Sunday, September 4, 2011

I was wrong.

I have several posts on here that mention or talk about blood money. The last one saw The Korean from Ask A Korean respond. After reading what he said I had to think about why I call it blood money and just why I blamed the system, in Korea, for the way things are handled.

I could come up with excuses for why I tried to defend calling it blood money and raging against the Korean system. But they would just be excuses. There are reasons, some kind of silly when I look back now, but I am not going to make excuses.

What The Korean said makes sense. I could have tried arguing against it but I would have been doing something I berate others for doing, denying reality. While I had read the post on his site I never really processed it. For whatever reasons I never laid my own bias aside when I read it. Luckily I have never claimed to be infallible and this is a good example of it.

I was blaming instances of people abusing the system or making errors in judgement on the system being wrong, even evil. I was using it as a whipping boy for things that pissed me off. In short, I was putting the blame on the wrong things.

(After posting and re-reading this I came to the conclusion that the title I used sucks. "My blood money argument" is kind of ... bleh. So I changed it to what it now reads. "I was wrong." )

6 comments:

  1. Your ass has been owned again. You must enjoy showing what a loser you are to the world.

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  2. Anonymous, quit your hating. It takes a big man to admit mistakes.

    I appreciate this very much, Flint.

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  3. The Korean:

    I usually just ignore anonymous and he goes away for a while. :)

    I appreciate you taking the time to explain everything even when I was being a bit obstinate. Or a lot obstinate. :)

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  4. Dude, what the kimchi? on you. Where is this dude's post that made you change your mind? I just went back and read your post on blood money. It's a pollution of justice. No one should be able to lessen their sentence by simply offering money. It's bad enough criminals in America can get plea bargains from prosecutors. Unless you explained it wrong or were incorrect on facts, I really want to know how someone can justify that.
    -paypachaser

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  5. Sorry for the late reply Paychaser.

    I think you are mistakening understanding for acceptance or even worse like. After reading what The Korean had to say (and putting aside my anger and bias) I understand what he was saying. What I called blood money and railed against as some societal evil is a tool of the legal system much like plea bargaining. Add to that the way nuisance law suits are basically used to blackmail people (or companies) into paying out something instead of going to court.

    That doesn't mean I am a big fan of it, or rather how it gets used and abused. Which I can also say for plea bargaining and nuisance suits. It means that I understand what The Korean was saying about the issue and how the way I was viewing things was wrong.

    In the case of my friend who ran into trouble one thing The Korean said really resonated. My friend CHOSE to pay up instead of fighting things. My initial reaction was prejudiced by my view of how foreigners get treated. I assumed the legal system would screw them over. That was based on my feelings and fears and nothing else. I haven't really had a run in with the Korean legal system. (Immigration yes, and that worked out in the end.)

    If I had based it on reports I have heard of concerning foreigners and the Korean legal system, more specifically the courts, my reaction would be seen as bad/wrong. The two instances I know of didn't end badly.

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  6. God damn I actually wrote mistakening? Good thing I am not teaching English anymore. :)

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