Post #324,275
4/8/10 5:49:10 PM
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GOP DA threatens schools teaching sex ed in Wisconsin
Scott Southworth wants to prosecute educators for teaching young people how to protect their health and lives in the era of AIDS.
In a move meant to terrorize Wisconsin school teachers and scare administrators away from comprehensive sex ed programs, this Republican District Attorney in Juneau County, Wisconsin has threatened to press charges against sex ed instructors.
At question is The Healthy Youth Act, a measure signed into law this February by Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle. The Act mandates that public school students receive comprehensive sex ed that is medically accurate and age appropriate, and leans on science-based methods that have been proven to work at reducing sexually transmitted infections and unintended teen pregnancies.
Republicans in the state legislature failed to block the bill, so Southworth has launched a one-man vendetta against any teacher or school system that would dare to actually educate Wisconsin teens.
In a March 24 letter, District Attorney Scott Southworth issued a brazen ultimatum to the County's teachers, demanding that they end any plans to teach comprehensive sex education during the Fall 2010 school year and beyond. If the teachers refuse, Southworth has signaled that he will pursue criminal charges against them for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
source: http://www.dailykos....x-ed-in-Wisconsin
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #324,278
4/8/10 6:00:59 PM
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Can that actually work?
Surely the case would be examined once in state court then subsequent cases would use precedent. After a few more times, cases would be summarily dismissed.
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Matthew Greet
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
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Post #324,289
4/9/10 6:55:42 AM
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You don't understand
As individuals, each of those teachers will suffer if they end up in his cross-hairs.
It doesn't have to "work", it merely has to terrify.
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Post #324,320
4/9/10 3:22:16 PM
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How can someone be terrified by what they know can't work?
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Matthew Greet
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
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Post #324,323
4/9/10 3:54:11 PM
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You've never met our Republicans, have you?
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #324,326
4/9/10 4:13:57 PM
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Because it doesn't have to work
to destroy their family's fortune.
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Post #324,329
4/9/10 5:02:35 PM
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Please explain
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Matthew Greet
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
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Post #324,331
4/9/10 5:15:27 PM
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Who will pay for their legal defense?
Against a government (unlimited funds) legal team?
I will choose a path that's clear. I will choose freewill.
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Post #324,333
4/9/10 6:41:30 PM
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Their union and only a few times
Unless you're saying the state courts won't summarily dismiss repeat cases, only a few cases will ever be tried. Then the judges slap the attorney general for wasting court time and it's dead in a very short space of time and very small cost.
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Matthew Greet
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
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Post #324,334
4/9/10 6:54:41 PM
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And what happens
if that judge is a right wing christian wingnut?
Don't assume our judges are sane, you need to review who sits where.
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Post #324,335
4/9/10 6:59:54 PM
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Ah! Now I see.
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Matthew Greet
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
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Post #324,352
4/10/10 1:12:28 AM
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Many judges in the US are elected, not appointed
it's different there.
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Post #324,355
4/10/10 3:57:51 AM
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Yeah, but if you are one of those few cases
you are pretty much screwed.
And the rat-bastard will make damned sure every teacher thinks he or she is the test case.
Not to mention that having even a bogus child sex-abuse charge that was summarily dismissed is just not cool on a teacher's resume. And by "not cool" I mean career is over.
Judges may scold him, but he won't be penalized in any way, and he gets to be a wingnut hero. Rat-bastard. Playing silly games with people's lives, and he fucking knows it.
Any other field, you deliberately screw up your work in order to intimidate people, you get arrested or sued or sanctioned by your profession. Public official, specifically exempt from any and all penalties.
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Why, yes, I did give up something for lent. I gave up making sense.
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Post #324,357
4/10/10 4:22:38 AM
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Obviously bogus charges can still destroy careers?
I thought UK libel laws were a disgusting legal abuse. In the US, people don't even check if the criminal charges by a DA were vaguely credible, let alone true. Do Americans not understand that abuse of procedures, as well as actual crime, is an injustice?
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Matthew Greet
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
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Post #324,359
4/10/10 4:40:14 AM
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We tend to lose our minds
when the words "sex" "abuse" and "children" appear together.
We are also big on Lists.
Wisconsin has a number of people on sexual predator lists whose crime consists of having sex with a same-age minor. Both are officially child molesters, and indistinguishable from a 50 year old who kidnaps and rapes 5 year olds.
Many teachers are very much afraid (with a degree of validity that is hard to determine without an expensive consultation with a lawyer) of ending up on a List that makes it illegal (or at least legally dangerous) for any school to hire them, based on a charge regardless of conviction.
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Why, yes, I did give up something for lent. I gave up making sense.
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Post #324,413
4/10/10 10:23:18 PM
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You will find this easier to grok if you recall Joe McCarthy
-- and the famous quote during Edward R. Murrow's group meeting, near the time for them to broadcast Murrow's iconic broadside against the Senator and his infamous -ism. On asking all members of his staff about anything any one of them feels might be dredged up for character assassination -- discussion ensued -- Murrow commented, the Terror is right here in this room ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
Or I'd put it ... for all the rah-rah Liberty/Freedom/Flags-flying jingoism for which Muricans are known -- they are both a superstitious and a gullible lot (else none of the McCarthy-like witch-hunts which periodically send them cowering would be possible.) Recall that Salem here was about 'witches' and that remnants of Puritanism are everywhere. For the majority (or a tleast a plurality) my experience has been: you are guilty til 'proven' innocent; not versa vice as most claim to believe and support.
We talk Big about those 'freedoms', but personal cowardice runs deep here in the mob, at least in my personal experience across too many decades.
Welcome to the Land of the Free, cha cha cha.
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I could almost see voting for Palin in 2012 on the grounds that this sorry ratfucking excuse for a republic, this savage, smirking, predatory empire deserves her. Bring on the Rapture, motherfuckers!
-- via RC
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