In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: April 2007

Judges Justifying Rape and Child Pornography

First, a Nevada man pleaded guilty to ten counts of child pornography for possessing more than 800 pornographic images of children — and in his sentencing, the judge asserted that men are attracted to female children. Female children as young as one:

“These kinds of offenses are problems with impulse control,” said Carson City District Judge Bill Maddox prior to sentencing. “When I say that, it’s my understanding that most men are sexually attracted to young women. When I say young women I don’t just mean women that … you should be attracted to. I mean women from the time they’re 1 all the way up until they’re 100.”

And wanting to have sex with little girls is perfectly normal:

Maddox noted the legal terms malum in se, a Latin phrase meaning an act that is “inherently evil,” and malum prohibitum, which means acts that are not necessarily inherently immoral or hurtful, only wrong by statute.

He said child pornography could be considered malum prohibitum because in some countries and cultures it is acceptable to engage in sexual conduct with young girls.

“As an example, having sex with a girl between 12 and 16 is prohibited because we say it’s prohibited. It’s because we decided as a civilized society you do not want adults engaging in sexual conduct with children below 16 years of age, which flies in the face of our, I guess for lack of a better description, our normal impulses,” he said.

“I guess we could just ignore them, say it’s just like a traffic ticket, it’s malum prohibitum, it’s only against the law because it’s prohibited. Or we could say that because we’re trying to control what’s an otherwise natural impulse there has to be consequences.

“The bottom line on it all is the way we’re going to control it in my opinion is to ensure that everybody understands what the consequences are if you engage in … a lack of impulse control. It’s likely that most people would find young girls sexually attractive. But we’re civilized to the point that we’re taught to control our impulses. When you don’t, there has to be consequences.”

And if that isn’t enough to make you vomit in your own mouth, check out this story about a man who got no jail time for raping a 10-year-old girl — because he thought she was 16, and she had already had some sexual experience, so what’s the harm? And naturally, she was asking for it:

Mr Justice Roderick Evans, at Swansea Crown Court, said the girl “was looking for a man and got what she wanted”.

Enlighten Me Here

So how, exactly, is this worse than this, this, or this? Or, for that matter, this?

Silly me! It’s because Nancy Pelosi’s not a Republican. And Democrat = Dhimmi, as far as the wingnuts are concerned. If you’re a Democrat, simple respect for local culture might as well mean handing over the country to the kind of Allahu-Akbar-spouting Islamic terrorists that have Michelle Malkin soiling herself under the bed.

See also: Steve M. at No More Mr. Nice Blog (who has a very Interesting link to a Catholic site), Le Mew, Amanda, and maha.

Michelle Malkin: Insufficient hatred of Muslims continues to plague our schools.

Our Lady of the Concentration Camps:

Three years ago, I wrote about a mock terrorism drill at a public school district in Muskegon County, Mich. Instead of Islamic terrorists, educators substituted Christian homeschoolers. Yes, Christian homeschoolers.
(…)
Flabbergasting, but true. In the wake of 9/11 and the jihadists’ carnage against schoolchildren in Beslan, Russia, the school chose to prepare their students for an attack by Christian homeschooling “wackos,” not Muslim suicide bombers.

Unfortunately, little has changed. Last month, New Jersey’s Burlington Township High School held its own mock terrorism drill. “You perform as you practice,” Superintendent Chris Manno told the Burlington County Times. “We need to practice under conditions as real as possible in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they’re as effective as possible.”

But the “real as possible” conditions included no bomb-vest-donning jihadists shouting “Allahu Akbar.” No red bandana-wearing martyrs with visions of 72 virgins dancing in their evil heads. No America-hating plotters enraged by the existence of Israel or driven to establish a worldwide caliphate. Nope.

According to the paper, two local police detectives took on the role of hostage-taking Christian gunmen.

“Investigators described them as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the ‘New Crusaders’ who don’t believe in separation of church and state. The mock gunmen went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.” Upset Christian students reported on the drill to their parents.

How many other jihad-whitewashing mock terrorism drills have been conducted using tax dollars?

Yes, it is totally unrealistic to think that Christian wackos will shoot up schools, or hurt anyone, when everyone knows that there’s been a rash of suicide-bombing Jihadis chanting some craziness about this “Allah” character while they blow up American schools.

…right?

Now, my memory could be failing me, but if I remember my school shooting stories correctly, they usually involved gun-happy white boys. And Islamic terrorists have attacked American schools, well, never. But that isn’t for lack of school attacks — according to this world-wide time line of school shootings, the United States seems to be beating the hell out of most other countries. You’d think if an Islamic terrorist had ever attacked an American school, it would merit mention in Michelle’s column. And yet she can only point to one Islamic terrorist attack on a school — and that was in Russia.

Which isn’t to downplay the horror and depravity of the Russian school attack, but it’s a little disingenuous to suggest that Islamic terrorists are shooting American schoolchildren when, in fact, it’s generally American schoolchildren who are shooting American schoolchildren. The occasional adult man jumps into the mix, and usually manages to throw some misogyny in there (sense a pattern?).

But, yeah, our schools have clearly been corrupted by Sharia law. Or something.

Credit Where Credit is Due

I don’t like Rudy, but good for him for bucking Evangelical pressure and stating his support for some public funding of abortion. This isn’t exactly a giant pro-choice victory, since of course he re-emphasized his personal opposition to abortion and state’s rights and blah blah blah, but in supporting public funding he’s taken a stronger pro-choice position than a lot of Democrats. And he’s a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. This doesn’t mean that we can rest on our laurels and consider the culture war won, but I think it does bode well for the decreasing influence of the religious right on the Republican party.

And the guy is sticking to his guns, even in the face of enormous pressure to pose as a social conservative in order to rally the GOP base. I still think he’s scum (see here), but good on him for taking this position.

I guess “pro-life” doesn’t include brown people

Good to know that abstinence-until-marriage programs get more federal funding than any of the other HIV/AIDS prevention programs in developing nations. Yes, you read that right: They get more money than all other HIV prevention programs.

Programs to prevent the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, are perhaps the most important tool in that long-term fight. Yet Congress specified that only 20 percent of the money could be spent on prevention, and one-third of that had to be used to promote abstinence until marriage. More money has been spent in that area than on other prevention activities, including distribution of condoms and blocking mother-to-child transmission.

But abstinence until marriage works, right?

Wrong. Marriage is actually a major risk factor for women in many of the nations that U.S. money is targeting.

For many women, marriage is a risk factor for AIDS because of their husbands’ dangerous behavior. Worldwide, 80 percent of women newly infected with HIV are practicing monogamy within a marriage or a long-term relationship. This shatters the myth that marriage is a natural refuge from AIDS. And it shows that, more than two decades into the epidemic, our fight against AIDS has failed to address the unique circumstances of women—especially women in the developing world.

Why are women so vulnerable? Physiological differences make women twice as likely as men to contract HIV from an infected partner during sex. In many countries, sexual inequality compounds the hazard by making it difficult, if not impossible, for women to enforce their choices about whom they have sex with, or to insist that men wear condoms. But one of the deadliest problems is that women simply don’t have the tools to protect themselves. Despite the array of breakthroughs we’ve seen for AIDS treatment, prevention efforts still rely on the three practices described by the abbreviation ABC (“Abstain, be faithful, use condoms”). These approaches work, and we must encourage them, but they all depend on a man’s cooperation. For millions of married women, abstinence is unrealistic, being faithful is insufficient and the use of condoms is not under their control.

Emphasis mine.

Of course, putting HIV prevention in the hands of women, and recognizing that marriage is not a safety net, wouldn’t be on message for the Bush administration, and wouldn’t please his supposed “pro-life” base. That base would certainly rather push its ideology world-wide than actually take steps to save lives.