posted
Hmmm...it's more the taking advantage of his position with Pages that is making this a big event (and his hypocritical public life as a congressman). There's the added fact that he knew the Pages he was dealing with were minors- breaking some laws there, certainly.
As to illegality, there's more to be said of severe ethics violations than anything that might lead to arrest...
quote:So...we charge him with what? Intent to corrupt a minor? Shit, we'd have to lock up almost every hetero male ever for THAT one.
Well, isn't that something they used against you? The online evidence of it anyway. You think he'll get the same probationary sanctions paced on him that you did? So far, anyway: you can bet the press is researching Foley a lot closer than any law-enforcment agency is.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I don't believe that Foley should necessarily receive any criminal punishment for his actions... however, he has been outed as a hypocritical asshole who shouldn't be trusted to govern a deserted island. And for all their loud proclamations about "protect the children" and "family is everything," the Republican leadership has been caught with their pants down and looking the other way. It doesn't surprise me in the least, but it's proving to more and more people how corrupt the Republican party is.
(I'm not saying the Democrats are necessarily better, morally... Clinton was a scumbag in his personal life, when it comes down to it. But hypocrisy is even worse.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
No, I had no intent charges.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Awesome...though I doubt even FOX would use something called "boingboing.com" as a source on...well,,,anything.
It would rock if they tried to spin it on Scientology, though.
Expect any photo Foley's ever taken to be scrutinized in the following weeks- you can bet there's one of him shaking the President's hand- I can see the blogs now: "Presidential wiretapping program nets sex scandal!"
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Yeah, so, again, it's important to distinguish between pedophilia and what's going on here. The former specifically refers to sexul attraction to prepubescent or peripubescent children. It does NOT include adolescents.
Also, I agree that the importance of this is less about the man's individual actions than it is about the hypocrisy and corruption of the Republican party. Not to endorse his actions, of course.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Yeah, so, again, it's important to distinguish between pedophilia and what's going on here. The former specifically refers to sexul attraction to prepubescent or peripubescent children. It does NOT include adolescents.
Before we can get down to making that distinction, we have to distinguish between the legal and pathological uses of the term, though.
I mean, "sodomy" has wildly differing definitions depending on where, when and in what language the word is used. Since "pedophilia" is a household word nowadays, its exact meaning shouldn't be taken as granted unless one is 100% sure of getting the context right. I doubt it's a legal term at all; the term we're looking for is probably " with minors", the expression in the brackets depending on whether the law was written in the 1600s or the 2000s.
posted
I think the point is that, from a bilogical standpoint, there's nothing abnormal or unhealthy about being sexually attracted to individuals in their late teens. That's actually a reproductive peak in human beings. People used to mate/marry as teens quite regularly. So, legal issues aside, it's just the nature of the beast.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Ah, but it's the hypocricy that makes this so good: Watch Foley shoot off his mouth. He makes some good points- about how "children are vulnerable to internet predators" and how the "predators are winning" the fight with law enforcment.
A good breakdown of the issue from start to present is found here.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote: He makes some good points- about how "children are vulnerable to internet predators" and how the "predators are winning" the fight with law enforcment.
The operative word here being "children". People in their late teens are not children, at least not biologically like MMoM already stated. Behaviorally, now that's a whole other can of worms and tends to vary greatly with the individual in question (and nature, nurture and culture all seem to play a role in this), though rep. Foley seems to have violated some US laws regarding the age of consent (and thus set a bad precedent since he's a lawmaker), like individual psychological maturity laws on age of consent can and do tend vary a great deal between cultures and countries. So other than rep. Foley setting a bad precedent as a lawmaker and not conducting himself according to the high standards that are supposed to go with the office (but then again I'm hard pressed to name any current politician who does) all he actually did, like Shik's already stated was talk a little dirty to these kids and I'm sure what rep. Foley said to them wasn't even half as dirty as some of the words being exchanged daily amongst teenagers themselves in high school and college corridors all over the word.
-------------------- condemnant quod non intellegunt
Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
The real fun of the day (so far) stems from FOX News' O'Riley factor- seems they "accidently" used a graphic all during his program that displayed Foley's name and listed him as a DEMOCRAT. Every time they cut to a clip of Foley during the show, he was labled as a democrat. So...O'Riley went on and on about how disgiusted he was with Foley (without ever mentioning Foley's political affiliation) and punctuated his rant with clips of Foley listed as a Democrat.
Woah.
Keith Olbermann is having a field day with it on tonight's show- calling FOX News "outright liars" and you know what? He's right.
Amazing how twisted and dirty this is allready.
Some dumbass democrat is allready running a blatantly false ad stating that "Republicans admitted they knew about Foley molesting children"- none of which is true (that we know of, anyway). I never heard of this democrat before (she's not from Florida) but it's a pretty sleezy ad that conservatives (like Glen Beck and Rush Lmbaugh) are allready pointing to as "democrat dirty politics"....and (in this rare instance) they're right too.
Chris Matthews tonight interviewed a priest that knew Foley since his childhood and basicly said he (the priest, not Matthews) thinks the whole "moolested as a child" routine was made up by Foley's lawyer as an excuse- and that it casts a shadow over the literally dozens of church officials that taught and supported Foley during his long political career.
Then he interviewed one of Foley's political peers (republican) that said there were never any signs Foley had a drinking problem.
Awww yeah- the lies are falling apart fast now.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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