conversations with a table mountain mugger - groundup article

[Robbie Stewart]

The whole piece smells of sensationalism and the need for people to read as opposed to be informed!

 

Hout Bay mountain bikers have been held to ransom by these criminals. We have got such great possibilities for riding trails in our beautiful bay, but are too scared to out of fear or being mugged.

 

This guy needs to be brought to justice! The question whether the journalist/writer is prepared to sell his subject "down the river" for the greater good.

 

And herein the dilemma I have with the story teller. I checked out his blog / website. He publishes all these tails of societal ills, purportedly in an effort to "highlight" the problems faced by, usually, the less fortunate.

 

I just find it strange that the angle he seems to go for is the marginalized criminal element. To me, that smacks of journalistic sensationalism, whereby the end-goal for him, that of financial gain/peer recognition. far outweighs any sense of right or wrong, which should lead him to report these thugs. But he wont, because then he has no street cred left amongst his peers, which he so evidently craves.

 

In this I have a major problem. 

[GrahamS2]

Read the thread again

I read your last response and it made a whole lot more sense now.  

[GrahamS2]

There are surely better choices for Norton to make. 

Initially I agreed with this. Then I remembered a quote that I was given when my son was born. It goes along these lines: The most valuable thing you can teach your child is the power of good decision making. All they need to know is that, 1) You always have options no matter how dire it seems. 2) Every action you take will result in a consequence.

 

I guess Norton never had parents to teach him this...

[Serious Panda]

Wrong again. 

 

Oh no bikehub`s Mr Knowitall has spoken his great mind.

[GrahamS2]

Oh no bikehub`s Mr Knowitall has spoken his great mind.

http://www.mememaker.net/static/images/memes/2560762.jpg

[Joe Low]

The origin of crime is Satan the devil, the evil in man.

 

 

Your fairytale says the origin of Satan is your god, what a lot of dangerous nonsense.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Oh no bikehub`s Mr Knowitall has spoken his great mind.

haha. Gonna have to try harder to bait me, Mr Silverback. 

 

All I said is that you're not reading the posts properly. Nobody is excusing / justifying / explaining away his actions. All we're doing is attempting to understand how he got there, and determining how to alleviate it in the future so that the possibility of future Nortons is reduced. 

 

He needs to rot in jail. Nobody has said otherwise. His actions have consequences, and he DECIDED to follow a certain path which eventually took him there. 

 

That we are attempting to understand how / why those decisions were made, and how best to avoid the situation in the future in no way detracts from the abhorrence of his actions. 

 

Oh. And we don't instantly jump to GODDIDIT or SATANDIDIT as explanations. That is intellectually bankrupt. 

[Thor Buttox]

Oh no bikehub`s Mr Knowitall has spoken his great mind.

A good many people have now explicitly said there is no justifying or excusing the criminal. So, factually, until someone comes on here and says 'We think Norton should get away with murder cos he is a charming boy with daddy issues' you are wrong. Unlike murder though, being wrong is not a crime. So the No-Eat-All's pointing it out need not raise a defense.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Oh - and my mind is not great. I just question things, and attempt to understand. Sometimes I fail. But if I fail, I ask myself why, and correct those things which I am able to. 

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Initially I agreed with this. Then I remembered a quote that I was given when my son was born. It goes along these lines: The most valuable thing you can teach your child is the power of good decision making. All they need to know is that, 1) You always have options no matter how dire it seems. 2) Every action you take will result in a consequence.

 

I guess Norton never had parents to teach him this...

Very true. And something that I keep on having to remember, myself. Several times, I've had to remain calm when there's one too many "whys" or "buts" or any other such question when my lightie is attempting to understand something. 

 

Patience. Questioning. Analysis. 

[Shebeen]

Ok, I'll debate.

 

For me there should not really be a moral issue for the journo in this case.

What he did imo he did out of self interest.

 

 

 

It's not quite cut and dried. If it was "I'm off to 6th and Hugo Str to go and shoot a tourist outside her BnB and take her car", then he's sitting with life critical info. As it stands the journo still actually doesn't know if he was mugging hikers or doing the Voice crossword. He has probably definitely taken huge personal risks in putting this story together, so to judge his actions out of the context is very unfair.

 

 

We’d been due to meet the afternoon before, but Norton had postponed. Actually, he’d gone to mug people on the mountain. “If I get money where I am now,, then its ok,” he’d responded when I’d texted him to confirm a time. Then he went offline for three hours. Finally, he updated me. “I came back 2 chapmans peak quickly lo0king for a Target.”

This information placed me in a bind. Knowing that Norton was, in all likelihood, preparing to point a gun at somebody innocent, I could have contacted SANParks or Table Mountain Watch, urging them to position a guard on the trail. This would have betrayed the trust Norton had placed in me. There was also a chance that he was lying. He went offline again and I couldn’t reach him all evening. I chose not to alert the authorities, and inquired after his endeavours the next day.

[The expat cyclist]

There are surely better choices for Norton to make. 

True, but from his point of view, he does not know that.

 

From his point of view his choices are severely limited.

It is like some hubbers believing that working on a bicycle is a formidable task. Until someone shows them how.

 

He was shown how to do crime.

 

Reality is life always will favour some and not so much the guy next to you.

['Dale]

LSD

 

Love 

Self-confidence

Discipline

 

 

If you got it as a laaitie, be blessed

[The expat cyclist]

It's not quite cut and dried. If it was "I'm off to 6th and Hugo Str to go and shoot a tourist outside her BnB and take her car", then he's sitting with life critical info. As it stands the journo still actually doesn't know if he was mugging hikers or doing the Voice crossword. He has probably definitely taken huge personal risks in putting this story together, so to judge his actions out of the context is very unfair.

Should the journo get to decide what Norton was up to or should he have rather let the authorities decide?

He knew the risks, the same as Norton. It is unfair then to provide him the gratitude of  "he took a risk putting the story together...ah shame, poor guy, forgive him his sins" and not provide Norton the same gratitude.

 

Yes, I know it is two extremes but the journo to me is the same as a Norton. In fact, he is worse. He had surely a better start in life and should be prone to better decisions.

 

If you or your loved one was ever a victim of a crime and you knew someone could have prevented it, would you care a damn of the risk they had to take to do it?

[Serious Panda]

 

Oh. And we don't instantly jump to GODDIDIT or SATANDIDIT as explanations. That is intellectually bankrupt. 

 

If Mr Knowitall says that spiritual enlightenment is intellectually bankrupt then it surely must be so.

[Shebeen]

Should the journo get to decide what Norton was up to or should he have rather let the authorities decide?

He knew the risks, the same as Norton. It is unfair then to provide him the gratitude of  "he took a risk putting the story together...ah shame, poor guy, forgive him his sins" and not provide Norton the same gratitude.

 

Yes, I know it is two extremes but the journo to me is the same as a Norton. In fact, he is worse. He had surely a better start in life and should be prone to better decisions.

 

If you or your loved one was ever a victim of a crime and you knew someone could have prevented it, would you care a damn of the risk they had to take to do it?

I don't totally disagree with you on this one. BUT it is his job to bring the story, to go an piemp his subject is an option he did consider - rock and a hard place.

 

I'd be rightly miffed if I was a HBay resident, trail user, muggee and here is a journalist with all this info (albeit with no actual proof) of someone who claims to have done 40 muggings and nothing is done. Maybe the cops know of Norton already.