Ugh. I’m horrified that someone who raped a child at gunpoint is out of jail while still young enough to even be capable of holding a job :mad: WTF were the authorities thinking???
However, the fact is, he is out. Given that fact, isn’t it better in some waysthat he’s working some place where people know about him, and are keeing an eye on his activities, than if, say he went to work someplace where people have no clue about him and he could (if he chose) pursue his sickness unlooked-for?
Also - does the school know they’ve got a RSO working next door?
We already know that this guy is not to be trusted. We also know that we cannot legally keep him in jail. The question now becomes, what do you do with him?
You don’t want him working next to a school. Someone else doesn’t want him living next door. Someone else doesn’t want him (insert activity here). Add enough someone elses and the guy can’t do anything at all. I don’t see that as a good way to manage these people so that they don’t re-offend.
Just to battle my own ignorance, does anyone know if there is actual evidence or a study that shows proximity to schools increases recidivism?
Raise your hand if you’ve ever, at any point in your life, had sex with a minor.
You’re all qualified child rapists. You terrible people. Even worse, you’re unconvicted- so there’s no entry in a registry to alert your cow orkers to what a threat you are to the fabric of society.
I’m curious where the “raped a 7 year old at gun-point” story came from.
No online-registry I’ve looked at has that sort of information.
I think that rape (either of a child or an adult) is the most heinous crime, even more so than murder, because there is no good reason for it. One can think up a scenario where murder is justifiable–revenge, to stop the victim from committing another crime, etc. Same with robbery. But there is no “good” reason to rape other than that you’re a fucking sick bastard. And that’s why the recidivism rate is so high; someone might just want to murder one individual person, or need money one time only, but I don’t think there’s any child rapists that are all like “I want to rape just this one specific child.” It’s a serial, pathological behavior by definition.
I would be right there with those protestors. Some things can never be forgiven. That said I don’t want to have to support this person for the rest of his life, it kills me to know that part of my paycheck every month goes to the housing and medical care of rapists. If there were some kind of chemical castration/brain surgery that would stop this behavior forever I’d be in favor of that, but until then… I can’t think of anything I’d like to do except kill these people. Really, I’m not a fan of the death penalty in theory but when it comes to cases like this I can almost be convinced that it’s necessary. Some people should just not exist anymore. And if you’re going to equate that attitude with condoning genocide, then I’ll just pre-emptively cut you off and tell you that you’re a fucking idiot.
I wonder how many people lobbying for this “person’s” rights have children of their own? I don’t, but I have the feeling that a lot of people who actually have kids would feel the same way I do, and that the people who would let this person back into society are the ones who don’t have or even actively dislike children.
As far as I’m concerned, the proximity to the school doesn’t even enter into my decision not to hire this guy, it only adds to the reasons not to hire him. From the perspective of a business owner, especially where customers believing in the honesty of your mechanics is your greatest asset, it wouldn’t matter to me how well trained this guy is if he’s not trustworthy or not perceivable as trustworthy. Further, knowing full well how offensive his behavior was, is it worth losing other equally or possibly MORE qualified mechanics quitting in protest or simply losing their morale and hence the quality of their work?
Second, who says this guy deserves to work wherever he wants to? What if he had a PhD in Nuclear physics, should he be hired to work on a Top Secret facility developing weapons? What if had a PhD in psychiatry, would you go to get “help” from this guy? Part of the consequences of such a heinous act as rape is that the stigma will follow you the rest of your life and hurt your employment opportunities, friendships, relationships, etc. This is similar to many other felonies, dishonorable discharges from the military, and possibly even perfectly legal but frowned upon behavior. The guy GETS to work wherever they’re willing to hire him, and if you did something so bad that no one better than Walmart or McDonald’s will hire you, then that’s your own fault, entirely the consequence of your own stupid actions.
Lastly, where did this “100% recidivism rate” idea come from? Just because that rate is not 100%, doesn’t mean it is an acceptable rate. If you ask me, the 7-39% that someone quoted is unacceptably high, especially as a business owner looking to hire this guy.
So when a tiger or bear kills a person, they’ve forfeited their claim to being human? I’d have thought the stripes and fur and four-legged gait would have done it. And the fact that they go around naked in public, and poop outdoors. Disgusting. Why are there any left? Seriously, if you can translate this mess into an argument for executing anyone whatever (remember: we’re talking about people here) I’ll consider it carefully.
You want to create a death penalty for another crime? Great. But that isn’t me making a slippery slope argument, that’s you grabbing a toboggan and heading up the hill. Dante accused me of putting words in his mouth: I guess he means that he only wants to shoot child rapists in the back of the head and if we let him do that, he’ll be happy and won’t ask to kill anybody else. Maybe. I was actually trying to get at the problem of treating people as means rather than ends, which is what you’re doing if you combat social problems by killing those members of society who exhibit symptoms of those problems.
DianaG, I had a harsh response for you but have since thought better of it.
I’d have been, not with you but close, if you had managed to just say that social opprobrium is and should be an expected consequence of certain crimes. Then we could have had the argument about how useful that is when the crime is prompted by mental/emotional abberration, the conclusion to which is generally, “much less.” But you’re throwing around lots of insults based on cartoons of others’ positions, which requires a lot of sifting to get to the good part. In your case, the good part isn’t bad, and I think we should focus on it.
Exactly. There are many perfectly good reasons to be stigmatized. If someone is willing to trespass one of the basic principles of society then society should not be under any obligation to accept him back. Any of you who are also participating in the “picky eater” thread in IMHO, THIS is what breaking the social contract really looks like.
This is about the silliest argument I’ve ever seen; the fallacies abound. First, there’s a huge difference between a 17-year-old and a 7-year-old. Even more importantly, there’s a gigantic difference between consentual sex and rape. Equating consentual sex with someone that is almost 18 and “legally” able to consent with raping someone who is a far cry from “legally” and probably doesn’t even understand what consentual sex is is absolutely assinine.
Oh, and FTR, I’ve never had sex with a minor, even when I was one.
My god, I hope you’re joking. Are you seriously comparing the consensual sex between, say an 18 year old and his/her 17 year old lover to the brutal attack of a 7 year old by an adult with A GUN?
There is a big difference between what is called statutory rape (sex between an adult over 18 with a minor that is not still a little kid and what this guy did to a 7 year old girl at fucking gunpoint.
Now let me put some words in your mouth. Try replacing “exhibit symptoms of those problems” in your above sentence with “fuck seven year old children at gun point AND ENJOY IT!”. See how that argument tastes.
That’s an awfully disingenuous way to “understand” an argument. I guess I’d rather see society do what it can to support people like this if they’re trying to rehabilitate themselves than to simply let it happen again and feel smugly self-satisfied that I didn’t do it. In terms of rhetoric, you’re committing the fallacy of the excluded middle here - the fact that someone doesn’t support the idea that we should let people like this rot doesn’t entail blaming others for his actions or forgiving what he did.
At heart, I’m a pragmatist, and rather than talking about whose fault it is if he reoffends, I think it’s better to see what steps society can take to support him in his attempt at rehabilitating himself. It’s more important to me to know that we’ve done what we can to help him on that path and to discourage him from doing something like that again than to be scrupulously careful to recognize that it’s his fault.
I suppose if I were as disingenuous as you, I’d say that your argument means you think it’s more important that we point the finger at him than that we do what we can to insure that he doesn’t rape another child. Actually, that does strike me as a pretty logical outcome of your argument. I don’t see the point of your continued statements that this man is to blame for his actions - because no one is arguing otherwise. It would be nonsense to blame anyone else for what he did. That doesn’t mean, though, that society shouldn’t try to help him to become a decent individual.
In Virginia, the specific conviction is listed. For example, you may find someone guilty of AGGRAVATED SEXUAL BATTERY. This is not a charge that could be levelled against anyone who merely had sex with a minor. In order to be guilty of aggravated sexual battery in Virginia, you must sexually abuse the complaining witness, and:
[ul]
[li]The complaining witness must be less than 13 years of age, or [/li][li]The act must have been accomplished through the use of the complaining witness’s mental incapacity or physical helplessness, or [/li][li]The offense must have committed by a parent, step-parent, grandparent, or step-grandparent and the complaining witness is at least 13 but less than 18 years of age, or [/li][li]The act must have been accomplished against the will of the complaining witness by force, threat or intimidation, and the complaining witness must be least 13 but less than 15 years of age, or the accused must have caused serious bodily or mental injury to the complaining witness, or the accused must have used or threatened to use a dangerous weapon. [/li][/ul]
So let’s not piously cavil about the poor people who were merely fucking their slightly underage Significant Others. The possibility of that is generally evident from the charge under which they were convicted.
I’m so pleased that you find some merit in my argument that raping seven year olds at gunpoint should result in some form of “social opprobrium”. I frankly don’t give a shit whether you find my distaste for this guy “useful” to his rehabilitation.
Allow me to make myself perfectly clear. I don’t care what happens to this guy, as long as he’s kept away from children. That is the **only ** thing that matters to me. I won’t picket his house, I won’t chase him out of town with a pitchfork, and I’ll be more than happy to let him get on with his life so long as he stays away from children.
Taking a job next door to an elementary school is rather suspect behavior for a child rapist, don’t you think? His livelihood or lack thereof is of absolutely no consequence to me. Society owes him nothing. Society **does ** owe its children protection from him.
I think it’s lovely and noble that you’re concerned for his welfare. But you’ll forgive me if I’m just not.
Excalibre, disingenuous is a favorite word of mine as well. I enjoy seeing you take such delight in it. However, read above. I don’t care what happens to him. I don’t care whose fault it is. I don’t want him near children.
You know, there’s been no evidence except for your testimony that fucking seven-year old children at gunpoint is enjoyable. If people who feel that way should, in your opinion, be shot in the head, well, goodbye. Meanwhile, Dante, try to keep the violent revenge fantasies to a minimum. Only you are getting off on them, or on the repitition of various child-rape scenarios. Most everybody else is trying to figure out how to deal with people who commit horrendous crimes.
Hello, davenportavenger, we’ve quarreled before, but I think we might get along, even disagreeing, this time.
Here’s part of the argument, exceptionally well-phrased. I absolutely agree that, in general, crimes should be punished with stigma and ostracism and the general meanness that says "we don’t like it when people do what you did. But there are a couple of qualifications that may be important here. First, the only legitimate end purpose of all this is to help enforce good behavior. The idea is to protect the innocent, right? Which means, unfortunately, that if good behavior is forthcoming, that everybody else has to recognize that and modify their attitudes and treatment of the offender. Otherwise the offender is positioned against society whether s/he behaves or not, in which case there’s no risk/benefit case to be made against indulging his/her impulses, and look out. The second problem (in this particular case, I emphasize) is that this kind of social pressure may be useless if the crime was prompted by some mental
/emotional disturbance that is independent of a rational calculation of costs, and which may be worsened by stress or guilt. In those cases, an unpalatable tolerance may protect future potential victims better than an honest display of distaste and disgust.
How much do you think Dante would take to off the assholes who don’t eat their beets?
That’s effective rhetoric, but that’s all it is. They’re human, by law and by definition. If they’re not human, they’re not entitled to a trial in the first place. Are you okay with that? If we admit they’re human until found guilty, do they become animals and lose the right to appeal? If they’re human until appeals are exhausted, are they animals until pardoned by the governor? If they’re animals until they die, are they human after they die? Animals until release and then human again? Animals for life until DNA evidence exonerates them and then retroactively human unless they’re accused of something else? I’ve beaten it into the ground, but you see the problem here.
It must be nice having everything be so simple, huh? Cogent arguments have been put forth already as to why exactly it’s in society’s interest to try to help these people. In my opinion, it boils down to the fact that I’d rather see fewer children be raped, and I think societal support for people who are trying to rehabilitate themselves is probably quite important in that task. I think that feeling morally outraged is less important than making sure he doesn’t rape another child. I see you disagree.
Have I been somehow unclear that my concern is **entirely ** that he doesn’t rape any other children? Perhaps you can explain to me how keeping him away from children is unhelpful to that end?
Could the rapist who does so under the influence of psychotropic drugs become a decent individual when he stays away from the chemical influence that fucked him up into choosing to assault a child? Absolutely.
Could the rapist who does so of a clear and lucid, but sickeningly perverted, mind become a decent individual? Almost certainly not. But with the aid of rehabilitation, continued counseling, doctor prescribed medication, religion (if that’s a comfort they find beneficial), and a diligent parole officer, he can at least approximate a functional individual.