The Rights of Perverts - Or The Rights of Children?
Jessica’s Law is a set of statutes in North Carolina that make life tougher on convicted sex offenders. It increases potential punishment for them to include life in prison for particularly bad offenders, tightens up monitoring requirements, and generally makes life a lot less fun for convicted sex offenders in North Carolina. This bill, is named after poor Jessica Lunsford, a Florida girl who was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered by a convicted sex offender who lived near her home. To see the entire saga of Jessica’s Law (House Bill 933) as played out in the legislature, including the details of the actual law itself, click here. Who could be against this?
Well, who do you guess? Though she ended up voting for this bill along with all but one member of the NC House, according to JessicasLawNC.org, my opponent was much more concerned with the rights of sex offenders than she is with the rights of children not to be molested. She killed at least one Jessica’s Law bill prior to the passage of the current law. This should come as no surprise, as she is a liberal lawyer. Such people look at the world through a much different lens than most of the rest of us. Most of the rest of us would think that the right of a child to not be sexually abused would trump whatever rights that sex offenders might have.
Here is the quote, straight from their website: “Sub Committee met several times and had many discussions regarding the reasons for allowing sex offenders on school grounds and their rights. North Carolina Representative Jennifer Weiss was more concerned over rights of sex offenders than the victims. The Sub Committee ran into other dilemmas such as; sentencing, structure of wording in the bill and wanting to make changes to what the North Carolina House passed originally with HB 933.” Read the whole background of this, as told by JessicasLawNC.org, by clicking HERE. (You have to scroll down to find it.) And, as much as I wish I was making this up, I am not.
On April 27th, 2007, Another Jessica’s Law advocacy website stated, “We must act now! Our Children’s lives and futures depend on all of us to enact. Last year, Rep Jennifer Weiss ( Democrat- Wake County) Killed H.B. 1921 which was a bill similar to “Jessica’s Law” and now, they want to do the same with H.B. 933/the Jessica Lunsford Act, for N.C. Just guess who is Vice Chairman of the Judiciary II Committee? You guessed it, Rep. Jennifer Weiss. Out of fifteen members of the JII Committee, nine are Democrats and six are Republicans. ” Read the entire post for yourself here.
On April 29, 2007, this same advocacy website stated, ”Last year, Rep. Jennifer Weiss (Dem-Wake) would not allow Rep. Julia Howard (Rep -Iredell) bill read, which was a version of Jessica’s Law. “ Read it all HERE.
As a policeman, I have locked up sex offenders. They are loathsome people that nobody wants around, and for good reason. Once out of prison, they are likely extremely likely to re-offend and to molest another child. Until someone comes up with some sort of effective treatment to turn these pieces of human debris back into decent citizens, I think that we need to keep them away from our kids. In prison is a good place for them to be. We don’t need to worry about how they like it.
If you have kids, please go to the NC Sex Offender Registry and search the area near your home, and familiarize yourself with the photos of your local sex offenders. That way, if you see one of the perverts near your home, schools, or kids, you can take appropriate actions. And don’t forget to vote for me, to bring some sense back into the District 35 legislative seat.
UPDATE: Response to email: Yes, I know that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, even those arrested for sex offenses. That is one of the hallmarks of our justice system, which provides all with due process. I don’t want to change this AT ALL. What this bill does, despite my opponent’s work against it, is restrict the rights of CONVICTED sex offenders who have already had their day in court. And so what if they don’t like it?
I Didn’t Get the Thieves and Vandals Endorsement
I have been getting a LOT of endorsements from lots of groups in the past few weeks. (See this page for the list - but check back frequently, as it is getting longer every day!) One group that seems to NOT like me, though, is the thieves and vandals of District 35. (Do they have a union yet?)
Last night, after attending the Candidate Forum at Glenaire Retirement Community in Cary and the College Republicans meeting at NC State with my son, I returned home to find the campaign signs in my yard vandalized. Someone had damaged a good number of the signs that I have along the front of my yard. Since my wife and daughter were away at the fair, working at the GOP booth, nobody was home for a few hours. And a few hours of darkness was all that it took for the vandals to knock over, tear up, and otherwise damage my signs. Of course, I went back and replaced everything with new signs.
While I was still out in the yard, I noticed a couple of vehicles driving by slowly. Since I live on the dead end of a road, cars that do not belong here stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Two of them would drive up the street, and then drive back down. They looked like they were thinking about re-vandalizing the signs, but thought the better of doing anything while we were home. So, not only do we have vandals, but we have vandals who are cowards. Who apparently endorse my opponent by their actions.
I have also had a bunch of my signs stolen. I know where I put them up, and they are right next to signs from other candidates, even other Republican candidates, that remain untouched. Some thief or a group of thieves has been stealing them in a somewhat organized fashion. That’s OK - I realized that a subset of the sort of person who would support my opponent was the sort of person who has no respect for other people’s property. So, I built in an overage into our sign budget, and had a second batch of signs ready for this eventuality. So we soldier on, replacing the signs, and knowing that we are doing the right thing.
There is a funny thing about doing the right thing - it upsets some folks! But since I have the courage of my convictions, I accept the fact that the thieves and vandals (and other criminals) don’t like my tough on crime stances that are at odds with my lawyer opponent. But I know how to deal with criminals. I have locked up enough criminals (including thieves and vandals) back when I was a street cop. I know their type.
But what I don’t know is why anyone would want to have anything to do with these people. I call on my opponent to run a clean campaign, and to tell her folks to quit stealing and vandalizing.
And it also was a good thing for the sign vandals at my house that they did not come by when I was around. I certainly think that it is in their best interests not to do that.
UPDATE: Here is a blog post I wrote for Katy’s Conservative Corner, about some sign stealing and other shenanigans last year in the Cary Town Council races.
An Effectiveness Rating of 16?
We have been hearing quite a bit about effectiveness ratings in this election. Television ads have been touting them.
Well, my opponent has an effectivness rating, from a third-party organization that I am not affilliated with, and that is not affilliated with the Republican Party.
Civitas Action has given my opponent a Conservative Effectiveness Rating of 16 out of 100.
Yep. 16 out of 100. That is ranked 19 out of 120 House members. (123 were rated, but that accounts for such losers as Jim Black and Thomas Wright, who had to leave the House in order to serve prison time.) Of course, two members got a zero rating, so I guess that District 35 residents ought to count their blessings that she got as high as a 16.
I assure you that my Effectiveness Rating will be MUCH higher - I expect it to be closer to 95-100%.
FYI, their official organization description is, “Civitas Action is a 501(c)(4) non-profit that educates and informs North Carolinians on policy issues as well as the actions of their elected officials.”
About the Author: Eric Weaver is a Christian, a Husband, a Father, a Policeman, a Conservative, a Realtor, and a Businessmen. He is running for the North Carolina House in District 35 in 2008. Make sure to vote for him on November 4th!