O'Reilly sinks to a new low...

ledvedderman

miller8966 wrote:

we need to teach our children how to defend themselves...violence is needed.

Are you one of those kids from that "Jesus Camp" documentary?

SuzannePjam

dharma69 wrote:

You find issue or find it offensive just because it never happened to O'Reilly? That's a little on the naive side, I think. I don't need to be a victim of something in order to empathize or have an opinion on it. And I also have enough of a working brain to not simply accept what I'm told as the blanket truth from anyone. When there's doubt, ask questions.

And that's what it appears O'Reilly is doing. Yes, this is a child and no, no one wants to blame the victim for being a victim. But I'm hard pressed to believe that there was absolutely nothing that he could have done to get away or that every single day out of each of those 4 years he had absolutely no options and no courage to change his circumstances.

There's good questions and then theres being a jerk. It's like if a woman got raped, and a question posed is, "well... you were wearing a short skirt, weren't you asking for it?" we would all agree that question is irresponsible. Bill O says, "Well, this kid had piercings, and he didn't have to go to school, maybe he liked being with this pervert."

Many people say in cases of wife abuse, well, why didn't you leave when he started hitting you? Many women feel paralyzed and helpless and don't leave. You have to understand their mental state and what sort of abuse they went through with the abuser. In many cases they were abused as a CHILD and don't feel as if they deserve better. Many grown women don't leave their abusive partners as adults and are not constantly supervised by their husbands, yet you expect a young child who was terribly abused since he was 11 to just collect himself and raise his hand and say, O, yes, I need help.

Maybe he felt paralyzed by his attacker. Experts say he was probably told by Devlin that he would shoot his family if he tried to tell anyone. Or that he would find Shawn and come and shoot him. Or maybe he felt his family wouldn't love him if they knew he was being raped.

This abductor had a gun. He used torture techniques. The child was 11 when he was taken, for God's sake. And for Bill O'reilly to say "there was an element here that this kid liked about his circumstances..." when he was ripped away from his family and being sodomized and hurt on a regular basis is just asinine.

dharma69

SuzannePjam wrote:

There's good questions and then theres being a jerk. It's like if a woman got raped, and a question posed is, "well... you were wearing a short skirt, weren't you asking for it?" we would all agree that question is irresponsible. Bill O says, "Well, this kid had piercings, and he didn't have to go to school, maybe he liked being with this pervert."

Many people say in cases of wife abuse, well, why didn't you leave when he started hitting you? Many women feel paralyzed and helpless and don't leave. You have to understand their mental state and what sort of abuse they went through with the abuser. In many cases they were abused as a CHILD and don't feel as if they deserve better. Many grown women don't leave their abusive partners as adults and are not constantly supervised by their husbands, yet you expect a young child who was terribly abused since he was 11 to just collect himself and raise his hand and say, O, yes, I need help.

Maybe he felt paralyzed by his attacker. Experts say he was probably told by Devlin that he would shoot his family if he tried to tell anyone. Or that he would find Shawn and come and shoot him. Or maybe he felt his family wouldn't love him if they knew he was being raped.

This abductor had a gun. He used torture techniques. The child was 11 when he was taken, for God's sake. And for Bill O'reilly to say "there was an element here that this kid liked about his circumstances..." when he was ripped away from his family and being sodomized and hurt on a regular basis is just asinine.

As you point out this case if full of
'maybes". Nothing other than the fact that he was abducted is concrete and sure....which is why I reserve a healthy bit of judgment.

And I and others have said that the bit about the piercings is silly; O'Reilly being O'Reilly , and sure he can be a jerk but I could care less about that or him (and I don't recall O'Reilly saying anything about "maybe he liked being with this pervert"), but that doesn't discount the weight of his questions.

Guns, torture techniques....that sounds reasonable (something that a *normal* abductor would do, yes?) but I didn't know any of that was public knowledge. Or is it more like speculation and/or assumption? Don't know.

Which is why, again, I reserve a healthy bit of judgment. And yes, call me crazy but I do expect him (at 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15 years old) to raise his hand and say I need help.

But that's just me.

SuzannePjam

dharma69 wrote:

As you point out this case if full of
'maybes". Nothing other than the fact that he was abducted is concrete and sure....which is why I reserve a healthy bit of judgment.

And I and others have said that the bit about the piercings is silly; O'Reilly being O'Reilly , and sure he can be a jerk but I could care less about that or him (and I don't recall O'Reilly saying anything about "maybe he liked being with this pervert"), but that doesn't discount the weight of his questions.

Guns, torture techniques....that sounds reasonable (something that a *normal* abductor would do, yes?) but I didn't know any of that was public knowledge. Or is it more like speculation and/or assumption? Don't know.

Which is why, again, I reserve a healthy bit of judgment. And yes, call me crazy but I do expect him (at 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15 years old) to raise his hand and say I need help.

But that's just me.

There was either a Newsweek article or an MSNBC article that gave a very detailed account of what they knew about the abductions. I'll see if I can find it tomorrow. The facts were that both children were abducted with the use of a gun, Shawn was sexually molested, Shawn was tortured the first week he was brought to Devlin's apt. by sleep deprivation.

Now, imagine yourself, I mean really picture yourself ripped away from your family at 11 YEARS OLD, terrified, tortured, brainwashed, and sexually molested. How paralyzed and helpless would you feel? How fucked up would you be? You can't possibly say how you would act unless you've been there. Here's a psychology professor's analysis of Shawn's and other childern who have been abducted on their mental state:

One question that has come up repeatedly since Shawn's story first came to light is why a boy who surfed the Web, owned a cell phone and rode a bike so freely that he had been stopped by police late at night didn't call out for help. Part of the answer, report Campo-Flores and Thomas, is that once separated from his parents, Shawn became completely dependent on Devlin for food, sleep, warmth, attention and affection. And he was almost surely threatened with gruesome consequences if he said a word about his abduction to anyone else. Child kidnappers "know how to create a paralyzing sense of fear so even when the captor is not present, the child feels he is omnipresent," says Dr. Terri Weaver, psychology professor at Saint Louis University. "Their mental package is very coercive, very convincing, very mean. They don't just say, 'I'll kill your family.' They tell how they'll do it in graphic detail and manner-how they'll kill the child's family and even pets."

CorporateWhore

I tend to believe that the kid was just too stupid and scared to know what to do.

I was dumb as hell when I was his age. I wouldn't expect much more from him.

SuzannePjam

Another article shedding some light on the mental state of a child living in captivity of a pedophile. This is based on the mental state of Steven Staynor who was abducted at the age of 7 by a man who sexually abused him for 8 years before the family got him back.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16724481/site/newsweek/

Ahnimus

A child is not an adult, not even close.

vedderelf

I live in St. Louis. Went to school less than five minutes from where the kid was found. Even looked at those very apartments when I first moved out of my parents house. Covered the story the night the boys were found for the paper I work for.

What makes O'Reilly's comments so hard to swallow is that they come on the heels of his "Vermont tirade" about how Vermont supports pedophiles (if you dont think that's how he put it, go look on his website). In that instance, I almost found myself agreeing with him. Probation for molesting a four year old?

So I was surprised when Bill came out with this, but not completely. I have to wonder, though. Would he ever get on air and say that Natalie Holloway got what was coming because she was drunk and morally loose? Speculation? So it is in this case as well.

The Shawn Hornbeck case has been news in st. louis from the day he disappeared. The accepted theory was that he was hit on his bike and someone panicked and buried his body. So to have this happen, it was incredible.

Doesn't anyone remember being 15?! Maybe not accurately. At 15, your whole worldview is different. So maybe this kid decided to make the best of the situation. I can tell you, the area where he was living is dramatically different economic wise than where he was from. So who can honestly fault a CHILD for making the best of an obviously bad situation?

You can take my comments for what they're worth. Which is not much, since NONE of us knows what happened.

jlew24asu

vedderelf wrote:

In that instance, I almost found myself agreeing with him. Probation for molesting a four year old?
.

you almost agreed with him??? almost??? so I guess you didnt. which means you are ok with the vermont decision of probation?

miller8966

jlew24asu wrote:

you almost agreed with him??? almost??? so I guess you didnt. which means you are ok with the vermont decision of probation?

honestly man...these offenders deserve nothing less than the sweet release of death.

vedderelf

jlew24asu wrote:

you almost agreed with him??? almost??? so I guess you didnt. which means you are ok with the vermont decision of probation?

One thing you wont hear from Oreilly (or at least I hadnt) was that the man is mentally retarded. I hate to admit but yes, that changes my opinion about punishment vs. rehabiliation. I dont know enough about the Vermont case to say. But again, I have never ONCE heard Oreilly mention that. Selective reporting?

jlew24asu

vedderelf wrote:

One thing you wont hear from Oreilly (or at least I hadnt) was that the man is mentally retarded. I hate to admit but yes, that changes my opinion about punishment vs. rehabiliation. I dont know enough about the Vermont case to say. But again, I have never ONCE heard Oreilly mention that. Selective reporting?

I pray we arent talking about the same case. Mark Hulett was convitced of raping a 6 year old girl for 4 years. 4 years!!!!!! and got 60 days. and you think its ok because he is retarted? which I dont even know is true.



http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48219


Claiming he no longer believes in punishment, a Vermont judge issued a 60-day sentence to a man who confessed to repeatedly raping a girl over a four-year period, beginning when she was 7 years old.

Judge Edward Cashman disagreed with prosecutors who thought Mark Hulett, 34, of Williston, Vt., deserved eight to 20 years in prison, reported WCAX-TV in Burlington, Vt.

Cashman said he's more concerned now about rehabilitation.

"The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul," Cashman told a packed Burlington courtroom made up mostly of people related to the victim.

Prior to the decision, Chittenden Deputy Prosecutor Nicole Andreson argued punishment "is a valid purpose."

"The state recognizes that the court may not agree or subscribe to that method of sentencing but the state does," she said, according to the Burlington TV station. "The state thinks that it is a very important factor for the court to consider."

Cashman said he wants to make sure Hulett gets sex-offender treatment.

Under Department of Corrections classification, however, Hulett is considered a low-risk for re-offense, which means he doesn't qualify for in-prison treatment.

Cashman, therefore, issued a 60-day sentence and ordered Hulett to complete sex-offender treatment when he gets out or face a possible life sentence.

The judge said that when he began 25 years ago, he handed down tough sentences but now believes "it accomplishes nothing of value."

"It doesn't make anything better; it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger," Cashman explained to the people in the court, WCAX reported.

Members of the victim's family were outraged.

"I don't like it," the victim's mother told the TV station, in tears. "He should pay for what he did to my baby and stop it here. She's not even home with me and he can be home for all this time, and do what he did in my house."

vedderelf

They are two different cases. There was one with a 4-year-old boy and one with the six-year-old.

I absolutely think child molesters belong behind bars. For life. Look at the man in Idaho who killed those two kids family, then killed the brother. He has admitted to killing 3 other children years ago. It doesnt stop.

But I take issue with OReilly reporting what he wants to report. A long time sexual predator is different than a mentally retarded man who touched a child. Its not black and white as he makes it seem. He knows that. But thats not what makes headlines so thats not what makes "Talking Points".

I'm not defending child molesters. I said "almost makes me agree with him," and someone jumped on that, as if it proves I'm sypathetic with it. That's just silly and combative and asking for an argument where one was not necessary.

If OReilly fashions himself such a champion of the people, then why does he report only half of the story? Does he not think his viewers can handle it?
Or is it simply "if it bleeds, it leads"? Isn't that what we all DONT want?

jlew24asu

vedderelf wrote:

They are two different cases. There was one with a 4-year-old boy and one with the six-year-old.

I absolutely think child molesters belong behind bars. For life. Look at the man in Idaho who killed those two kids family, then killed the brother. He has admitted to killing 3 other children years ago. It doesnt stop.

But I take issue with OReilly reporting what he wants to report. A long time sexual predator is different than a mentally retarded man who touched a child. Its not black and white as he makes it seem. He knows that. But thats not what makes headlines so thats not what makes "Talking Points".

I'm not defending child molesters. I said "almost makes me agree with him," and someone jumped on that, as if it proves I'm sypathetic with it. That's just silly and combative and asking for an argument where one was not necessary.

If OReilly fashions himself such a champion of the people, then why does he report only half of the story? Does he not think his viewers can handle it?
Or is it simply "if it bleeds, it leads"? Isn't that what we all DONT want?

fair enough. lilke you, like me, I still think O'Reilly is looking to protect children from predators. even if he doesnt go about reporting it the best way