"Me Too" Judge Roy Moore

[Toni]

I am so sorry! I didn't realize that Roy Moore has already served a prison sentence for what he did to the 14-year old girl!

Serving a prison sentence or not has fuck-all to do with how what people did in late 70s and early 80s reflects on their character today.

I don't really agree. It is possible for people to continue to grow and mature throughout their lives,yes. But in order for that to happen, one must be willing to do a little hard self examination.

If he had been a teen or even in his very early 20's, it would be easier to discount the age/power disparity. But Moore knew her age and pursued her anyway. He even knew she was in a difficult family situation and more vulnerable.

He may have meant no harm. However being subjected to such attentions from someone so much older and in a position of authority --someone who should have been looking out for her instead of attempting to take advantage of her--that is the sort of thing that can do damage for many years.

 

[RavenSky]

He even knew she was in a difficult family situation and more vulnerable.

Very characteristic of a predator

 

[Underseer]

Welcome to 2017, when pedophilia is a debatable topic among Republicans.

It's not just Catholics.

 

[Underseer]

It would be legal in many countries, including countries as diverse as Italy, Brazil and China. I agree that going after a 14 year old when you are >30 is a bit sleazy, but it did happen 38 years ago. Allegedly.
People have been forgiven for doing far worse. Such as terrorism.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry Derec. But you are WRONG WRONG WRONG here. 14 might be going through puberty but it is FAR from complete for most girls. And I know MANY, myself included who didn't even start their period until 14 or later.

Then you are a late bloomer. I think about 12 or so is average for girls. And look at the other girls he was pursuing at the same time. 16 and 18. It would not fit the pattern if Leigh was a late bloomer like you.

How young would a girl have to be before you had a problem with someone diddling her?

8? Would it be ok for us to find it morally objectionable if an adult did that to an 8 year old? What about 11? Where exactly is the cutoff age before you will find something wrong with it?

 

[laughing dog]

You misunderstand Derec's position. It is arbitrary when a girl hits puberty, so any legal cutoff is arbitrary based on that standard is arbitrary. Derec is against arbitrary legal cutoffs for consensual sex. So, there should be no cutoff, so that even a mature 3 year old can legally consent to sex with a 32 year old.

 

[Underseer]

You misunderstand Derec's position. It is arbitrary when a girl hits puberty, so any legal cutoff is arbitrary based on that standard is arbitrary. Derec is against arbitrary legal cutoffs for consensual sex. So, there should be no cutoff, so that even a mature 3 year old can legally consent to sex with a 32 year old.

<snip>

 

[beero1000]

Who molested anybody?
From the OP link

. None of the women say that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.

Holy shit your bias is showing so hard you have to selectively edit quotes?

The full quote you butchered is:

Aside from Corfman, three other women interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older. None of the three women say that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.

Whereas:

Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.

“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she remembers thinking. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.”

She was 14 and he was 32.

I, for one, would like a response to this before it gets buried under an avalanche of derails. It went beyond quote mining and leaving out context, you actively removed a word in the middle of the sentence that changed that context. Why did you edit the quote that way? Was it purposeful disinformation?

 

[Elixir]

Pedophilia is a "nothingburger"?

Sorry - I forgot the </sarcasm> tag. It's a nothingburger because it will have zero impact upon his election to the US Senate.
Why do people reply to Derec's flamebait?
Oh - sorry again; that belonged in the "ask a stupid question" thread.

 

[sharon45]

I already know that he is not very mature based on his religious beliefs and much of his politics.

I suspect he rapped himself in his religious beliefs to shield him from his baser instincts.

That, and like various born again Christians, many have a problem they can't deal with, so they just hang it on Jesus' shoulders.

 

[SimpleDon]

It is hard to say that Alabama voters are very discriminating about their public servants. Not too long ago their speaker of the house was indicted on 12 counts of soliciting and accepting bribes. Not only was he re-elected, the Republicans re-elected him as speaker which he kept almost until the day he surrendered to begin serving a 4 year sentence in prison.

And it certainly didn't hurt Donald Trump with the Republican base when he was recorded admitting that he took every opportunity to sexually harass women possible.

And certainly to be a Republican is to be highly immune to hypocrisy and to hone your ability to project your flaws onto your opponents.

I think that what is happening is that women are finding their voice in something that they were previously too intimidated to voice before. Society didn't want to hear about these things and punished women who did speak up. And of course by society, I mean men didn't want to hear these things. Women are finally saying we are part of society and we don't have to put up with this anymore. They use to say that we shouldn't have to put up with this. I think that we can thank Trump for this.

 

[ZiprHead]

"Now we know what the Republican age of consent is." - Chris Matthews

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The left is quickly catching up on that count it seems.

Does it bother you in the least about how hypocrital Moore is? I mean he's made his entire career at judging the morality of others. And look at what he does when he thinks nonone is looking.

That's the Christian M.O. Pious people are the biggest hypocrites out there.

 

[Mumbles]

He even knew she was in a difficult family situation and more vulnerable.

Very characteristic of a predator

Even better, as a DA he was likely in good position to know this, if he so desired.

Which leads back to what I said before - I doubt she was the only one.

 

[southernhybrid]

As a woman, I find Derec's comments very disturbing. While I am an older woman, I remember very well what it meant to be a 14 year old girl. Just because a 14 year old is experiencing physical and hormonal changes, doesn't mean she is an adult. She is not mature emotionally or intellectually. If I was confronted by a 32 year old man, who held a powerful position in my community ( assistant DA ) I can only imagine how threatened and scared I would feel if I was just 14.. When I was 14, I was very innocent and naive, certainly not capable of knowing what to do if confronted with the situation that this woman had to deal with when she was just a child of 14. Just because a girl looks like a woman, doesn't mean she is a woman.

And it doesn't matter what they do or did in other cultures past and present. Historically women were treated as chattel, with little say in regards to who they could marry or have a relationship with. We're not talking about other cultures or the past. We're talking about something recent historically, something that decent people would not find acceptable.

Nobody is trying to send Moore to prison for this violation of the law since it was 38 years ago. His actions just say a lot about his character. He wasn't an immature teenager when he sexually intimidated the girl. He was a grown man who held a powerful position in his community. This is just one more piece of evidence that he doesn't have the character to serve in as a Senator.

It's one thing to talk about the actions of two immature teenagers, but this was a grown man who knew better, forcing himself on a young, inexperienced girl, who most of us would consider to be a child. Perhaps we should ask the parents of 14 year old girls how they would feel if their daughters were victims of this man's predatory behavior.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

His answers to questions are so revealing because he knows he did it. He was in his 30's and dating young teenagers. What a piece of scum. Obviously he had a problem with women his own age. Where do Republicans find these dirtbags.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

His answers to questions are so revealing because he knows he did it. He was in his 30's and dating young teenagers. What a piece of scum. Obviously he had a problem with women his own age. Where do Republicans find these dirtbags.

I think I read that he lived out in the middle of the woods.

 

[Derec]

I remember very well what it meant to be a 14 year old girl.

I remember being in school with 14 year old girls.

Just because a 14 year old is experiencing physical and hormonal changes, doesn't mean she is an adult.

No it does not mean that. And it does not mean that if what this woman says is true that Moore did not do anything wrong.
But at the same time, a 14 year old is not a small, prepubescent child either, and Moore is not a pedophile.
That's all I've been saying. One can say that what he is alleged to have done is wrong, without losing ourselves in witch hunts and hyperbole.
Also, it happened 38 years ago, if it happened at all. That's a long time. The society has forgiven much worse proven wrongdoing from that long ago.

Just because a girl looks like a woman, doesn't mean she is a woman.

No it does not. But at the same time, it is also possible that she was receptive or even initiating sexual contact. If the allegation was about a boy and a 30 year old woman, nobody would think that the boy had to lack any sexual initiative just because he was 14. Even if we know that a 14 year old boy is not a man yet. So why the double standard? Especially since girls tend to mature sooner than boys.
When I was in 8th grade I caught two of my classmates, both 14 or so, going at it like two rabbits. So yeah, 14 year olds are not adults but they are not little children either. They are in-between.

And it doesn't matter what they do or did in other cultures past and present.

I think it does matter. Not legally of course, but it does offer a counterpoint to the whole "pedophilia" nonsense that many countries, including developed countries like Italy, have age of consent set at 14.

Historically women were treated as chattel, with little say in regards to who they could marry or have a relationship with. We're not talking about other cultures or the past. We're talking about something recent historically, something that decent people would not find acceptable.

Do you think Italy treats women like chattel? I think "treating women like chattel" is not positively correlated with low age of consent.

Nobody is trying to send Moore to prison for this violation of the law since it was 38 years ago.

I've heard people say that.

His actions just say a lot about his character.

And being a terrorist in the 70s says a lot more about character, but that did not stop Bil Ayers, Bernadine Dhorn et al from being embraced by academia.

He wasn't an immature teenager when he sexually intimidated the girl. He was a grown man who held a powerful position in his community. This is just one more piece of evidence that he doesn't have the character to serve in as a Senator.

You are assuming it went down exactly as she described. That's a big if.

It's one thing to talk about the actions of two immature teenagers, but this was a grown man who knew better, forcing himself on a young, inexperienced girl, who most of us would consider to be a child. Perhaps we should ask the parents of 14 year old girls how they would feel if their daughters were victims of this man's predatory behavior.

Again, I am not saying what he is alleged to have done is right.
But at the same time, she was not a prepubescent child either. Even if the allegations are true, Roy Moore is not a pedophile.

 

[Derec]

How young would a girl have to be before you had a problem with someone diddling her?

8? Would it be ok for us to find it morally objectionable if an adult did that to an 8 year old? What about 11? Where exactly is the cutoff age before you will find something wrong with it?

Oh, I find an adult consensually "diddling" 14 year olds objectionable. Just not to the same extent as if he had forced himself on her. Which is why I find the term "statutory rape" ridiculous.
And most 14 year olds are postpubescent, vast majority of 11 year olds are not. That's a major difference, don't you think?

Where age of consent is 18, do you really think sexual contact with a 17 year old is tantamount to rape or is even "pedophilia". What if say California legislature decided that 24 year olds are not mature enough and raised age of consent to 25?

 

[Derec]

You misunderstand Derec's position. It is arbitrary when a girl hits puberty,

You are deliberately misconstruing my position. It is arbitrary where legislators set age of consent (even within the US it's 16-18, and internationally it goes from 13 to 21) and so to pretend that being under that cutoff signifies actual inability to consent is nonsensical.

so any legal cutoff is arbitrary based on that standard is arbitrary.

But the legal age of consent is not based on onset of puberty. Unless you think girls in California enter puberty at 18 and those in Bahrain at 21.

so that even a mature 3 year old can legally consent to sex with a 32 year old.

You really see no difference between a 14 year old and a 3 year old?
A 14 year old is not an adult, we can agree on that, but neither is she a small, prepubescent child.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

You are deliberately misconstruing my position. It is arbitrary where legislators set age of consent (even within the US it's 16-18, and internationally it goes from 13 to 21) and so to pretend that being under that cutoff signifies actual inability to consent is nonsensical.

so any legal cutoff is arbitrary based on that standard is arbitrary.

But the legal age of consent is not based on onset of puberty. Unless you think girls in California enter puberty at 18 and those in Bahrain at 21.

so that even a mature 3 year old can legally consent to sex with a 32 year old.

You really see no difference between a 14 year old and a 3 year old?
A 14 year old is not an adult, we can agree on that, but neither is she a small, prepubescent child.

Derec, darling, this is a man in his 30's and he's watching 8th graders at the middle school wanting to date them. If you're telling me that isn't a red flag then you need an ankle bracelet too.