I really believe that “sex abuse” is to 21st Century America what witchcraft was to 17th Century Massachusetts. The hysteria is destroying a wealth of culture, humor and ordinary human happiness.
The AP reports that Otis “Bullman” Hensley, one-time Kentucky gubernatorial candidate, spent three days in the slammer last week after what he intended as a cute compliment was (incredibly) misinterpreted by an apparently strung-out aunt as a solicitation to have sex with her two nieces. Why the police officers couldn’t figure this out on the front end is anyone’s guess. Maybe TBM can help us understand:
The ordeal began last week when Hensley’s wife sent him to a local grocery store to buy ground beef. While there, Hensley encountered a woman with her two nieces, ages 11 and 13. “I offered to trade her a fattening hog for those girls,” Hensley said. “I meant it as a joke. I’ve said it a million times. Most people get a kick out of it.”
Instead of appreciating the local humor, the aunt took out a warrant for Hensley’s arrest. The kicker, at the end of the affair, is that Hensley ended up apologizing to the girls’ father! I’d say the apology should have gone in the opposite direction.
Prosecutor J.D. Smith asked the judge to dismiss the charge, saying both sides want to put the matter behind them.
“He absolutely meant no harm,” Smith said of Hensley. “It was a joke to him.”
Appalachian scholar Loyal Jones said the jest Hensley made has been around for generations and actually is intended as a compliment.
“I’ve heard many variations of that,” said Jones, retired director of Berea College’s Appalachian Center. “You might hear ‘That’s a good looking boy; I’d trade you a pocket knife for him’ … Political correctness has ruined country humor.”
Turns out that In Kentucky, any citizen can swear out a warrant “simply by filing a complaint with local prosecutors.” Further — and this is what really chaps my xxx — “no investigation is necessary for police to make an arrest when the charge involves an alleged sexual offense.”
No investigation is necessary? Geez! Why is an alleged “sexual offense” given less “due process” than any other alleged offense? Who has twisted the mind of this country into such a grotesque caricature of its former self? I don’t see this as “political correctness.” It’s political heresy.
Oh. Did I mention that Hensley was staring down the barrel of a ten-year prison sentence, not to mention lifetime branding as a sex offender, for that backwoods compliment?
And then I wonder, how would Otis Hensley fare in Barbara Walther’s court?
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hugh McBryde 08.26.08 at 5:01 pm
The whole business can be traced arguably to creeping feminism, which really isn’t feminism at all, it’s “wanna-be-a-manism.” I don’t mean this in a crude way but as a statement of jealousy. Feminists take the position that women have it worse than men do, and that if society could be engineered around the right way, women could largely do what men do and have what men have.
This presupposes several things, not the least of which is that child rearing is not an honorable or good thing, or not as good or as honorable as doing whatever it is that the man does that women think is more rewarding than what they do. As a result women have tried to become men which involves becoming educated, getting a job, etc, etc.
The natural order that may have existed thus gets tilted on it’s head. Women, instead of maturing physically and becoming what they are EMINENTLY qualified to do, and what is highly prized by civilization (or should be), that being, a mother.
Thus men that seek or touch or want younger partners are filthy and sick, not because they want a healthy qualified partner of child bearing age, but because they seek to upset the applecart of egalitarianism. The PC police are thus making laws and keeping their ears pealed for creepy old sex maniacs who are just really nice old men making jokes. Society forbids we have even a semblance of such interaction between men and “children.”
CurioiusTexan 08.26.08 at 6:28 pm
Zero Tolerance. War on Everything.
Not just dirty ol men are targeted anymore. I’ve read some pretty horrendous articles about kids, who were too young to even know what sex was, much less sexual harrassment, suffering stiff consequences for innocently saying or doing the wrong thing.
About as stupid as the kid who was expelled for bringing a teeny tiny GI Joe gun to school.
There are some doozies here:
neoflux.com/content/horrible/
I tend to put most of the blame on the moral majority. I mean, we had an adult male cover a nude statue in the white house.
rikitikitavi1 08.26.08 at 6:34 pm
I think it has a lot less to do with feminism & more to do with the bully mentality (or “mindset” tm Angie Voss) that many who work for CPS & law enforcement seem to have. The bullies raison d’etre in this case happened to be “child abuse.”
CPS & law enforcement cared little for the rights of the FLDS because they knew they could propagandize them as an unpopular religious minority & who would dare defend them? They found a group they could pick on & so they did.
Xorphshire 08.26.08 at 6:45 pm
Excellent comment Hugh! I think that covers it well. What a complete and total embarrassment to the so called justice system.
I doubt even TBM could explain this one, unless Otis Hensley has Mormon ancestry. Then he’d justify everyone’s reactions on that. He’d also disagree with the charges being dismissed.
Chai Tea 08.26.08 at 7:16 pm
Riki….I think you nailed it. There’s much about this whole thing that smacks of ‘bullying’ - picking on those who will not or are not able to fight back. So the bullies get meaner.
And that’s exactly what is happening.
kbp 08.27.08 at 7:05 am
I could prolly think of a few things to attribute this trend to, but I’m still working on that question of which came first, the chicken or the egg..
Jeny 08.27.08 at 9:49 am
rikitikitavi1 { 08.26.08 at 6:34 pm }
“CPS & law enforcement cared little for the rights of the FLDS because they knew they could propagandize them as an unpopular religious minority & who would dare defend them? They found a group they could pick on & so they did.”
Indeed they did.
CurioiusTexan 08.27.08 at 10:00 pm
Speaking of feminist.
The Feminist Mormon Housewives put up a poll
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=1753
746 respondents
452- Kids should be returned
172- Kids should be in state custody
122- Other
MGK-Mike, the Giant Killer 09.01.08 at 10:04 pm
Hey!
The issue here is vindication. Texas Rangers, CPS, CASA, Barbie, Malonis, Gov. Perry, G.(General) Bush, and Mormon Corporate-(the farm club for alphabet soup agencies, pulling favors for the 10 most wanted boys), FBI, CIA, ATF, all need a scape goat to grant them solace for a horrific wrong they have all taken part in, something that should never have taken place on US soil.
If they can get just one (or a hundred) indictment(s) from a bigoted Grand Jury, follow up by one(or a hundred) child(ren)(Merrieanne)placed in foster care by a modern Witch of Endor, process one(or a hundred) for a conviction, through a similarly bigoted court system, having jury, judge and all stagehands misinformed and pumped full by the media brain(less) programmers, i.e., jealous ex-wives, hookers, agendized book purveyors, then it will all go towards validating their ‘hatred’, aka, deprivation of rights, toward a peace loving and near-perfect people of faith, who, through no fault of their own, assumed that America is good, America will eventually protect the innocent, America will be just.
They claim to ‘do it for the children’, but who do they imprison? Merrieanne! I thought they said she was the victim. Can you expect more from the Barbie? She has no concept for the size of the ‘tar baby’. Justice and what is right had no part in her procedure. Lack of back bone to stand up and make things right after a flagrant personal mistake and a corrective wake-up call from the Texas Supreme Court is malfeasance of office. For those with her through all this, her accomplices, it’s correctly called conspiracy.
I say, this is a clear violation of the hate-law legislation as fashioned by the very lawyerly foxes themselves. What sanctions or punitives are available to the citizenry to totally prevent the landed gentry from this heinous behavior? Where is the consequence for ‘Breach of the Public Trust’? Their Prophet Joseph Smith stated the one weakness our Constitution had was a failure to properly punish those corrupting the public trust.
The legislature in their omnipotent magnanimity have placed statutes enough on the books, such that at any time, any place, government enforcers have an article number to use, much as an artist with his pallet of colors to choose from, to efficiently put any one away, for awhile, if not forever. Any-and-all who have any-or-all to do with such process are party to the corrupting of the founding father’s intent and purposes, and their sacrifices for country.
Take plea bargaining for instance. Attorneys know it well! It sets justice aside, and works like this: By threatening someone with a hundred charges, and the “we can let you off easy if you will just plead guilty to a lesser (even if it, too, is a phony) charge”, using the coercive manipulation of justice, it corrupts all involved because it is only for establishing blame in a proud society, getting another ‘C” on their resume’, with no interest for truth and justice.
Attorneys get their money, and their guy-he pled guilty, didn’t he? And he is spared the life sentence that was the max penalty if you added up all 100 charges. Wow, is he ever relieved. And the frat boys smugly smile and nod to each other in their quiet moments together, as they wash our rights down the drain of corruption called “justice system”. Such behavior is literally treasonous. Yet it is participated in, self righteously, by almost all public defenders. The term of public servant has lost its meaning, and, for certain, its luster.
The government growth industry where all entities have to justify their existence by growing their budgets each fiscal period, have no desire to disenfranchise themselves, shut down operations, even when ‘good’ (term used loosely) people are just doing their job! All, for a mess of potage. And they think they are justified in ‘going after the money’ of such a humble, hard working and diligent religious group, the FLDS.
What the heck were we thinking when we left the foxes in charge of the henhouse? So, they harvest a chicken now and then. So, they encroach on rights here a little, and there a little. What is the big deal? It is easy to say, “It wasn’t me, and the people are odd.” As has been true for all persecuted, trusting and faithful people down through history, these people should also be defended by any of us who value freedom.
You. Yes, YOU! Don’t kick back in your easy chair with beer and remote, now, and just accept a feeling of edification from these words.
Are you going to allow them to vindicate their unjust intent, using the awesome power of what was a grand country to perpetrate their lies and to abuse the very ones they take oath to protect?
Where’s the courage? You’re an expert with the system! What can be done, Kurt?