(Photo from Boorman.Livejournal.com)
Now that Mark Foley has gone into alcohol rehab, in order to help deal with his "alcohol related behavioral problems", he will doubtless at some future date devote a good deal of time to fighting the evil scourge of alcohol abuse, maybe even as much time as he had previously devoted to fighting the scourge of child sex abuse.
Who knows, he might even do it as a returning Congressman. Stranger things have happenned, and you know what they say. Americans have a short memory. Or is that, Americans are a forgiving people?
Or is that, Americans tend to be stupid motherfuckers?
I've always wondered about people who seem so strident about certain issues. I've known people who spend a lot of their conversational time making statements such as, child molesters should be castrated; or hung; or locked up for life where they should be prison bitches; or they should be monitored for life.
Well, what I find interesting about this is the simple fact that I know of few people that are beating the drum in favor of the constitutional or civil rights of pedophiles, with the sole exception of Nambla, and arguably, the ACLU. And even Namble is questionable, in my opinion, as I have to wonder just how deeply imbedded within that organization are FBI undercover internet porn investigators.
Be that as it may, when I hear people going on like this, I have to wonder if:
1. They are just obsessed with this issue and are genuinely disgusted with it. Understandable, of course, but certainly an unusual thing on which to spend an inordiante amount of time, if you are a normal person, that is.
2. They are suspicous of everyone around them including me, or you, if you are the recipient of one of these monoloques, as I have been, and possibly we are being fed a line to ferret out exactly where we stand. Are we for pedophiles, or against them? And is that bad-or is that a good thing?
3. Possibly, they themselves have been molested, which if true would certainly be an understandable expression of rage.
4. They are themselves pedophiles who are full of self-loathing, and trying to work through their problems, maybe in a state of denial, desperate to hide the awful truth from everyone around them, most especially themselves.
5. They are themselves pedophiles who are comfortable in their own skins, but still feel obliged to play a cynical game. This last group is the ones who might in time graduate from mere conversational obsession with the subject, to actual pro-active involvement through such avenues as, for example, the Center For Missing And Abused Children.
It might be a good investment of a persons time to visit one of these centers, during a public relations type event. Learn about the program, hob-nob with the various volunteers and other contributors and position holders in this and various other similar organizations. Shake hands with them. When you get home later, you might feel like taking a shower, when you consider that, if you met as many of ten people who work for one of these groups on a regular basis, there is a pretty good chance that one, two, or three, or more, might actually be pedophiles.
Some of them might even end up, as Mark Foley did, seeking a political career.
And don't think for one second Foley could not possibly recover from this debaucle. Consider this fact. The young man whom he has been mainly accussed of pursuing,through e-mails and instant messages, was sixteen at the time. He is now seventeen.
The age of consent in Florida is seventeen. The age of consent in Washington, where the alleged crimes occurred, is sixteen. It could very well be that Foley's more legally damning crime is that of abuse of power.
Still, you have to wonder exactly why, according to The Raw Story, Foley has a
MYSpace Profile, albeit one of little distinction. You do of course have to have a MySpace Profile before you can communicate with other members, of any age.
You also have to wonder just why so many Republicans set on this story and seemed unwilling to do anything substantial about it. On the other hand, you should equally wonder just why so many Democrats possibly, although this isn't quite so clear, did not seem fit to reveal the facts of this bizarre case until a month before the election.
There are a lot of people who are genuinely conerned about this issue, and they should feel outraged. They should also feel pretty fucking stupid.
6 comments:
Arisia! Now, that was Hal Jordan's best girlfriend ever . . .
He was my favorite DC hero. Did they ever bring him back? Wasn't Arisia the first GL's daughter?
The age of consent seems important, but I think it's still a federal crime to solicit anyone under 18 over the Internet. And the irony is that he probably had a hand in writing that law. I don't know- to me, this seems like a pedophile sex scandal without sex or a pedophile.
Yes, he seems to be one of the movers and shakers of this kind of legislation, a good deal of which is knee jerk, in my opinion. That is precisely what makes his behavior all the more outrageous.
Conservative politicians made the rules. Now they have to play by them, or lose their base. If nothing else the Terry Schiavo incident, set the precedent.
You're right, it's sickening. But one side isn't any better than the other. It's just that whoever has the most power at any given time tends to become the most corrupt, and right now that happens to be the conservatives. But both sides have turned me against politics, which is why I don't do a lot of poltiical posts. When I do, I guess my cynicism is obvious.
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