Heavy Metal Lyrics Posted To Facebook Result In Arrest For Terrorist Threats Posting lyrics shouldn't get anyone in trouble. It's hard to understand how law enforcement can fail to apply basic common sense, but apparently they received a lot of calls in reaction to this Facebook post. Even talking to an individual over this particular post seems to be an over-reaction, but arrest is just insane.
Evans ended up spending 8 days in jail for exercising his First Amendment rights. Terroristic threat charges haven't been dropped but his case has been deferred for six months. He's also been ordered to undergo a mandatory mental health evaluation -- all for posting lyrics written by someone else.
Another Police Chief Says Phone Encryption Is A Pedophile's Best Friend Law enforcement likes to use the fear of pedophiles to get the public to accept bad policy which limits our freedoms and provides an exaggerated and imaginary sense of safety.
More law enforcement officials are coming forward to express their dismay at Apple's and Google's decision to encrypt cellphones by default. And the hysteria seems to be getting worse.
Of course, back in 1922, law enforcement was complaining that the civilian use of automobiles would result in a huge increase in crime...
cactuspete: Like you said, "back in 1922, law enforcement was complaining that the civilian use of automobiles would result in a huge increase in crime..." and they were absolutely correct. Just think how many child abductions would have been prevented if only people had not been allowed to own automobiles! Obvously I'm being sarcastic. Any new technology can be used for good purposes or for evil purposes and the fact is that the vast majority of people use it for good purposes. Focusing on the bad prevents people from doing good.
The Real Victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse The dangers were imaginary, but the consequences were not. You'd think that if detectives had even an ounce of common sense and even average intelligence that they would have realized that the whole satanic ritual abuse thing was bogus. You really have to be out of touch with reality to buy into that kind of thing. Of course, the same can be said about people who get all upset about teen sexting and issues associated with that topic. It's hard to understand how people can be so stupid. It's almost as if the stupid among us belong to some inferior species that merely appears to be human and who for some reason all aspire to become members of law enforcement.
Even if most of us don’t believe Satan is lurking in day care centers, we’re not immune to the panic people felt. Nathan points to the outsize concern (disproportionate to their rarity) over child “predators” or the epidemic of teen sexting as potential modern panic candidates: “One of the hallmarks of a panic is that you don’t realize it’s a panic when you’re in the middle of it.”
a2z wrote:The False Allegation Epidemic There are a huge number of rape cases that are overturned each year as a result of DNA analysis of evidence. The problem is that often these men have been in prison for several years before their cases get reviewed. Somewhere between 40% and possibly as many as 75% of reported rapes (and molestations) are actually false accusations. Law enforcement sorts some of these out, but nonetheless the public is duped into believing that sex crime is a major problem when exactly the opposite is true: the false accusation of sex crime is the real problem.
False Rape Accusations Are Real Your stats are actually pretty much right on. It appears that at a minimum that 20% of rape accusations are false, but that it's probably about 50%. Of course, you were talking about rape and molestation allegations and from everything I've heard false molestation allegations are actually quite a bit more common than false rape allegations, partially as a result of messy divorces. Nevertheless there is the belief that sexual assault accusations are likely to be true, which relates to the moral panic idea of this thread. Only during a moral panic can there be such a disconnect between belief and reality.
UVA Cracks Down on Fraternities After Sexual Assault Allegation Closing down fraternities based on allegations is ridiculous. Anyone can make a false allegation and taking action based on mere allegations emboldens those who wish to make false allegations. Just because there was a magazine article, doesn't prove that something happened. Writers are very good at taking a weak claim and making it sound like something more believable. They're successful writers because they're good at twisting things around and putting together a persausive argument based on next to nothing.
I notice a sign directed at a fraternity that makes a statement about enabling rape. The sign should probably be directed at the protesters and should make a statement about enabling false accusations.
Sia Apologizes for 'Elastic Heart' Music Video This falls into the category of Much Ado About Nothing. Anyone who is offended by this video is a mindless moron, not really even intelligent enough to be considered human, quite frankly. As for the song and the video, they're nothing special and so perhaps all this controversey is just a big publicity stunt, nothing but fake outrage.
ShadyLady: The video is not in the least offensive. Even if the actors were completely naked, I would not find it offensive. As for the song, I'm far from impressed and the concept behind the video is pretty week too. There was another song by this person called Chandelier that featured the same girl and that wasn't terribly impressive either. Both videos for some reason have amassed a large number of views. So, yeah... offensive no and impressive no... but lots of attention yes...
Hidden America: Chilling New Look at Sex Trafficking in the US Oh, the melodrama! This over-produced piece of theatrical propaganda is typical of what the news media feeds the public to convince us all to approve of wasteful law enforcement programs. The simple solution is to just straight out legalize prostitution. Regulate it like they do in Nevada and the supply goes up and the demand goes down and as a result the small number of underaged prostitutes becomes even smaller. The truth is that very few underage girls work as prostitutes and 99% of those that that are underage are sixteen or seventeen years old. The perceived problem would disappear if in addition to legalizing prostitution the age of consent were lowered to sixteen or fifteen. Rather than feeding into this whole victim mentality perspective, just redraw a few lines and hold the would-be victims accountable for their own behavior!
Apparently a bill relevant to sex trafficking didn't pass recently because several lawmakers objected to a provision that allowed for federal funds to be used for abortions that might be performed on women who had been involved in sex trafficking. Despite efforts by the media to portray sex trafficking as a major problem, it's actually almost non-existent and would be almost entirely eliminated by simply changing a few laws. So, it was a good thing that the law didn't pass, since it's not really a law we need. And the fewer laws and restrictions the better!