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.
Culture has a huge effect on behavior. If those in a society were immersed with the message that life must be taken for every preceived insult the society would be much more violent than one immersed with the message that it is better to overlook insults.
I'd take it more seriously if it didn't have that whopping $99 sign up fee. These jokers could care less about you or your addiction, it's your hundred bucks that interests them.
I have no idea. I would think it would be the young lonely guys.
Big Macs fit in the same boat. They have broken up marriages as well. The same can be said of sporting events and twinkees.
The bottom line is that your questions aren't really that illuminating (no offense) as American's tend not to ban things just because the aren't "useful". In fact, we tend to take pleasure in "useless" pursuits - collecting baseball cards, tinkering with cars, etc.
Well done.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
I bet you can all figure out my POV on pornography - especially involving children (supposedly outlawed, but the SCOTUS for some psychotic reason allows it if the images of children aren't "real"), or violence, etc.
Freedom of speech has limits. And actions have reactions. Child pornographers should be executed. Those who indulge in child porn should be publicly beaten, maybe several days in a row. Child molesters? Executed after the first offense.
Let me know if you want on/off this pinglist.
As a world power, yes. That is what is meant when someone says "nation X was at its peak" or "country Y is in decline". It's a function of military might and world influence. For example, Germany as a world power was at its peak under Hilter.
If you had followed the thread, the original poster proclaimed that sexual relations with children was a modern phenononom. I pointed out that it wasn't and used Tiberius as an example from 2000 years ago. Rather than admitting that she was wrong, she tried to dismiss the example by saying that Rome was in decline. Even if true, how does that matter? The fact is that adult sexual relations with children has existed for a LONG time.
License is of course a bad thing. As I'm fond of saying, the very definition of civilization is predicated on sacrificing some personal freedoms for the security of community. However, I have a hunch that you and I would disagree wildly on where those lines are drawn. I have a hunch from what I'm reading here that you're really no different than the garden variety liberal when it comes down to recruiting government to impose your views by force.
As for the bit about living under tyrany for the first 180, years, I wouldn't have chosen those words. But...I would say enthusiastically that we've improved as we went along. The first 80 or so of those years were marked by slavery, which is surely a form of tyrany. The next 60 or so were marked by the exclusion of women from political life....so please, spare me the "we were perfect from the beginning" speech. We weren't.
Huh? Ask your husband if he has ever masturbated. Ask your priest too. Any guy that says that he hasn't is either lying or never went through puberty. You are basically saying that 99.9999% of the male population has had a homosexual experience.
This is the kind of thinking that scares people when it comes to theocons. Unfortunately, the general public thinks that theocons speak for all conservatives. If any presidential or senate candidate ever talked like this, he would get about 20% of the vote. Alan Keyes' message was a much watered down version of the above and he got 27% in a state that Bush got 45%.
This kind of thinking will never be in power as people would rather live under a socialist government than a theocracy. The only thing that keeps people voting for the democrats is their fear of the theocons. Remove the theocons from the GOP and democratic party dies.
Many things that were considered constitutional in the past would not be today through either amendments and SCOTUS decisions.
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.