Does Violent Leaves Worship at Westboro Baptist Church?

I see Violent Leaves is living up to her name in her latest post at the bigot hub where she calls for paedosexuals to kill themselves. There was a time I would've been shocked by such a vile and obscene post but given her history of outspoken pro-rape, pro-violence and pro-bigotry propaganda I'm not longer surprised. She truly is the female equivalent of that other outspoken bigot and hater of sexual minorities, Fred Phelps.

Postscript: I've just noticed Violent Leaves has also posted her bile at her own blog here.

The Strange Tale of James W. Smith - Sex Offender

This is the story of James W. Smith; a 17 year old youth. James, wanting to collect on a drug debt, forced another 17 year old youth to travel with him to call on the person who owed the debt as that person was a friend of the youth. According to the youth, James and at least one other person threatened him with violence. After the ordeal the youth complained to police and James W. Smith pled guilty to the charge of false imprisonment. A reasonable outcome and nothing strange so far right? Well, just wait for what's to come.

The crime was committed in Wisconsin USA. The lawmakers in this state in their infinite wisdom (cough splutter cough) decreed that a 17 year old offender should be considered an adult whereas a 17 year old victim should be considered a child. Yes, you understand correctly... in a single case involving two youths of the same age one is legally an adult and the other legally a child. That is truly strange and mind bogglingly idiotic. But that's not all folks...

In the enlightened state of Wisconsin, conviction of the crime of false imprisonment of a minor requires the felon to register as a sex offender. So, this 17 year old adult who was convicted of the false imprisonment of a 17 year old child was required by law to register as a sex offender. Ok, surely it can't get any more farcical than this can it? Oh ye of little faith...

James W. Smith appealed against the requirement for him to register as a sex offender on the seemingly reasonable grounds that there was no sexual element to his crime. Of course, the good judges of Wisconsin saw how ludicrous the situation was and upheld his appeal.. right? Not on your nelly. Not only did they reject his appeal, they incarcerated him for a year for failing to register.

Some ignorant folk will claim that the only people who end up on sex offender registers are deviants who've committed heinous sex crimes and deserve to be there. Further, they argue that these registers should be available for everyone to access. I'd be interested to hear how they justify their viewpoints in this case. I'm not arguing that James W. Smith isn't a nasty little toe-rag who deserved to be convicted of his crime. Obviously he's a scumbag. But a sex offender???

Read more about his case at the following links:

The Legal Watchdog: Sex Offender Registries: They're Not Just For Sex Offenders Anymore

Wisconsin Supreme Court Docket No. 08-1011

I wonder what sort of lies and distortions the bigots over at AZU will use to twist the Legal Watchdog blog into being some sort of pro-paedophile propaganda site given it's reasonable approach to the issue.

Marauding Monsters Molest Missing Maddie

LINK TO NEWS STORY

History is full of instances of mass hysteria. Probably the most well know are the witch panics which cost the lives of many innocent men and women. Most recently was when I was a child and the media was full of stories of satanic ritual child abuse. It seemed that every city had been infiltrated by organised satanic groups which were protected by shadowy figures who held positions of power in the community. These groups engaged in nefarious behaviour involving the ritual sexual abuse of children and even used the services of women who'd bear children for the specific purpose of sacrificing them. Of course it became clear in time that the mountains of testimonial evidence were nothing more than delusional fantasies and false memories implanted by dodgy shrinks.

Today there's another mass panic and the reason I've linked to the latest news on Maddie McCann is because it's referenced there. It's the myth of the existence of a vast underworld of organised child snatching rings which take unsuspecting children for the purposes of using them as sex slaves. These reports have all the hallmarks of the satanic ritual child abuse manias of the 80s. They claim that these rings have tentacles that stretch internationally and reach into the upper echelons of society. They claim that these rings are protected by shadowy influential figures. It wasn't long ago that unproven allegations were being made in Belgium that the horrific abduction, abuse and murder of a number of young girls was part of this massive network and that it involved high ranking politicians, judges and police. Of course no evidence supporting these allegations have ever been made public.

Now, obviously I'm not saying that no kids are ever abducted by child molesters for the purpose of sexual gratification. Clearly this does happen although it's a known fact that most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone known to the child rather than a weirdo in a white van. I'm also not saying that groups of child molesters don't link up to exchange kiddie porn because that's been proven to happen. What I am saying is that this myth of the all pervasive underworld of roaming gangs of child molesters kidnapping children and passing them from one to another has never been shown to have any basis in reality. Clearly the idea of the existence of such a group sells papers and gets people to tune into tabloid TV programmes but hopefully intelligent people will see it for what it is: a media invention.

Angolan-born Italiano said the gang of influential and dangerous perverts had hunted children in the Algarve before smuggling them out of Portugal,The Sun reports.

Nah.. I don't think so!

Relevant Site Links Updated

As part of the new year's housekeeping I've checked through my links. There were a couple of expired links which I've now deleted. Some of the links are still working but the site to which they link appears to be inactive so I've indicated this where applicable. I've also added some links which had previously been overlooked.

As always, I link to these sites as they all add something to the ongoing discussion. Clearly, given the diametrically opposite opinions of many of the sites, my linking to a site does not indicate my agreement with the opinions of the author(s) of the site.

Please feel free to suggest other relevant sites to which you think I should provide a link. If you run a site I've linked to and would rather I didn't, please let me know. I'm not promising to remove the link but will consider your arguments based on their merits before making my decision.

POST EDIT: In updating my links, I've noted that a number of the links on AZU are either inactive or dead. C'mon SC, you need to lift your game and keep your site up to date.

Welcome To 2011

And yet another year has ticked over. I wish all who read this blog a safe, happy and prosperous 2011. Time creeps forward and we evolve in our understandings and values. Attitudes, hatreds and bigotries that were once considered acceptable gradually become unacceptable and those who cling to them become ostracised. It may not happen this year.. it may not happen this decade.. but it will happen. It starts with the enlightened and spreads through the open-minded until only the lowest bigots hold out against what's right.

Have a good year all.

Jack

The Cost Of Demonisation

WHY ARE ALL MEN MADE TO FEEL LIKE FIENDS?

This article is a couple of months old but still I thought it worth posting here as it provides a valuable insight into the consequences we are seeing of the witch hunt culture in western society today. Over the past couple of decades or so there has been a systematic demonisation of men to the point that a lot of men now avoid any interaction with children out of fear of being labelled a paedophile or, worse still, a child molester. Articles such as these one from PACA - Link Link Link - in which they tell people to confront anyone they consider to be acting 'suspiciously' are precisely the attitudes that have resulted in many men being afraid of not only having contact with children but even to be around them.

Of course no one wants to see a child being subjected to any type of abuse but demonising all men and leading the general public to view them all as potential molesters serves the good of no-one. We truly live in twisted times.

The Essence Of Thoughtcrime

The bigot nest that is Absolutezerounited put up an interesting post last week titled 'I Have Nothing To Hide'. I found it interesting on a couple of fronts. Firstly I found it interesting that they'd present as current information a Vigilant Antis post from May 2008... yes, a post that is two and a half years old!! The first half of the post was their usual boring character assassination of someone they see as a foe and, to be perfectly frank, I stopped reading after the first couple of sentences as it was the same drivel they regurgitate time and time again.

What did catch my attention was the following portion of their post:

In particular, the assertion that one could be prosecuted for merely stating they are in possession of illegal pornography even if they had never even actually seen an image of said pornography seemed too ludicrous to be true. Unbelievably, this is actually the case.

Before I go on, it is worth bringing a bit of accuracy to AZU's misinformation. In their post AZU employed one of their favourite logical fallacies: the straw man argument.

No evidence has been produced demonstrating that Amazon.com has any vested interest in child pornography and in the absence of such evidence the thought that a multinational company would have any vested interest in kiddie porn is simply a fanciful conspiracy theory. There is also no evidence that Amazon.com has ever distributed child pornography nor has any desire to distribute it in the future. Rather, the hacks at AZU have fabricated these claims in order to have an easy target to attack as they know an attack on Amazon.com's actual policies is far less effective.

AZU also stated that Amazon.com "... support Williams". This is not the case. The person referred to is Michael Williams (United States v Williams); a man who was gaoled for sending an undercover LEO a link to kiddie porn and also for actually possessing kiddie porn. He was further charged for stating to the undercover LEO that he was in possession of kiddie porn. It is this charge that was being contested and this law alone which Amazon.com, amongst a number of organisations, was opposed to. Amazon.com was in no way trying to make it legal for a person to possess and/or distribute child pornography and for AZU to insinuate such a thing is outrageous.

So, back to the ludicrous law. I thought the Washington Post article about the case summed the law up effectively when they wrote

So that is the crux of the law that reasonable people are opposed to: someone who has never even seen an image of child pornography can be charged, convicted and end up with a sex offender record for simply saying they have kiddie porn.

Now, I know my cultural competitors will throw up the usual red herring of... 'Well, if they're the sort of person who'd say they have kiddie porn they deserve everything they get' but this is clearly an argument based on emotion rather than logic. This law, taken to its logical conclusion, could even result in a person who confesses to possessing child pornography being charged for the confession as well as being charged for the porn itself. No, I'm not silly enough to think this would actually happen but it would appear it is possible under this law. Justice Scalia admits as much when he said

Note he didn't say that the grandparents would not run afoul of the law as it wouldn't apply to them in this situation but rather that they shouldn't be worried as a 'reasonable juror' wouldn't apply it to them. Too bad for them if Marina Hammond or her cronies were the jurors as we know just how 'reasonable' they are. No doubt if they were on the jury in such a case the poor grandparent would end up with 'sex offender' tattooed across his/her forehead.

As a final thought, I find it interesting that one can be gaoled in the USA for falsely claiming to possess kiddie porn yet one can falsely claim to be a sexually available child and it's completely legal. That is one seriously fucked up system!