.
![]() | Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years. Thanks, CNET Support |
Discussion is locked
.
of something I had overlooked.
Regarding the public embarassment angle. Since he sent these pictures as postcards, not letters, it does mean everyone handling them in the post office saw them.
Now I still question whether that is enough to qualify as harassment legally, since everyone in the postoffice knows who gets magazines of all types at home.
And whatever gossip there was about it would be illegal for the post office employees, not that illegality would stop gossip, it never has. But it still wouldn't be much more than someone driving by seeing a person there then telling it at work.
roger
... you couldn't possibly make such a statement as this with a straight face:
There's a big difference (IMCO) between this activity and the neighborhood watch -- the latter is intended to prevent damage or even injury to the members of the neighborhood. The activity in this report is simply being a busybody, or trying to impose one's own values on others.
The program is funded by private citizens and local businesses for the betterment of the community. So you want a porn shop opening up in your back yard? If you took steps to shut them down would you be just another busybody, or perhaps concerned about the quality of life for kids (imagine you have a couple) and if nothing else the value of your home.
Evie ![]()
how can you rationalize that he has no business concerning himself with them?
We are aware of what YOUR opinion is but others, including himself and doubtless the majority of his flock consider it a service and mentioning the near presence of his church in no way is an imposition of his values. What has he done to actually "impose" his values as you state?
Speaking of imposing values care to stop and think for more than a second on the numerous personal and political "values" you attempt to impose on the country?
Recognize your bigotry Dave. Your post and follow up response to Dr. Bill are magnificent examples of it.
Go back and re-read it.
The objection is not the the church minister being concerned, the problem is with the church minister acting as a town crier.
Ian
A "town crier" (Ian distortion #1) for starters is paid for by the town--this person (Norwood) isn't nor is he "acting" like one. He is acting on his own. I would advise you to follow your own advice and actually READ the article--you are apparently seeing things that simply are not there Ian (had your vision checked recently?).
Ian distortion #2 is some idea of objection radically different than the lawyer's comments regarding "intimidation" (Swindler - "To me the question is, are they doing it really to communicate their message, or are they trying to blackmail people, in a way, by embarrassing them?") or John Gamboa, a lawyer for one of the businesses that has settled with the city, said Norwood's photo campaign is harmless. "If this man wants to spend money on postcards, fine. As long as he stays within the bounds of the law, he has every right to do it. What he seems to forget is as long as we stay within the bounds of the law, we have every right to be there," he said.
As I see it, if the owner of a porno shop thinks he has a right to impose his lack of moral values upon a whole neighborhood, probably one he himself doesn't live in, then how much greater a right of objection exists among those who ARE residents of that neighborhood?
Maybe one of his photos will help capture the next rapist in that neighborhood.
That all patrons of adult stores are potential rapists, or that all rapists visit adult stores? Edward called DaveK out as a bigot, but look who's showing bigotry now, eh James?
Not every visitor to a porno bookstore becomes a rapist, but most rapist are involved with porno. Such a business has a greater tendency to attract the least desirable characters into an area.
Hi, James.
Not every breathing person is a rapist, either, but every rapist breathes. You stop first!
-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!
So if we can stop just the rapist from breathing we are doing OK? Does that mean if we can stop the potential rapist from porno stores we will do OK? How do you propose to do that? Breathe is a necessity, Porno isn't, so no analogy.
.
If we stop everybody from breathing then we will in fact significantly reduce the incidence of rape. It would, however, be a suboptimal solution to the problem.
The logic is no worse than what we commonly use in medicine. Are you suggesting that if all of the cases of cholera came from people who drank water from one pump in London then it was unreasonable to break off the handle of the pump? John Snow certainly found that logic compelling.
to see how complacent you would be when it is in your own back yard.
What is the probability that any given customer in a porn store is a rapist? I'll wager that it is consideably higher than the probability for the customer of a Walgreen's. So, if you have a higher probability of attracting rapists, or other low lifes, you try to increase the incentive for the store to leave the neighborhood. What's so hard to understand?
The rapist is not committing a sexual act, but an act of violence.
He may or may not be interested in porn (perhaps that showing violence against females), or in consensual sex, for that matter.
He is not motivated by sexual desire, but by his urge to violate his victim through force, or worse.
You can find some good information at your local rape Crisis Center.
Angeline
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
correction.
Can't speak in such broad generalities angeline as some rapists are indeed more interested in the sex than in any violence.
Look for instance at the Kobe case where there doesn't appear to have been any but there does appear to be a changing of mind after the fact.
Same with many other "date rape" and other (for lack of better terminology) "normal" rapes.
Not generalization at all, Ed.
They are all rapists.
Rapists break into homes, enter the auotos of the unwary, accost victims in parks, etc,
Date rapes are commtted after "disabling" their victims with drugs or alcohol (passive force), or just by brute force.
Regardless of the circumstance, I still hold that they are rapists because they ENJOY/NEED the force, not the act itself as in a consentual situation. The conquest takes precedent.
A person who commit a sexual assault is, IMO, unlikely to develop a stable relationship, like a person who hits or beats a partner does not.
Sure, there are those who have a change of mind. But I think that most males would not then resort to force.
Angeline
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
I do not equate situations in which both parties are intoxicated on whatever, and are not in control of their usual inhibitions.
Nor not considering how easy it is to "cry rape", though consensual.
Nor not taking into account that there are those who are giddy when shown attention by a celebrity, or a person in power.
I suspect we will not reach a consensus. I know I will continue to hold that all non-consensual acts committed through force are rape.
As all crimes, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Angeline
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
...then wouldn't a porno shop have stuff catering to bondage freaks and such?
It's an 'in-your-face' confrontation of those who are thoughtless, or don't care, how their actions affect others. Kind of like the theaters who urge people to turn off their cell phones.
In my view, it would be difficult to compare this with a "Big Brother" definition. The patrons of the video store were parked in a public place. Their own neighbors could have spotted their cars and learned something they did not know. While I would need to muse a bit about the methods used by the church clergyman and could find myself skeptical of his real motive, I would have to say that something in me is applauding the notion that a church is actually reaching out to persons it might consider to have souls in trouble. This is what, I believe, people of Christian belief should be doing more of rather than gathering themselves up into mostly social communities. My two cents....
Yeah right.
Obviously a Republican, as he doesn;t believe in a right to privacy!
Talk about gratuitous pot shots. I was not aware that we had a right to privacy in a public parking lot.
From your link:
At least once a week, a volunteer traces the license plate numbers to the owners of the cars using an online service that searches an automotive database for a fee. In Texas, license information is a matter of public record. So far, 300 postcards have been mailed, Norwood said.
If you are uncomfortable with license info being a matter of public record, take it up with your state legislature.
The cost of the program, which could reach $15,000 a year, is covered by donations from local businesses and private individuals, Norwood said. Oakcrest Family Church, located in a ragged neighborhood behind the sexually oriented businesses, could not otherwise afford the expense, he said.
This neglected stretch of auto salvage yards, trailers and rickety wood-frame houses seems at first glance to be sliding into despair. But at one house, someone has resolutely planted a 5-foot wooden cross in the middle of a scraggly lawn; at another house, plastic ducks decorate a freshly swept front porch.
The sound of children's laughter filters from a playground nearby. There is life here, but outsiders don't seem to notice, said Gloria Price, who has lived in the area since 1970. "When we were unincorporated, everything just got dumped out here," she said, adding that something should have been done about the adult-oriented places "a long time ago."
Would you like such an establishment near your home?
Before condemning Norwood, perhaps you might read on. Did you get this far before deciding this was a good article to besmirch Christians and Republicans?
Price cooks meals for the underprivileged at the church, where the congregation includes ex-cons, former drug addicts and recovering alcoholics. Norwood describes a personal history that includes charges of public intoxication, assaulting a police officer and weekends serving time in county jails. That was more than 25 years ago when, he says, he owned several auto body shops in the San Francisco area and had unlimited access to pornography through a friend who managed a chain of pornographic bookstores.
Now, when he's not counseling prisoners at the Tarrant County Jail in Fort Worth, the no-nonsense Norwood runs a flower shop steeped in the fragrance of scented candles. "I'm hard-core about being against pornography, because I know firsthand what it can lead to," Norwood said. His postcards list a schedule of church services and the church's "counseling and classes on sexual addictions."
Sounds like a pretty upright guy running a church active in turning a down and out community around. Leave it to you to find the bad in the story ![]()
Evie ![]()
Hi, Evie.
It wasn't hard to find that focus of the story, since that's what was trumpeted in the AP headline! And I frankly disagree with the SCOTUS about the right to privacy in public places -- and that will become an increasingly important Constitutional issue in the near future. The question is, do governments (or anyone) have the tright to use surveillance cameras on a public street, use face-recongition programs to identify the individual, and then cross-link it to various databases? Absent any probable cause, I consider that sort of observation to be a gross invasion of privacy -- but the logical extension of existing SCOTUS rulings (mainly by THIS conservative-dominated Court) says there's nothing wrong with it. The latest outrage is the "informational roadblock", which they ruled legal 5-4. Apparently my right to get where I want to on a public street is of little or no value to them -- and that's outrageous. This country is rapidly taking on the characteristics of a police state, and it's the "conservatives" who are taking us there.
-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!
While the trend can lead to dangerous territory, I wonder how far the other way you feel we should go.
Do I have the right to refuse to show my license to a policeman at a checkpoint just because I haven't broken any laws?
Do police have the right to set up roadblocks trying to catch someone leaving an area a crime was committed? since they can't know for certain the criminal is still in the area, maybe they have no right to circulate descriptions and ask questions at bus stations, airports, train depots, and no right to check id's of people driving out of the area.
You did notice the challege was based on the drunk driving conviction of someone stopped at the checkpoint while they were asking for information? Would it have been ok if the checkpoint was just for checking for drunk drivers? Does that mean if they have a checkpoint for drunk drivers they can't ticket me for my safety inspection for being out of date? or my registration being expired?
You'd be surprised at the number of people that pull up to a driver license check without their seatbelt on, even when they can see the point before they get there.
Slippery slope arguments are valid, the problem is disagreement on where it's too much.
roger
... is that vehicle licenses are a matter of public record in TX -- subject to the TX law and not really something the SCOTUS ought to even involve itself in.
As to the AP headline, well if trumpeted you should think long and hard about AP's credibility in terms of it's "alerts". That wasn't the headline of the LATimes story (at Yahoo) you linked to, and quite frankly the "Card" reference was misleading because it sounded more like some sort of ID checking going on.
Your conservative police state mantra is another one that is unsubstantiated by facts and getting old prematurely.
Evie ![]()