I think there is something wrong with the various links provided, many of them link to the wrong story.
Lynching for simple bad manners is quite a Disproportionate Retribution. Don't tell me that one deserves to be arrested for criticizing someone's hair. Defending Unacceptable Targets shouldn't be an excuse to make it worse by acting barbaric and out-bullying the bigoted. That doesn't prove the defenders are better. That's why I liked the second story more: that Ill Girl could stand up for herself without stooping to (or even below) the attacker's level.
Edited by Charsi Hide / Show Replies
The trope it was listed under was not Disproportionate Retribution. It was Strawman Has a Point. So what "point" were they making that was valid?
Did you read the same story I did? Where are they "barbaric" or "out-bullying" them? Nobody so much as touches them until the cops arrest them — after asking them to simply leave and then telling them that they were now trespassing, and according to the story the obnoxious assholes are the ones who start the fight.
'You are thrown out! Hands behind your back! NOW!' in response to mere insulting, however rude, kind of gives me that impression. Nobody even thinks of saying so much as "she has cancer, you jerk!", they can't even now what illegal thing they have done without knowing. They deserved to be told off, refused service for harassing the other customers, but not arrested.
You're twisting the whole interaction. It wasn't "You are thrown out! Hands behind your back! NOW!" it was, "They asked you to leave, so please leave." Then it was, "You are upsetting the customers, and you've been asked to leave, so please leave." And only then, after the cops twice instructed them calmly to leave the place, the assholes start being confrontational and cursing out the cop. And that's when they're told to put their hands behind their back.
I don't know why I have to recap something that is only a handful of lines long, but you seem intent on ignoring half of the interaction.
Also, harassment is a crime, and depending on the state, you can be arrested for it.
The cop told them exactly what illegal thing they were doing — they'd been asked to leave, and they were refusing to, and therefore they were trespassing. The cops suggest they just leave twice before the assholes start cussing them out.
And you still haven't said what "point" you think the guys are making that is valid.
I thought if the homophobic man's self-defense was a point in the fixing story, their protest to the overreaction would be too. Though I still wander whether there would have been such outrage if the girl were really a hipster, or they were just flipped off and that would be that.
Edited by Charsi
"If this post is okay, another like it should be too," doesn't really work, because a post isn't okay just because it's on the page. I haven't looked at that post, so I'm just talking about this one.
And what-ifs don't really matter as far as the trope's concerned.
Should Alternate Character Interpretation be spun off into its own page at this point? That list is getting pretty long.
"I shall not be foolish again, my dear Gwendolyn!"