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That gorilla didn't "take a child away," and the gator didn't "pull a toddler into the lagoon," which was still being reported even as news staff were interviewing witnesses who stated that the child was standing in the water when snatched. Both of these tragedies have one thing in common: unattended children.
But, of course, when people are busy feeling instead of thinking, emotional knee-jerk reactions supplant all efforts to identify the real problems, then address them.
We have to do something is the wimpy battle cry of the ineffective.
Forget semantics.
These are incidents. The child was standing in 1 foot of water when taken by the alligator. Unattended children is only one side of the issue. And those who have had children understand what can happen in a split second, so just looking the way of the parents as the root cause is blind and unfair.
The child was standing in 1 foot of water with an inherent danger in the area. Attended to or not, the space was open for the child to do so, with only a warning sign a child can not read. Responsibility in most all of these tragedies is a two way street.
These debates are no different than inside our government walls. We spend more time pointing fingers of blame than taking action. The schools need to teach children about danger in daily life; parents need to be educated; businesses need to take further precautions. It all has to happen, not just one side.
If you think that politicians and the cumbersome regulations and overbuilt bureaucracy they impose on all of us because of single isolated incidents can solve all our problems, your mentality is the biggest part of the problem.
If you're a politician, attorney, CPA or one of the other groups who can shield themselves from the grit and sweat of the street -- goody-goody for you! most of us have to live produce and earn under conditions which are a lot closer to the real world.
Action does not necessarily lead to solutions. Movements like that of Martin Luther King have taken decades where change has occurred, and it's still far from perfect. In my opinion, taking action on an issue is as much a legality as it is a movement for change.
Humans do stupid things. And if they are not educated they will always do stupid things. All businesses and governments can do is to analyze a particular incident, in the case of the alligator a 1st time in the history of Disney, and see what can be done to better ensure it won't happen again. Sitting idly by with no action because people are stupid is a lame excuse to effect change.
And your comment about certain professions (I'm a CPA) shows your true ignorance of thinking you know someone. You have NO idea the paths people have taken to get where they are. If you assume a group of people ALL have silver spoons fed to them, then you are not street smart whatsoever. And I don't live in the real world? You my friend are truly living with blinders on.
For-profit news generates advertising revenue by reporting all the sensational stories. Turn your freakin' television set off. Your odds of being eaten by an alligator or gunned down by a nut job with an automatic rifle or whatever the sensational news story du jour is are just about zero.
I`m not in disagreement with you but what does " NO SWIMMING " mean to you ... to me it means " STAY OUT OF THE WATER " .. I don't buy the argument that Disney is to blame for this .. should all signs from now on say " NO SWIMMING because of possible alligator attack .. then the next case would be someone being eaten by a giant snake .. BUT BUT the sign did not say NO SWIMMING because of possible giant snake attack .. then giant turtle ,,.then giant mosquito etc etc ...
"No Swimming" is ambiguous. Some people see that as don't even touch the water...others read it literally. Don't swim, but it's okay to get your feet wet or to stand right at the water's edge. I agree with the poster who said that even if the toddler hadn't been IN the water, but just standing on the shore, he could have been snatched by the alligator.
I live in an alligator-free state. It would not even occur to me that they would be present at a Disney resort. If it were a natural lake, then sure, of course, but it's asking a lot for parents from Nebraska (or just about any state other than Florida, actually) to anticipate an attack by a giant man-eating reptile at a Disney-owned, man-made lagoon. I personally do not think "No Swimming" alone is sufficient in this case. I'm a parent, and I would not see a huge threat inherent in my toddler standing knee-deep in water while I watched from a few feet away. The parents WERE watching this child, remember? The father tried to save him.
I know you're being facetious (or perhaps you're not), but they wouldn't work anyway. Clearly, signs don't work. Even if there were signs explicitly warning of alligators and telling you swimming is prohibited, there would still be that one idiot (or two or three) a year at Disney or wherever who tempt fate anyway, and maybe lose their life for it. There will ALWAYS be an exception, always be "that one guy" who ruins it for everyone or who ignores common sense and blatantly posted signs or warnings and does something they shouldn't, then gets themselves seriously hurt or killed. Then there are always their families who attempt to blame everyone else and sue, and win money, and manage to get the warnings changed to something even more explicitly stated, or manage to close down a whole park or something. There will always be an exception, and never be an instance where NO ONE gets hurt or dies doing something, no matter how safe it may seem or should be.
You can't win. Statistically, you can't. That's why I don't even get outraged in a case like the one with this kid in Disney. I don't say, "they should have posted signs warning about alligators, Disney is negligent, this family should sue!" etc etc. How many people visit Disney a year? Tens of millions. How many died with the COD being an alligator or caused by an alligator attack? Only this one, in all the years Disney has been in existence. I'm not mad at Disney. I don't fault them. I'm not looking for anyone to blame. The parents IMHO made a stupid decision, but even then I don't "blame" them. They're going through hell enough as it is.
Agree with you here. As long as the signs are there, then it's the perpetrator's fault. If someone takes the risk and does something stupid/something they shouldn't do, it's no one's fault but their own. Not sure why anything needs to be changed on the account of what happened--it is simply someone paying the price for their own carelessness. Sad, tragic, of course. But you can't legislate against carelessness/stupidity. Nor, do I think, should you. This kind of activity should result in the appropriate penalties, which sometimes involves loss of a life.
Action does not necessarily lead to solutions. Movements like that of Martin Luther King have taken decades where change has occurred, and it's still far from perfect. In my opinion, taking action on an issue is as much a legality as it is a movement for change.
And that gives me every reason to believe that your idea of "perfection" is an omnipotent Nanny-State.
Quote:
Humans do stupid things. And if they are not educated they will always do stupid things. All businesses and governments can do is to analyze a particular incident, in the case of the alligator a 1st time in the history of Disney, and see what can be done to better ensure it won't happen again. Sitting idly by with no action because people are stupid is a lame excuse to effect change.
Exactly! And at what point does the need for responsibility overtake the desire for an unattainable level of absolute security? The financial meltdown of 2008 and the idiocy of "too big to fail" were a direct result of the natural human desire (albeit institutionalized) to test the "safeguards" devised (albeit under good intentions) back in the 1930's The cycle will merely repeat itself.
Quote:
And your comment about certain professions (I'm a CPA) shows your true ignorance of thinking you know someone. You have NO idea the paths people have taken to get where they are. If you assume a group of people ALL have silver spoons fed to them, then you are not street smart whatsoever. And I don't live in the real world? You my friend are truly living with blinders on.
And I'm a long time freelance bookkeeper and tax preparer who abandoned pursuit of CPA certification because I couldn't stomach the thought of a rigid schedule, under constant micromanagement, subject to the most mundane rules of "Korporate" conformity, in order to satisfy the hang-ups of sheltered clients who often have NO concept of daily life in the rest of the world.
I'll cite another painful example -- the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary in the heart of upscale New England. Please don't waste your breath, or my time, by arguing that greater interference by Big Brother and Sister could have prevented it. Adam Lanza was the end product of a culture that sought too much socialized, and collective security in the pursuit of an unattainable goal.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 06-16-2016 at 11:14 AM..
Let's not discuss fault here. This thread isn't about one side taking legal action and suing the other - that's a different topic.
We're talking about precautions, signs, warnings. The Disney thing was a first time ever, probably a 1-off never to happen again. But, it happened. The parents have to live directly with the tragedy in losing their 2 year old child. Let them bear the burden of if they could have done anything to prevent it or not, and they have to face all the finger pointing and blame that will come their way.
Disney has a choice. Either say they believe they had adequate warnings, or do something more. In my opinion, this one incident leads me to believe they need to do something more. Add more signs, fences, warnings, something. That's all I'm really saying. If it happens once it could happen again, regardless of the rarity. From the pictures I saw, it's a no swimming lagoon with a sandy beach. Any little kid would think go in the water, because it looks that way.
My understanding is that the lagoon is not self-contained; it is connected by an aqueduct to a much larger body of freshwater.
Not that it matters much, as you'll see below...
And they are good diggers, and smaller gators can climb fences. So even if a freshwater pond IS self-contained, it's likely that sooner or later an alligator will find a way into it. That's just life as usual in Florida.
True, they find alligators in retention ponds, culverts, and even ditches here.
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is the wimpy battle cry of the ineffective.
