Opinions Of The Month: February, 1998

Mary Kay LeTourneau was arrested again for having contact with the boy that she pleaded guilty to raping and molesting back in November. I wrote a little something about it then [click here]. At that time it was my opinion that the court's decision in the penalty phase ignored the fact that Ms. LeTourneau is a child molester. Even though the judge herself expressed the view that Ms. LeTourneau could not be rehabilitated, she allowed her back into society without so much as a slap on the wrist.

Click here for a video news clip.

Why am I not surprised that we're hearing about this woman again? Well, check out my other views on sexual offenders and especially on child molesters and you'll see why. These people cannot be rehabilitated. Their desire for children is a sexual orientation, not a bad habit, not a choice, not a preference. It is how their minds are wired, and no amount of rehab is going to straighten that out. Perhaps a prison sentence would have convinced Ms. LeTourneau to keep her hands to herself, but I doubt it. At the very least it would have given the child time to grow into an adult, at which time he can make up his own mind whether he was taken advantage of and how to proceed.

This is a continuation of last month's missive regarding Kenneth Starr. These are some of the things that bother me about this man.

1. There has always been a special counsel. This is not new. So what makes Kenneth Starr different? Apparently someone from the Republican party told him to get busy and give Clinton some grief or Starr would find himself unemployed. So he has gone after Clinton with a vengeance. Good thing the special counsel in charge when Kennedy was President didn't get the same directive, huh?
2. Starr told Kathy Tripp to wear a wire. This is illegal, but Starr promised her immunity if she did it. So let me get this straight -- Starr can commission a crime with impunity? Starr is ABOVE THE LAW?! Am I the only one bothered by the implications here?

I heard this one on the radio this morning, and I liked it so much I'm including it here. I'm NOT for bombing Iraq. The poor people of Iraq have suffered enough. But we can't just let Saddam run roughshod over the U.N.'s directives and the world's peace of mind and safety. So what do we do?

This is so simple it makes me giggle…

1. The U.N. inspection team, complete with U.S. representatives, attempts to inspect one of the locations they've been forbidden to enter.
2. The Iraqis prevent them.
3. The U.N. inspectors make a beeline for the border, then report back to the U.S. troops amassed on the border of Iraq.
4. Once the inspectors are out, we blow up the site.

The beauty of this plan is that we are only hitting sites that amount to potential threats. We are not targeting the Iraqi people. Of course we announce this policy beforehand and make it clear that we intend to follow through. It would be a major plus if the put this before the U.N. and they approved it. There are two drawbacks here:

1. Saddam will probably pull that cowardly tactic of placing women and children around the site. Folks, we must be strong in our resolve. If he does this, we will be forced to consider these people casualties of war. Better a handful of women and children than millions of men, women and children.
2. After the first bombing, it's quite unlikely that Saddam will welcome the inspectors back with open arms. We must be prepared to take such an initiative to the next logical step: War. Since that seems to be where we're headed anyway, and since there's always the chance that it will not go that far if we only threaten strategic sites and show a willingness to carry through, this seems like an acceptable risk.
3. Relations with Russia will take an immediate downturn. Oh well. They are not a super power anymore, even with Saddam at their side. If Yeltsin is stupid enough to make a deal with Satan -- um, Saddam -- then he'll have to live with the consequences. I just don't think he's stupid enough to actually make good on the deal with Saddam. I honestly believe that he allied himself with Iraq out of economic necessity and that if bullets start flying he'll drop Saddam like a hot rock and stand back. Oh, he'll swear up and down and rattle his saber, but he knows as well as anyone else that that saber was broken off about two inches down from the hilt a long time ago, and he has no real muscle to flex.

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