part 2 of 2thaddeusquayDecember 1 2005, 04:38:20 UTC
I cannot stress enough just how bad the inequality is getting with these laws. I sympathize with women who are genuinely abused, but the reality is very likely that with all the men who are punished for abusing women, more than half of them didn't do anything, or if they did, it wasn't anywhere near as serious as their punishment would have you believe.
For instance, I just heard, from a confidential source, about a local man who recently got around 2 years in jail, and when he gets out, he will be subject to all of the continuing punishments found in Megan's Law. He will have to register as a sex offender, he will have a very hard time getting a place to live with the 2,000-foot restrictions, and he will be unlikely to get/keep a job. What did he do to deserve all of this?
As her uncle, or something like that, he was the guardian of a 16-year old girl. A while back, he was comforting her over some problem. During said comforting episode, he gently stroked her back. He did this in an innocent way, like you might with your girlfriend or sister. In court, she didn't try to make it seem like it was anything else. However, she testified that this stroking suddenly brought back repressed memories of her being anally raped, by him, when she was 8.
That was it. That's all it took. There was no probing questioning of her. There was no evidence, medical or otherwise. There were no experts. There was no TV-like CSI investigation. Her mere words were enough to destroy his life. Is it possible that she was telling the truth? Yes it is, but given that anal rape at that age is likely to require some medical attention, it is more probable that she was lying. We'll never know, but he'll be punished just the same.
It's good that you care enough to think in the terms of your post. It shows that you are unlikely to grow up to be a brutish lout, but at the same time, don't swing too far in the other direction. Don't allow yourself to be used and abused by phantom victims. When it happens, it can be so sudden that you don't even have time to take in what happened, much less react in a meaningful-enough manner with which to save yourself.
For instance, I just heard, from a confidential source, about a local man who recently got around 2 years in jail, and when he gets out, he will be subject to all of the continuing punishments found in Megan's Law. He will have to register as a sex offender, he will have a very hard time getting a place to live with the 2,000-foot restrictions, and he will be unlikely to get/keep a job. What did he do to deserve all of this?
As her uncle, or something like that, he was the guardian of a 16-year old girl. A while back, he was comforting her over some problem. During said comforting episode, he gently stroked her back. He did this in an innocent way, like you might with your girlfriend or sister. In court, she didn't try to make it seem like it was anything else. However, she testified that this stroking suddenly brought back repressed memories of her being anally raped, by him, when she was 8.
That was it. That's all it took. There was no probing questioning of her. There was no evidence, medical or otherwise. There were no experts. There was no TV-like CSI investigation. Her mere words were enough to destroy his life. Is it possible that she was telling the truth? Yes it is, but given that anal rape at that age is likely to require some medical attention, it is more probable that she was lying. We'll never know, but he'll be punished just the same.
It's good that you care enough to think in the terms of your post. It shows that you are unlikely to grow up to be a brutish lout, but at the same time, don't swing too far in the other direction. Don't allow yourself to be used and abused by phantom victims. When it happens, it can be so sudden that you don't even have time to take in what happened, much less react in a meaningful-enough manner with which to save yourself.
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