Letters to the Editor
Ballsee
Published Letters: 233 Editor's Choice: 19
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The galloping moral brigade rides into the fray
[Read the article: A tale of unsavory Justice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jaybriel says:
but, really, it seems outrageous, _outrageous_ to suggest that the men in this story are victims. They may not be monsters, but they were hardly 'enticed' into a 'sly adolescent game'. Come on! Surely they were at least as capable as him of making rational, informed decisions and taking responsibility for them.
Right. Because these men allowed their lusts to control them they risked exposing themselves to the wrath and hysteria of their peers, which will no doubt land many of them if not in jail, then to a loss of who knows what else? Family? Jobs? Certainly status. Ecomomic security. For some of them, everything. I suspect some if not most of these men are professional people, some may even be doctors, lawyers, a number of them no doubt married with children. That Berry wants to quit what he's been up to is fine and I support him in that decision. But he turned over his client list for, what? Revenge? To make himself feel better? If he wasn't acutely aware of his power in the situation, why turn over his list? To destroy these men's lives. So he wasn't a willing participant? He was raped. Molested. Manhandled. Oh the fantasies we spin in our heads whenever these kind of stories occassionally make the media ronds every few years or so stretching back to what, the Stone Age? Poor naive, innocent Justin, just a boy when that guy on his computer screen, ON HIS COMPUTER SCREEN, not in the room with, not holding him down, not offering him candy, but on his computer screen asks..."Why don't you take your shirt off?" And Justin doesn't hit the off button, he unbuttons his shirt and the guy goes wild and Justin's ego goes through the roof at the effect he's had on this man. He swells with pride and the wheels start turning. I guess he hated every minute of what he was doing. And he never made a dime off of them. Right. Stupid, misguided boy ruled by greed and lust and even stupider men ruled by greed and lust. Now there's news for you! Of course not like the rest of us, no, we're never ruled by greed or lust, are we. This isn't going to cost Justin Berry anywhere near what it's going to cost these men. What fools they've been!
The use of little cherry-picked bits of anthropological 'evidence', totally out of context, and without any attempt, whatsoever, to think deeply about their meaning is just silly.
Perhaps you'd like to share some of your "deep thinking". I was limited to 1,000 words. "Totally out of context" is a cliche though, not particularly deep thinking. The point was that our hysteria over adolescent sexuality is culturally learned and societally reinforced. There are exceptions to our way of thinking and I used the Europeans as one example then the extreme example of the Sambians to make my point. "There is nothing right or wrong, but thinking (deep or otherwise) makes it so." -- Shakespeare. Many people falsely believe that young boys like Justin Berry aren't aware of their sexual feelings until someone else turns them on and they insist that boys like Justin would never have acted out his sexuality the way he has if not for some old, nasty, deranged, sexual predator, child rapist like maybe your attorney or your accontant, or perhaps a senior offical of Homeland Security. These guys have come to be a "type" in our little stage-managed and camera ready, media managed entertainment culture. "Up lights! Cue the INNOCENT CHILD VICTIM! Now bring in the CHILD RAPISTS!" Nothing gets Americans' moralistic panties up in knot quite like a good sex scandal. Nothing, not lying, not cheating, not exploitation of poor and working people, not environmental degredation, not homelessness, poverty, corrupt government, mercenary businesses, economic injustice, not illegal invasion of another country, not torture, not lying by public officials that leads to thousands and thousands of avoidable deaths, not self-righteousness, not hypocrisy, not religious fanaticism that leads to the deaths of innocent people, no nothing comes as close to getting us as riled up in America as sex does. In this absurd and bizarre country Morality = Sexuality and like the genuine moral cowards we are we find ways to excuse all the rest of it, or sit on our hands, until somebody has sex unapproved by Good Housekeeping and regulated by the sex police.
BTW, you seem interested so here's a bibliographic reference on the "cherry-picked bits of anthropological 'evidence':
Ritualized Homosexuality In Melanesia; Herdt, Gilbert H., ed., University of California Press, 1984.
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Who is Kirk Cameron?
[Read the article: Saved by the sitcom star]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I never heard of Kirk Cameron before this. Weird, truly weird. Wanna take bets on how many years it will take him to come out of the closet?
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Elected officials?
[Read the article: Win their hearts with war!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are these actual elected officials or are they just playing one on TV? If the former, why would someone that dumb agree to appear on the Colbert show? Wait, wait, never mind, I just answered by own question!
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Hack!
[Read the article: Colbert: Not just a flop, but "rude" and "a bully" too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cohen's one of those nattering, blathering Washington insider bullshit artists. One of those inside-the-beltway "liberal" suck-ups who pawn themselves off as journalists, one of Colbert's targets. Now he's pissed. Good. Too bad we can't rise up and punch him and all the other hacks and public relations phonies who've shilled for this hideous Administration.
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Wow!
[Read the article: Sugar Baby Love]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bravo! What a gorgeous, moving, wonderful ad! The message so perfectly, sweetly, realistically delivered. Wow, what an ad. God I love the French!