When innocent children and teens are prosecuted for growing up normally

There’s just no better way to broach the subject of this post, one that has me simultaneously depressed and outraged, than with these two graphics:

Where does this come from? I, for one, have just spent the last half-hour thoroughly burning myself out reading this blog post from Classically Liberal.

Now, I almost wish I hadn’t. I hate reading things that leave me feeling shitty.

The post is basically an analysis of sorts, of the great sex offender hysteria currently rampaging across the U.S. (and likely elsewhere, even if we don’t hear about it). The madness that pushes the common people – ie. the mob – to demand that anyone who does anything remotely sexual with underage kids or teens, even (or especially) if they are kids or teens themselves, be prosecuted in the worst possible ways: by taking the sledgehammer of justice and shattering their lives forever.

It’s a very difficult post to read; you will be both outraged and terribly saddened. I know I was. Here are just a few choice quotes:

The interfering politicans, the would-be Nannies, do-gooders and passed ill-conceived laws to protect our young, and instead, they are devouring the young and sacrificing them to the god of safety.

[…]

What was once considering a normal rite of passage, typical curiosity that the newly sexualized young have about themselves, their bodies, and the bodies of others, has become a heinous crime. Not long ago a curious adolescent or child, caught exploring, or playing doctor in the back yard, was given a talking-to, sent to bed early, and warned to not do it again—a warning most heeded for at least another few years, after which time warnings were useless. Today, it has been criminalized, and criminalized in a way far exceeding crimes of violence. A youth who has sex with another youth, even if voluntary, could well face legal sentences far worse than if they had killed their friend.

[…]

Just as Abraham was willing to tie up his beloved son, Isaac, and stab a knife into the boy’s chest as a sacrifice to his God, the American public has made their children a sacrifice to the god of big government. We have allowed the politicians, no—we didn’t allow it, twe demanded that the politicians abuse and torture thousands of children per year because we were afraid of monsters that we imagined, far worse than those that really lurked in our neighborhoods. To solve a bad, but thankfully small problem, we decided to take a sledgehammer to it.

One can always kill flies with sledgehammers. It’s very effective. It will kill the fly. But in the process the damage that is done is far worse than the problem that it solves. To protect our kids we take sledgehammers to them and smash their lives.

Consider what happens today to the sexually inquisitive young. The intruding adult feels compelled to take this private matter and make it a case of the criminal law. The sledgehammer is called in. No matter that no violence or threats were used. No matter that both “victims” were very willing partners in crime.

[…]

The lucky ones barely manage to hold on. Those who are not so lucky simply end their lives. Others have the option of suicide robbed from them by vigilantes. They quickly learn to give up ambitions and dreams. To excel in life is not possible. To merely survive is hard enough. And some, robbed of all normality, robbed of all hope, mentally and emotionally raped by the state, decide they may as well become the monsters that they are imagined to be.

You really, really need to read the rest of the post. You have to, seriously. It’s much longer than the few passages I’ve picked out, and CLS takes the time to give the subject enough background to make it horribly real and vivid for anyone reading it.

How do we allow such things to happen? Or, worse still – how can we demand that they happen?

This is by far the single largest reason for which I loathe the very concept of these goddamned sex offender registries. There is simply no way they are fair, no matter how absurdly you twist your mind to try and see it that way. Even with actual criminals and perverts (who form a clear minority on those lists), to splash their names, faces and home addresses everywhere is indescribably unfair and cruel. Most of these people have only committed a single offense, and the large majority of those single offenses were either accidents, or out of inebriation. Do they deserve reprimand, or some form of punishment? Sure, perhaps.

But no-one deserves to have their lives ruined like this.

The day society prohibits kids from discovering their own nascent sexuality, and further punishes those who dare to pass through biologically normal development phases by posting their faces (and home addresses) everywhere they go, is the day we live in. It is the day I know signifies the death of rationality in America, and anywhere else this horrible, vicious, unfair and monstrous system is allowed to continue to operate, unimpeded, even actively encouraged by all those fuckers, assholes and goddamned demented fuckwits – all, of course, in the name of protecting the children.

Because, apparently, the best way to protect them, is to ruin their lives before they’ve even really begun.

I don’t even really know what to say. This is just too disgusting, pathetic, horrible … and heartbreaking.

(via The Agitator)
Technorati tags: sex offenders · sex offender registries · children · kids · injustices