What’s interesting in the news today?
We’ll start with a huge CONTENT WARNING!!!!! for adult subject matter. This one is not acceptable reading for the kids.
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I don’t even know where to start with this piece. It’s repulsive on many levels, and what is being advocated is monstrous in my personal opinion. It seeks to justify adult/child relationships that society has long shunned, and rightly so. It advocates preying on the young and vulnerable for adult gratification. I find it disgusting.
So I don’t offend anyone, let me be clear here that I am not saying homosexuality and pedophilia are the same thing. Homosexuality is generally something between consenting adults. Pedophilia on the other hand involves preying on young, underage children. While I believe what the Bible says, that homosexuality is a sin, it’s not on the same level as pedophilia. We’ve talked before about “degrees of sin” and I think that applies here. While homosexuality is called a sin, pedophilia is called a crime, because there’s always a victim. They’re not the same by a long shot.
But the advocates of both are now using the same tactics. Not long ago homosexuality was considered a mental illness, and abnormal behavior. Over time, and with a concerted and well-funded effort, the gay community convinced the mental health community to abandon such labeling. It appears that the advocates of this have adopted a similar strategy and now seek to get the mental health community to provide them with cover to carry on with the advancement of what was long considered taboo.
Which brings us to the slippery slope. Looks pretty real now huh? This is exactly what those who spoke against acceptance of the homosexual “agenda” said would come, an ever quickening slide to the bottom. We were assured that allowing gay marriage and the lowering of societal standards and the like wouldn’t lead to things like this. Many of you have read those arguments numerous times. You read how folks like Joel Mark were mocked and ridiculed, and they said that he was exaggerating, and that it would never lead to this sort of thing. Just a straw man, hyperbole, nothing more….
And yet it has led to a lowering of standards. The question is how far are we as a society going to allow this to go? Will we again be silenced because we want to be kind and loving, and not be called bigots? Because hey, they can’t help it right? They were born this way according to this “expert.”
Pervert seems more accurate IMO. This nonsense needs to be squashed. I have no sympathy for these pedophiles, or those who would enable them. I’ll save the kindness and love for the real life victims who this sort of stuff scars for life. They actually need and deserve it.
I could go on, but I won’t. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it after you read the piece.
And that’s how it begins, a change in the views of the experts. Simple really, and it’s been done before.
Wandering Views 
“Virtuous” pedophiles. Ugh. Attaching adjectives describing desirable character traits to words that indicate perversion is…stomach-turning, reprehensible.
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I will come back when I have collected my thoughts better. Last night when you posted I felt like this would be the subject.
My first thought is that an adult and a child cannot be on equal footing physically, mentally, emotionally and all those other “ly” words. A child CANNOT consent. I don’t care from which angle you look at it. An adult can justify it any way they want to make the perverse sound normal, but a child cannot. It is sexual harrassment and abuse of power if it isn’t sexual abuse. There simply is no justification.
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My first thought on reading the full article is that the science was highly questionable. As I remember from my basic psychology course, correlation doesn’t equal causation, so a lot of those supposed physical characteristics of pedophiles are irrelevant. As long as the general public doesn’t bother to check the facts for themselves, so long will pseudo-scientists continue to make outrageous claims for research money.
It goes against nature to expose the young to reproductive acts. To do so in any young animal would lessen its chances of survival – how much more damaging to the mind, body and emotions of a human child. Those who attempt to justify their attractions on the basis of science (or really, evolutionary development) are ignoring the fact that nature must eliminate all threats to a species survival, especially those who would or could injure the young. There is a reason all mature males are driven out of elephant herds.
As for the pedophile in the article, he is a criminal by his own admission of how he satisfies himself, in love with the darkness in his mind. As you say, The Real, there is always a victim in pedophilia. I remember when we studied mental health in school, they told us that any one of us might experience some of the symptoms, but it was our ability to ignore and override them which meant we were healthy. Anyone might experience moments where it suddenly seems that we are attracted to something we shouldn’t be, the same as anyone might be tempted to steal or kill. Sexual attraction, beyond the first impulse, is a choice. We all make the decision to dwell on it or to crush it.
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So this is humor?
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/msnbc-host-makes-fun-mitt-romney-black-grandson-023826137.html
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I am old enough to remember when fornication was being argued as natural and acceptable. “Free Love” the hippies called it. Now decades later, millions of abortions, STD’s, and fatherless children later, people still haven’t learned a thing.
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I am hoping that this will cause some people to realize that even if science (or pseudo-science) says you’re “born that way”, that doesn’t make it natural or right. Many believe, but I’m not sure if it’s been scientifically proven, that alcoholism is genetic.
Even if these things (alcoholism, homosexuality, pedophilia, etc.) can all be proven to have a genetic link, that only proves that they are inclinations, not that they need to be given into.
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My very liberal, supposedly-devout-Christian friend posted this article about right wing folk heroes. Any thoughts?
http://samuel-warde.com/2013/12/phil-robertson-george-zimmerman-cult-of-right-wing-folk-hero/
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Just yesterday I was talking with a friend. She made the comment that most alcoholic women she knew had sexual molestation in their past. As we discussed it further she told me about her sister who died in her late 30’s from complications of severe alcoholism. She said that when her sister was drunk she would ask her what she remembered about “Uncle”. Several years after her sister’s death she woke up one night in a cold sweat with memories flooding back. The details are too private for me to share but my friend, although not molested was there when it happened and was diagnosed with PTSD.
One of my gay friends was molested as a child by his mother’s boyfriend.
Another of my friends was molested by her brother. She is a lifetime anorexic/bulemic who is 6 months younger than I am and has had severe osteoporis for at least 10 years.
I know of another situation where a young girl who had been molested in turn molested a younger girl.
I cannot speak to what it does to a male child to be molested, but I can speak to what it does to a female
I have lied to myself and others for years about how far my own molestaton went. I have an inkling that it went further than I admit, but for various reasons I choose not to go there.
What it did to me was make it very awkward to date as a teen and even as an adult. There are men on this earth that I will crawl over someone to get away from. I can’t explain what they trigger in me, but I become very nervous, twitchy, and can only describe it as wanting to crawl out of my own skin.
As I grew from a child into a young woman I surpressed a lot of what it was to be female.
I was very lucky that I WAS around safe ADULT men. My father almost killed my molester. The gentleman that recently died was also a safe man who helped me learn that it was OK to hug a man.
As I told my own child when she once wanted to spend the night with a friend from school that was in what I thought was a bad situation. It only takes a moment for an innocent child’s life to be ruined in minute and a lifetime of therapy and all the money in the world cannot fix it
I could go further in my discussion of this, but will stop now. I am looking at going into a new year and it isn’t worth dragging the past with me. I got a satisfaction that a lot of victims never get. I was able to confront my molester and get him to admit what he did and apologize. No an apology doesn’t fix anything, but it does help towards the healing.
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I wonder if any research has been done on how many gay people had their first experience as a minor with an adult?
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Karen, that silly piece of tripe wasn’t worth the time I spent muddling through the first two paragraphs, which by the way ended with a racist slur.
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Karen that article is just mind boggling to me….when I read that type of dribble, I feel as though I am reading the words of some sort of alien…could they really think like that? Well I suppose they do…it is incomprehensible to me. It is clear to me the author has no fear of God…and yet he asserts Palin has clearly never read her Bible? What a twisted minded person desiring to slander followers of Christ.
While there are moments when I find myself wincing upon reading or hearing rants of my “fellow believers” concerning certain issues….I certainly do not broad brush the “left” when I read or hear rants coming from “their side”….I do enjoy honest discussion of ideals and opposing opinions…I like to be challenged…being slandered/belittled/mocked….not so much
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This person also doesn’t seem to know the difference between defending someone’s rights and holding them up as a hero. Which makes sense to someone who would probably only defend the rights of someone they agreed with.
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We live in a broken world that only becomes more broken as each day finishes its revolution around the sun.
The paper this morning was so full of articles that can only be traced to sin, it boggled my mind. The emperor threw away his clothing a long time ago, and yet we hear again and again how liberating it all is.
To me, so much of this looks like a trap to rob a person of their dignity and ability to see God.
Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees is scathing and horrifying–the main element I saw during this year’s read of Matthew is they (the Pharisees) not only did not want to believe Jesus could be their savior, but they consistently and egregiously blocked the ability of others to recognize their savior.
Some days it feels like the whole world should tie a millstone around their necks. Fine, don’t believe in Jesus. But why keep someone else from finding peace of mind, liberation and heaven?
Jesus could have set up a hospital in Jerusalem and spend his days healing people. He could have waved his hands and healed the whole world. But he didn’t do that. He walked among us to teach us God with skin on, how to live with the hurting, the broken, the lost.
He loved them. He knew them. He asked them questions to provoke their curiosity about a need for a savior. The Holy Spirit took his place after Jesus sacrificed himself for all of us–and for them.
May we walk with Jesus’ blessing and grace this year–and listen to his direction in confronting the sin which is all around us, every single day.
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I read an astonishing novel this fall, Sinners and the Sea: The untold story of Noah’s Wife by Rebecca Kanner. She’s Jewish, so it’s a Hebraic take on the Noah story but it was so illuminating to me–the awful way people lived that drove God to send the flood.
I don’t know how many times I’ve reflected on this horrors of this book as I’ve contemplated the behavior of those round about me. We worship a just God. His will will be done. We have good news: Jesus was the perfect sacrificial lamb who took away the sin of the world and enables us to be right before God.
I cling to that, as Noah’s family did to the ark, when the rains of misery fall round about me.
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If you’re going to legalize such perversions, you also need the courts.
Exhibit B.
http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/1f3f01b5-988a-4d03-9fd7-19eca73ea060
“Italy’s highest court has overturned the conviction of a 60-year-old man for having sex with an 11-year-old girl, because the verdict failed to take into account their “amorous relationship”.
Pietro Lamberti, a social services worker in Catanzaro in southern Italy, was convicted in February 2011 and sentenced to five years in prison for sexual acts with a minor.
The verdict was later upheld by an appeals court.
But Italy’s supreme court ruled that the verdict did not sufficiently consider “the ‘consensus’, the existence of an amorous relationship, the absence of physical force, the girl’s feelings of love”.
Disgusting.
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’m not surprised by the study — most of our behaviours can be linked to genetics or genetics needing an environmental trigger. Right wing type have said that for years that there is no cure for pedophiles so we should throw them in jail and let them rot — Law and Order SVU makes that statement at least once a year. This study just spins it differently don’t isolate them but control and/or treat them. I don’t think there is any approval emanating from the study. And the study strikes me as slightly bogus (the penile method of measurement is more than a bit of suspect) — and yes my tax dollars supported it.
Since most behaviour is genetic, that does not make a behviour moral, necessary or desirable. Most psychopaths are born that way but that doesn’t mean we approve of their behaviour. The first issue is consent along with the related issue of the ability to consent. And by that measure we don’t have to go any further in discussing pedophilia
I also don’t buy the falling domino theory; it was wrong in vietnam and its wrong here. Society changes it social mores over time, for good and bad.There rarely is any direction to it. If I was to assign any concept which has guided western civ for the last 100 years, its consent.
AJ — when you posted the second news article I knew it would come from Europe. I have had European friends who I had to explain the concept of statutory rape — as a way of protecting children/teens from making bad sexual decisions and being manipulated — one response which surprised me was the suggestion that like anything else in life, we make bad decisions and learn from experience. The taboo against pedophilia is far stronger in North America than anywhere else (not to say its not taboo in Europe just far stronger here) . On the other hand, consent has become a universal principle. But even in North America, think of the difficulty authorities have to prosecute child marriage ie FLDS.
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Re: the Robertson link
the left considers the social or cultural right to be an example of false populism and thus its an easy transition to false heroes. Populism is a political movement where the common people unite to advocate policies to benefit the people as opposed to the elite. False populism occurs when populism is manipulated to reinforce the elite or at the very least provide a distraction. False folk heroes do the same thing. Robertson then is a false folk hero since he’s merely a distraction.
the notion that Palin et al engage in a selective reading of the bible is also quite common. commentators such as the one who wrote this article than engage in their own selective reading of the bible to counter her reading. Thus both play a game of pick and choose without considering context.
I wonder if any of you who read the video missed the link to a Robertson video where he advises boys to look for 15 year old girls. The link the writer provides is a short video version. The longer version I have seen elsewhere is more clear; he compliments women who will pluck your ducks and then notes they are hard to find mostly because boys today look at 20 year olds. He advises them to find 15 year old girls because they will pluck your ducks. He does tell them to ask for her parents permission first if that makes any difference. Both videos are all over the left side of the internet.
Personally, I think he’s merely telling boys to date girls when they are young enough to “train” not encouraging pedophilia, but both ideas are not appropriate the latter of course being worse. Here’s a link to the article where I first read it. I don’t want to embed the original Youtube video.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/12/30/phil_robertson_on_marriage_duck_dynasty_star_advised_men_to_find_15_year.html
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My thoughts on that article…
There is so much wrong with it. For one thing, the author cherry-picked who to use as “right-wing” & “left-wing” folk heroes.
He could have used Margaret Sanger as a left-wing folk hero, because she helped women obtain birth control. But then someone might bring up the sticky subject of her being a strong proponent of eugenics, & her desire to keep down the black population.
Or he could have mentioned Che Guevara, who may have done some good for some people, but he was also known as “The Butcher of la Cabana” for executing many people without trial.
Some on the left hold up Fidel Castro as a hero.
But mentioning those people would make it clear that both right-wing AND left-wing people can exalt the wrong kind of people, & he just wants to slander right-wingers.
He goes on to write, “Many on the right once held (and continue to hold) outlaws such as Bonnie and Clyde, Billy the Kid, and Jesse James in high esteem…” I have NEVER heard any of them extolled among my conservative friends, or in any conservative writings. In their times, they may have temporarily been folk heroes among the people IN GENERAL, especially among the poor (not only “right-wing”), but that status faded when people learned the truth of their heinous crimes.
The part about Sarah Palin & certain Bible passages about women takes those passages out of context.
As for towards the end, on Ted Nugent’s & Phil Robertson’s (FYI, I am not a follower of either one) telling their own experiences with blacks, why is it racist to say one did not see racism? It could maybe have been ignorance, but that doesn’t make it racism.
Kim had written that in the time Robertson writes about, he was what was known as “poor white trash”. She said that even the blacks of the day looked down on them, that was the way it was in the social hierarchy of that time. So, considering those circumstances, maybe to his eyes there was no racism. That doesn’t mean that he was correct, but it doesn’t necessarily make him racist, either.
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Karen neatly sums up what was wrong in the article. Personally I always considered the 20s bank robbers working class heroes neither left or right
Yesterday we were discussing wages and entry level jobs; here’s a good article on that topic
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/30/the_middle_class_myth_heres_why_wages_are_really_so_low_today/
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Interesting article, hwesseli. My husband was one of those taconite workers, although not in that place. To even compare those workers with a KFC worker is unreal to me. The conditions, shift work, danger, layoffs etc. are so removed from a KFC worker that I cannot believe anyone would even dare compare them.
People do work for different reason besides just the money. That is one reason that some are willing to work at a job for a title and clean fingernails even though the pay is not much.
I have seen the good and bad of both corporations and unions.
BTW, one does not walk into any of the taconite mines without some post high school education these days. Even if you start at the lowest level, you need some skills to get hired at all.
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HRW, that idea of false populism sounds like more of the usual left wing elites attitude that the masses are too stupid to make their own decisions.
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I don’t think the article only drew equivalency in terms of entry level jobs for high school graduates.
kbells — you’re right, but the concept of false populism has been used by both left and right wing elites to criticize each other. When its used to criticizing social positions, you are exactly right but on economic issues its easier to determine what is in the best interest of the masses — just a little math.
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Michael Moore in the NYT
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HRW, most the masses can read and do math.
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