Facebook Parenting (Viral video)

[WesFox13]

So Apparently there is this video about some father getting so angry at what his daughter wrote on her facebook that he fired a gun into her computer.


This video so far has like 18 million views on it and lots of people are agreeing with him.
The reason I posted it here is to see your thoughts about it.
As for me I think what he did was a bit overboard, I mean shooting a computer instead of selling it away?

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh, brilliant, teach your child to solve her problems by shooting them.

[Thanas]

That guy was a dick. And stupid to boot.

[Dragon Angel]

Provided that she blocked per parents correctly, the only other ways for her father to have found it were probably:

a. Creating a fake Facebook name to friend her with, and using that to look at her wall posts.
b. Logging into her Facebook account, somehow.
c. Someone else probably relayed it to him.

I hope it isn't a. or b., because that would indicate some very severe trust issues between both of them. And b. might have other serious implications (it being a severe violation of her privacy being a start).

There is probably a lot else going on behind the scenes that neither party has revealed. And given this guy's "I'm so macho that I shoot my daughter's laptop in front of everyone on the Internet" screed, I wouldn't be surprised if their relationship has been poisonous for awhile.

[SCRawl]

He said that he was going to post the video on her Facebook page, so he'd have to have access to her account to do that. He said that he worked in IT, so it wouldn't shock me to find out that he had installed a keylogger on her laptop. As Thanas pointed out, he's a dick.

[FSTargetDrone]

Deplorable if true, for a whole host of reasons (assuming not some hoax to get the view count up).

[Agent Fisher]

He said that he was going to post the video on her Facebook page, so he'd have to have access to her account to do that.

You don't need access into someone's account to do that. I could post a video on any of my friends pages.

[DarkArk]

Also apparently he came upon her post while posting images on the family dog's account, which the girl had forgotten to block from viewing her rant.

In fact what he did was amazingly manipulative and borderline abusive, beyond just being a waste of a good computer and his own time and money (which clearly doesn't matter to him that much since he decided to destroy it). The point that got me realizing that he's just a douche was when he said he was going to make her pay for the bullets as well. All that for some relatively normal teenage venting?

Also glad to see that SD.net doesn't have a bunch of pseudo-macho people cheering him on as an awesome parent, unlike some of the other boards I frequent.

[Raptor 597]

The guy seems to be a quite douchebag, and if he has a daughter that's an ass she is merely taking after him. What really caught my eye in the video was when he mentioned going to college at fifteen while working two jobs and being a volunteer firefighter. Seriously? This guy reminds of people in the Army that made stuff up to sound awesome and manly.

[Darth Fanboy]

Turns out maybe this guy isn't such a douche.

After spending six hours and $130 fixing and upgrading his 15-year-old daughter's laptop computer, Tommy Jordan was furious when he found a disrespectful, expletive-laced post on her Facebook page called "To My Parents" the very next day.

"I'm not your damn slave," the rant begins. "If you want coffee, get off your a** and get it yourself."

She thought she had blocked her mom and dad from being able to read it on Facebook, but she was wrong. So her dad (who works in IT) decided to do something about it.

"She chose to publicly embarrass her family and herself on Facebook. So I chose to make the punishment equally as embarrassing and equally as public," he said. "I was always taught that what's good for the goose is good for the gander."

He made a video of himself reading her post and shooting holes in her computer with his handgun -- and then he posted the video on YouTube and Facebook for Hannah and her friends to see when they got home from school. Some viewers say the video shows a good father meting out some tough love. Others say he went way overboard. Watch the video below, and decide for yourself:

"This is for my daughter, Hannah," the video begins. (Warning: Some of the language in it is NSFW.) "And, more importantly, for all her friends on Facebook who thought her little rebellious post was cute, and all you parents out there who think your kids don't post bad things on Facebook."

Late Thursday night, Jordan posted an update on his Facebook page:

"Do I regret doing it? No. Do I regret keeping it on Facebook long enough to cause this stir? Yes," he wrote. "However at this time I feel that if I took the post or the video down, I’d just make it appear that we’re running in shame from it, and we’re not."

He said he and Hannah discussed the incident -- and the video -- after she came home from school and together set the ground rules for her punishment. And then they sat down together at his computer to read some of the thousands of comments that have been posted on Facebook.

"At first it was upsetting," he wrote. "Then, as we read it became less so, eventually funny to both of us."
She wasn't impressed with the vitriol, and turned down her dad's offer to shoot her own response video. "

"For those that wondered, commented, criticized, and just in general wanted to know: My daughter came through it fine," he wrote in another status update. "Yes, she's in trouble, and yes, she's grounded, but that doesn't mean every moment of her life has to be miserable."

"My Facebook wall will never be the same again," he quipped. "And we’ll be OK as a family and she’ll grow up happy, healthy, and have everything she needs, but not everything she wants. And I absolutely guarantee she’ll never doubt my resolve to follow-through on a consequence again.”

If you actually saw the video and heard the content, this girl needed to learn a serious lesson. She was in no way abused or mistreated and aside from the fact that the video went viral and reached an audience exponentially larger than intended, there is absolutely no harm being done here. A 16 year old girl gets her computer taken away and because the parent made a scene out of it the guy is, "stupid" and a "douchebag." Already I can see multiple posts in this thread where people are making some damn stupid assumptions.

This isn't what I would put on the cover of a parenting magazine but it's not worth the vitriol.

Here's another article showing how bad this guy is.

The disgruntled 15-year-old daughter of Tommy Jordan, the now-notorious father who took a round of bullets to her laptop after she complained about him on Facebook, was initially shocked that he would do such a thing.

The North Carolina IT worker, who has received a mixture of praise and derision for his tough parenting, said his daughter Hannah responded to the hilarious video by saying: ‘I can’t believe you shot my computer!' and had a crying fit.

Mr Jordan said his outspoken daughter later calmed down, but it was an arduous road to recovery.

He said that she 'had her crying fit, then got over it, accepted her punishment, and hasn't let it (or people's comments) destroy her strength.' He added that they had read through comments from viewers together and have been able to joke about the incident.

The father wrote in a media statement to the Toronto Star that Hannah was initially shocked. He said he then talked to her for a long time on the patio, discussing her actions and his response.

He wrote: ‘After she’d had time to process it and I’d had time to process her thoughts on the matters we discussed, we were back to a semi-truce… you know that uncomfortable moment when you’re in the kitchen with your child after an argument and you’re both waiting to see which one’s going to cave in and resume normal conversation first?’

He also said she was ‘astounded’ by the hundreds of comments, thousands of shares, and millions of views of the video.

From the media statement, it would appear that Hannah has calmed down over having her laptop shot, and has also learned the consequences of a single post - both hers on Facebook and her father’s on YouTube.

Mr Jordan wrote: ‘She’s seen first-hand through this video the worst possible scenario that can happen.’

Since the video has become viral, Mr Jordan has written a series of posts on his Facebook page, saying that he’s not an awesome parent, nor a hero of any kind, just a ‘normal guy with a reasonable moral compass that I try very hard to keep pointed North.’

He also added that the video has since been monetized to pay for attorney’s fees, as many people have tried to impersonate, duplicate, and otherwise copy his video.

In the long written response, he says he refuses to talk to the media as he believes benefiting from the ordeal would send the wrong message to his teen daughter.

He writes: 'There's absolutely NO way I'm going to send my child the message that it's OK to gain from something like this.

'It would send her a message that it's OK to profit at the expense of someone else's embarrassment

Mr Jordan also lifts the lid on his daughter's reaction when she discovered the video, calling it 'a horrible day in her life'.

He said that she 'had her crying fit, then got over it, accepted her punishment, and hasn’t let it (or people’s comments) destroy her strength'. He added that they had read through comments from viewers together and have been able to joke about the incident.

Mr Jordan also revealed how he discovered his daughter's scathing post - denying that he had been snooping through her account.

Instead, he explained that Hannah had blocked 'Family' and 'Church' friends from seeing the post - but had forgotten the family had created an account for its dog, which they would update with photos.

So when Mr Jordan signed into the dog's account to add pictures, the post came up on the page, as Hannah had not listed her pet as 'Family'.

Despite receiving abusive emails about his parenting choices, Mr Jordan said in the statement that he stood by his video, saying 'that's how I was raised'.

'If I did something embarrassing to my parents in public (such as a grocery store) I got my tail tore up right there in front of God and everyone, right there in the store,' he said. 'I put the reprisal in exactly the same medium she did, in the exact same manner.'

He added that the stunt was intended to show her that she cannot take possessions and her parents money for granted, claiming the video had been 'very effective'.

It had reminded her that whatever she writes on Facebook or other social networking sites will be there to haunt her in years to come, he added.

The video, in which Mr Jordan reads his daughter's post to the camera and responds to her complaints before shooting her laptop, went viral earlier this week.

He begins by reading out his daughter’s post from a computer print-out, explaining ‘since you want to hide it from everyone, I’m going to share it with everybody’.

Mr Jordan mocks his daughter for thinking her parents would not be able to see the post because of her Facebook privacy settings, ignoring the fact that he works in IT for a living.

In the post, Hannah says she should be paid for the chores she does around the home and attacks her parents for overworking her.

Mr Jordan laughs at this suggestion, pointing out what an easy life she gets in comparison to what he had to endure growing up. She moans about waking up at 5am and go to bed at 10pm.

Then after about seven minutes addressing the camera to berate Hannah, he stands up and blows holes through the laptop.

‘That right there is your laptop’, he says in a YouTube video, pointing a camera at a computer lying in a patch of dirt on the ground.

‘This right here is my .45,’ he says, moving a pistol into the frame.

He cocks the weapon and shoots nine rounds into the laptop. The video entitled ‘Facebook Parenting: For the Troubled Teen’ is dedicated to his rebellious daughter.

It’s also aimed at ‘all her friends on Facebook who thought that her little rebellious post was cute, and for all you parents out there who think your, you know, kids don’t post bad things on Facebook’.

He rounds off by saying: 'Oh yeah and after that comment you made about your mom, your mom told me to be sure I put one in there for her. So…that one's from her.'

'Maybe a few kids can take something away from this,’ Mr Jordan writes in the video description.

‘If you’re so disrespectful to your parents and yourself as to post this kind of thing on Facebook, you’re deserving of some tough love. Today, my daughter is getting a dose of tough love.’]

He said he found her hidden Facebook post while upgrading her computer. He completes his lesson by saying: ‘You can have a new laptop when you buy a new laptop and when you pay me back the $130 for the software I spent on yours.

‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your little fiasco on Facebook. I hope it was worth all this.' The video has been watched around 1.5million times since it was posted just two days ago.

Mr Jordan has since written on Facebook that the attention has helped him and his daughter 'deal with it' and insisted Hannah is fine, saying they both laughed about the video going viral.

But he admitted: 'I’ll agree that wasn’t a good example of me as a father. I had been reading that post again and again for about an hour, sometimes in tears, other times so mad my hands were shaking.

'I was trying very hard to be civil in my message,' Mr Jordan said, reported Fox News. 'I slipped in that and said a word I shouldn’t have. I deserve a little backlash for that, no doubt.'

'THERE'S NO WAY WE WILL GAIN FROM THIS': JORDAN'S FULL STATEMENT

Attention Media Outlets

While we appreciate the interest you're all putting forth to get in touch with us regarding the video, we're not going to go on your talk show, not going to call in to your radio show, and not going to be in your TV mini-series.

Some of you think I made an acceptable parenting decision and others think I didn't. However, I can't think of any way myself or my daughter can ...respond to a media outlet that won't be twisted out of context. The Dallas news TV news already showed that in their brief 5 minute interview with the psychologist.

Additionally, there's absolutely NO way I'm going to send my child the message that it's OK to gain from something like this. It would send her a message that it's OK to profit at the expense of someone else's embarrassment or misfortune and that's now how I was raised, nor how she has been raised.

So I say thank you from all of us. If we have anything to say, we'll say it here on Facebook, and we'll say it publicly, but we won't say it to a microphone or a camera. There are too many other REAL issues out there that could use this attention you're giving us. My daughter isn't hurt, emotionally scarred, or otherwise damaged, but that kind of publicity has never seemed to be to have a positive effect on any child or family.

If you're a news outlet that wants to ask us a question, feel free to so via email. I'm sure by now my email address is easy enough to find. It might take me awhile to get to a response because I'd have to sort through the "Die you bastard" emails to find it, but we will respond if its something that we feel merits it. Otherwise, sorry... no interviews, no talk shows, no call-ins.

If we respond to anything, it will be on here, and it will be in a way that our words can't be misconstrued or edited for appeal to specific audience or shock value.

Now, I'm going to try to get to work for the day.
Best of luck to all of you out there... and PLEASE give my phone a break.

HOW HANNAH GOT CAUGHT

HOW SHE GOT CAUGHT: The Dog Did It.. no, really.

I finally came out and told her this today, partly because it was too funny NOT to share.

When my daughter made her post, she used Facebook's privacy settings to block "Family" and "Church" friend's lists. All her other friends could see it. We, of course could not.

One of our dogs is always getting in photos and therefore has her own Facebook pa...ge. It's just a cute dumb thing we did for fun. Well, the dog's profile is rarely used except when funny pictures of her are posted. Since that's not too often, and she has very few friends on Facebook, her wall is kind of bare, with relatively few posts showing up on it.

The other night we gave the dog a bath and there was a funny photo we uploaded to Facebook and tagged her in. I logged in as the dog the next morning to comment on the photo. However when I logged into the dog's profile, my daughter had forgotten to add her to the "family" list.... so our family dog's profile showed her post right there on the front page.

It wasn't any parent-hacking, computer spying, or monitoring of any kind.. the dog actually ratted her out completely by accident. She hasn't petted that dog all day today...

HANNAH'S REACTION

For those that wondered, commented, criticized, and just in general wanted to know:
My daughter came through it fine.

Yes, she's in trouble, and yes she's grounded, but that doesn't mean every moment of her life has to be miserable. She's going to come to terms with the changes that will be present for a while; no TV privileges, no Internet, etc.

In the meantime, once the initial anger passed,... she sat with me reviewing some of the comments that have come in via Facebook and YouTube. One person even suggested collecting the shell casings and auctioning them on eBay. I said I’d do it if it would help contribute to her college fund! When I told her about it, she thought a minute, got a funny calculating expression on her face and said, “in that case you should shoot my phone too. We can use more bullets and I’ll go half-sies with ya on it! It’s not like I’m going to need it any time soon. And I can use the money we get to buy a new one.”

While the whole point of this story isn’t funny, what is funny to me is how weak some people out there think kids are. Our kids are as strong as we help them to be. My daughter took a horrible day in her life, had her crying fit, then got over it, accepted her punishment, and hasn’t let it (or people’s comments) destroy her strength. I don’t get any credit for that. She’s strong and able to overcome almost anything life throws at her.

Since this unsuspectingly threw her into the limelight much more strongly than either of us intended, I asked her if she wanted to make her own response video, and told her I’d let her do it if she wanted to. She doesn’t like being in front of the camera, so she declined, but I’ve told her if she wants to write a response or post a video response, I’d be OK with it. It’s only fair considering the viral nature of the whole thing. So far she’s not really interested. Quite frankly it seems she’s gotten bored of it much faster than the general public has. If that changes I’ll post it here.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

Media Response to Anita Li, from the Toronto Star

Since you took the time to email us with your requests like we asked, I’ll take the time to give you an honest follow-up response. You’ll have to forgive me for doing so publicly though; again I want to be sure my words are portrayed the way I actually say them, not cut together to make entirely different points.

Your questions were:
Q: Why did y...ou decide to reprimand your daughter over a public medium like YouTube?

A: Well, I actually just had to load the video file itself on YouTube because it’s a better upload process than Facebook, but the intended audience was her Facebook friends and the parents of those friends who saw her post and would naturally assume we let our children get away with something like that. So, to answer “Why did you reprimand her over a public medium like Facebook” my answer is this: Because that’s how I was raised. If I did something embarrassing to my parents in public (such as a grocery store) I got my tail tore up right there in front of God and everyone, right there in the store. I put the reprisal in exactly the same medium she did, in the exact same manner. Her post went out to about 452 people. Mine went out to about 550 people… originally. I had no idea it would become what it did.

Q: How effective do you think your punishment was (i.e. shooting her laptop and reading her letter online)?

A: I think it was very effective on one front. She apparently didn’t remember being talked to about previous incidents, nor did she seem to remember the effects of having it taken away, nor did the eventual long-term grounding seem to get through to her. I think she thought “Well, I’ll just wait it out and I’ll get it back eventually.” Her behavior corrected for a short time, and then it went back to what it was before and worse. This time, she won’t ever forget and it’ll be a long time before she has an opportunity to post on Facebook again. I feel pretty certain that every day from then to now, whenever one of her friends mentions Facebook, she’ll remember it and wish she hadn’t done what she did.

The second lesson I want her to learn is the value of a dollar. We don’t give her everything she asks for, but you can all imagine what it’s like being the only grandchild and the first child. Presents and money come from all sides when you’re young. Most of the things she has that are “cool” were bought or gifted that way. She’s always asked for very few things, but they’re always high-dollar things (iPod, laptop, smartphone, etc). Eventually she gets given enough money to get them. That’s not learning the value of a dollar. Its knowing how to save money, which I greatly applaud in her, but it’s not enough. She wants a digital SLR camera. She wants a 22 rifle like mine. She wants a car. She wants a smart phone with a data package and unlimited texting. (I have to hear about that one every week!)

She thinks all these things are supposed to be given to her because she’s got parents. It’s not going to happen, at least not in our house. She can get a job and work for money just like everyone else. Then she can spend it on anything she wants (within reason). If she wants to work for two months to save enough to purchase a $1000 SLR camera with an $800 lens, then I can guarantee she’ll NEVER leave it outside at night. She’ll be careful when she puts it away and carries it around. She’ll value it much more because she worked so hard to get it. Instead, with the current way things have been given to her, she's on about her fourth phone and just expects another one when she breaks the one she has. She's not sorry about breaking it, or losing it, she's sorry only because she can't text her friends. I firmly believe she'll be a LOT more careful when she has to buy her own $299.00 Motorola Razr smartphone.

Until then, she can do chores, and lots and lots of them, so the people who ARE feeding her, clothing her, paying for all her school trips, paying for her musical instruments, can have some time to relax after they finish working to support her and the rest of the family. She can either work to make money on her own, or she will do chores to contribute around the house. She’s known all along that all she has to do is get a job and a lot of these chores will go away. But if you’re too lazy to work even to get things you want for yourself, I’m certainly not going to let you sit idly on your rear-end with your face glued to both the TV and Facebook for 5 to 6 hours per night. Those days are over.

Q: How did your daughter respond to the video and to what happened to her laptop?

A: She responded to the video with “I can’t believe you shot my computer!” That was the first thing she said when she found out about it. Then we sat and we talked for quite a long while on the back patio about the things she did, the things I did in response, etc.

Later after she’d had time to process it and I’d had time to process her thoughts on the matters we discussed, we were back to a semi-truce… you know that uncomfortable moment when you’re in the kitchen with your child after an argument and you’re both waiting to see which one’s going to cave in and resume normal conversation first? Yeah, that moment. I told her about the video response and about it going viral and about the consequences it could have on our family for the next couple of days and asked if she wanted to see some of the comments people had made. After the first few hundred comments, she was astounded with the responses.

People were telling her she was going to commit suicide, commit a gun-related crime, become a drug addict, drop out of school, get pregnant on purpose, and become a stripper because she’s too emotionally damaged now to be a productive member of society. Apparently stripper was the job-choice of most of the commenters. Her response was “Dude… it’s only a computer. I mean, yeah I’m mad but pfft.” She actually asked me to post a comment on one of the threads (and I did) asking what other job fields the victims of laptop-homicide were eligible for because she wasn’t too keen on the stripping thing.

We agreed we learned two collective lessons from this so far:

First: As her father, I’ll definitely do what I say I will, both positive and negative and she can depend on that. She no longer has any doubt about that.

Second: We have always told her what you put online can affect you forever. Years later a single Facebook/MySpace/Twitter comment can affect her eligibility for a good job and can even get her fired from a job she already has. She’s seen first-hand through this video the worst possible scenario that can happen. One post, made by her Dad, will probably follow him the rest of his life; just like those mean things she said on Facebook will stick with the people her words hurt for a long time to come. Once you put it out there, you can’t take it back, so think carefully before you use the internet to broadcast your thoughts and feelings.

[Darth Fanboy]

TL:DR read version of the above post? Maybe some of you will take the time to look at the issue objectively and stop rushing to conclusions like idiots.

[FSTargetDrone]

I don't give a toss how this clown was raised, with his tough love horseshit, the fact that he used a firearm in this manner gives off all kinds of unsettling undertones of violence to me. He displays his weapon, "This right here is my .45." and goes on about his "exploding hollow point" rounds and tells her he's going to charge her for each one he's expended as he shoots.

Kinda creepy.

[DarkArk]

TL:DR read version of the above post? Maybe some of you will take the time to look at the issue objectively and stop rushing to conclusions like idiots.

Why should I have any reason to believe what the man says, especially in relation to what he says his daughter said? Because if he is an abuser he sure as hell is not going to show that on the internet. We also have received absolutely no information from her own point of view outside of the influence of her father and I doubt we ever will.

Also the more I read about what he says the more I realize that he's an authoritarian parent who seems to think he more or less owns his children. Which however much it might be the legal reality is still an opinion I absolutely despise.

Here's his Facebook page, which also shows he thinks Ron Paul is the only candidate with his head screwed on right, and also shows that he's a bit of an attention whore: http://www.facebook.com/tommyjordaniii

He's also trying to sell a website that he just got up and running, which considering he made the point about not making a profit off other people's embarrassment, is a tad bit hypocritical no?

[Darth Fanboy]

I don't give a toss how this clown was raised, with his tough love horseshit, the fact that he used a firearm in this manner gives off all kinds of unsettling undertones of violence to me. He displays his weapon, "This right here is my .45." and goes on about his "exploding hollow point" rounds and tells her he's going to charge her for each one he's expended as he shoots.

Kinda creepy.

He shot an inanimate object, or is it the mere use of the firearm which unsettles you?

In the end this is a father taking away his daughter's computer for doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. My parents never took away toys, but I sure as hell had some taken away and never seen again. The only thing that makes this remotely extreme is how viral the video went. Notice how in the articles I posted the guy actually did some, y'know, parenting and had open dialogue and communication with his daughter afterwards and life is fine. Minus the gun, seeing as how i'm not properly trained to own or operate one, I would not hestitate to do exactly what he did save for getting rid of the computer in a more efficient way. But the backlash of "why didn't he sell it" and othe rrelated arguments just show how his priority (parenting his daughter, who was engaging in bad behavior) is different from other people's (but...he wasted a computer!).

[Darth Fanboy]

Why should I have any reason to believe what the man says, especially in relation to what he says his daughter said? Because if he is an abuser he sure as hell is not going to show that on the internet. We also have received absolutely no information from her own point of view outside of the influence of her father and I doubt we ever will.

In other words, you see material that contradicts your preconcieved notion so you immediately dispute the authenticity. Gotcha.

Also the more I read about what he says the more I realize that he's an authoritarian parent who seems to think he more or less owns his children. Which however much it might be the legal reality is still an opinion I absolutely despise.

Why do you think he is unreasonably authoritarian? And please state your age group (you don't have to be specific) for the sake of context.

Here's his Facebook page, which also shows he thinks Ron Paul is the only candidate with his head screwed on right, and also shows that he's a bit of an attention whore: http://www.facebook.com/tommyjordaniii

He's also trying to sell a website that he just got up and running, which considering he made the point about not making a profit off other people's embarrassment, is a tad bit hypocritical no?

Which is of course, completely relevant to the issue of supposed abuse and mistreatment of his daughter?

[DarkArk]

In other words, you see material that contradicts your preconcieved notion so you immediately dispute the authenticity.

No, I see little reason to believe the words of a person who is not allowed to speak for herself.

Why do you think he is unreasonably authoritarian?

It's a mindset issue. He is of the opinion that his daughter will do everything he wants of her, and if she doesn't he goes off on how she's being a spoiled little shit and he will then shoot her possessions. That is emotional manipulation at its finest. That is also not the mark of a rational person, because rational people don't have guns do their talking for them.

Which is of course, completely relevant to the issue of supposed abuse and mistreatment of his daughter?

It's a tangent from dealing with his daughter, yes, but not from the topic as a whole. The man's an egotistical hypocrite, and so yes that's going to influence what I think of his character.

[TithonusSyndrome]

If for whatever reason I had done something like this and my parents had decided upon anything remotely similar as a disciplinary action, I can tell you right now that they'd never, ever in a million years destroy anything as expensive as a laptop to make their point. They'd have given it as a gift to a friend, which achieves the same disciplinary effect without stooping to this level of wasteful, vengeful pettiness. He wants to teach her the value of money through emotionally charged acts of property destruction? Pull the other leg, cowboy. I bet you felt REAL big as you went GROG SMASH, though.

[FSTargetDrone]

He shot an inanimate object, or is it the mere use of the firearm which unsettles you?

In the end this is a father taking away his daughter's computer for doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. My parents never took away toys, but I sure as hell had some taken away and never seen again. The only thing that makes this remotely extreme is how viral the video went. Notice how in the articles I posted the guy actually did some, y'know, parenting and had open dialogue and communication with his daughter afterwards and life is fine. Minus the gun, seeing as how i'm not properly trained to own or operate one, I would not hestitate to do exactly what he did save for getting rid of the computer in a more efficient way. But the backlash of "why didn't he sell it" and othe rrelated arguments just show how his priority (parenting his daughter, who was engaging in bad behavior) is different from other people's (but...he wasted a computer!).

It doesn't really matter to me if he shot it or took a hatchet to it or drove his car over it a half dozen times. What makes me uncomfortable was the he destroyed the thing in such a drawn-out, violent way, gloating about it as he fired. If you're going to take it away, just take it away. What did this guy think was going to happen when he posted it on YouTube? And I'll tell you for free that if some joker around here stood a few hundred feet away from what looks like a public road and started firing into the ground multiple times, he'd probably have cops all over him in short order. It's a ridiculously irresponsible thing to do. I find it equally disturbing that he has so many cheerleaders in the YouTube comments, but then again YouTube comments have always been a cesspool.

[Darth Fanboy]

No, I see little reason to believe the words of a person who is not allowed to speak for herself.

Right because to do otherwise contradicts your position.

It's a mindset issue. He is of the opinion that his daughter will do everything he wants of her, and if she doesn't he goes off on how she's being a spoiled little shit and he will then shoot her possessions. That is emotional manipulation at its finest. That is also not the mark of a rational person, because rational people don't have guns do their talking for them.

Holy fuck are you 16? Kids are supposed to do chores, and to an extent be respectful to others. I will obviously grant that shooting the laptop was over the top, but nothing that the guy is asking of his kid is unreasonable. The demeaning commentary about the cleaning lady on the facebook alone would have had my ass on punishment for at least a month.

It's a tangent from dealing with his daughter, yes, but not from the topic as a whole. The man's an egotistical hypocrite, and so yes that's going to influence what I think of his character.

The only reason this is public is because the video went viral, I don't see how this makes him egotistical and you really haven't shown he is a hypocrite, as I can't view the link you posted for any sort of verification of your claim.

[Darth Fanboy]

It doesn't really matter to me if he shot it or took a hatchet to it or drove his car over it a half dozen times. What makes me uncomfortable was the he destroyed the thing in such a drawn-out, violent way, gloating about it as he fired. If you're going to take it away, just take it away. What did this guy think was going to happen when he posted it on YouTube? And I'll tell you for free that if some joker around here stood a few hundred feet away from what looks like a public road and started firing into the ground multiple times, he'd probably have cops all over him in short order. It's a ridiculously irresponsible thing to do. I find it equally disturbing that he has so many cheerleaders in the YouTube comments, but then again YouTube comments have always been a cesspool.

I believe him when he says he never meant this incident to grab so much attention, and as I have said shooting the laptop was over the top but I don't see the harm in shooting at an inanimate object. Talking about how close he was to the road he was when he shot is not related to the fact that this is the case of a parent whose daughter was acting like a severe snot and he decided to punish her by taking away the computer. The reason people are cheering is because this man did what more parents should do, although he could have done so without the firearm. But if that's what you're getting upset about then you are missing the point of the whole demonstration. I am sure he was angry, which motivated a more heated reaction than the more measured reaction of donating or selling the laptop, but quite frankly it was technically his computer to do whatever he wanted with it. Who gives a shit?

[Darth Fanboy]

Why do you think he is unreasonably authoritarian?

It's a mindset issue. He is of the opinion that his daughter will do everything he wants of her, and if she doesn't he goes off on how she's being a spoiled little shit and he will then shoot her possessions. That is emotional manipulation at its finest. That is also not the mark of a rational person, because rational people don't have guns do their talking for them.

Oh and I noticed how you snipped part of my question away you dishonest shit.

[Darth Fanboy]

If for whatever reason I had done something like this and my parents had decided upon anything remotely similar as a disciplinary action, I can tell you right now that they'd never, ever in a million years destroy anything as expensive as a laptop to make their point. They'd have given it as a gift to a friend, which achieves the same disciplinary effect without stooping to this level of wasteful, vengeful pettiness. He wants to teach her the value of money through emotionally charged acts of property destruction? Pull the other leg, cowboy. I bet you felt REAL big as you went GROG SMASH, though.

Yes the horrible waste of a computer was very sad, do you disagree that he should have taken it away and grounded her for what she did?

This is why the video is popular, because even the people who hate what he did can't stop talking about it because they are so offended at how over the top he was, and the people who like the video are more focused on the fact that the guy is parenting his kid for being snotty. I haven't seen one person yet who can successfully argue that he was wrong to take the computer away, regardless of what he did afterward.

[DarkArk]

Oh and I noticed how you snipped part of my question away you dishonest shit.

It's not dishonest to refuse to answer a personal question that I don't feel like answering, and has no real bearing on the conversation.

[Darth Fanboy]

Oh and I noticed how you snipped part of my question away you dishonest shit.

It's not dishonest to not answer a personal question that I don't feel like answering and has no real bearing on the conversation.

It actually has quite a lot of bearing, as I would expect a kid about the age of the daughter in question to be more sympathetic calling a parent an authoritarian like that. But I think it's funny how you didn't even decline to answer, and instead just ignored it as if it had no bearing. OH WAIT, ignoring things because YOU don't think they are important is what you've already done once in this thread AND is what a lot of teenagers do to annoy the shit out of the rest of society (was insanely guilty of that myself).

So yes do go on being dishonest.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Yes the horrible waste of a computer was very sad, do you disagree that he should have taken it away and grounded her for what she did?

And just what did she "do"? What's the purpose of this disciplinary action? He didn't express dissatisfaction with her chores that hadn't already been disciplined by other means, he was merely outraged that she DARED to take issue with her parents' immaculate judgment. For the crime of complaining about parental discipline, in a way not uncharacteristic of teenagers at this stage of their development and impossible for any well-rounded adult to take personally, this cowboy's breathing became short and sharp, and his speech became glib and tense. He was uttery infuriated that she DARED complain about being made to do chores. I complained about my job maybe two or three times today, guess I'd better have some of my things taken from me and smashed or else I'll never learn anything about what it takes to get by in life.

For crying out loud, this tool rests his whole case for this judgment on an Appeal To Tradtion Fallacy. It's practically a confession that he doesn't know any better and just caved into the urge to lash back at... a teenager being a teenager.