Well, who reads anything when they're drunk? These people are damn good at what they do. They've honed their skills and have this whole thing down to a science. They know how to set the right mood, create the right atmosphere, make it all seem silly and commonplace, and just a bunch of people letting loose, having a good time -- a lot of people don't knowingly sign what they think they are signing, and that's illegal.

I understand what you are saying and agree with it to a certain extent, but we both agree that what they are doing is illegal and dangerous. I just happen to place more responsibility on the people actively duping others than the victims who were duped, specifically because they were not in the right frame of mind when they entered the contracts and they were lied to about what the contract represented and what they were doing.

If you didn't realize that what you were doing was all that bad, in a crowded room filled with hundreds of people doing the exact same thing, and you had been drinking for a few hours while all this was going on around you, you wouldn't think that much about signing a waiver to let someone use your image on a commercial or something -- especially if it's "only for a local TV show" or will never be shown in America, etc.

Just imagine it this way: you have to sign a waiver to enter a wet T-shirt contest at a local bar. You would never do it normally, but you're on vacation all the way across the country in a little bar in a resort town where dozens of other women are doing the same thing and you've had a few drinks. Some of the girls start showing their breasts and acting silly and the rumor gets around that, "Well, they'll never show that on TV, so who cares?" Unless you read everything on every page in that contract, you really don't know what you signed. And you shouldn't be expected to in the first place, since you've been drinking. It's a confidence game! The oldest trick in the book (it's the entire plot of Chandler's The Big Sleep), in fact.

We both agree it's bad, but I just blame the people who are professionals at duping others and not the victims.

- Manodogs

"Just imagine it this way: you have to sign a waiver to enter a wet T-shirt contest at a local bar. You would never do it normally, but you're on vacation all the way across the country in a little bar in a resort town where dozens of other women are doing the same thing and you've had a few drinks. Some of the girls start showing their breasts and acting silly and the rumor gets around that, "Well, they'll never show that on TV, so who cares?" Unless you read everything on every page in that contract, you really don't know what you signed. And you shouldn't be expected to in the first place, since you've been drinking. It's a confidence game! The oldest trick in the book (it's the entire plot of Chandler's The Big Sleep), in fact."

This is exactly my point. I would never do that. I would roll my eyes at the drunk idiots and find someplace I could flash people without having to sign a waiver. lol Or something like that.

Furthermore, legally speaking, it is NOT illegal to serve alcohol and then ask someone to sign a contact. The contract may or may not be enforceable due to "capacity to contract" although the law takes a dim view of the person doing the drinking. The reason is because they knowingly chose to pick up the alcohol. So then the judge would have to rule whether they had the mental capacity to make a decision about signing a contract. And that's a roll of the dice who he will side with. The judge will often try to determine how drunk they were, and whether they show a history of drunkeness, etc. But it is NOT illegal. Immoral- I can agree to that. But even when a judge rules that the contract isn't enforceable, it doesn't automatically make it illegal.

"I just happen to place more responsibility on the people actively duping others than the victims who were duped, specifically because they were not in the right frame of mind when they entered the contracts and they were lied to about what the contract represented and what they were doing."

And I feel that they willingly put themselves in that position, and no matter what they were told would have mattered. Furthermore, I do not believe that either telling the truth about the waiver OR the absense of alcohol would have changed the outcome in any significant way.

and i plan on instilling the same values in my son and daughter that kept me from being the fool in my party days.

believe me, i have been drunk, very drunk, partied hard with my friends in my youth and so on but was STILL able to keep my conscience and wits about me. there is something called self esteem that will keep a person from a) baring breasts in public and b) signing your life away on any sort of contract.......and i could go on from c-z too.

and everyone signing those waivers is an adult ( or at least pretending to be) and therefore 100% responsible for their actions, drunk or not. they all had the ability to stop at a certain number of drinks or remain sober. last i heard nobody was pointing a gun at anyone's head and shouting "chug. chug, chug!"

Airing my dirty laundry at: Peacocks on Leashes

Well, I also respectfully disagree with you both. A lot of people in this country want everyone to take "personal responsibility," but in doing so, they disregard the very real effects of environment, peer pressure, and mob rules mentality -- all of which are psychologically, sociologically, and scientifically proven factors.

And yes, getting someone drunk and then presenting them with a contract you misrepresent is absolutely illegal and not just on the grounds of diminished capacity (sometimes referred to as "duress") -- even though that is part of what I was referring to. In fact, the very act of getting someone drunk and then talking to them about signing a contract is evidence of coercion -- if you have a savvy lawyer! -- and infers premeditation on the part of the contractor.

By the same token, you both are saying that when an older person is tricked into signing contracts for home repairs and/or paying in advance for such things, they should have known better, etc. It's the exact same principle: one group is young, drunk, and doing what the other people around them are doing; the other is old and often on medication(s). In either case, what it boils down to is theft by deception, whether that theft is of something tangible or intangible; in both cases, the conmen will benefit financially by contractually cheating the other.

Your argument basically boils down to "caveat emperor," or "buyer beware," and most places have instituted "lemon laws," and this is the same sort of situation. (Lemon laws hold car salesmen responsible for cars they sell that break down within a certain amount of time of being sold -- like a few days or week, etc.)

If we mix and match, how would you feel if you were in a bar drinking and someone came in and sold you a bad car? And when you wake up, you don't even remember seeing the car, much less buying it! That's diminished capacity. And the over-reliance of our modern society on this whole "personal responsibility" dodge is a definite factor in the current escalation of violence and unchecked disrespect amongst common society.

- Manodogs

"Well, I also respectfully disagree with you both. A lot of people in this country want everyone to take "personal responsibility," but in doing so, they disregard the very real effects of environment, peer pressure, and mob rules mentality -- all of which are psychologically, sociologically, and scientifically proven factors."

Yes, but they are not the be all, end all solution you suggest. I have known people who have watched as one parent murdered another. I have had friends who have been abused in ways that I can't spell out on these boards because they are too horrific to talk about. I have worked with kids that have been scewed over in one way or another. The ones that made it relied on their own personal responsibility to say enough was enough. The ones who struggled and continue to struggle always had their finger pointed at someone else, claiming it was there fault. And sure, they were right. But the key is in knowing their part in the fault, if any exists, and learning from it.

The law of LIFE is caveat empor. Conmen exist because they found a way to exploit people. If we rely on savvy lawyers to get us out of our sticky situations, conmen will continue to exist and thrive, and they will prey on the unsuspecting. It all comes down to being lucky enough to catch them in the act, and a lot of them don't rely on contracts. Add personal responsibility into the mix, and educate people that these conmen exist, and you eradicate their ability to make a living. Suddenly, it's just too damn hard to continue with the old scams, and you have to devise new ones. At some point, they will run out of ideas or decide that working at Burger King is easier. It's called extinction, and in many ways, it is stronger than any peer pressure. I'm sure you watched Ghost Hunters last night. When Steve got on the plane, it was peer pressure. When Steve got off the plane, it was extinction. I know this and practiced this on a daily basis with hundreds of kids when I worked with them.

I believe in personal responsibility because I've seen mob rule, and it's ugly. Remember the LA riots? I choose not to let people who act that way make the decisions for me. I've been to parties and turned down a lot of drugs and sex, because I didn't feel like it. Personal responsibility is what keeps me from doing whatever idiotic idea my friends come up with. And they can come up with some REALLY stupid ones.

Do you see how it's not a dodge? It's the standard that keeps me in control of my own life. Just as everyone should be. Otherwise, you can elect me to Congress, and I'll be more than happy to legislate the minutiae of your life. There will be licenses to breed because Kevin Federline had to go and ruin it for everyone. Prohibition is reinstated because a couple of my friends can't hold their liquor. And at no time are more than four people allowed in the same place, because they will invariably listen to the person with the least common sense. Like these boys listened to Borat.

Your mileage may vary. :)

This will be my last thesis on the subject, dammit! :D lol

That women who dress provocatively are begging to get raped, right? I mean, at the very least, they were kind of asking for it, because they should have totally known better than to advertise if they were going out. The world's a cruel place and rapes happen everyday, so they should have been more personally responsible, right?

(Note to self: pick up Brasso for halo)

- Manodogs

And apparently, you missed the words I wrote. "But the key is in knowing their part in the fault, if any exists

I have friends who were raped by their own fathers at a young age. I mean, these friends just don't get any more blameless than that. So to even suggest that is my argument is so completely off-base.

There is a massive divide between rape and what Sacha Baron Cohen did. Would these frat rats have signed if they weren't drunk? Probably. Would they have had a drink whether he told them to or not? Bet money on it. Would the hypothetical woman have slept with the man if he just asked? No, that's why they call it rape.

If I told a girl that we were just going to "make out," then forced myself on her, that's rape. You're saying she deserved it because she should have known better than to consent to making out with me in the first place. If I get her drunk, or spike her drink with a drug, and then have my way with her, you're saying she got what she deserved because she should have known better than to drink so much and/or take a drink I offered her. Either way, the right answer is that I would be guilty of rape or date rape. And I agree with that!

The same theory holds in this case: Cohen got these guys drunk, told them they were going to be in a foreign documentary no one would ever see, etc., etc., then they "woke up" to find that they were in a major motion picture at the top of the American box office!

He, quite literally, got them liquored-up, asked them to make-out with him, then raped them! It wasn't physical in nature, but it most certainly fits the general definition!

- Manodogs

You are free to believe whatever you want. But that is not what I said, nor is it what I meant.

And I believe that to say these men were raped is an insult to the up to 1.2 million women each year who have been raped.

I certainly didn't mean any offense by it; I think it a very apt description along the lines of when an unethical logging company or the like "rapes the land." I feel these people were very truly violated in a very similar fashion!

They were mislead, their sense of trust and personal space has been violated, they were infringed upon. The only thing missing is the actual sexual act! And that's not to sound dismissive of the actual act nor the victims who have suffered it.

But I still don't see how you are deflecting this: what you are saying is that these guys would have likely been drinking and would have likely gone on camera even if they weren't and would have likely said these things anyway, etc., they just happened to get "busted" by this guy, so they deserved it. That's exactly what the opposing attorneys usually say about the victims of date rape and the like; it's called the "slut defense," in fact!

Still, that's my entire point: this doesn't begin and end with this type of abuse. How about when someone slightly more depraved than Cohen comes along and gets someone who wants to be euthanized to sign one of these contracts? How about the whole "tagging" thing going on over in England (where kids have made a game of attacking random victims on film)?

We both agree that this whole thing is wrong on many levels, we just disagree as to whom the real victims are.

- Manodogs

It is an EVIL goal of mine to perhaps one day recognize ANYBODY's daughter in varying degrees of bared breasted sh*tfacedness, whether it be on film or live action from the cage in my damp basement, and utilize those Evilishly precious moments captured for all time at Holiday gatherings or funerals...ahhh, to WISH is to DREAM the IMPOSSIBLE.
Yours Evilishly,
EB

we should cease and desist from further commenting on this particular posting...I think it is safe to say that the Manodog fella has gotten all the air-play this subject deserves.
He reminds me vagely of that Blog-a-vomitus has-been from back in the day, Cashads; allbeit, more hair, but from the same gene pool muck. However, in a sad and misguided "jonesing", I am hoping in a selfish way, that he reverts back to his yummylicious reviews of mundane TV programs. I miss trimming my pubes whilst I peruse those most-interesting updates.
Adieu to You,

Evil_Bob