Don’t have a snowball fight in Wausau… — 14 Comments
Outlawing snowballs is surely the height of “misprotectiveness.” And I absolutely agree that such abuse of protectiveness is a whole syndrome, hardly limited to snowballs, which is bad for everyone and very bad for children.
But l do have to point out that when I was a kid in the ’40s and ’50s, snowball fights were as common as breathing and one of the definite up-sides to winter with snow. Rarely was anyone hurt. HOWEVER, the better parents did explain to their kids that snowballs stuffed with ice or rocks really could do serious damage, so we kids were ordered not to do that. And, of course, some kids did do that.
I don’t go along with Wausau on this at all. But the fact that stuffed snowballs can be quite damaging remains — although, arguing against Wausau, the rule as Neo reports it says nothing about stuffed snowballs, and surely doesn’t seem to distinguish between them and regular snowballs in any way. Snowballs are out. Period.
By the way. Per the article, paper airplanes and bread balls would also be OUT if thrown “at” somebody. Somebody sh/tell the Drones Club.
No snowballs in northern Wisconsin in the winter. That’s insane.
My aunt was a tomboy. In her day in Smallville, Illinois, the neighborhood kids would have BB gun battles with real BBs!
A kid even got an eye put out once.
Folks we are emasculating our children and not preparing them for the real world.
The secret purpose, possibly not even consciously known to the mayor, is to make the kids grow up into weak, dependent adults, who are begging the big, strong gov’t to protect them. No independent thinking, no independent acting, no “dangerous fun”.
Most fun has an element of danger.
There have probably been a few deaths from snowballs in the last 10 years. Certainly fewer than deaths from autos. Almost no human activity is “safe” — no deaths from that activity in the last 10 (50? 100?) years, including walking, bathing, and going to the toilet.
Most US kids ride with their parents in cars, and should. This should be the minimum risk-acceptable standard — if something is no more dangerous than riding in a car, it should be illegal.
I’m pretty sure snowballs, dodgeball, and most kid fun stuff is less dangerous, fewer deaths, than riding with parents in a car. So should be legal.
“…who are begging the big, strong gov’t to protect them.”
And who won’t have the ability to resist the government if they find the government more repressive than they expected.
Thank you for the link Paul. I think that it reminds us not to take stories like this too seriously.
Huxley: I grew up in what was, until recent generations, the Wild Wild West, and I remember at least one occasion when we teenagers were shooting at each other with real BBs out in the desert. Nobody’s eye got shot out, but one kid got a painful, though not serious, injury from being hit in the leg.
I will readily admit that this was not the best idea ever.
But snowballs? Really?
I would arrange the biggest snowball fight I could, and publicize it on Facebook and Twitter, daring the police to bring along enough cops to arrest everyone. This is the nanny-state at its worst.
When snowballs are outlawed, only outlaws will have snowballs.
Julie near Chicago sayeth:
the better parents did explain to their kids that snowballs stuffed with ice or rocks really could do serious damage, so we kids were ordered not to do that. And, of course, some kids did do that.
And in my childhood experience that meant that all the other kids in the fight would gang up, push the offender down, and pelt them hard from point blank range (sometimes with a tit-for-tat rock or ice clump inside) until they got the message and either ran off or promised not to do it again.
Paul on December 9, 2019 at 5:50 pm said:
You’ll enjoy the Wausau PD response. Pretty funny! https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1487344401447043&id=163213733860123
* * *
Okay, that really was pretty funny and I’m sure the cops had fun throwing snowballs at their Chief and the Mayor.
BUT
What the Chief actually said was that the law was enacted in 1962, had been used in prosecution only about 10 times for obviously dangerous behavior, and that many jurisidictions in the US had similar ordinances.
He then complained that the news reports were not factual.
There is such a law. It has been used. Those are admitted facts.
The only misdirection I can see in Dunetz’s post was that the news report he quoted said that the ordinance was new. (“New Municipal Ordinance in Wausau, Wisconsin.”) I’ve seen that mistake in other reports where the dateline of a source is misread or ignored or doesn’t exist. Doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be concerned about it.
This is the kind of “gotcha” law that is on the books so that it can be used selectively to prosecute people for doing something that is already illegal (assault) without having to do the heavy lifting of proving the elements of that crime — a situation ripe for discrimination, if one were of either (1) the SJW persuasion; or (2) an actual bigot.
That behavior which is obviously illegal BY THE LETTER is most often not prosecuted just encourages people to scoff at laws in general, because they never know which ones are meant “for real” and which ones are just for show.
As I recall four or five boys die every year from high school football. Die. Dead.
But that’s out of about one million high school players. It’s sad, tragic even, but everything has risks. A risk-free life is impossible and would miss the point of living.
It’s worse than you think. Six of the eleven alderman in Wausau are men. Judging from the looks of them, none of them are in their young adult years and five of the six are well along in middle age if not in the earlier part of old age. The mayor arrived at age 4 and grew up there returning after a 12 year stint in the military. The six men on the council include one man employed in small business (age 49, present there with interruptions since age 8) and a father of four married in 1982 (who has had one kid in ROTC and one enrolled at Moody Bible Institute), These are about the last sort of people you’d expect would enact something like this.
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Outlawing snowballs is surely the height of “misprotectiveness.” And I absolutely agree that such abuse of protectiveness is a whole syndrome, hardly limited to snowballs, which is bad for everyone and very bad for children.
But l do have to point out that when I was a kid in the ’40s and ’50s, snowball fights were as common as breathing and one of the definite up-sides to winter with snow. Rarely was anyone hurt. HOWEVER, the better parents did explain to their kids that snowballs stuffed with ice or rocks really could do serious damage, so we kids were ordered not to do that. And, of course, some kids did do that.
I don’t go along with Wausau on this at all. But the fact that stuffed snowballs can be quite damaging remains — although, arguing against Wausau, the rule as Neo reports it says nothing about stuffed snowballs, and surely doesn’t seem to distinguish between them and regular snowballs in any way. Snowballs are out. Period.
By the way. Per the article, paper airplanes and bread balls would also be OUT if thrown “at” somebody. Somebody sh/tell the Drones Club.
No snowballs in northern Wisconsin in the winter. That’s insane.
My aunt was a tomboy. In her day in Smallville, Illinois, the neighborhood kids would have BB gun battles with real BBs!
A kid even got an eye put out once.
Folks we are emasculating our children and not preparing them for the real world.
The secret purpose, possibly not even consciously known to the mayor, is to make the kids grow up into weak, dependent adults, who are begging the big, strong gov’t to protect them. No independent thinking, no independent acting, no “dangerous fun”.
Most fun has an element of danger.
There have probably been a few deaths from snowballs in the last 10 years. Certainly fewer than deaths from autos. Almost no human activity is “safe” — no deaths from that activity in the last 10 (50? 100?) years, including walking, bathing, and going to the toilet.
Most US kids ride with their parents in cars, and should. This should be the minimum risk-acceptable standard — if something is no more dangerous than riding in a car, it should be illegal.
I’m pretty sure snowballs, dodgeball, and most kid fun stuff is less dangerous, fewer deaths, than riding with parents in a car. So should be legal.
“…who are begging the big, strong gov’t to protect them.”
And who won’t have the ability to resist the government if they find the government more repressive than they expected.
You’ll enjoy the Wausau PD response. Pretty funny!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1487344401447043&id=163213733860123
Thank you for the link Paul. I think that it reminds us not to take stories like this too seriously.
Huxley: I grew up in what was, until recent generations, the Wild Wild West, and I remember at least one occasion when we teenagers were shooting at each other with real BBs out in the desert. Nobody’s eye got shot out, but one kid got a painful, though not serious, injury from being hit in the leg.
I will readily admit that this was not the best idea ever.
But snowballs? Really?
I would arrange the biggest snowball fight I could, and publicize it on Facebook and Twitter, daring the police to bring along enough cops to arrest everyone. This is the nanny-state at its worst.
When snowballs are outlawed, only outlaws will have snowballs.
Julie near Chicago sayeth:
the better parents did explain to their kids that snowballs stuffed with ice or rocks really could do serious damage, so we kids were ordered not to do that. And, of course, some kids did do that.
And in my childhood experience that meant that all the other kids in the fight would gang up, push the offender down, and pelt them hard from point blank range (sometimes with a tit-for-tat rock or ice clump inside) until they got the message and either ran off or promised not to do it again.
Paul on December 9, 2019 at 5:50 pm said:
You’ll enjoy the Wausau PD response. Pretty funny!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1487344401447043&id=163213733860123
* * *
Okay, that really was pretty funny and I’m sure the cops had fun throwing snowballs at their Chief and the Mayor.
BUT
What the Chief actually said was that the law was enacted in 1962, had been used in prosecution only about 10 times for obviously dangerous behavior, and that many jurisidictions in the US had similar ordinances.
He then complained that the news reports were not factual.
There is such a law. It has been used. Those are admitted facts.
The only misdirection I can see in Dunetz’s post was that the news report he quoted said that the ordinance was new. (“New Municipal Ordinance in Wausau, Wisconsin.”) I’ve seen that mistake in other reports where the dateline of a source is misread or ignored or doesn’t exist. Doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be concerned about it.
This is the kind of “gotcha” law that is on the books so that it can be used selectively to prosecute people for doing something that is already illegal (assault) without having to do the heavy lifting of proving the elements of that crime — a situation ripe for discrimination, if one were of either (1) the SJW persuasion; or (2) an actual bigot.
That behavior which is obviously illegal BY THE LETTER is most often not prosecuted just encourages people to scoff at laws in general, because they never know which ones are meant “for real” and which ones are just for show.
As I recall four or five boys die every year from high school football. Die. Dead.
But that’s out of about one million high school players. It’s sad, tragic even, but everything has risks. A risk-free life is impossible and would miss the point of living.
It’s worse than you think. Six of the eleven alderman in Wausau are men. Judging from the looks of them, none of them are in their young adult years and five of the six are well along in middle age if not in the earlier part of old age. The mayor arrived at age 4 and grew up there returning after a 12 year stint in the military. The six men on the council include one man employed in small business (age 49, present there with interruptions since age 8) and a father of four married in 1982 (who has had one kid in ROTC and one enrolled at Moody Bible Institute), These are about the last sort of people you’d expect would enact something like this.