Tuesday, April 08, 2008

A demagogue by any other name . . .
or, Jerry Lee Lewis is so screwed



Bobby Jindal knows just what to do with pervs down there in Louisiana. He's gonna lock the "monsters" up and throw away the key.

And when -- if -- they get out,
they'll have to register as sex offenders for life. And there are a lot of places "monsters" won't be able to live.

Take the guy who set his eye on a 14-year-old girl. He wanted her somethin' bad. But there was a slight problem, apart from her being just barely 14. He was 22.

And to make things worse -- at least from the perspective of such a "monster" -- was that the relatives who took her in after her mother died were about to send her off to boarding school. So he ran off with her.

Worse than that, they were second cousins.

And worse than that, the poor child had a child by the time she was 15 -- just barely.

IF BOBBY JINDAL had been governor, the horndog would be in jail for a good long time and then, after that, would have to wear a scarlet penis for the rest of his life. And, with the exception of some nooks and crannies in the bayous and piney woods, a cry of "Damn straight!" would arise all across the Gret Stet.

Just one thing, though.

Romeo and Juliet: SVU were my maternal grandparents. They were married Dec. 24, 1905, and stayed that way until my grandfather died in 1956.

They never had it easy, not with 15 kids over the years and a Great Depression, to boot. Yet, 11 children made it to adulthood and all of those survived to old age. Two are alive still.

Not bad work for a sex offender and his victim.

OBVIOUSLY, times and mores have changed, as is evident
in this story from WAFB television in Baton Rouge:

We found a man who is considered a sex offender by law. He asked to have his identity protected, so we'll call him "Sam." Sam says he is not a monster and should not be behind bars. "When I was 18, I did not research the law to find out if it was okay if I slept with a 14-year-old. I did not know that. That's why at the time, I made a stupid decision," he says. Sam says he was in love with his 14-year-old girlfriend. He met her at church. They dated. Then, he says his feelings for her got out of hand. "Before I know it, I got arrested and everything and then I caught the charge. Immature. I take full responsibility and I should have known better, but sometimes you put yourself in a situation and it's hard to go back sometimes."

Sam served five years probation, with counseling and psychological evaluations. Eventually, a local judge determined Sam was not a threat to society and waived his charges. That was about 12 years ago. "Then, all of a sudden, they came with a letter saying I have to register as a sex offender." The state Legislature passed new laws in 2004 to disregard court-appointed waivers and force people like Sam to re-visit their past. "When does my life move on? When do I escape the shadow of my mistakes?" he asks.

YOU'D HAVE TO THINK that someone smart enough to have graduated from Brown and then Oxford, like Jindal, would know that there are sex offenders, and then there are sex offenders.

"Sam" in the Channel 9 report broke a law by acting upon a natural impulse with a girl who also was a teen-ager. It was wrong, by our contemporary standards, and there were rightful consequences.

But "Sam," and those like him, are no more "dangerous sex offenders" than was my grandpa, who broke no law in 1905. My grandfather was in love with my grandmother, and he eloped with her before her uncle could send her off to a convent . . . not boarding school.

Of course, Bobby Jindal does know better -- just like he damn well knows that "contemporary standards" are a recent innovation in all corners of a state where modernity still fights a mighty battle to fan out from a tenuous beachhead.

What Louisianians need to remember is they're not so far removed from the days of the Southern demagogue, who curried favor with the booboisie by railing against the black man -- or, alternatively, Standard Oil -- all in a bid to line his pockets and build a political empire. If the ordinary voter got anything out of the deal at all, he found -- too late -- that it came with a great (and previously hidden) cost.

SO WHY is Bobby Jindal demagoguing the "sex offender" issue -- and in the process hiding genuine societal threats amid a fog of injustice that will envelop a bunch of people who did something stupid, but not unnatural, when they were kids?

That's what I want to know about this "reform" governor who held so much promise but is quickly degenerating into just another doctrinaire Republican, dispensing the same old stuff from the same old GOP manure spreader.

Naturally, the Louisiana Legislature probably will be stupid enough to pass this Jindal foolishness unmolested. Just like some God-fearin', prevert-bashin', good ol' boy will watch the Channel 9 report and yell "Damn right they need to lock up them PREverts! Kill them sumbitches!" at the TV set.

Right before he gets that quizzical look on his face, turns to the wife/shack-up/girlfriend, and sayeth:

"Honey, HOW old was you when Junior was born?"

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