Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Tom Sawyer Behind Bars

Those 7th grade criminals. Nanny as prison warden. Tom Sawyer behind bars. Schools under lockdown. Mark Steyn on the arrest of two middle school boys in Oregon for the crime of butt-swapping girls as they entered the school lobbby, charged with felony sexual abuse and if convicted, entered on to the rolls as registered sex offenders for life:

District Attorney Berry told reporter Susan Goldsmith of the Oregonian that his department "aggressively" pursues sex crimes. "These cases are devastating to children," he said. "They are life-altering cases."

No, sir. The only one devastating children's lives is you. If you "win," and these "criminals" are convicted, 20, 30 years from now – applying for a job, volunteering for a community program, heading north for a weekend in Vancouver and watching the Customs guard swipe the driver's license through the computer – there'll be a blip, something will come up on the screen, and for the umpteenth time two middle-age men will realize they bear a mark that can never be expunged. Because decades ago they patted their pals on the rear in a middle-school corridor.

A world that requires handcuffs and judges and district attorneys for what took place that Friday in February is not just a failed education system but an entire society that's losing any sense of proportion.
Could be these kids had sex-ed in kindergartern, were assigned to read Captain Underpants, or maybe their teacher had them read Howard Stern's book Private Parts, as did one 8th grade teacher in Wilmette. Or made them read aloud explicit sex manuals geared to experienced adults in their 8th grade class, despite their protests. Or possibly their middle school principal Donald had a sex-change operation and thought it was OK to come back in the fall as Deanna to the same district. No consequences there. No little boys with nightmares. Golly gee, where's the ACLU?

There you have it. The liberal nanny state---treat kids as criminals and terrorists as innocent day care providers. We can't listen to terrorists on the phone but we can swoop into the schools and arrest children.

Who's really perpetrating the police state here? The nanny state police state. First they came for Tom Sawyer, then they came for you.

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