Just Plain Inexplicable or Inexcusable

Draw your own conclusions.

Dick 'n Eugene... an embarassment to Republicans everywhere.

Look here for more captions expressing the special relationship between Dick Black and "professional bigot" Eugene Delgaudio. We kind of like this one: "The "Grandstanders" can't figure out how to do the can-can, since "you can't" is all they know."

Black explains that stalking thing. Now we get it.

We aren't the only ones wondering about Dick Black's odd 2005 vote against increased penalties for repeated offenses of stalking - especially odd for a self-described "law and order" legislator. A reporter from Leesburg Today asked Black for an explanation during the October 12 candidate forum in Cascades. It sounded like a pretty straightforward question to us.

Black's response was a story of an experience he had as an Army prosecutor. It seems that a suspect in an assault case had been held in custody as long as permitted by law, then released. According to Dick Black, who had just been assigned the case, he took it upon himself to find out where this person was living, visited the person's home and neighborhood repeatedly, and informed all the neighbors that this person had been a suspect in this crime.

The point of this story seemed to be: Black "knew" that the person was guilty, and served justice as he saw fit, outside the parameters of the law. We wonder if there has been an investigation into this stalking behavior by Dick Black. Although he ultimately failed to answer the question directly, his response suggests that he has sympathy for the "vigilante justice" stalkers often believe they are meting out to their targets. Now we get it. The increased penalties he voted against might be applied to someone very much like Dick Black.

Source: Candidate Forum sponsored by Loudoun League of Women Voters, October 12, 2005, Cascades

Black: Tough on "crime," easy on stalkers

Dick Black tells his constituents that he's "tough on crime." They should read the fine print. His legislative record indicates that what he means by "crime" is his constituents' consensual intimate behavior, and possibly the fabricated child abuse he claims is perpetrated by gay and lesbian parents. When it comes to actual, documented abuse of children within their families, or marital rape, or repeated offenses by stalkers, he's less than interested. In fact, he actively opposes investigating and prosecuting these crimes.

Stalking is defined as a willful, malicious and repeated behavior toward another person that causes that person to experience reasonable fear of death, criminal sexual assault, or bodily injury. Eighty to ninety percent of stalking victims are women. A National Violence Against Women Survey found strong correlation between stalking and other forms of abusive behavior and violence, and the National Institute for Justice Model Antistalking Law recommends that punishment for stalking crimes be set at the felony level.

Dick Black was one of only four delegates who voted against increasing the penalty for repeated stalking, making a second instance of this abusive behavior a class 6 felony.

Sources: HB 2688, AARDVARK, U.S. Department of Justice Report

Black has no regrets for Virginia's hideous eugenics laws

In 1924, the Virginia General Assembly passed the "Eugenical Sterilization Act" and the closely related "Racial Integrity Act", the law prohibiting marriage between "whites" and "coloreds" which was in 1967 finally overturned by the Supreme Court in the infamous Loving v. Virginia case. Virginia was a leading force in the eugenics movement in the U.S., with the registrar of the State Bureau of Vital Statistics and other officials expressing open admiration for the Nazis and their attention to "racial purity."

Registrar Walter A. Plecker was invited to describe Virginia's experience to national audiences, addressing the American Public Health Association in 1924 on "Virginia's Attempt to Adjust the Color Problem." Plecker's legacy is still to this day felt by Virginians whose family vital records were lost or altered because of this fanatical white supremacist movement and its implementation in Virginia law.

Between 1924 and 1979, at least 8,300 mixed-race, "immoral", "feebleminded" or otherwise "unfit" Virginians were involuntarily sterilized, marriages invalidated and entire families driven from Virginia and torn apart.

In February 2001, the House overwhelmingly passed HJ 607, a resolution declaring "profound regret over the Commonwealth's role in the eugenics movement in this country and the incalculable human damage done in the name of eugenics." The Senate followed suit, passing it unanimously. Dick Black was one of only 10 legislators in the entire General Assembly to vote against this resolution. In explanation, Black simply said that he doesn't "support apologizing for other people's actions."

Other remarks made by Black suggest a different motivation. Speaking about the "problem" of declining birth rates due to women exercising control over their reproduction, Black warned of "profound implications" of those losses, "not the least of which is the gradual collapse of our southern borders. We have lost the youthful vigor from the native population, and replacements have to come from somewhere," Black said. "It makes immigration on a massive scale inevitable because there are some things only young people can do."

Plecker also complained about the paucity of births among white middle class Virginians as compared to the "six, eight, ten, twelve children" of Virginia's mixed-race underclass: "When we consider ... that the white birth-rate includes those who add no real strength to our population, we can easily realize that the loss in the country as well as in the city is from the class of well-to-do families to which we look for future leaders."

Sources: HJ607 (LIS), Richmond Times Dispatch, Nov. 26, 2000, Eugenicsarchive.org, Negro History Bulletin, Virginian-Pilot, Aug. 18, 2004, Washington Post, Feb. 3, 2001, Washington Post, Sep 14, 2003

Freedom's just another word for Black's personal opinion

"I began to notice that we were imposing layer upon layer of restrictions on people," Black said. "And I began to realize philosophically that if we don't stop telling people what to do, there would be no freedom at all." With that, Dick Black voted against a 2003 bill patroned by Senator Bill Mims that would make failure to wear a safety belt a primary offense. Black was the only legislator in the Loudoun delegation to oppose this bill and its companion in the House.

Gov. Warner described the bill as "a common sense reform that will save lives." Law enforcement officers and traffic safety advocates testified that the percentage of drivers who don't use safety belts in Virginia would be cut in half by the change.

"There are many things that people do in a free society that are dangerous . . Janis Joplin was wrong when she sang that 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,' because when you have freedom, you have everything," said Black as he explained that if we don't prohibit swimming and skateboarding, we can't mandate safety belt use, either.

On the other hand, when the subject is citizens' bedrooms and family relationships, Black's view of personal liberty makes an abrupt turn. He insists that "sound cultures make rules," such as Virginia's archaic "Crimes Against Nature" laws, and the denial of private contract rights between same sex partners. We must prohibit such rights because recognition of these relationships "reinforces medically dangerous sexual practices." Imposing layer upon layer of restrictions on people Dick Black happens to dislike is, apparently, different.

Sources: SB 1325, HB 2711, Virginia Star, Feb. 2003, Washington Post, Feb. 6, 2003

Black feels that logical consistency is overrated

"Mutual love is not the basis for marriage," Dick Black explained in a 2004 public forum. "It's really not a complex issue. Marriage between males and females is "natural" because "they are biologically and physically complementary."

Later in the same forum Black asserted that "marriage is not defined by a certain sexual practice . . why would we distinguish between men who engage in mutual sexual acts and those who are close friends?"

We don't get it. Do you?

Source: Public debate between Black and Jay Fisette (D-Arlington County Board), sponsored by the Arlington Committee of 100, Oct. 13, 2004

extreme. ineffective. dick black.