Text 32219, 99 rader
Skriven 2006-06-17 05:07:42 av Bob Ackley (1:2905/3)
  Kommentar till text 32039 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: (1/2) Pickled Pirates Prop
==================================
Replying to a message of Michiel van der Vlist to Bob Ackley:

 BA>> In point of fact, once an organism of virtually any species attains
 BA>> sexual maturity it is considered an adult and labelled as such.
 BA>> Except, of course, for humans in the United States.

 MvdV> Well, it is refreshing to hear something different from your side of
 MvdV> the pond than the usual rants. I owuld not go as far as to say that
 MvdV> calling every boy who shows interest in a fourteen year old girl a
 MvdV> child molester is limited to the USA.

 BA>> In a cemetery located in what is now a state park in the state of
 BA>> Nebraska, USA, is the gravestone of Mrs Dulcena Bratton, wife of Mr.
 BA>> James Bratton, and their infant daughter.  Apparently the lady died
 BA>> in childbirth, a not uncommon occurrence in 1873, which is the date
 BA>> on the stone.  According to the headstone Mrs Bratton was 15 years,
 BA>> 6 months old at the time of her death.

 MvdV> Surely not uncommon at that time. Even today there are lots of youn
 MvdV> mothers in that age class.

I was researching a term paper with the state health department way back in
1984.  One publication the department put out included a table that showed the
ages of mothers at the time of infant birth.  At the time there were two
females
who had given birth at the age of 12, and the numbers climbed slightly until
they
began to bulge around age 19 and tapered down again after about age 26.

 BA>> A year or so ago in Nebraska a fellow got his girl friend preggers.
 BA>> He was 19 and she was 15.  They went down to Kansas (roughly 20
 BA>> miles) and were married - with her parents' permission (at the time
 BA>> it was legal in Kansas, after the brouhaha in the right wing press
 BA>> Kansas changed its laws).  Some of the busybody neighbors complained
 BA>> to the county attorney, who investigated and decided not to
 BA>> prosecute.

 MvdV> A sensible decision.

Oddly enough, about half of the people in the state of Nebraska agreed with the
decision.  I found that surprising, since politically the state is somewhere to
the right of the late, unlamented (by me, anyway) George Lincoln Rockwell
(Mr. Rockwell was the long time head of the American Nazi Party, he died
probably 20 years ago, IIRC of natural causes).

 BA>> So the busybody neighbors complained to the state attorney general,
 BA>> who was and is a wannabe governor.  He took up the case - very
 BA>> publicly - and managed to get the husband a year in jail

 MvdV> Ridiculous. What good did it do? And to who. (Others than the career
 MvdV> of the prosecuting attorney general)

It made the very self-righteous very happy.  We'll see if it gets him elected
governor.

 BA>> and a lifetime of having to register with his local authorities,
 BA>> wherever he lives, as a sex offender (and note that many if not most
 BA>> local authorities post the names and addresses of registered sex
 BA>> offenders on web sites, which has caused houses to mysteriously
 BA>> catch fire in the dead of night).

 MvdV> So not just prosecutors who lost all sense of perspective but people
 MvdV> taking the law into their own hands as well. :-(

In point of fact a year or so ago in Omaha (Nebraska) a fellow was awaiting
sentencing after having been convicted of a sex crime (I've forgotten precisely
what he did).  In any case, one dark night the gas feed pipe to his furnace was
mysteriously re-routed to dump the gas into the crawl space under his mobile
home.
The gas exploded and the explosion and resulting fire killed the man - and his
wife,
who had not been accused or convicted of anything.  Obviously a case of
premeditated
murder, two counts; no arrests and not much of an investigation.

Various cities in the US have passed laws restricting where convicted sex
offenders
may reside - not within a half mile of any school, church, park or playground,
for
instance (which effectively bans them from living anywhere in the city).  Some
smaller
cities and towns have flatly forbidden them from living within the city limits.
Of course, the county sheriffs are required to check on those registered sex
offenders
to insure that they are in fact living at the reported address, and according
to an article
last winter in the Des Moines (Iowa) Register some were living at a highway
rest stop -
and the sheriff found them there (in their cars, trying to keep warm in
freezing weather)
every night.

Note that the definition of what constitutes a sex crime varies between
jurisdictions, not all involve children and not all involve forcible rape.  But
a conviction lumps *all* into the
same category, regardless of the act committed.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:2905/3)