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Posted on 03/01/2002 1:45:51 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Individual responsibility in that code means accepting the fruits of your actions according to laws we as a society accept. As a society those childrens' lives were of equal merit to Andrea's, and were more worthy of society's protection because they had less ability to defend themselves. Thus she committed a greater crime than Rusty committed against her, because she took more from her victims, and those victims had less ability, wits, reason, and opportunity to defend themselves than Andrea did. Look, I don't think justice is pleasant or that living up to codes of moral behavior is easy, but I think the alternative is a society of irresponsible blame-shifting adults who are always going to make someone other than themselves play for their failings - as Andrea did. And that's when either chaos or a big daddy superstate steps in, and the idea that rights ever inhered in the individual becomes just a pleasant memory and pipe dream.
If think this opinion makes me a tyrant, well, you should hope I'm on the jury if someone ever does half as bad a thing to you or a family member as Andrea did to those innocents.
No personal offense intended, and no name-calling from my end, lonestar - just wanted a chance to explain my opinion and maybe change your.
You have given great thought to these types of issues. Your comments are right on.
First, let me say that to people who know me, it would be amusing that you are preaching about responsibility for moral behavior to me.
I'm not defending Andrea Yates in the murder of her children. My opinion is that her husband should be put under the same light and he definitely bears some of the responsibility in the tragedy.
He was to be the bread-winner; to put a roof over the heads of his family. In his infinite wisdom he moved a woman, who had been diagnosed and put on a lot of medication for depression, and four children into a converted bus. Do you consider that responsible moral behavior? I consider that one of the most stupid IRresponsible decisions I've ever heard of. I consider it emotional abuse.
Much has been made of "he took her to the doctor." Well, why didn't the jerk listen to the doctor? He was wasting his time and the doctor's, was he not? He was told that his wife should not get pregnant; he got her pregnant again.
I think Rusty Yates is one sick puppy. He won't be in a courtroom nor will he be facing a jury. But in my opinion, he was as morally responsible for drowning his five children as was his wife.
Rusty was very aware that his wife had mental problems. What did he do about it? He continued to "provide" a home with conditions that would have driven any sane woman crazy, much less one already having problems. Rusty set up the inhumane conditions that contributed the murders and is as guilty as she is. I think they are both insane.
Anybody who does not comprehend that Rusty Yates was as responsible as Andrea, should have to live on a converted bus with four little children and her schedule, with him, for 6 months.
i agree. that being said, he did NOT drive her nuts, her mental state was deplorable for whatever reason anyone is mentally ill. nor is she excused from culpability, but he shares it.
The crux of the distinction is this, Rusty's crime is not against Andrea, and the conditions that he forced her to live in, though that was unconscionable. No, the crime he perpetrated is against his defenseless children, whom he left in the care of a woman proven to be unstable. It is acknowledged that his mother came to help. He should have not left Andrea alone with those kids period. He should have had them with his mother or his mother there WITH Andrea at all times he was not able to be there.
And his mother wanted to do this or was she too, to be held hostage? When you have a mentally ill person every one gets held hostage to them because "they are not responsible for their well being - every one else is" - but then when someone (like Russell Yates ) takes charge then they are "controlling"
Dear MOM,
The kids are in danger of being killed by their own mother. I have to go earn a living because the government won't give me a paycheck to watch my wife, so could you please come and watch my kids (FULL TIME)??? Their very lives are depending on it!!!
To chase and capture her own children?
Then to place them in a bathtub full of water.
Then drown them?
Crazy?
No, just..pure evil.
When did Russell Yates ever "take charge?" He merely made all decisions and told other poeple what to do. He assumed very little of the "doing"; his expertise was in telling others what to do. Charles Manson with a following of one.
Why would anyone be so eager to protect Rusty from being held accountable - even in the form of public criticism - for his personal neglect of his children's best interests?
Please tell me we don't have even a few freepers who are as obtuse as Rusty Yates.
Anyone who believes that it is responsible parenting to leave your 5 young children to be cared for by a woman who is as obviously warped as she was, a woman who has told you she hears Satan and dreams of stabbing people (which she did tell him long before the murders), and who has only responded to anti-psychotic drugs, from which she was removed 2 weeks prior, is a fool.
Considering that the same fool unabashedly maintains the religious views Rusty does (look it up if you don't know), and continues his own agenda in spite of the obvious danger to his children, Rusty deserves whatever criticism he gets.
I can only assume that those who think Rusty acted responsibly either has a personal experience clouding his judgement, or is simply trolling for the sake of being an ass.
The only reasonable question should be whether or not there is a criminal case to be made. I doubt it, but I wish there were.
The point I am trying to make is that he was in way over his head, as would 99% of everyone else would be if confronted with these circumstances. There are no clear cut ways to deal with someone like her. If there were , the professionals would have fixed her. The conflicts are at every step of the way.
His personal beliefs did not cause this. He had constructed a religious model of how the world worked and it did not pan out as he sincerely thought it would (Is that a crime?). Where does a person draw the line between letting their own faith work things through and abandoning everything that he believes in? You demand that he reject his faith through the middle of this crisis because he should have realized that it was failing him and his family ( just because he is a little different does that make him wrong?). It takes years to think through these kind of things, and people generally cling to their faith when times are tough. I thought this was a free country, and people were free to choose their own faith. I can assure you that athiests suffer these types of things every day. Catholics, Methodists, Baptists and the Amish do too. If every person had their own lives put on trial because of the crimes that their loved ones committed we would be a sad country indeed. If there were a clear cut way to believe and live there would not be much controversy about religion would there?
And what do you feel society should do about his "bad" behavior?
The vast majority of the time these things end in suicide rather than the deaths of children like this. If she had committed suicide would you be after his scalp? There are thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of Rusty Yates out there having to deal with their loved ones suicides. Fear of reactions like yours and many people on this thread is exactly why people are ashamed about it. However, every person in the health care industry STRESSES that one should not hold themselves responsible for the death of their loved one via suicide. Most people want to blame themselves. Most people spend years going through hundreds and hundreds of what ifs. In the end, most people eventually realize, after exhausting these what ifs, that the professionals are correct and there was nothing they could do.
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