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I ran into the following tweet (xeet?) over on X:
https://x.com/DaveyJ_/status/1942962076101603809
I would feel bad for simply posting this as a naked link, so I guess I have to add on some half-baked analysis and commentary on top:
This is horrifying. Rarely, so you see examples of behavior that is clearly "legal", in the sense that there's no clear crime being committed, but with so much potential for harm to unwitting bystanders. I'm unfamiliar with the scope of child endangerment laws in the US, but I'd be surprised if they covered this or, even if they theoretically did so, whether they'd be enforced in that manner.
(I don't claim to be an expert, but my understanding is that these laws typically require a prosecutor to prove that a guardian knowingly and willfully placed a child in a situation where their life or health was directly endangered. The behavior of the sister-in-law is profoundly reckless, but it falls into a legal gray area. A defense attorney would argue she had no intent to harm her children and that the danger was hypothetical and probabilistic, not immediate and direct. Proving a direct causal link between her online activities and a "clear and present danger" to the children would be incredibly difficult until, tragically, one of the inmates actually showed up and acted on his threats.)
At the same time, is it a problem worth solving? How do you reconcile that question with my earlier claim?
Well, that's a matter of impact or scale. Laws have costs associated with them, be it from the difficult to quantify loss of freedom/chilling effect, enforcement costs, sheer legislative complexity, or what I'm more concerned about, unexpected knock-on effects/scope creep where a desperate attempt to define the problematic action results in too wide a scope for enforcement:
What if it turns out to affect single moms looking to date again? Their new partners are far more likely to abuse their kids, but should such women thus be arrested for putting their kids at risk? Should people be forbidden from writing letters to inmates, or falling in love with them, or sex with them?
Is it worth it to specifically criminalize such behavior?
Despite my abhorrence for it, I'm not sure it is. I think the fraction of people who would be stupid or insane enough to act this way is small enough that the majority of us can treat this like a horror story and ignore it.
Another way to illustrate my intuition here would be to consider being a doctor or legislator reading an account of some kind of ridiculously horrible disease. Maybe it makes your skin fall off and your guts come out while leaving you in crippling agony (I'm like 50% certain there's an actual disease like this, but it's probably something that happens to premature infants. That, or acute radiation poisoning I suppose). Absolutely terrible, and something no one should go through.
Yet, for how horrible it is, this hypothetical disease is also ridiculously rare. Imagining it happens to a person every ten years, and makes medical journals every time it happens because of how rare it is. I would expect that doctor, or that law maker, to both be horrified, but if they were rational individuals considering the greater good, I would strongly prefer that they focus on more mundane and common conditions, like a cure for heart disease. There are lower hanging fruit to grasp here.
Now, the biggest hurdle holding back the poor family in the story I've linked to is a simple one: the Overton Window. If, for some unfortunate reason, the number of women crazy enough to act that way rose significantly, society would probably develop memetic antibodies or legal solutions. This might, sometimes, become strong enough to overcome the "women are wonderful" effect, if such women are obviously being the opposite.
Sometimes it's worth considering the merits of informal resolution systems for settling such matters, even if they have other significant downsides. For example, how would this situation be handled in India?
(I'm not aware of a trend of Indian women being stupid enough to act this way, though I can hardly say with any authority that it's literally never happened)
Firstly, the extended family would have much more power. This is the rare case where both the husband's side and the wife's own family would probably agree that something needs to be done, the latter for reputational reasons as well as concern for the kids. She'd probably end up committed, if she wasn't beaten up or ostracized to hell and back. The police would turn a blind eye, should she choose to complain, they'd be profoundly sympathetic to the family's plight and refuse to act against them. And if they weren't, they'd be even more sympathetic to the idea of their palms being greased. The most awful outcomes would become vanishingly unlikely.
As a wise mullah once said: "What is the cure for such disorders? Beatings."
This isn't necessarily an overall endorsement of such a legal framework, or societal mindset. I'm just pointing out that, occasionally, they tackle problems that an atomized, quasi-libertarian society like most of the West can't tackle. I'd still, personally, prefer to live in the latter. While it's too late for the gent in question, you can reliably avoid running into such problems in the first place by not sticking your dick in crazy. Alas, as someone who has committed that folly, it's an even bigger folly to expect people to stop...
I do not think this should be a criminal matter. There is plenty of fucked-up shit which is enough to lose you custody of your kids without landing you in jail.
If the reporting is accurate, then I would expect family court to completely cut her from her kids. If that was not enough to act as an disincentive, sending her to prison would not have made a difference either.
From my reading of the text, the main problem was that she was doing this in secret. Once she was discovered, the repercussions (divorce, loss of custody) were likely swift to follow. I do not think that another society would have dealt much better with this. Even in Saudi Arabia, though there might be norms where a husband is checking his wive's phone, she might have another phone for sexting convicts.
This is bullshit. Especially as the beatings would likely be administered by the husband with no judicial oversight. I mean, sure, if the husband had beaten his wife for no reason on the general principle that she should live in terror of him, it would have been very likely that she would not have picked up her hobby of sexting convicts. But this is like suggesting that cobalt bombs are a good way to stop wildfires in California: while technically correct, the cure would be worse than the disease.
If people only have sex with people proven sane beyond all reasonable doubt, humanity would die out in a few generations. From the reaction of the husband, it seems that he was surprised by her behavior. We do not have the context to say if he should have seen this coming, and what his other options for a spouse were when he decided to marry and have kids.
While I agree with you, for the most part:
Despite what Western media reporting might have you believe, the rate of petty crime in India is surprisingly low. People rarely get pick-pocketed or robbed. Do you know why?
Because if caught in the act, the perpetrator would be rather unceremoniously beaten to a pulp, both by whoever caught them, and any civic minded individuals present. You can get a nice crowd going, it's fun for the whole family.
This is of course, strictly speaking, illegal. Yet any police officer, if asked to intervene, would laugh, shake their head and say the criminal deserved it. If the crook had the temerity to file charges, he'd probably be taken out back and given a second helping to change his mind.
As far as I'm concerned, this is strictly superior to prevailing Western attitudes regarding property crimes or theft. A shopkeeper who discovers someone shoplifting has very little legal recourse, the police rarely do any more than file a report and then give up on pursuing the matter. Giving them the de-facto right to take matters into their own hand and recover their property? The shopkeeper wins. Polite society wins, the only loser is the thief, and in this case the process is quite literally the desired punishment.
Before you ask, the number of false positives is negligible. I've never heard of anyone being falsely accused in this manner (at least with accusations of theft), and I've never had to have that particular fear myself.
I am, in general, against husbands beating their wives. Yet, in this specific scenario, I could hardly fault the poor chap should he be forced to resort to such methods to protect his own family. At the very least, I'd vote to acquit. It's a bit moot, because with prevailing Western norms, he likely didn't even consider a haymaker as a solution to his problems. In general, that's a good thing.
You're the only Indian I've met who claims that people would get beaten in the street for various transgressions and I really find it hard to believe. Every Indian woman I've met seems to have a story about getting groped in public and the offender never gets beaten by the upstanding citizens that you claim inhabit the subcontinent.
Here is a vicesplainer on the career trajectory of one Delhi pickpocket. He joins a gang that has so much opportunity for larceny that they're pickpocketing around the clock in shifts. He certainly doesn't fear retaliation from honorable bystanders, the only thing he seems to fear is the gang after he tells them he's out.
I had an Indian coworker once comment that shoplifters in India would be beaten. Rather unlike the American response of letting them do it.
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