A Question for Adam Reed

My fellow SOLOists,

A number of you are apparently unhappy with Adam Reed, because some of you have sent me information that might explain his attempts in this forum to have me banned, moderated, or at least discredited. One of the first items I posted in SOLO was my support of Lindsay Perigo’s vehement opposition to pedophiles using libertarianism to sanction the sexual abuse of children. Linz’s scorn was specifically directed at a reprobate named Peron who was associated with NAMBLA and was fighting deportation from New Zealand. I shared Linz’s scorn. Reed didn’t.

Why not? I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out. Please consider the following items that I have recently learned had been posted in SOLO and elsewhere:

1. Reed opposes age of consent laws. (SOLO)

2. Reed advocates emancipation for “sufficiently mature” children to engage in sexual relationships. (SOLO)

3. Reed has stated that his sexual preference is for partners who are childlike in appearance and manner. (SOLO)

4. As an adult Reed impregnated a sixteen-year-old. (SOLO)

5. Reed claims that forced masturbation to child pornography is a valid psychotherapy technique to treat pedophilia. (SOLO)

6. Around December 1999 Reed was arrested in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and charged with possession of 12 boxes of child porn. (Various internet newsites, including http://www.orlandoweekly.com/columns/story.asp?id=1687)

7. Reed was subsequently incarcerated in the Monmouth County jail. (SOLO)

8. Reed claims he was tortured for 11 days by the Monmouth County sheriff to extract a confession from him by being held in a “freezer cell” in light clothing at a temperature of -30C (-22F). (SOLO)

9. Apparently Reed was released, but neither he nor his attorney ever reported to any authority or the news media the existence of a torture chamber at the Monmouth County jail. (SOLO)

10. Although Reed had established himself in Monmouth County to the extent that he was even a public official there (serving on the school board), he packed up his bags and moved to California. (SOLO)

I don’t know about you, but if I were falsely charged in my hometown with a crime and then tortured to force a confession to it, I wouldn’t be sneaking out of town with my tail between my legs. There’d be holy hell to pay. But then Reed lied about the torture. No one could survive the freezing conditions he claims he had. So I for one suspect he is also lying about being falsely charged for possession of child porn (especially in light of Items #1 through #5). Getting off the hook from that charge on a technicality (for example, claiming that it was part of his psychotherapy) would make his quiet departure believable.

Turnabout is fair play. Yesterday Reed put me in the position of having to explain myself here about things that are irrelevant to my participation in SOLO. So today I’ll put him in the position of explaining how he is not a pedophile who had possession of 12 twelve boxes of child porn. One difference, however. I do believe his exploitation of Objectivism to rationalize adult-child sexual relationships is a monstrosity that should be denied any forum.

I leave it to you, my fellow SOLOists, to decide whether or not Reed deserves the company of decent people. I will stick to my earlier decision to ostracize this loathsome creature.

Andy

Post 1

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 2:32pm

Didn't like the thread started about me, didn't like the thread started about you, don't like this thread.

Sarah

Post 2

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 2:49pm

Sarah,

I never claimed injury nor demanded an apology. Now I'm getting to the bottom of why Reed has been gunning for me from the beginning.

Andy

(Edited by Andy Postema on 10/29, 8:55pm)

Post 3

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 3:03pm

*sigh*

Three... and counting...

:o(

Post 4

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 3:58pm

Andy,

The people I tangled with in New Jersey are much more dangerous that anyone not skilled in crime - including politics - can handle. I don't claim those skills. I was already packing to move to California at the time, but I suspect that had I remained in New Jersey, I would now be dead.

My preference for adult women who cultivate a youthful personality and appearance has little to do with age. My wife and I will both be 60 next year. As I wrote in a comment on Linz's reference to the same fact, I fully expect that when she is 80 she will still be a kid inside, and I will still love her for it.

The youngest person I ever was sexually involved with was 16, when I was 20. That is the full extent of my "problem" with "age of consent laws."

The New Jersey incident in the briefest possible summary:

I was elected twice to the Marlboro school board, the second time after, among other things, getting through a policy that recognized families' right to home schooling without interference from "authorities," and - for the first time in the history of the State of New Jersey - actually lowered the school tax rate while bringing student achievement to the top in a very competitive county. Then I discovered that the local police were involved in a scheme to use school jobs as sinecures for organized crime figures, including one who had spent 10 years in the state prison - and worked in the schools for half a year before I discovered his record.

After I left Bell Labs (because of management problems that eventually caused the Lucent flame-out) I used a cheap but insecure ISP, thinking that, since I had nothing to hide, it was a reasonable and inexpensive way to stay on the Internet for a few weeks while moving to California. Four weeks before my planned move to California, child pornography files were planted by someone who broke into my computer, and printouts of those same files were "found" - that is, planted - in my garbage by the local Mob-owned garbage service. My apartment was searched, and 12 boxes of normal adult pornography - all of it legally certified as produced with models 18 or older - were taken, presumably on the excuse that some of the adult models were neotenic enough to be "innocently" mistaken for minors in the heat of the search.

I was arrested, and spent 11 days in the county jail, subjected to the "boat," the "freezer," denial of prostate medication and so on. Fortunately, I was able to find a lawyer with the balls to demand that the evidence be transferred from the local cops to the FBI-certified State Forensic Lab. The scientists at the lab proved that the printouts "found" in my garbage had NOT been printed from my computer's printer (although the local prosecutor did not appear at all interested in finding out exactly who had printed them and planted them in my garbage.) The case was dismissed and my arrest record expunged. Even my porn collection, the whole twelve boxes of it, was returned to me, since it did not in fact include any pictures of actual minors.

If anyone wishes to double-check the above, the full public record should be available at the Monmouth County Courts archive.

Post 5

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 4:09pm

"The people I tangled with in New Jersey are much more dangerous that anyone not skilled in crime - including politics - can handle. I don't claim those skills. I was already packing to move to California at the time, but I suspect that had I remained in New Jersey, I would now be dead."

Well, the unofficial motto of New Jersey is "Where only the strong survive...". And one politician suggested that the state song be "Born to Run".

Joe
Garden State homegrown off exit 35-A.

Post 6

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 4:29pm

Andy & Adam,

Would you please withdraw to a quieter, less public, corner of SOLO before continuing to bash each other's brains in?

You are guests in someone else's forum and I'd hate for Diana Hsieh et al to gain any more evidence that SOLO doesn't adhere to quote "basic standards of intellectual discussion, particularly as to what constitutes Objectivism."

Perhaps the dissent or a newly formed Sleeze forum might be more appropriate for this sort of mud-throwing contest?

Post 7

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 4:54pm

Robert,

I've given up on mud-throwing contests. It was an easy decision, since I was not any good at it, and I messed up but good the first time I had the bad idea to try it. Feel free to open up the new section, but you won't see me there.

Joe,

You know what is said about policemen in New Jersey.

After an honest cop has lived in New Jersey for a year, he is either no longer honest, no longer a cop, no longer in New Jersey, or no longer among the living.

(Edited by Adam Reed
on 10/29, 4:56pm)

Post 8

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 5:08pm

Andy,

I don't blame you for being angry at Adam Reed for starting a thread based on a false identification between you and a different person named Andy Postema. I'd be livid if anyone had done that sort of thing to me.

However, Adam was both blasted and lampooned for starting that thread, and he apologized to you for doing it.

You don't have to accept his apology. But starting a thread like this brings no credit to you, and no benefit to anyone who might read it. If continued, it will simply spur more departures from SOLO, which has already seen too many.

Robert Campbell

Post 9

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 6:18pm

Robert Winefield, forget mudslinging and sleaze. Those terms retain a connotation of civility. I was actually thinking of a forum called Cesspool where SOLO members can treat each other like ... well ... feces. Another forum unrelated to Objectivism which shall remain unnamed actually has such a forum as part of its collection.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 10/29, 6:19pm)

Post 10

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 7:23pm

I'm not in favor of heavy moderation of message boards -- but I suggest this might be an occasion in which the moderators should consider deleting a message thread. Mr. Postema's inferences and accusations carry no weight and this thread could easily turn into a very ugly, vindictive 200 post slug fest about the most irrelivant and embarassing subject matter possible.

Andy, why not delete this garbage yourself?

- Jason

Post 11

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 7:51pm

Playing across the room on my TV, there is a PBS travel program narrated by Rick Steves, the travel writer's visit to Northern Ireland. On every street corner there are remembrances of "the troubles" and the killings. Decades later, the Catholics and the Protestants can't get over hating and demonizing each other to the consternation of the rest of more civilized Europe for whom the religious wars ended centuries ago.

"And the Protestants proudly call the city Londonderry. No Catholic would accept that term. To them it is always Derry."

I have posted before on too frequent a lack of civility and a not high level of discourse and getting into personalities rather than ideas on Solo.

But that is benign compared to this disgusting, filthy sewage.

I never imagined it would drop to almost the Northern Ireland level where people have so little maturity and so little self-control that they allow their anger and bitterness and vindictiveness to so sweep them past any bounds of reason -- or awareness of what a discussion site of general interest is about -- that they post *Entire Threads* about or named after a particular person they wish to attack personally and trumpet as loudly as they can to bystanders...

....not just to disagree with their ideas but the angry out-of-control lust to personally destroy -- to rake through their past background fishing for any muck to use against them, like the worst Republican or Democratic partisan trying to discredit a court nominee by finding that he once hired an illegal alien or smoked pot decades ago.

This just goes to show that having read and liked a novel an idea or two of Ayn Rand's is absolutely no guarantee of anything.

Even the Hatfields and the McCoys were more civilized. They would just shoot you. They wouldn't try to assassinate your character.

Contemptible. Just contemptible.

Philip Coates
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 10/29, 7:54pm)

Post 12

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 7:51pm

I'm shaking my head in disbelief here. Andy you are an intelligent, lucid and logical member here at SOLO and for this reason there are those who get angy with you, spit venom at you and who would no doubt stoop to any level to see your demise. I think it was an ARI columnist once that wrote an op-ed about Martha Stewart which was called The Tall Poppies (or something to that effect). It argued that those that are petty seek to destroy the tall poppies; I've seen people here try and do this with you. I've agreed with you in many instances and vehemently disagreed with you in a few instances, but I've always respected your integrity and considered you a tremendous assett to SOLO. Given this, I have to plead with you to keep the faith man. Keep your head up and never volunteer to cut your own self down for the sake of the second-handers.

You've rightly cut through the shit with Adam in other places, appropriate places, but this is neither the place nor the proper way. I agree with Jason; delete this, before it needlessly further discredits you.

Post 13

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 7:53pm

Jason,

Given that some have already read the smear, or heard about it, I want my posting of the facts to remain available for the record.

Post 14

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 8:34pm

Phil,

Let's be clear. I’ve given you the facts about Reed’s perversion of Objectivism. In response he hasn’t denied anything other than a clarification that his twelve boxes of child porn were simulated child porn. I've been repeatedly maligned by this man, and now I know why. He correctly assessed (if for the wrong reasons) I am resolutely opposed to his child sex agenda. I'm right about who Reed is, and I'm right to put out the facts to deny him the cover of Objectivism for his perversion. Some things are beyond the pale, and someone has to say so - even if it means not being nice.

Andy

[Edited to eliminate the heat.]

(Edited by Andy Postema on 10/29, 8:59pm)

Post 15

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 8:34pm

Andy,

Given the level of acrimony, I understand not accepting Adam's apology. You are pissed that he has force-fed you phrases over time - rightly so. I understand looking for payback in kind for an attack where the sources were not properly checked. You are pissed - rightly so.

I do not understand this - following one stupid thing with another.

My opinion is that, despite our own disagreements, you are better than that.

Michael

Edit - My post crossed with yours. I would like to take that last line and rewrite it: "My opinion is that, despite our own disagreements, you have it in you to be better than that, if you so choose. It depends on your own priorities. Do not forget that you are in the house of another."

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 10/29, 8:43pm)

Post 16

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 8:54pm

Reed,

MSK has done something useful. He's reminded me that this house isn't my house. So let me take full account of all those here who disapprove of what I've done and think coolly about this. There is one thing I cannot understand about your account. What is the difference in the sexual appetite of a person arousing himself with child pornography and another arousing himself with simulated child pornography?

Andy

Post 17

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 9:00pm

I was alerted some months back to Adam's brush with the law over child porn. Given his defence of Jim Peron, which had pissed me off, I was very alarmed, and asked him about it. He gave me the same explanation he's given here. As things stand, Adam is entitled absolutely to the presumption of innocence.

When I saw Adam's "expose" of Andy, I cringed, knowing exactly what Andy would probably uncover if he retaliated in kind. But in a way I'm relieved that it's come out, since it inevitably would, sooner or later. And I don't damn Andy for raising it - protecting Objectivism, libertarianism and SOLO from a pedophile agenda is a legitimate concern in my book.

Given that Adam himself has said he wants the record to stand, rather than delete the thread I suggest folk just let it die, unless there's some compelling reason not to.

And Adam has surely learned from this that he doesn't help himself by being an asshole to people in the way he was to Andy.

Linz

Post 18

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 9:13pm

Linz,

As things stand, Adam is entitled absolutely to the presumption of innocence.

Legally, that's true. The child pornography charges were dropped against Reed, so it would be defamatory to call him a felon.

However, this isn't a court of law. If sufficient facts are available we can draw judgments about someone, as I have done about Reed, and no longer extend to him the presumption of innocence. We have Reed's own words in this forum, and I have concluded from them in conjunction with the Monmouth arrest that Reed is using Objectivism to advance the pedophile agenda. I've now called him out on it.

Andy

Post 19

Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 9:33pm