1st Disclaimer: I am not a member of any political party. I personally agree and disagree with aspects of both Republican and Democrat platforms.
2nd Disclaimer: I took notes during and after this interview. Since the conversation was not recorded, I gave a site business card to the interviewee and offered them to contact me if they felt I misquoted or mischaracterized them.
I spoke to Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden briefly before Saturday’s general session at the Idaho Falls Republican convention.
I mentioned a post that reviewed his office’s ProtecTeens CD, and said it was generally great but there were a couple suggestions. Wasden asked what suggestions, and of course being on the spot I could not recall.
Regarding the ProtecTeens CD, the suggestions were to use more recent statistics, for highlighting an adult’s profile in the context of a minor, and generally demonizing the technology. Wasden also suggested teens report to their parents every time they get an offensive message, which is not likely because parents are then more apt to restrict Internet usage.
I asked the following question:
Why is it Republicans are traditionally the fiscally conservative, yet nationally they have allowed our debt to balloon several times to record levels and in-state they spent the surplus on pet projects rather than grant a tax refund? Have Republicans abandoned this principle?
Wasden replied he did not think Republicans had abandoned their fiscal conservativism, and pointed to forty years of Democrat domination in Congress. He said not until Ronald Reagan did taxes start going down.
Quite honestly, I had not expected or prepared for interviewing the Attorney General. It was Mike Adams who suggested interviewing him and graciously introduced us. I thought of a current topic off the top of my head, asking about MySpace stories in the media, was it being demonized or was it truly a dangerous place?
Wasden replied he thinks it is a very dangerous place for teens, as demonstrated in the ProtecTeens CD. He said there are identified pedophiles with MySpace profiles that brazenly discuss their sexual additions in their pages. Wasden said the problem is teens know the technology but not the wisdom to discriminate information, and parents have the wisdom but don’t know the technology.
I asked Wasden if he felt current sentencing guidelines for child molesters are adequate? Wasden pointed out that he introduced a bill last session to increase pedophile penalties, and that it sailed through without any dissenting votes. He had to explain this a couple times for me to fully understand the change, but I think I finally understood it. If a board determines someone is a violent sexual predator according to published guidelines and designates that person as such, if that person commits a registrable sexual offense a second time, that person will get life in prison.
That sounds pretty cool.
After we parted, I wished I had asked about the alarming practice of plea bargains. Many people report that sexual offenses are washed away by plea bargains that result in guilty pleas to non-registrable sexual offenses. Therefore many sexual predators are not being identified or forced to register as a sexual offender.
How big is this problem, and is there anything that can be done to fix it?
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Let's have a new poll, alright, Joe?
:@:)
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