print“‘Bill O’Reilly is not looking out for the kids,’ wailed a blogger. He ought to lose his job for his ‘base-line idiocy’ and perverse inhumanity, sermonized Keith Olbermann, suddenly sounding a lot like the man he calls ‘Billo.’ ‘I’ve really had it, you know, with people judging,’ came Sean Hannity’s signature inanities. ‘This was an 11 year-old boy, ripped away from his family, and people are suggesting maybe he just enjoyed being away from school.'”
“The contretemps were over O’Reilly’s response to the case of Missouri kidnapping victim Shawn Hornbeck. The boy disappeared in 2002, and — turned up four years later — alive, the alleged captive of a pizza-parlor manager,’ to quote Newsweek. O’Reilly has been clobbered ever since he dared to suggest that, horrors, the kid probably enjoyed his new-found freedom: ‘He didn’t have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted.'”
“The excerpt is from my new WND column, “In Defense Of Bill O’Reilly.” Fox News is full of statists on steroids. So it doesn’t often happen that the person who penned “He Contorts, I Decide” defends Bill O’Reilly. But on the rare occasion that O’Reilly opposes the therapeutic establishment and upholds individual responsibility —also the cornerstone of liberty —he deserves support. So he got it.
Shawn was living a life that many children who live at home do – they play all day – going to school is just going through the motions for them – with social promotion.
Shawn’s life is what many children no doubt dream about – sort of like “Treasure Island” – going off on a ship and just playing games day and night.
Shawn no doubt was not a great student, or he would have missed school.
Has anyone suggested that Shawn “ran away” rather than that he was kidnapped?
May you never be a victim. [How do you know i have not been a victim? Yes, ass-uming again…]
But if you are, may you find more compassion in others than you possess in yourself.
Please seek spiritual guidance and reclaim your heart.
You have to admit though that the playstations were part of the seduction, and that teenagers internalize their guilt over having been molested by acting out irresponsibly. [This is psychobabble] We don’t know if pictures were taken, and if this boy was threatened with having the photos released, or if he has become addicted to drugs or alcohol.
In any case, luring a child or teenager away from their family is a crime, even if it was done nonviolently. These types of cases that involve the homosexual luring of boys is age-old, and it seems to me that these boys usually end up as criminals or addicts.
It takes a grown man to really mess up a boy’s head, and we women just don’t understand that.
I “ass-umed” nothing. My wish for you never to be a victim addressed your future. I made no statement about your past, either way. For the record, I hope you never WERE a victim, either, but I’ve no way of knowing.
And seeing as how we’ve never spoken before, I also wonder why you claimed I was “ass-uming again”.
[I was referring to the general habit of assuming or asserting with no prior knowledge, which is a habit I encounter in many interlocutors these days. I am in the process of updating this blog post with a comment I hope you will ponder and address. So please check back]
(Nitpicky, I know, but as a writer, I would hope you appreciate the need for careful wording in order to convey specific meaning.)
Thank you for posting my first comment (& hopefully this one, as well.) I am generally suspicious of blogs who edit for content prior to allowing a comment to appear. It often ends up that only those who’s comments are complimentary ever see the light of day, manufacturing a false impression that there is little or no dissent with the official blog position. I find that a coward’s way of winning an argument. I hope to find you feel the same.
[Sure.]
I’m amazed that O’Reilly had taken this position. This is a man who agrees with the likes of Susan Estrich and Wendy Murphy that young men under age 18 are too young and innocent to consent to or knowingly initiate sex with adult females, describes such affairs as “rape” and “child molestation,” and believes the “victims” are “traumatized.”
I just read this article, & I agree with Bill O’reilly, & ILana. I read the comment from Mr. Zavisca on this, and I wonder if Mr. Zavisca has any children? It appears that this comment implies that little Shawn Hornbeck was at disney world, instead of in the clutches of a serial pedophile, who kidnapped at least two children we know of, and very possibly, and more than likely, more children that we don’t know about at this point.
I personally had the privledge & duty of putting a child molester behind bars in Montana. The child involved was not kidnapped, but the molester was a “friend” of the divorced mother involved. Child molesters are the ultimate terrorists! It is my belief that if a person kidnaps a child, and molests the child, the perpetrator should be tried in court, and then executed swiftly. First offense. Children are innocent, precious, and gifts from God. Martin Berrow.
[I think Frank would say, and I would have to agree, that some kids are a curse.]
Wow…
Reading through the comments posted thus far… I’m almost at a loss for words.
“Treasure Island”?!? “…going off on a ship & playing games day and night”?
Am I misreading Michael’s comment, or is he advocating in favor of some kinda NAMBLA offshoot for women, where having sex with boys isn’t a crime, but a loving and beautiful act for all involved?
Forgive me for being a little bewildered, but the thinking expressed here is very new to me.
Are children just tiny adults to you folks? Are they just as capable of making decisions as you and I, intellectually or emotionally? Is there even any such thing as emotional development, or is that just more psychological claptrap? Should the actions of children be judged by adult standards, or are children… well… children? Is any psychological condition legitimate, or is it all–if you’ll forgive the expression–crazy talk?
I intend to get more involved with specific portions of both the original piece and the update, but fear that to begin in this comment box will put me over the posted word count.
[Thanks for your contribution. Indignant huffing and puffing does nothing to discredit opposing views—and almost always conceals straw arguments. I have never said children are, developmentally, miniature adults. They are not. But neither are they amebas. To follow your determinism, one might as well not impart any direction or moral instruction to a child, because he is incapable of so much as calling home if lost. My perspective arises from a non-deterministic view of human beings. You might want to read up a bit also on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder—the real deal, not the version the public has been brainwashed by. Thanks. —ILANA]
Some of Shawn’s behaviors while “away” from home are disconcerting. And questioning them is fine. Wild speculation as to the answers to those questions, whether by psychologists & social workers, or those that oppose them, is not.
There is no evidence as yet that Shawn was threatened or molested. There is also no evidence as yet to suggest he was not. That is the point of my disagreement with Mr. O’Reilly and your defense of him.
While accusing these “tele-twits & execrable experts” of creating scenarios without proof, you & Mr. O’Reilly are doing the very same thing.
I agree that the experts are jumping the gun, and haven’t the facts to know. But I submit that you haven’t the facts & don’t know, either. They’re coming at it from their “expertise,” and you’re coming at it from yours, & neither of you are wearing any clothes. There isn’t enough evidence yet to understand the motivation underlying Shawn’s behavior, no matter how certain you, Bill, the psychologists, or anyone else sounds whilst making their claim.
All we have are a few troubling behaviors. Many of us wonder about them. But anyone who claims to be able to explain them using the few facts we currently have, no matter what their expertise or brand of belief, is kidding themselves as well as those they’re trying to convince.
[Once again, you miss the point entirely, perhaps because you are unfamiliar with my writing–and the work of others who refute the therapeutic worldview. O’Reilly is not one such individual; he just happened to hit a home run, initially, on the issue, but was soon subdued by viewers like you, and by “the experts,” because he hasn’t a philosophy to speak of. This is not a matter of two sides of the coin. That teenagers have a modicum of free will and an ability to tell right or wrong is an immutable truth; it isn’t subject to the vagaries of this or the other expert analysis. Sure, there are mitigating factors, but teenagers are still capable of the above. Americans, prior to the advent of the Managerial State, knew this, and brought their children up in accordance with this natural, universal truth. Hayek, in The Constitution of Liberty, says that treating people as if they have these qualities is integral to liberty, even if, say, you don’t believe people have free will. The therapeutic abolition of free will has resulted in the disintegration of conventional morality–and right and wrong. The facts of the case do not change this immutably true reality.–ILANA]
Given his comment about “a NAMBLA offshoot for women,” James Casper obviously believes that adult women who have sex with young men under age 18 are “child molesters,” “pedophiles,” and “rapists.” And because pubescent teenage males under statutory age are fundamentally indistinguishable from prepubescent girls of 10 and 11, such “victims” are “children” and “little boys” who are “traumatized” and “scarred for life.”
What nonsense! Biologically, pubescent teenage age males under age 18 are not “children” but young men. They don’t have the minds and bodies of 10- and 11-year-olds, nor do they have the bodies of underage adolescent girls of comparable age.
Almost invariably, in affairs and dalliances between adult females and young men under age 18, the “child” and “victim” is much bigger, stronger, more aggressive, more physically intimidating, etc. than the adult and “victimizer.” For this reason alone, it’s ludicrous to define such liaisons as “pedophilia” and “child molestation.” Yes, women are “pedophiles” and “child molesters” for having sex with young men as old as 16 and 17 who might be 6’4″ and outweigh them by 50-150 pounds!
Moreover, for abvious anatomical reasons, women can’t “rape” anyone in the pure sense of that word. “Rape” signifies not only violence but penetration -and, with female victims, possible impregnation. Ergo, even to describe such intrigues as “statutory rape” is objectively inaccurate and thus absurd. In such encounters, the “victim” penentrates, and possibly impregnates, the “criminal.”
Lastly, under the law, teenage males under age 18 are old and mature enough to form the mens rea or criminal intent to commit felonies, and often “waived into adult court” if they commit violent crimes. Obviously, if young men under age 18 are old and mature enough to know what they’re doing, legally and morally, when they commit aggravated assault, murder, and rape, then they’re old and mature enough to know what they’re doing when they consent to or initiate sex with adult females.
I’ve no doubt I’m missing your point; that is why I return, and continue to add comments.
What does the “immutable truth” that Shawn Hornbeck possesses a modicum of free will and an ability to tell right or wrong tell us about why he acted in some of the troubling ways he did?
Or does that matter?
Does free will speak to one’s underlying motivation when discussing behavior, or should one judge the behavior, alone?
For example: In your update, you said Shawn was a little shit for not letting his parent’s know he was ok when he sent that e-mail. Does it matter WHY he didn’t add that comment, or is it enough to judge him a little shit no matter his reason, just because he failed to do so? (And, do we know for certain that Shawn sent that e-mail, rather than Devlin?)
If Shawn’s motivation IS a factor in judging his behaviors, what do you believe his motivation was?
I believe Shawn’s motives do matter, and that none of us has enough information to pass judgment as yet. This has been my position all along, and I’m not sure that my (or anyone’s) beliefs about free will or the therapeutic establishment affect that position. If they do, please explain how…
[The premise of this entire post being that one’s will and mind are seperate from one’s circumstances. As I wrote in Trading Morality for Medical Mumbo-Jumbo:
I suspect that the media overestimates the intelligence of children. Children often do stupid and self-destructive things. The more ignorant the child, the more self-destuctive the child. You imply in your O’Reilly essay that the boy went about his abduction foolishly. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Right on, Ilana.
You don’t need to know the facts of the case beyond that the kid had every opportunity to escape — and didn’t.
Kids have free will; autonomy is not miraculously invested in us at 18. As a child I certainly had limited understanding of many things, and very limited power. To some extent I was aware of these limitations, and so was cautious. But I never, ever felt that I was incapable of acting on my own.
I knew right from wrong.
I doubt anyone reading this thinks any differently, about themselves. So why should we consider Hornbeck any differently?
[Well, we have to acknowledge that children are developmentally different from adults. No question. Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development is sound, and it attests to that. However, as you rightly point out, a child of 15—even 11—is not incapable of telling right from wrong and acting with some volition. Calling home, vaguely imagining mom’s anguish, saying something to the police—these are not extraordinary feats.—ILANA]
But Edward (or Ilana), doesn’t one’s intent or underlying motivation play a role in judging one’s actions? By what criteria do you reach the conclusion that Shawn behaved foolishly?
The behaviors that so rattled O’Reilly, & all others who’ve been moved to speak out in judgment of Shawn Hornbeck, were self-destructive. Saying so doesn’t require one to know WHY Shawn chose those actions; as less ignorant adults, we recognize the likely result of his doing so, (born out by the fact that he remained with Devlin so long), and judge. (This is not to say that no child would or could make the same judgment, by the way… …but I suspect that the likelihood of it decreases as the age of the child declines.)
I submit that it’s one thing to recognize a self-destructive act (or even several of ’em), but another to infer motive from the act(s) alone, and pass judgment on the child.