Re: Oh, I get it now - she's a lawyer!
by
Cranky1000
08/15/2008, 1:35 PM #
Oh blah blah blah, being a lawyer explains everything about why Emily Bazelon is a lousy human being. Go back and read her other columns about Eli. Her lousiness has nothing to do with the honorable profession of protecting individual rights.
As for the kickball game: Kids should argue about the rules of kickball on the playground whenever they seem like nonsense. The schoolyard argument is that the rule is nonsense, that you are hiding behing it because you suck at kickball, and if you trip on the way to 2nd base then you are a spaz and falling down builds character and if you skin your leg then you should rub some dirt on it and walk it off. These are all very persuasive schoolyard playground arguments. Note that the key to the effectiveness is that it links a "constitutional argument" (this rule is unfair, thus totally avoiding the facts of the incident to which it is applied which may involve sympathy for a kid who fell down and went boom) with a challenge to one's standing amongst peers (which are much as "hanging out" is often the point of schoolyard contests)
As for custom rules of monopoly: The only rules of monopoly which are binding from game to game are written rules. All evidence of what went on in previous games as to custom rules are persuasive only. Custom rules can be applied at any time in the game, so long as they are fair, they apply to every situation where it happens in the game (which means that it can even apply retroactively if such application is fair), and there is a concensus that the rule will make the game more fun.
As much as I don't like Emily Bazelon, I have to agree with her approach here. Rule disputes in monopoly are extremely common and can be extremely nasty, especially when there are both older and younger people playing. People don't always have hard feelings when their head is based in at the schoolyard, but in 1988 I saw a camp bro-mance of many summers disolve in a pool of hatred and recrimination over a dispute which creditor primes the bankrupt player when custom rules allow for private loans: the mortgagee bank, the landlord, or the private lender? Forget about what you think the answer is: they simply hand not thought of that situation when they allowed the custom rule (private loans are not part of the written rules) and they had not thought of a way to mediate disputes and the default method (as the counsellor) was unsatisfactory because the counsellor was playing.
