Posted on 10/27/2006 9:20:40 AM PDT by truthandlife
To: Jim Webb Campaign Headquarters
Mr. Webb,
As you well know, the American people want to protect our children against child predators. Recently, Congressman Mark Foley resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006 as allegations surfaced that he had sent sexually explicit instant messages to male former Congressional pages, through AOL Instant Messenger. As a result of the disclosures, the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement opened investigations of the messages to find possible criminal charges. Mark Foley did the right thing and resigned. In February, DOJ launched Project Safe Childhood, an initiative to “combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children.” Some of your writings are very disturbing for a candidate hoping to represent the families of Virginians in the U.S. Senate and do not help the cause of combating the sexual exploitation crimes against children. Most Virginians and Americans would find passages such as those below shocking, especially coming from the pen of someone who seeks the privilege of serving in the United States Senate, one of the highest offices in the land:
– Lost Soldiers: “A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s penis in his mouth.”
Bantam Books, NY, 1st Edition, 2001, (hard cover), page 333. Quote is from para. 10,.Chap. 34.
We therefore call on you to immediately withdraw your candidacy from this race. We the undersigned ask that you put your personal ambitions aside, think of the greater good of the people of the United States and do the right thing — drop out of the U.S. Senate Race rather than persevering in one of self-interest that only serves to hurt the cause of combating the proliferation of sexual exploitation crimes against children.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
If you have you are a SICKO just like Webb is.
If people do it in that society, it is legitimate to write about.
If one is titillated, they are the sick ones.
I don't see sex of any kind in that scene. I see some sort of cultural strangeness. I learned something new. and I would like to know the reason- what it signifies.
It is pornography and garbage. If he is an author and wants to write about this stuff, it is a free country. If you want to run for the U.S. Senate and write about this stuff then, I think it is despicable.
If someone that was running for the local school board wrote this kind of garbage they wouldn't get one vote. Why should a person who writes this kind of garbage be elected to one of the highest offices in this nation?
As a father of 5 small children, if you wrote this kind of GARBAGE you wouldn't get my vote for dog catcher. You wouldn't be able to get near my children. A lot of people write about what they are attracted to.
About this stuff?
He is writing about a time and place in a fictional story. They do this there. It brings to life the characters.
He is making it real. That's legitimate. If it works, he is talented.
Depicting reality makes fiction that much more interesting. Some adults get bored with a G rating. Some adults can distinguish between material suitable for adults and not suitable for children.
I wrote above that this may very well work against Webb. Many people have the same knee jerk reaction as you display.
Others are offended when Liberals so defame- as in Mark Furman's case for one example- and equally when Republicans pull the same crap.
I don't want Webb to win, but this attack - even the laughable attack on him for using the N word in the mouth of a character- just upsets me. It's unfair. It's immature.
Signed... but I was only the 74th person to do so..
It is Pelosi who should step down
I think so. Better to spend the time exposing the man on USENET and in Yahoo and AOL chats and discussions
You know fully well when you run for public office everything you have written or done will be gone over with a fine toothed comb. People have a right to know what he has written fiction or not. It is then up to them to decide if they are offended by it enough to not want to vote for him. It should be left up to the people of Virginia if they want this man to represent them. It is not wrong. He wrote it, he will have to live with it.
Just being a realist here. Mr. Webb isn't quitting any more than Democrat Bill Clinton would quit once the DNA-stained dress thing came out.
The MSM is burying this story and Allen is going to come across as petty.
bttt
Where is the problem in bringing these novels to peoples attention????? People have the right to judge for themselves whether or not it reflects on his character. I am not from Virginia. I do however do a tremendous amount of reading. I picked up a couple of his novels once. They were too trashy for me. I would not want someone who writes that type of trash representing me in the Senate. How much other trash would he condone and vote for as a senator You are ok with his novels, I respect that. So I still maintain let the people take a look at them and decide if they will be a factor in their decision to vote for him and let the chips fall where they may.
No, I believe he is saying Webb writes trash which I happen to agree with.
Curious about this act between father and son, a quick search finds that in 1966 the Supreme Ct of Maine ruled on the issue.
"Such kisses are signs of affection, not sexual abuse, ruled the Maine Supreme Court in 1996 when it overturned a sexual assault conviction of an Afghan immigrant who was similarly photographed with his 18-month-old son. The court ruled that the father kissing his son's penis was a common cultural practice and not a sexual act."
"'Kissing a young son on every part of his body is considered a sign only of love and affection for the child,' the court said in its ruling. 'There is nothing sexual about this practice.'"
"'It shouldn't be looked at as a crime,' said Ludwig Adamec, a professor emeritus of Middle East history at the University of Arizona's Center for Near Eastern Studies, who testified as an expert in the Maine case."
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/06/man_bites_dog_b.html
If this is true, Webb has an American court's imprimatur that his depiction is not sexual, pedophilic, but a "legitimate" cultural practice.
As I said, some have a knee jerk reaction and some are curious for new knowledge and want to know the truth.
Any thoughts about 'impugning' Webb's character are in the mind of the beholder. You say you write about rape and God, among other things. Why should you object if your writings are broght to the attention of those you seek to represent in the U.S. Senate?
Some may characterize putting a penis in one's mouth as a "kiss," and some may not. My mileage varies from yours on this one I guess. Webb is a mental mess. JMO.
I'm surprised. I would have thought we would agree on this issue.
Webb may very well be a mental mess. A Reaganite war hero transformed into a Democrat certainly manifests something strange happened. That sort of transformation usually brings political beliefs that I see as dangerous. So although I have lost much enthusiasm for Allen, for the way he votes and to keep the Senate Republican, I very much want Webb to lose. The only Republican I would wish to lose is Chafee. He badly deserves to lose, hell, to be tarred and feathered just for denying Bolton a confirmation. Too bad there isn't a dirty play on him, or something to save Santorum.
To the issue at hand.
I was in the car and was listening to Mark Levin on these Webb writings. He said they were too sick and graphic for him to read. I had imagined that Webb had written something sado sexual with it obviously arising out of some personal experience. Maybe that would be damning or at least evidence of where he had been.
But later that evening I read the excerpts. Maybe it's me. I know that I know sex. I am certain I could recognize pedophilia. I read the sentence in question and I thought of neither. It's not sex. And pedophilia occurs in shadows, not as a greeting. My reaction was WOW but it seems to have been for reasons other then most. It was WOW, what a strange cultural habit.
I don't know if it's kissing, as described by the Maine court, or as Webb describes something more. But it remains something different then a sex act. Weird, you bet. Disgusting, you bet. Another nail against multiculturalism, you bet.
But is Webb guilty of anything for describing, in what he hopes is a realistic novel, an act that may be common to the locale of his writing? I think not.
There is a high rated TV show now in I believe it's second season, Criminal Minds. I've seen it several times. Whoever is the writer needs to imagine all sorts of depraved minds. If the writer or producer or even the actors ran for office would they be disqualified because their thought in fiction can run to the macabre? How about the viewers?
I imagine that when Webb heard about or personally witnessed this strange father/son act in some strange place it also jarred him. It is not surprising- or damning- that an author would use this to elicit from his reader the same reaction.
Webb's books are in all the libraries. Should they be banned? If it's sick to write them, is it sick to read them? I've never read anything by him, but I am now curious. Does that paint me?
He was also criticized for his characters use of N. It's just as nonsensical. That's how some people speak. Does it make him a racist? Should authors all write for children?
I've thought of the process that made me a Republican, first and foremost is that Democrats always insulted by intelligence.
This is that kind of attack. It insults my intelligence. Depicting this scene, which is not sexual and not pedophilic in my opinion, just a very very weird custom of some strange people, says nothing about Webb's psyche.
But it very well may work.
My opinion. Obviously different then yours, and almost every other Freeper.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.