Ace, you know Bill can't help him self

Ace, I'm glad someone is doing the dirty work. Where would we be without you or O'Reilly?

And hey, don't forget to check out that website. Wait a minute, I already am. Never mind.

If Bill's pee pee was as big as his ego he wouldn't need to do the phone sex thing.

He Bloviates so others don't have to?

I caught part of that segment. It seemed that the beleagured Democratic state legislator (named "Leno," I believe) was trying to squeeze in an interesting point about California's "three strikes" law. That is, he did not want the mere first-time possession of child pornography to be a felony because of the onorous operation of California's law on people who have committed even "non-violent" offenses. Rep. Leno's sentiments are probably not unique, which suggests that tough enforcement of possession of child pornography is an unintended casualty of taking discretion away from judges.

It is also interesting that O'Reilly couched his objections to child pornography on the exploitation of children. If that is his basis, then he presumably would not be as tough on people caught with digitally created child porn. This raises an interesting question that will soon be extremely germane: is the exploitation of children the only reason why we treat child porn differently than conventional porn, or is it because we believe that people who consume child porn are likely to commit other crimes against children (such as actual molestation)?

"is the exploitation of children the only reason why we treat child porn differently than conventional porn, or is it because we believe that people who consume child porn are likely to commit other crimes against children (such as actual molestation)? "

It's both, actually. These aren't mutually exclusive ideas and either one is sufficient justification for child porn possession to be a felony. Somebody may try and convince you that consumers of child porn don't necessarily act out their fantasies but that would be a crock of you-know-what, imho.

BrewFan's right. Child sex offenders have a recidivism rate of around 80-90%. Most of them don't think they're sick and don't see anything wrong with what they're doing, twisted as that sounds. The majority of child molesters have been found with child porn in their possession, and that's usually how they start out, progressing into abusing children. These freaks even form little clubs, trading images and stories of the most horrid things you can think of.

"The majority of child molesters have been found with child porn in their possession, and that's usually how they start out, progressing into abusing children."

Which tells us squat about whether we should ban the stuff or not. This bit of logic is exactly equivalent to the idea that we should ban weapons because practically every violent criminal has been found with a weapon in his posession.

The useful question is the other way around: what proportion of posessors of child porn go on to commit sex crimes? Good luck answering that question now that posession of such is carefully hidden and mostly comes to light when someone comes to the attention of law enforcement; i.e., when they commit a sex crime and someone calls the cops. How many hide such pictures and never commit sex crimes and never come to the attention of the police? There's no way of knowing.

Yeah, BO is an entertainer,

but he seems to have championed an issue that's really important, and he is hammering legislators over it. I like that.

Ken,

Your gun analogy is flawed in that we can empirically prove that gun ownership does not lead to gun crimes and there is redeeming social value to owning a gun. Even though we might not be able to 'prove' the child porn/sex crime link to your satisfaction the fact the opposite is true is enough to make possession of child porn a felony because there is no redeeming social value to child pornography.

Well said Brewfan and UGAdawg.
Mark Leno of San Francisco is the ultra-lefty involved here, and O'Reilly was trying to nail him personally for voting against legislation that included penalties for posession of child porn. (Leno is gay, and sponsored the Cal gay-marriage bill. O'Reilly no doubt was trying to tie in gays with child porn.) Tigerhawk's mention of Cal's 3-strikes law as being "onorous" makes me wonder... onorous because (as Tigerhawk says) "people who have committed even 'non-violent' offenses" (after 2 serious or violent offenses- 'strikes') are sentenced to mandatory 25-life; or onorous because "tough enforcement of possession of child pornography is an unintended casualty of taking discretion away from judges."??
I'm all for 3-strikes. If you've gotten two prior serious or violent felonies, that's 2 too many. And if you're that willing to tempt fate, you're not 'rehabilitated'.
As far as "taking discretion away from judges", that's assuming they use discretion to start with here in California, especially in terms of sentencing violent criminals!!

I saw that episode and was disgusted with O'Reilly's behavior. I have little truck with Mark Leno's politics but such uncivil behavior as shouting down an interviewee is not welcome in my house.

O'Reilly should remember that he's a guest and that uncouth guests don't get invited back.

Besides, the argument was 1 year in county jail vs 1 year in state prison. Big deal.

Leno is against any law being passed creating a felony b/c of his lame 3 Strikes argument. And it's untrue that 3 Strikes is mandatory. Discretion is still allowed to reduce the sentence to make it just.

Leno is against pedos being ordered to stay away from schools and playgrounds, too. He and Jackie Goldbert who is a lesbian lefty, -- why do they have to give gay people a bad name? They are always pulling this shit. They are the ones that opposed criminalizing necrophilia, also.

Unless I skipped someone already pointing out the obvious, possession of child porn should be a felony b/c to satisfy the demand kids get victimized. So, tough. Make it a felony. In fact, they should make it a serious felony

Which tells us squat about whether we should ban the stuff or not. This bit of logic is exactly equivalent to the idea that we should ban weapons because practically every violent criminal has been found with a weapon in his posession.

No one is seriously hurt -- both physically and psychologically by the mere manufacturing of guns as is the case in the manufacturing of porn.

So, we can reduce the incentive to produce this dirt and thereby reduce the victiminzation of kids, by making it illegal to merely possess it.

Your analogy sucks.

Heh heh, Leno didn't count on... THE O'RILLEY FACTOR!!!