02-04-2023, 09:27 AM
A bit over a week ago the trial for the Dumpster Defenders, Johnnie and Michael Miller, was resolved. If you don't remember, they're the fat cocky shirtless guys who got in a standoff with their massive raging neighbour who was trying to dump his trash on them.
"It's so dense, there's so much going on."
If you haven't looked at this video before feel free to talk about it in general here if you want. But what really interests me right now is the resolution four years later and what it says about where America's at. Here's your story link: https://tinyurl.com/yckw2ywz
The quick rundown is that the son Michael Miller ("Fuck you cocksucker") walks while the father Johnnie Miller ("I doubt it") got a 14 year sentence for murder.
What's interesting to me is that nobody even really tries to suggest that Aaron Howard ("I'M GONNA FUCKIN' KILL YOU") was a good person, or even that he wasn't deeply antisocial, confrontational, and hostile to people who hadn't done anything socially wrong. The part that nobody is saying which is plain if you read between the lines is that the Millers failed in their duty as fundamentally decent and socialised people to practice indefinite tolerance of low to moderate-high antisocial behaviour from the chronically antisocial. An average first world court's line of attack in any instance of a more socialised person asserting themselves against antisocial behaviour from below will be "why didn't you just let them? Did you have to do that? You could have ignored them or moved away."
This joke has been a favourite of mine for a while. I generally believe that accurate observations on social phenomena can be scaled up and down and shifted to other adjacent contexts and still work. The meme is school, but I'm sure I'm not the first person to note that how teachers expect the most socialised people under their authority to deal with antisocial behaviour and aggression is exactly how first world justice systems and police also expect you to.
Now onto some quotes.
"You didn't have to do anything? You could theoretically put up with this and worse behaviour forever."
The obvious answer to this cruel and absurd suggestion, that the Millers are thieves, is that Howard spent his entire life a thief of things far more valuable. He was allowed to consume and destroy peace and civil order his whole life at the expense of all of the people around himself more devoted to the idea that we live in a society than himself. All bullies, assholes, niggers, and chronically low-antisocial characters are thieves. Dumping your garbage on others and expecting to get away with it is theft. You destroy peace, you destroy trust, you destroy the confidence of good people in both themselves and society. Allowing people like this to exist and more or less do as they please until they inevitably cross some truly gratuitous line is gross theft of the patience and energy better people invest in society on the understand that it will be for the benefit of themselves and their own down the line.
When things like this happen it becomes more plain every time that our societies are simply not on the side of people who believe in them. It pays to have such people around yourself, but it does not pay to be one any longer.
"It's so dense, there's so much going on."
If you haven't looked at this video before feel free to talk about it in general here if you want. But what really interests me right now is the resolution four years later and what it says about where America's at. Here's your story link: https://tinyurl.com/yckw2ywz
The quick rundown is that the son Michael Miller ("Fuck you cocksucker") walks while the father Johnnie Miller ("I doubt it") got a 14 year sentence for murder.
What's interesting to me is that nobody even really tries to suggest that Aaron Howard ("I'M GONNA FUCKIN' KILL YOU") was a good person, or even that he wasn't deeply antisocial, confrontational, and hostile to people who hadn't done anything socially wrong. The part that nobody is saying which is plain if you read between the lines is that the Millers failed in their duty as fundamentally decent and socialised people to practice indefinite tolerance of low to moderate-high antisocial behaviour from the chronically antisocial. An average first world court's line of attack in any instance of a more socialised person asserting themselves against antisocial behaviour from below will be "why didn't you just let them? Did you have to do that? You could have ignored them or moved away."
This joke has been a favourite of mine for a while. I generally believe that accurate observations on social phenomena can be scaled up and down and shifted to other adjacent contexts and still work. The meme is school, but I'm sure I'm not the first person to note that how teachers expect the most socialised people under their authority to deal with antisocial behaviour and aggression is exactly how first world justice systems and police also expect you to.
Now onto some quotes.
Quote:The state acknowledged Aaron Howard was swinging a baseball bat, but contends it was never within striking distance of the pair.
"Someone getting in your face and saying they're going to kill you... it's not enough. Is there other options they could have taken? Michael Miller never had to come outside."
The jury was asked to review the evidence and watch the statements given by both Millers.
"This was an incident of a neighbor they didn't like and they were frustrated and they were done dealing with it."
"They go outside and take that stand. That's not justified and because that's not justified both Michael and Johnnie Miller are guilty of murder."
"You didn't have to do anything? You could theoretically put up with this and worse behaviour forever."
Quote:Dan Joiner presented the State's final closing argument for the sentencing phase.
Joiner said that while murder has an obvious victim, Howard's death also had a ripple effect.
"It affects people like Kara. It affects Tim who no longer has his father," Joiner said. "Murder is theft. Murder means you stole something...stole everything that comes with growing old."
Joiner said Johnnie Miller is going to prison and he brought that on himself.
"We're not asking you to put some kind of value on human life. Human life is priceless. We can value what he stole. We're not asking for five."
The obvious answer to this cruel and absurd suggestion, that the Millers are thieves, is that Howard spent his entire life a thief of things far more valuable. He was allowed to consume and destroy peace and civil order his whole life at the expense of all of the people around himself more devoted to the idea that we live in a society than himself. All bullies, assholes, niggers, and chronically low-antisocial characters are thieves. Dumping your garbage on others and expecting to get away with it is theft. You destroy peace, you destroy trust, you destroy the confidence of good people in both themselves and society. Allowing people like this to exist and more or less do as they please until they inevitably cross some truly gratuitous line is gross theft of the patience and energy better people invest in society on the understand that it will be for the benefit of themselves and their own down the line.
When things like this happen it becomes more plain every time that our societies are simply not on the side of people who believe in them. It pays to have such people around yourself, but it does not pay to be one any longer.