fandomhigh | Criminal Justice- Monday- 1st period

"Good morning, class!" Kitty greeted them, and gestured towards the coffees and tea and pastries spread out on a table. "I brought stuff, because I e decjded I cannot pose today's question to you without giving you the opportunity to be caffeinated."

So buckle up, kids.

"Ahem," she said, pulling out the notecard. "This is the story of a very hungry coyote and a swift, flightless bird.

Reports state that the coyote has been chasing a pretty darn unique breed of roadrunner with blue feathers that can run at extremely high speeds. The coyote has resorted to technology- guess it's a special breed of coyote, too- often purchasing products from the Acme company in attempts to catch this roadrunner. He hasn't even come close to succeeding.

Over the years, the coyote has proven to be less than keen with his plans. He rolls boulders at the roadrunner and gets squished by them. He throws dynamite down and gets blown up himself. The number of times he has fallen off a cliff is undetermined, but it's a lot of times, chums!" Kitty looked up. "'Chums' is on here. Anyway. Sometimes these plans backfire on the coyote through sheer bad luck. Other times, this roadrunner actively turns the situation around. He breaks universal laws by running through a solid mountain and taunting the coyote to follow, which ends in a concussion. He purposely leads the coyote off a cliff where the coyote will surely fall to major injury. And there have been several instances where the roadrunner ran the coyote over in a truck, at least once when the coyote was held in place by glue (it's a wacky story).

If we treat the coyote and roadrunner as citizens - and since they have at least one credit card, one driver's license, and one university diploma between then, and were born in America, it is probably a fair treatment - we could apply the American legal system to their conflict. Keeping in mind that the coyote has repeatedly attempted to murder the roadrunner over the years (and not out of simple hunger - if he were just hungry, he could theoretically buy food with his credit cards), and that the roadrunner has not only not pressed charges but also has reportedly mocked the coyote openly and to his face as a challenge, we apparently have some questions to answer. I guess."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As either the roadrunner or coyote.

Astrid Magnussen

Shuri

If it can be called that!

Astrid was...definitely glad for the coffee about half-way through that and she is so, so sorry for having ever doubted you, Ms. Pryde-Burton. She'd definitely had her doubts at the beginning of class, and then felt very silly about that, because she should know better.

Blame it on half a year of actual normal American high school education.

"Given that the coyote's attempts on the roadrunner's life have proven completely futile over the years and appears to be no realistic threat, and that the roadrunner apparently encourages these attempts, and that the roadrunner has gone so far as to hit a coyote that has been glued to the street with a truck, has the roadrunner crossed a line between self-defense and out-right assault?" Kitty read. "Actually that's not a bad question."

Astrid sort of hated that she found herself giving this actual serious consideration and attempting an actual serious response.

"One could argue," she proposed, "that the fault is inherent in the system. The roadrunner would have never gotten to the point of antagonizing, encouraging, or responding to the coyote's actions if the actions of the coyote had been met with the proper consequences in the first place. At this point, they've been existing by their own rules for so long that it almost seems cruel to suddenly expect them to live by the rules that had been ignored up to this point."

She paused, considering a moment longer. "Maybe, by this point, they actually enjoy these games they play with each other, and, so long as no one else is hurt in the process, we should just let them live their lives as they want to. I guess it would be a matter of whether or not either the coyote or the roadrunner truly feel victimized by the other's actions at this point."

Yup. That was an actual statement that left her mouth. Definitely not at Fairfax High anymore.

Then again, if this was Fairfax, Astrid wouldn't even be bothering to engage in the discussion, either.

That was really thought out and Kitty loved it. "What about the damage that might be caused? They're in the American Southwest, so if they're on protected lands and painting holes on cliffs and using explosives, are they responsible?"

Even though Astrid had her answer right away, she paused a moment, if only to consider that this was technically something she could speak on with experience.

According to her criminal record, anyway.

"Well, then, that's a problem," she decided. "Because it's harming public or even private property."