My, such irony here
ByWhen it comes to cable TV news, hypocrisy knows no bounds and irony is often laid on so think you can cut it with a knife.
That happened this week with an MSNBC followup to a Today Show story about teens and "sexting," the fad of sending out photos of nudes or teenagers engaged in sex acts to cell phones and over the Internet.
Teens caught with such photos are often charged with trafficking in child pornography and face conviction and listing on public databases as a sex offender.
In Vermont, some legislators are trying to change the laws of that state to make "texting" a crime that does not carry the stigma of being a sex offender.
For Vermont’s side, State Sen. John Campbell appeared on MSNBC to discuss the legislative efforts.
For the other side, MSNBC gave us Donna Rice Hughes, an "internet safety expert" who works for the activist organization "Enough is Enough."
Donna Rice Hughes? Yep. Before she was married, she was Donna Rice, Washington party girl and the overnight guest who brought down the Presidential ambitions of Colorado Sen. Gary Hart.
OK. So she’s a reformed party girl who has seen the error of her ways.
On MSNBC, Hughes said:
"What these teenagers need to do is think befroe they allow a picture to be taken that they will regret for the rest of their lives."
Donna Rice should know about the dangers of photos you shouldn’t pose for.
She didn’t send out any nude photos of herself but she did sit seductively on the lap of Sen. Hart during a weekend tryst aboard a boat called "The Monkey Business."
Later, she tried to cash in on her 15-minutes of fame by signing on as a model for Guess Jeans. The campaign flopped and her modeling career ended almost before it began.
Now’s she’s an advocate for "internet safety" as President and Chairman of "Enough is Enough," which lists its primary mission as "making the internet safe for children and families."
Hart’s wife divorced him over his philandering. Guess Donna Rice didn’t make the Hart household "safe for children and families."
Video of the Today show report is below:
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If memory serves correctly, I seem to remember she was involved in Roger Stone’s “dirty tricks” crews, as well.
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As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you
can’t drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against ‘em anyway, you don’t belong in office.-Molly Ivins
There are other, perhaps better, ways to handle this problem.
First and foremost, as Ms. Hughes says, in almost every state there is prosecutorial discretion. The state can choose not to bring porn charges at all. What I suggest, though, is that if the state does decide to bring porn charges the accused must be treated as an adult.
That gets the trial into the part of the criminal justice system which includes jury trials. Then give the presiding judge discretion to throw out the charges as well as to give instructions to the jury that ensure the jury understands the repercussions of their verdict. Or you could go even farther and require that there be a separate penalty phase of such a trial, similar to what is done in murder cases throughout the country.
You could also require that no minor be included on the sex offender registry because of sending or possessing “consenting” pictures.
Wow…
I agree entirely with Gazelle’s post.
I also think it’s a pathetic shame that kids have gone from the days when they watched Bambie and playing doctor, to this most recent fad.. and far, far worse. However, I do not believe that the stupid activity of teens consensual “sexting” should carry the sex offender stigma.
Yes Doug there is Irony..take for instance the phony Dr. Laura who has a track record of home wrecking and posing spread legged before a camera..she has been enjoying and audience of 7 million who hang on to every word she says…go figure???
It’s also what happens when nanny-state degenerates think it’s a good idea to start teaching sex education to first graders. When I was growing up in the seventies, my biggest worry was whether or not I’d get a lollipop when I went to the bank with my mother.
News flash – it does nothing but make the kiddies want to try it themselves, at a much earlier age than if we just let nature take its course, like it has for thousands of years.
Sex offender status…bah!
What nonsense. Any of these cases that end up prevailing based on web/cell-based pornography once making it to the Supreme Court will get shot down. I guess people forget about Larry Flynt and his trials and tribulations against the so-called “good people” of this nation. Hypocrites all…!
What will it be Salem style “witch trials” next?!
The so-called good people of this nation seem to have little interest in prosecuting murderers and torturers in high places so evidently they would enjoy getting down in the 17th century tradition of public stocks, women forced to wear the brank, the pillory, the burning stake along with our roads lined with handy-gallows so again the “good people” can have their phony-butt justice…NOT!
To be posted as a youthful sex offender at such young ages is nothing more than the placement of that old time “Scarlet Letter”…period!
Carl Nemo **==
What’s new?
In Texas…say about 10 years ago, rural school bus rides were somewhat of a joy for Jr. High age and up boys who, on those long tedious trips to and from school were enjoying B.J.s on the bus.]
It wasn’t isolated incidents…it became a fad for these 12 to 18 year old girls to offer oral sex to boys on long bus rides.
Sexting isn’t new either. Its been going on for years. What took it so long to reveal itself?
But, the realizaton by media knew tha there would be a giant knee-jerk public reaction and a hard push to encourage outrage and the shock factor has. And what they do best…and that is to put on their best tabloid theatrics.
Hard news is a rarity. This isn’t hard news. Sex is sex, but how it’s presented to the public is forever evolving.
Kids have been having sex earlier and earlier ever since the great sex revolution of the 70s.
Want to see what older college kids do at spring breaks? They began those behaviors years before they got to college.
But my biggest problem is…now we are seeing a huge lynch mob forming to punish kids. Our kids will not stop, even at the risk of becoming life-long registred sex offenders.
SHAME ON ALL WHO are going to perpetrate this outlandish punishment.
SHAME ON THE Media for exploiting this issue in such a way as to actually put our children in a long-term consquences that will forever injure their lives.
We are still in the dark ages when it comes to sex…and parents being responsible for educating them about sex.
Well said AustinRanter…!
Carl Nemo **==
I was toying with the idea that charging the imaged person as an adult would automatically get rid of the child porn charges because the images were of an adult, but then my brain began to hurt.
Ms Hughes suggest that no new laws are needed. She believes prosecutorial discretion is the best way to handle these cases of juveniles sexting. That is exactly why we need a new law. Just look at Prosecutor Shumanick in PA. He was going to charge 20 juveniles with felony possession of child porn. Their crime. Having a photo of two juveniles in their bras, and the other girl had her breast exposed. He was also going to file child porn charges against the two girls in training bras but a Federal Judge issued a restraining order. This is the type of prosecutorial discretion that will make sure that the punishment fits the “crime”? I don’t think so.
The thing about county prosecutors that we often forget is that they are politicians first and lawyers second.
Skumanick (not Shumanick) is an elected official in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania (at least for now.) Having his butt handed to him by the Federal courts, Skumanick faces a pretty tough time at the next election.
Prosecutorial discretion becomes, in the long run, electoral discretion. The community will decide whether he was an asshole or a visionary. I’m hoping for the former.
Punishing kids for doing what comes naturally is a reflection of those adult’s own unresolved sexual conflicts. The answer to the electronic sharing should just be handled by educating kids about the potential consequences. Gary Hart is an early non-electronic example.
Let’s have sex education starting in the first grade, for sure, but of course we always have to call it "age appropriate sex education". That won’t stop the prudes from screaming that schools have no business delving into matters that should be handled by the parents.
To do this properly, all colleges of education need to teach the new crop of teachers how to teach sex ed to the different age groups. Teachers who haven’t had this training need to learn how to do it.
In the lower grades it’s best to have the regular teacher do this rather than someone the children don’t know.
In the higher grades, say 8-12, schools can bring in outsiders if they don’t have their own sex ed teacher. I was asked to teach two 45 minute classes at the middle school decades ago. That was their sex education.
I made the most of it by talking about masturbation without guilt. I explained how mutual masturbation was a safe and pleasurable alternative to intercourse. I was explicit.
Of course I talked about birth control.
I was about 40 at the time and some of the students were shocked someone as old as their parents could talk so candidly.
I wasn’t asked back.
Hal,
As a fellow Social Worker, and having worked a number of years in the school system, under the employ of a non-profit agency, who had an offices throughout the various schools in the district, I worked with at-risk kids, and their parents.
I can testify that we live in a backward thinking society when it comes to sex. We live in a nation of so many double standards and hypocrites when it comes to issues regarding sex.
I worked with 12 to 18 year old boys and girls. Many were sexually active. The issues were so significant that I contacted a Youth Council in a the country seat to see if they couldn’t provide a “female counselor” to work with so many young girls who were engaged in unsafe sex practices.
There were at least 3 girls who came to me who were pregnant and under the age of 15. There were a number of girls over the age of 15 who got pregnant and sought to get abortions without their parents knowning.
The sad thing about all of this is…when I approached parents, they would get livid and tell me that I was infringing on their private lives and parenting skills.
We …the people of the United States of America…are sexual hypocrites and have a dark age mentality about sex…and yet in every corner of our daily lives we are bombarded with sexual images and content in books, television, and music…and all of which our kids are consumers of.
We are nation full of the politically igorant and sex education ignorant.
I just can’t say what I’d really like to say about this topic as I can’t do so without be very graphic.
I think the government hath gone too far and should be scrapped.
Succession anyone?