Any sex story that involves a woman with younger men immediately garners headline attention and I’m not opposed to having a minimum age for consensual sex but why is it a crime if the boy involved was passed that age?

In this case a woman named Rachel Lehnardt had sex with an eighteen year old boy and apparently allowed her sixteen year old daughter and friends to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana in her home. Lehnardt has had her other children taken from her by the state of Georgia and is being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allowing people to drink in her home.

Lehnardt denies allowing anyone to drink in her home although apparently admitted to her Alcoholic’s Anonymous sponsor that she did engage in sexual acts with several boys over the age of 18. Who cares? Apparently everyone because the comment sections are filled with horror and outrage at her behavior.

Personally I have no problem with a parent who allows their child to drink alcohol in moderation at home. I certainly sipped beer and drank wine in my household from a young age. What is freedom if we cannot have sex with other adults no matter the age difference? What is freedom if we cannot allow our own children to have alcohol in our own homes.

The only possible criminal activity I see here is the allegation that she allowed minors not her own child to drink alcohol in her home. If we’re going to charge every person who is under 21 with possession of alcohol or marijuana I guess our jails just aren’t full enough with people who committed nonsense crimes.

It’s not like she forced these kids to drink. They drank because they wanted to drink. The boys had sex with her because, gosh, people like sex.

The state has taken her four children from her. Do we think placing them in foster care is really to their benefit?

Lehnardt admits a problem with alcohol and is in treatment. That’s where her sponsor ratted her out for being honest about what was going on in her life.

This is one where I know outraged moralists are going to yell at me and tell me how wrong I am. How the state must “save” those poor children from their evil and out of control mother.

I completely disagree. If she wants to let her kid drink at her home she should be allowed to do so. If she wants to have sex with people who are passed the age of legal consent then more power to her. Freedom means being free, not being free to tell everyone else how to live their lives.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition

I read a lot of stories about abuse of power from law enforcement officials in the news these days but this one ranks near the top. A fellow named Douglas Dendinger served a summons concerning a police brutality case involving his nephew.

The police officer, two prosecutor, the police chief, and three other witnesses described the handing over of the summons as a physical assault. Written testimony from multiple witnesses stated clearly that Dendinger assaulted the officer in the course of serving the summons. Dendinger has a prior drug conviction.

I want you to imagine the comments you might have made with just that information. What you might have thought about the story right at that moment. The police chief and six other witnesses accused a convicted drug user of assaulting an officer. It’s impossible they’re all lying. The guy is a convicted felon. The case involved his nephew.

I wonder how many times this exact same scenario has occurred all across this great nation of ours? There’s something new today. People have phones and can easily take video. I think you know where this is going.

The case finally got tossed out of court when the prosecutor’s office was forced to recuse themselves and the state took over. With the case dismissed Dendinger is now free to discuss the events in public. There is video. The police chief lied. The officer lied. The lawyers from the prosecutor’s office lied. Dendinger handed over the summons and walked away.

I want you to think about this case the next time you blindly support police officers against suspects. I’m not saying all police officers are bad. But when the bad officers are supported by the good officers we are all in trouble. The entire system may not be broken but it’s not working properly anymore. It is my opinion that good police officers are being driven from the force because they won’t go along with this sort of thing.

This antagonistic relationship between law enforcement and citizens is driven by the War on Drugs. The fact that municipalities increasingly rely on Seizure Laws to finance not only the police department but the entire city government. For all those great police officer out there; be aware that I’m not trying to attack you, I’m trying to save you!

This must stop. Police must return to Protecting and Serving, not intimidating, stealing, and using their position of power to attack anyone who dares question their authority.

When the citizens of this nation no longer trust the police force the entire country is in danger. We’re not there yet but it’s not good out there.

End the War on Drugs. Write the seizure laws off the books. City Hall finance your police department with what they need not the other way around. This is serious business.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition

The War on Drugs continues to threaten all our security and the case of Dominik Walker should send chills down the spine of every United States citizen.

Walker possibly sold heroine to Marlene Rose who then died of an overdose. Many people will say good. He was selling an illegal product and deserves a prison sentence. I couldn’t disagree more. This is such an egregious overreach of law enforcement that it makes my stomach turn. The implications are so far-reaching it’s difficult to fathom the possible repercussions.

Can a firearm dealer be charged with murder for selling a gun to someone who didn’t have a license and then went on to kill someone? Can a bartender be charged for murder for selling to a 20 year old who then got in a car accident in which someone died? Can a grocery store clerk be charged for murder for selling a cigarette to a 17 year old who then accidentally set fire to their house killing their entire family?

I’ll not tread lightly here. I’m a Libertarian who believes that the only drugs that are currently illegal are those the drug industry doesn’t control. Heroin is legal. Cocaine is legal. All types of drugs are legal but just in forms the pharmaceutical industry controls. Should a pharmacist be charged with murder when a patient overdoses on their pills? When the child of a patient overdoses because they took those pills?

The entire War on Drugs has caused nothing but misery and suffering for everyone. Drug users, drug dealers, law enforcement officers, innocents, and everyone else. We are all suffering and this apparently new legal precedent shocks me. Who can’t be charged when it becomes criminal to sell anything to anyone who goes on to commit a crime?

Someone who sells a stolen car should be charged with dealing in stolen property, not murdering the family the driver of the car hit in an accident. It’s madness. If someone dies from an herbal remedy manufacturer who engaged in false advertising should the retailer be held responsible for the death? I could go on forever. There is no end to the possible abuses.

I’m not one to bring race into every argument but the fact that Walker was black and Rose was white makes me question the entire prosecution. Do you think there would have been such a charge and sentence if Walker was a young white man from a good family and Rose a black woman from a poor neighborhood? I don’t.

End the War on Drugs. Manufacture, distribute, and sell. We are adults. If we make poor decisions we suffer the consequences. That’s the true price of freedom.

Tom Liberman

There’s been a pretty big story all over the news the last week and when I first read it the comments pretty much leaned in one direction but the story is quickly changing and comments are now going pretty much in reverse.

I don’t want to talk about the story so much in this blog post as the problems that come with leaping to a conclusion too quickly. That being said I do have to cover the story to explain my premise.

A woman was recently killed at her house. Her family reported to police that Tammy Meyers was involved in a near collision while teaching her daughter to drive and the people in the other vehicle followed her home and began shooting.

The initial reaction was that the people in the other car needed to be found and killed immediately. That there was no need for a trial when such vicious animals are involved.

The new story is that there was an driving incident but that Meyer returned home safely. She rounded up her son and at least one firearm before going back out to search for the offending vehicle. They could not find said car and returned home only to find that they had been followed and then the other group began a gun fight.

I would not be at all surprised to find the story changing even more. I’m going to withhold judgment for the moment although the family has already lied to police about the incident at least once which makes their entire story less plausible. The other party fled from the scene and has not yet turned themselves in which doesn’t put them in a particularly good light either.

At this point I think it’s entirely possible that Meyer caused the road rage incident, escalated it, and her son was the first to fire his weapon. That’s certainly the tone of the comments on the story now.

The reality is that I don’t know. That’s the lesson for everyone who was ready to pass judgment the moment the story broke and those with their opinions now. It’s a lesson we should all acknowledge. It’s easy to pass judgment without knowing all the facts. It’s a good idea to gather up information before making a committed decision one way or the other.

The reason this is such a good idea is that once you’ve committed to a particular opinion it’s not so easy to reverse. There is the natural human tendency to refuse to admit a mistake. And of course you cannot unsay anything you’ve said. If you’ve said something truly awful even an apology cannot always completely fix things.

Something to keep in mind.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition

I just read about an interesting case in which a teacher, Amy Bramlett, from San Bernadino, CA was accused of having sexual relations with a pair of her students. Three months into the investigation all charges have now been dropped. The details of the case bother me greatly. Read on.

All the information isn’t in yet but the it looks to me like a rather typical case of overzealous police officers backed up by a prosecutor who saw a high profile case as a way to gain advancement.

The story is relatively straightforward. Two boys broke into their teacher’s home and were caught. One boy panicked and made up a story about having sex with the teacher as being the reason why they were there. The second boy denied this repeatedly but was held in custody by the police and questioned for many hours until he too eventually admitted to doing something that he did not do. It’s impossible to guess what sort of trickery the police used to convince the boy to lie but it’s extremely informative as to the tactics our officers use to coerce admissions of guilt.

We’ve all seen various police dramas where officers lie to suspects and use other psychological tactics to gain an admission of guilt. What’s rather shocking about this one is that the tactics were used to get the criminal to lie about his own activity, not admit the truth. The boy was caught in the middle of a robbery and convinced by the police to lie and blame someone else. If you think this is an isolated case you should spend some time looking up Innocence Project.

The first boy went home and immediately told his father that he had lied. Authorities were informed that the boys recanted their story very early in the case but the zealous prosecutor pursued matters for three more months even going as far as to bring charges against Bramlett. In the meantime Bramlett was removed from the classroom and stigmatized in her community.

I well-understand it is the job of the police to vigorously investigate crime and of prosecutors to seek convictions for said crimes. It just seems to me that in this case the choice between a mundane burglary and a sensationalist teacher/student sex scandal drove the investigation rather than actual evidence. I wonder how often this happens.

Again, there’s a lot of information still out there but my initial reaction is to lay blame largely on the prosecutor for steering the investigation the wrong way. Certainly the police with their aggressive questioning in the wrong direction bear some responsibility but the actual filing of charges and three months of wasted time and surely considerable money falls squarely on the prosecutor. Not to mention the damage done to Bramlett which, despite all apologies, can never be undone.

Follow the evidence, I say. Even if you don’t like where it’s going. It makes us all safer.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition

The Ferguson situation here in my hometown of St. Louis has been making headlines for quite a while although I’ve refrained from posting on it largely because I don’t have much to add to the dialog. But things got weird during the St. Louis Rams football game this past weekend against the Oakland Raiders.

I have season tickets to the Rams and was at the game. My seats give me a good view of the player entrances and I saw the Rams receivers gather and raise their arms before they came onto the field. At the time it didn’t occur to me that they were showing support for the protesters in Ferguson and no one around me seemed to note it either. It quickly became a big story.

I don’t want to lure you into my blog today thinking it will draw conclusions from the tragic events in which Officer Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. Nor will I be talking about the despicable people who burned and looted during the riots. I won’t be talking about the peaceful protesters. What I will be talking about is the St. Louis Police Department’s reaction to the Rams receivers pregame jaunt onto the field.

What the police force did was demand an apology. Really? Your job is to protect and to serve. Not get bent out of shape because someone disagrees with you. Your job it to protect the rights of the people not to whine like a little baby when someone dares take a stance against you. Your job is quite the opposite. It is to protect those who take such unpopular stances. If a man calls you a pig on the street while peacefully protesting something, your job is to protect that man from anyone who tries to assault him. That’s your job. That’s the oath you swore.

Is it fun to protect people who disagree with you? No. It’s your job.

Do you swear to only protect and serve people who like you? No. You swear to protect and serve us all. No matter our opinion of you.

Stop crying for apologies because your panties are in a twist because someone insulted you.

A Rams official tried to reach out and they threw him immediately under the bus claiming he apologized. They sent out memos embarrassing the official. They tweeted the definition of an apology. Essentially they tried to bully both the NFL and the St. Louis Rams into doing what they wanted. So here we have a police agency’s top officials acting to bully and intimidate anyone who dares disagree with them. Sound familiar?

The police are saying, in no uncertain terms, don’t cross us. We’ll hit you, we’ll hit you hard, and make you regret it. Sound familiar? Top-down leadership makes its way directly to the ranks.

Oh, and by the way, Officer Wilson was attacked and had every right to defend himself. Could he have handled the entire situation better, probably, but when you’ve got a giant man beating on you, you have every right to defend yourself.

Demand an apology? Give me a break.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition