Posted on 05/19/2005 11:05:47 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
On February 2, 2003, when seven-year-old Danielle van Dam disappeared from her family home in the middle of the night, every mother’s nightmare was played out on national television for almost a month while authorities searched for the girl. When Danielle’s body was found at the end of that month, the police and prosecutors discovered a frightening story about a neighbor of Danielle’s who had computer files filled with child pornography and even a sickening cartoon video of the rape of a young girl.
According to a report by Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, on the link between pornography and violent sex crimes, the prosecutor in the Danielle van Dam case said “The video represented [the defendant’s] sexual fantasies and inspired the abduction, rape, and murder of Danielle.” According to Raymond Pierce, a retired NYPD detective who worked on the sex-crimes squad for many years and is now a criminal-profiling consultant, about 80 percent of rapists and serial killers are heavy pornography users. I was a victim of an attempted rape by a disturbed man who turned out to be involved in pornography.
May is Victims of Pornography Month. Today Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kan.), Rep. Katherine Harris (R., Fla.), Rep. Joe Pitts (R., Pa.), and leaders from the values community will participate in a summit to explore the troubling connection between pornography and violence against women and children.
Florida attorney general Charlie Crist advises parents that “we must never lose sight of the fact that sexual predators make the online world a dangerous place for innocent children. Parents must be ever-vigilant to make sure their children are not exposed to images and messages that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago.” Crist warns that we cannot allow the Internet to be a “pipeline for pornography aimed at children.” But while parents can use available means to protect their children when they are in their own homes, there is a cultural climate surrounding our children that threatens them the way Danielle van Dam was threatened. Because of the availability of pornography online, there is no way of knowing what lurks in the hearts of our neighborhoods.
More needs to be done to evaluate the connection between violent predatory behavior and pornography, and to crack down on these violent predators. Police and law-enforcement officers across the country report brutal instances in which those addicted to pornography utilized its sadistic images on their female and child victims.
Just this past February, the New York Times reported a story about a teenage babysitter who had raped three young children he was watching in their homes. According to the Times, his pattern was to watch pornographic videos with the oldest of the children, a 12-year-old boy, and intimidate them all by torturing them with a knife and threats to their family members. Perhaps one of the most notorious serial killers, Ted Bundy, participated in an interview with Dr. James Dobson shortly before he was executed. In the interview, Bundy explained, “I’ve lived in prison for a long time now. And I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography — without exception, without exception — deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography.”
Since 1956, the Supreme Court has made clear that the First Amendment does not protect obscene materials. If we know from the perpetrators themselves how obscenity contributes to violence against women and children, what can we do?
We need to fund more studies of the addiction to pornography and its effects on violent behavior. Parents can install filters on any computer used by children and keep the family computer in a central location, not in a child's bedroom or someplace where parents might not regularly see it. We need to demand tougher law enforcement on the state and federal level. The Bush administration is stepping up federal enforcement of obscenity laws. This is a good first step. Contact the U.S. attorney for your district and ask what they are doing to enforce the laws. We need tougher state penalties against both possession and distribution of child porn and passing any kind of pornographic material to kids. Experts indicate that pornography is often used by pedophiles to break down the resistance of child victims. Parents should check out their state’s penalties for child rape and make sure offenders are going to jail and staying there for these offenses. Florida, for example, just passed a tough new law after the tragedy involving Jessica Lunsford, whose killer was a recently released violent offender. We should pass legislation to address the threat to children on the Internet. This includes chat sites, websites, spam, and peer-to-peer networks. Peer-to-Peer networks are of particular concern because they are widely visited by kids and offer porn for free without any age verification.
As Rep. Katherine Harris has pointed out, "Pornography displays human beings as objects, obliterating the wall between an individual's sick fantasies and the compulsion to act upon them. Often, the monsters who hurt women and children start with this malignant desensitizer." We need to all work together to find better ways to protect women and children against this violence.
In my opinion, what Jesus is saying is not that people can't legitimately defend themselves--I don't think Jesus would say that Christians should just sit by while their enemies massacre them--but what I think he is saying is that (1) you shouldn't hate your enemies. You should pray for them and pray for their salvation. (2) I think that he is saying that the answer to violence isn't always violence--you shouldn't let yourself be provoked by others into un-Christian actions. (3) I also don't think Jesus is saying that we can't have laws to protect society, but I think he says we should make moral judgments about the actions of others--that is for God to decide.
This isn't dogma, of course, but it's just what I think. I don't think Jesus intended to cripple the functions of society and government, only provide a guide for the behavior of Christians.
I would be mortified if my son asked that.
Oops! Should read "we shouldn't make moral judgments..."
Well, before I, or anyone else, can intelligently comment on that, you'd first have to tell us how far back a lot is. Seriously, I've actually seen SI's Swimsuit issue defined as porn by some speakers writers.
How far back do you want to push the line? That's the important question. Even I think the line has gone too far these days, but that's not to say we agree, but until I know where you're drawing the line, it's not to say we disagree either.
BTW, there are lots of fairly recent studies that indicate that advertising budgets are way out of whack, and that most companies spend way more money on advertising than they recieve back as a result of that advertising.
There are plenty of lines of work that I wouldn't want my kids to go into. Coal mining, stripping, cab-driving etc. etc. That doesn't mean those professions should be banned.
Try giving my kid a beer and see how far you get. Yet, I have beer in the fridge for my own consumption. Whether something is appropriate for children has nothing to do with whether or not it's socially acceptable.
That's because an automobile does not influence people to commit crime. However, auto advertising as a media may be liable.
Thanks for the conversation. You and Antoninus are obviously good, moral, thinking people. Frogjerk made some good points too.
You bet. I'm sure I'll see you again.
Fear.
That wasn't Rome in decline. It was Rome at its highest point.
And for the first centuries of our nation, Blackstone's Commentaries, and the Bible, were the major sources for our laws.
Sir William Blackstone wrote, in Volume II of his commentaries:
OF THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GENERAL.LAW, in it's moft general and comprehenfive fenfe, fignifies a rule of action; and is applied indifcriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we fay, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prefcribed by fome fuperior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.
THUS when the fupreme being formed the univerfe, and created matter out of nothing, he impreffed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would ceafe to be. When he put that matter into motion, he eftablifhed certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies muft conform. And, to defcend from the greateft operations to the fmalleft, when a workman forms a clock, or other piece of mechanifm, he eftablifhes at his own pleafure certain arbitrary laws for it's direction; as that the hand fhall defcribe a given fpace in a given time; to which law as long a the work conforms, fo long it continues in perfection, and anfwer the end of it's formation.
If we farther advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we fhall find them ftill governed by laws; more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progrefs of plants, from the feed to the root, and from thence to the feed again; --- the method of animal nutrition, digeftion,
fecretion,
.P 39Of the NATURE of LAWS in general.
INTROD.
§. 2.
fecretion, and all other branches of vital oeconomy; --- are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itfelf, but are performed in a wondrous involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules laid down by the great creator.
THIS then is the general fignification of law, a rule of action dictated by fome fuperior being; and in thofe creatures that have neither the power to think, nor to will, fuch laws muft be invariably obeyed, fo long as the creature itfelf fubfifts, for it's exiftence depends on that obedience. But laws, in their more confined fenfe, and in which it is our prefent bufinefs to confider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct: that is, the precepts by which man, the nobleft of all fublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reafon and freewill, is commanded to make ufe of thofe faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour.
So pagan Rome is our ideal?
Say what?
"...about 80 percent of rapists and serial killers are heavy pornography users. I was a victim of an attempted rape by a disturbed man who turned out to be involved in pornography. May is Victims of Pornography Month..."
What do you think they were trying to say?
BTW alcohol doesn't cause car wrecks.
Hmm. This must be some kind of new definition of "cause" that I was not previously aware of.
And everyone involved is a legal, consenting adult. Adults don't need a nanny state protecting them from themselves.
Wow, you're really confused. You are the one that denied that child sex was something new to the world. I then pointed out that it wasn't new and quoted a well know example from 2000 years ago that you could look up.
Instead of verifying my information, you falsly said that my example was from "Rome in decline". You were wrong as the time of Augustus and Tiberius was Rome's highest point. That point is only relevant as it shows that you are truly ignorant of history yet still try to pass yourself off as some sort of authority of the history of sex.
Note that I also pointed out that prior to 1957, 15 year old girls were being married to older men. The theocons here see pre-1957 as a glorious time yet what we consider statutory rape today was no problem then.
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