around people who had beliefs about menstruating women that I found, um, silly at best, but they had a long cultural and spiritual tradition involved in it, and it was their scene, so I swallowed my objections. In much the same way, I credit the opinions of some Muslim feminists that the veil can be liberating, even though I would also (I think) support the French ban on wearing them in public school.

This has not affected my ability to understand clitoridectomy as a crime against humanity.

John 63: So when you say you don't give a flying fuck about some peoples' feelings, that's fair enough. Going on to say those people should take other people's feelings into account, however, comes back to that double standard.

Oh, bullshit, John! I didn't say I didn't give a flying fuck about "some people's" feelings at all, and you know it. I said I didn't care if they're offended when I'm being reasonable.

If I'm kissing my boyfriend in a gay bar and someone comes up and says to him "Yuck, how can you kiss that disgusting old man," I will tell them quite firmly to fuck off and die, and not care* if they're offended. Would I walk up to the same person out of the blue and say "you're ugly and your mother dresses you funny"? Of course not. Would I do it the next time I see them, even after they were offensive to me and my boyfriend? No, I would not.

And you will note in the script I gave that I specified that I gave my objections to their suggestion in polite terms (that is, I do care about their feelings), and only after they persisted in pressuring me after I said no. This is in fact my policy.

I can see arguing from where you are, though I don't agree. But your persistent misunderstandings are beginning to look deliberate and disingenuous, since I don't believe you're actually foolish enough to miss the distinction outlined above. It's most unappealing, and I wish you'd stop doing it.

*In this context, "not care" means "choose not to alter my behavior." Just to be clear.

Addendum to # 62: The Night of the Seven Fires is available online. It even has a bonus Cory Doctorow reference in it, right near the beginning, at the first fire.

A quote, with a vocabulary note: "boot" means throw up.

Stu stopped short. "I won't give them the satisfaction," he declared. "Fuck 'em!"

"Huh?"

"I won't boot for those guys. Why should I?"

I think there are a lot of people on this thread who might identify with Stu. Or maybe not.

In any event, this story was the one really wonderful thing about an otherwise lame issue in the middle of the NatLamp's great run. Tony Hendra blames this issue for P. J. O'Rourke's ascension to the editorship of the magazine.

Xopher @ 64: I'm not intending to tick you off, and I'm sorry if I'm doing so. Earlier while reading and discussing this thread, Mrs. Arkansawyer said to me, "I really like Xopher," and I replied, "So do I."

Let me pull back to an earlier example--no, possibly it'd be better to pick a new one.

My nieces and nephew are over today for a sleepover. The oldest is reading an E. L. Konigsberg YA novel with a protagonist who (early in the book, so I don't believe this is a spoiler) is at summer camp, where she repeatedly refuses to participate in any of the camp activities, repeating over and over again, "I prefer not to." My first reaction was, "Good for her." Then I thought about how she was inconveniencing the staff and looking down her nose at the other campers.

At a certain point, she was effectively saying, "A small injury to my dignity is much more important than all your feelings, all your traditions, all your group activities--really, it's more important than all of you."

The more I thought about it, the more the difference between principled non-conformism and being a snot-nosed brat shrank.

I've committed my share of "I prefer not to"s, and looking back, quite a few of them were childish. Take that for what it's worth.

John, while we're on the topic of "coerced consent", I'll ask you again: were there any significant social consequences to the people at your school who chose not to wear the beanie? And if there were, was that something you understood at the time you went through your initiation, or did you find out about it later?

Lee @ 67: I've meant to respond to your previous post but just haven't had the time yet. However, I'll answer this question now: I don't recall any negative social consequences occurring. It's possible I just didn't see any but that they did exist.

Let me pose a question to you in return: If the only consequence to people who didn't participate was that people who did participate made more friends faster--no negative consequences, only positive ones--would that be objectionable?

John A. Arkansawyer @ 66

My nieces and nephew are over today for a sleepover. The oldest is reading an E. L. Konigsberg YA novel with a protagonist who (early in the book, so I don't believe this is a spoiler) is at summer camp, where she repeatedly refuses to participate in any of the camp activities, repeating over and over again, "I prefer not to."

Bartleby the Camper?

I'd object to anything that is forced on anyone that is harmful, painful and / or permanent.

I'm against torture too, and inhumane treatment of animals and children, if that's relevant.

People who like doing these things to others, and / or like to watch these things done to others are classified as sociopaths, and have no place in administering anything, much less a nation.

Lee #53: This is somehow reminding me of the creepy extreme sports in Banks' _Look to Windward_. I especially liked the description of canoeing in a lava stream.

It's a big problem, getting larger all the time, this 'bonding' thing through abuse, in both sports and the military (and people still want to believe there's no connection between the two!). The abuse that that brands the boots and the players as 'girls, pussies, etc.' in that it makes the female gender the lodestone of all that is 'wrong,' i.e. not military,not athletic, not male.

But now that women are in the military -- and sports -- in large numbers the consequences of that, for both women within and without the military are seen up close in a detail that has generally been blurred. Rape and sexual harrassment and abuse are rife.

And almost always there's alcohol involved, and way too often it's way too much alcohol, and by golly college age guys don't handle it well. Shoot, every night in my neighborhood you see the crawling, vomiting, urinating, staggering, howling, abusive, harrassing proof of that.

I will hold to this standard: those who like and want this sort of thing done, who like being the perpetrators of it, and like watching it, who like having it forced on others have no place administering anything from a family to a government or a war or a business.

Constance Ash @ 73: That's how I feel about self-righteous prigs. Do you think we could find some middle ground?

albatross #24: I take your point. I find the idea of a national sales tax even more appalling than the present system.* It's particularly likely to freeze class lines solidly into place, as well as having a nastily reflationary effect. It also will involve disincentives for home ownership -- currently encouraged by the tax system -- and will weigh massively on the poor. The Linder-Boortz proposal would cause prices to rise 30% at one fell swoop.

*Ob. revelation: My wife is employed by the Infernal Revenge Service.

#74 -- Unlikely there is middle ground since you have resorted to personal insult, rather than yanno, resort to information, studies etc. that show that people who like inflicting pain on others are good people and leave the world a better place than they found it.

Love, C.

Abi #30: "The Worshipful Company of Making Light Versifiers and Doggerel-Smiths"

Now, about that annual luncheon at the Guildhall...

Constance Ash @ 76:

Love, C.

I was wondering if you'd slip that back in at the end. One of my observations about the Nazis of Nice is that they keep their love bayonets sharpened up and ready for use. After all, they're the Nice People. Their disdain is justified.

Or something like that.

John 59: I know people who might break down and cry if you tried to make them perform in front of people.

In which case it would be abusive to force them to do so. Making me handle a boa constrictor would not be abusive; making someone with a snake phobia do so would be.

Your case of being thrown into the icy lake sounds like they took appropriate precautions. If you'd had the flu when the time came, I bet they'd've called it off. But even so, and even with you in perfect health, if you'd said "no" they should have to stop IMO.

___ 66: OK, you're forgiven.

I'm not one to pick apart analogies, as if any difference between the two things analogized invalidated them. No analogy is perfect; that's what makes it an analogy, rather than two instances of the same thing.

However, in this case there are distinctions between the cases that are relevant to the point under discussion. Marilee refusing to be abused or participate in the abuse of others did not inconvenience anyone, unlike your Miss Bartleby. I assume the camp activities did not include being tied, effectively naked, to a tree outdoors in winter (not in a YA novel at any rate).

(Side issue: pretending unequal things are equal is a favorite strategy of bullies. Most of the Cancers and Leos at Marilee's school knew THEY'D never be tied to a tree on their birthdays, and someone whose birthday is on June 1 has no right to say "they did it to me" to someone whose birthday is December 23. I feel certain that all such traditions are created by people whose own birthdays are in warm months, or even when school is not in session.)

I don't know the book in question, but if your Miss Bartleby's camp's activities were considered at all voluntary, she had every right to behave just as she did. That's what 'voluntary' means, and yes, I think not being coerced under the guise of "agreeing" to "voluntary" activities IS more important than all their feelings and traditions.

I think I've just put my finger on a point that's very important to me: Forcing me to do something is bad enough; coercing me to "agree" to do it is far, far worse. By doing the latter, you...no, not YOU...THEY force me to lie, a profound violation of my personal integrity. Because of this, if the camp activities were simply required and no one was given a choice (the case at the rather fascistic camp I attended twice as a kid), she would have, in my view, less right to object.

However, I'd still defend her behavior if she didn't want to be at the camp in the first place, or if she was depressed, or...for many other reasons the camp staff has no way of knowing.

I'm virtually certain this is not the story of the book you mention, because I'm making it up, but picture a little girl who knows there's trouble between her parents, and who also knows they don't fight in front of her or when they know she's listening, packed off to camp for the first time because her parents want to work out the details of their divorce. Naturally they don't tell the camp staff this, and she herself can't articulate why she's so upset, but she does know she doesn't want to be at the camp, and she'll be damned if she'll go along with their happy horseshit!

Like I said, probably not the plot of the book you mention. My point is that the camp staff can't tell which book they're in. So they need to treat every such refusal as if it were justified.

___ 68: A subtle question. But I think there's still an inappropriate coercion going on. OTOH I am hypersensitive to such things, and I NEVER have participated in such artificial ordeals.

Before you ask, yes, I hate "team building" exercises of the kind so popular in the more asinine sectors of corporate America. If I make friends at work, it's because they know I'm a friendly person and a reliable coworker IN THE WORKPLACE, and the fact that I know how to paddle a raft down a river and avoid capsizing in the rapids should not be relevant. And the fact that my Indian coworkers had no such ability pissed me off during the exercise, but I did not hold it against them at work.

John, Constance:
Quit it, the two of you.

Constance, you were painting with a very broad brush there. If you didn't know John was going to take it personally, you aren't half the woman I think you are. I'll leave the veil drawn across the question of motivation.

John, even a pink and fluffy Godwin reference is a Godwin reference. Constance signs most of her messages that way, as well you know. Don't like her comment? Let it pass, challenge it directly, or explain how it doesn't apply to you.

Signed,
Your Seasonally Affected Moderator

Lee, Terry, PJ, John:

It seems to me that the definition of coercion ("coerced consent") here is hard to square with letting people make their own decisions. In fact, it's hard for me to see how I'd decide whether almost any group-oriented decision or action involved coerced consent, other than by whether or not I liked the decision made. An attempt to protect people from such coerced consent seems to require taking away peoples' choices.

For example, when someone decides to join the military, they may be reacting to social pressure, lack of good alternatives, money incentives, etc. I'm having a hard time seeing why joining the Army (and thus accepting basic training, years of living under military discipline and law, and a real chance of being at risk of life and limb in some war) is not "coerced consent" in many cases, but joining a frat where you know they're going to beat you in the initiation and brand you upon acceptance is coerced consent. I'm pretty sure I'd rather have the beating and branding than get sent to a war and not be able to leave.

Membership in a football team, karate class, SCA chapter, band, etc., all involve some group activities that can range from tedious to quite unpleasant, all involve shared actions that most outsiders would regard as foolish or humiliating, and all are likely to have a big impact on your social life, in the sense that once you're involved in them, that may be a big thing you do with your friends. Why isn't football practice on a cold muddy day, or the two hour workout followed by the belt test, coercive?

I guess what I'm trying to work out is how you can define coercion in this sense in a meaningful way that doesn't end up applying to almost everything. And how does this relate to personal autonomy, since we'd like to allow college kids to decide, say, which church to go to, whether to have sex, what activities to involve themselves in, etc.? I really can't work out an argument that would forbid a 19-year-old woman from taking part in a sorrority initiation that involved hazing, but that wouldn't forbid her from letting her boyfriend tie her to the bed or whip her. I can't see what rule would forbid getting the tattoo as part of joining a frat, but not getting tattoos or piercings as a way of belonging to an informal social group; something people do now pretty frequently.

Full disclosure: I have participated in a tradition designed to bond one into a group.

It was in St Andrews, Scotland. Students there have "academic families" - each bejant* picks a tertian† or magistrand‡ man and woman to be their academic mother and father.

On a particular weekend in November the bejant attends a complex set of events involving a pound of raisins**, an evening at the pub, and a tea party while hung over. The student is then dressed in a costume†† and given some odd item to carry‡‡. Gaudeamus Igitur may be sung, and Woolworth's may be toured. It all culminates in a massive shaving foam fight in the Quad.

Some people do it as a bit of fun. Some people skip it altogether (though very few). In St Andrews, when I was there, the SF&F Soc did it with great seriousness, and tracked the subsequent academic genealogies with care and attention***. The academic family was a family, complete with awkward siblings and the uncle who made warring factions sit down and talk things out.

I know Raisin Weekend was used as an occasion of abuse by some people, and I never had much time for those people. Some families excluded people, either refusing to let them join or ignoring them afterward. But to condemn the whole thing because some people misused it is to throw away the means by which most first years find a home in that university community.

-----
* St Andrews term for freshman/first year (fem bejantine)
† junior/third year
‡ senior/fourth year
** or a bottle of booze, it being college students
†† I was the Statue of Liberty, though my academic mother also considered the Lady of Shalott, since I have the hair for it
‡‡ the flag from the 18th hole of the Old Course is a favourite. I just had Liberty's tablet
*** We also spuriously tangled the lineages with secondary adoptions and other follies. I am my own cousin. I am married to my academic uncle.

Answer for completists: semi

If you don't know the question, don't worry about it.

Fragano @70:

Luncheon venues for the Worshipful Company suffer from the Groucho Marx problem. If they'll have us, we won't be seen in them.

abi, if they'd branded you with their family crest, I'd still call it abusive.

Another $0.02:

Freshmen shouldn't have to wear beanies or do anything else that 'marks' them (I didn't, but I was lucky enough to be at a school that wasn't into that; my sister was at a school of that kind). It can be harmless, or it can be about the same as painting a target on you and sending you out in the woods in hunting season: someone will take advantage of it, to your detriment, and then claim that you knowingly volunteered for it.

FWIW: I don't think any of the colleges I went to condoned branding as part of hazing then, and I'd think that in the last fifteen or so years they've gotten stricter about it. What you describe sounds more like they're going for 'we have the power to make you wish you'd never come here' than anything genuinely good and useful.

Also FWIW: the group I hung out with in junior high/early high school did an 'initiation' at a party one time. It didn't involve anything worse than suggestion ... showing you eggs laid on the floor, then blindfolding you and having you step on things that went crunch (spaghetti, actually). That it's still memorable, decades later, tells you the kind of mental effect this can have.

John: I didn't mention sex, because; well I didn't.

But, in the vein of voluntary, making a sexual act a requirement of joining seems to me (at a philosophical level) less injurious than a permenent mark.

Part of my abhorrence of the tattoos and brands is just that permanence. If they were required to use Prussian Blue and paint a mark on their foreheads, for the duration of the initiation, I might not quibble.

To elaborate, because I think he hit it on the head, Xopher has noodled out the nub of the problem: I think I've just put my finger on a point that's very important to me: Forcing me to do something is bad enough; coercing me to "agree" to do it is far, far worse.

Coerced consent isn't voluntary. There's a phrase in the army, for social events one is required to attend, "Mandatory Fun". Sometimes one enjoys them, sometimes not. The mandatory nature of them, no matter how much one may enjoy them, changes the nature of the party.

So too with things which one "must" do. Yes, one can refuse, but there is a penalty. With that penalty comes a social pressure. With the social pressure comes a question as to the voluntary nature of the act.

Once I come to question the legitmate choice to do something, in my opinion, it borders on abuse. When the act in question has a permanent affect, then I call it abuse.

I think "no permanent damage" sets to low a bar.

Part of the reason for the absolute ban on hazing in many places, is that what constitutes damage (or appears to be damaging, op. cit. Chico State, and dead on water) isn't always clear.

That person who can't abide performing in public is being abused when forced to. It may not seem like much, but it is; just as it would be abusive to make a person terrified of heights step of a 20 ft. platform into a swimming pool.

John, #68: Thanks for the response; I didn't want my question to get lost in the scuffle, as it were, while you were interacting with Xopher.

WRT your counter-question: no, I wouldn't -- because there are a lot of different ways of making friends. As long as there was no sense that non-beanie-wearing people "didn't count", I have no problem with it.

Tangential ramble: When I was in college, I went thru sorority rush, mostly because my mother really wanted me to do so. I ended up not pledging -- and was extremely glad later that I hadn't, when I became aware of some of the shit the sorority pledges were forced into; I would surely have de-pledged rather than do those things myself, and I suspect that would have been rather more traumatic. Nor were there any social consequences involved, because at my school the Greek groups only made up about half of the student population; there were plenty of social activities that didn't revolve around the frats and sororities.

What I do remember, though, is my mother telling me that I should pledge because if I did, "no matter where you go for the rest of your life, you'll always have friends." Mature observation has demonstrated this not to be the case; I don't know anyone who talks about their college Greek affiliation as having any sort of major impact on their adult activities or social circles. OTOH, college was where I got involved with SF fandom and the SCA, and those two groups have had a tremendous and ongoing impact on my adult life. By which I conclude that genuine interest-sharing groups are more beneficial, over the long run, than groups which try to create an artificial common interest.

Constance, #70: You bring up a point I'd been trying to work around to -- that hazing, in its currently-accepted common usage, is part of the torture continuum. Saying that it's voluntary is sort of a red herring; if it's known to be a requirement for something with greatly-desirable consequences in terms of social status, that's blackmail as well as torture, and self-selects for people who are well-advanced in either moral bankruptcy or desperation.

John: Are you really trying to say that people who don't approve of torture, and who don't think that people who do approve of torture should be running a country, are self-righteous prigs? If that's what you meant, then I'm back to "appalled" again.

Xopher @85:
abi, if they'd branded you with their family crest, I'd still call it abusive.

They gave me a Fimo dragon on a string to wear on my academic gown. I don't think that quite counts.

Lee @88:
Are you really trying to say that people who don't approve of torture, and who don't think that people who do approve of torture should be running a country, are self-righteous prigs? If that's what you meant, then I'm back to "appalled" again.

Personally, I saw John reacting to Constance's comments as though they applied to the excessive consumption of alcohol. That was certainly the content of comment 73.

I'm very much on the side of starting with a general prohibition on anything that inflict significant pain or leaves a permanent mark, and taking it from there.

I'm sorry for getting a bit too hot under the collar. In my defense, I'm trying to advocate for a cultural phenomenon of which I don't particularly approve performed by people I don't generally like, and that's trying. At the risk of Godwinizing myself again, I imagine the ACLU lawyers who carried forward the Skokie case were hell to live with while they were litigating that one. Now that I've had a nice, soothing bath, I'm going to take a shot at engaging some of Constance's arguments.

#70: What you've missed from the definition of sociopath is "continuous and chronic antisocial behavior".

#73: abi is right that your comments on alcohol were part of the trigger for my reply.

There's a far distance between staggering and harrassment, but you've conflated annoyance and menace. As for urination, I lived for many years less than a block from the bar district in Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas, and the only person I ever saw pee right in public on Dickson Street was a drunken woman who pissed her pants while sitting in a stairwell. Our practice studio a block away had an intermittently working toilet, and I often went outside and peed in the bushes myself.

There was more to it, though, than the anti-college guy prejudice. When you went on with:

I will hold to this standard: those who like and want this sort of thing done, who like being the perpetrators of it, and like watching it, who like having it forced on others have no place administering anything from a family to a government or a war or a business.

Mrs. Arkansawyer told me she though you were referring to