In January, Rush Limbaugh warned that there was “an effort under way to normalize pedophilia,” and was ridiculed by liberals (including CNN’s Soledad O’Brien) for saying so. But now liberals have joined a crusade that, if successful, would effectively legalize sex with 14-year-olds in Florida.
The case involves Kaitlyn Ashley Hunt, an 18-year-old in Sebastian, Florida, who was arrested in February after admitting that she had a lesbian affair with a 14-year high-school freshman. (Click here to read the affidavit in Hunt’s arrest.) It is a felony in Florida to have sex with 14-year-olds. Hunt was expelled from Sebastian High School — where she and the younger girl had sex in a restroom stall — and charged with two counts of “felony lewd and lascivious battery on a child.” The charges could put Hunt in prison for up to 15 years. Prosecutors have offered Hunt a plea bargain that would spare her jail time, but her supporters have organized an online crusade to have her let off scot-free — in effect, nullifying Florida’s law, which sets the age of consent at 16.
Using the slogan “Stop the Hate, Free Kate” (the Twitter hashtag is #FreeKate) this social-media campaign has attracted the support of liberals including Chris Hayes of MSNBC, Daily Kos, Think Progress and the gay-rights group Equality Florida.
[…]This is “behavior that is both fairly innocuous and extremely common,” the American Civil Liberties Union declared Tuesday in a statement condemning the prosecution of Hunt. The ACLU statement parrots the arguments of all the other “Free Kate” crusaders who emphasize that the sex between Hunt and the 14-year-old was consensual, and who are apparently indifferent (or even openly hostile) to the right of parents to safeguard their minor children against sexual exploitation. The liberal Daily Kos blog goes so far as to proclaim that officials are “prosecuting an 18-year-old for being in love.”
This echoes other efforts to facilitate sex with children. The left regularly pushes for lowering the age of consent, as well as introducing sex education to younger and younger children. A common sense interpretation of these efforts leads one to believe that they want to normalize sex with children. Conservatives on the other hand favor strong marriages, more parental authority, and laws that protect children from sex before the children are old enough to understand what is happening to them. That’s the difference between the two sides. The left wants to indoctrinate children in school and sexualize them at an early age for the benefit of adults. The right wants to protect them and preserve their childhood and their bond to parents.
The University of Waterloo is investigating after an anti-abortion Conservative MP was blocked from delivering a lecture Wednesday night by protesters led by a man dressed as a giant vagina.
Ethan Jackson, 21, an art student at nearby Wilfrid Laurier University, said he calls his pink costume Vulveta, and that Stephen Woodworth’s talk about the universality of human rights came from an oppressive western discourse that ignores the rights of indigenous people.
“That kind of speech, that kind of facts, are not acceptable,” he said. “We decided to go by the route of using satire instead of intimidation…. We decided to make Stephen Woodworth feel as uncomfortable as he makes us feel.”
Ellen Rethore, associate vice-president of communications and public affairs, said the disruptive behaviour was “unacceptable,” and that a joint inquiry of the school’s secretariat, police, and student success office was underway.
“Our goal is to ensure an environment of tolerance and uphold the right of individuals to advance their views openly,” she said.
Mr. Woodworth — who gave a third of his talk before a woman in a red dress commandeered the podium to award him a trophy as “Kitchener-Waterloo’s Nastiest Misogynist” — said it is “a mark of extremism to take disrespect of others as a virtue.”
“I couldn’t outshout the shouters. I’m not there to engage in a shouting match,” he said.
After the talk was cancelled and the protesters left, Mr. Woodworth said he was able to stay and have a discussion with a few people.
He was speaking about the section of Canada’s Criminal Code that, in the context of defining homicide, says a child “becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”
His legislative effort to have Parliament study the definition of “human being” failed in a House of Commons vote last year, despite support from eight cabinet ministers, including Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. It cannot be revived in this Parliament.
Listen to the hate and intolerance from those brainwashed leftists in that video. This is why it’s important to have an alias when writing online, because these students are brainwashed by public education to hate those who are different from them, and they are only too happy to use violence and intimidation against anyone who disagrees with them. Many of these students are probably growing up in broken homes where they are never exposed to fathers and the relationship between husband and wife. Fatherlessness is a serious social problem.
Fascism is and always has been a phenomena of the political left. Mussolini was a socialist, Hitler was a socialist, Stalin was a socialist, Mao was a socialist, and so on. To be a socialist is to on the same continuum that leads to totalitarianism and fascism. People on the left do not believe in natural rights like freedom of speech and the right to life. They are nihilists, and anything is permitted on nihilism. If they are willing to kill innocent children in order to escape the consequences of recreational sex, they could do anything. Abortion is the rock-bottom of immorality.
Hugo Chávez’ presidency has been a disaster for the Venezuelan people. Chávez’ “Socialism of the 21st Century” changed Venezuela from one of the most prosperous and politically free countries in Latin America to one of the least competitive and most repressive countries worldwide. Venezuelans who go to the polls today will ponder many of the President’s policy failures, including a long list of Chávez’nblunders in the last year alone.
Under Chávez’ rule, oil-rich Venezuela has become one of the least economically competitive countries in the world. In 2012, the country ranked 126 of 144 in a study by the World Economic Forum. According to the report, Venezuela now has some of the lowest scores worldwide in functioning of public institutions, trust in the justice system and domestic competition. It has some of the highest scores in terms of regulation, trade tariffs, and rules that deter foreign investment. The country has an inflation rate of 26 percent, and has also suffered several food shortages this year.
Venezuelan infrastructure has been falling apart under Chávez. On August 15th, the Cupira bridge near Caracas collapseddespite repeated warnings from engineers that it was in disrepair. Last month, poor drainage infrastructure led to nationwide flooding, resulting in over 400 families losing their homes and 1,500 people ending up in shelters. Chávez also mismanages Venezuela’s oil wealth. Since the government effectively took control of the national oil company in 2004, it has become much less efficient and production is 25 percent lower than when Chávez took office. Accidents are common—an offshore oil rig sank into the sea in 2010 and an oil refinery explosion in August killed at least 48 people. Despite sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela nowimports and rations gasoline.
According to USA Today, Venezuela has the fourth highest murder rate in the world and is now the most violent South American country. Between the time Chávez took power in 1998 and 2012, kidnappings have risen from a few hundred annually to a record of 16,000 in 2011. Homicide rates have nearly tripled and suspect arrests have fallen by 61 percent. Only eight in every 100 murder investigations lead to an arrest. Murder of police officers has risen by 45 percent in the last year alone. Violence is much worse for Venezuela’s inmates despite Chávez’ campaign promises of prison reform. A prison riot on August 24 left 26 people dead and 43 injured after inmates took over the compound and held it for four hours. Venezuelans are 20 times more likely to be killed in penitentiaries than outside of them. More than three hundred people have died and 572 have been injured in Venezuelan prisons this year alone.
Venezuelans have also witnessed alarming revocations of political liberties during Chávez’ presidency. On September 10th, Chávez decided to withdraw from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He regularly targets media who expose his failures. He recently arrested two journalists for writing a satirical article about his leadership. In addition, he demanded the names of voters who participated in the opposition’s primary election last February, just as he did to those who unsuccessfully voted to remove him from office in 2004. Chávez has banned foreign funding for civil society watch dogs, which will make electoral transparency in upcoming elections difficult.
UPDATE: Reformed Seth sent me this article from Human Rights Watch as well.
Excerpt:
Hugo Chávez’s presidency (1999-2013) was characterized by a dramatic concentration of power and open disregard for basic human rights guarantees.
After enacting a new constitution with ample human rights protections in 1999 – and surviving a short-lived coup d’état in 2002 – Chávez and his followers moved to concentrate power. They seized control of the Supreme Court and undercut the ability of journalists, human rights defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights.
By his second full term in office, the concentration of power and erosion of human rights protections had given the government free rein to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda. In recent years, the president and his followers used these powers in a wide range of prominent cases, whose damaging impact was felt by entire sectors of Venezuelan society.
Many Venezuelans continued to criticize the government. But the prospect of reprisals – in the form of arbitrary or abusive state action – forced journalists and human rights defenders to weigh the consequences of disseminating information and opinions critical of the government, and undercut the ability of judges to adjudicate politically sensitive cases.
[…]Chávez also rejected international efforts to promote human rights in other countries. In recent years, Venezuela consistently voted against UN General Assembly resolutions condemning abusive practices in North Korea, Burma, Iran, and Syria. Moreover, Chávez was a vocal supporter of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, bestowing upon each of these leaders the “Order of the Liberator,” Venezuela’s highest official honor.
Under Chávez, Venezuela’s closest ally was Cuba, the only country in Latin America that systematically represses virtually all forms of political dissent. Chávez identified Fidel Castro – who headed Cuba’s repressive government until his health deteriorated in 2006 – as his model and mentor.
That’s the dream of people on the left like Sean Penn. They love the idea of doing away with liberty and human rights. They want to force their secular leftist ideology on everyone at gunpoint.
Everyone who is praising this communist dictator today should be ashamed. None of them would move out of the United States to live in Venezuela – it’s nothing but hypocrisy.
WINTERY KNIGHT 