Do you think your organization's risk management policies go overboard?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

You'd need to know whether that happened prior to anti-hazing laws and in what frequency.

Considering I'm talking about the people who are in college now, umm, yeah, that would be AFTER the nonhazing laws.

Originally Posted by Drolefille

What things could my chapter, for example, have done that would have been considered 'hazing' yet would have actually made me a better member? Why do those activities actually mean that people learn shit about anything?

I have no idea what your chapter did, before or after you pledged, so how can I even answer that? I can only speak for my own org and say there is definitely less knowledge of history and policy than there used to be.

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Without looking at the actual rate of the occurrence of those incidents this is a very flawed statement. "It hasn't completely solved the problem so we should get rid of it completely" doesn't make much sense. You'd have to show that there's been no effect or an increase to incidents of hazing to effectively make this point.

I didn't say to get rid of it. I said that AS WRITTEN, anti-hazing legislation hasn't been as effective as it should be, in exchange for what GLOs have had to give up. They need to say "X is wrong, Y is wrong" and give specific examples, not BS like "anything that causes physical or mental anguish." Hell, if I have a hemmerhoid, sitting in a chapter meeting for an hour & 1/2 is "physical anguish."

Originally Posted by Drolefille

States can make that choice at any time. They choose not to in exchange for $$$$. They have 'their right' fully intact.

Also if you think lowering the drinking age would magically change the drinking culture in America, I think you're being rather short-sighted. Binge drinking is accepted as normal for college students of age or not. Making it legal gets around only the legal issues, not the health, safety, or hazing ones.

Binge drinking is accepted as normal because that's all these students have ever known. Would it magically change in a year? No. Would it change over time? Yes. It took time to get where it is. When I was in college, 21 shots for your 21st birthday and drinking the amounts of hard alcohol current college students drink just wasn't normal. Nowadays it's a rite of passage. If those students had had time to drink like jackasses when they were younger (and often under their parents' roof) they might be a little saner about it when they came to college. Everyone is going to be stupid at first. Better to be stupid in an environment where you're going to get called on it rather than someplace where you're on your own to do whatever you want.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Considering I'm talking about the people who are in college now, umm, yeah, that would be AFTER the nonhazing laws.

The point was, you don't know whether the numbers of ignorant people have changed or not.

I have no idea what your chapter did, before or after you pledged, so how can I even answer that? I can only speak for my own org and say there is definitely less knowledge of history and policy than there used to be.

It was a hypothetical. Why can't you teach these things without hazing? How is it that some of us figure it out just fine?

I didn't say to get rid of it. I said that AS WRITTEN, anti-hazing legislation hasn't been as effective as it should be, in exchange for what GLOs have had to give up. They need to say "X is wrong, Y is wrong" and give specific examples, not BS like "anything that causes physical or mental anguish." Hell, if I have a hemmerhoid, sitting in a chapter meeting for an hour & 1/2 is "physical anguish."

I think the use of the word "anguish" is key. And that would fall under a medical excuse for chapter for most people. if you make specific examples - "no scavenger hunts"- people get around them by holding "go and find things" events. Every would-be hazer goes and looks to check if paddling with a paddle is prohibited, but using a shoe is OK!

Binge drinking is accepted as normal because that's all these students have ever known. Would it magically change in a year? No. Would it change over time? Yes. It took time to get where it is.

Why would it change 'back' to the way things were? How are you going to convince people to allowe 18 year olds to drink when you've acknowledged that it would not create an instant change, and in fact would probably make things worse, even if it was only temporary.

When I was in college, 21 shots for your 21st birthday and drinking the amounts of hard alcohol current college students drink just wasn't normal. Nowadays it's a rite of passage. If those students had had time to drink like jackasses when they were younger (and often under their parents' roof) they might be a little saner about it when they came to college. Everyone is going to be stupid at first. Better to be stupid in an environment where you're going to get called on it rather than someplace where you're on your own to do whatever you want.

I'd think the first night at college would turn into a rite of passage instead. (How ever did I make it through life without ever being drunk or being hazed or making any of these other rites of passage that are so 'important') Many of today's college students do drink like jackasses under their parents' roof and that really hasn't fixed the problem either. "Everyone" isn't stupid.

I think America's attitude toward's alcohol is fucked up, but lowering the drinking age won't magically solve the problem and it puts alcohol into high schools. (you know, legally, instead of illegally where it already exists).

[33girl]

A specific example would be "No physical contact: this includes paddling, hitting, shoving, pushing" and so forth. That's the POINT. You say what it actually is, not just the title of the thing.

Congratulations on making it through college on a plane above everyone else. Although that really doesn't answer any of the questions we are discussing.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

A specific example would be "No physical contact: this includes paddling, hitting, shoving, pushing" and so forth. That's the POINT. You say what it actually is, not just the title of the thing.

Congratulations on making it through college on a plane above everyone else. Although that really doesn't answer any of the questions we are discussing.

With your example you could not hug your sisters, nor shake hands, etc. There's no way to craft that kind of law, that's why courts exist in the first place. But you neglect to address the point about whether hazing (or 'hazing') actually creates members who know more, or just creates more hazers. Unless the NPC or NIC (or anyone) have done studies about member knowledge before and after hazing, none of us can really say whether it's hurt or helped or something in between. I challenge your assumption that somehow members know less now or would know more if they could be hazed. Frankly I think we'd just have fewer members and it wouldn't be the 'good ones' who stayed.

And as far as drinking goes -My point, you missed it. People treat hazing like a rite of passage too. "I did it, so you do it." But it's not necessary, no more so than 21 shots must be used to celebrate your 21st. But just as laws have not removed all hazing, legalizing drinking for all college students will not remove binge drinking.

You started by stating that states needed 'their rights' back, then backpedaled to "well they'd learn at home" and now you decided to make it about my sarcastic comment rather than "the questions we are discussing."

The assumption that every college student is going to be stupid is part of the problem. The expectation has been created, too many kids try to live up to it.

But again you neglected to respond to how precisely you'd sell lowering the drinking age when your own expected response would be increased stupidity until 'things change' at some unspecified future date. It's not happening, right? Same thing with hazing, you can't sell it that way either.

Why is it so difficult to just not haze? (It's not.) Even if some of the rules are annoying, or excessive for your individual chapter, it's not much different from following the speed limit because it's the limit. Just because you can drive 80 'safely' doesn't mean you should, or that the cops are going to be ok with it because they know you. Just because your chapter can 'handle' hazing behaviors without crossing the line doesn't mean you should.