The Scarlet Letter of The Twenty First Century

Original Article

10/01/2014

By Emily Kristoffersen

We as humans like to take pride in our centuries of supposed social evolution. We claim we are no longer the people in the dark ages of our ancient past, however, even in our modern advanced age of the 21st century we are still labeling people in our society with a form of a scarlet letter. Sex offenders seem to get the brunt of it, being treated as the social undesirables. With this form of labeling they are treated as a form of an untouchable creature and the worst of the worst, in many, if not most cases, they are doomed to wear this label for life. This modern day form of labeling can in ways be compared to the treatment of the characters Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale in the classic novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne titled ‘The Scarlet Letter’, or possibly the letter or band many lesser valued peoples of Adolf Hitler’s time were forced to wear during WWII. Are we now reverting back to this uncaring and uncompassionate form of behavior we claim to have conquered almost 100 years ago?

After WWII Americans forced Germans to view how the horrors of the holocaust had affected so many innocent victims. The reason given for this forced viewing was said to be that if the Germans would see how the people had suffered from this it would help prevent the same thing from happening in future generations. Apparently this so called cruelty prevention actually never really worked for those trying to teach the lesson. Americans act as if they have learned nothing from the history of that era. That time in history was when Germany started to take away the rights of some of its citizens simply because the people in power felt some of the citizens were considered of lesser value. We here in America now seem to be acting in this same manner of our treatment to many others.

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American Justice: It’s Not What You Did, It’s Who You Know

Original Article

04/09/2014

By WillB

You hear it all the time; a man gets caught soliciting an underage girl and the public cries out! He’s called a “monster”, a “predator”. Chances are he will spend several years in prison and live the rest of his life labeled as a pariah; a “registered sex offender”. Unless, of course, the man is politically or socially connected.

We recently saw two examples of the double standard when it comes to prosecuting individuals for sex offenses. Last week actor James Franco, 35, solicited an underage girl on vacation. The series of texts and Instagram messages were publicly broadcast when the teenager posted them online. He apologized for the incident on Live With Kelly and Michael (Video), said he learned his lesson and seemingly will be allowed to go on with his life. Two weeks ago, a former Tennessee Alderman, Richard L. Smith, was sentenced to only two years probation and only two years on the registry for also soliciting a minor through texts and social media.

What distinguished the actions of these two individuals from the thousands who serve long prison sentences and a lifetime as a sexual offender? Their political and social connections.

The most glaring examples are Joshua Lunsford and John Walsh themselves. Joshua Lunsford is the brother of Jessica Lunsford, who was abducted and killed in 2005 and after whom several sex offender laws are named. Two years after her death Joshua Lunsford was sentenced to only 10 days in jail, one year of probation and no registration requirement for fondling a 14 year old girl. John Walsh, father of Adam Walsh, another child victim and after whom the country’s most elaborate sex offender law is named, admitted to dating his wife when she was a minor. He even joked about it on a Biography Channel documentary.

Florida is not without its own double standard. In 2006, Florida Congressman Mark Foley, who was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, which introduced legislation targeting sexual predators and created stricter guidelines for tracking them, himself was caught in a sexting scandal targeting an underage congressional page. He was never charged.

Apparently, in America justice is not blind. It’s not what you did that determines whether you should serve a lifetime of punishment, stigma and shame on the sex offender registry, it’s who you know.

When Government Fears the People, There is Liberty

Original Article

03/05/2014

By Robert Wolf

When the craftsman sets out to learn his trade, for example, woodworking, he spends a great deal of time learning about his craft. He must learn not only the tools to use, but also the proper types of wood to work with. He must be totally versed in all aspects of woodworking if he want to be considered a master of his trade. This is true of any field of endeavor, except for one, our public officials. For some reason many of our politicians feel that they will gain more popularity by pushing more laws through. They do this without any consideration to the constitutional requirements of the laws they propose. And some people working in our government enforcing those laws feel that they are above them.

The job of a politician is to uphold the Constitution’s of both the state they represent, and our federal government. They take an oath to do this, but how many of these politicians today realize that the primary reason for our Constitution is to protect INDIVIDUAL rights; not the majority’s rights, and not the government’s rights to exist. Our founding fathers recognized the possibility of the government’s growing in power to such a point that individual freedoms would be lost. That is why on the 4 March 1789.

They added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution guaranteeing individual freedoms to the people in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of the government’s powers. Today the people holding government offices rather elected or employed have shown a total disregard for those individual rights.

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From Outside the Box

Original Article

02/11/2014

By willb

I have shared this article with a number of people across the country. (We Have It All Wrong. Shunning Offenders is Not Working: A Reaction to the Woody Allen Story)

One of those who doesn't want her name mentioned sent some information back to me After a short conversation with her I've added a title and changed a couple words around. She said that I could share it with anybody and I think it is a good enough perspective that it needs to be shared with a lot of people.

From Outside the Box

I have seen a small portion of the hurt that the registry can do to families and friends of the registrants. I am sure the small portion I have seen and experienced can not be compared to the hurt that those who are related to the registrants must feel. When I was 12 years old my best friend was a ‘victim’. The entire town knew about the case before the ‘guilty man’ even had a chance to speak with his attorney. It was front page news of the local small town newspaper, her name and her father’s name were there with the description of how the police took the ‘guilty man’ to jail. I recall how the poor girl was called names, shunned and blamed by her peers, school teachers, neighbors and many others. Because I stood by her side many of my friends then shunned me. Before my best friend and her brother were taken from their mother, she took me aside in the girls’ restroom at school and told me, between tears and sobs, that she would never be able to see her daddy again. While we sat on the cold hard floor I remember asking her why and she said that it was because the judge said so and even though her daddy loved her very much the judge said he was an awful man. I spoke to my mother about the situation when I got home that afternoon, I asked her how the judge could do something like that when he didn’t even know my friend or her father. My mother tried to explain it to me but no matter how she tried all she could say was that she didn’t understand all the laws and that there were many more that seemed confusing and even unfair to her, more than she could count. I found out later that the state had decided that her mother was also an awful person for not protecting my friend. The next day in our math class two people came in the room and asked my best friend to leave with them, at first she refused trying to use the excuse her mother had told her to never go somewhere with a stranger. The teacher then stepped in telling her that leaving with these people was the right thing to do and she was perfectly safe in doing so. I plead with her not to go, it had to be wrong somehow, I just knew it was. That was the last time I saw my Best Friend.