Text 33654, 82 rader
Skriven 2009-06-23 14:00:10 av Lee Lofaso (3:800/432.0)
  Kommentar till text 33580 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Saberi vs Blom
======================
Hello Bob,

>MvdV>I will give you a hint. Blom did not introduce himself as a child
>MvdV>molestor because by OUR definition he is not.

RB>I would be willing to take bets that soliciting sex from a
RB>child on the Internet is a crime even in the Netherlands.
RB>It certainly is in Germany.

Even on Second Life?  Second Life is a virtual world where folks
set up avatars who interact with other avatars, play acting as if
it were the real world.

>DC>Was he arrested there?

>DC>No, Michiel, he was arrested in this country for his actions.

>BA>I can take it, therefore, that you support the idea of thought crimes
>BA>and jail sentences for those who commit them.

RB>Nothing new there. Plenty of people have been arrested and
RB>sent to prison since 2001 for preparing terrorist attacks,
RB>even though they had no chance to carry them out. And
RB>naturally you can be punished for an attempt to commit
RB>other crimes - also nothing new.

A novelist could in theory be charged and sent to prison on the
basis of planning a terror attack purely from a rough draft of a
fiction novel.  Especially authors such as Tom Clancy, whose spy
thrillers seem so very realistic...

RB>Call that "thought crime" if you will, but thinking and doing
RB>are still two different things. "Thinking" means sitting in your
RB>easy chair at home and daydreaming. Nobody's going to punish you
RB>for that, even if your daydreams include sodomizing a 5- year-old.

However, if that daydream were to be put on paper...

Also, there is the possibility of false memory, in which somebody
might falsely accuse an individual of having committed a crime, based
solely on a flawed memory.  Oh, it is called "repressed" memory by
psychiatrists, so as to make such "evidence" admissable in court
of law.  Many "child molestors" have been put away on that basis.

RB>But "doing" doesn't mean that you let a criminal commit a
RB>crime first, and only then arrest him. That wouldn't sit
RB>very well with the victim, or with the population in
RB>general.

Would it?  How do we know what is a crime and what is not a crime?
Did the two-year-old child really remember being raped by his daddy?
Did the eight-year-old child really remember being raped by a priest?
Children are very impressionable.  Who impressed upon the child that
he/she was raped?  Did the child's mommy pay a clinical psychiatrist
to suggest to the child that he/she was raped?  After all, if mommy
said the child was raped, the child was raped.  And then daddy will
have to pay.  Even if daddy never laid a hand on the child.

Another example.  Hundreds of "terrorists" have been held at Gitmo
for years, without ever having been charged with a crime.  Most have
since been released, the only reason they were detained being that
their tribal enemies called them "terrorists".  The years spent at
Gitmo are lost years to them.  The only thing they can look forward
to is whatever pieces of their life they can put back together in
order to have a life.

Just because somebody has been accused of having committed a crime
does not mean that any crime has been committed.  At least, not by
the somebody who has been accused of having committed a crime.

For every crime there is a victim.

Those who have been falsely accused are victims.
What is the crime, and who committed the crime?

--Lee


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