Awesome interview with a wickedly cantankerous Gore Vidal.
Did NBC overplay its coverage of Tim Russert’s death?
False charges of possessing child porn ruin a man’s life. This is why I’m uncomfortable with making possession of child porn a crime, without requiring the state to prove intent.
Is there a new economic singularity on the horizon?
Fascinating article on the possible role of Section Eight housing in the rising crime rates of mid-sized cities.
The National Motorists Association blog has made some changes, including a new section with public forums. These guys are what AAA ought to be, essentially staking a pretty solid libertarian position on freedom of movement issues. So bookmark them. Or better yet, become a member.
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TheAgitator.com
I don’t care for any law that makes possession of something a crime. Yes, sadly I’m an ol’ fashion believer in the concept that there has to be an identifiable victim before you have a crime. Child porn is so broadly defined now that real children don’t even need to be involved. The government doesn’t even need to prove that the children in the photos are underage.
And I don’t subscribe to the idea that child porn is a gateway drug to becoming a child rapist any more than adult porn turns people into adult rapists.
Yes, yes, I know. Merely arguing about child porn laws makes me a degenerate child predator who would roast poor innocent preschoolers on a spit before consuming them with sautéed
mushrooms and a good Cabernet.
Amazing how, when the concept of protecting children is invoked, everyone’s high standards for justice melt away and the theme suddenly becomes “Let God sort ‘em out”.
In the porn article, the guy’s former employer says “We stand by our decision” to fire him. Why? This is always the case now, fromthe bogus police raid articles, to politicians to cases like this. Everybody always “stands by their decision” even in the face of being proven dead wrong.
We as a society have lost the integrity and quality of character to EVER say “We screwed up and will set this right.”
I agree with Chris in AL. It’s so rare to see someone, especially in government, say ‘We screwed up, we’re going to try to fix it.’ And it’s even more rare to see ‘I screwed up.’
That Section article is depressing. They miss out on so much…
Why are the gangs so powerful? Oh look - their funding is assured by the American Jihad Against Some Drugs.
How can people have time to go out and commit mindless assaults? Oh look - they don’t have to learn a living thanks to funding extracted at gunpoint from productive people.
Why can’t property owners give unpleasant tenants the boot? Oh look - the laws making a eviction a cumbersome, expensive process make the effort not worth the property-owner’s time. He’ll just collect the government check and not plow any money into maintenance; that’s easier.
Oh and I love the insanity of people who react to being assaulted by calling for stricter victim disarmament laws.
if the creators of that kiddie porn virus could target the virus it at doj officials, John Ashcroft, Scalia, etc… things would get VERY interesting! As it stands in this article, it’s nothing but tragic.
I have a friend who’s sitting in prison right now because his computer got spammed with child porn and he chose to do the right thing: turn the evidence over to the police so that they could find where it came from.
The police cleared him, but the DA went after him anyway. In the end, my friend broke under the financial and emotional strain and agreed to a plea bargain rather than face the DA’s threat of a federal trial.
2 years of harassment by the DA, tens of thousands of dollars in lawyer’s fees, loss of his job, break up of his relationship, and then 9 months in prison–all for trying to be a good citizen.
I agree that possession without intent shouldn’t be a crime, but didn’t this case basically work that way? Would a change in the law have made any difference? He still would have been fired, the D.I.A. did that as soon as they found the porn… then they called the cops. Also, once the DA figured out that the guy didn’t mean to have all the porn they dropped the charges. It would have been nice if they’d figured it out on their own, rather than making him hire a computer forensics expert, but that’s just the way things go.
Or, when you say intent, do you mean intent to distribute? Because that would be a different thing altogether.
Hey, that’s just the price “we” have to pay to keep the world safe for our children.
DA’s only drop charges when they feel like they can’t get a conviction (and not always even then). It has nothing to do with justice or doing the right thing.
Child porn prosecutions are easy because jurors are afraid to vote to acquit a child predator (or someone charged therewith). They also look good on the DA’s resume.
I have to agree with Matt Moore. If you read the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Kenney (available online here) they specifically “emphasize that the language of the statute requires a defendant in all cases to ‘knowingly purchase[] or possess[]‘ the proscribed materials.” The court also points out that it’s the prosecution’s burden to prove that no reasonable person would believe the child was actually of age.
It seems the failure here was with the community (especially his employer) for taking a guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude with respect to the charges. Sadly, I’m not sure how to deal with a problem like that short of allowing the innocent to turn around and sue their employers for wrongful termination (and I realize there are all sorts of problems with that solution).
It’s all well and good the DA eventually dropped, but the only reason we know he’s a victim was he was able to find (and somehow) pay for an expert to prove he was innocent. Most people don’t the resources or the ability to do that. Most people also collapse under the pressure of everyone turning against them and just take a plea to make it go away.
What exactly is the measure of ‘intent’ that should make possession of child pornography a crime? How is possession of child pornography more severe than any other victimless crime, whether someone ‘intends’ to do it or not?
The intent to possess child pornography goes along with a demand that is filled by those who then create child pornography. And that’s not a victimless crime.
I have to say, Gore Vidal pwn3d that interviewer….
The fact is that admission of anything is the first mistake in defending yourself against any accusation these days. Even if you know you’re at fault, the fear is that the punishment or financial award will be disproportionately out of balance with what you did, so you are justified in keeping your mouth shut. We’ve kind of grown into that state and I’m not sure there’s any simple way to back-peddle to the “good ol’ days”.
It’s all about damage control and has nothing to do with honesty or integrity. In fact, admission of error has become completely divorced from integrity. Admission of fault is considered stupid (or at least naive) much more so than honest.
But you’re right that government should have the least excuse for this kind of behavior.
So, someone wanting pedoporn but never seeking it or getting it, and someone accidentally or unknowingly getting pedoporn is guilty of the same crime as those who actively seek and receive it?
How..?
I think it works the same way with child porn as it does with pot.
Lyin’ Civilian: “But officer, that’s not mine. I don’t know how that got there! Really!”
Upright Police Officer: “Yeah, right. Tell it to the judge, you low life maggot.”
What exactly is the measure of ‘intent’ that should make possession of child pornography a crime?”
I’ve heard that some prosecutors draw the line at the presence of a directory structure or other sign of organization. The contents of the cache mean nothing. A pile of downloaded images in one place is suggestive, but it’s hard to prove the computer owner knows what’s in them. But if the suspect has downloaded images and sorted them into categories with titles like “blonde girl on couch” and “sweet red-haired boy” they’re going to send him to jail.
Highway, the possession of child pornography does not fit into a supply and demand model because it involves no economic transaction. The fact that someone possesses child pornography has no impact on the supply side unless that person has somehow encouraged or supported the supplier, which is far from guaranteed in a world where digital files can be replicated ad infinitum. It’s amazing that the same people who denounce file sharing of legal media on the basis that it cuts into the revenue of the producers and distributors can turn around and argue that people who download illegal pornography without paying are somehow contributing directly to the sustenance of the ‘child porn industry’.
Irrational nonsense that could only have come out of the US and UK.
I can’t wait to be a hilarious old man like Vidal
My daughter is an attorney who has defended child porn cases. She even appealed a Federal child porn case up to the 9th Circuit and won (United States v. McCoy). I don’t think intent is much of a hurdle for the prosecutors. Like drug cases, if they can put you in possession of the material, they will almost certainly win the case.
Gore Vidal is a old loon and an idiot who obviously still has “daddy” issues and probably doesn’t even know where he is. WFBuckley should have punched him in the mouth when he had the chance. I’d pay money to see McCain (a politician I dislike but nevertheless) beat the piss out of him.
That Vidal interview confirmed every bad thought I’ve had about him … thanks.
Vidal pwnd himself in teh squeekhole with that one. There is no way for him to recover from that. He’s going to be “the guy who claimed that McCain was never in a POW camp” from here out.
Asshat! First you should marnate them, then roast them, with a good rotissiere. And they go wonderfully with brussel sprouts with hollandaise sauce.
Marnate = Marinate.
Funny how McCain wants to make heroes out of those it Gitmo.
Perhaps Vidal is a crank, but there is some truth there…
Ok, regarding Tim Russert- too much info, NBC mourned him for too long?
Tim Russert was one of the most liked and respected of political journalists. By the common people, you and me. The only people who are complaining it seems are other journalists.
Why shouldn’t NBC mourn him for as long as they want? He was an extraordinqry person and mentor. I would much prefer the info about Tim Russert and the conversations that took place on MSNBC than the drivel the networks usually provide.
Isn’t it extraordinary to hear that too much time is spent in mourning a beloved? Only in America. Only by journalists who provide entertainment instead of unbiased news. Neil Postman in his book ‘Amusing Ourselves To Death’ would be astonished that there was one person in the news business that should be afforded this amount of time and information.
I’m with Tokin42. For those who didn’t get the Buckley reference: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8&feature=related
#26
McCain wants to make heroes out of those in Gitmo? Could you elaborate a bit cause I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
Does confinement in a prison camp with torture constitute heroism? Vidal may have been trying to make such a point…maybe….
If so, would torturing and imprisoning those in Gitmo make those folks heroes as well?
Re: Is there a new economic singularity on the horizon?
Almost certainly.
A working fusion reactor design within the next three to five years. Low cost energy.
Computers with the computing power of the human brain within ten years. Machines capable of mundane tasks that only be done by a human level intelligence.
Nanoscale molecular assembly technology possibly within twenty Years. Low cost materials and manufacturing.
I’ve never quite understood the rationality pedoporn laws either. If you possess or look at an image of a crime being committed you are guilty of a crime? How about the prosecutors, judges cops and jurors? They seen it too. Are they now criminals? After all they looked at it. We’ve all watched and many even possess images and videos of the attacks on 9/11. Are we all terrorists now because we viewed and illegal act? We’ve all seen vidoes of beatings, robberies and other crimes on youtube and such. Are we all criminals because of it?
It seems more like the intent is to make the public feel good about “doing something” and to provide more employment for those employed in the “justice” industries. If you wish to hunt down and prosecute those who actually committed the alleged illegal act then have at it I suppose but spending all the time and effort chasing people who viewed an image doesn’t make much sense. About as much sense as devoting officers to slink around the internet talking dirty to pervs and entrapping them. It just doesn’t seem a productive use of resources that we are constantly told are stretched thin and needing more tax money.
I think in the final analysis I’d rather have pervs sitting behind monitors getting their jerk on to perverted pictures rather than sacrifice Liberty, privacy and endangering countless innocent people in a witch hunt over pictures.
Oh and yes the russert coverage was way, way over the top.
pris - It was journalists who spent too much time on the man’s death, and journalists who complained about it. Why did we hear only the journalists and not the “common people?” Because they own the printing press.
” If you possess or look at an image of a crime being committed you are guilty of a crime? How about the prosecutors, judges cops and jurors? They seen it too. Are they now criminals? ”
In this case the viewing is the crime. I hope you can see the difference between between jacking off to a ten year old boy and watching a robbery on a security camera. Is a nurse that does a rape kit as guilty as the rapist? No. Also, why can’t you pederasts understand that viewing child porn and rape porn is morally equivalent to being there watching the act.
“Does confinement in a prison camp with torture constitute heroism?”
Yes, especially when you keep your mouth shut. I’m sure many at Gitmo are considered heroes by their supporters. They’ve probably earned some respect from their captors also just as I’m sure McCain earned respect from the VC.
You have to love the “Ready, Fire, Aim” mentality our society has come up with. Don’t wait to find out about guilt or innocense, just go ahead and destroy someone’s life with just an accusation.
This is why I’m uncomfortable with making possession of child porn a crime, without requiring the state to prove intent.
Wait, aren’t you the same guy who said Mary Ruwart was a nutjob for questioning child porn laws?
I have to say, Gore Vidal pwn3d that interviewer….
Vidal behaved like a graceless ass. I’m no fan of McCain, but the only acceptable defense I can imagine for Vidal is dementia.