Posted on 08/02/2010 7:13:54 AM PDT by laotzu
San Antonio police Saturday night arrested a 38 year old teacher in the Northside ISD and charged her with engaging in sexual activity with a 12 year old boy.
An arrest warrant obtained by 1200 WOAI news claims that Lucinda Caldwell, 38, is a fifth grade teacher at Cable Elementary School on Pinn Road.
The affidavit claims Caldwell picked up the boy at his far west side home Friday night and drove to a hotel, where the sexual contact allegedly took place.
But when she tried to return the youngster to his home early Saturday, his dad was waiting, so she drove off and drove into Medina County, where police there arrested her and rescued the boy.
It is not known whether the boy is a student of Caldwell's, or whether he attends Cable Elementary School. Caldwell is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. A spokesman at the Bexar County Jail said he didn't have information on whether bond had been set.
Officials didn't say how the contact between the boy and the teacher was made, because school is not in session, or whether the two had some sort of ongoing relationship.
Actually age of consent laws were first codified in England in the 13th century, they have been part of English Common Law ever since and were the law in the American colonies.
You raised a central question regarding protecting children from evil. Florida (and probably other states) have tried government and it has been an expensive, intrusive failure.
That's like saying the laws against murder are failures because people are still murdered.
I posed these question because America has a child abuse industry which produces more abuse than it prevents,
And your proof of this is what exactly?
Hopefully, the FR community may be able to come up with some ideas.
Perhaps getting rid of anarchists.
“to believe otherwise is simply wrong-headed.”
Belief is fine in matters of faith, but in matters of government, accountability matter. When a major government effort such as child protection becomes a failure which compounds rather than cures the problem, mere belief in the necessity of government intervention in that area is counter-intuitive, illogical, and irrational.
We have to face the hard fact that some things government can’t deal with, regardless of funding level or authority.
Look at the Florida situation. Is it better to support a swarm of intervenors knowing their efforts result in even more abuse?
I would say no. But, I have an admitted lack of belief that government can do such things.
PS I liked your home page. We just disagree when to pull the funding on failed government programs.
Perhaps looking at this site and the bibliraphy may shed some light where heat had so far prevailed.
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/A-Ar/Age-of-Consent.html
Note the fifth paragraph.
So much for history. Now for reading before posting
“You raised a central question regarding protecting children from evil. Florida (and probably other states) have tried government and it has been an expensive, intrusive failure.
That’s like saying the laws against murder are failures because people are still murdered.”
You posted a classic non sequetor.
I raised the issue of what to do with a failed government approach to a problem Were a law regarding murder, and the agencies enforcing it, shown to be increasing the murder rate, I am sure you would want that law and the agencies gone forthwith.
“Getting rid of anarchists”
Anarchists are in the agencies? Or have unusually large numbers of child sex freaks amongst them?
I never knew.
I have read the posts of banned FReepers on other forums who were bragging that they managed to support homosexual marriage on FR for years under the guise of *Government should stay out of the business of defining marriage*.
Claiming the non-government interference route is nothing but a smoke screen to promote immorality and come out looking like the hero. It’s the same vapid argument used to stealth support abortion, euthanasia, prostitution, pornography, you name the immorality.
It’s a lie and nobody on this forum is being fooled by it.
“If laws of consent are on the chopping block why not incest laws?”
Has it occurred to you that there are genetic reason for incest laws? Regardless of any religious or cultural beliefs, incest does produce inferior offspring.
Long ago, this was known, and the incest taboo was created because of that realization. Incest is bad for the gene poll of the community. Hard fact, one could even call it “hard data”, too - assuming the use of those terms doesn’t cause more hyperventilation.
Perhaps looking at this site and the bibliraphy may shed some light where heat had so far prevailed.
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/A-Ar/Age-of-Consent.html
Note the fifth paragraph.
So much for history. Now for reading before posting
Your original premise was that age of consent laws didn't exist before the 19th century, now you post a link saying that the Romans had them.
It seems to me that you simply oppose these laws under any circumstances.
I raised the issue of what to do with a failed government approach to a problem Were a law regarding murder, and the agencies enforcing it, shown to be increasing the murder rate, I am sure you would want that law and the agencies gone forthwith.
No, the LOGICAL reaction is to demand better ENFORCEMENT, it's only people like YOU who want to scrap the laws.
“I asked this question in this form because under western law, from Moses through Jesus time, including the Roman period, the child was legally the chattel of the father.
I disagree with your claim. Children were never considered slave or property but a grave responsibility.”
Verify what I posted with any good lawyer familiar with those three legal systems.
Next, we come to:
“ “My previous question remains unanswered. Should the parents or the state be the final authority as to when a child is to have sex, and with whom?
Parents should never be able to determine with whom their child will have sex.”
Before trying to defend that one, consider what Lot told the riotous crowd wanting him to turn over some strangers.
Consider that until recently, parents did arrange marriages throughout most of the world. In many places they still do. However, given that I support American Exceptionalism, American practices seem to me to be the most important to this discussion.
Perhaps the confusion comes from my not having used a negative as the example. When a parent can not approve of a marriage, that parent exercises a negative choice over the child’s sex life and choice of partner.
In an earlier post, I gave a site with dealing with records of early American age of consent, marriage, and divorce among those 14 and younger.
But, again, may I suggest more effort be devoted to finding an alternative to the failed child protective system we now have in place?
Please give specifics. Do you want laws against child sex abuse repealed?
Come on, you said they were a failure, so do you want them on the books in Florida and elsewhere, and enforced, or pulled?
A yes or no would suffice, since it appears you have difficulty in focusing on answers.
The above was your quote to me...
So long as social mores and potential partner standards inhibit the exercise of those physical capabilities until the maturity of the individual has increased, the boys will spend more time talking about it than doing it.
Before condoms were given away in schools, many guys had one in their wallet by high school and it wore out there.
Being 14 in 1820 vs 1920 vs 1960 vs 1990 vs 2010 may have some physical similarities, but the ability of an individual to provide for and support a family (the social structure around them, the expectations of society--partly culturally based), and the sheer capability of the individual to survive and provide has changed, at 14, and we are talking about a very large (maturationally speaking) two year gap between twelve and fourteen.
Considering that most 12 year-olds today are hardly equipped to support offspring, I think the standard which makes most sense is one in which the generally culturally accepted age for coitus is one at which the parent is capable of supporting the child, all mores aside.
It is no coincidence that that general age usually is consistent with the age an individual is considered 'mature' enough to be a parent.
That age varies from individual to individual. I know people in their 40s who are still not mature enough to raise children, although one could make the argument that had they had children they might have matured more, out of necessity.
That, I believe to be a result of a culture in which maturation and responsibility have been grossly undervalued.
The reason it is difficult to quantify the 'damage' done to a young individual when an adult steps outside the accepted social moral envelope and engages in relations with someone far their junior is that it is difficult to ascertain how much of that damage lingers--it all depends on the individual.
Now, I'm no sociologist, no psychologist, and all I have to go on are the observations of watching generations grow and (sometimes) mature (I'm a great-grandfather), but I'd say there is damage done when anyone in a position of trust, in a supervisory or mentoring role becomes personally (sexually) engaged with someone in any circumstance which implies or develops expectations of an ongoing relationship and fails to deliver.
That happens at any age, but 'first loves' become the standard by which all others will be measured, and the deepest wounds come from the first betrayals. It is not until later that people develop the mechanisms to defend themselves from rejection or betrayal, but even those mechanisms will taint the relationships they have in the future.
Needless to say, most grade schoolers are still pretty vulnerable (12=sixth grade in most places).
Wow.
First off, as Wagglebee pointed out “I guess you didn’t realize that crimes such as rape and homosexuality were CAPITAL CRIMES when our Founding Fathers were around.”
There is little to zero hope of rehabilitation for a rapists in our system. And child molestors (IIRC) have a KNOWN recitivism rate of 75%.
Glades, while I can clearly relate to a lot of the feelings you are having, I would ask, “What is your solution?” Increasing Government intervention, in my opinion, has done little—to nothing—to curb the acts you are describing, but it probably has raised community awareness.
The problem is, that, if family’s all functioned the way you’d like them to (Meaning socializing children, and caring for them without harming them), then we’d have no difference of opinion, I think. The problem is that families have dropped the ball, and that Government has picked it up, and then some.
I agree with the family picking that ball back up, I think you’re making an argument that is faith based (which i can understand), but which won’t change a lot of minds. Because the fact is, that people will abuse children, but that doesn’t mean we don’t strive to end it. If you mean that the FEDEAL government should keep it’s noses out of the family, I can agree. I think state and local government should be able to make laws with consent of the governed.
We all want government out of our lives, but you forget that are freedom seeking constitution, as Washington said, can only govern a moral people. If people were moral, government intervention wouldn’t be necessary, and this point would be moot.
I don’t have a definitive solution for you (other than the Ideal of everyone living by perfect Christian values, probably not gonna happen), because I’m just an imperfect person myself. But I do think we should come up with ideas of how to implement better standards of government in the home. After all, we have to define SOMEWHERE what we find acceptable. Many cultures teach female circumcision and the like. Are you willing to accept such atrocities based on cultural relativism, if they come to the U.S.? The Kukukuku people of New guinea believe the men have to rape boys in order to get them to grow up. Is that acceptable if they lived in the U.S.? NO, IT IS NOT.
So we have to draw the line somewhere. I draw the line for these types of things at the State level, with State Constitutions. States decide what they’re going to do, but I don’t think the FedGov has any say in this. But to get rid of all Government in this area, as you said, is probably not going to work in a non-perfect world, and it certainly isn’t going to function with a non-moral people we both know exist today. The problem is, that not everyone agrees with you, and we’ll always (probably) be on the other side of a government which is run by amoral people (ie. Homeschooling is abuse, whatever). There will be people on both sides, and they will not agree. I would err on the side of less government indoctrination, but a good Criminal Justice System requires good laws, and moral judges.
If we can agree on the problem, we can work towards a solution. But no government probably won’t work. And I feel we agree about the problem.
As to Florida age of consent laws, and by extension, those in other states, I agree with age of consent laws because we have fallen far from the self reliant, family oriented people we once were.
However, I suggest a clause be placed in such laws as will allow parents & child to request a court wavier unless the state can prove beyond shadow of a doubt that greater harm would come from the parental/child decision than from the statute.
I would add that such a case should be held in closed court to protect the family’s privacy.
If such a clause were written so as to give preference to the family decision, then I propose this to be a balancing of the obvious need for societal norms with the particular needs/decisions of such families as wish an exception.
Courts balance competing rights. In my proposal, the right/need of the society for norms in this area are balanced against parental rights.
Really, to an extent not really known to me, in Florida this can be done by the child and parent applying for “Emancipated female” status. I don’t know if Florida law allows such a status for males, but I would assume so.
Government has to have the right to rule. But if the parent is to be the final authority in family matters, as was the case for most of history, then some balance must be found. At least until we regain a family based America rather than the Nanny State we presently are growing.
I proposed this rather earlier in this thread, but it seems to have been ignored.
There was a time not so long ago when the parents and a few adult relatives would have a 'talk' with the offender. How involved the 'talk' was would depend on the offense. Some offenders were never seen in town again after their 'talk'.
Now some here may decry 'frontier justice', which is an institution never to be utilized lightly lest 'witch hunts' prevail, but in the day whispered accounts of the fates of child molestors kept much such behaviour at bay. Fear of the law then was less than fear of the relatives, which may explain in part why so much predation seems to occur upon thoee who lack solid, primary interest (parent or blood relative) family units. While some stepparent considerations can run equally strong, that varies widely, and seem strongest in those with no conflicting child interests.
Now, however, pedophillia is being promoted while the threat of vigilantism which once suppressed it is reviled.
When my brother was about 6, a bully ( about 10) in the neighborhood held my brother's thumb to a match and blistered it badly. The next day, my older brother who was then about 18 had a “talk” with the bully. The bully never again even spoke to my brother or me. He left us completely alone. As children, my brother and I never had any problems in the neighborhood or school with bullying ( except for this one incident).
The second story involves my older brother. He worked with my uncle who owned greenhouses. My brother would stand at the entrance to the elevated trains and sell flowers for my uncle. One day he was approached and propositioned by two homosexuals. That afternoon, my uncle and another uncle tracked down the homosexuals and had a “talk” with these two guys. They were never seen in the neighborhood again.
I simply must get back to writing a proposal due all too soon, so this must be more truncated that I would like.
As to Muslim beliefs, Islam Delenda Est - because they will force us to. Likewise for Stone Age belief systems in general, be they New Guinea or the stone age cannibal cult of MesoAmerican Azitlan nutters.
Culture counts, most importantly American culture. America is truly an exception to the sad history of man, and the preservation of the American Republic must be our central duty.
You are totally correct about a moral people being the only people capable of making the American Republic work. However, Liberals have given us a few generations of irresponsible parasites. What now?
My arguments were probably more based upon the writings of the Founders and evolutionarily acquired behavioral predispositions than a particular faith. Judeo-Christianity did however, devise the last six of the Ten Commandments. A more concise societal rule book has yet to be written. Belief in G*d id not essential to observation of these Commandments.
In earlier posts, and very late in this thread, I did suggest a modification to Age of Consent Law which I hope may better balance Rights of all involved.
Thanks for all the interest in this thread, and the issues it raised.
Back to the proposal.
NOTE TO ALL ! !
PLEASE READ POST #193.
Smokin Joe has an historically prove methodology.
Hint: it is family based.
PS It worked, and cost virtually nothing
The one on the right, looks like the missing link.
No no no ... Sex within their age is fine. your 23 year old wife has no business with a 40 year old guy.
Within age limits is what I’m saying.
Keep in mind that the anarchist masquerading as a libertarian considers local government to be equally as dangerous as the Federal government. Doubt it? test them.
True libertarian thinkers understand that the Constitution recognizes state and local governments as the proper source for criminal lawmaking.
I have a great disdain for the creep of government, but the law is the law. If you don’t like it, get it changed. If you can’t change it. Run for office and get it changed.
Your question is based on an incorrect assumption—that moral standards are always derived from utilitarianism.
So the implied conclusion is equally false.
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