If you thought social conservatives were out of power....

... check the offices of your local prosecutors, where a new cottage industry seems to be ginning up non-existent sex crimes.

From Classically Liberal:

This means that sex offender laws are one through which third-rate politicians can make a name for themselves. Consider the case of Greg Soucia. Greg is clearly a bad boy. The 21-year-old was a thief. But his theft also made him a “sex offender” once the local prosecutor got hold of him....

Mr. Soucia was a thief: more precisely he stole a credit card. And, as a result, he was prosecuted “under the ‘Sex Offender Management and Treatment Act’.” How’s that!!

What gave the low-life prosecutor, aptly named James Conboy, the excuse was that the young man used the stolen credit to hire some strippers. In the logical world of Mr. Conboy: “If you commit a burglary and your goal is because of your own sexual gratification, it’s a sexually motivated felony.”

I sincerely doubt that Soucia broke into a house to rob it just to get his jollies. I doubt that the reason he robbed the house was so he could hire a stripper. And, even if he wanted to hire a stripper, to call this sort of theft a “sex offense” is absolutely ridiculous. Either Mr. Conboy is incredibly moronic or incredibly power-hungry. Either way he is a threat to the decent people in his county.

Conboy admitted that by pretending that common theft was now a sex crime he could get a longer sentence for the offense. In addition the young thief will have to register as a dangerous sex offender. And how will the offender’s registry, or what vigilantes call “the hit list”, describe Mr. Soucia? When he is released from prison his picture, along with his home address, will be published on a sex offender’s web site. He will be listed as having been convicted of a “sexually motivated felony”. That sounds really bad. No doubt the morons who troll the lists will see this as proof that Soucia was out raping children at the local church nursery. Instead, he broke in a house and stole a credit card. And when he got the card he used it to hire a couple of strippers....

Consider the ramifications of this theory. If you are the mother of a randy teenage boy beware. If Junior slips a few bucks out of your wallet, when you aren’t looking, and spends the money to buy a Playboy or some condoms he apparently is now a sex offender. If he borrows, without permission, the car so he can have a back seat romp with his date, he is now a sex offender -- even if both of them are legally considered adults in sexual matters. The kid who shoplifts a dirty magazine from the corner store can be labelled a “sex offender” instead of a shoplifter.

This is where an increasingly paternalistic legal code gets us....

But Libertarians are just paranoid freaks, right?

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

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