Did we know the scope of his atrocities then?
Posted By: ??? on 2006-06-12
In Reply to: Well, then perhaps you could explain to me - Kelly
I'm going to have research that a little bit, because I was just a kid in the eighties. I don't know the exact year the turning point happened with Iraq.
I have a question for you though, would you like to see Saddam back in power? I'm just kind of wondering whose side you're on?
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Must have. Guess my scope was too narrow.
Besides that, while comparing one to the other, some folks might make a few distinctions between the 2. Studds was openly gay US federal level politician, a seat he held for 24 years. In 1973 he had a legal, consensual relationship/affair with a 17-year-old minor congressional page (age of consent being 17), Dean T. Hara, who became his partner for life and who he later MARRIED in 2004 Evidently, they had to wait for gay marriage to become legal, or would have married much earlier. Hara had clearly stated "knew exactly what he was doing" when he had the affair with Studds. Since the act was legal, no charges were filed and Studds received a congressional censure for inappropriately engaging in a relationship with a subordinate, after which he was re-elected to 6 consecutive terms. Studds worked consistently for same-sex marriage, AIDS funding and civil rights for gays and lesbians. His behavior was entirely consistent with his politics. Studds was no hypocrite. He died 2 short years after he was finally allowed to marry the love of his life.
Fast forward to the current century. Mark Foley one of the foremost opponents of child porn, worked on behalf of missing and exploited children and worked to outlaw web sites featuring sexually explicit images of preteen children, which he considered as a "fix for pedophiles." He also worked for tougher sex offender laws. Upstanding guy, yes?
Enter the creep factor. Behind the scene, he was sending solicitous e-mails and IMs to former teenage male congressional pages OVER A PERIOD OF TEN YEARS. To his credit, I suppose, in at least 2 cases, he waited until after the boys turned 18 and 21 respectively, before having sex with them. He sent 5 emails to a former 16-year-old page in 2004, when among other things he requested the minor send his photo and remarked about the great physical attributes of another underage page to him. He reported this to a senior official and said he had been warned about other female pages who had been "hit on."
In 2002, he invited a 17-year-old over for oral sex, an offer the youth declined. He had asked another for a photo of his erect penis. That guy knew 4 or 5 other pages who had received similar sexually explicit emails. There were at least another half-dozen or so pages who received the sexually explicit IMs.
There's more, but it is pretty sordid and would be quite time-consuming to get into on this forum. Suffice to say that these "advances" were unwanted and unsolicited. They occurred over a decade with so many pages one loses count and were reflective of a pattern of sick, sick behavior. There was the spectre of stalking underpinning the episodes. All of this was occurring while the HYPOCRITE was doing the above described "good works" legislation.
Studds and Foley were both indiscrete, to be sure, but beyond that, there is no real comparison. Call me crazy here, but somehow, I do not see these 2 behaviors as being the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.
Must have. Guess my scope was too narrow.
Besides that, while comparing one to the other, some folks might make a few distinctions between the 2. Studds was openly gay US federal level politician, a seat he held for 24 years. In 1973 he had a legal, consensual relationship/affair with a 17-year-old minor congressional page (age of consent being 17), Dean T. Hara, who became his partner for life and who he later MARRIED in 2004 Evidently, they had to wait for gay marriage to become legal, or would have married much earlier. Hara had clearly stated "knew exactly what he was doing" when he had the affair with Studds. Since the act was legal, no charges were filed and Studds received a congressional censure for inappropriately engaging in a relationship with a subordinate, after which he was re-elected to 6 consecutive terms. Studds worked consistently for same-sex marriage, AIDS funding and civil rights for gays and lesbians. His behavior was entirely consistent with his politics. Studds was no hypocrite. He died 2 short years after he was finally allowed to marry the love of his life.
Fast forward to the current century. Mark Foley one of the foremost opponents of child porn, worked on behalf of missing and exploited children and worked to outlaw web sites featuring sexually explicit images of preteen children, which he considered as a "fix for pedophiles." He also worked for tougher sex offender laws. Upstanding guy, yes?
Enter the creep factor. Behind the scene, he was sending solicitous e-mails and IMs to former teenage male congressional pages OVER A PERIOD OF TEN YEARS. To his credit, I suppose, in at least 2 cases, he waited until after the boys turned 18 and 21 respectively, before having sex with them. He sent 5 emails to a former 16-year-old page in 2004, when among other things he requested the minor send his photo and remarked about the great physical attributes of another underage page to him. He reported this to a senior official and said he had been warned about other female pages who had been "hit on."
In 2002, he invited a 17-year-old over for oral sex, an offer the youth declined. He had asked another for a photo of his erect penis. That guy knew 4 or 5 other pages who had received similar sexually explicit emails. There were at least another half-dozen or so pages who received the sexually explicit IMs.
There's more, but it is pretty sordid and would be quite time-consuming to get into on this forum. Suffice to say that these "advances" were unwanted and unsolicited. They occurred over a decade with so many pages one loses count and were reflective of a pattern of sick, sick behavior. There was the spectre of stalking underpinning the episodes. All of this was occurring while the HYPOCRITE was doing the above described "good works" legislation.
Studds and Foley were both indiscrete, to be sure, but beyond that, there is no real comparison. Call me crazy here, but somehow, I do not see these 2 behaviors as being the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.
My father in the 40s and 50s (not so long ago in the scope of things) sm
Was a white child growing up with no mother and an alcoholic father. A black woman who lived nearby with her own children used to let him come and eat with them. If not, he would not have survived. As he grew up, he didn't see race as a boundary...he had many friends both black and white. He loved to dance and in those days there were "black" dance halls and "white" dance halls. He liked the music and dancing better in the "black" dance halls and loved to go there and dance with his friends. The KKK came to our house one day in the late 60s and stomped my father while wearing golf cleats all over his body. We have come soooo far since then, but there are still people who bear the scars of those days. I think for the majority, prejudice is dying off. We are realizing how utterly ridiculous it is to judge someone by their skin color, blue, purple or orange. But I do agree there are still some who are hurt and cannot trust. The only racists or bigots I see these days are very uneducated and unintelligent people. I hope and pray we can all just get along and that no one hurts anyone else over all of this. My 11-year-old son said to me months ago, before Obama was even nominated, that he was afraid if Obama was elected someone would try to assassinate him, and that the same thing might even happen if Hillary was elected. My 11-year-old child could see that with his own eyes, even before I saw for myself the hatred that some people have. God help us protect whichever candidate wins, because there will be enemies either way.
There are atrocities in lots of countries
and nobody seems to give a dam@. We are only interested in countries that have something we want.
Interestingly, other atrocities on US soil...(sm)
since 9/11 have not come from the usual suspects, but rather from our own government. I'm going to go with the patriot act that pretty much killed the constitution, an unjust war that has not only killed numerous Americans but has also destroyed any credibility of the US, and then there's Gitmo and torture, all perpetrated right here in the good ol USA.
If those aren't atrocities, I don't know what is.
Isn't google wonderful? For expanding your narrow scope? sm
I also remember them comparing the two a while back, especially since Studds passed away recently. I guess it does depend on whose imagination you're stretching, doesn't it.
Nice of you to be so graphic about it.
atrocities? Burned alive with saline....
sliced and diced and sucked out of the one place you should be SAFEST? Having a needle stuck in your neck and your brain sucked out? And you want to talk atrocities?? Puleezzee. Yeah..that's certainly just YOU...it certainly isn't me.
He invaded a country and committed horrible atrocities there...
we beat him back, should have taken him in the first Gulf war. But we're always going overboard trying to be nice and where does that get us? Same place it got us with N. Korea. Jimmy Carter barters a deal with them for food, and they take the money and use it to build nukes. Where's the outrage over that? Sometimes a people just cannot rise up and oust a dictator. They need help. And now the time has come for them to quit squabbling amongst themselves and make something out of their country. Let's not forget how many years it took for Japan and Germany to get on their feet. We need to give them a little more time. Heck, this country dissolved into civil war after 100 years. Time and patience.
Then Again, how many would have lived and suffered atrocities if Hitler's mom had had an abortion
I am not trying to be flip or funny here, because it is not, but I do not think we can use that particular logic...just say that ALL life is precious, whether a baby grows up to be Einstein, Ghandi, or Charles Manson, it either must ALL be in God's hands because He is Creator of All, or there is no logic. Just wonder how everyone feels about the ultimate sanctity of life when it comes to capital punishment....
Don't get me wrong, I amy be a Democrate, but I am moderate and I DO believe, in instances such as the rape/murder/brulity of children, serial killers, etc, that putting a monster like this to sleep, as you would a rabid animal who will kill and destroy otherwise, is the best thing we can do for our sick society, not perfectly okay, but the best that can be done to protect others. But whenever I see this particular reason NOT to abort, it makes it sound as though if a child were retarded or slow, or even a sociopath (not a psychopath), it would be okay, PLAYING GOD IS PLAYING GOD in either case. IMHO
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