In the past weeks American news has been plastered by the story of Dylan and Shasta Groene. I'll lay out the full story as best I can for those of you who have heard nothing. For those of you who already know this information, feel free to skip the following paragraph.

Dylan and Shasta Groene were reported missing May 16th this year when their mother, brother, and their mother's boyfriend were found dead in their own home. Just the other day, July 2nd, Shasta was found alive and with Joseph Edward Duncan, a pedophile and level 3 sex offender who was wanted on several warrants, including the aleged molestation of another child. This website was set up by the family to aid in the search for Shasta and Dylan. Here's the FBI missing persons report for Shasta. And here's the latest report from FOX news (amazingly they've managed to be fairly accurate throughout this case). Unfortunately, Dylan hasn't been found as of yet.

Reading through my NY Times news today, I came across this article. Being naturally curious, I googled "Blogging the Fifth Nail" and this was what I found. (WARNING: DO NOT CLICK THE LINK IF YOU THINK YOU WILL GET IN TROUBLE FOR VIEWING SENSITIVE MATERIAL. The pictures have been disabled, but this blog is still sick, twisted, and disturbing, and the comments are even more so at times.) Now, what I want to know is HOW THE HELL NO POLICE OFFICERS SAW THIS and WHY THE HELL NOONE REPORTED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!1!11!11WTFBBQ Seriously, there aren't strong enough words or phrases in the English language to express my disgust. The guy even had regestered his own site with even more of this shit on it. (It's been taken down by FBI officials now, I'm guessing they haven't been able to get blogspot to get rid of the blog yet.)

I'm amazed, shocked, appaled, disgusted....there are not enough words. So tell me what you think of this case, the blog, the American practice of letting level 3 sex offenders (offenders with a high liklihood of re-offending) loose, anything on the subject at all. I want to hear what the brilliant minds of Matazone will make of this.

*edit
What disturbs me the most about this, as I read through the blog, is the clarity of this man's thought and his intellect. It's...overwhelming.

No criminal elicits so little sympathy as the child molester.

There was a previous thread dealing with child molesters, here are some quotes:


















While I agree that it is a horrible crime, and a terrible thing to do to someone, do you really believe that torturing and murdering a fellow human being is right?

No. I'm not against the death penalty for repeat offenders though. There's no excuse for serial pedophiles to ever be released.

I don't agree with letting sex offenders into our neighborhoods.

I don't agree with a lot of things, though.

A lot of what was said on the blog is interesting, he's obviously intelligent and obviously struggling mentally. I feel pity for those commenting with threats. Pity because they don't have a clue what went on his mind, he himself didn't. I also pity Duncan for his means of pay back.

I cannot bring myself to agree with murdering a person for any reason. I do not think that it is within our power to be good judges of human life.

For a lot of things, I might agree with you on that. For a repeat child molester, that chooses to indulge their addiction/urges/orientation, it becomes (for me personally) a lot more clear cut. I understand trying to work with people the first time, when possible. Rehabilition is ideal when possible and the crime isn't too dire, its also the most socially healthy option when it works. However, I think America goes far too far in favor of the perpetrators in repeat cases, at least.

If someone has been convicted of two different rapes/murders whatever violent offense (commited at different times) the odds of him being wrongfully guilty of each are quite low. Why some of these men are released again, I can't fathom. The possibility of them suffering or having their rights intruded upon becomes more important than the suffering and violated rights of past and future victims, which is wrong. Though admittedly, the death penalty is a different issue than that one.



heh. Interesting, but frusterating. It reminded me a bit of work, honestly. A person refusing to fully admit and face how they got where they were and how much they've hurt other people in their 'addiction'. Though I sympathize with some of his frusteration, he did seem to wander off into self-pity on occasion. The ending kills the rest of my pity. Most us are familiar with some degree of agony, but there is always a choice. He chose to do the cruelest thing possible. meh.

In my life I have known two child molesters. One of them was the step father of one of my best friends. He repeatedly molested her and was eventually caught. He is still in prison. My friend is still in a mental hospital after repeated suicide attempts. I hated him. I hated what he did to her. I held the same opinion of child molesters that most people have. I believed that they were the scum of the earth.

About three years later, I went for a walk with one of my best friends. He said there was something he needed to tell me. He had molested someone much younger than him a few years previously. I was shocked. I love all my friends. This friend was no different. I loved the person that he was, and I looked forward to seeing what kind of adult he would become. I've never felt more shocked in my entire life. After a few days of thinking, the great light dawned on me. Child molesters are human beings, just like all the rest of us. They messed up in a way larger than most people, but that doesn't change anything. This person was my friend, and this fact didn't change anything.

Since that time, I hate when people talk about how they want child molesters killed or hurt. Some child molesters will never be safe to society. Some can be repentant and never again feel the need to hurt a child. I think the hatred child molesters experience makes them more likely to become a repeat offender.

And this is what we must always keep in mind, that we should not hate the people, even if we hate the action. I hate murder, and child molestation, and rape, and theft; I do not hate murderers, child molesters, rapists, and theives. It is difficult, but I believe that it is necessary, and right to hate the sin, and love the sinner.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't punish the sinner at all, but that the punishments need to be out of love for that person, not hatred. A desire to help, not to avenge a wrongdoing.

Wanting to avenge an evil is a very different thing than hatred. I can think someone did something very evil and want them stopped, but not be operating from the blind hatred of racism and its equivalents. Love isn't always possible for us to feel at the time and I think justice can act in its place.

[quote=pgrmdave,Jul 13 2005, 02:46 PM]
[quote]That doesn't mean that we shouldn't punish the sinner at all, but that the punishments need to be out of love for that person, not hatred. A desire to help, not to avenge a wrongdoing.

[/quote]


Yeah, no. There's a time when you need to stop coddling the offenders, giving them excuses for what they did because they were picked on as a kid, or their fathers drank or their uncles messed with them and start to treat them as adults who are ultimately responsible for their actions.

I have a member of my family (my cousin) who is a sexual abuser. He's the most charming, self involved, undiagnosed sociopath you would ever hope to meet. He's great fun to hang around with for a couple hours, like I said, very charming and great fun to talk to, but I wouldn't want to leave him alone with children. He's a selfish thief who manipulates his family to his own ends and does whatever he likes if he thinks that people in authority don't or won't know about it. The relationships he has with people are shallow and parasitic. He is especially sweet to children, but no one besides me has said anything about this

Now, my cousin is loved very dearly by his mother and father, but he has a mind set that if someone loves him or is charmed by him then that leaves an opening for him to take advantage of them. He does not respond to love and friendship the way that other people do. He takes what he wants and leaves whoever he took it from to pick up the pieces.

Some people don't respond to love. Some people only respond to punishment.

I would be a fool to suggest leaving a child alone with a known child molester, and I am not suggesting we, as you put it, 'coddle' the offenders. I am suggesting that a child molester is still a person, even if they have hurt somebody, they are still human, they still bleed, and feel. I am not trying to say we should not punish them, but that the punishments should be out of caring for that person, to make them better, or, if we cannot, to simply remove them from situations in which they can hurt people. It is not our place to judge people good or evil, and not our place to harm another person.

Do not think that I am simply trying to be a bleeding heart liberal, who wants to validate crime through psychology. I am a person, who simply wishes the world to be peaceful, and I don't think that peace will ever come from violence, at any level. To punish someone in a way that hurts them only fuels more violence. I cannot accept that violence would make this world a better place.

We have laws that, more or less, determine what's 'evil' and unacceptable to the general society. Based on what you're saying, (this is a stretch, but bear with me) it's wrong to create laws that say something is wrong because it's 'not our place to do so.' Like it or not, laws are based on what people believe, and there are some very definite beliefs when it comes to child molesters.

I have not been molested. I will hopefully never know how the victims feel, because I've not been there. I have, however, dealt with my sister & cousins being molested by my uncle, and my niece molested by her father's best friend. To say that I hate child molesters is definitely not a stretch because I feel nothing but hatred for those who harm children and potentially instill a pattern that cannot be broken later on.

Statistics can be skewed to reflect whatever it is the person, group, etc is advocating, but there have been a lot of studies that show that a lot more offenders WILL offend again at some point in the future, compared to those who won't. Therapy, counselling, etc do not work unless the person absolutely wants it to. Sometimes, even then, it won't work. It's a mental disease, and it's not something that's curable. It's always there in the back of the offender's mind, and sometimes it merely takes a trigger to make a person reoffend.

I pity those who've turned to molesting others because they were molested or abused as children. As much as I pity that, I still hate them for what they've chosen to do to others - knowing full well what it did to them.

I'm not advocating violence, though I can say without a doubt that if someone tried to molest my child, I'd most certainly want to murder them. There's the big difference - while I may hate them and want them dead, I know better than to act on that want. Many of these molesters choose to act on their wants rather than step away from the situation.

pgrmdave:

Of course we should wish for their healing and basic good, but I think that the victim's rights and concern for the victim needs to generally outweigh that. Not to the point of being abuse or torture, but in practical terms as to how we value them.

As to the judging good and evil, it sounds very nice, but it does seem to be somewhat impractical. Whether you claim good and evil exists or not, you're called to make moral judgements with each election and vote you cast. You have to decide who's right, who's moral and sometimes on serous mortal issues like abortion, the death penalty, ect. If you believe you have the right to make decisions on voting, what causes you support and such.. that is a decision. Doesn't that imply the right to make that decision and cast judgements? Or are you doing something you have no right to do? Even if I decide to say.. PETA is a good or bad organization, I'm making a hopefully educated decision on whether they are good and bad and do good or bad things. Whether I support them is based on that decision. Why shouldn't I do the same with crime, punishments and the decisions that are made?

When I said that it is not our place to judge people good or evil, I meant only as people, I think that it is still possible to judge actions or ideas as good or evil. For example, even if I think that almost everything Hitler did was evil, I don't think that I can say that Hitler was, as a human, evil. And I agree that the victim takes precedence - we need to make sure that the pain, the hurt, stops first, but I think that we need to do it by causing as little pain as possible to all parties involved.