Eric, you've clearly identified once again the fundamental distinction between good actions perfored willingly and good actions that are coerced--but I fear that this distinction is lost on far too many people.

Small point, but the Freep columnist calls Channel 2 "Detroit's Fox News Affiliate." That's false, or at least misleading.

WJBK (Channel 2 in Detroit) is a Fox cable network affiliate. You know, home of those reactionary Simpsons, the Netc. It is not a Fox News -- that leftist bugbear -- channel in Detroit. They do have a local news broadcast, which they call Fox 2 News. I never watch it, but I'll bet it's indistinguishable from Channel 4's local news. They do NOT have Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc.

In short: Channel 2 is not Fox News Channel (FNC) in Detroit. Dickerson, the writer, is factually in error in a way that lends illicit support (to those disposed to hate FNC) to his argument.

Here's a link:

If I read this correctly, the FREEP columnist is all for criminalizing the television broadcast of teenage confessions? This isn't surprising. Does this law prevent the printing of such information in a news article in the FREEP, or just "broadcast"?

Let me be insensitive here- a teenager couldnt take the heat which resulted from her own actions, and she committed suicide. No one murdered her- SHE MADE THE DECISION TO END HER LIFE. Why is society being blamed, why are people calling for more restrictive laws, becasue one teenager, who couldnt think logically, killed herself?
Which is why I dislike the whole manufactured "crisis" of the alleged "gay suicide holocaust" that supposedly is going on in our country.
Ultimately, the teenager who commits suicide is the person responsible for their own death- os, why the irrational calls for new laws and policies that are nothing but feel-good initiatives that will achieve absolutely bupkus?
Maybe kids ought to be taught how to deal with reverses and disappointments in life by parents at home, so that they learn to be strong and resilient people.
Passing new laws as the Freep columnist calls for will ensure more of the same, more non-rational thinking teenagers, who commit suicide at the drop of a hat over some alleged disappointment in life.

Wait...the station that did the interview is at fault, but not the mother who called the station and set it up? WTF?

Wait, what? Let's assume for a moment that a young girl really is brutally raped by a popular and politically-connected scoundrel (perhaps in Hyannisport, but that's another rant). The police and prosecutor want to protect the budding football star/rapist, and so decline to investigate the claim, much less prosecute the rapist. And this "journalist" thinks that it should be AGAINST THE LAW for the girl and her parents to raise a public outcry over such a failure of the justice system?

Some people are just incapable of thinking more than about 2 seconds ahead of themselves.

"Not that I have anything wrong with anyone volunteering to be his brother's keeper, mind you."

The key point here is an individual choosing to care of other individuals or groups. Liberals fail to see that a libertarian objection to being assigned financial responsibility for strangers at the threat of confiscation of property and liberty does not equate to a blanket cold lack of concern for anybody else. For people who seem so concerned about nuance and greys, their personal litmus test of morality is too often starkly binary.

OT, but in her testimony, she says "He kicked his cat's out". What part of a cat is its "out"?

'lanched

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/109678/

Ahhh... the ever-present call to "DO SOMETHING!!!!" that accompanies every tragedy. Then we complain about an over-reaching government where we've got 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners; Our police forces more and more advance into para-military Mad Max garb, gear and personality.

Please stop submitting yourselves and society to ever-increasing authority based on one-off tragic critical incidents people. It's expensive, in liberty and dollars; and it does far more harm to society than any potential good.

Tragedies happen... and government is all to willing to use these as an excuse to advance its authority without us chanting "DO SOMETHING!" to further along its efforts.

Excellent analysis of what's wrong, not just with this case, but much of modern America's penchant for more nanny-statism.

I'm liking this blog more, and more.

Let's all go back and read this:
Samantha, accompanied on-screen by her mother, charged for the first time....

Not the little girl's fault. Mother's fault. Entirely. The mother killed her daughter, straight up.

By the way, note the girl's name:
"Samantha Kelly"
Now note the mother's name:
"June Justice"

Not the same last name.

patHMV- in this case referenced, the alleged perp was no football player. He is a short, and a very effete artsy-fartsy type of guy, and I was actually surprised that he was the guy who alleged had sex with the girl.

The line from Genesis about my brother's keeper, is simply the most misused in modern America. Here is the original dialog:

Gen.4:8-9

Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field." And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.

Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?", who replied, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"

Cain's sin was murder, not voting Republican. His reply about his brother's keeper was perjury and obstruction of justice, not a failure of social conscience.

No, the tragedy here is the fact a man has had his life ruined, based upon accusations that were never aired in court. So much for the presumption of innocence. Now a man who was never convicted of anything will have to go through life known as a rapist.

Telling the world, on national TV, that someone raped you is amazingly irresponsible to say the least. Evidently convicting someone in the court of public opinion was more important than letting him have his day in court first. I have no sympathy for the girl who committed suicide. Far more people go through a lot worse than she claimed she did and they didn't take the cowards way out.

Our host's key point is less coerced good behavior -- I must attend my brother's needs. It is more about being forced to accept someone else's protection or benevolence or service, even if you don't want it. It's like the old lady said to the Boy Scout: "I didn't need to cross the street. I live on the other side!"

it should he noted that the only connection between this girl's suicide and those of gay teens is that they killed themselves. she was embarrassed by a sexual encounter that may, or may not, have been coerced but this girl had the support of her family and a large portion of her community. sadly, that was not enough to keep her alive.
it's a quite different set of circumstances in the case of gay kids who, most often, find no support from any quarter.. not from family, community (yes, that includes the railings of the religious), nor from their teachers or school administrators. they are isolated and left to their own devices all while they are being battered, both physically and psychologically, by their fellow classmates. it's not, usually, an embarrassing sexual encounter with which they are contending, but rather a blanket condemnation of their (real or perceived) orientation. it's terrible when anyone, much less a very young person, sees suicide as their only out..but lumping them all together as being people who were simply too weak to 'buck up', or as some sort of whiny, trendy 'professional victims' is to ignore the very real, and differing, circumstances of their lives in favor of making some cheap political jab. it does nothing to assuage the grief of those they leave behind nor to alter the circumstances that are likely to lead others to make the same tragic choice for themselves. it's ridiculous to say that we should stifle the personal stories of our youngsters because their tales happen to involve sexually-related topics. it is long past time that we pull our prudish, victorian heads out of the sand and, perhaps, we can save some of these kids from checking out long before their time.

it should he noted that the only connection between this girl's suicide and those of gay teens is that they killed themselves. she was embarrassed by a sexual encounter that may, or may not, have been coerced but this girl had the support of her family and a large portion of her community. sadly, that was not enough to keep her alive.
it's a quite different set of circumstances in the case of gay kids who, most often, find no support from any quarter.. not from family, community (yes, that includes the railings of the religious), nor from their teachers or school administrators. they are isolated and left to their own devices all while they are being battered, both physically and psychologically, by their fellow classmates. it's not, usually, an embarrassing sexual encounter with which they are contending, but rather a blanket condemnation of their (real or perceived) orientation. it's terrible when anyone, much less a very young person, sees suicide as their only out..but lumping them all together as being people who were simply too weak to 'buck up', or as some sort of whiny, trendy 'professional victims' is to ignore the very real, and differing, circumstances of their lives in favor of making some cheap political jab. it does nothing to assuage the grief of those they leave behind nor to alter the circumstances that are likely to lead others to make the same tragic choice for themselves. it's ridiculous to say that we should stifle the personal stories of our youngsters because their tales happen to involve sexually-related topics. it is long past time that we pull our prudish, victorian heads out of the sand and, perhaps, we can save some of these kids from checking out long before their time.

my apologies for the double post..a slip of the finger.

Detroit is still open? Wonders never cease. We should certainly be looking that direction for insight into current leftist thought, given the total control they have exercised for decades and, of course, the fine result they have obtained.