CHILD PORNOGRAPHY RING ARRESTED

Associated Press .. breaking on the wire | August 9, 2002 | Connie Cass (AP)

[NYer]

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Ten Americans and six foreigners were charged Friday with taking sexually explicit photographs of their own children or children in their care and sending them over the Internet to an international child pornography ring, the U.S. Customs Service said.

Forty-five children, including 37 in the United States, were victims and have been removed from the care of those indicted, Customs officials said. Most of them are in the custody of another parent or relative.

The defendants include nine people from seven states who were indicted in Fresno, Calif., along with six residents of Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The indictment alleges that members of the ring, referring to themselves as ``the club,'' traded messages across the Internet requesting photographs of specific sexual poses. One man asked for an audiotape so he could hear a child crying while being spanked, the indictment said, and another posed naked with an underage girl.

The Customs Service coordinated the U.S. investigation that began last November with a request for help from the Danish National Police, who were acting on a tip about an international child pornography ring. ``I congratulate the investigators whose ingenuity and perseverance brought these people to justice,'' Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said in a statement.

The Americans charged include: Lloyd Alan Emmerson of Fresno County, Calif.; Paul Whitmore and Brooke Rowland, San Diego County, Calif.; Tracy Reynolds, Texas; Leslie Peter Bowcut, Idaho; Michael David Harland, Florida; Harry Eldon Tschernetzki, Washington state; John Zill, South Carolina; Craig Davidson, Kansas. The identity of the tenth American was not immediately available.

The foreigners were identified as Eggert Jensen and Bente Jensen of Denmark; Jean-Michael Frances Cattin, Marcel Egli and Peter Althaus of Switzerland; and Dirk-Jan Prins of the Netherlands.

On the Net: Customs Service: http://www.customs.ustreas.gov

AP-ES-08-09-02 1114EDT

[Texaggie79]

Are they unable to perform heterosexual sex?

It's the same as homosexuals. They have desires, which many cannot help but have, that makes them want a different type of sex. Not even I can deny that sex is about desire, all be it mixed up in their case.

[ClancyJ]

then we will be easily trounced by the liberals in this matter.

We need to be prepared but I also think the cable newscasts debating any sick perverted idea - such as banning the Pledge of Allegiance - just gives it more publicity and brings out all the radical anti-establishment goons.

I don't intend to accept something just because the liberal media decides to print something. It will mean I will just change the channel, cancel the subscription, or find others that agree with my views. Sort of what has happened with Fox and the renewed conservative movement in the U.S.

We can't allow perversion, child abuse, infantcide, terrorist activity and traitors among us to ruin this country we have worked so hard to build.

We must use the help God has given us with this president to stand up and take back this country. We must promote ethics, honor, patriotism, respect, morality or we will just give this country to those that seek to bring it down for their own sick, selfish reasons.

[Texaggie79]

But the definition of "damage" changes with cultural standards. Divorce, in today's age can be a good thing in certain cases. Clinton hurt no one (they insist).

[Frapster]

This takes us back to the question I asked before: is there any act which is intrinsically wrong?

Yes. When you seek to remove all judgements, you seek the lowest level of society. Seeking the lowest level of society, leads to a low level society which eventually leads to destruction.

But "yes" proves nothing. By what objective standard can you assert that the answer to "is there any act which is intrinsically wrong?" is "yes?" Because I can easily say that it is any behavior is intrinsically wrong and today's "societal norms" are tomorrows "narrow-minded bigotry."

[Frapster]

</b> did I forget this tag? Sorry.

[jjm2111]

I wonder where any sexual deviencies (and I don't just mean horrid ones like pedophilia) come from in the first place.

[ClancyJ]

but groups like NAMBLA have adults speaking out that claim they were sexually active with an adult as children and that they function normally today

How funny!!!! Normal? Then why have they formed an organization to promote their seeking out young for their pleasure? They think they are normal. Normal to them means sex with children so that they feel like big important men. Normal to them is not heterosexual sex or they would be forming some other type of organization - not one promoting sex with the children of our society.

[MEGoody]

"My whole premise in the question is that we've so brazenly accepted what was considered to be previously be deviant sexual behavior and made it normal - why not child/adult sexual encounters?"

There are a few out there who are publically already making the claim that child/adult encounters are, in fact, perfectly okay. And in the name of 'free speech,' these people are tolerated rather than being lynched as would have occurred 50 years ago. I'm beginning to wonder if the lynching thing was always so bad.

[Texaggie79]

That's all fine and good, but just switching the channel and ignoring the problem just creates a bigger problem. We went decades with the mantra "Communism is evil". But did anyone ever say why, on a public level? No, it was just an accepted norm. When we treat issues that way, it attracts anti-establishment type people who come in and question things. When no one knows the answer, just because they never studied the issue, but just always accepted it as a bad thing, then it appears, on the surface, that they are wrong.

Our populace is filled with the economically ignorant who wouldn't know the first thing to say to counter Karl Marx. So when the fickle people of our nation start seeing "Socialism helps the poor and small people" against "Socialism is just wrong because it is evil." They start to side with "Socialism helps the poor". I hope we don't make the same mistake with this issue.

[r9etb]

They cannot make that decision. It's like taking money from a retarded person and swearing he gave you permission. It doesn't fly.

And it doesn't fly because .... ?

Because it's stealing, of course. And stealing is wrong because ... ?

Hmmmm. Doesn't take too long before we get to "because it's wrong," eh?

But how does one prove that this "always wrong thing" is not merely an arbitrary standard? That's a pretty difficult problem -- probably insoluable unless the source of the injunction is supernatural (i.e., from God).

This is the problem with trying to argue against something like pedophilia without resorting to "because it's wrong." This is tantamount to abandoning any standards against its general prohibition.

[Frapster]

I'm beginning to wonder if the lynching thing was always so bad.

I have my opinions on the matter - unfortunately I fear they will be used against me in the future. Anyone can tie a knot unfortunately.

[MEGoody]

If you don't catch 'em, you can't put 'em in jail. It's only the loud mouthed ones who want to parade around in drag and expect us to 'celebrate' their perversion that we want to put in jail anyway.

[Frapster]

Texaaggie79 - I'm from Katy, TX and it does my heart good to see someone who grasps this issue so well. Thanks for participating in this thread - I fear we are well on our way to realizing what we hope is not to be. Hope I'm wrong.

[MEGoody]

"I wonder how long it takes before some dim-wit starts defending child porngraphy as free speech."

They already are.

[Texaggie79]

Normal is what society defines it as. Today, our society is defining normal sexuality as anything you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone else. Fortunately we still define child sex as harmful to the child but that is slowly eroding. However, within those adults that claim to be "normal" they do claim that they are hetero sexual and have no desire for homosexual or phedophile sexual activity. Basically they are trying to cover all their bases.

[Chemnitz]

Quoting William F. Buckley, when God is erased from the picture, any aperture will do. That also applies to abuse of animals.

Our greatest concern should be the children. They are horribly scarred by the abuse. I have seen the results many times.

[ClancyJ]

"Why must we deprive children of this fun?",

Fun? A three year old being raped by a grown man fun? Why are the children screaming in those films?

I shouldn't say such things - but - are these men so sexually insignificant in size that they do not hurt the babies, the little girls they penetrate?

This movement is purely water seeking its lowest level. Look at the good incest has done over the years - damaging gene pools.

IMHO this all goes back to abortion. Once we take the step to kill a life form, the next step is easier. We now are to the point of having to outlaw partial birth abortions, live birth abortion, fetal stem cell harvesting. We are quickly becoming a society that does not protect its young but chooses instead to use it for their personal needs and wants.

When we reach these lows - God will see to it that we cease to exist as a great nation because we are no longer great - we are depraved.

[Texaggie79]

Indeed. It is easy to say "It's just evil and wrong because it is" when you are in the majority, but what happens when you become the minority? I think we need to think ahead and start countering this movement NOW, so we never become the minority on this.

[MEGoody]

Well, if we're going to talk moral relativism here, who says it is wrong to take advantage of someone? The law? Well, in some states, sodomy is illegal. I guess that means in that particular state, sodomy is wrong. Get some state (California of course) to make it legal to rape little kids and you're good to go.

[r9etb]

Why play devil's advocate? What do you gain by that?

I play that game, too. It's to point out the logical problems associated with taking the "rationalist" approach to things like this. Ultimately, rationalism leads to relativism, because the rationalist can never come up with an argument that bypasses the ultimate requirement to say "because it's wrong."

If there are things that are just plain wrong, their wrongness has to be defined outside the realm of what a rationalist calls reality. I.e., because God said so.

The basic choice boils down to this: you can have God, and right and wrong; or you can have no God, and relativism.