In your statement:
"We do not know, nor is it anyone’s business, how old she was the first time she had sex with her boyfriend."
I agree, it's nobodies business, but, in today's age, if she was under 16, it's child molestation and if other kids lives are being ruined for the same thing, then so should theirs.
We cannot have two sets of laws, one for the rich and famous and another set for everyone else.
Good article BTW.
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspo...-
offenders.html
"I agree, it's nobodies business, but, in today's age, if she was under 16, it's child molestation and if other kids lives are being ruined for the same thing, then so should theirs."
Your position is immoral, and I pray you die a slow and painful death.
Glad to see other people who see John Walsh for the nutjob he truly is.
If you are rich or related to a celebrity or politician, you can get away with stuff like paging teens for sex like Foley or getting off for fondling a 14 year old girl like Mark Lunsford's son did, but for the rest of us, if you are a teenager, and you have sex with another teenager, you are a sex criminal in the eyes of the law. See my article at http://www.oncefallen.com/
Crimin...ingTeenSex.html or go to www.rickyslife.com to see what I mean.
By the way, the Abominable Walsh Act allows people as young as 14 to be placed on the National sex offender pillory.. er, registry.
My son Ricky at 16 had teen consensual sex with a young lady who misled him about her real age (she was only 13( but due to the three year age difference state law requires him to register as a violent, aggravated LIFE offender on a deferred. So he is NOT even legally CONVICTED!!! For life he has to register as high risk even tho therapist says "he is NO threat to children" why? Cause of the laws which do not separate teen sex from real violent horrific crimes. Please educate your teens and sign my petition help me save my son please. www.rickyslife.com or www.cfciowa.org www.ethicaltreatment.org www.derekoftexas.blogspot.com write me at my internet radio www.talkingpointsradio.com we must change laws for our sons as the government is throwing their young lives away Thanks Mary
this age of consent issue may be the worst rat's nest out there! what if a larger purpose could be served with the Palin daughter's situation -- like ending those "Sex offender" laws that distort the meanings of "abuse" and "consent" and (above all) "CHILD"?
Then, there would be a valid reason for the media sharks "doing their jobs" ...
Too bad they really have no interest in true "social reform" ... they could justify their existence!
Oh yeah, my son is in prison right now in Louisiana for online chat. That is considered a more dangerous crime than if he had slept with a girl age 15. Louisiana and the rest of the country must stop and stop SOON before all our kids end up on the dreaded "registry". It has sure ruined our lives! We need to put the registry back in the hands of the police and ONLY VIOLENT/Dangerous criminals should be on it, not consensual teen sex or consensual ANYTHING as far as that goes!
And don't forget the federal legislation the thankfully now late Jesse Helms got passed through Congress in the 90s making it illegal for U.S. citizens to have sex abroad with anyone under the age of 18, even though the age of sexual consent in the majority of U.S. states is 16.
John Walsh is irrationally obsessed in favor of such sex laws because of what happened to his son Adam several decades ago. I have also met parents who are just as irrationally obsessed in upholding drug prohibition due to their losing a child to an overdose.
As someone who was born to a 17-year-old mother and a 20-year-old father who had consensual relations, I am just as passionate about Walsh is over teenage sex, only from the opposite end. I take America's war on puberty on the part of sexual puritans and opportunist cops, prosecutors, and legislators very personally.
Although I can't locate the link, I read somewhere in an online article yesterday that Ms. Palin's boyfriend who is half responsible for her pregnancy is also still 17.
We really need folks who find this ludicrous to visit my talk radio show and express those views or even sahre our stories like www.rickyslife.com (petition there) and www.changingthelaw.com or www.bryanoftexas.blogspot.com Politicians tell me all the time the "people see teen sex as a sex crime and so they cannot look soft on any sex offender" if you care contact me and I will give you politicians numbers to call Gus blackwell, John Auffet, Lucky Lamons, Jim wilson all of Oklahoma or Kurt Swaim and Keith Kreiman of Iowa and tell them your outraged and horrified at these stories and demand change after all its your tax dollars being wasted on non violent offenders who had consensual matters. www.talkingpointsradio.com or www.cfciowa.org
In reply to SexOffederIssues: I am not sure that the father in the Palin case is rich and the only reason he is famous is because of the media feeding frenzy. And we don’t have any firm evidence that Palin was under 16. There are not two sets of laws there are 50, one for each state. You can never have one set of laws on these matters unless you nationalize sex and put its regulation into the hands of Congress -- and I can assure you that would mean a common, authoritarian viewpoint. The worst would survive among the laws.
Skip: I oppose slow and painful deaths in almost all cases.
Fallen One: What is happening, whether people can get rational enough for a minute to notice it, is that the anti-sex fanatics are slowly criminalizing human sexuality. I don’t mean violence, rape, etc. -- I mean consenting sex. They have redefined normal adolescent sexual behavior as “acting out” redefined the partners as “perpetrator” and “victim” when most of the time, in relations between teens, there is perp, no victim and the “acting out” is normal sex. They are arresting children for playing doctor -- something that is widespead and normal curiousity -- and claiming it proves that children are being molested and that the child is “acting out” an potential sex offender for the rest of his/her life. These people are warped and sick and imposing their warped view on the kids. They are the real child molestors -- no child is safe around them.
Comrade LF: What is bizarre about Walsh and his son is that there is no evidence his son was sexually attacked. His son was murdered and that is all that is known. No one knows who did it or the motivation but there was no evidence of molestation. So his obsession with “predators” is not warranted by his son’s tragic death even if that death unhinged the man and created a dangerous fanatic. The material I read describe the father in Palin case as 18.
All: One sign of hope. Just remember as the State continues to expand its definition of “sex offender” and more and more people are incarcerated for normal sexual behaviour consistent with their age that each arrest creates a multiple number of people pissed off at the laws. Each child incarcerated by these monstrous laaws has parents and siblings and friends and relatives. Each arrest increases the number of people educated about the evil nature of this system. At some point the numbers will be large enough to fight back and overturn the system.
One reason for the constantly barrage of messages about the issue is to keep people terrified so they won’t look at the actual results of these bad laws. So take heart. Each new victim, as horrible as it is, convinces a dozen people of the evil nature of what is happening. Let us pray we reach a tipping point soon before they finish that damn wall on the border and just pronounce us all sex offenders.
You said...
That is physically impossible as the daughter is pregnant now and sufficiently pregnant to have been in that condition when the baby was born in April. In other words, for Sullivan’s bullshit theory to have been accurate the girl would have to be pregnant with two infants simultaneously, conceived months apart.
How do you know? Have you examined her? Have you seen any evidence that she is pregnant?
I have money to bet that sometime before the election, there will be an announcement that poor poor Bristol has had a spontaneous miscarriage and lost the baby.
Problem solved.
Sarah: Can you provide any evidence to back up this conspiracy theory you present? Did you inspect Gov. Palin to determine she wasn't pregnant?
I see NO evidence to back up the claims you appear to be defending. Will you present some other than innuendo and theorizing.
On the other hand we clearly have two families acting as the girl is pregnant. That is the Palin family and the family of the young man. They have publicly said they know she is pregnant. While the Palin's might have a motive to lie -- I don't think so actually since they would be better off not admitting their daughter is preganant -- the other family clearly would be better off not seeing their 18 year old son get married. They have no motive to lie.
Then, of course, the girl obviously looks pregnant.
But remember I am rebutting the claims of loony Andrew about his wacko idea that the pregnancy was faked. And he offers absolutely no evidence of substance that it was. The burden of proof is on him to prove the claims not on Palin to disprove them.
I beieve this is a conspiracy theory and feel Bristol pregnancy should be private and a family matter but the media are loving to tear her up and her mother. Bottom line is teens have consensual sex everyday and some like my son ricky are being criminalized for life even though they are legally not even convicted. We must change laws and reform this registry back to its original purpose and intent. We are so concerned about Palins teen daughter well you know what folks lets focus on the real crux of ths isue like th eboys who lives are destroyed right now, thisminute cause politicians are throwing their lives away www.rickyslife.com or www.changingthelaw.com or www.bryanoftexas.blogspot.com or children www.ethicaltreatment.org These are the lives the media and public should be outraged over!!!!!!!!
I agree. I go further. The registries should be restricted to violent offenders and I mean real violence -- in California one is classified a violent offender for sex where no violence is involved. Second, those lists should only be available to police officials and not public property.
I completely agree the registry should be in police hands for most "violent" and this should NOT be determined by som elaw like the Adam Walsh Act but by a panel of experts who review each case etc. My son Ricky is listed as volent and aggravated cause of teen consensual sex at sixteen with a girl who misled him and truly was thirteen...a three year age difference makes him violent..can you imagine all the teens if they bust them high and dry at movies and high school? These laws must change as patty Wetterling says these cases are going to blow the registry into oblivion and politicians play the hysteria card and "protect your children" to control parents. Hell media won't even publish Rickys story cause if they did it expose the truth regarding these laws and registries and we cannot have that...www.rickyslife.com or www.cfciowa.org or www.bryanoftexas.blogspot.com Go to these links folks read the stories and educate yourselves its yur tax dollars being wasted on non dangerous non volent kids
Yes, Mary, the same situation exists in states like California. The public is told someone is a violent sex offender based on the age of the other person and not on the basis of any violence. Often these registries are intended to make things sound far worse than they are by confusing categories. Individuals are lumped into broad categories where non-violent cases such as your son's are confused with rapists. That causes the public to get scaed and allows politicians to stampede them at election time.
Need to correct the headline; you have "Palin" spelled "Paylin"
If she turned 16 last October, she'd still be 16 now.
You're incorrect about FL. In FL, the age of consent is 16, so long as the older party is 23 or younger. If the older party is 24, then the age of consent is 18.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statu...on%
2005#0794.05
What part of "Obey the F****** law" don't people on this post get? Yes, laws vary from State to State. And every court from time immemorial has made it plain that it is everyone's responsibility to know the law. So if something is illegal, whether teenage sex or using drugs, DON'T DO IT!
Cue the raging hormones argument. Maybe a good way to persuade society that 18-year olds are mature enough to drink might be for them to establish a track record of responsibility before then? Like not having sex until they legally can?
Yes, mein Furher! Talk about an authoritarian, anti-American viewpoint! Obey the law, just like the Founding Fathers did with King George.
Maybe the "obey the law" nutter knows all the laws he has to obey in this over-legislated society but if he does then he is the only frigging person in the world who does.
The Founders had ideas about how law was supposed to be limited and state power was supposed to be limited. As they argued laws that protect people from rights violations are legitimate and other laws are illigetimate. How destructive does a law have to before SteveD will say it should be repealed. Now, so far no one has said disobey the laws here -- though I do -- bad laws should be ignored. But it was not said here. What people have said is that the laws should be changed. But apparently the little obedient soldier, SteveD, seems to be saying that once a law is passed it must be obeyed for eternity. That is why he still sits at home every Sunday quietly obeying the Sabbath laws that were repealed.
Spitballoffurty: I am using a compendium of US sex laws but, of course, there are dozens of such laws in every state and they change constantly. I suggest that the clause you cite is only part of the code and other sections deal with other apsects. For instance, the section you cite, which I have read, says it is a felony for a person 24 years of ago or older to engage in sexual activity and says nothing about what happens to people below the age of 24. There is no crime listed except for those older than 24. Surely the code elsewhere deals with individuals below the age of 24. Is it a felony, a misdeameanor or simple totally legally?
Unfortunately legislation is written by politicians who often have no idea what they are doing. The net result is that legislation pertinent to an issue gets spread in many different and unrelated places.
In other sections it clearly says that someone who is 18 years of age (not 24) who has sex with someone under 12 years of age should be executed. So all the provisions are not in one spot. And while I accept the law can change I find it hard to believe that they are saying that individuals older than 12 and younger than 24 can have all the sex they want without any legal sanctions existing. And that is what would be implied here. So there has to be more somewhere in that massive, multivolume set of laws.
I live in Canada, so I don't know much about the laws in the States...what doesn't make sense to me is way all the states have differnt laws. It seems to me that there should be one law, throughout the counrty so that soemthing like this doesn't continue.
Agreed!
Kat: Actually I suspect that would be worse as the most hysterical and oppressive of the laws may well dominate. The point isn't having one law for the whole country as much as having rational laws that take reality into account and not some fundamentalist view of the evils of sexuality.
In the USA each state has its own state constitution as well as its own state laws. Then we also have our federal constitution which our government likes to trash on a daily basis as they are power hungry politicians. Yesterday, I attended a lecture by ABC 20/20 John Stousel (sp?) and he made two great points: 1() we need limited government and 2) for eveyr new law passed we should appeal two more...we daily are losing our rights, our freeoms and our children as we can no longer raise them as we see fit cause our government steps in and makes laws which take away even taht priviledge and tehn fail to educate our teens/youths on laws such as age of consent..A poster above posted how FL age of consent is 16 but cannot be with anyone over age 23 (by the way thanks poster didn't know this) yet ho wmany kids/youths are being taught this? To them if they know age of consent means they can legally have sex, not it still requires a certain age limit requirement? The laws in this country are inconsistent and damaging and if we do not make change for our citizens then big brother in a matter of tme will control us like robots www.rickyslife.com or www.cfciowa.org Please join my internet radio show tonight to meet Dereks mom he is serving forty years in prison for consensual matters
Sorry not to reply sooner to comments, but I had to go to the shoe repair place to pick up my jackboots. Goose-stepping is just murder on the heels, nicht wahr?
I am grateful to commenters for the moderate and articulate tone of their replies. I especially liked the tightly reasoned, well constructed demonstrations that expecting people to obey the law, something I thought was the minimum acceptable level of behavior in a civilized society, was equivalent to fascism. Thank you for educating me. I am sure that nobody on a liberal blog has ever before thought of equating any opposition with fascism, so kudos also for your originality.
Is it only sex and drugs, or is it permissible to disobey any law you find inconvenient?
A number of folks have mentioned double standards, that the rich get away with stuff the poor don't. I'd like to turn the argument around and ask why, if you think people shouldn't be punished for disobeying laws that merely impose a bit of personal inconvenience (waiting until you're of legal age to have sex, etc.), you feel people should be punished harshly for disobeying laws that might cost them millions of dollars.
If you want to argue that sex and drugs are purely private, I'll go along with that. As long as they ARE purely private. When you start asking the rest of us to pony up money for child support, rehab, etc., then it's not private any more.
SteveD: I hope the jackboots fit well -- wear them with my compliments.
Let us note that you distort what was said. No one said obeying laws per se is fascism. In fact, the only person to mention fascism was you. I said that the idea that one must obey laws simply because they are laws is authoritarian thinking. It places government power above individual rights and thus reverses the concepts on which this country was founded. Your view was obey laws regardless of their content, regardless of whether they are unconstitutional, regardless of whether they hurt people, etc. What you demanded was blind and total obedience to the law. That is authoritarianism and fascism is only form of authoritarianism.
And the blog post actually never advocated people break the law -- it only said the laws are bad laws, badly thought out and destructive to people. So your entire rant about blind obedience to the state, which the Communists would love as well, is misplaced as no one argued for disobeying laws.
As for rich or poor my view is the law should respect the rights of both. I happen to believe in limited government and government power is limited by the rights of the individual. You seem to think things are the opposite, that individual rights are limited by government power.
Your final comment is totally off-base. I do argue that consenting sex is a private matter and no one here has argued for “child support, rehab, etc.”. No one. I want the state OUT. What the state funds it controls and I oppose state control so I oppose state funding. And you won’t find this blog has ever argued otherwise.
To Steve D:
Not only is it correct and proper to disregard bad law, it is our DUTY as citizens to ignore laws bad and/or unconstitutional, per the founders of our country and the US Supreme Court, which has pointed out time and again that unconstitutional laws are null and void upon their faces and that it is our responsibility to disregard such laws.
Federal laws about such things as sex and drugs are only even marginally constitutional where the activity crosses state lines, the contortions of our current Supreme Court notwithstanding. Believe it or not , the court currently holds that fedgov can regulate something, be it pot or wheat,that you grow yourself for your own use because you are supposedly affecting interstate commerce by growing your own & not buying it from out of state--patently NOT what the founders had in mind when they wrote the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Who commits most sex crimes? Well, 95% of all new sex crimes are committed by those NOT on the registry. Family members and those known to the family commit 98% of all sex crimes. So much for stranger danger.
2nd question. Who is MORE LIKELY to committ a sex crime upon release from prison? Sex Offenders or NON-sex offenders?
For the answer, go here. www.cfcoklahoma.org and see the article, "Revisiting Department of Justice Recidivism Statistics and More Shocking Truths."
Linda: you are correct. One of the major myths that is spread is that "sex offenders" are more likely to reoffend than your average criminal -- they are not. The evidence I have seen in numerous places all showed a lower rate of recidivism.
What we also have to keep in mind is the different between real sex crimes and bogus sex crimes. A real sex crime involves the violation of the life, liberty or property of another person. A true crime is something that violates the rights of another, not merely something that violates the law. If it is merely the latter then any legisilature can turn everyone into sex criminals with a stroke of the pen by making any sexual thoughts illegal -- how they would enforce it is a different matter but technically they could make everyone a criminal.
Crimes are always and everywhere the violation of rights and sometimes the law is consistent with that and sometimes it isn't. When the law is inconsistent with that principle then the law is, itself a mechanism for violating rights.
Federal Judge Stops New State Sex Offender Law
A federal judge Wednesday put a stop to a new state sex offender law. The law would have reclassified sex offenders putting them in categories based on the crimes they committed.
Opponents say the new system is unfairly targeting non-dangerous offenders.
Read more:
www.cfcoklahoma.org
States will spend millions for passing the AWA which is "doing more harm than good."
Legislators need to consult the EXPERTS rather than pass knee jerk legislation that actually endangers children and the whole of society. I encourage everyone to write their law makers demanding they stop endangering children with knee jerk legislation and BRING IN THE EXPERTS.
"Maine is one of the few states that is going about this correctly. They are "LISTENING TO EXPERTS, rather than passing emotional knee jerk legislation which protects no one but endangers everyone. The vast majority of states have passed laws that "Do more harm than good."
Protecting children and society must be done "intelligently."
Here is a short "audio clip" referencing the issue in Maine.
"Effectiveness of Sex Offender Registries Explored By Legislators-LISTEN"
Listen here:
www.cfcoklahoma.org."
--
Once truth is acknowledged, you cannot deny it and remain true to yourself.
www.cfcoklahoma.org
why yall always hatin on the lone star state
That's easy. The state is populated by fundamentalist nutters. It gave America Gov. Bush. It was one of the last hold outs on sodomy laws. It made dildos illegal. It kills more people than any other US state. Are those good enough starters?
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