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Conservative libertarian.  Webmaster for the Greater Boston Tea Party.


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Tom Meyer
Name:
Tom Meyer
Hometown:
Friday Harbor, WA
Joined:
Jan 21, 2011

Recent Comments

Tom Meyer

Wylee Coyote

Richard Finlay: Whether or not the attackers in London are terrorists or combatants is less important than recognizing that this was an act of war, not just a crime.

Precisely.  If it's not terrorism because the victim was a soldier, then it is an act of war.

I'm not sure Greenwald has thought this point through.

Committed by whom?  The attacker was a British citizen and (so far) there's nothing to suggest he was working for any foreign entity).  Perhaps you could argue it was treason, but I don't know anything about British law on the matter.

Just for the sake of clarity, I don't think attacks on uniformed military personnel are terrorism (e.g., Ft. Hood or Ft. Dix).  I think it's reasonable to describe this attack as terrorism, though I don't know what that accomplishes.  Murder 1 usually does the trick (except here in MA, though that's the topic of a another post).

Tom Meyer

Roberto

Yet he was specifically sought out because he was a soldier, should not that fact carry some weight in this question?

So what would you argue?

Edited 39 minutes ago
Tom Meyer

Pseudodionysius

One of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's very shrewd moves was to get Canada's age of consent moved up from 14, quietly, without many in the media noticing. That age of consent had made Canada an attractive locale for sex tourism, which is just another of those charming "unintended consequences" that diversity brings about.

From the wiki:

The Tackling Violent Crime Act took effect on 1 May 2008, raising the age of consent to 16 from 14.[7]

There exist two close in age exemptions [in Canada], depending on the age of the younger partner. A youth of twelve or thirteen can consent to sexual activity with an individual less than two years older than they. A fourteen- or fifteen-year-old can consent to sexual activity with a partner who is less than five years older than they.[8]

That sounds entirely reasonable (ideal, if you ask me).  To be clear, my objection is to felony charges against kids a few years apart who attend the same school.  31-year-old international sex tourist pederasts are a completely different story.

Tom Meyer
St. Salieri: Perhaps, but then when does the 18 year not function as an adult in other cases, they can vote, they can be drafted, they can be employed on their own terms - and another negative comes to mind: assault.

Right, but assault and battery are generally misdemeanors, not felonies.

I don't particularly like the idea of sicking the state on lustful teenagers*, but it's the that that this behavior is a felony that really gets my goat.  Every moment the CJ system spends on these kind of cases distracts them from preventing, prosecuting, and incarcerating genuine sexual predators.

* Which is not to say that I approve of their behavior; my future daughters' prom nights will begin with their dates seeing me cleaning a variety of firearms.

Tom Meyer

That said, can we stipulate that these guys were as fantastically lame as they were evil?  I mean, there were two of them, and their great accomplishment was murdering one guy?

Makes the Tsarnaev brothers seem impressive.

Tom Meyer

Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:

I know that Greenwald is trying to make people think more about the nature of the military actions committed by American and British soldiers ... but I worry that the downplaying of this act as terrorism serves a few troubling functions.

For one, it legitimizes the idea that every street, every home in the United States, Britain, and throughout the world., is in the theater of conflict. That means that typical civil liberties protections go away. For another, it can harm social order in that wartime relations between peoples are naturally more suspicious.

Does a Greenwaldian understanding that an unspeakably violent machete attack on an off-duty soldier walking down the street in front of a London primary school and scores of citizens isn't terrorism has more danger for civil society than classifying it as terrorism? 

Though I think we overuse "terrorism" -- especially with regard to attacks on our military -- I'm with Mollie on this one, given that the victim was neither in uniform nor on a military base.

Tom Meyer

You're right; I was rounding their ages up (though I do appreciate TX making an effort to be reasonable).  Apologies.

But, just to be clear, we are talking about felony charges, prison time, and (sometimes permanent) registry as a sex offender.  Those are utterly appropriate punishments for genuine sexual predators, not teenagers with more hormones than sense.

Tom Meyer

Roberto:

If you're looking to change the age of majority or age of consent then throw some numbers out there. What do you like? Why?

I think it's important to have exceptions for teenagers with age differences of only a few years (aka Romeo & Juliet laws).  Texas' statutory rape laws strike me as far more reasonable than Florida's; from what I gather of the case, Kaitlyn Hunt would have had a positive defense against the charges had she and her girlfriend lived there.

The reasons I oppose laws like Florida's are because they permanently ruin the lives of otherwise decent kids by giving them a felony record (as a sex-offender, no less).  That's both foolish and unjust.

Edited 18 hours ago
Tom Meyer

This is something I was trying to get at a few months back: that while both conception and birth are the two clearest moments at which to recognize legal and moral rights, both have significant problems if one expects even a minimal level of consistency.

Tom Meyer

Roberto:

Perhaps there are others but this is the first case I have seen where tens of thousands are openly and proudly endorsing pedophilia. I find that rather amazing.  

I find it rather amazing that you think it's appropriate to charge an 18-year-old HS senior as felony sex offender for having sex with a HS freshman.

This is what parenting is for, not police.

Tom Meyer
Barkha Herman: What UK needs is an armed citizenry. ยท 47 minutes ago

Hear, hear.

It's also fascinating how the attacker -- in fluent, London-accented English -- refers to foreign countries as "our lands."  Not surprising, just fascinating.

Edited 18 hours ago
Tom Meyer

That was awesome.

Megan McArdle had a great column on what we could actually do if we cared and were smart about this. As such, it's properly considered a work of speculative fiction, but...

Tom Meyer

That was awesome.

Megan McArdle had a great column on what we could actually do if we cared and were smart about this. As such, it's properly considered a work of speculative fiction, but...

Tom Meyer

That was awesome.

Megan McArdle had a great column on what we could actually do if we cared and were smart about this. As such, it's properly considered a work of speculative fiction, but...

Tom Meyer

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

I suspect (but have no proof, this is an intuitive claim) that a relatively significant percentage of those who found no moral fault with out-of-wedlock births were pro-lifers who rationalized it along the following lines:

Better that than an abortion.

I know  that happens. (Although my anecdotes aren't data.) And only one of the gals I know put her baby up for adoption. How sad.

Seconded.  I've known some myself.

Here are some stats from Red Families v. Blue Families (Chapter 1, sub-chapter "The Teen Divide"):

The states with the highest white teen birthrates in 2003 were Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.  The states with the lowest teen abortion rates are Utah, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Arkansas.*

On the other side, the states with the lowest white teen birthrates at that time were New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode-Island.  The states with highest teen abortion rates were Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts  New York, and New Jersey.

The overlap is pretty amazing.

* I don't have numbers for white teen abortion rates, so the comparison isn't perfect.

Tom Meyer

Fricosis Guy: It is a misconception that people go to fertility clinics only because they cannot conceive. It is because they are having difficulty having children survive to term.

This may be for a variety of reasons post-conception which Langone does specific research on (http://www.nyufertilitycenter.org/news/2013/nyufc-study-finds-steet-technology-results-high-pregnancy-rate-low-multiple-gestation-and-). 

Lots of other examples that try to minimize multiple births and miscarriages, which are also dangerous to the mother.

[snip]

...One other point, selection of health and motility of both egg and sperm is done as a matter of course now in fertility clinics.

Tom Meyer: I'm being purely speculative, but perhaps we can pre-screen eggs so that only genetically healthy can be fertilized (still leaves the problem of what to do about sperm, I know). 

My bad: I should have said:

[P]eople go to a fertility clinic because they're having trouble having a baby, not because they're perfectly fertile but worried about the health of any early stage embryos whose lives might be created and ended without their knowledge.

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