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conuly
One on an apparently basless campaign against a group home for disabled women
One on Florida deliberately housing sex offenders under a bridge
One (a few months old) on how draconian laws do much more harm than good.
I'm not saying child molestation is something nice, or only kinda bad. Yeah, it's wrong. It's about as wrong as you can get. But... where is the common sense?
I mean, if the point of these laws is to punish molesters, great. You've done that, several times over. But if the point of these laws is to protect children (which I think is a far more laudable goal)... by supporting these laws, you fail. Miserably.
Here's the facts: Your child is a lot more likely to be harmed by a teacher, doctor, family member, scout leader, or trusted family friend than by a random stranger. While stranger abductions certainly do happen, they don't happen in the proportion that people believe.
Here's another fact: If you can't survive by following the law, if you can't eat, if you can't house yourself - you will break the law to survive. If the law says you have to register and go to treatment to prevent backsliding, and oh, by the way, you can't earn money if you're registered or rent an apartment - you'll drop off the lists, you'll stop going to treatment. Which I guess means you might be more likely to commit the same crime all over again. (Heck, if prison is preferable to life outside of prison, any cynics willing to bet you might commit the crime just so you can do the time? Anybody?)
Here's something else: Every crime, and I mean every crime, will have false convictions. (And, in the case of sex offenders, a whole lot of people who got stuck with the term after they did something dumb like sleep with their girlfriend who was two years younger, that sort of thing.) So while phrases like "They should all be shot" and "They should be tortured and shot" might sound nice, and you might mean it, I'd like to ask how you can really, truly, positively be certain that there aren't any mistakes made. The justice system isn't perfect, it can't be, and I refuse to advocate the death penalty until we can be sure that we only convict the guilty. (And that this sort of law won't get overextended and turn around and bite me in the ass. If it's okay to punish sex offenders after their term is up, why not murderers? Actually, why not murderers? But that's another issue.)
And another one: Recidivism is apparently pretty low with released molesters. I did not know that, and I suspect you didn't either.
Here's what's going to protect children:
Getting rid of scare tactics. People are so scared of "stranger danger" that they're not letting their kids live. Meanwhile, they're apparently oblivious to the risk of Uncle Jimmy or that nice couple who run the Sunday School and have all those programs for kids.
Making laws that can be enforced, and followed. Which means that, yes, a sex offender may live a mile near a school. If that means that we know where they are and that they're showing up for treatment regularly, I'm all for it.
Finding out who's going to be a constant danger. This really ought to be applied to all violent crimes, and it probably is. Keep the really violent people locked up - long sentences do that.
Finding out how to prevent others from doing it again, and doing *everything possible* to help them help themselves. Not because we "feel sorry for them", but because we don't want to hurt kids.
Educating children to speak about it if it happens to them, this can prevent somebody from harming several kids before being caught.
Bonus: Finding out who is likely to become an abuser in the future, offering help before it becomes a problem. Not sure how this could be accomplished - but if this, that, and the other thing prevents recidivism, mightn't it also prevent the crime in the first place?
I don't know, it seems pretty simple to me. I'm always telling people, you can be right or you can help people. Can't do both. There seem to be a lot of people in this world who want to be right so much, they don't see that their efforts to be right and punish others are only, ultimately, hurting the people they want to protect. I just don't get that. I don't get it at all.
One on Florida deliberately housing sex offenders under a bridge
One (a few months old) on how draconian laws do much more harm than good.
I'm not saying child molestation is something nice, or only kinda bad. Yeah, it's wrong. It's about as wrong as you can get. But... where is the common sense?
I mean, if the point of these laws is to punish molesters, great. You've done that, several times over. But if the point of these laws is to protect children (which I think is a far more laudable goal)... by supporting these laws, you fail. Miserably.
Here's the facts: Your child is a lot more likely to be harmed by a teacher, doctor, family member, scout leader, or trusted family friend than by a random stranger. While stranger abductions certainly do happen, they don't happen in the proportion that people believe.
Here's another fact: If you can't survive by following the law, if you can't eat, if you can't house yourself - you will break the law to survive. If the law says you have to register and go to treatment to prevent backsliding, and oh, by the way, you can't earn money if you're registered or rent an apartment - you'll drop off the lists, you'll stop going to treatment. Which I guess means you might be more likely to commit the same crime all over again. (Heck, if prison is preferable to life outside of prison, any cynics willing to bet you might commit the crime just so you can do the time? Anybody?)
Here's something else: Every crime, and I mean every crime, will have false convictions. (And, in the case of sex offenders, a whole lot of people who got stuck with the term after they did something dumb like sleep with their girlfriend who was two years younger, that sort of thing.) So while phrases like "They should all be shot" and "They should be tortured and shot" might sound nice, and you might mean it, I'd like to ask how you can really, truly, positively be certain that there aren't any mistakes made. The justice system isn't perfect, it can't be, and I refuse to advocate the death penalty until we can be sure that we only convict the guilty. (And that this sort of law won't get overextended and turn around and bite me in the ass. If it's okay to punish sex offenders after their term is up, why not murderers? Actually, why not murderers? But that's another issue.)
And another one: Recidivism is apparently pretty low with released molesters. I did not know that, and I suspect you didn't either.
Here's what's going to protect children:
Getting rid of scare tactics. People are so scared of "stranger danger" that they're not letting their kids live. Meanwhile, they're apparently oblivious to the risk of Uncle Jimmy or that nice couple who run the Sunday School and have all those programs for kids.
Making laws that can be enforced, and followed. Which means that, yes, a sex offender may live a mile near a school. If that means that we know where they are and that they're showing up for treatment regularly, I'm all for it.
Finding out who's going to be a constant danger. This really ought to be applied to all violent crimes, and it probably is. Keep the really violent people locked up - long sentences do that.
Finding out how to prevent others from doing it again, and doing *everything possible* to help them help themselves. Not because we "feel sorry for them", but because we don't want to hurt kids.
Educating children to speak about it if it happens to them, this can prevent somebody from harming several kids before being caught.
Bonus: Finding out who is likely to become an abuser in the future, offering help before it becomes a problem. Not sure how this could be accomplished - but if this, that, and the other thing prevents recidivism, mightn't it also prevent the crime in the first place?
I don't know, it seems pretty simple to me. I'm always telling people, you can be right or you can help people. Can't do both. There seem to be a lot of people in this world who want to be right so much, they don't see that their efforts to be right and punish others are only, ultimately, hurting the people they want to protect. I just don't get that. I don't get it at all.
