Texas May Force Sex Offenders To Register Gamertags

[cobrausn]

*snip*

No I didn't mean a Roman attitude. I specifically meant a Zen like attitude - enlightened and mature. And yes this country is too close to it's Puritan roots. Homophobia, for example, runs rampant. Especially in Bible belt states like, oh I dunno TEXAS! I saw your post regarding homophobes. That was a either blatant misinterpretation for the purpose of trolling or serious naivete. Have a nice thread I'm outta here.

By chance a Buddhist? So is my girlfriend. I am not.

And the earlier thread was a pseudo-troll. Homophobia has nothing to do with Puritans - for example, the Romans had a peculiar outlook on gay sex. It was okay to give but not to receive, because that was just wrong. Were they homophobes? I personally consider homosexuality a bit of an evolutionary dead end, but that's not their fault and I don't really care too much one way or the other which way you swing.

Only fools or hedonists would think this country is too close to it's Puritan roots. Look around you. See many actual Puritans? Mostly just people who don't like swear words, prefer not to talk about sex (but often do), and wouldn't mind if people started having sex, oh, I don't know, NOT at the average age of 12. They are, by and large, amazingly tolerable people, and I agree with some of what they think. Not all.

Feel free to duck out if you wish, but it was just getting interesting.

Oh, and I met more homophobes (such a stupid term) in my four years in the military stationed in New York than I ever have at home.

 

[ffxfriek]

HB 22, a bill that passed the Texas Senate yesterday, changes the state's sex offender registration policy to require convicted offenders to provide the government with some vital information about who they are: their name, date of birth, sex, race, shoe size, all that stuff you'd expect to find

That made me laugh. The shoe size bit.

wow public records anyone?

 

[Frizzle]

What's the term they use to describe stuff like this? Oh: Good initiative, bad judgement.
They need to clean up the laws surrounding offenders first. As things like urinating in public, or other such cases, put people in an extremely bad light.

Also, yes, serious offenders should be in a database somewhere, but basically carrying around a sign with them that says they are an offender is kinda wrong. If M$ said they were going to put a "*" next to everyone's XBL name that was a sex offender, those people would never get to play with anyone.
Keep their names in a registry, sure, but don't exclude them from playing #$*#()@& video games online. Do I need to know if the guy on my online Resistance 2 team is a sex offender? No. Same as how I don't need to know if he smokes pot, steals candy bars from the store, or drives faster than the posted speed limit (thanks susan). I am not really a fan of this.

 

[LeonLethality]

So like instead of TexasReaper it would be TexasRaper? sounds fair, XxIrapekidSxX? I could go on, but it would be a little creepy
TexasRaper: Wanna go into my van?
ShadowLegacy: ... no thanks

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

Bio: I once raped a kid in Reno.

To watch him... get raped?

Damn, As soon as I saw that I wanted say just that but I was beaten to it. grrrrr

 

[EnzoHonda]

The way the law is now is already outrageous. Some dude can be 17 and fuck his 16 year old girlfriend, and be on a sex offender list for the rest of his life. That isn't okay. More to your point, I simply do not agree. Rapists, on the whole have psychological problems. They need to serve their time, and then be forced to get psychological help. Some kind of rehabilitation to help them face their problems and hopefully shape them into functioning members of society. After that, obviously they need a significantly longer period of probation than the average ex-con, but this kind of lifetime ostracization is much too steep and non-comprehensive for the one-time stupid teenagers and mentally ill who comprise the majority of the sex-offender population

It's just one of the many parts of the system that do not function as they were meant to.

I do agree that there are differences in the crimes that one must commit to become a sex offender. Cases similar to your example of an 18 year old and a 16 year old (or something similar) are a shame. These cases are different, as you say.

Serial-rapists and molesters however are a different story. Yes, they do have serious psychological problems. However, we disagree on how they should be treated. Quite frankly I feel that some people are dealt a bad hand in life. If you rape or molest someone, society no longer has a use for you. I'm sorry that a person may have psychological problems, but they will never be useful or needed (maybe for research into treatments for mental illness). I'm not saying we need to execute people. I'm just tired of "I was born this way" being an acceptable defense. Some people are born with Down's and there's a consequence. Some people are born as rapists, and there are consequences.

The difficulty, of course, is in making laws that can appropriately distinguish between an 18 year old getting a handjob from his younger girlfriend and a 40 year old who can't stay away from little boys.