Activism Change

Enforced Protection

Question:

It is interesting, in a scary way, how a good idea (protect children from harm) gets mutated into a kind of cultish movement (protect children from whatever WE don’t want them exposed to).

    Different people have exceedingly different ideas about what     constituted "protection."  To protect is to keep safe from harm.     The question becomes not only what *causes* harm, but what     defines it.     That said, I agree with you <g De Sade said, in essence, about sex, that if it was true what the church preached, that sex was poison, the two best known ways to guard against being poisoned were to take none or take massive doses 8).

    Well … if you opt for the massive doses route, however, you need     to *start* with minute doses and gradually build your resistance     up.  Otherwise it tends to be counterproductive to the goal. Since children are, after all, human beings in the cadet or larval stage, it’s pretty wild thinking to believe that they can be forced to “take none.”

    I respectfully suggest that children are, after all, *fully* human. Where I live, they are passing a county ordnance that says that all people who work with children–volunteers, teaching aides, coaches, and the like– will have to be fingerprinted and background checked. Not merely for convictions for sex offenses; but for drug busts and other improprieties. Show of hands, please, with or without fingerprints, all those who seriously believe that drug usage and child molestation are in some way related; like there’s a criminal menu or planning sheet, and some people check off armed robbery and car theft, while others pick rape and mopery.

    <hands firmly at sides     Perhaps that isn’t the point.  I don’t think that many people     would suggest that the *only* thing that can be harmful to     children is molestation.  The likely opinion, as I see it, is     what the likely behaviors are of people who would be a     positive influence on children … and that it is perhaps     unwise to take the risk of having a drug dealer working with     children. Well, people are a cowardly, lazy bunch, for the most part. And parenthood apparently does not stimulate some people’s regard for human rights and individual liberty. But while we are trying to recover from and transcend various abuses of the past, it would be nice–uncharactistic but nice–to give some thought to abuses of the present and the future to which we ourselves contribute.

    I would sometimes agree with you that people are cowardly and lazy.     Every once in a while, though, someone surprises me.  As far as     parenthood stimulating a regard for human rights and liberty is     concerned … well, people are pretty much who they are regardless     of whether they have children.  Your last point is an excellent     one.  The problem seems to be that most people seem, most of the     time, to be far more concerned with *their* rights than they are     with the rights of others.   a.

    Maddie

Response:

It is interesting, in a scary way, how a good idea (protect children from harm) gets mutated into a kind of cultish movement (protect children from whatever WE don’t want them exposed to). De Sade said, in essence, about sex, that if it was true what the church preached, that sex was poison, the two best known ways to guard against being poisoned were to take none or take massive doses 8). Since children are, after all, human beings in the cadet or larval stage, it’s pretty wild thinking to believe that they can be forced to “take none.” Where I live, they are passing a county ordnance that says that all people who work with children–volunteers, teaching aides, coaches, and the like– will have to be fingerprinted and background checked. Not merely for convictions for sex offenses; but for drug busts and other improprieties. Show of hands, please, with or without fingerprints, all those who seriously believe that drug usage and child molestation are in some way related; like there’s a criminal menu or planning sheet, and some people check off armed robbery and car theft, while others pick rape and mopery. Well, people are a cowardly, lazy bunch, for the most part. And parenthood apparently does not stimulate some people’s regard for human rights and individual liberty. But while we are trying to recover from and transcend various abuses of the past, it would be nice–uncharactistic but nice–to give some thought to abuses of the present and the future to which we ourselves contribute. a.

Response:

Filed under: Human Rights

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