Why No United Front Against Pedophiles?

Part 1.
I have some serious questions about pedophiles and pedophilia. Your replies are solicited. By way of starting, let me point out that the words “pedophile” is marked (1951) and “pedophilia” is marked (1906) in my M-W Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Ed. c. 1993. The year in parenthesis means the first time the word was used.

This is not to say the practice which is defined as “sexually perverse” is not as old as time. If by practice we can infer acceptance if not outright approval, pedophilia was common in ancient Greece and Rome. Alexander the Great traveled with a young boy in preference to a young woman. Almost every Roman of our history enjoyed young boys as well as young girls. The Ottomans were notorious for keeping young boys on hand for the use of visiting dignitaries.

Personal anecdote. Being older than most posters here, I will relate my closest non-exposure. In 1944 I was a 10 year old boy living 3 blocks from Churchill Downs. Not a high class neighborhood. There was an alley behind my house accessing the garages at the rear of narrow city lots.

A drunk passed by my backyard fence and offered me $10 to lead him to Churchill Downs. Although my suppertime was near, I took the offer. When I got to CD with the drunk in tow, he refused to pay me. I returned home with at least one lesson learned.

My parents had learned from my younger sister where I had gone and who I was with. When I got back they were in a panic! My father administered my last “whipping” - corporal punishment - using a newly cut branch from a weeping willow tree. After a few strokes, my mother, my sister, my father and me all in tears, it was over. We sat down for supper. At that time I was not aware of the reason for my parents unexplained dread. I know now. Even without a name, pedophiles were alive and well then and parents knew it!

Today on CNN I heard there are 600,000 registered sex criminals in the US. Yesterday I learned that a 17 year old Atlanta boy who participated in a sex act with a 14 year old girl and got a 20 years to life sentence - since remitted - may not have his name added to that list because of the “Romeo and Juliet” provision of Georgia law exempting consensual sex.
The act remains a statutory rape crime however, based on the girls age.

It has always been a crime - assault - to unlawfully touch another person.
The crime assault does require some harm to the victim whereas the civil assault does not require harm. Just unwelcome touching. It has always been a crime - statutory rape - for adults over 21 to have sex with minors under various ages, 12, 14, and 16 are frequently specified, to set degrees of the offense. I.E., first degree if under 12, second degree if under 14 and third degree if under 16. The crime is also mitigated if the offender is under 18 or under 16. Yes, it gets complicated and you need a chart to get it right.

The advent of the internet - late 1980s - has increased both the instances of pedophilia and also raised our awareness of the repulsive act. Repulsive because it takes away the innocence of a child that cannot be restored regardless of the hours on the psychiatrist’s couch. Aside: The drug atenolol is being studied to aide in relieving the crushing anxiety of horrid memories. End.

Back to the 600,000 number, it was not specified how many were grown men raping grown women, bad enough, or grown men raping children of both sexes. Horrible beyond words. So what do we do about this relatively new crime primarily against children?

History. The two worst episodes of rape in my lifetime were the rape by German soldiers of Russian, Ukraine, Belarus, Maldivians and Poles. The second worst instance was the rape of Germans by Red Army soldiers particularly in the Berlin area at the War’s end. Perhaps as disgusting as the Japanese Rape of Nanking in 1937? Regrettably, several USMC were recently convicted of raping an Iraqi girl. Rape is not new to war.

Modern psychology says rape is not a legitimate form of sexual expression but rather is a pathological form of dominance and disdain for the victim, either real i.e., that person, or representational, i.e., anti gender.

I am perplexed by our reaction to sex crimes. We have made sex crimes into a non-stop punishment event. We pass draconian laws and give them ex post facto status. As in the case of city ordinances that forbid a sex criminal from living within a certain distance of a school, bus stop or other place children are likely to congregate. He’s got 24 hours to move!

These laws violate our 1) presumption of innocence, 2) cruel and unusual punishments, 3) taking of property without compensation, 4) disregard protection agonist self incrimination. And maybe more of our cherished Constitutional rights. Yet we are totally blase about it.

I am old enough to have lived through the abuses committed by the Red Scare investigations of the 1940s and 1950s. I recall Federal Bureau of Investigation abuses in the 1950s,1960s and 1970s. Abuses were not committed by over-eager Special Agents gone awry. This all happened on the specific instructions of the FBI Director, J Edgar Hoover. The very man who carefully presented himself to the pubic as its protector! And who can say it has not been resumed under th Patriot Act? Or if it ever was stopped? How can we know a renegade or maverick agent from a genuine law abiding agent?

This current scare reminds me a little of our fears when the French first discovered the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. We were scared to death! It was incurable. It was transmitted by sexual contact. It looked as if we were all doomed! Actually, it is as bad as we first thought, but two things have happened: 1) we are jaded by its proliferation, and 2) the rich can buy drugs that forestall its advance for many years. It is out of mind.
Now we can look for a NEW nemesis!

And sexual predators are the answer. If we are going to willfully violate our own Constitution, that sacred document, then should we not at least try to amend it so that we are NOT in violation? To remain a Government of Laws and NOT a Government of Men?

What say you?

Part 2.
Historical Review. The US Federal government is a government of delegated powers. This contrasts with the state governments which are descended from England’s absolutist King James I who was king from 1603 to 1625. James asserted he was king by Divine Right. That is, he answered only to GOD. James’ 2nd s0n, Charles, later known as Charles I, continued the unwelcome claims of Divine Right to rule. He ultimately was disabused of that claim when he suffered beheading in 1649.

Virginia, name for the first Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, founded in 1607. Followed by the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1620. New Hampshire in 1623. Maryland in 1632. Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1639. Pennsylvania in 1647. Thus these colonies were first settled when the notion of absolute power vested in the monarch was advanced if not always accepted.

The amendments I have referenced in Part 1 are: A person is to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure, Amend. 4; No person shall be held to answer for a crime two times, nor be compelled to give testimony against himself not be denied . . liberty . . without due process of law, Amend 5; The accused shall have a speedy trial by an impartial jury of his peers, be allowed to confront his accusers, and have compulsory process for witness in his behalf and to have assistance of counsel. Amend 6; Excessive bail shall not be required nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, Amend 8. Government by law demands we respect these rules or simple honesty demands we change them.

Until the adoption of the 14th Amendment, July 28, 1868, the Supreme Court had held the Bill of Rights applied only to the Federal Government. Some states had similar Bills of Rights, but not all and not all covered the same issues. With the newly adopted 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled that amendment applied the first 10 amendments (Bill of Rights) against the states equally as against the Federal Government.

How far does the Federal Government’s jurisdiction run? It is based on the interstate commerce clause. See Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3: “The Congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several states . . ” When this clause is read in conjunction with Clause 18, “To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers . . “ it is plain the Congress has the preeminent power.

The Hobbs Act set out the Federal government’s powers and the Courts have explained what it means. The Hobbs Act provides that “whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by . .. extortion or attempts or conspires so to do . . . shall be fined . . . or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.” Twenty years in a Federal pen is not a fun place to be. More on Hobbs: “An effect on interstate commerce is established by proof of an actual impact, however small, or in the absence of actual impact, by proof of a probable or potential impact.

Finally, the Sixth Circuit upheld the Hobbs Act conviction of a county sheriff who extorted political contributions from his deputies, several of whom received funds from federal programs. The court held “that the diversion of these federal funds into the sheriff's political 'war chest' had a sufficient impact on interstate commerce to bring the extortion within the scope of the Hobbs Act.” And so it is.

We are watching every one of the 50 states jump into the foray. Many cities and lesser political sub-divisions are writing laws, many of which a 6th grader could tell us are unconstitutional. A patchwork of laws and rules. I have ever heard of some zoning rules being changed to ban pedophiles.

However I regard the desirability of such laws, I believe one law, enacted by Congress, uniformly applied throughout the US would be a vastly superior way to address what everyone admits is a very real problem.

[edit on 8/14/2007 by donwhite]