Adolf, you're a dunce if you can't understand what that tree represented.

MrT, if I punch a man in the street where there is sufficient evidence to prove that he provoked me (by laughing at me, for example), I am not going to get chucked in jail. It's a simple as that.

In this case a more apt analogy might be:

You see a man on the street with odd coloured socks. In your culture this is extremely offensive, so you punch him in the face. The man had no reason to expect you to punch him, either because he didn't know you would find his socks offensive, or he underestimated the significance of the faux pas.

Something like that anyway.

How is that more apt? The Dutchman was laughing and sniggering, which is pretty universally acknowledged as mocking. How is that not insulting? Who cares if he underestimated the affect of his laughing, should people not be responsible for their actions?

You know you're right, people should be responsible for their actions, and held responsible for them. For instance, with jail time for assault.

So the Dutchman got what he deserved (supposedly), but the attacker did not.

*yawn*

The article said he was smirking.

It is *extremely* hard not to smile/smirk when someone is looking at you that close. Try looking into a strangers eyes for 5 seconds without looking away or smiling. It's really quite hard.

What Mitai-Ngatai showed was a lack of self-control and understanding. The dutchman had a brief warning about how to conduct himself, the offender had a lifetime. To expect that every visitor is able to control himself 100% is foolish. Even if the visitor thinks they can act properly, it isn't until the event is actually underway that reality can meet expectations.

Chiang, that tree was planted to commemorate the soon to be extinct Maori race.

And as for the rest of this argument, I think you're mischaracterising it, Mrt. It's not like the guy got off scott-free. He lost his job, got community service, and is now a convicted criminal. That's no small deal. The fact is that he plead guilty early on, and the judge recognised that there was some amount of provocation in the case. I can't imagine a situation where the offender would be white and all the rest of the case were identical, but I'm sure if there were one then these cultural issues would be taken into account, along with all the other factors that a judge considers when sentencing someone.

Give it a rest man, the elections over, and assimilation lost. :brash:

By the way, before anyone misinterprets my views here, let me point out that I'm not saying he would have gotten a harsher sentence had he been white or whatever. All I'm saying is, we should throw everyone who commits violent assault into the klink (except, say, cases of self defense and such). Community service should be for shoplifters, drug users, etc. Whether the victim was cheeky or not shouldn't make a difference to this, nor should the culture of the attacker.

if you get cheeky to someone you should be prepared to get a violent reaction.

And likewise, if you punch someone in the face, you should be prepared to get thrown in the jail, rather than weaseling out of it by playing the race/culture card.

But Oob, more people who get sentenced for violent crime get community service than custodial sentences, particularly if you take into account that these tables conflate all violent crime, and don't distinguish between murderers, rapists, and guys that headbutt tourists.

If you put everyone convicted of assault into prison, you'd have to build hundreds of prisons. :imaracist:

So your position in this discussion is really irrelevant -- you're having another argument altogether.

Perhaps the result from the harsher sentencing backlash of recent?

I feel those convicted of assault should get some prison time, perhaps in conjunction with community service. Not necessarily for such a length of time that would require 'hundreds of prisons'.

We'll never know for sure if he would have gotten a harsher sentence had the circumstances of the assault been different, so I will simply state that my feeling is that everyone who has committed a serious form of assault should spend at least some time in prison. Not necessarily a long time mind you, a few weeks would suffice in many cases.

This of course means more cells are needed. In my ideal state, all drugs would be legalised (and taxed), thus making the prison space needed to put more people convicted of assault behind bars.

My views don't really fit neatly into the 'right wing' or 'left wing' pigeonhole, I take some from each side.

why? if i'm walking along the road with you and you step in dog shit, i'm going to laugh and say "haha you stepped in shit". should I expect a punch in the face for that?

Yes.

I think the only good reason for violence is in self-defence of violence. I don't think the tourist deserved a broken nose, he just smiled or laughed or whatever. I think that his sentence was light and their should be a harsher penalty for violence and assault. Sure, the Maori had a reason, but murderers have reasons for killing people but that still doesn't make it right (again unless its self-defence). Also if we got punched/head butted or whatever every time we laughed at someone else think how many times the hambeast, Brian Tamaki and Paul Holmes could beat us up.

I went to Tamaki Tours with my mum a month ago, so she could get a cultural experience.

It was made pretty clear that to laugh or smile would be completely disrespectful, so no one did it.

The Dutch guy probably went for a cultural experience and he got one. Just like his ancestors.

I should imagine that the same sentence would have been given to a Paheka.

And ditto what Maus said.

I actually quite seriously agree with Mr Lanky Bobs here.

A friend of mine in a classroom fight back in 2004 broke this wanker's nose. The kid was being very cheeky, and was a very smart fifth former who'd been put in what was a remedial maths class for us who had failed maths the previous year. The kid was trying to embarrass my mate in front of his friends and the rest of us who were a lot older than him. The kid stepped, and the kid got a broken nose that required surgery.

Did the kid bring assault charges? No. The kid realised that he was behaving like a wanker, and thus deserved the action.

Should my friend have had a prison sentence, Oob and Weirdo?

And weirdo, referring to him as 'The Maori' sounds pretty fucking disparaging.

Yeh but that kids "cheekiness" is a bit different from the tourists. That kid knew exactly what he was doing and was looking for trouble. I doubt the tourist did or was.

I would love to see some of forum members or their friends in the posistion of the victim and then see if they are so PC about it.

If he was 18 or older, and the person he attacked pressed charges, yes.

One of the outcomes of youth is learning to control yourself. Both verbally and physically as preparation for "teh real world". In that way I agree with the schoolyard situation you described.

However if this was between adults then a prison sentence would be plausible. You can't just go around assulting people because they called you a name or two. Marty McFly learnt it the hard way, and in the end even he realised this. If it was consistent harrasment then there are other legal avenues that you can use (restraining order, complain to your boss if its in a work environment, etc...).

Boywonder, that's something totally different. Defending your friends and family is about honour and such like, it's not to do with whether they've actually done wrong. To be honest, there are some members of my extended family who deserve to get head butted by any ethnic minority due to the racist garbage they spout.

Invoking 'political correctness' here is unfortunate. Presumably if the National Party was elected, this man would've been a showpiece of their policy of Equality For All (Where Maori receive tougher prison sentences due to media and talk-back pressure). But then, that means that would become a politically correct action, and that means you'd be politically correct, Boywonder, which proves how useless the term is.

Btw, to give you all an interesting fact here, New Zealand has the second highest ratio of prison inmates (yes, prison inmates, not people on parole) in the entire world, behind the United States.

Yeah. Agreed.

The only reason I called him the Maori was because he was preforming a Maori welcome at the time and which has brought about discussion of him playing "the race card". Plus I'm a racist from time to time.