I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore

POSTED BY: JCKnife
UPDATED: Thursday, August 17, 2023 17:53
VIEWED: 13532
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SIMONWHO

Friday, May 13, 2005 11:49 AM

Hey, we tried vigilante justice against paedophiles over here in the UK. Didn't work out too well for us.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2293405.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3172766.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2903591.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2289010.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1887835.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1647927.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/872436.stm

But hey, if you want to go around torturing and killing people who may or may not be paedophiles, why should I get in your way with tedious things like "proof" or "respect for human life" or "due process".

The fact remains if a child is molested, odds on that it's a family member who is responsible for the molestation. If you really want to do something about paedophilia as a nationwide sickness, come up with ideas on how to solve that.

JCKNIFE

Friday, May 13, 2005 12:46 PM

Woah there! I NEVER mentioned vigilante justice (haven't read your links yet). I'm all for due process and a fair and speedy trial--I'm only talking about sentencing.

But I'm off-point; I originally said I didn't think the public stoning was feasible, just ideal.

My real question is which of the three organizations I described above would be most effective at protecting children.

And this IS about valuing life--specifically it's about valuing childrens' lives more dearly than others, and backing that up with consequences.

SIGNYM

Friday, May 13, 2005 1:27 PM

I have a problem with the "specifically it's about valuing children's lives more dearly" part.

Aren't all lives equal?? It seems we get into trouble philosophically/ intellectually/ morally/ rhetorically/ religiously ("What part about 'Thou shall not kill' don't you understand?") when we start to parse out people's relative "value". Terry Schiavo was worth more than Sun Hudson. The 9-11 victims were worth more than the 20,000 Afghans we killed in response. The unborn are sacred, but the 10,000 people who die lacking health insurance are suitable victims on the corporate altar.

I feel the same outrage, but Id sure like to hear how you can value kids more than anyone else.

SIMONWHO

Friday, May 13, 2005 2:26 PM

The thing is, my knee jerk reaction is castrate the bastards, lock them up for the rest of their lives and rejoice in the improvement to society. The trouble is that, like most knee jerk reactions, there's no logic behind it.

As I said earlier, if a child is being sexually abused, most of the time it is a direct family member. A lot of the time other family members know or suspect the abuse but do nothing. Often when children finally complain, they aren't believed or they are ostracized for dividing the family. The image of paedophile monsters roaming the countryside just isn't true. They're already in the family home. The question is what is to be done with them when they are caught.

Perhaps the answer is simply to say that child abuse carries a lifelong sentence with it. Both murder and rape can carry grey areas with them (something done in a moment of anger/madness, questions over consent, etc, etc) but there is no situation in which an adult should be having sex with a child, even if the child apparently consents. With certain "Romeo and Juliet" provisions in place, would people here feel that a lifelong sentence would be the right sentence for, say, a 35 year old having sex with a 14 year old girl?

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, May 13, 2005 7:34 PM

http://www.protect.org

For nearly 15-20 years, some folk have been pulling for a PAC (Politic Action Committee) based on child protection, because the only way to have a political impact on such things is to have both a razorpoint focus on the issue, like the NRA has on guns, and have sufficient political and financial clout to strongarm politicians.

That's what a PAC is, it's a threat, a financial, political, voting-bloc strongarm to MAKE politicians serve the will of the people, rather than themselves.

Anyhow, Protect is the real deal, and in part thanks to the efforts of Andrew Vachss, we finally made it a reality.

I do believe that's what you were asking about, and looking for.

-F

SIGNYM

Friday, May 13, 2005 7:47 PM

Looks like a good website. As far as I'm concerned, I have no problem with locking up offenders and throwing away the key! (Executing them is another matter.)

HKCAVALIER

Friday, May 13, 2005 9:47 PM

Thank you, Simonwho, for your voice of reason. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse myself, I am all too familiar with the popular prejudices about "child molesters roaming the streets." Thing is, the vast majority of child molesters were themselves interfered with in that way. Just as the great majority of people in prison have been severely physically abused in childhood. If a man is raped by one or both of his alchoholic parents when he is a child and then when faced with children of his own he repeats what had been done to him, is he a "monster" that needs to be locked away? I don't think so. I know that faced with the same choice--repeat the abuse done to me as a child or end a cycle that has been repeated in my family for at least two generations that I know of--I have been able to choose to end the cycle. My dad struggled against it, joined the priesthood so as not to have children (ironically, I imagine more than one Catholic priest has made the very same decission), but he couldn't escape the cycle.

So do we punish this man, who's whole life is a punishment? As Simonwho points out, y'all are talking about a pretty small minority of offenders. These rootless men who prey upon the children of others. Perhaps because they exist so far outside good society it's easier to imagine beating them to death or stoning them.

What I see, is a whole society driven for a million very personal and mysterious reasons to have revenge. The more we humanize the object of our revenge the less satisfying it ultimately is. So we choose to express our raw hatred against those members of society (or the world) whom we are most comfortable dehumanizing, whether it be "unforgiveable" child molesters in our own country or "inhuman" terrorists abroad. It's the same madness, the same violence. When will it end?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

SIGNYM

Friday, May 13, 2005 10:11 PM

I think there is more than one kind of abuser. The vast majority are basically normal people with a history of abuse, or with a history of "getting away with it". (Look up the story of the Pitcairn rapists now on trial.) Like wife-batterers, they are abusers of convenience... the risks of being caught or punished have to be low enough or they won't act. Given therapy and perhaps some medication (antidepressants) and the threat of punshiment they could stop abusing children. But then there are others who seem to have an ungovernable urge to rape, torture, or kill. Their wiring is awry. No amount of therapy seems to help. Some have even begged for chemical castration or execution. These are the people who seem to be committing the horrific crimes that have transfixed JC.

HK- since you seem to have some insight into this, do you think this is a realistic categorization?

DAIKATH

Friday, May 13, 2005 10:36 PM

I havent read the entire thread.

But here in my country (The Netherlands) there was a really new kind of conviction. A sex offender had a tracking chip implanted in him and was shown on a map in wich areas he isn't allowed to go.

If he does go in he will be arrested and be put in prison.

They said he done it five times before and I don't think putting him for the rest of his life in a institution will equal the suffering a victim will have to go through if finds one again.(they dont have rapes here in prison, much less anything damaging in an institution)

HARDWARE

Saturday, May 14, 2005 12:46 AM

If society serves any purpose it is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Minors, being held less accountable than adults, are a group considered incapable of protecting themselves. Adults are considered capable of protecting themselves and thus the burden of responsibility falls upon their shoulders.

No, I don't consider any life to be worth more than others. Yes, I do consider child molestation to be equivalent to murder. Are these contradictory positions? I don't think so.

The essence of evil isn't hate, it is lack of caring. All it took for Nazi Germany to committ the most evil acts in recent history is for the public to not care when the Gestapo came for their Jewish, homosexual, politically disident, retarded or mentally ill neighbors. A child molester doesn't care for the injury he or she inflicts on their victim. More over, studies have shown that children sexually assaulted are more likely to develop into child molesters. Thus, the lack of caring perpetrated in this generation echoes down generations.

A long, long time ago, in a sociology class far away I studied pedophiles. Their sexual orientation was children, not male or female. Their level of recidivism approached 100%. The only thing that stemmed the level of repeated behavior was castration, removing the drive to commmitt the crime, not fear of punishment for committing the crime.

On the other hand, greater erosions of personal freedom have been enacted "for the children" than for any other reason I can think of.

I am for due process and firm, effective consequences that get to the root of the problem the FIRST time.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

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