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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Street Magic wrote: |
I used to date a sex offender back when I was in high school-- she had to register after getting caught flashing her breasts at a parade. |
Why can't more people see what a crazy witch-hunt atmosphere has developed with regards to sex crimes? How can people live in such fear of this sort of thing that we need to turn to this sort of nonsense? |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Street Magic wrote: |
| I used to date a sex offender back when I was in high school-- she had to register after getting caught flashing her breasts at a parade. |
 Does that registry include telephone numbers?  |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:45 am Post subject: |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:39 am Post subject: |
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| Obviously, all they need to do is narrow the range of sex crimes that result in getting someone put on that sex offender list. The question is why is noone doing this? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:14 am Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| Obviously, all they need to do is narrow the range of sex crimes that result in getting someone put on that sex offender list. The question is why is noone doing this? |
Or we could just abolish this pointless, counterproductive list.
If someone is a threat to society, they shouldn't be on the streets at all. If someone isn't a threat, why are they being harassed with this list? |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| Obviously, all they need to do is narrow the range of sex crimes that result in getting someone put on that sex offender list. The question is why is noone doing this? |
Cue Imaginary Commercial:
Senator Smith voted twice in favor of taking dangerous criminals off the sex offender list.
"Five years ago, my precious baby daughter Melissa was abducted, raped and murdered. Senator Smith, why would you let this happen again?"
Senator Smith-- soft on sex offenders, putting criminals' luxury ahead of victims' rights. Is this really who you want representing your family's best interests?
Paid for by the campaign for Senate candidate Scaremongering McRival-Politicianington |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:00 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Privateer wrote: |
| Obviously, all they need to do is narrow the range of sex crimes that result in getting someone put on that sex offender list. The question is why is noone doing this? |
Or we could just abolish this pointless, counterproductive list.
If someone is a threat to society, they shouldn't be on the streets at all. If someone isn't a threat, why are they being harassed with this list? |
Absolutely agree with this.
Why isn't there a murderer's list? You can kill someone, do your time, get out, and everything's cool. But God help you if your teen girlfriend blew you. You pose a threat to society.
| Street Magic wrote: |
| Privateer wrote: |
| Obviously, all they need to do is narrow the range of sex crimes that result in getting someone put on that sex offender list. The question is why is noone doing this? |
Cue Imaginary Commercial:
Senator Smith voted twice in favor of taking dangerous criminals off the sex offender list.
"Five years ago, my precious baby daughter Melissa was abducted, raped and murdered. Senator Smith, why would you let this happen again?"
Senator Smith-- soft on sex offenders, putting criminals' luxury ahead of victims' rights. Is this really who you want representing your family's best interests?
Paid for by the campaign for Senate candidate Scaremongering McRival-Politicianington |
You nailed that example. What is the remedy for this? The rational approach to the voters always seems to lose out to the emotional. |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:16 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| You nailed that example. What is the remedy for this? The rational approach to the voters always seems to lose out to the emotional. |
I don't know that there is one. You'd think it would be possible to make a similar emotional appeal type commercial featuring some young girl who's life was ruined by ridiculous sex offender laws, but I know for sure everyone would blame her even if it was a mild act (think of how well the breast flashing example would go down with a religious conservative crowd) and they'd be guaranteed to further suspect the whole thing as a typical liberal attempt to treat the criminals better than the victims. "Letter of the law" judges are all the rage among these social conservatives so long as "letter of the law" is working in favor of prosecuting somebody.
Anywho, America might or might not improve on its own and there's little any activist groups can do to mold this particular issue. Even if you were to manage to get the majority of voters in a given region to wake up to what's going on, I imagine the fear of getting labeled a friend to child molesters would linger on in the hearts of legislators and continue to influence their voting decisions in much the same way that elected officials in regions with overwhelming support for cannabis law reform still associate a vote against drug control with the end of their good reputation and careers. Only thing anyone can do right now is complain publicly and frequently and hope that it catches on (which is fortunately a fairly realistic strategy with today's internet). The issue is so rigged with preconceived notions of unquestionable evil that it's reasonable to consider it the last frontier of social progress. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:20 am Post subject: |
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| What we need is to discover a new continent. We'll settle it (after some terse discussions with the Natives) and then build a new system of government that improves upon the last. A group of educated and enlightened individuals will spend months discussing the merits of different ideas and laws. Then, they'll build a new state -that will stand as a light for liberty and reason- on this legal foundation. It's simple, really. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Street Magic wrote: |
| Even if you were to manage to get the majority of voters in a given region to wake up to what's going on, I imagine the fear of getting labeled a friend to child molesters would linger on in the hearts of legislators and continue to influence their voting decisions in much the same way that elected officials in regions with overwhelming support for cannabis law reform still associate a vote against drug control with the end of their good reputation and careers. |
Well, then perhaps what is needed is to go directly to the heart of the issue. The pedophile boogeyman been used by sensationalist media, opportunist politicians, law enforcement, social workers, and all the rest of the components of the child abuse industry as a power grab and a pretext for the state to be able to insert itself into families.
For a thorough treatment of this, read The Political Use and Abuse of the �Pedophile� in Journal of Homosexuality, Volume 55, Issue 3 October 2008. The abstract:
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| The cognitive/affective construct designated by the term �pedophile� is delineated on the basis of how he is presented in the popular media. His salient characteristics are listed and then examined in the light of scientific and historical data. The �pedophile� is discovered to be a �social construct that floats in the thin air of fantasy.� Since the truth-value of the construct �pedophile� approaches zero, we are confronted with the question of why he continues to be such a central and emotionally fraught aspect of American culture. The answer to this question is found in his political usefulness. Specifically, the religious right uses him to further its agenda of sexual repression, and the political right uses him to dismantle the machinery of a free society. |
And in the definitive meta-analysis of child sex abuse published by the American Psychological Association in 1998, Rind et al also found that
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| Basic beliefs about CSA in the general population were not supported. |
A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples, Psychological Bulletin 124 (1), July 1998.
From one presentation of this work:
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| The results of our reviews clearly show that the assumptions of most mental health professionals, legislators, law enforcement personnel, media workers, and the lay public that sexual relations defined as CSA cause intense harm pervasively for both boys and girls are vastly exaggerated. This exaggeration has been part and parcel of a new kind of black and white thinking that disallows shades of gray to enter. This thinking, in turn, potentiates hysterical reactions, which have been all too common in America, starting in the 1980s. One striking example involves the Satanic sex abuse hoax in child day care centers that spread across the U.S. 15 years ago. |
Despite the science being there, it remains difficult to present the information in a palatable way to effect needed change. Nevertheless, it is absolutely inexcusable, with all the money spent on education, that policy- and lawmakers should be able to plead continued ignorance and hysteria on this issue. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| What we need is to discover a new continent. We'll settle it (after some terse discussions with the Natives) and then build a new system of government that improves upon the last. A group of educated and enlightened individuals will spend months discussing the merits of different ideas and laws. Then, they'll build a new state -that will stand as a light for liberty and reason- on this legal foundation. It's simple, really. |
And even if so, over time, it will degenerate as wealth accumulates unevenly in the hands of a few, who then go on to gain disproportionate influence because of it, and use that influence to further tip things in their favor. |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| What we need is to discover a new continent. We'll settle it (after some terse discussions with the Natives) and then build a new system of government that improves upon the last. A group of educated and enlightened individuals will spend months discussing the merits of different ideas and laws. Then, they'll build a new state -that will stand as a light for liberty and reason- on this legal foundation. It's simple, really. |
And even if so, over time, it will degenerate as wealth accumulates unevenly in the hands of a few, who then go on to gain disproportionate influence because of it, and use that influence to further tip things in their favor. |
One little bright spot here. Wealth doesn't accumulate in quite that way. Most of the Forbes 400 richest Americans now will not be on that list in 20 years. The only thing harder than getting on that list is staying there. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| What we need is to discover a new continent. We'll settle it (after some terse discussions with the Natives) and then build a new system of government that improves upon the last. A group of educated and enlightened individuals will spend months discussing the merits of different ideas and laws. Then, they'll build a new state -that will stand as a light for liberty and reason- on this legal foundation. It's simple, really. |
And even if so, over time, it will degenerate as wealth accumulates unevenly in the hands of a few, who then go on to gain disproportionate influence because of it, and use that influence to further tip things in their favor. |
Lather, rinse, repeat? Hey, next time let's not give corporations the same rights as humans. That was the first step down. Adam Smith wouldn't like that. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| What we need is to discover a new continent. We'll settle it (after some terse discussions with the Natives) and then build a new system of government that improves upon the last. A group of educated and enlightened individuals will spend months discussing the merits of different ideas and laws. Then, they'll build a new state -that will stand as a light for liberty and reason- on this legal foundation. It's simple, really. |
And even if so, over time, it will degenerate as wealth accumulates unevenly in the hands of a few, who then go on to gain disproportionate influence because of it, and use that influence to further tip things in their favor. |
Lather, rinse, repeat? Hey, next time let's not give corporations the same rights as humans. That was the first step down. Adam Smith wouldn't like that. |
I agree, let's not do that. And let's hope that a few decades later, when corporations use their wealth and influence to try to gain those rights again, that the politicians won't grant them. Where we'll get these politicians from, I don't know. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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| OneWayTraffic wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| What we need is to discover a new continent. We'll settle it (after some terse discussions with the Natives) and then build a new system of government that improves upon the last. A group of educated and enlightened individuals will spend months discussing the merits of different ideas and laws. Then, they'll build a new state -that will stand as a light for liberty and reason- on this legal foundation. It's simple, really. |
And even if so, over time, it will degenerate as wealth accumulates unevenly in the hands of a few, who then go on to gain disproportionate influence because of it, and use that influence to further tip things in their favor. |
One little bright spot here. Wealth doesn't accumulate in quite that way. Most of the Forbes 400 richest Americans now will not be on that list in 20 years. The only thing harder than getting on that list is staying there. |
Even if they're not on that list of 400 people after 20 years, most of them will still be fantastically wealthy and wield disproportionate influence in society. And that totally ignores the fact that one doesn't have to sit on that list for 20 years in order to use your wealth to have a substantial impact on our nation's politics, nor that others can pick up where they left off, corrupting our government little by little.
This is what happens, not in some hypothetical dream society, but in reality. You can observe it happening, every day, all over the world. |
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