The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

You’re Accused: ‘Vengeance, Spite, Fear, Denial, Sadness, Insecurity, Whatever’

Posted on | August 17, 2013 | 137 Comments

‘LGBT Injustice’? Kaitlyn Hunt (center), her mother Kelley Hunt Smith (left)
and attorney Julia Graves (right) appear on MSNBC, May 22.

Did you ever read what I wrote about the gay-rights movement in 2008? There is an inherent problem in the language of “rights.” Once you adopt such rhetoric in a democratic polity, your purpose is to de-legitimize opposition: “Shut up, because equality.”

Good-bye, rule of law. Forget any question about the necessity or efficacy of any policy reform proposed by those who, speaking the language of “rights,” cast their opponents in the role of oppressors. Merely to disagree is to inflict social injustice on the victims.

This rhetoric succeeds in liberal culture because the triumphant narrative of Progress is something we are taught never to question.

“My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.”
G.K. Chesteron, 1923

So, Ace finally took notice of the Kaitlyn Hunt story:

People who reflexively support gays will say “don’t prosecute her because you don’t prosecute straight kids in that situation and we have to do what we normally do. We can’t treat gay people worse.”
People who reflexively oppose gay stuff will say “you have to prosecute her because you routinely prosecute straight kids in that situation and we have to do what we normally do. We can’t treat gay people better.
Well I agree with both final sentences — we cannot treat gay people better and we cannot treat gay people worse. Which means the first sentence of each claim is in contest– do we usually prosecute straight kids in this situation?
If so, we should prosecute her, just like the average kid. If not, we should not prosecute her, just like the average kid. As this all swings on a factual question I have no idea about, I didn’t weigh in.

Florida law is clear that anyone 18 or older having sex with someone 15 or younger has committed a crime. This crime is “usually” prosecuted for the same reason that Kate Hunt is being prosecuted: Parents of the minor victim discover that their young teenager is sexually involved with an adult, object to this involvement, and call the cops.

Will anyone argue that this law is unreasonable?

Is it wrong for parents to be empowered, with the law on their side, to say, “Hey, leave my kid alone, you creep, or I’ll call the cops”?

Let us stipulate that there are probably lots of 18- and 19-year-old guys who may be sexually interested in much younger teenage girls.

This is the typical scenario: A girl who is physically mature but not yet 16 becomes involved with a guy in his late teens or early 20s and this involvement is entirely voluntary — indeed, often quite enthusiastic — on the part of the girl who, in the eyes of the law, is the victim of a crime because she is incapable of legal consent.

Maybe that seems crazy to you. You may say, “But this girl is willing and eager to have sex at 14 or 15, why criminalize this guy, only four or five years older than her, for giving her what she wants?”

The answer is that this is a minor dependent upon, and under the authority of, her parents, who have a duty to supervise her behavior — to make sure she brushes her teeth and does her homework and looks both ways before crossing the street — for her own good. And if the parents of 14-year-old Heather Hotpants don’t want their daughter taking a ride on the one-eyed love monster with 19-year-old Billy the Boner, they are empowered by law to prevent it.

Maybe you think this kind of parental empowerment is a bad thing, but if you don’t have a teenage daughter, well, shut the hell up.

Parents have duties and parents have rights, and if we don’t want total sexual anarchy — horny hoodlums cruising the middle-school parking lot in search of some easy action — we’d better by God stand on the side of parents trying to protect their daughters.

Every year — every month, every week — guys are charged in Florida with violating this law. Most of the time you never hear about it, because it’s just a two-paragraph item in the cops-and-courts column of the local newspaper. The prosecutor offers the perp a plea bargain, the perp takes the deal, end of story.

This didn’t happen in the Kaitlyn Hunt case simply because her parents believed they could rally support on her behalf by claiming that Kate was a victim of homophobia, and so they launched the “Free Kate” campaign, fooled a lot of people into thinking that this was a case about “discrimination,” and rejected the plea bargain.

To such a gambit we must answer: Damn you, and damn your “rights.”

If you buy the argument pushed by the “Free Kate” crowd, anyone has a right to have sex with anyone of any age who will consent to it.

Pay attention to their rhetoric — and I’ve been following this story for three months — and you find a lot of talk about it being OK because both girl attended the same high school, or because they were “in love,” or because other kids are doing the same thing.

There has been talk about changing Florida law, and OK, so what?

In some states the age of consent is 14, and if the citizens of Florida wish to become Utah or Alabama, this 10th Amendment advocate would be obliged to respect their state sovereignty.

As it is, however, Florida’s age of consent is 16. This law is by no means secret and evidence in this case indicates that Kaitlyn Hunt knew damned well her involvement with a 14-year-old was illegal.

WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT ‘JAILBAIT’?

What first drew my attention to this case was a column at NewsBusters by Matthew Philbin in which he sagely observed that Kaitlyn Hunt and her supporters are trying to make homosexuality a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for statutory rape.  But if you cannot prosecute an 18-year-old lesbian for playing Spin the Dildo with a 14-year-old girl, by the same token you cannot punish 18-year-old gay guys who want to play naked leapfrog with 14-year-old boys, nor could any of the more commonplace heterosexual statutory rapes be punished.

The bottom line of the argument, really, would be tantamount to declaring “open season” on 14-year-olds in Florida.

Honestly, I wish Kaitlyn Hunt had taken the plea deal — like the vast majority of perps in such cases do — rather than subjecting America to this divisive debate, because she’s put me in the position of arguing now that she must go to prison, or else put at risk the legitimacy of age-of-consent laws everywhere. This was the import of my first American Spectator item about the case:

#FreeKate? Movement to Normalize
Pedophilia Finds Its Poster Girl

Folks, these “Free Kate” people have brought us so close to the gates of Hell here, you can feel the heat and smell the brimstone. Once these advocates of pubsecent perversion start talking about “rights,” and accusing their critics of “hate,” we could slide down the slippery slope faster than an Olympic bobsled team. Which brings us to the “Free Kate” supporter who inspired the headline of this post:

 

“If there weren’t ridiculous laws on the books that the other parents [i.e., the parents of the 14-year-old] pushed the state to utilize out of vengeance, spite, fear, denial, sadness, insanity, whatever they may have going on in their minds this would not be up for debate.”
Carrie Mullinax

Damn you, and damn your accusations. Should parents who try to protect their daughters be exposed to this kind of insulting abuse?

Do you see how the rhetoric of “rights” empowers perverts and thugs to impugn the motives of law-abiding citizens? Laws against sex with 14-year-olds are “ridiculous,” and parents who want the state to enforce its laws are accused of “insanity”! Lesbians have a “right” to have sex with your 14-year-old daughter and shut up, haters.

Happy 14th Birthday! (Batteries not included.)

 




 

Comments

137 Responses to “You’re Accused: ‘Vengeance, Spite, Fear, Denial, Sadness, Insecurity, Whatever’”

  1. Blake
    August 18th, 2013 @ 9:51 am

    Wow, Kate may be young, but she’s old enough to start looking like she was “rode hard and put away wet.”

    Looks to me like “Dear Kate” partied down the night before she was interviewed.

  2. Alessandra
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:08 am

    And that’s when they aren’t making their unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances to heterosexual adults… something that bisexuals do all the time as well

  3. jakee308
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:08 am

    And those that encourage these changes to the limits of the laws, never, never think of the consequences later on.

    Where IS the line to be drawn?

    If 14 isn’t too young then how about 12? or 10?

    And if the age difference of 4 years isn’t too much then how about 10? or 20?

    WHERE IS THE LINE DRAWN? All you pleading for justice.

    Where is the line drawn? No where? If a little boy or girl wriggles in a perverts lap and they become excited do we grin and say “That’s okay. They asked for it.”

    Shades of Roman Polanski.

  4. Alessandra
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:21 am

    All that obsession with childhood family life (“tell me about your
    mother”) was probably a waste of time, and ultimately generated a
    backlash.
    =========
    Ah, don’t believe everything the APA tells you! In fact, be very careful in what you believe you are told by them.

    Investigating a person’s entire personal history, including childhood forming experiences is never a waste of time when it comes to finding causes for psychological problems in the areas of sexuality and relationships. In fact, many therapists have found many causes that relate exactly to early forming experiences. Try reading Nicolosi’s work. I would be very curious if you’d still dismiss his knowledge about the etiology of homosexuality.

    While, as with any kind of therapy, there have been some abusive therapeutic practices, the abusive cases were propped up to dismiss all knowledge generated by solid psychological investigations.
    The backlash was much more due to American culture moving on to a “no holds barred” overall attitude regarding sexuality. Anything and everything must be legitimized and normalized.

    Psychological investigation and therapy, when well-done, is effective. It’s also clear that there are too few capable therapists, so it’s not surprising many have preferred to jump on the “I’ll tell you’re normal; hand me my 100 bucks” bandwagon. (Actually the problem starts more upstream, at universities, but too many issues involved)…
    In any case, I totally agree, the role of experts needs more examination, because they’ve often had a damning role promoting their homosexuality agenda as “experts.”

  5. Alessandra
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:22 am

    Sad but true!

  6. unicornmajik
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:22 am

    Ur Accused:‘Vengeance, Spite, Fear, Denial, Sadness, Insecurity, Whatever’ http://t.co/kbJj3RiKey #FreeKate Movement to Normalize
    Pedophilia

  7. Alessandra
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:24 am

    Notice how they are never interested in homosexual/bisexual men who molested and abused boy scouts; or how little they bash the public school system every time a new predatory teacher is caught…

  8. Unix-Jedi
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:52 am

    “Never has such a tiny minority “tail” been empowered to wag the majority dog in this manner.”

    To be fair, (hat tip to Clayton Cramer pointed out, and I’d never thought of it this way), that the slaveowners pre-Civil War were basically > 5% of the total population, yet they dominated just about everything politically/economically for the 30 years prior to the start of the shooting.

  9. instapundit
    August 18th, 2013 @ 11:13 am

    RT @cbinflux: “Shut up, because equality.” @instapundit http://t.co/dQcbCJqiah

  10. Gay Rights Advocates Scream for Equality, Until They Get it | The Daley Gator
    August 18th, 2013 @ 11:24 am

    […] Then they scream HOMOPHOBIA! The Other McCain has some updates on the Kaitlyn Hunt, Hunt as in hunting 14-year-old girls, the Obsessive Lesbian Predator. Here is the key part […]

  11. RS
    August 18th, 2013 @ 11:48 am

    I need to tease the following argument a little more, but it occurs to me that those of us who are fighting this battle on the field of the “rule of law” may be losing because the other side is fighting on the basis of emotion. That emotion proceeds from an assumption which we effectively concede because we ignore it. That assumption is that sexual behavior among adolescents is both expected and appropriate. Stated differently, the law is, by definition, reactive to a set of circumstances. Refusing to accept that sexual activity is expected and appropriate is proactive. You will note, Free Kate defenders assert such behavior is “normal.” That may be true in a purely statistical sense, but the reason for that, is that society has encouraged it. Thus, the other side’s reaction is “the law is too strict.” Unless and until we retake the high ground, i.e. sex among unmarried adolescents is neither expected nor appropriate under any circumstances, we are doomed to lose this fight eventually. My fear is that we’ve already given up too much and that we are doomed to merely fight a rear guard action for decency which we will ultimately lose.

  12. Fareedi al Laayla al Kakhol
    August 18th, 2013 @ 11:57 am

    Is that thing real? I’ve never seen an M249 ammo box attached to an M4…

  13. postaldog
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:00 pm

    Remember, Stacy had that bit from the SlutWalk about the 14 year old girl who got falling down drunk while she was partying with a guy in his mid 20s. It ended in rape but she doesn’t look back on that as a mistake on her part — she played the “it’s my body I can do what I want with it” card. This is the abortion argument/law now filtered into basic behaviour. Who cares about age of consent or age of a fetus — I just want to do what I want with my body and let society pick up the bill for the consequences.

  14. postaldog
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:02 pm

    The mom looks like a hard piece of work too.

  15. rmnixondeceased
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:11 pm

    Heh. Custom job. That’s a purpose built weapon … Just ask my Zombie Secret Service agents …

  16. RS
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:18 pm

    The settle it “between families” is quite disingenous, inasmuch as legally, the Hunts had no control over their daughter. Their “settlement” based on all of their rantings woud be for the victim’s parents to surrender their authority to parent their child and allow their 14 year old to do whatever she wanted and be abused in the process. Stated differently, I’ve yet to see them say, “if the parents had come to us, we would have prevented our adult daughter from having sexual relations with a 14 year old, thereby obviating the need for legal intervention.”

  17. Fareedi al Laayla al Kakhol
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:30 pm

    One should use this in these circumstances — in accordance with Matthew 18:6…

  18. rmnixondeceased
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    Good looking millstone …
    ??? ?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ??????? ???? ???????? ??, ?? ??? ????? ????? ??????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ???.

  19. museoaft
    August 18th, 2013 @ 12:59 pm

    RT @cbinflux: “Shut up, because equality.” @instapundit http://t.co/dQcbCJqiah

  20. RS
    August 18th, 2013 @ 1:01 pm

    I made my daughter bring her potential boyfriend to the house for a chat before I agreed to let her date. I knew him and his parents before this, and knew he was a good kid. Nonetheless, I wanted to make sure my expectations were understood as well as the consequences for failing to meet them. Funny, we never had any problems.

  21. robcrawford2
    August 18th, 2013 @ 1:25 pm

    Their target is the church, not the abuse.

  22. AVOCATNUTASTEFA
    August 18th, 2013 @ 2:20 pm

    Diana Ross a spus odat? – “Eu nu judec oamenii de orientarea lor sexual? sau de culoarea pielii lor http://t.co/Of7h683uPy

  23. Hanzo
    August 18th, 2013 @ 3:41 pm

    “Maybe you think this kind of parental empowerment is a bad thing, but if you don’t have a teenage daughter, well, shut the hell up.” ‘Nuff said.

  24. DavidD
    August 18th, 2013 @ 5:33 pm

    What percentage of pro-Kaitlyn Hunt people are anti-George Zimmerman?

    I only ask because the first sentence of Ms. Mullinax’s comment would have been better applied to George Zimmerman’s situation.

  25. K-Bob
    August 18th, 2013 @ 5:44 pm

    I read it in High School. A couple two or three yearsdecades ago.

  26. Bob Belvedere
    August 18th, 2013 @ 6:26 pm

    There was a time when the majority of parents would automatically assume the adult accusers of their children were in the right, be they school officials or teachers or neighbors. Since the Baby Boomers became parents the situation seems to have reversed.

    In junior high, I was accused of stealing someone’s notebook and as far as my Father was concerned I was guilty until proven innocent [I was guilty, btw].

    Adults believed adults before they believed children – even their own. That, it seems to me, is a sign of a healthy society [hint for a post topic, Stacy].

  27. Bob Belvedere
    August 18th, 2013 @ 6:28 pm

    Damn…that was brilliant. One hopes the prosecution will use your argument.

  28. Bob Belvedere
    August 18th, 2013 @ 6:30 pm

    They are, it seems, many Neros fiddling while Rome burns.

  29. Bob Belvedere
    August 18th, 2013 @ 6:39 pm

    Honest homosexuals will tell you that there is, in fact, a Gay Mafia.

  30. Bob Belvedere
    August 18th, 2013 @ 6:50 pm

    And those that encourage these changes to the limits of the laws, never, never think of the consequences later on.

    Only the Leftist Masterminds do.

  31. Bob Belvedere
    August 18th, 2013 @ 6:52 pm

    How dare you bring up SoCom issues!!!???!!!!
    By doing so, we’ll lose elections!!!!!
    /sarc

  32. Wombat_socho
    August 18th, 2013 @ 7:35 pm

    ISTR there’s a Klingon version where the Friar gets killed at the end for his lack of honor in aiding and abetting the disobedient youths.

  33. richard mcenroe
    August 18th, 2013 @ 10:13 pm

    I know from experience our family runs that way. I think the guy walked again eventually .

  34. alanhenderson
    August 19th, 2013 @ 12:24 am

    “‘Vengeance, Spite, Fear, Denial, Sadness, Insecurity, Whatever”

    The names of the seven lesbian dwarfs?

  35. Goodbye, Blue Monday | Animal Magnetism
    August 19th, 2013 @ 6:57 am

    […] along:  Robert Stacy McCain brings us up to date on the Kaitlyn Hunt saga.  Make no mistake – this has nothing to do with rights, gay or otherwise.  This is the story […]

  36. DocMomMN
    August 19th, 2013 @ 10:57 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Shut up, because equality.” Good-bye, rule of law. http://t.co/ojeDd3h04E | @scrowder @jmattbarber @CatholicLisa @RickSantor…

  37. FMJRA 2.0: Sunday Edition : The Other McCain
    August 25th, 2013 @ 5:03 pm

    […] You’re Accused: ‘Vengeance, Spite, Fear, Denial, Sadness, Insecurity, Whatever’ […]