Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Verizon violates the Fair Credit Collections Act

Verizon Wireless has a bad problem of their in-house network connections. Example: I get an email saying I'm "past due" on a payment. I call the robot and it says I have until 20 October to pay.

The term "past due" has a precise definition in the Fair Credit Collection Act. My late wife did these collections for a living. "Past Due" means the account is 30 days past the posted "due" date. The FCCA says that putting the wrong terminology into a collection communication makes that communication into an "Improper Dun", a legal term for the tort of Harassment, or improper threatening communications.

If I were to drop a dime on VZW, the USAG would be BOUND BY LAW to accept my complaint and open a case vs VZW, and the usual Civil fine is $1500 for the first offense. I'm willing to bet this isn't the first offense VZW had made under the FCCA. The matter then bumps up and individuals within the accused corporation may be charged with a Federal Crime, and treble damages come in, and six-figure judgments were common in Blanche's day.

The FCCA is likely in the USAG's Dead File now though, in the present corrupt Administration.

RICO the Democratic Party

Okay. The Right has a string of recent Victories we can call a "trend", and with the SCOTUS vacancy, we could extend Victory well out past the present political horizon. How do we do that?

We DON'T do that by "Never-Trumping". We DON'T do that by standing on soapboxes in the park arguing Roe v. Wade over again.

We DO DO that by going on the Offense. The most boneheaded Democrat out there (use your own iconic choice) will now have to admit that President Trump is in the catbird seat, and NOTHING that the (D)-party can do will change that. So, with the MOST POWERFUL politician in the Nation now DEFINITELY being Trump, how does he (and WE) proceed to go on Offense?

First, the Right needs an actual GAME PLAN; we don't have one now. "MAGA" is a slogan, not a game plan. The game plan will have a goal of winning elections and getting stronger in Congress and also local Legislatures/City Councils, of course, but it also needs a GRAND VISION.

The Grand Vision should be to take down the Democratic Party. Take it down FOREVER.

Yes, the entire Democratic Party needs to be consigned to the dustbin of History, and that's actually NOT hard to do, but it will take time. If Trump starts today, he will just get it done by the 2024 election.

So, how DO we take out the entire Democratic Party? That part is easy: the Democrats have turned their party into a networked system of political corruption (the GOP may have tried this, but only got as far as turning the GOPe into a Stupid Party). The major Democratic Party leaders direct all this corruption, and can LEGALLY be considered "Racketeers", so the entire Party structure can be considered a "Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organization". Public law is involved: 18 USC 1961 and related. When the Judge in the lawsuit rules that the (D)-Party IS a RICO group, he can ban it entirely, or perhaps, from the bench, take apart the party and ban the worst parts but put all the remainder on Court Probation. Either way, that ends the Democratic Party as a National political force. What would replace it?

Replacements for the Democrats would, of course, be a Socialist Party, but maybe also a Center-Party of some sort. The catchy-names will come later.

What are the steps to getting to that judgement of RICO?

Watch this space, my Friends, there's MORE to come!

Cross-posted on Facebook.

Own Motion

Own Motion, or Sua Sponte is the principle at law that a court may bring a case before itself and make a judgment before any plaintiff or defendant has made argument before that Court.

 

Sua Sponte, according to Cornell Law, is usually done for a judge to get OUT of hearing a case because some conflict of interest exists which would prohibit that jurist from making a fair and impartial decision.

 

The Left has brought "The Resistance", an organized effort to subvert and undermine the authority of a duly-elected President of the United States. There are two strategies involved, the first being Deep State (UniParty) in which Democrats and GOPes get together in back rooms to decide on the tactics of subversion, but the other method is to bring lawsuits against almost every policy and Executive Order of POTUS Trump.

 

The lawsuits are invariably brought in the Federal District Courts, where 77% of the jurists are liberal hacks. 70% are liberal in Appeals Courts. The whole objective here is to slow-roll the Trump Administration so that in 2020, we will hear the Left campaign for their socialist du jour by saying "Trump dindu nuffin".

 

This "Resistance" amounts to an ongoing Constitutional Crisis and has NO parallel in US political history. The SCOTUS could put a screeching halt to this abuse of the Courts for political gain by simply insisting that the burden of proof will be on the jurists who hear these lawsuits to prove that they should not have recused themselves Sua Sponte.

 

Sua Sponte has another use, though. The SCOTUS could immediately grab EVERY single case against a POTUS EO or policy change and elevate it to THEIR Court, Sua Sponte. If they did this, the "Resistance" would fade away like an April snowfall, within days.

 

Scotus could ALSO take Judicial Notice of these politically-charged judgments by the lower Court, and if appropriate, de-certify the jurists involved from hearing such cases in the future. Impeachment by Congress would certainly follow such Judicial Notice by SCOTUS.

 

Cheif Justice Roberts, YOU can, by yourself, save our Constitutional form of government and it's Balance of Powers. See to it, please. It's your duty, sir.

 

Cross-posted on my Facebook page.

"Medical" questions about guns

Sometimes, you make a passing note of something and don't dwell on it afterward.

Such was the case with your blogger in regard to the "gun questions" being asked by medical providers as a result of an Executive Order signed by the President. Until a good friend and 2A defender had such an issue yesterday at my local hospital, this was not a front-burner thing for me. Dince then, I decided to put some effort into resolving this issue. I'll start with the analysis provided by Fox News here.

Here is a TX CHL forum sticky with useful links, including the entire HCA.

This article, published subsequent to the rest of them including the Snopes article that got it wrong, seems to be the most definitive. It says:

1. That language DOES exist in the HCA forbiding health care providers from recording such information in any way, or releasing any such information to Federal authorities.

2. That after Sandy Hook, President Obama issued a statement in front of news cameras indicating that he WOULD issue an Executive Order telling medical providers that their "right" to ask such questions was not infringed by the HCA, BUT HE NEVER ISSUED OR SIGNED ANY SUCH ORDER.

3. This means that the provider-constraining language in the HCA is still in the HCA, and still in effect.

Now for the tricky part.

If an ER or clinic intake clerk with a paper form or computer keyboard asks those gun questions, a reasonable person should assume that a permanent record is being made, and if that record is being made, it WILL eventually get into a Federal database, or, a significant risk exists that it will get into a Federal data base, so you are well within your rights under HCA and HIPAA to not answer the question, and the provider is NOT within their right to deny you care because of your refusal. That said, the Obama Administration takes the view that it is okay for a DOCTOR to ask the gun questions. My take on that is that a DOCTOR may ask anything he/she wants, in aid of making a proper medical diagnosis of your health complaint. That DOCTOR is still constrained by the "second amendment language" in the HCA though, therefore, that DOCTOR may not record that information in your chart if that chart is subject to overview by the Government.

Okay then, that's my and others' opinions of the legal niceties involved.

What then, is the best way to effect standing on your rights here? Your choices are:

1. Maintain silence AND eye contact with the questioner. The questioner MAY get that message without further words exchanged. (If you are being interviewed by a clerk or provider who is not a DOCTOR)

2. Firmly state you are ending the interview, and ask to speak to the interviewer's supervisor. I would escalate from #1 to this tactic if #1 failed to work for you. (same caveat as in #1, above)

3. If no luck with either of the above, it's time to take the offensive. You need to firmly state that: the HCA does NOT allow providers to record that information if ANY chance exists that the Government could later view it (and that is guaranteed by the HCA) AND that by insisting on an answer, you (name the interviewer) are violating my rights under the HCA and possibly the Bill of Rights, AND "standards of care" are NOT being met because of the delays caused by this improper interview.

4. If, after you use of these tactics of resistance, the ER/Clinic has not moved on with your intake interview, you need to play your trump card. Ask for the senior management person available (this person's title will likely be "Hospital/Clinic Director"). When that person arrives, advise him/her that you have been refused treatment and explain why. Inform that person that you will take appropriate medical transport to the next closest treatment facility NOT run by this management, get treatment, and charge all those fees back to the current facility. Mention also that you hold Management responsible for the violations of your rights which have occurred up to now.

Of course, you will need witnesses, copious notes, etc. Your quest may be vastly facilitated by an Investigative Reporter from a local TV station, if any in your burg are interested.

That's my plan. Use it or not.

Misprision of Felony

...or, 18 USC 4

Here is the citation:

"Misprision of felony" is still an offense under United States federal law after being codified in 1909 under 18 U.S.C. § 4:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This offense, however, requires active concealment of a known felony rather than merely failing to report it.^[7]"

This is from the Wiki on this subject.

Now, if the United States government, which has a clear chain of authority, knows of cases of felonious entry (Illegal entry is not a felony, but committing ANY crime while illegally in the country makes it so), and they not only fail to actively prosecute and at least, deport those individuals which it DOES know about, THEN the same Government engages in actions intended to cover up and/or relieve those felons of their criminal responsibility, is the Government and it's agents/actors criminally liable for Misprision of Felony?

Just asking.

BTW, several States also participate in the crime of Misprision of Felony by granting assistance and issuing official Documents of Identity to illegals. Where is the Federal prosecutionfor these State officials.

This blogger feels that if the USA is to keep referring to itself as a "Nation of Laws", it must act on the obvious perception that there are millions of felons within our borders who escape the oversight of the same United States Code that all the rest of us must follow, on pain of prosecution, judgment and penalty.

If the USA wants to abandon it's codes of laws and abandon it's Constitution, it is certainly heading in the right direction by allowing the huge influx of illigal immigrants to remain at large, creating serious damage to all the economies of the USA, and beyond ignoring them, is actually considering trying to make them "legal". 

There is only one solution that fits the laws of this Nation: deport all illegal immigrants, then set whatever new standards of immigration that our Government deems appropriate, and THEN open the borders to immigration using those new standards.

Of course, politics should play no role in setting those new standards, they should be set on the basis of demographic and economic science, humanitarianism and the spirit in which this nation was created. 

Gun confiscation begins in New York State

...it says here.

When I warned Veterans about PTSD and gun rights being terminated, I wasn't far off. The dot.mil offers any troop who claims disability for PTSD these psychoactive drugs.

In New York State, those taking the drugs are now being physically stripped of their legally registered firearms, along with  "accessories" - I guess they get the holsters, too. It's all "executive action", there's no due process involved.

I expect that armed resistance in favor of the Bill of Rights will start any day now, and Obama will pull out his plan to disarm the entire country. We'll see who blinks first at that point.

Where is the brave NY US Attorney who can empanel a Grand Jury, and indict Governor Cuomo? There are plenty of brave Sheriffs and their Deputies who will serve the arrest warrant. This won't stop until some politicians are in jail for denial of civil rights under color of law*.

H/T - There will be no more Hat Tips on this subject unless I have explicit permission to reveal my source. Sorry attribution fans, I am not going to make it easy for Gauleiter Napolitano.

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* 18 USC 242-245

The police are your enemy?

...contrary to what the Left would have you believe, law enforcement is firmly on the side of our Constitution, as they have sworn to be.

Via Uncle, this interesting survey of law enforcement professionals who have to prove their actual police status to join this group which surveyed their members.

Quoting from the survey summary:

• 92 percent feel that banning semi-automatic firearms, or “assault weapons,” would have no effect or a negative effect on reducing violent crime
• 71 percent support law enforcement leaders who have publicly refused to enforce more restrictive gun laws within their jurisdictions
• 91 percent support the concealed carry of firearms by civilians who have not been convicted of a felony and/or have not been deemed psychologically incapable
• 91 percent said the use of a firearm while perpetrating a crime should lead to a stiff, mandatory sentence with no plea bargains.
• 86 percent feel the currently proposed legislation would have no effect or a negative effect on improving officer safety.
• 80 percent feel that legally-armed citizens would likely have reduced the number of casualties in recent mass shooting incidents

Several "truths" that are promoted by Bloomberg* and his ilk are directly refuted by this survey:

1. "Cops all want less guns in the community, especially semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity pistols" This is a lie, a direct lie.
2. "Real police leaders are all in favor of gun control" Another direct lie. Since the survey is done within a police-only organization composed of all ranks of cops, and nearly 3/4 of the responding officers support those police leaders who Just Say No to anti-2A laws, we can put this frequent mantra of both Bloomie and the POTUS to the lie. Every time you see an anti-gun pol standing for a photo-op with a bunch of ranking police officials, that pol(s) are doing a deliberate distortion, and those cops are in a very small minority of LEOs.
3. "Cops just want you to let them control crime, they don't need your armed help". A very insidious lie. Several of the above points in the survey (as I listed them, the first, second and last) address this canard of Bloomie's, and all those points give it the status of a lie.

I found another excellent article on refuting Bloomberg's and the Left's gun control ravings. Forbes Magazine is one of the best business magazines out there, and the ten points which their article lists to refute Bloomie speak for themselves.

You have to ask yourself, as I have been asking from the start, just why do these lefties all want to restrict the Second Amendment?

As I have told you before, but now with added proof, "Gun Control" is not about controlling guns, it is about controlling Gun Owners, about nullifying the very intent of the Second Amendment, which granted the status of a Permanent Civil Right to those seeking arms to form Militias to act as a check on the power of our Central Government..

When are we, the Unorganized Militia duly authorized, going to hold our Governments responsible for directly attempting to subvert our Constitution?

We need to think about our duty and responsibility to our Constitution, for if we do not take steps to defend and uphold it, it will soon be gone.

It's tempting to write and promulgate Amendments to the Constitution for purposes of restricting the National Debt and other worthy causes, but in MY humble opinion, the next (28th) Amendment should deny all criminal immunity for any politicians who want to remove any of our enumerated Civil Rights as written in the Bill of Rights. This Amendment needs to provide for immediate removal from public office, any elected or appointed official other than a Judge of the Supreme Court, who proposes or advocates for any restriction of the Constitution and it's amendments as originally promulgated and adopted by the several States in 1787. The new Amendment should leave open the possibility of a Constitutional Convention calling for a NEW Constitution, but unless the politician or Administrator's proposals lead directly to such a Constitutional Convention (without advocating for the denial of the present Constitution), their proposals to alter the present Constitution must be considered treasonable.

Our Constitution is presently under attack by those who have assumed that they have the right to advocate for it's destruction, in whole or in part. There.Is.No.Such.Right., nor has such a right ever existed. The First Amendment gives us the right to air our opinions, but when those opinions begin to sound like they are proposals for reducing the Constitution's basic enumerated Rights, the right to make those utterances, to propose those laws, simply does not exist. When those utterances and proposed laws become the focus of a political party or a political Administration, both of those groups have exceeded their Constitutional authority, and it is then up to the 2A-authorized Militia to take appropriate action to protect our Constitution.

Yes, it is really supposed to work that way. The Founders actually imagined that a Federal Government might have to be removed to restore the Constitution, and those musings led to the Second Amendment being written as a shield for the Constitution. You may read, in the Federalist Papers, Federalist # 28 and 29 by Alexander Hamilton and #46 by James Madison, just why these Founders believed the Second Amendment to be so important to our very survival as a Nation of free people.

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* Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York, possesses huge wealth, and uses it to try to destroy several Constitutionally-guananteed freedoms, notably the freedom to Keep and Bear arms. It occurs to this writer that we have Federal laws to seize the funds that terrorists use to make war upon this Nation and it's Constitution, so why haven't Bloomberg's funds been seized?

End foreign aid to Egypt

We spend $1.55 billion per year on foreign aid to Egypt, they now have a self-proclaimed strongman, who started out as a duly-elected President*, and now one of their Courts just sentenced the motor-mouth Florida Christian pastor Terry Jones to death in absentia for blasphemy against Islam. Seven others, all citizens or legal resident aliens of the USA (one also resides part of the time in Canada), all former Egyptians and all Coptic Christians, were also sentenced.

Look, it shouldn't be US Policy to tell other countries what to do with their internal rule, but likewise, all money we give other countries for support of their governments ought to have a few strings attached. One of those strings must be basic human rights. It is NOT okay, in our country where religious freedom is the rule of our law, to fork dollars over to another country which orders the killing of people in the name of their officially-established religion, for offenses which are strictly religious and NOT recognized as any other level of crime by any other form of court.

In case you don't know, Dear Readers, Egypt is the largest recipient of US foreign aid after Israel. Politically, we've been giving Egypt all those dollars to artificially support them in a style they oughtn't be used to, but primarily, we gave them money to have them as a bulwark against radical Islam in the region (80% of the money went to the Egypt Army). Now that there has been regime change there (including in the Army), and they have evidently adopted radical Islam as their State Religion, it's time to end the foreign aid, entirely, or at least, reduce it to say, the level of aid we give Yemen.

I have an idea. Let's tell the government of Mohammed Morsi that they have ten calendar days to produce an official document over Morsi's now-all-powerful signature telling us and the world that their kangaroo court proceeding against our citizens/protected aliens is symbolic only, means nothing more than, say, Catholic Ex-Communication would, and would never be physically enforced even if any of the affected people showed up in Egypt (a possibility due to bounty-kidnapping), or, if Egypt fails to so state, we not only cut off all the foreign aid, but we immediately give it to Israel, for direct military support.

If that document is not forthcoming, and it won't be, we not only end the aid and increase Israel's, we put Egypt on the list of nations our citizens may not visit under penalty of having their passports suspended. IIRC, tourism is Egypt's biggest producer of foreign currency, ironic since people don't go there to see the current culture, only an ancient one long gone. We next make an extreme effort to persuade the European Union to do the same. We might or might not succeed with Europe, it all depends on how we sweeten the price in Brussels, but just making the effort will scare the Izar off of Morsi.

President Obama has been frittering away our global power, some say by design. We still have one global power-arrow left in our quiver, though, and that is the Almighty Dollar.

It's time to use the Dollar as the persuasive tool it always is.

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* ...as some, including this writer, have suggested that our President might also try out as his path to glory.

The Left won again

Let's make that win the final time.

Analyzing the win, the left won because they got their Socialist message of  "come git yo FREE shit" out better than the Romnoids got out their message of  "capitalism works, let's give it a try". This "free Shit" is the forever way that Socialism has been foisted off on nations, for the past 100 years.

The Left was better organized at the polls. As I went to bed in my Scotch fog last night, Obama had just over a 1.1 million popular vote margin, but he had over 300 electoral votes. He gamed the system and won. He got Ohio way back, three and a half years ago, by bailing out the auto industry. Free shit, he gave out government-backed auto-industry jobs for free, smiled at those auto workers and said, "remember me on November Sixth, 2012." They remembered. Romney never had a chance in Ohio.

So it went. I'm not going to sit here and moan about it. Now we have to live with the Obama agenda for the next four years.

Or do we?

Can we fight back?

Can we put some awful hurt on the Left, enough hurt to chase them back to their holes in four years?

I think we can.

Over at Say Uncle, the short but powerful post on Obama's win brought out at least one thinker, a commenter named Nevyan (at Comment #12). Nevyan proposes local action to take down the left, and he proposes how to do it legally and properly, so close those gun safes and let's follow Nevyan's system here.

After we pick a local target to "wage lawfare" on, and start gathering our information, both on suspected violations AND on the intracacies of the laws we will use, we can do one other thing.

Let's wage war on on the Left's pet system, the Green Agenda.

Instead of fighting the Green Agenda only as the left brings up new parts of it, like most of us have done, let's go offensive instead of staying defensive.

Take longer showers. Keep your lawn green in the summer, if the law allows it. Use all the water you can.

Burn all the lights in your house while you are awake on these long winter nights. Use that electricity that is there, on demand, in your wires.

We're going to deny the Left their present advantage of claiming that their conservation system works, that less is better, that composting can take the place of garbage service, etc. We're going to require them to build out the electric grid, because we are going to overload it. Rationing? Brownouts? The occasional blackout? Yep, we will have those, but who will get the blame for that? You won't. The Left will because they are in charge. Yes, it will cost you money not to conserve, but how else can you wage this kind of assymetrical war for so little money and still keep your freedom?

When the Left starts to soak up more and more of the blame for the collapsing utility infrastructure, the Government WILL be changed out, legally, properly, at the polls.

No one of us can do this alone, but in our millions, we CAN make it happen (oooooh, collectivism against the collectivists, yessss!). The Government will either yield, or they will have to become overly restrictive, and when those draconian restrictions on utility use happen, they will hurt EVERYONE, and then the Greens get blamed and get removed. At the very least, it pits the Greens against the suburban soccer moms, who also voted for the Won last night.

Take the Greens out of the fight, and conservatives have an even chance on the electoral battlefield.

The White House can be ours in 2016, but only if we wage a consistent and persistent fight. We can't win with bullets, I agree. We can win with "lawfare" (a Green tactic, BTW), and we CAN and WILL win with resistance to the Green Agenda of doing with less.

Consume your way to victory, my friends.

Is Obama trying to head off a second "Obama Gun Rush"?

****Just in:****

Still rumor status, but given this source, strong rumor.

A close friend, a former ranking police official locally, previously responsible for purchasing Police Department firearms and equipment, got familiar with a cerrtain gun shop. The owner of that shop and my buddy go way back. I am an Internet Journalist, and this information will be protected under Oregon Law.

Buddy tells me today that this gun shop owner told him that there is now an "allocation system" in place for ammunition.

This can only mean one thing: the BATFE (read: OBAMA'S BATFE) is leaning on the ammo makers to prevent the Second Obama Gun Rush (as it pertains to ammo). This is ANOTHER direct violation of the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.

In the past, when ammo makers were faced with a surge in orders, they put on extra shifts to make the additional ammo, as long as brass supplies, primers, bullets, etc held out. They raised the prices to cover increased component costs if they had to, but they made the ammo available to the public. Apparently, not this time. Three Novembers ago, Obama had to sit back and watch in dismay as millions of new guns and billions of rounds of ammo were sold after his election victory. You KNOW that had to have fried his butt then, he won't let it happen again; he tipped his hand two years ago, when all of a sudden, OSHA descended en-masse on the ammo factories with their usual bullying tactics in what we can now determine was just a test for this event we are having now.

I'm putting my money where my mouth is.

The Rivrdog Blog will offer, for openers, a Five Hundred Dollar Bounty (cash) for the legitimate transfer to this blog of any communication, email or otherwise, with either the actor (agent of BATFE or OSHA or some other Gov't Agency), or to any receiver of such communication, proving or even strongly suggesting that the Government initialized this system of limiting ammunition production, and with that actor or receiver offering that communication for legitimate transfer. It will, of course, be published on this blog.

I've got the "whistleblower" whistle in my mouth, and the penalty flag in hand ready to throw onto the field. I have an excellent firm of whistleblower's lawyers ready to assist me if the need be.

If Obama or any senior member of his Administration can be associated with this "allocation system" for ammunition, I intend to ride Obama's sorry ass to election defeat with it.

If any other gunbloggers (or anyone else) wishes to contribute to my "reward fund", I will gladly accept those funds to fatten up my initial offer.

We don't have to put up with this Chicago-Style bullying. We don't have to wait for the NRA to "work behind the scenes" to supposedly-mitigate the effects of an "allocation system". We can get the evidence, publish it, and take this corrupt Administration down with it, without a shot being fired or the first gun coming out of a gun safe.

 

Morality Play

The Morality Play is (usually) a religious melodrama. Some plays of this genre have been performed by the same community theater groups for centuries, the Passion Plays of Oberammergau, Bavaria, Germany, come to mind.

We have put some emotion into our own Passion Plays here in this, our supposedly-secular society (yes, Bill O'Reilly fans, I know that the forefathers were all devout men, Christians almost invariably). That Passion translates into laws and quasi-legal proceedings. Why else would we say, for example, that a fetus (human zygote not viable outside of the womb) may not be removed from a woman's body, even when medical tests show that it would, if carried to term, be born profoundly brain-damaged and have no possibility of a normal life? Why would we define such a fetus removal as the crime of Murder, when the death of a kitten at the hands of a sadistic teenager is not so defined? Doesn't all life have the Blessing of God? Why is human life so sacred that we must severely punish a doctor for conducting an operation to terminate a pregnancy, and let a now-recalcitrant teenager off for killing a litter of kittens because he wears a suit to Court and has found God?

OK, that's the Passion Play of the Abortion Debate, in a nutshell, accent on the NUT in nutshell.

How about another example of misguided zeal in what passes for our sense of Morality these days?

(Sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable, you can always just hit the little "X-in-the-red box" at the top right of the page. I'm NOT holding you here against your will.)

My next example shows that our morality has a Dark Side, a powerful side, and we OUGHT to give a rip about using the Force of the Dark side, but we don't.

I'm talking about kiddie diddlers (cop term for the family of crimes involving sexual abuse of juveniles). A wise, old friend asks me why we pursue these miscreants down through time with the fervor with which we do. The stock answer, I suppose, (he's also a retired cop, and should know this) is that they are crimes of heinous moral terpitude. That's a mouthful, "heinous moral terpitude". Our acceptance of that term/concept as a Commandment handed down by God makes it okay for us to spend huge resources to investigate, prosecute, and incarcerate persons involved in these crimes of rape. Heinous moral terpitude also explains why most states consider the age difference in rape, and relate it directly to the severity of the crime, as well as the length of the sentence a judge may pass on those convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.

Okay then, we have morality/religion in our laws. Bill O'Reilly exhults, I suppose, every time he looks in the mirror and smiles as his lips move to form the words "heinous moral terpitude", and you KNOW he has practiced using those words.

Here's another view of the Dark Side of Morality: Why is it NOT a WORSE crime to steal a vote and/or rig an election? MY sense of Morality is highly offended every time I hear that thousands of dead people, felons, and non-citizens vote in elections, just those in Cook County, Illinois, alone. Why has no Daley ever been convicted of a crime of Heinous Moral Terpitude for rigging a Cook County election, and those rigged elections are there for all to see? Remind yourself that the Daleys led Cook County, Illinois for years. Why can't we reach down through time and jug a Daley like we do a kiddy-diddling schoolteacher?

A rigged election smashes the democratic hopes of those who voted in it as if it were to be a fair process. Why is dashing the hopes of an entire population NOT a more severe crime than diddling a kid? Is Hope that cheap? It isn't supposed to be. We've been sold an incompetent President on the promise of Hope (more than once in our history, not just the current example), so it must be a valuable commodity, priced high in the currency of Morality. Why then, doesn't Hope count as the major force of Good that it is, and the theft of it count as the major removal of Good that IT is, and therefore be a crime of heinous moral terpitude?

Why is the theft of innocence from a child any worse of a crime than the theft of Hope from the citizens of a large City, or, from an entire, powerful (supposedly) Democratic Nation?

HA! made you think.

Excellent!