[asterisk-biz] Re: OT: Gore Still Ahead

[Matthew Rubenstein]

	I think the 6 (generous estimate) of us several thousand Asterisk-Biz
subscribers who care at all about this thread should start our own list,
Asterisk-Biz-Politics. Until someone seriously complains how this
totally off-topic thread (not even about Gore anymore) is longer than
any straight A-B topic, I reply below:


On Thu, 2006-10-05 at 11:04 -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 12:03:28AM -0400, Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
> > 	Are you looking for ways to excuse the child molesting Foley did just
> > because he continued carrying on after the boys were legally men?
> 
> Let's be *perfectly clear* here, shall we?
> 
> "Talking dirty" to them does not constitute "child molestation" under
> any construction of anyone's law that I'm aware of.

	I hope we're about to find out in court just what laws conducting a
series of mutual IM masturbation sessions with an underage boy who
reports to you does violate.

 
> And 16 isn't exactly a child, either.

	In Florida, 16 years old makes you a child, as opposed to an adult.
There's no "sliding scale" for precocious children or powerful
predators.


> > 	What kind of depraved child molester protector are you? Other than
> > "Republican" - that much is so obvious that it's redundant. Now tell us
> > that I shouldn't go so hard on Foley, because it's not his fault that
> > god made him gay.
> 
> You can go as hard on Foley as you like.  I hope he takes the whole,
> sordid, hypocritical Republican establishment down with him.  just lets
> be hard on him for the right reasons: he owed a duty to his
> constituency not to get embroiled in a scandal, and he owed a duty to
> those pages *specifically*, because he was or had been in a position of
> direct power and control over them.  He failed in those duties.

	His power and control over those pages was even more absolute because
they are *children*.


> Would this have been less likely to have happened had he been out about
> his preference?  (For men, I mean, not for boys.)  Yeah, probably.
> 
> Is it society's fault that he felt he needed to be even partially in
> the closet?  Yes? 

	Yes, so we have new strong reasons to fix what we can about ourselves,
in society. Of course, most gay men don't molest children, so Foley is
clearly responsible for his own response to society's problems.


> Am *I* gay?  No.  
> 
> Do I want people to confuse me for Donald Rumsfeld?  Not even on your
> birthday.  :-)
> 
> You can tell the repubs apart from the dems because, by and large, the
> dems utilise the tools of rational argument, and are calm and cool, and
> the repubs appeal to emotion, fear, and (dare we say this) terror.
> 
> Not all of either side, certainly, but a statistically significant
> majority.

	That is certainly the basic culture, despite the natural diversity
within each party's corporate culture.

> Alas, demagoguery works better with the electorate than pedagogy.

	It's sad that the electorate is more up in arms over pedophilia than
over democracy (Republican torture / wiretapping / vote fraud / what
next?). Foley "raped" only one or at worst a few children (still
unacceptably bad), the Republican government is raping (in some cases
literally, in false imprisonments and torture) thousands, millions. The
coverup of this sexual abuse of people's children entrusted to the
government is consistent with the coverups and abuse of people's
children sent to invade Iraq on lies, and keep them there without a
strategy. I think the massive spin machines suppressing healthy American
distrust of the Republican government are just choking on 


> Cheers,
> -- jra
-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein