WRT the two political parties and race:
The Democratic party
1: focuses on group-divisions (race / gender / wealth)
2: identifies a victim and an opressor in every situation
3: loudly declares its support for the victim-group.
The Democratic party is group-oriented and its solutions are group (socialist) -oriented. To the Democratic party, both problems and successes are the group’s, and not for any individual’s responsibility or laudation.
(for comfirmatory quotes, reference HRClinton, TKennedy, and ?Stalin? on the “cult of the individual” and related misc.)

The Republicans are not groupist, but are instead expressly individualist in outlook, believing both success and failure are solely belonging to the individual.

The KKK (et al) divide the population by race. Enough said.

Oh, and …… CONDI ’08

(Or for VP in ’06 if Cheney’s heart struggles with yet more stress, then for the top slot in ’08 )

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WRT whether paedophilia is a mental illness or “faulty wiring”:

Certain conditions are “soft-wired” like situation-induced depression or my wife hypochondria (that she got out of). Anything soft-wired is reasonable to describe as a “mental-illness”

Certain neural conditions are hard-wired (my wife and I are both mild Asperger’s neuropaths)
Then there’s what I call “deep-wired” conditions like trauma-induced PTSD/psychosis/MPD/etc.
Hard-wired and deep-wired states aren’t “mental-illnesses” as much as a neurological-condition.

Paedophilia falls into either the hard-wired or deep-wired category and is untreatable given moden non-understanding of neural wiring, and no matter what you try, someone’s brain that is jumper-cabled to react sexually to kids needs to be locked away permanently, killed or cryogenically-suspended until we can do something to rewire them.

As a “different thinker” I believe strongly that you will NEVER fix paedophiles short of star-trek technology, and as many are dangerously intelligent, you cannot trust them. Worse, unlike burglary or Aspergers, paedophilia is partially “contagious” in that the traumatized victims historically have a % chance of becoming victimizers themselves, especially long-term victims.

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I believe and I think what La Shawn and others are saying is that as sinners, we’re all prone to do evil & therefore we are all mentally ill to a degree, in that we live in sin. However, time and time again, the Bible speaks of those who have been warned, but persist in doing wrong as having been given over to Satan and increased atrocities.

Clinically speaking, we may call these people ‘mentally ill’, the Bible would call it demon possession.

The implication here is that ALL humans are born with a conscience — sense of good & evil — however, how well we ‘listen’ to our conscience is shaped in part by our environment and in part to our free will. If we squelch our conscience long enough, we become totally depraved (Demon possessed) and do what we will simply because it suits us and all moral constraints be damned.

To wit, take cannibalism which is expressly forbidden and goes against basic human nature. We would say Lector Hannibal (Silence of the Lambs) is mentally ill, but we wouldn’t have said the same of a tribe that practices ritual cannibalism. Even in those tribes, they have restraints around the practice, ie, only eat the enemy etc. For example, Indians that eat only the heart of slain enemy warriors to take on their strenth & courage. In either case, the conscience has been ignored and the act justified by Satan for one reason or another.

I think disputing the classification of pedophilia as a ‘mental illness’ on the grounds of unfavorable consequences it can have as a criminal defense is irrelevant.

Let’s be frank here: If pedophilia ISN’T a mental illness, that what is it? The implication of Ms. Barber’s diagnosis, that pedophiles are people who choose not to control their sexual urges, is that sexual attraction to children is natural, and is only an issue of self control.

If someone is sexually attracted to children, or animals, or heaven knows what else, I don’t think it should be such a point of contention that these individuals are mentally ill.

Just got in on this discussion this morning (Sunday Morning) as I’m on call this weekend and had to come into the office. As usual your aprkling wit and unequaled common sense has driven your liberal readers to distraction. I have a couple of comments.

First, I have to say that it is a shame to see someone pushing pedophilia as a mental illness. Having spent 6 years working nothing but sex crimes and domestic violence, I can say that Mike M. needs to spend time in the places I have been and see how he feels about whether it should be classified as a “mental illness” for the purposes of the criminal justice system or not. The problem with mental illness defenses is that they often let perpetrators of horrendous crimes get what amounts to a free ride and a walk.

Second, La Shawn what you say about “hate crimes” is absolutely correct. Hate crimes legislation is nothing more than PC gone horribly wrong, and shoved down the public’s throat as a means of stamping out racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. when it accomplishes nothing of the sort. It has certainly complicated our crime reporting, as one of the criteria that must be evaluated when it comes to certain crimes was whether the crime envolved “hate crimes”. Does it make the original crime any less of a crime?…no. Adding the catagory of “hate crime” to any other crime is done mostly as a “sentence enhancer” to get a stiffer penalty.

What it can also do is give a defense attorney an opening to argue whether the defendant was being racist, sexist, or homophobic at the time of the commission of the crime. If it can be shown that the defendent was not acting or thinking in a manner that would constitute grounds for filing the charge as a “hate crime” then often the whole case is lost when the original case would have stood on its own without having to prove what the defendant was thinking, or motivated by, only that he did it.

If you intentionally kill someone, I think it is safe to say… YOU HATE THEM.

Thats because in Texas they actually prosecute the current law on the books. The perp was KILLED for his crime.

I’m not against hate crime legislation, but I am against hate crime legislation stacked on top of other laws that aren’t enforced, in the name of appeasing a minority constituency.

Not everywhere, no. Some places don’t give absentee ballots to people who just say they won’t be going down to the voting place.

Take care of own? what are you talking about? I live across the country from Cruz, and many hours from byrd. I have nothing to do with those guys.

The reason why you would believe this is the same as I stated from expereince…

In the south, if they are racist, they are in your face…
up north, they smile hide, and wait to you are out of earshot.

Just my personal experiences as a black women who was born and raised up north and has lived in the south.

Have fun:-)

You had the quote of Lyndon Johnson in your post. I was saying that I never said either party has a hold on being “more” racist. I may be a liberal, but I’ve never said that one ideology is more racist then another, hence my comment. I think it was clear in your post that you were making a point about how Democrats assume they have some “divine right” to minority voters in this country. Sorry if I assumed incorrectly your intent.

My Southern Democrat comment was just that. Southern Democrats are conservatives, by and large. LBJ was a souther democrat, hence his racism is easily explained.

I don’t care what party anyone was in during the Civil Rights Era; I still say a sure majority of whites WERE racists in the South at the time. And, I’d venture to say that there are still more white racists in the South than in the North.

Perhaps I’m going too far into another area.

Well, it’s Friday night. I think I’m going to go out and have some fun!!

You all have a good night. La Shawn, I look forward to more great discussion!

Lighten Up

And yes I do know LBJ was a democrat (hence why I posted it).