Liquor industry group, MADD part ways over MADD’s plans to push for mandatory ignition interlock devices for first-time DWI offenders. Good. That alliance was formed back in 2000, when the liquor industry agreed to support MADD’s push to lower the national minimum BAC to .08 in exchange for MADD also pushing to raise taxes on beer. It was a pretty shameless move. Glad to see the alliance has crumbled.
This is also good to see at a place like Slate: Morbidly bese people save the health care system money, despite scary headlines to the contrary of late.
I’m with the judge, here. I’m having hard time believing this kid was traumatized. Maybe if he sprained an ankle as he was being carried off on the shoulders of his friends.
Someone at the Bowie County Citizens Tribune has a naughty sense of humor.
So we can all agree that this was racist, right?
Here’s a new puppycide twist: U.S. Marshall shoots police K-9 during search.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 9:34 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under Alcohol, General Criminal Justice, Nanny State, Police Professionalism.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
TheAgitator.com
“A Boston, Massachusetts, police officer who sent a mass e-mail in which he referred to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as “banana-eating” and a “bumbling jungle monkey” has been placed on administrative leave and faces losing his job.”
hahahahahah….so you can beat people, taze people, murder people and take away people’s freedom if they criticize the government (like that blogger did with the undercover operation) but if you use a racial slur you can lose your exalted position as a cop? hahahahaha, damn, Americans have a misplaced sense of priorities!
As much as I hate puppycide, if the dog actually bit a US Marshall, then there’s no way anybody is going to give the Marshall crap for shooting him.
The commenters on the article about the kid who got it on with the teacher are right on point, though: reverse the genders and adult’s life would be ruined. Which isn’t an argument for punishing her, it’s an argument for changing the laws.
Most age on consent laws are in need of a major overhaul.
RE: The trainer story
FTA: Judge Jones described the student as a “willing participant” and “somewhat enthusiastic” about his relationship with the defendant.
somewhat enthusiastic? I’ve never met a 16 year old male that was just “somewhat enthusiastic” about sex. I’m betting he said “Hell Yeah!” at least a dozen times.
So we can all agree that this was racist, right?
I don’t know. The cop’s on paid leave. I’d call anybody you want a jungle monkey for a couple weeks paid vacation.
Morbidly (o)bese people save the health care system money
Based on them having a shorter lifespan; from this premise, abortions and infant deaths save the health care system lots of money as well because the “system” doesn’t have to take care of the elderly, who typically require more care and therefore expenses. Look at the cost of care for a morbidly obese 50 year old and a healthy 50 year old, the morbidly obese person’s healthcare will cost more (diabetes, heart disease, etc…). But you’re paying more for them while they’re alive, the “savings” only come after death.
K9 handlers are usually very close with their dog partners…I’m curious as to his/her immediate reaction to this. (aside from trying to save the dog)
I’m sure the handler felt similar emotions to what RB’s long list of homeowner-victims have felt, but as a fellow LEO, might not be as reticent to act upon them.
“I’m with the judge, here. I’m having hard time believing this kid was traumatized. Maybe if he sprained an ankle as he was being carried off on the shoulders of his friends.”
While I agree with your point, I wish you wouldn’t make light of the subject. If anything, it contributes to the idea that boys are expected to do this, and so it is okay or even encouraged, while girls are expected to be chaste and need to be protected. That kind of attitude is exactly why you get sentencing disparities (unjust ones in my opinion). I’d also argue it implies that since “boys will be boys”, there is rarely if ever any harm that can come from such relationships. I know some hold that opinion, but I respectfully disagree.
Sorry if I’m comming across as a nag, but kids will do that to you.
When I was 16 I was smarter than most of my teachers, but they were not as attractive as Jacoby so I didn’t have sex with any of them.
The commenters on the article about the kid who got it on with the teacher are right on point, though: reverse the genders and adult’s life would be ruined.
Right, because with the genders reversed it’s much more likely that it was coercive rape and not just a consensual sexual relationship.
as a lifelong fattie, I have noted differences between healthy and unhealthy fatties. Activity seems to be the difference; active people are healthier than inactive people at any age or weight. I am an active healthy fat 57 yr old, while around me are inactive, unhealthy lean younger people. There are lots of idle unhealthy fatties too, but there appears to me to be a stronger corelation between activity and health vs. weight and health. I think more fatties are idle than active, whereas more lean people are active than idle, so that tilts the equation, not the weight. Love to see a study done on that one.
re: Puppycide.
Even in this case, when the dog bit the Marshall, why did he have to shoot it? There is a K-9 handler there and, unless its on your throat or about to kill a kid, there is usually little reason to kill the dog. I mean, he is ALREADY been bit! I’ve been bitten by big dogs and, usually, they just hang on until the owner gets control of the situation.
Of course, if the Marshall was following usual LEO behavior, he would have just shot the dog for being there, K-9 or not
So, is Sharpton going to be making a trip to Boston now?
Isn’t killing a police dog a felony? Police dogs are afforded the same “respect” that police officers are, so is the US Marshall facing a count of felony murder? If not, why not? If a police dog bit me and I shot it, I guarantee that I would be sitting in prison.
I was fortunate to have a sexual experience with a 36 year old lady when I was 13 (I am now 39). This was not rape and in no way coerced, unwanted or traumatic. In fact much the opposite. It was more of an “Oh God! Thank you!” moment.
I can assure you that many people have sexual relations as teens with older persons, enjoy it and wouldn’t change it if they could. If anybody ever wanted to prosecute that kind and lovely woman I would absolutely refuse to participate and flat out deny she did anything.
Now, it’s important that this comment NOT be taken to condone or otherwise minimize ACTUAL rape through force, coercion or deception which are abhorrant crimes that must be punished severely.
However, I would state that I have known many females who had sex in their early teens with older persons just as wilingly and unregretfully as I did. However, if the relationship is exposed they are in my opinion much more able to play victim than a male would be as it is expected. They may even be coerced to do so or be branded as a slut or tramp by their own family and / or community.
Based on them having a shorter lifespan; from this premise, abortions and infant deaths save the health care system lots of money as well because the “system” doesn’t have to take care of the elderly, who typically require more care and therefore expenses. Look at the cost of care for a morbidly obese 50 year old and a healthy 50 year old, the morbidly obese person’s healthcare will cost more (diabetes, heart disease, etc…). But you’re paying more for them while they’re alive, the “savings” only come after death.
If the supporters of intrusive health care policies are going to make a purely economic argument in favor of regulations targeting obesity, it’s legitimate to make purely economic responses to that argument. Obese people cost less healthcare money over their total lifetime than do “healthy” people, so there’s a valid economic argument against such regulation. If you want to make arguments from some non-economic stance (quality of life, for the children, whatever), you can do that, but if you’re going to make an argument based on dollars then the books have to back you up.
With all that said, though, I’m not convinced even the purely economic argument works. Would annual healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP be higher if everyone were obese, or if everyone were skinny? The fact that skinny people have greater total lifetime costs doesn’t necessarily lead to the obvious conclusion. There’s also the question of longer lifetimes and greater lifetime economic productivity from the skinny people to take into account.
Where is P.E.T.A.?? They go after Michael Vick with passion…as they should have but where are they on what seems a national epidemic of police killing pets. Was it the K-9′s fault that he wasn’t properly controlled?? Where is the tazer?? It seems they tazer everything in sight so why have to shoot an animal when a non-lethal alternative would do?? If P.E.T.A. doesn’t respond soon to all of this then they aren’t really who they say they are…
A Virginia woman has been arrested for blogging about the members of a local drug task force.
The cop was allowed to take paid vacation for his email (posted on a web site) in which he threatened physical violence, and racial hate speech.
“In his e-mail, which was posted on a local Boston television station’s Web site, Barrett declared that if he had “been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC [oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray] deserving of his belligerent noncompliance.”"
All seems fair, and equal to the sheeple.
To quote Al Franken, MADD has become the modern equivalent
of the Chritan Temperance Movement.
THe Founder of MADD, Candy Lightner said “I wanted to get the drunkest driver off the roads not create an organization that was
anti-drinking.”
File under “Mission Creep.”
I think more fatties are idle than active, whereas more lean people are active than idle, so that tilts the equation, not the weight. Love to see a study done on that one.
While it hardly counts as a study, Penn & Teller did an episode of Bullshit! on the topic and referred to research showing that overweight and active is more healthy than skinny and sedentary.
Best part of the Bowie County Citizens Tribune article: the author is named “Woody”.
“The fact is, fat people aren’t breaking the bank at all—they’re saving us money. While it’s true that someone who’s grossly overweight might rack up bills for obesity-related ailments like diabetes and hypertension, those added costs would be more than offset by his shorter lifespan.”
This looks more like naive speculation than a statement based on numbers. A convincing argument using data has been made with respect to cigarettes, but I seriously doubt this is true when it comes to obesity. I’d like to see a serious attempt at analysis that relies on hard data.
These two statements really get inside the insidious mind of police officers like Barrett. He sees himself as an upholder of our freedoms, yet at the same time he has no problem stomping on someone else’s freedoms simply because they’re “non-compliant” in their own home.
He doesn’t know what freedom is, but maybe a couple weeks of paid vacation will give him time to sort it all out…
“I was fortunate to have a sexual experience with a 36 year old lady when I was 13 (I am now 39). ”
I’m glad you don’t think it was tramatic for you, and I don’t want to rehash the same old age/maturity arguments, but I simply do not believe that should be legal. There is absolutely no valid comparison between the maturity and judgement skills of a 13 year old and a 30+ year old.
RE: Officer Barrett
I just read an article, thanks to instapundit, that points out Barrett is an officer in the nat’l guard as well as a cop. The guard has suspended him and will most likely end up punishing him much more harshly than the police dept. At a minimum his military career is over and he may even face jail time and a hefty fine, something the police dept isn’t able to do. Just thought I’d point that out.
There is absolutely no valid comparison between the maturity and judgement skills of a 13 year old and a 30+ year old.
On average? No. But you don’t know anything about these individuals and their individual capacity for judgement.
And it worked out for them. Isn’t that a mark in favor of their judgement, and against yours?
I’m going to have to agree with Chance here. The problem with consent laws for older teens isn’t the age difference it’s the power difference. A teacher/student relationship isn’t equal. I guess maybe given that she was just a trainer for the school? But either way, I think that it’s ok to be upset about bad choices this woman made while still thinking that the consent laws are too draconian in general.
Actually Mojotron, I’d argue that abortions and infant deaths are about neutral. Obese folks save money by being productive and paying taxes throughout their lives. During this period, they are supporting those aging healthy folks. Then when they die prematurely, they don’t get to live long enough to collect themselves.
At least that’s how I’d interpret it.
From the Teacher-Sex article:
If you have 16 and 17-year-olds who don’t have enough sense to not fuck their teachers, it’s as much the fault of the parent as it is the teacher.
And it worked out for them. Isn’t that a mark in favor of their judgement, and against yours?
Look, I think we need to start with a couple assumptions here (which can be debated but are generally accepted in our society). The first is that individuals under a certain age are not mature enough to make all important decisions for themselves. The second is that, because they cannot make all important decisions for themselves, we pass laws intended to protect them from bad decisions they might otherwise make.
Given those assumptions, the issue with age-of-consent laws isn’t whether ANYBODY is capable of engaging in proscribed behaviors without harming themselves. The issue is one of balancing. How many underaged individuals will be allow to hurt themselves before criminalizing certain behaviors?
ktc2 was able to have a healthy relationship, as a 13-year-old, with a 36-year-old. Presumably others have not. The question then becomes: are enough 13-year-olds harmed by sexual activity with adults that we should prevent other 13-year-olds such as ktc2 from safely engaging in the same activity? Personally, my inclination is that enough 13-year-olds have been fucked up by unhealthy relationships with adults that it justifies forcing others to wait a few years before, um, “coming of age” with adults. Of course, I don’t have any hard statistics on the issue and am open to evidence to the contrary. However, the fact that some underage individuals can engage in certain activities without getting hurt is not, in my opinion, dispositive of the issue. It’s an issue that requires us to look at the big picture and then draw a conclusion as to what’s a prudent course of action.
This just out: more corruption in Detroit.
Apparently ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was having a relationship with the woman who was brought in by Kroll to monitor the Detroit PD. The woman is now a partner at Venable, a major law firm.
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/07/kwame_kilpatrick_text_scandal.php
Kilpatrick is out. But this woman should be investigated by the Bar…I will, in fact, write a complaint.
Here at The Agitator, sure. Over at Patternico’s cop fellating website, I’m not so sure.
“I’m with the judge, here. I’m having hard time believing this kid was traumatized. Maybe if he sprained an ankle as he was being carried off on the shoulders of his friends.”
Good to see my city of residence — Tustin, CA — has made the big time. Tustin — hometown of DeShaun Foster, Mark Grace, Shawn Green, Phil Hughes and … the BJ lady. I’m so proud.
The comments at OC Weekly do raise the interesting issue of the disparate gap in sentencing between males and females guilty of the same crime. That being said, the judge seems to have gotten it right. Now, if it had only been administered by a private system of law … well, that’s asking too much of course.
“On average? No. But you don’t know anything about these individuals and their individual capacity for judgement.And it worked out for them. Isn’t that a mark in favor of their judgement, and against yours?”
Could be you’re right. My judgement may well be inferior to theirs. Could be I’m just jealous. However, it could also be that they were outliers, and don’t represent the majority of similiar cases.
Let me ask this. If an average child (and yes, 13 is still a child) can be assumed to have the maturity and judgement to enter into a sexual relationship with an adult, then is it fair to suggest that a child should also have the right to independantly enter into a business contract? Join the military? Be tried as an adult (which happens too often IMO)? Etcetera. Are 12, 13, 14 year olds just little adults? I don’t think the evidence says that, and on the contrary shows quite the opposite.
“Are 12, 13, 14 year olds just little adults?”
Not presently, but they might be if they were educated instead of indoctrinated. Just sayin’.
@ #1 JS
“hahahahahah….so you can beat people, taze people, murder people and take away people’s freedom if they criticize the government (like that blogger did with the undercover operation) but if you use a racial slur you can lose your exalted position as a cop? hahahahaha, damn, Americans have a misplaced sense of priorities!”
Yes we do. But let’s be clear here. A cop can make all the racial slurs he wants and that is perfectly fine. Just don’t do it in an email or on camera.
I laughed. Admit it, you’ve been jogging around her block ever since this story came out.
I actually have no problem with treating female-on-underaged-male cases differently than male-on-underaged-female cases differently because I think the sexes are different. The problem I have is this recognition, at least in a legal and public policy sense, only goes in one direction. No one cries sexism over the fact that there are 4 times as many men behind bars as women because everyone assumes men are naturally more violent than women, and for the most part they’re right (of course there will be individual exceptions to the general rule). However, you start talking about pay rates, and suddenly the idea that men and women have natural differences that account for the gap will get you labeled a sexist, chauvenistic pig. It’s accepted without criticism that men are more violent than women, why is it so offensive to believe that men might also “naturally” posses personality traits (ambition, risk-taking, competitiveness) that translate into higher pay? It seems that when it’s differences that would account for the advantages that males enjoy, we hear, “oh those differences are just artifically created through socialization.” When it’s differences that account for the disadvatages that men are faced with, I don’t hear anyone arguing that it’s simply a matter of socialization.
Chance, there is no such thing as an “average child’. There are just children, each individual and unique. Many of them are not competent to handle the responsibilities of adulthood. Many of them, in contrast, are much more ready than we give them credit for. Trying to govern to the average is the source of vast injustice throughout the political system.
The problem with once-size-fits-all rules is that they don’t actually fits all. The fact that a sizable proportion of any given group cannot handle a certain liberty is no excuse for denying that liberty to the ones who are competent to handle it- this is true whether we’re speaking of voting, drinking, drug use, driving a car, flying a plane, or sex with your hot teacher.
Chris in AL Absolutely! I should have thought to say that. It’s only a disgraceful isolated incident of racism if it makes the evening news. I knew some cops in Houston that dressed in blackface for a party. Nothing wrong with that, no repercussions, not even a disapproval from a superior, all because it never made the news.
the Bowie story is just too much.
Hooker was “…reared in Dallas” and her husband’s name is B.J.
-
priceless
Regardless of whether the minor who had sex with the trainer views himself as a victim, that isn’t the only consideration, is it? This isn’t the equivalent of an 18 year old senior having sex with a 15 year old sophomore. She was an employee of the school district. What if it were a teacher? I think one can disagree with some of the senseless statutory rape prosecutions Radley has written about over the years while also believing that the coercive nature of the relationship justifies a prohibition on teachers and other school employees having sex with their students.
“I’m with the judge, here. I’m having hard time believing this kid was traumatized.”
Jesus, Radley, someone called you on lack of principles yesterday. I’m increasingly of the opinion that even smart libertarians need to learn to think in principle. In other words, I’ve long thought Objectivists were overreacting about libertarianism, but it’s just possible that they’re not.
In this case, the “crime” was not a crime, the act was consensual, the principals were indeed old enough to know what was going on, and the only way the judge would be right would have been to throw the whole thing OUT.
Come on!
Sorry MDGuy, I have to disagree with you. Whatever the differences between men and women, in my opinion laws have to apply to all people equally, regardless of race, religion, gender, and/or sexual orientation. Not to mention that whatever the aggregate differences between men and women, one should still treat individual men and women as, well, individuals.
“Admit it, you’ve been jogging around her block ever since this story came out.”
Shit man, I’m in my 40s. That chick goes for the young meat. She’d put me in the grave for sure.
Consenting sexual activity is a victimless crime. I’m sorry, but this teenage boy is not a victim in any way, nor is the teacher. I’ll go further and say that any teenage girl who willingly has sex with a male 20 years old or more isn’t a victim either. If the sex is in payment for grades or something like that, then it isn’t consensual and is criminal.
Most of the commenters on the teacher-sex link are assholes. Most just wanted to punish her the same as she were a man. None of them said what is obvious: no coercion, therefore no victim, therefore no crime. I don’t understand who so many of us can use this logic to dispute the morality of the drug war and not apply it to the hardly discussed war on sex.
To answer your question Chance, 13, 14, and 15 year olds are probably not sexually active amongst themselves for the most part, althugh I’m sure there are some exceptions. Maybe we could draw the line there. But at 16, kids are starting to get laid. If we aren’t going the throw them in jail for having sex with each other, than I don’t see how we can argue that they should go to jail for have willing sexual relationships with people who are in their 20′s. It seems so draconian and backwards to perpetuate this modern day moral inquisition.
Ah but how do you apply them “equally”? Let’s take collegiate sports for instance. Title IX mandates that schools have to have a 1:1 ratio – if you have 1 male athlete, you need to have 1 female athelete. Equality right? Wrong: men pursue athletics in far greater numbers than women (From Wikipedia, which cites the government site, Office of Postsecondary Education): “Although there are more teams available to women than to men, males still pursue athletic opportunities in far greater numbers. In the 2007 reporting year, the male total was 289,800 versus the female total of 196,364.” (I’d posit that it’s for about the same reasons men outnumber women in prison – they are naturally more aggressive/competitive) so the net effect is that if a women wants to play sports, there is little to no barrier to entry; if there aren’t enough women in the athletics program to get the magical 1:1 “equality” ratio, many men wishing to join a team are simply S.O.L.
I’d also agree with you about treating people as individuals: in the personal trainer sex scandal referenced above, the Judge looked at the individual facts of the case, decided this individual minor wasn’t harmed by the sexual activity, and didn’t go through with a harsh punishment. Now, if judges would just start applying the same individual scrutiny to male-on-underaged-female cases instead of proceeding directly to, she’s underaged, therefore he coerced her and she couldn’t have possibly been a consenting party.
#31 ClubMedSux @ July 30th, 2009 at 11:57 am : “Look, I think we need to start with a couple assumptions here (which can be debated but are generally accepted in our society). The first is that individuals under a certain age are not mature enough to make all important decisions for themselves.”
But that won’t prevent The State from prosecuting individuals as adults, even if said individuals are under the age where The State considers them not mature enough to make all important decisions for themselves.
You missed “in print”. (As Mark Furman found out a decade or so ago.)
;)
John M is more on the money. Although I don’t think this was criminal, it did violate some ethics. I support a school districts decision to fire her or any other teacher for violating rules of ethics, just like an executive could be fired for sleeping with someone in middle management assuming there are company rules against it. Violating a code of ethics is not always the same as committing crime.
#47 | MDGuy — “Now, if judges would just start applying the same individual scrutiny to male-on-underaged-female cases instead of proceeding directly to, she’s underaged, therefore he coerced her and she couldn’t have possibly been a consenting party.”
Aren’t statutory rape laws designed to treat the State as the victim? In other words, it doesn’t matter if the underage girl demonstrates her consent, she is not the real victim — the State is.
The State treats the underage girl as damaged goods — the statutory rapist has damaged the State’s property. Consent has nothing to do with it, right?
If the sex is in payment for grades or something like that, then it isn’t consensual and is criminal.
Certainly it’s consensual. It’s immoral in that it’s a conspiracy to falsify a grade, but quid pro quo does not equal nonconsent. By your logic, all prostitution, or even more generally all paid or bartered labor, would be nonconsensual.
@ Gabriel,
Maybe “coerced” is more accurate. You might consent to sex to avoid failing or getting fired, but the consent coerced. Is that better?
Consent has nothing to do with it, right?
Technically, from a legal standpoint, the idea is that the underage “victim” is incapable of consenting to such an act. As such, it is legally considered non-consensual because any supposed consent offered by the “victim” isn’t legally recognized.
Radley,
The cop certainly sounds like a racist, but just as with Gates, making it about race misses the point. It’s about police thuggery.
Read his email: “Your defense of Gates while he is on the phone while being confronted with a police officer is assuming he has rights [HEAVEN FORBID!] when considered a suspect. He is a suspect and will always be a suspect. His first priority of effort should be to get off the phone and comply with police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.”
No, it’s because females are considered by society to be too feeble minded to be able to make up their own minds about sex.
If a 15 year old boy pulls a gun and starts shooting up a bunch of people in his math class, everyone demands that he be tried as an adult.
If a 15 year old female merely has sex, she’s declared an instant victim bearing zero responsibility because she’s too young (and apparently brain dead) to have even played a meaningful part in the decision (even though many of her female friends have similarly given consent but didn’t make the mistake of getting caught, instantly making their sex lives into a state sponsored public debate).
The fact is, the kid enjoyed it and if he had been a she, she would probably have enjoyed it as well. An age difference doesn’t equate to force, at least not when the so-called victim is sixteen. Force is when you have to do something you don’t want to do. It’s not force when you actively and enthusiastically engage in something you know you’re not supposed to do.
Well, 25 year olds used to marry 14 year olds.
Even having a sexually explicit *chat* with a police officer
POSING as a 14 year old girl can get you hard time in these
modern PC times.
How things change!
Mattocracy: Maybe “coerced” is more accurate. You might consent to sex to avoid failing or getting fired, but the consent coerced. Is that better?
Still don’t think I entirely agree. If I’m saying that I will fail you despite your good test scores if you don’t sleep with me, then that’s a massive abuse of power- coercion and several other kinds of bad as well. However, if you’re failing all on your own, then me offering you a way out of the hole that you dug yourself is not coercive; if you decline, you’re no worse off than you would have been otherwise. (It’s bad in other ways {fraud}, but not coercion.)
I wonder if Officer Crowley is going to come out of this some kind of celebrity. Isn’t this precisely the kind of event that gets you a spot on the Fox News payroll? Has O’Reilly booked him yet?
Lordy.
It’s much too late to read all the comments, but I have to confess: I live in Bowie County. We like to make fun of Cass County, to our south, as being “hicks”, but the reality is that there are two “Bowie Counties”: Texarkana, and the rest.
The Citizens Tribune covers “the rest”.
Cynical in CA | July 30th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
…if it had only been administered by a private system of law … well, that’s asking too much of course.
OK, I am pretty late to the party, so if you don’t see this I will not blame you for a lack of response. But, what the hell is a private system of law? Sounds like a home owners association to me.
To me a private system of law is when your neighbor has a loud party and didn’t invite you. That entitles you to go pummel him into a slimy steaming gelatinous lump of lifeless goo.
Well, I will leave it at this. If you believe a 13 year old has sufficient cognitive skills and judgement to give consent to sex with an adult, and therefore a sexual relationship with a child is no big deal to you, don’t let me catch you around my kids in any setting, in any circumstances. If we’re in a car accident and you’re the EMS, that’s okay, I’ll do the CPR myself. :|
“Well, 25 year olds used to marry 14 year olds. Even having a sexually explicit *chat* with a police officer POSING as a 14 year old girl can get you hard time in these modern PC times. How things change!”
A few years back I was present in a chat site (drugsense.org) that is involved in drug law reform. An unknown user came on and immediately announced to all and sundry that ‘she’ was a ‘fourteen year old girl with blond hair and blue eyes”.
Needless to say, this occurred at a site for serious adults attempting to change the drug laws to meet and confer nationwide on legal and legislative tactics and comment on the usual kinds of articles that show up here. We welcome input from all sources, even from the most benighted prohibs, but this smelled right off the bat. No one said anything to ‘her’.
After a few minutes of being ignored, ‘she’ repeated her original posting…and was met with more silence. “She’ left shortly afterward and never returned. A couple months later, the largest national pedophile sting operation (using a female celebrity as bait) had been announced, and a few pederasts had been caught in the net.
Needless to say, I had had my suspicions from the get-go, as that kind of baiting attempt seemed awfully amateurish, so I and others on the board had thought it had to be some lazy brain-dead cop thinking he could snag a few druggie pervs there, as in the minds of most police anyone seeking to change the drug laws is a moral reprobate and must, perforce, be a child molester, as well.
While, of course, their motives are as pure as the driven snow…yet they had to resort to entrapment tactics to facilitate those motives. And they wonder at their increasing alienation from their paymasters?
#62 | old — “… what the hell is a private system of law?”
Thanks for asking, old. This is a good place to start.
http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm
Hasnas has many other articles discussing common law history and philosophy. You should know by now that I believe in anarchism, with anarchy being defined as the vesting of political power in the individual.
I understand you are late to the party, but there’s still plenty of beer in the fridge. Help yourself.
//You should know by now that I believe in anarchism, with anarchy being defined as the vesting of political power in the individual.//
In the absence of an organized system of law, those who are most willing and able to use force to get their way will rule over those who are not. Whether or not you think that’s what should happen, that’s what will happen. Guaranteed.
Private forms of arbitration may have their uses, but societal stability requires that there be a defined ultimate arbitrating authority for disputes between individuals or small groups. If such an authority declares that you owe me $100, you refuse to pay it, and I endeavor to take it by force, other members of the society may join me in my efforts to enforce the judgment. Conversely, if the authority declares that I owe you nothing but I try to take the $100 anyway, other members of the society would join you in resisting my attempted robbery. Provided that we are both governed by the same well-respected arbitrator, neither of us would likely want to go against the judgment.
Suppose, however, that you and I had selected different arbitrators, each of which ruled in our favor. Should the public join me in enforcing my claim, or should it join you in resisting it?
Note that it may not be necessary for the public arbitrator to have much in the way of explicit enforcement power. Merely publicizing his judgment would in many cases be sufficient. Note further that an arbitrator without much enforcement power would have a strong incentive to be reasonable in his judgments. If he got a reputation as being unreasonable, the public may well decide to ignore his judgments.
I believe that what is needed for freedom is not anarchy (which would be very bad), but a system in which government depends upon public acceptance for its continued power.
The only thing I take issue with about the story of the trainer and the 16 year old having sex is that if the trainer were a male and the 16 year old a female, I suspect the sentencing would have been very different. I’m not saying that should change the sentencing in this case, but something needs to be fixed in other cases.
#67 | supercat
“In the absence of an organized system of law, those who are most willing and able to use force to get their way will rule over those who are not. Whether or not you think that’s what should happen, that’s what will happen. Guaranteed.”
Not so sure, supercat. The context of my post was common law, are you asserting that common law is not organized? Even granting your premise, if each individual were empowered and responsible for his own self-defense, it would be immensely difficult for any one individual to gain an advantage by force in that situation.
“Societal stability requires that there be a defined ultimate arbitrating authority for disputes between individuals or small groups.”
Your very well-developed examples appear to prove my argument as easily as yours. Such arbitrating authorities would exist in anarchy, the difference being mutual consent rather than arbitrary force. Anarchy is not chaos, but order established by consent. Statism is not order, but chaos established by force.
“I believe that what is needed for freedom is not anarchy (which would be very bad), but a system in which government depends upon public acceptance for its continued power.”
Your failure to comprehend anarchy aside, your argument assumes a public that is informed (with truth), empowered (more than the government itself) and capable of rational thought. Funny thing is, my argument depends on the same! I guess we’re at a standoff. I can live with that. Goodness knows I wasn’t expecting a resolution to the paradox of limited government on July 31st, 2009.
Cynical in CA | July 31st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
…Hasnas has many other articles discussing common law history and philosophy. You should know by now that I believe in anarchism, with anarchy being defined as the vesting of political power in the individual.
Interesting article. My worst fear is winding up in a home owners association, or some sort of binding arbitration agreement.
[...] A post titled “Morning Links”: Morning Links [...]