Dana Summers for July 06, 2009

but Rush alone would make the poor little fellow larger than that …

Don’t worry, ANandy. The Republicans will keep on doing the same things they always have. Sooner or later the results will change. Won’t they?

Also puts their “new” ideas in perspective? Old, small and wrinkled- Sanford and Ensign can relate.

striper77, maybe in the next 6 months Obama will wave his magic want and make it all better…

“Bush himself did everything he could to stop the above items for eight years.” When? When wanting to push Social Security into stock purchasing or when he called the start of the economic melt down a “Wall Street adjustment”? I don’t see Obama starting two wars paid ON CREDIT!

Well you can always hope one of the various viruses hanging around this site will send his computer somewhere else. I’ve seen some extreme views here but i’ve pretty much stopped reading his. I spend enough time here.

They’re drunk on stimulus money.

Striper must think they’re painting the “black helicopters” pink?

Yeah, this Striper guy only has an audience here on the internet. I doubt anyone listens to him in the real world. You’re right, Gladius. This guy’s views are reprehensible.

Agreed, fennec.

So distorting the meaning of “crime” isn’t worth debate here? In their interest to justify “gayness” the Libs already have had to include tran-sexuals and trans-vestites as specially-protected classes; what’s next? Some african and middle eastern immigrants marry and have sexual relations at an earlier age - will America’s laws have to include their cultural standards; if so what’s stops perverts like that nursing home guy that got the 11 year old pregnant from being found innocent? Some people like to expose themselves - is that to be protected? “No, just shut up, Striper77 (or some other concerned citizen) - we’re Libs and we know what’s right and wrong!”(and they say “fundies” push their beliefs on other people!). Good job, free and open Libs. When chaos rules in America, Dems, it will be your baby.

Puppy, just to make things clearer for everyone, why don’t you just list all the classes of people you mindlessly hate?

Atheists? Gays? Transsexuals? Transvestites? African-Americans? Middle eastern immigrants? Anyone you call “Libs”? Democrats? (Same as above) Anyone who doesn’t think Bush was our best president?

Good call, Church.

I’m as much against pedophiles as anyone, but I try not to let that cloud my judgment. I’m also against mob justice, and people taking the law into their own hands.

Take two criminals-to-be: One robs a bank, the other commits pedophile crimes. Do you not think that the latter is far more likely to suffer from acts outside the law? Whether he deserves it is not the question, because that question should be determined in a court of law, not by the parents of the victim, or anyone else who hates pedophiles.

I think that is the intent of the law…to keep the administration of justice where it belongs. If people like Striper think this is equivalent to the persecution of christians, well I think that is his problem, not a problem with the legislation. Perhaps he should be wondering why he has such a guilty conscience that would lead to such an interpretation.

In my analogy I tried to come up with a criminal who wouldn’t be viewed with quite the abhorrence applied to a pedophile.

I would guess that there are cases of suspected pedophiles being subjected to mob justice or the like, otherwise there would have been no thought of including them in this law.

Again, I think it best if the judgment and punishment is done through a court of law.

Regarding your statement “The punishment should have been for what they did, not what was in their head when they did it”, well, that’s not how our judicial system works. If you accidentally kill someone with your car, you can be convicted of vehicular manslaughter. But if you killed him by hitting him with your car after a month of planning, then it could be first degree murder. The two crimes are, of course, viewed very differently, and the distinction is based on “what was in their head”.

I was trying to keep it simple, Church. But the point remains…what was “in their head” matters.

You do make a compelling point, though, about the punishment. But do you not see a problem with someone, or a group, going out and just looking for a victim based on that victim’s race/sexual orientation/etc? Shouldn’t that sort of mindset be discouraged?

Again, you make compelling, logical arguments, Church, and I salute you for that.

But I still can’t help but think that the problem must exist, a problem that there are those who would seek out victims based on their characteristics, otherwise such legislation would never have been proposed.

Perhaps that’s me being naive, because I have no experience in such matters (and it sounds like you do), but would Matthew Shepard still be alive today if he hadn’t been gay? Even today, long after his death, we have far-right fundie christians like Fred Phelps applauding the act, and encouraging the same.

And since he was killed simply for being gay, is any harm done for adding additional penalties for that sort of motive?

You might be right about the effectiveness of these sort of laws, but I still don’t see they do any harm (other than making law libraries slightly larger).