Posted on 08/09/2002 8:59:43 AM PDT by NYer
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Ten Americans and six foreigners were charged Friday with taking sexually explicit photographs of their own children or children in their care and sending them over the Internet to an international child pornography ring, the U.S. Customs Service said.
Forty-five children, including 37 in the United States, were victims and have been removed from the care of those indicted, Customs officials said. Most of them are in the custody of another parent or relative.
The defendants include nine people from seven states who were indicted in Fresno, Calif., along with six residents of Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The indictment alleges that members of the ring, referring to themselves as ``the club,'' traded messages across the Internet requesting photographs of specific sexual poses. One man asked for an audiotape so he could hear a child crying while being spanked, the indictment said, and another posed naked with an underage girl.
The Customs Service coordinated the U.S. investigation that began last November with a request for help from the Danish National Police, who were acting on a tip about an international child pornography ring. ``I congratulate the investigators whose ingenuity and perseverance brought these people to justice,'' Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said in a statement.
The Americans charged include: Lloyd Alan Emmerson of Fresno County, Calif.; Paul Whitmore and Brooke Rowland, San Diego County, Calif.; Tracy Reynolds, Texas; Leslie Peter Bowcut, Idaho; Michael David Harland, Florida; Harry Eldon Tschernetzki, Washington state; John Zill, South Carolina; Craig Davidson, Kansas. The identity of the tenth American was not immediately available.
The foreigners were identified as Eggert Jensen and Bente Jensen of Denmark; Jean-Michael Frances Cattin, Marcel Egli and Peter Althaus of Switzerland; and Dirk-Jan Prins of the Netherlands.
On the Net: Customs Service: http://www.customs.ustreas.gov
AP-ES-08-09-02 1114EDT
I was happy to play along but for some reason you don't like what you started. I'm not even sure why I'm arguing with you because on the surface I really don't want to split hairs with you on the golden rule because it does bring us one step closer to that which truly drives morality.
Funny how the libertines blush when they find out their friends are doing the very thing they shamlessly defend. :) TP, a nice 'evolution' from your Godless thread.
Thanks, but I don't see reality as being spiritual. We have a mind, & using common sense, we came up with the concept of the golden rule. No big deal.
Must of happened thousands of years before the much more sophisticated concept of only one true god.
I'm trying to see how we're disagreeing here. The only thing I can come up with is that you're criticizing me because I agree with you except that I qualify my beliefe by bringing God into the picture.
No criticism at all. - You believe your way, let me believe mine. - I said that in the last post.
And you then assert that I must move my conversation to that "other" forum because it doesn't belong here ignoring the fact that you, not I, turned this into a religious or spiritual discussion.
Again, not true. You started with the sermon, not me. I noted it was inappropriate. - It was. See my last post.
I was happy to play along but for some reason you don't like what you started.
Dream on. - I'm enjoying this exchange. Initialy, you asked a simple question, which I answered. Now you can't seem to cope with the truth of my answer. - Tough on you, not on me.
I'm not even sure why I'm arguing with you because on the surface I really don't want to split hairs with you on the golden rule because it does bring us one step closer to that which truly drives morality.
Indeed, - then why did you start splitting hairs to begin with? - Your own religion reveres the golden rule, does it not?
Like I said. Without God, it's just pressing flesh. No different than a massage or back rub. It just feels a little better.
Tough..Some of us think we are not the sick ones...
You're right - my mistake for splitting hairs. I should have been more careful and it's my fault we went down this path.
The Golden Rule is very much an integral part of our faith and is summed up like so: Some religious types of Jesus' age approached him and asked him what the greatest commandment was. He responded by saying "Love the Lord your God with all of your being" (my paraphrase). He then continued and said "the second greatest is like the first and it says love your neighbor as yourself."
The Golden Rule (the second greatest commandment) is important but is driven by the greatest. In the Christian faith Jesus places relationship to God primary to our relationship to man but clearly asserts our relationship to man in context to our relationship to God. The point? After a thorough study of the New Testament grace "loving your neighbor" is a by-product of "love your God." It is an act of loving obedience to a loving God.
That is what my "religion" teaches - since you asked.
I'm not sure which is more shocking - the article or the posts on this thread.
People like him defend this lifestyle in the abstract, but when you throw a real life example in front of them, they wet their pants and run like rats with the lights turned on.
Paine reminds me of an insect trying to escape the toilet bowl before he's flushed. He knows what inevitably awaits him :)
There will be a deeper understanding of sexuality and of harshness and mercy to be had by this fall in the morass, but the life saving effort has to begin in earnest by folks of good hearts such as yourself.
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