TheAgitator.com
Couple Sues Walmart for Reporting Bath Photos
Saturday, September 19th, 2009An Arizona couple accused of sexual abuse after taking bath-time photos of their children and then trying to have them developed at Walmart are suing the state and the retail giant.
Lisa and Anthony “A.J.” Demaree’s three young daughters were taken away by Arizona Child Protective Services last fall when a Walmart employee found partially nude pictures of the girls on a camera memory stick taken to the store for processing, according to the suit.
The Peoria couple’s attorney said Walmart turned the photos over to police and the Demarees were not allowed to see their children for several days and didn’t regain custody for a month while the state investigated.
Neither parent was charged with sexual abuse and they regained custody of their children — then ages 1 1/2, 4 and 5 — but the Demarees claim the incident inflicted lasting harm.
Given how some previous cases like this one have gone, the Demarees should probably consider themselves lucky.
Not real sure who to blame here. I’m thinking the employee was just following store policy and not acting on some internal moral compass.
Having said that, this is another example of just how well
‘they’ have everyone trained. Something not look right? Call the police. Don’t think, don’t try to analyze, and of course don’t use common sense, just call the fucking cops.
There is a world – no, a universe- of difference between taking pics of your own kids in the bathtub and kiddie porn. Anyone with even half a brain should know the difference.
Radley is correct, as these things usually go it could have been a LOT worse. I guess the Arizona prosecutors had too much else on their plate that day so they let it slide.
Yet another reason why I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart.
@1:
That’s exactly why Wal-Mart should be getting sued.
I don’t think Wal-Mart should be getting sued. Wal-Mart didn’t arrest them, take their kids from them, or put them through hell trying to put their family back together. But I’m all for them suing the state and state agencies. What SHOULD have happened was that that when the store contacted the cops they should have waved it off, or when the DA saw it, he should have. If the state acted responsibly the store policy probably wouldn’t exist in the first place.
Well as much as I find the inside of a Walmart pretty skeevy, I don’t see any grounds for suing them. If you don’t know if something is illegal the police should be the correct people to call. Heck I could easily see some 17 yr old kid who doesn’t have kids not having the judgement to recognize what isn’t child porn. So calling the cops is the right move. Now for the police doing anything other than waving them off, that is the person who should recognize innocent photos and they should get sued but won’t.
I’m wondering if the employee or his managers were afraid of being held liable for failing to report “child pornography” if they hadn’t told the police. Does anybody know what the laws are concerning that?
The employee is neither here nor there.
There real issue is how insanely blunt the law is. Most people with “common sense” can tell kids in the bath, kids playing in a paddling pool, or a mother breastfeeding is far from child porn.
So if anyone is to blame it is poorly written legislation and a moron of a prosecutor. But frankly most “sexual” legislation is extremely over the top tough, why?
Nobody is going to win an election by softening or making such legislation more “common sense.” They will however win an election by talking about protecting children and women.
#5 You usually can’t be punished for failing to call the poice or child protection unless you are mandated reporter (ie someone required by law to report abus or neglect). A photo processor is not likely to be a mandated reporter. Not sure the AZ laws, but there is a general principle of American law that it’s rarely rarely rarely a crime to fail to *report* criminal activity.
The phrasing of the article doesn’t help this couple’s case, does it? Rather than stress their innocence, it takes an unfortunate crime-beat tone and suggests a nefarious plot to take dirty pictures and try to slide them past Wallie’s watchful, benevolent eye.
And “partially-nude”? In the bath? What does that even mean? Should I avoid going to the beach now, ’cause I’d hate to get charged with “lewd exposure via partial nudity” and spend the rest of my life under a bridge…
Well it is Walmart, so they might win regardless of the merits of the suit based upon the defendant. Since they were turned over to police instead of the general public there should be immunity to civil suit, under Arizona law anyone who has a reasonable belief that abuse may have occurred is immune to civil liability. Since (as Balko presented) there have been other cases where similar pictures been consider to be abuse, the belief is a reasonable one. Considering the publicity surrounding the similar cases I have difficulty accepting that Walmart has a special duty to warn customers about what should be considered common knowledge.
argh, should be “immune to civil liability for reporting it to the police or CPS” in the second sentence.
I’m convinced MOST Americans have sexual inclinations toward babies and small children. Seriously, what else could explain our mass hysteria over child nudity. Easier to point the finger at someone else than to face the mirror. It’s disgusting.
My family vacations in Spain, at the beach, every summer. All kids under the age of about 8 go fully nude. Many girls go topless until age 13. No one bats an eye. I’m sure the Wallmart employee who turned over these photos head would explode if he saw this.
@ Nick T.
Not sure if it was on here or another blog, but not to long ago there was a story similar to this out of Texas (I believe). In that story it was made clear (from the sheriff or the DA, not sure which) that according to their state law that anyone who suspects child sexual abuse was obligated by law to report it. The implication of that would be that failure to do so would be a crime.
This case is different from the random wrong-door no-knock or other “bad luck” scenarios reported on here daily, in which the victims are entirely blameless. This couple triggered the situation through their own actions, regardless of the innocuous nature of the photos. They made a choice to have their photos developed publicly, and thus brought a stranger’s subjective preferences into their lives. How much value does that photo scanner and printer have now? Who even prints photos anymore?
This signals the kind of responsibility everyone must take with their decisions — maintain as much privacy as possible, prohibit as many people as possible from scrutinizing your life, know as much as possible about the people with whom you interact.
It’s easy for a person to say, “That’s not kiddie porn,” but there’s always a risk greater than zero of misinterpretation when you leave it to chance.
@Cynical in Cali
” This couple triggered the situation through their own actions”
Ye ol’ blame the victim.
Dave T,
in Texas there is a general duty (applicable to everyone, distinguished from the special duties imposed upon people who care for children) to report, but it is only a Class B misdemeanor to fail to report suspected abuse if you know you have the duty to report suspected abuse. If you don’t know that you have are required to report suspicion of abuse then you are not criminally liable for not reporting it. Quit mentioning it so people have a reasonable defense when they don’t call the cops when the next door neighbors’ 2-y.o. son decides to take of his clothes and play in the lawn sprinkler.
@ Max
I’ll keep them sealed then…Sorry about that.
@ | Guido | September 19th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Actually, I think it is just the generalized media hysteria surrounding kiddie porn that caused this. I’d be willing to bet that a significant percentage of parents have taken “kids in the bath” pictures and, until digital cameras, most would have gotten developed at some Walmart or drug store outlet.
Unless the whole batch of photos was “kids in the bath”, the Walmart employee over-reacted.
#13 Cynical in CA:
I think you have a pretty solid point there, Cynical. And I don’t think you were blaming the victim.
People have to understand that, for now, laws (and hysterical views held by members of the public) are what they are, good, bad or indifferent. The best way to avoid getting caught in a situation like this is to maintain your privacy, and anticipate what people might think or say, even if you think it is B.S..
The same can be said for other actions that should not be illegal, but are. If you smoke marijuana, for christ’s sake be discreet about it. Don’t stand outside and dare nosy neighbors to call the police. And after you smoke out, change your damn clothes. Walking or driving around smelling like Cypress Hill’s tour bus is PC, whether we like it or not. Another example: If you are 18 and hosting a party where booze is present, keep the noise down and don’t do anything stupid that is likely to result in a call to the police.
Many people get sucked into the criminal justice system because they lack common sense. If people were more careful, and if people would stop calling the police to report victimless “crimes” systemic change would be more likely. For more on this, I highly recommend the book “Arrest Proof Yourself,” by Dale C. Carson (Carson is a former Miami Police Officer and FBI Agent, and is currently a defense attorney in Florida).
[...] The Agitator » Blog Archive » Couple Sues Walmart for Reporting … [...]
In a perfect world there wouldn’t of been a problem. The world is full of busy-bodies who have nothing better to do than judge everyone elses action. Avoid them by keeping as much as your life as possible.
“Many people get sucked into the criminal justice system because they lack common sense.”
While working in the security department on a NAS, we had a unoffical name for that. It’s called “dumb in public”. All but 3 of my arrests fell into that category.
This happened near where I live and it’s been the hugest local story on talk radio for awhile now.
2 things:
1) Nowadays, I don’t blame Walmart or their employees … people probably figured they get in trouble themselves if they didn’t report it. So let’s not turn this into ‘Company X is horrible’ bashing. It could have happened with any place that develops pictures. The issue is really about yet another case where the government is overstepping and being over cautious and where most people are ‘trained’ to look for something ‘wrong’.
2) This is just a confirmation of why when digital cameras came out, I said “Yay, no more film”. I guess if you take any photos of your kids, do it with a digital camera.
Well, you can’t sue the police, right? You can’t sue the lawmakers. So who can you sue?
The corporation with big pockets.
I sense a setllement out-of-court forthcoming.
The parents aren’t that bright to begin with since they’re still using film instead of digital for pictures that certainly don’t require film, but reporting them for bath time photos is a hysterical (but sadly all too common) overreaction. Heck, I think my parents probably have a photo or two of me like that lying around somewhere so they’d better hope no one sees them.
I’m not sure the couple has a case against WalMart. I do hope they win their case against the state. Shame on the Arizona Child Protective Services for taking those girls away from their parents. They’re not min.wage photo-techs (like the kid who called the police) and I can definitely believe the incident inflicted lasting harm.
#23 et al
If you read the story it states that the parents brought in a memory stick from their camera for processing. No film.
OK, I may have misread a few comments here but let’s get somethings straight:
The parents are suing CPS, AG, Peoria, and AZ for slander. Too many big mouths telling others that it was “sexual abuse”.
They are suing Walmart for not disclosing their policy of “old biddy” judgment regarding photos. In past times, the photos simply would not have been processed.
The pictures were on a flash card and they wanted the pictures on photo stock.
A judge threw this out, agreeing with the parents that this was not child pornography, there were no “close-ups” of their genitalia as the Police asserted (guess the perverts in the Police Department think zoom equals close-up, wonder how many times they used zoom), and that this was BS.
Finally, given that nude pictures of young children is almost a staple in all family albums, how can any of you moralists out there who have pushed the promulgation of these insane laws claim you’re any better than any other pervert? To me, you’re worse.
@Helmut
I’m assuming your comment wasn’t sarcastic (it’s late on a Saturday night and I’m not entirely competent to determine sarcasm right now).
Given that… We should hide everything that we think might possibly be construed as illegal by anyone?
Seriously?
So… unless there’s a clear-cut legal precedent from SCOTUS that says “Yes, you can do this”, we should hedge our bets and hide what we’re doing?”
That appears to be a “guilty until proven innocent” approach to things. From what I understand, our nation was built on the premise of “innocent unless proven guilty.”
It’s *supposed to be* their job to prove I’ve done something wrong. And I should be able to take action openly without fear of retribution unless it’s very clear that my actions are illegal.
They weren’t using film. They took a digital memory stick in for processing.
Believe it or not, there are still grandparents out there who don’t have computers or internet access, but love to receive “cute kid pics” in print form.
I have to agree that there’s little case against Wal-Mart. The store employees who called police are no different than someone who calls the police because they see someone openly carrying a gun, in a state where that’s perfectly legal.
It happens all the time. The proper police response should be, “Thanks, we’ll check to see if there’s a crime involved.” And when there is obviously no crime involved, everyone goes on their way.
The problem with both pseudo-”child porn” and open carry, is when the police (all too often) respond with a felony take-down and arrest people for perfectly legal actions.
#27 M Blaze Miskulin: “Given that… We should hide everything that we think might possibly be construed as illegal by anyone”
Well no. Sorry if my language was overbroad. I’m talking mostly about things that ARE illegal (like my examples of smoking weed and underage drinking). In the above case though, you know as well as I do that some people jump to (wrong) conclusions, so I’m just saying be careful.
#14 | Guido | September 19th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
@Cynical in Cali
” This couple triggered the situation through their own actions”
Ye ol’ blame the victim.
#18 | Helmut O’ Hooligan | September 19th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
#13 Cynical in CA:
I think you have a pretty solid point there, Cynical. And I don’t think you were blaming the victim.
To which I reply, thanks Helmut and Guido, you may call it blaming the victim, but the point I was making was strictly logical. The primary actors were the parents in bringing the photos to Walmart for developing. Had they not acted, there would be no conflict. It is true the same could be said for the clerk, but his was a reaction.
I stress how important it is to not leave such things to the interpretation of a stranger. As Radley wrote, these parents are lucky. Their lives were only partially ruined. They may have acted ignorantly, but they must bear responsibility as things presently stand. As adults, they are presumed to understand the world in which we live.
And thanks for the book suggestion, Helmut. Sounds like some practical knowledge.
Please conform your behavior to that which is approved by the authoritays. Seriously, they know what is best.
By the way, does anyone else find it a little creepy that everyone else is thinking child porn while you’re just wanting to take a picture of your frickin’ infant in a goddamn bathtub?
Finally, I’m as big a WalMart apologist as anyone, but how ’bout a little common sense.
Get off your damn high horse. This moral panic cuts across nearly every political faction. The left is just as hysterical about this as the religious right. There are many people in each group who see that these laws are increasingly abusive and not doing what they’re supposed to do: stop actual child porn from being produced.
“This case is different from the random wrong-door no-knock or other “bad luck” scenarios reported on here daily, in which the victims are entirely blameless.”
I’m not sure how. Victims of wrong-door raids chose to live in a house in a country with a militarized police force. Hell, you could say that by not committing suicide at an early age, they chose to live in a dangerous world where people (including and often especially the authorities) do horrible things when they think they can get away with it.
And victims of no-knock (not wrong-door) raids have often broken the law (the law, often as written, often as enforced-and-then-rationalized), so they’re certainly not without blame in the strictly logical sense of blame as you mean it here.
There was definitely abuse in this situation….by the Arizona Child Protective Services!
“The Demarees were not allowed to see their children for several days and didn’t regain custody for a month while the state investigated. They regained custody of their children — then ages 1 1/2, 4 and 5″.
What kind of emotional trauma is inflicted on children of these tender years:
Ages 1 1/2, 4, and 5 to be torn from the arms of their parents and placed in the loving clutches of a State agency??
I’m not a lawyer and don’t play one on TV, but it seems to me that, while you can’t sue police and prosecutors for lawful performance of their official duties, the suit for slander may have some standing.
Slander is not something cops and DAs should be doing as part of their “official duties.”
@ cynical in Cali:
no kidding man! and i mean, what about the kids? did you see the way they were dressed? they were totally asking for it!
effing puke!
I first read 1984 when I was 14 or so and the book scared the shit out of me. I had a weeks-long depressive view on the entire future of mankind until I talked to my dad about it, who reassured me that Murphy’s Law prevented the kind of totalitarian control depicted in the book. Helmut you’re 100% right about being discreet – they only really go after the low hanging fruit. I realized years ago that in a strange way I do have the freedom to toke, as long as I recognized what constitutes low-hanging-fruit and conscientiously avoided playing that role.
The discourse between you two exhibits both cynicism and realism, which, to the best of my observation in 27 years of existence, are pretty damn-near inseparable: to look on things as they really are often engenders cynicism.
I guess this is one of those weird paradoxical challenges life throws at you: how do you maintain realism without becoming so cynical that you give up on the possibility of changing the world around you?
I agree with Helmut that Cynical isn’t blaming the victim; merely pointing out the reality of how events could have so easily taken a different course had the Demarees had the knowledgeable (cynical) point of view to know that such photographs could be construed as pornographic. Having acknowledged all that, I hope that I never become too realistic (cynical) to become outraged every time I read about how some poor sap, who didn’t know better, stumbled into the maw of the criminal justice system.
@Cynical: Even going full on digital isn’t really enough. You’ve no idea how frequently I’m backing up customer data and see “name_in_the_tub.jpg” or some variant flicker past on the file transfers. If I were nosy enough to poke into someone’s private stuff (Which I ain’t) and enough of a moral crusader to call the cops over it (Which I’m not.) it could easily result in the same problem. Not even putting it on your computer is safe. It’s sad we seem to have hit the point parents have to treat normal pictures of their kids as if they actually WERE child pornography to prevent their kids being removed and/or arrest. Either way their lives are ruined.
I imagine there’s a minimum of one nekkid kid picture of every single person in America. Without that, what the hell do you embarrass them with when they start dating?
Cynical et al.,
You may think that you can insulate yourself from this sort of insanity by simply being more careful. I’m not so sure you can predict how effing stupid authorities will be next. OK, so you don’t use Walmart to print pictures of your kids in the bath. What about that family pic where grandpa is holding your little boy? Hey, does that dirty old man have his hand on that kid’s bottom?
Or maybe…”We have arrested you, because you seem to have an unhealthy obsession with little girls in pretty dresses.”
“It was my kid’s birthday party.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
Once you start avoiding perfectly innocent activities, because you are afraid they will be misconstrued, you have already kissed your freedom goodbye.
The primary actors were the parents in bringing the photos to Walmart for developing. Had they not acted, there would be no conflict. It is true the same could be said for the clerk, but his was a reaction.
You know, I was prepared to be on your side in this discussion, but you just had to do and say something stupid like this.
The moral blame for a conflict belongs to the first person who takes an action which is not innocuous or blameless. Since everyone now concedes that these people were not making child pornography, they cannot be assigned any blame for their action whatsoever. Whatsoever.
It’s one thing to say that people should try to be cognizant of other people’s insanity when conducting their lives. But you’re going one step further here, and excusing the insanity – by calling it a “reaction”, and therefore absolving the actor of blame.
#35 | JOR
You raise interesting points, JOR. Distilled to its essence, your argument (really logically paraphrasing my argument to its extreme) is that by choosing to live in a less-than-perfect society, each of us commits an act that sets in motion possibilities such as befell the Walmart customers or victims of no-knock wrong-door raids. While my opinion is there is a difference in kind between the two, I cannot argue with the base logic of your statement.
The solution then, to eliminate these random acts of oppression, is to form a just society apart from the corrupt one, even if it means living alone. Or barring that, one must simply deal with the randomness and count one’s lucky stars for each day that one passes unscathed.
#42 | Fluffy
You know, this is one case where I cannot write, “What Fluffy said.”
I already clarified that my position is purely logical. The Walmart customers consciously chose to publicly print their photos. They live in this world, they have access to the news and by now they should be aware that cases such as theirs predate them by years. I maintain that they acted in the face of such technology as consumer photo printers, and I even maintain that photo prints are a dying medium. And by tracing first cause, it is easy to see that had they not brought the photos to Walmart, they wouldn’t have been playing “kiddie porn” roulette, where the clerk spins the wheel and pushes the button where the ball will land. Who in their right mind except an ignoramus would put their lives in a strangers hands in such a way?
In a perfect world, what these parents did is harmless. Last time I checked, this world is as imperfect as it gets — I hope.
#38 | ransom147
Wow. Just wow.
I’ll give you my address, ransom. You can bring your lynch mob and I’ll build the scaffold myself.
Is it that hard to realize that human beings are actors and that each action that one performs carries risks, justified or not?
I am trying to perform a public service here, not defending the actions of the clerk or law enforcement.
I could make the same argument that people who choose to live in flood zones cannot blame the hurricane for their demise.
Why is this so f’en hard to deal with? Why the denial?
#41 | Nick
To think that any of us have any material freedom left is a cute, quaint thought. If you consider being able to have family photos printed at Walmart without risk of prosecution to be freedom, then that’s pathetic.
Here is my simple advice for today: trust no strangers. And if you absolutely must trust someone, make sure you know as much about them as possible, and most preferably, make sure they are a good friend.
Or roll the dice. Whatever.
Fluffy, one more time. There are no normative subjective interpretations. You may have your opinion, as may 1000 others, and still 1000 more. Ask me my opinion and it will be yet different. Ask the clerk at Walmart and it will be different still, and none of these subjective interpretations are normative.
I suppose the one positive thing that can be said about the American justice system is that it has layers. Normally, one person is not judge, jury and executioner. One would hope that common sense would prevail somewhere along the chain, and often it does not. This should tend to smooth out subjective interpretations until something akin to a normative results, and many times individuals are displeased with the result owing to the cross-purposes of State power and individual freedom, so it is not perfect. Nothing human can ever be.
Self-responsibility is the foundation to a healthy existence. It sucks to have to constantly think, “What are the consequences of my actions or lack of action?” But it must be done. It is impossible to account for every possibility. But this is the responsibility of every individual in society.
Risk cannot be eliminated, but it can be mitigated rather effectively. Trust no strangers.
I am trying to perform a public service here, not defending the actions of the clerk or law enforcement.
Your argument is a defense of the clerk and of law enforcement, and you simply don’t realize it.
“You have to be careful when you drop photos off at Wal-Mart these days,” and “This whole thing is the parents’ fault,” are completely different statements. The problem here is that you think they are the same statement, and that’s both stupid and morally bankrupt.
“You have to be careful being a Jew in the Netherlands in 1944,” is not the same statement as, “It’s Anne Frank’s family’s own damn fault that they got killed, because they weren’t careful enough.” You’d have to be retarded to think that they’re the same statement.
And unless they’re the same statement, you are completely wrong.
#43 | Cynical in CA |
“The solution then, to eliminate these random acts of oppression, is to form a just society apart from the corrupt one, even if it means living alone.”
Well, there are huge dangers in living alone, and bad things happen in the world that have little or nothing to do with people. They’re all dangers we have to deal with and arrange our lives to take account of – so they all inhibit our freedom in some way, forcing us to arrange our affairs in ways we’d otherwise rather not and adopt habits we’d otherwise not want to. I don’t see a huge difference, in terms of my own freedom to do as I please, whether a danger originates from other people or not. Or maybe there is – even a cop or some other lowlife gangbanger that has you at his mercy is more likely to have a moment of, well, human decency, and stop hurting you, than a grizzly bear or a tornado is.
Cynical, you are using language that makes it look like you’re placing the moral blame on the parents. “Blame” is not a term of formal analysis. Of course the parents caused their own problems – but not by taking the photos to Walmart (proximate cause) but by just growing up and being alive (ultimate cause). So yeah, saying they’re to “blame” is kind of silly. That was my point earlier. Either what was done to them was just, or it wasn’t. And if justice is just a matter of opinion, then nobody is to blame about anything anyway (or: blame is just a matter of opinion).
And personally, I hope they do win a case against Walmart. Now I don’t think it’s likely, but it would be good if it happened. People who participate in enforcing stupid laws in stupid ways should be punished. Whatever encourages people to stop snitching is a good thing.
#48 | Fluffy –
“Your argument is a defense of the clerk and of law enforcement, and you simply don’t realize it.”
I’ll have to disagree with you, Fluffy, no surprise there.
The actions of the parents are one thing (and the first thing). The actions of the clerk are another thing. The actions of law enforcement are yet another. I am defending none of the actions of any party, nor am I condemning the parents actions. There should be no issue here in a perfect world. The problem is the world is not perfect and it is incumbent on rational individuals to defend themselves. Thus, the parents failed to defend themselves by their actions. Everything else flows from that failure. This is pure logic. There is no judgment involved, because that would entail the perfection of the world.
I would not make the same mistake. Would I make a different mistake of equal magnitude? Perhaps. Such is life in society, it is rife with uncertainty and risk.
“You have to be careful when you drop photos off at Wal-Mart these days,” and “This whole thing is the parents’ fault,” are completely different statements. The problem here is that you think they are the same statement, and that’s both stupid and morally bankrupt.”
I never wrote you have to be careful when you drop photos off at Wal-Mart. I argue you should never bring photos to be developed in public ever. Avail yourself of the wonderful technology of digital photos and at-home photo printers. Or not and take the risk. Hell, scrutinize what you post on Facebook too. This is just common sense, unless you’re someone who wants to bring a test case before the Supreme Court, then by all means post whatever you want. As for it being the parents fault, I establish that dispassionately out of logic as they were the prime actors. Disagree with me all you want, it is irrefutable that had they not acted first, none of this would have happened, whatever judgments you want to lay on the subsequent actors for their alleged lack of common sense.
“You have to be careful being a Jew in the Netherlands in 1944,” is not the same statement as, “It’s Anne Frank’s family’s own damn fault that they got killed, because they weren’t careful enough.” You’d have to be retarded to think that they’re the same statement.”
OK, enough strawmen for one day. I’m out. I like you Fluffy, and I’d like to keep this civil.
“Either what was done to them was just, or it wasn’t. And if justice is just a matter of opinion, then nobody is to blame about anything anyway (or: blame is just a matter of opinion).”
I think you got it JOR. There are no normative subjective interpretations. It is all opinion. That is what “The Myth of the Rule of Law” by John Hasnas is all about, linked to many times here. Delmar England wrote at length about it as well.
As for it being the parents fault, I establish that dispassionately out of logic as they were the prime actors. Disagree with me all you want, it is irrefutable that had they not acted first, none of this would have happened, whatever judgments you want to lay on the subsequent actors for their alleged lack of common sense.
OK, enough strawmen for one day. I’m out. I like you Fluffy, and I’d like to keep this civil.
It’s not a strawman based on the terms of the argument you’re advancing.
You’re saying that since the parents action led to their predicament, they’re to blame, and you don’t want to consider irrelevancies like whether the people who “reacted” to the parents are being just or not.
Your syllogism is:
1. The world is not perfect.
2. One imperfect aspect of the world is hysteria about photos showing incidental child nudity.
3. The parents could have or should have known this.
4. The parents took an action that brought that hysteria down on their heads, and had they taken greater care they could have avoided that.
5. Therefore, this situation is the parents’ fault.
If we’re going to be “dispassionate” about it, then the Anne Frank example is not a straw man at all. It’s just a reductio using the exact same terms as advanced in your argument:
1. The world in 1944 was not perfect.
2. One imperfect aspect of the world in 1944 was the Nazi regime’s hysterical hatred of Jews.
3. The Franks definitely knew this, and we have documentary and literary evidence that they knew it.
4. The Franks failed to hide well enough, just as these parents failed to hide their bath photos. Had the Franks taken greater care, they would have been better hidden and would not have gotten caught.
5. Therefore, Anne Frank’s death is her parents’ fault.
How is this a strawman? “Dispassionately” explain the difference to me. If, as you argue, you’re responsible for any injustice that befalls you if there was some theoretical action you could have taken to avoid the injustice [or some action you could have refrained from taking to avoid the injustice] then a Jew who didn’t hide well enough, or who didn’t flee Europe in time, is responsible for his own Holocaust death. If you think it’s different, you have to explain to me how it’s different using the terms of the argument you’ve already advanced – and you’ve excluded questions of justice and fairness from consideration, so “But the Nazis were really bad guys” is not on the table here.
The Nazis were criminals a priori. That is, before the Anne Frank situation, the Nazis behaved criminally.
The Wal-Mart clerk did not behave criminally. His behavior was only marginally questionable, and it was a posteriori, that is after the parents acted.
I’m done Fluffy. There’s no right or wrong in this situation. Some who posted here agreed with me, and some disagreed.
There is no correct answer, just subjective opinions. My logic is valid and sound either way, you just want to see the world the way you want to see it. Fine.
JThompson
I imagine there’s a minimum of one nekkid kid picture of every single person in America. Without that, what the hell do you embarrass them with when they start dating?
Thank God I’m not the only one that keeps baby photos for dating blackmail use.
As to everyone saying that print photos are a dying breed. Then why does every convenience store that I go to have a photo print section? There’s obviously a demand for it, not everyone wants/can dole out $200 for a home photo station. Yes I’ve gone to digital photos for my color (still do b&w in film) but I still need somewhere to print the things, otherwise I’ve got to only view them on a computer or small screened device.
“Yes I’ve gone to digital photos for my color (still do b&w in film) but I still need somewhere to print the things, otherwise I’ve got to only view them on a computer or small screened device.”
I have converted fully to digital. I have over 5000 photographs on my computer and I often set the computer to slide show and enjoy random photos set to music. I almost never take out my old photo albums, and when I do it’s usually to scan them into the computer. I have all my photos on my Zune (yes, I know) too.
I haven’t printed a photo in years. If there are those who insist on or are forced by economic circumstances to using film and having it developed outside the home, my only advice is to know who you are dealing with. This is now demonstrably risky behavior if the photos are marginal, and the margin seems to be shifting by the day.
To reiterate my position, what the parents did was not wrong. Taking pictures of one’s own children is not wrong. Showing them to strangers who will have their own unpredictable and arguably aberrant opinions of said photos is RISKY. It is a parent’s primary mandate to manage risk in the lives of their young children, and these parents failed. That doesn’t make them criminals, it doesn’t even make them bad parents, but they must accept responsibility for their actions or they are admitting that they have no control over their lives.
For what it’s worth, I hope they win their lawsuit against Wal-Mart, and I hope the publicity gets the attention of parents everywhere to guard their families more closely.
I just read the article on one of the news websites.
Whatever everyone wishes to say about the employee, the company, the parents, or whatever, several points still stand.
The parents *do not* deserve to be registered as sex offenders. They are now on that registry.
The mother did not deserve to be suspended from her job.
We should not have to live in fear. We all have photos from when we were kids that show us naked in the bath, and people will continue to take them and have them printed.
The cops and DA went into the situation without any logical thought for possible consequences for this family. They deserve to get the pants sued off of them.
Cynical in California,
These parents were not ignorant! They were dragged through the mud for doing what most parents do with young children at bath time; they take pics — It is a tradition. It’s the idiots that took it as far as it got that are ignorant.
Snowella,
You put that out there perfectly. I hope all three entities pay up.
That’s your opinion Brenda. Your opinion is correct.
My opinion is the parents were negligent in their primary parental duty of managing risk. My opinion is correct too.
Now, I ask you, why in this world would a sane person leave a matter of opinion in such an important matter up to perfect strangers?
You think I don’t get it, Brenda, but I get it. You might want to think about it a bit more and you might get it.