May 31, 2007 08:30
At some point, some signals got mixed... and the net result is that we seem to be heading for a dysfunctional myopic distopia. As disturbing as it is, I wonder how many people in the U.S. realize that we're only a few stones' throws away from joining the militant islamic countries like Iran, but with a christian twist? The even further irony is that both religions are the bastard children of Judaism... ah well.
Apparently, there are some people out there who think that throwing people into a ghetto and mass murder are theoretically a good idea. Right now, I am glad that those people haven't come into total power yet. As if Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany weren't bad enough?
For the subject of children, crime, and the rest: I hate to point this out, but we live in a Hobbesian wilderness where safety is only a very thin myth protecting a certain select group of people from the harsh vicissitudes of life. Ok, so you get the websites and the police to do your parenting for you? And your (using the generic 'you' rather than specific individuals) children still interact with adults online--whether through falsifying their information or stealing their parents' information and using that...
As far as it goes, while statistics are not my specialty, there are probably as many undercover cops roving through the internet with as many false identities as the people they're hunting as well as the people they're supposed to be protecting. Which in and of itself ought to be a crime. Not to mention groups like the NSA, FBI, with their ability and oversight into internet reading... but if certain keywords don't pop up, things usually drift under their radar. The choice of discernment and discrimination is astounding to say the least. And before anyone says they can't do that... I hope no one's forgotten the FBI information abuse scandal of the last two years.
They can see what we're putting online, they just choose not to do anything about it. At the moment at any rate. And the suspension of civil liberties is a rant for another time--for now--let it suffice to be said that it wasn't a good idea in the civil war (even if politically useful), it wasn't a good idea in Julius Caesar's time... who the hell in their right minds thinks it's a good idea now?
At the rate we're going, thirteen is the age to draw the distinction between child and adult... in the middle east, they're being used as living bombs, here in the U.S. they're being used as watchmen and women for drug deals, if not actually involved with the dealing themselves. The victorian notion of 'childhood' which most of these laws seem to be based is a fantasy. And while some protective measures can be utilized, trying to protect everyone from everything is criminal insanity.