Letters to the Editor
DurianJoe
Published Letters: 1310 Editor's Choice: 69
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Summer of '42.
[Read the article: Pedophile blogger unfairly targeted?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyone else ever see that movie? 15 year-old Hermie ends up having sex with an adult woman named Dorothy, played by Jennifer O'Neill. It was a wistful remembrance of Hermie's youth and first sexual encounter. Should Dorothy have gone to prison for sleeping with Hermie? I don't remember people being outraged by Dorothy's cinematic act of statutory rape, but what if Hermie was 12, or 9?
I can tell you that personally, when I was 15, if I had a chance to sleep with Jennifer O'Neill, I would have considered myself the luckiest guy on Earth, and I would have thought it crazy that she would be prosecuted as a pedophile. But maybe that's why 15 year-olds aren't in charge.
The United States is all messed up about sex, that's for sure, especially when it comes to teens and sex. Is there a double standard for adult women sleeping with boys, rather than vice-versa? I don't know how to resolve this. Maybe the bright line of 18 years is the best way to go, but I think that regardless of that law (and it probably is the best approach), judges need to have discretion with regard to kids having sex with adults. I can't see them excusing an adult who has sex with a pre-teen, or even a young teen; I certainly wouldn't. Perhaps in the end, like obscenity, you know it when you see it.
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Anonymous 3:48
[Read the article: Pedophile blogger unfairly targeted?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just a slight correction to what you wrote: we don't mandate asexuality before 18. Teens are free to screw around with other teens, like they've been doing forever. The law is designed to prevent adults from using their manifest advantages over teens to seduce and sleep with teens.
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Goodnight AKA, Somegirls, CB, and various (non-troll) anonymice
[Read the article: Pedophile blogger unfairly targeted?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Being laid up post-surgery is no fun, but this Salon discussion has really been interesting. Salon is living up to its name.
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Punish people, not the dogs
[Read the article: Pit bulls are innocent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bad people make bad dogs. It's common sense that if you abuse an animal long enough, whatever the animal, you will turn it vicious.
It's the cruel people who are the problem. Why not spay or neuter them, lock them up, and put them down if they are found guilty of abusing an animal to the point where that animal becomes vicious? Only a vicious person would do that, and they are obvious menaces to society.
There are plenty of good and decent people out there who would make wonderful members of families: good with kids, good with other people, and good towards animals. We don't need the Michael Vicks of the world.
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Brightstar
[Read the article: Pedophile blogger unfairly targeted?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You know from past letters that I don't like much of what you have to say about women. You know I think it's not only hateful, but just plain ignorant. So, we have our differences, for sure.
However, it takes guts to bare you soul here like you've been doing lately. Can I offer some advice? Go see a good therapist. There is no reason at all that you have to continue on in the pain which you obviously are experiencing. That's why therapists are out there, and they can help you.
We here can offer you advice on meeting women until the end of time, but we don't really know you nor what's eating at you, so it would be a waste of our time and yours. I can tell you this, though: billions of idiotic men like myself have managed, despite all of our monumental and ridiculous faults, to meet women and have good and loving relationships. There is no reason that you cannot do the same.
For goodness sake, even Dick Cheney and George Bush are married! How the hell did that happen?
Good luck.
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BBWlover, where can I buy what you've been smoking?
[Read the article: Wife abuse vs. dog abuse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So now we live in a country where white people are the ones always presumed guilty? Is that the same country that is waging a succesful war in Iraq? Must also be the one where Superman is a bad guy.
With the Duke lacrosse team case, what people saw were drunken frat boy jocks who had a party with strippers. Sounds like the perfect set up for a rape, no? Of course those kids should have been presumed innocent, and fortunately in the end they were not wrongly convicted; but don't pretend that at first glance, it looked like they, at a minimum, were capable of doing what was alleged. Drunken frat boy jocks are not known for their social consciousness.
But then, you wrote a letter where you stated, against all available evidence, that dogs have more rights than men in the USA. Once again, it sounds like you're describing Bizarro USA, and not the one we (and dogs) actually live in.
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Say what?
[Read the article: Wife abuse vs. dog abuse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Emasculated? Feminist kool aid?
Jeebus BBWlover, you're a closet case if I ever saw one.
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Dogs and "moral agency"
[Read the article: Pit bulls are innocent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Of course dogs are "innocent". They lack moral agency. That's one reason we can kill them at will if they are threatening. They are not people." -- After That
You might want to brush up on the latest research in non-human animal intelligence, After That. The latest findings are that reasoning and moral behavior are hardly limited to humans.
As for why we kill dogs and other abandons, it has nothing to do with their "moral agency," or lack thereof. It has to do with the fact that we are more powerful than them and so do with them as we will.
To us, animals are property. I.e., slaves, and as history shows, slaveowners have always been able to kill their slaves without fear of consequence.