Foley Ickiness, Batman!
Posted by codemorse
By now, everyone and their mother has heard about Rep. Foley's unsavory communications with an underage D.C. staffer.
I can't contribute anything substantial to the discussion of the 'crime' itself (and is it a crime when no actual contact may have taken place?), so instead I'll make one comment about the way we've recieved and treated this disturbing information about Mr. Foley.
If it is wrong/distasteful/some sort of crime to communicate with an underage boy in the manner that Mr. Foley communicated, why is it not wrong/distasteful/some sort of crime to reproduce those conversations for a general audience to read and gossip over (as we're doing right now)?
Why is it wrong to write what Mr. Foley apparently wrote, but not wrong to consciously choose to read it?
I ask, because on ABC news you can pick up a transcript of one of Mr. Foley's conversations with this mysterious boy-staffer. You can read exactly what was written by Foley, and what was responded to by the boy in question.
How is that, in any substantial way, any less of a questionable activity than writing it is?
What Mr. Foley wrote may, in some sense, be a crime. If Foley had physical contact with underage boys then it's definately a crime.
But what ABC news is peddling is underage pornography - and the last time I checked, that was definately a no-no.