And that criticism is from two sources in recent days. First James Gill in the Picayune has Broad online restrictions for sex offenders don't protect children: James Gill.
I largely agree with that. The Louisiana legislature has a fine staff of Lawyers that craft bills and work out the details. If it is worth doing as they say it's worth doing right.
It perhaps will not get the Statewide attention as the article in the Picayune but Mark Moseley of Lens Nola had a rather scathing attack. See Child porn sickos deaf to Jindal’s tough talk.
Now I am not in total agreement with all this. I mean we have pretty harsh sanctions for murder and just because murders still occur is no reason to by itself to get rid of the sanctions. However he makes some good points.
He concludes by saying:
I don’t claim to have a comprehensive solution to the problem posed by sexual sociopaths. But I’ve got a strong hunch: An effective plan almost certainly is going to require more than tough talk. It’s going to take leaders with the guts to propose initiatives as subtle and complex as the problem itself.
Well I agree with that and those leaders likely will have to emerge outside the political realm for it too happen. So far not happening.
The Catholic Church has emerged as about the sole whipping boy for this problem that we seem to not want too tackle. Yet when I look at the comments sections of newspapers and even Editorials in Newspapers , I don't see any effort even in the Catholic example to view it as a "subtle" and "complex" problem. My goodness I still see people that think people are going to abuse children because they are celibate.
The problem is we are quickly with over broad laws making the problem worse. In fact with out ever increasing category of sex offenders we might be lumping to many people together. However to mention that makes you part of the problem it seems.
For instance lets looks at the Catholic example. The Church has often tried to point out and make distinctions as to causes and remedies that there is a difference between Sex with "children" and sex with teenagers. When experts point this they get blasted. Now sex with teenagers is not great thing and can be damaging .Further you have ABUSE OF AUTHORITY ISSUES.
In the secular context we still people have walking around that were raised when the age of consent and being allowed to marry was at very much lower age than now. In fact some of our grandfathers would be put into Prison nowadays for the relationships they had with our Grandmothers.
I suppose my many Greats ( Grandfather) who helped found the Baptist Church in Mississippi who started courting a 15 year old girl and married her on her 16th birthday would be at the top of the list.
My point is not that I think we should revert back to the old days as to the age of consent. Society does change. However biology, desires, hormones do not change as fast. In other words we should perhaps grant some leeway in how we treat a 19 year old that has sex with a 15 year old than how we treat 19 year old that has sex with a 10 year old. While there should be an sanction ( even a hash one perhaps) one can just feel that calling and labeling the former a PREDATOR just does not seem right in all cases. If it were then quite a few of us were descended from predators.
These laws , which take more and more discretion out of the Judges hands, make this distinction impossible even too look at. Thus we spend time , money resources on some people that better might be used on others.
It goes beyond laws of course. We are sexualizing children at an ever increasing rate. Also while it's a taboo subject to talk about among Libertarians and Liberals, the question of the wide availability of porn that is becoming more and more "Hardcore" should be looked at.
There is some indication that in some cases people's sex drives become warped as they look for new sexual thrills. Beyond that one just has too look at the "Porn Stars" who often look like they can be 15 or 16 and one sees the disconnect in society. Thou shall be a sex "predator" if you have sex with a 16 year old girl but the fact that a good many women in porn fit that look is something we don't seem to care about.
Sexual abuse of children is a very dark place. Partly because as we have seen even with Catholic Clerics there is little remorse because they honestly don't think they have done anything wrong. There needs to be an effort in separating these folks from others as to degree of sanction and possible "treatment" so people will not offend again.
Over broad feel good laws don't do that.
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