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So there’s a law that “sets a five-year mandatory prison term for promoting, or pandering, child pornography. It does not require that someone actually possesses child pornography.” The Supreme Court published its verdict in a case on the law, and decided that the law was not unconstitutional.

An appeals court had previously stated that it was overly broad, as it punished the mere suggestion that you had child pornography, not the actual act of transferring CP or possession CP. If a person felt that you honestly had CP to provide, you were guilty of a crime.

There is some precedent for these types of penalties, including attempted murder, conspiracy, and so on. You didn’t actually murder someone, but you had done everything just short of murdering them. I understand laws based on situations like this, as it implies that someone is in grave danger and the plotter needs to be arrested to preserve the life of the intended victim.

In this situation, the person promoting the availability of CP might not possess it, nor do they have the intent to disseminate. However, suggesting that you do have it will get you 5 years in jail minimum. 5 years for not actually possession or distributing something. 5 years for talking about an imaginary product.

Governments have been pulling this crap for years with drugs. If you’re an undercover cop and I show up with baking soda and try to sell you it, pretending that it’s cocaine, many states will send me to jail for as long as they would if I actually had real cocaine. Never mind that I never bought, transported, or provided cocaine; my imaginary bag is somehow the same thing. It’s such bullshit. If anything, the people with imaginary drugs or imaginary CP should be charged with something like intend to defraud, although one might wonder if you can “legally” defraud someone of an illegal product or service.

I agree that CP and narcotics trafficing are major problems in our society; however, it drives me absolutely crazy that we lock people up for imaginary drugs or pornography that never existed, might never have existed, and which never passed from individual to individual. People might say that someone who pretends to distribute CP or drugs is perpetuating the overall problem, and I think that’s an incredibly valid point. Even so, imaginary is still imaginary in my book, and I’m willing to let it slide when we have no proof of imminent danger or distribution.

More from the article:

In the appeals court’s view, the law could apply to an e-mail sent by a grandparent and entitled “Good pics of kids in bed,” showing grandchildren dressed in pajamas.

But Scalia said the appeals court interpretation was unreasonable. “The prosecutions would be thrown out at the threshold,” he said.

I’m not sure what threshold he’s talking about. When CPS takes your kids away? When your name’s published in the newspaper? When the police hold you without bail? Apparently, he’s never read the news. A simple Google search will reveal scores of cases in which the lives of individuals and families were destroyed over innocent situations, like taking nude photos of your own kids running around the house. (Here’s a famous example of this.) American society has gone so crazy with its “do it for the children” fetish that they will throw people in jail, confiscate houses, cars, and bank accounts, and get people fired, all before they’ve been charged or found guilty. Never mind that they might actually be innocent once a reasonable inquiry is held; their lives, financial health, and reputation are irreparably destroyed.

Even if they throw the prosecutions out at the threshold [of the court], your life is over long before your date in the same building. Way to go Scalia, you dumb ass.

There’s an article out of Maine discussing a proposed new law that basically makes it illegal to look at a child in public locations in such a way as to cause sexual arousal in the viewer. The article mistakenly suggests that it will now be illegal under the new law to look at clothed children for sexual arousal, but that’s irrelevant. What’s more important is how amazingly scary it is that the government is getting into the business of thought crime.

The article cites an anectode from a police officer about a situation in which “a man … appeared to be observing children entering … community bathrooms” at a public beach. The police couldn’t charge him with anything, and were only able to tell him to move along. This new bill would address this so-called “visual sexual aggression” against children, making it a felony.

What’s particularly interesting about this episode is that the guy only “appeared to be observing” children, nothing more. He wasn’t talking to them, he wasn’t masturbating, he wasn’t taking pictures, he wasn’t doing anything except looking, and even then they’re not sure. Basically, the police thought that the guy was “creepy” and didn’t want him there. I can understand this, as I wouldn’t want some creepy guy staring at my kids either, assuming I had kids. Nevertheless, it scares the hell out of me that the police wanted to charge the guy with anything at all despite him complying with their request to leave the area. Since when are the police entitled to patrol the thoughts of American citizens? Even IF the guy was staring at the kids so that he could pleasure himself later, I find it absurd that some random cop on some random beach can make that determination without any evidence and throw some guy in jail on a felony charge. Utter nonsense.

By the way, it’s for similar reasons that hate crime legislation pisses me off. It shouldn’t matter why someone committed a crime, only that they did it. If white-skinned man A stabs white-skinned man B, does it hurt B any less than if A stabs a black-skinned guy because of racism? I tell you, if I’m ever stabbed, I hope a white-skinned guy does me in. If a black-skinned guy did it because he hates whites, that knife is probably going to hurt way worse. This, of course, is just plain stupid.

If the guy watching kids is creepy, move him along and keep an eye on him. If he continues to do it and people are feeling threatened, charge him with something like physical intimidation. The threat of rape is a real crime, and a grown man who persists in leering at small children after warnings from police could be legitimately conveying this threat. But, to make up some bullsh*t felony of “visual sexual aggression” and to actually create a pre-crime over someone’s sexual thoughts is just plain frightening. Since when did Joseph Stalin start running Maine’s government?

I will give the author(s) of the bill some credit: the bill doesn’t make it a crime to stare at someone over 12 or 14 (depending on the circumstance) in this way. I say this not because I’m happy that creepy men can intimidate 15-year-old girls, but because this apparently recognizes the distinction between pedophilia and just “regular” sexual attention paid towards a minor. In semi-scientific terms, if a human being has secondary sex characteristics (e.g. developed breasts or hips in girls), it’s not pedophilia to be attracted to them. We still don’t want grown adults taking advantage of minors who may be sexually—though not mentally—developed, but attraction towards secondary sexual characteristics is normal. Sexual attraction towards children with no discernible secondary sex characteristics is not considered normal, and falls into the category of paraphilia. I have no problem with crimes that penalize adults for taking advantage of unwitting minors, but to say that an adult can’t be sexually aroused by a 16-year-old who is just as developed as an 18-year-old is just dumb. This bill doesn’t do that, thankfully, but I wonder if it’s on the horizon.

Who knows what could be next? Maybe we can bring back debtor’s prison and throw away people who merely consider skipping a credit card payment. Rather than help the potential pedophile or the potential bankruptcy candidate before they do an offending act, we can just preemptively ruin their lives. Everybody wins. Hooray!

To close, let me quote George Orwell’s 1984:

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.

Ok. Now, i know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “no way is he going to write a blog about sex with animals and how it’s kinda sorta ok”. You’d be wrong though, because I am. Before you go back to watching Malcolm in the Middle or whatever other dumb show you’ve got on, hear me out for a second.

I was reading a story about a guy who pleaded guilty—for the second time—to having sex with a female dog. The lawyers in the case were deciding whether to charge him with a sex crime and put him on the sex offender registry.

To put it simply, I hate the sex offender registry in this country. Actually, a better way to say it is that the sex offender registry idea has merit, but the way in which it has come to include nearly every possible crime there is is beyond stupid. In some states, you can be charged as a sex offender and forced to be on the registry for life because your drunken ass really had to pee after a party and an alley was the only place to go. Nevermind that your willy was nowhere near another human being, you’re somehow a sicko who can no longer live near schools or playgrounds.

Our society has decided that sex crimes are worthy of special infamy, and I’m cool with that. Molesting kids is possibly the best way to ensure that their life is one of misery and confusion. Do something worse to a kid beyond simple molestation and you’ve basically guaranteed that that kid will suffer every day of their life. Sex offender registry. Done. Make the bastard have the worst life possible.

Another story I read the other day was about a female teacher or school coach or administrator or something who was accused or found guilty of having sex with a male student who was 17 years and like 361 days old. Four more days and he’d have been 18. Guess what? That female is now on or bound for the sex offender registry, which is ridiculous. There should be some bloody common sense in the system. Maybe you put her away for a little while for abusing her position of authority. But in no way does having sex with someone who is 4 days shy of an arbitrary “legalizing” birthday merit lifelong stigma and punishment. It’s insane.

Anyways, back to the guy and the dog. You know, maybe the guy has some screws loose if he feels the need to give his dog the ol’ heave-ho. I’m not a trained psychologist, but I would bet good money that a paraphilia like bestiality has little to no relationship to sexual aggression towards humans (children or otherwise). People who are into things like scat and whatnot don’t get put on the sex offender list, and that’s about as screwed up a fetish as you can get.

Here’s what I find particularly ridiculous about our society. Let’s say that you and that female dog were in like a warehouse, and an earthquake knocked it down. You two are trapped in it, and rescuers are having trouble locating the two of you. After like a week, you could reach over with your knife and slit the dog’s bloody throat, consume its raw flesh, and when they dig you out, it wouldn’t count against you. You just murdered your dog and ATE it, and more than likely, that would just make your ordeal sound that much more harrowing and add to your heroic triumph over adversity. But, if you get a little lonely while you’re buried and decide to try and make puppies, when they dig you out you’re f’ed for life.

We kill, murder, and otherwise slaughter millions of animals every day, and that’s totally cool. We take their bloody lives in inhumane and cruel ways and it’s looked at as another 9-to-5. But, the second you let your male dog try the ol’ donkey punch on you you’re completely hosed.

Now, I’m not saying that you should give in to those come hither glances your golden retriever is always giving you. I’m just saying that this world would be a better place if we used some common sense every once in a while. Maybe let the dog guy talk to a counselor. The teacher with the 17.96-year-old student? Maybe she abused her authority, but given my 12 years’ experience as a teenage boy, I’m pretty certain that kid had an erection when they were having intercourse.

Seriously people. If you want a sex offender registry, go nuts. But, if you’re going to destroy the rest of a person’s life in putting them on it, just consider whether they really need to be there or whether some other solution would work better.

As I was walking into Target—or, as I like to call it: the thinking man’s Kmart—this morning to buy some quality Tupperware, I noticed a table and tent setup outside with a large “Register to Vote” sign. There was another, smaller sign taped to the table that I couldn’t read because someone was standing in front of it. I made a mental note to stop by the table on my way out, as I probably needed to re-register as a legitimate voter this year.

After stumbling around the store for a little while, I headed back outside, cheerfully thinking of all the voting I could do once I got myself on the winning team. A vote here, a vote there, there was no election I wouldn’t be ready for! Watch out, Washington fat cats!

To my great surprise, the sign that I had been unable to read was now visible and said “Keep marriage between a man and a woman”. So that was their secret! They had someone stand in front of the sign to try and hide their craziness from me! They might as well have put up a sign that said “vote Republican or we’ll punch your mom in the nuts”. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when people punch my mom’s nuts.

I made a mental note not to go to Target in Yorba Linda in the future, and went on my merry way. As I drove, however, I began to ponder the brazenness of that sign. Despite being an atheist, I’ll admit that for a while I had trouble accepting the idea of gay marriage. This was a remnant of my many years as a Christian, and I eventually overcame this prejudice. That makes it all the more apparent to me when I witness it now.

In the modern US, there really are only two kinds of prejudices allowed anymore. The first is prejudice against fat people. How many times do you hear an insult prefixed with “big fat” or “hey lardo” or “hey fat tits, your fat man tits are getting sweat all over my baby”? In all seriousness, fat people pretty much get the shaft in our society, as I think there’s an inherent belief that people who are overweight are somehow more stupid, unable to control themselves, or are more unsightly to look at.

The second kind of prejudice is against gays. Lesbians generally get a pass because straight Christian man don’t have to worry about random lesbians putting a penis in their butts. Gay men, what with their random penis attacks and all, generally get even more of a shaft than fat people (ba-zing!). Even people who are otherwise liberal will often feel some kind of hesitancy about granting ‘mos full rights; how else do you explain surveys that frequently show a majority of people in favor of keeping marriage between a man and woman?

Can you imagine if that same tent had a sign saying something like “Keep the chinks out of our schools”, or “Stop Interracial Marriage Now”? The people in the tent would be ridiculed, if not immediately bested in a round of fisticuffs. Instead, this kind of anti-gay crap actually gets people to come over and register!!

Now, I understand why these people do this. They feel they have a mandate from the big gay hater in the sky, which I suppose is a perfectly rational conclusion if you accept the premise of a big gay hater in the sky. This in turn got me to thinking about the idea of “harming” god. I don’t mean harm as in punching him in the nuts, but I mean harm as in causing some kind of distress or insult to.

If god commands us to prevent homosexuality and to punish those who practice it, it must offend him in some way. That is, it causes some kind of emotional deficit in him that needs to be corrected vis-a-vis punishment of gays. It seems to me that being perfect and able to be insulted are contradictions in terms. If god is perfect, he cannot be insulted, as this would imply that he can suffer some kind of short term imbalance. On the other hand, if the actions of mankind can upset him it means god is less than perfect, as mankind is able to directly influence his emotions and mood, giving them power over him.

If Christians (or Muslims or whoever) want to admit that their god is less than perfect, cool. A non-perfect god could possibly have irrational prejudices. If they want to admit that god is perfect, so therefore homosexuality doesn’t bother him, that’s cool too. A perfect god would be above insult. I just have a problem with them believing that they can have their penis, and eat it too. It’s a contradiction in terms.

If god really does get offended by gays, it makes him a whiny bitch, as it makes no sense whatsoever that such a trifling action should throw the all-mighty creator of the universe off balance. If a little prostate stimulation is all it takes to get god in a tizzy, Vishnu help us if he finds out about furry fetishes.

So tonight I find myself in a bit of a quandry. There’s a story out about a post-op transsexual that is suing a Catholic hospital because said hospital won’t give this individual fake breasts. The hospital argues that gender reassignment goes against their operating principles, while the plantiff argues that it’s a violation of California law to discriminate against her because of her sexual reassignment.

I’ve always more or less felt that individuals that wanted to have surgery to switch genders were suffering from a psychological disorder that should be corrected psychologically rather than physically. Ultimately though, I’m a live and let live kind of guy, so I’m not necessarily opposed to individuals getting the surgery if they have the money and really desperately want to.

I don’t think that anyone can argue that this isn’t a psychological problem of some sort. Clearly, there’s a disconnect between reality (being male), and what the brain desires (being female). That’s black and white. Mentally, this individual feels that they would be happier if they underwent surgery to change visible sexes (I say visible, because genetically that individual will not actually change sexes). In this case, science gives in to the urges of the mind and rearranges the body.

I’m not certain, but as far as I can remember, this is the only situation in which the medical establishment will allow someone with mental discomfort to actually modify themselves in this way. For example, there are people who have mental disorders in which they desperately want to have a limb or two amputated. Many, so I’ve read, report that they’re much happier once they do have the limb removed (via illegal channels). I can’t imagine that this is a surgery a hospital would do, or that psychologists would support.

I’m not sure then, why the amputation of the penis or the permanent destruction of the vagina are treated differently. If counseling is preferred in the case of limb amputees, I wonder why the medical establishment has determined that the two are different. Why not treat people with gender dystopia in the same fashion?

In any event, I find myself having a hard time picking a position on this. If the surgery makes people feel better about themselves (like breast augmentation for a “regular” woman might), I’m not sure I can really oppose it. On the other hand, if I feel that the medical establishment is correct in its psychological, medicinal, and therapeutic treatment of people with other mental dystopias, I’m not sure how this is any different.

I’m no fool, and understand that the mental constructs of gender are complex, to say the least. I just hate to see someone undergo irreversible surgery to satisfy a condition that would be treated very differently if it did not involve gender. Then again, what do I know?

On a different note, it would be interesting if mankind died off overnight, and in a thousand years aliens land and start exhuming bodies. I wonder what the hell they would make of all the silicon, mismatched genes (i.e. transsexuals), and so on?

Link of the day: The worst video game…ever

So there’s a guy in Georgia who was convicted in 1994 of a sex crime involving a child. He served his time in prison and has been released. Because of the stigma of being a sex offender, the guy has been unable to find a place to live and is presently homeless. But, a new law says that he must register as a sex offender. The funny thing is, the law says that in order to register, you must have a permanent address. If you don’t register, you go to jail for life.

In Catch-22 format:

> Make it incredibly difficult to find a home or a job
> Require people to have a home to register as a sex offender
> If they don’t have a home–because previous legislation made it too hard–put the guy in jail for life.

Now, I’m not one to defend sexual predators who harm children. But, you have to be fair to people who have obeyed the laws that you wrote in the first place. To fix this situation, either: just give life sentences to people who sexually abuse children when they’re first convicted, or let this guy register without a permanent address (put a bloody tracking microchip in him for all I care). Setting a trap for someone so that you can throw them back in jail smacks of double jeopardy and is just plain evil.

By the way, the sex offender registry is a joke. In some areas, you can be put on it for peeing in public or mooning someone. You then have to register as a sex offender for life, and can’t do all the things that really bad sex offenders can’t do, like live within so much distance of a school, day care center, etc. I don’t understand why–if I murder someone, serve my sentence, and am released–I don’t have to go door to door telling everyone that I’m a murderer, but if I so much as show my junk to a 15-year-old I have to do the same. It’s absurd. If you hate people who predate on children, put them away for good. Get rid of the stupid sex offender registry, and figure out reasonable punishment for people who did stupid things involving beer and their genitals and let people get on with their lives.

Pulling this kind of crap on a homeless guy who served his time is something we should expect in a third-world country, not in the US. A legal system without integrity is something to be feared and overthrown.

Yeah, I know: that headline doesn’t make any sense. Nor does it make much sense that I’ve included a photo of Charlize Theron in an article about a 21-year-old male’s butt. But, given that she’s easily one of the top 3 most beautiful women in the world, I don’t see how she can hurt my chances to become 4th-grade vice president (slogan: a vote for me is a vote against Mark Kirby, the fascist).

Wait, the headline does kind of make sense! I’ll get to that in a second. So there’s an article about a guy who mooned a car during a road rage incident. Because there was a kid in the car being mooned, said guy could possibly be charged with a felony sex crime, and could conceivably receive up to 15 years in jail and be required to permanently register as a sex offender. The article doesn’t say whether this is likely, just that it could happen.

Despite the nasty rumors that stupid Mark Kirby has been spreading about me, I’m not lawyer. But, the possibility of a penalty like that for showing a little hairy butt skin to a kid seems just a liiiiiiiitle bit harsh. Hell, it would still be harsh if he had shown his junk to the kid. If I had a soul, or a heart, I might weep a little for our poor country. I mean, seriously: why did we ever let Who’s the Boss go off the air? Wait, no: I meant, seriously: when did we get to be such bloody wusses and prudes? The parents could take their kid to see a double feature of Boogie Nights and Saw II, and no charges would be filed. But some douche displays his gluteus maximus muscles, and he risks ruining his life forever. Where’s the sense of proportion?

For being the wang of the US, Florida sure doesn’t act like the roudy college boy it should. (Well? Was all the build up worth the “wang” explanation? Gawd, do I need a cigarette; that was so good.)

I swear to Bob: after I leverage 4th-grade VP into high school prom king, I am soooo going to take over this dumb country and dictate some bloody common sense. I’m also going to punch people in the junk for wearing jester hats when they snowboard. So there.

According to this link, a woman was arrested in Brownsville (no idea which state) for posing nude with some children and taking a photo of it (indecent exposure). The article is fairly vague on what was actually in the photos, but she was being held on $45,000 bond.

If in fact the woman was being indecent and is doing something like flashing the kids, I suppose there’s no story for the most part. Society generally regards this as a bad thing, given children’s inability to understand the rationale for exhibitionism. Even so, I might argue that it’s far more evil to take the same kids to see a horribly depraved Rated-R movie like Saw than it is have a woman show them the bits that every woman has. If we do the first, however, we’re just average Americans. Do the second, and you go to jail.

If the woman was just hanging out naked with her own kids, or the kids of someone who consented, this is completely retarded. There should be no excuse required for simply being nude around children or other adults. You do something to harm the children, like force them into sexuality before they’re consenting adults, and it’s a different story. May you get all the bad things our legal system can throw at you. If however, the nudity is simply nudity, then tell your neighbors and your dumb Wal-Mart employees to get over themselves. The human body is a far better thing to appreciate in all its forms than violence is. And yet, Americans insist on glorifying the latter.

I started this post with a lot more focus, but the Sopranos came on and now I can’t concentrate. Here’s the deal though: nudity is not bad. Get over it, America.