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Southwestern ydksernkir
Law School Professor Catherine L.Carpenter puts it bluntly in her new research paper, Throwaway Children: The Tragic Consequences of a False Narrative. “Truth be told,” she writes, “we are afraid for our children and we are afraid of our children.”
Being afraid for our kids has lead us to create ever harsher sex offender registration laws. We want to protect our kids from creeps.
But this protection plan of ours has backfired. And now, Carpenter writes, whenever we arrest a minor for a sex crime, our fear “of our children ensnares and punishes them under the very same laws that were designed to protect them.” In other words: We treat minors like monsters, because we vastly overestimate the chances of them committing another sex crime. This fear, “is premised on a false narrative that includes flawed studies on recidivism rates and misguided case decisions that embraced these findings.”
Yes, flawed. Recidivism rates — the rates at which juvenile sex offenders re-offend — are so low as to be indistinguishable from the rate that non-offenders offend. But that’s not what the public believes. Instead, it believes that juvenile sex “criminals” (including a slew of teens who had consensual sex) can never stop pouncing:
The utility of an overly-simplified registration scheme comes with a hefty price tag: the acknowledgement that mandatory lifetime registration captures and shatters the lives of many non-dangerous children. It is a price tag we should no longer be willing to bear.
How bad does it get for kids found guilty of a sex crime?
…fear of our children has prompted legislation that requires children as young as nine years old to register on adult sex offender registries. No matter whether the child’s sexual transgression is voluntary or coerced — and here the mandatory reach of the regime is underscored — many children face lifetime registration. In some jurisdictions, the offense is deemed the equivalent of a comparable adult offense under controlling federal or state law…. And in jurisdictions like California, the child is required to register for life because the state has moved to a system that subjects all sex offenders — whether adult or child — to lifetime monitoring….
Sadly, the public’s hunger to punish child sex offenders has not been diminished by reality. Registration and notification for life continue despite significant and compelling research that these laws are not effective deterrents, [and] that children who commit sexual crimes pose little danger of recidivism, [and] that children have the capacity for rehabilitation….
Their lives are effectively ruined before they have begun.
Throwing away children must end. As you know, Free-Range Kids flies under the banner, “Our kids are NOT in constant danger.” The sex laws are written in the opposite belief: That our kids ARE in constant danger, so we are justified in locking up almost anyone we please.
Except that some of the people we’re locking up turn out to be our own children.
Carpenter’s piece is clear and gripping. Imagine a 9-year-old branded a sex offender for life.
Oh wait. In America, in 2016, you don’t have to imagine. – L.
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41 Comments
Ugh, I can see so many situations that could result in a nine-year-old kid being branded as a sex offender–playing doctor, or kissing tag, or having a pretend wedding at recess, a full bladder on a car trip where there are no bathrooms or treed areas around, accidentally walking in on someone in the bathroom, a diving board or waterslide-induced wardrobe malfunction, walking into the wrong locker room after swimming at a strange pool, or, ooh, here’s a good one–one time, when my brother and I were kids, we went swimming at the rec centre near our house, and my brother was so excited about going swimming, he FORGOT to put his bathing suit on, and walked out of the change room naked. I don’t remember how old he was then, but it was an honest mistake, and he rushed back inside to put on his bathing suit as soon as I told him. Now he’s an adult, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that he’s not a sex offender. I didn’t even touch digital offenses, but that’s a big one too–being tagged in a questionable baby photo on a parent’s Facebook page (if full frontal nudity isn’t okay, what is? Partial backal nudity? Child shown wearing just a diaper? A diaper and a T-shirt, but no pants? A pre-pubescent girl in bikini bottoms, but no top to cover her flat chest?), or accidentally forwarding the e-mail that says “Increase penis size” rather than “Soccer practice has been moved to Thursday.” As for the pictures, is the parent the only guilty party, for posting them, or is the child also considered to be a sex offender, for not untagging him-or-herself? Or, is the person looking at it considered a sex offender, for seeing the picture in a sexual way, when it was taken innocently? Or, what about older kids who know what sex is, or are trying to figure it out, and haven’t yet learned how to be appropriate about it? I knew a lot of boys, starting in grade six or so, who wove innuendo into everything. Yes, it was annoying, but it wasn’t a crime; it was a typical developmental stage, and I knew that even at the time.
I think the law has become a little too uptight about all of this. After all, we all have private parts, we all have hormones, we all go through puberty, and we’ve all forgotten to lock the door, or walked into the wrong room, or not secured our bathing suit well enough before going off the diving board or down the water slide before, so at a certain point, we’re going to have to say that EVERYONE is a sex offender, with the exception of a rare few, who we’d put on the Not-A-Sex-Offender Registry. Those people would have to be raised in incredibly straight-laced homes, so it doesn’t occur to them to play doctor, et cetera, as children, they’d have to never go swimming, never go camping, purposely dehydrate themselves on road trips, never communicate online, always lock the door before disrobing (and never disrobe in a room with a door that doesn’t lock), knock on every door before they walk through it (preferably three times, like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory), and be fully clothed 24/7. To be safe, these people on the Not-A-Sex-Offender Registry should probably also steer clear of activities that require tight or revealing clothing of any kind. So, besides swimming, that’d rule out gymnastics, several forms of dance, cheerleading, yoga (nothing worse than having a big baggy T-shirt flop over your head in Downward Dog), DIY car washes, running through the sprinkler, and woe betide them if they go through a growth spurt, or accidentally shrink their clothes in the washing machine. The only good thing about this is, since sex offenders are currently relegated to the outskirts of society, if most people were on the Sex Offender Registry, there’d only so many “outskirts” to go around, so that’d force the issue of allowing imperfect people to participate in life without being criminalized for it. I’m not saying we should let people get away with legitimate rape or sexual assault with malice aforethought, but most nine-year-olds aren’t doing that. One other thing, though–if we live in a society that’s willing to label a nine-year-old as a sex offender, but also treats nine-year-olds like incompetent babies, by calling the police if their parents let them play outside or wait in the car alone, or mandating that they be signed in and out of school/church group/Scouts/gymnastics class, then juvenile detention or house arrest isn’t going to be that different for nine-year-old sex offenders, than their regular lives already are.
How can a ” coerced” sexual transgression be criminal? One would think a child coerced into a sex act is a victim….
“How can a ” coerced” sexual transgression be criminal? One would think a child coerced into a sex act is a victim…”
A coerced sexual transgression is always going to be criminal. If child A makes child B do something sexual, then child A is a criminal. Whereas if child A talks child B into doing something sexual, or even if child A and child B are mutually deciding to do something sexual, then… child A is a criminal. That’s the problem.
The Wes will soon fall from its own perversions.
“A pre-pubescent girl in bikini bottoms, but no top to cover her flat chest?”
Here’s your new bathing suit:
https://lisawallerrogers.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/women-wringing-our-swimsuits-ca-1905.png
As these children age, their sex offender registry updates with their current age, but still shows the original age of their victim without the necessary context of how old they were when it happened. So a 9 year old who is on the registry for life for playing doctor with a 7 year old neighbor, will eventually have a registry listing them as 45 committing a sex crime against a 7 year old, further fueling society’s fear of pedophiles.
Thank you, Lenore.
James, we have to stop applying terms like “criminal” to children. A child who coerces another child into a sexual act needs help, needs counseling, even possibly needs appropriate punishment. But he should not be put into a system where participants are labeled “criminals” and “deviants.”
The registry is like the mythical hydra. If you cut off only one part, it merely grows back and gets more fearsome. The registry began (under the Jacob Wetterling Act, as part of the Omnibus Crime Act of 1994) as a list of only those deemed truly dangerous (i.e., repeat offenders or those who committed terrible acts), was only for members of law enforcement, and the registration period was only 10 years. Twenty-two year later, look at the registry today! Kids on the list, people who had sex on the beach on the list, and even folks who didn’t commit a sex crime are on the list. Virginia just added 5,000 new names overnight to an already bloated list of 850,000+ names.
The only way to kill the hydra is to cut off all of the heads. The only way to resolve the problems with the registry is to abolish it.
@oncefallendotcom
“The only way to resolve the problems with the registry is to abolish it.”
Has anyone ever explained just what the general public is supposed to do with this list? Certainly the authorities don’t approve of “taking the law into your own hands” but what else is there if this list is taken seriously? Stay locked indoors until the list shows no names? If these people are so damn dangerous (and it seems very very few are) keep them locked up, not the rest of us.
“A child who coerces another child into a sexual act needs help, needs counseling, even possibly needs appropriate punishment.”
Coercing a child into a sexual act is a criminal act, and the person who does so is a criminal. That’s just what “criminal” means. Until they get that help and counseling they need, nothing changes.
The problem isn’t calling them criminals. It’s continuing to call them dangerous long after they are not. This is cruel to the offender, and is counterproductive to the purpose of the registry, which is to warn people about dangerous persons.
I am OK with a registry that warns people of dangerous persons. Our present implementation is not such a system, however.
@BL People on the list are not allowed to live in certain many places or nearby schools etc. General public is supposed to recognize them if them see them living at those places and notify cops. General public is also supposed not to go to business where such people work and thus make them unemployable.
It is not so much about safety as about vengeance and shunning of those who crossed taboos around sexuality.
Safety is just an excuse – if it would not, the beach couple case or all those sixteen years old having mutual sex with each other or teenagers in possession of own pic cases would cause outrage and pressure to change the law. That is not happening, because many people are in fact fine with all of them being shunned and punished for life.
Broad sex offender register does not make any sense when you assume it is about safety and perfect sense if you assume it is about vengeance and taboos.
Could someone from Canada tell me the difference between the Sex Offender Registry here than in the US? Are they the same generally?
Ughh… the criminalization of EVERYTHING!
There are kids who do hideous things to other kids – forcing them to do things that they don’t want – I get that. Those kids need help and some form of punishment (mostly likely I am guessing they have been a victim prior).
But I think so many times kids get caught mutually exploring / experimenting and a parent freaks out and all of a sudden it’s a criminal offense. That has to stop.
I shudder to think of what would happen now to the boy who used to chase me around and around the playground at school until I couldn’t run any more and then kiss me. I was in third grade, he, a couple of years older. I didn’t like it–it was a real pain in the neck to have to spend all that time running from someone each school day for a while. But you know what? He outgrew it, and we actually became friends. No trauma, no lingering issues–just an amusing (and somewhat embarrassing, for him) memory that we’d laugh about from time to time. If he ever became a danger to anyone, well, I never heard about it. But today, it would ruin him. I’d probably be traumatized, too, because I’d keep being told I was a sexual assault victim until I believed it.
I work with Restorative Justice as a volunteer. I wish all cases involving children perpetrating “sexual offences” could be handled there instead of in the criminal justice system. Instead of being labelled and registered on a list, the people involved talk to each other and find out that actions have effects on others. And instead of shaming, it’s informative and connecting.
Also, in the RJ system we see a LOT of alcohol-related crime… SO much damage done by people who are “drunk and don’t remember anything.” If you want to start a registry of some list of people who are likely to mess up and cause trouble, it would be those who drink so much as to “not know what they are doing.”
Or perhaps shoplifters. A blight on local businesses. They feel so frustrated and helpless, and the level of recidivism is SO HIGH for that crime. It’s like an addiction for many who take things from stores. It goes on for years and years. Imagine if there were a registry, with big posters of all the people who are banned from stores. “That’s not fair, that’s cruel and unusual,” many would say.
Arsonists, too, tend to set more than one fire in their lives. Talk about a deadly habit.
Why this hysteria about nudity, genitals, and sex? Is it really about harm to society? We single out a tiny subset of predatory behaviour, project it on to anyone who has the word “Sex” in their criminal record, no matter what they did or didn’t do, and publish a list for people to feast on and fatten up their misconceptions of the world.
It needs to stop. We need to stop labelling people and start knowing people, start understanding what motivates them. Punishment is no deterrent anyway. It just forces more secretive behaviour and a worse sense of self, which generates more “deviant” actions.
There’s a misconception of how to keep us safe and functioning as a society. That demonizing people makes us safer. It does NOT.
When someone does something to a human under 18 years of age they have committed a crime against a child. When a human under 18 and above 12 commits a crime they are called a teenager or young woman/Man. I also see more and more so called children being charged and convicted as adults. If they do not have the mental capacity to give consent then they do not have the mental capacity to know they are breaking the law. You cannot have it both ways. Teenagers are given the responsibility of driving a vehicle that can kill many people at once. Children are given the right to choose life or death for an unborn child. I do not believe that the government or society thinks teenagers cannot handle responsibility or make important decisions when it fits the template. I believe the registry just to be “A foot in the door” Law to take away rights and circumvent the constitution. Soon there will be registries for everything and everyone will be on one and have no rights at all.
As I saw recently on the news regarding updating the watch lists for firearms:
“The proposal has failed to gain traction in Congress, with opponents arguing that many people on the watch lists are there by mistake and should thus not be denied access….”
Perhaps a similar argument could be made here, except that the people on the lists are denied access to other benefits. If the government can make a mistake on adding someone to a firearms watch list depriving them of their rights, then those on Offender Lists are also being denied THEIR rights.
It’s always been more of a fairness question to me.
As I read the sentence about “coerced,” it appears that they are saying that the sexual behavior of the child on the registry was coerced, not that the behavior of the victim was coerced. This would happen if a person (peer or adult) coerced a child into engaging in some sexual act with another child. For example, a boy’s friends pressure him into reaching up the shirt of a girl on the playground, something he really didn’t want to do.
Coercion is not a defense to any criminal act. Actual threats of injury to yourself or others is a defense (and even then, the threat has to be imminent and not some remote threat), but just being talked into doing something that you really didn’t want to do is not a defense. You are as criminally liable as if you came up with the idea yourself.
One thing that many don’t even realize, is that these “fears” that parents have “for” their children, are just a reflection of THEIR OWN fears for themselves. So really, their selfish need to feel better about themselves, is passed on to their children. You know, the idea of “if it happens to ME, then it WILL happen to everyone”. No different than saying, “if that person got cancer, then I WILL get cancer too”. The more one repeats that and sees it for what it is, the more they realize how ignorant that mentality is. But for some reason, they just can’t seem to help themselves. Welcome to the digital age. The age of mental conditioning, and you don’t even realize you’ve just been brainwashed. 😉
Let’s start thinking for ourselves again. Remember the successes of past parents. You are still alive and well, and you did exactly the same things you now believe is very “harmful” to children. So how is it that it was fine for you, but not your own children? It’s not the world that’s gotten “worse”, it’s each individuals mindset.
Looks like we need another version of ‘Let them go!’…
If this were going on in another country, say somewhere in the Third World or Eastern Europe or whatever, with very young people being banned from ever having a normal life for doing something minor, how would all those human rights organisations react? Would they think that’s all fine and dandy?
Or are there such cases and have I just not heard of them?
True Donna. But I don’t think that reasoning applies to children (2-10 years old). They may feel it’s wrong, but they don’t know and understand why it’s wrong. That’s why it’s so important to educate children about everything at a young age. They will eventually, and inevitably run into all of OUR issues as adults. Better to prepare them early. If they can understand and comprehend what you tell them, they are old enough to learn what you teach them. And that’s really as young as 3 years old. Sheltering them until the parents feel comfortable, only does them disservice in the long run.
@Papilio: Ironically, most third world countries, if not all, raise their children as we’ve always been raised in the past. Children of poverty start working to make money as young as 7-8 years old. Maybe even younger. They walk the beat, peddling their warez. And no parents in sight. There’s also no authorities arresting children and parents either.
Some first-world countries like Japan, still use the old school mentality of raising children. It’s not uncommon to see young children walking themselves to school, and back home. In fact the Japanese teach their children very young how to be self sufficient. Just like our parents did with us, and their parents before them.
@EricS: Yes, I know that the USA is the outsider here, but that wasn’t the point…
Nearly one-third of those on the sex offender registry are/were minors when placed on it..thousands of lives damaged due to laws made to “Protect the children”, that do nothing but “harm the children” which now wear the label of sex offender! Not to mention the thousands of children that suffer the backlash when a family member is placed on the registry due to the draconian laws.
“A child who coerces another child into a sexual act needs help, needs counseling, even possibly needs appropriate punishment.”
Abuse is a learned behavior. A young child who commits this type of sexual act is likely repeating something that was taught to them, likely by a family member. It is reactive, to say the least, to punish the child who is more than likely a victim of sexual abuse themselves.
A friend told me that she was called into the guidance counselor’s office last year to speak about a sexual act that happened at school. She was horrified and upset that her daughter was exposed to this…but the act in question was another student (10) who was twerking in the classroom, near a female student. She was more relieved that it wasn’t serious (though inappropriate) and questioned why the school had to treat this as a sexual act and not just a kid who probably watched too much Miley.
Dear Lord help us. We’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of insanity. This is a travesty of justice.
This is beyond comprehension. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. As a civilized society we must take a hatchet to the sex offender list and the regulations that govern it. Leaving only a small bit to police the most severe adult criminals. This system is the epitome of injustice with it’s falsified data, it’s manipulation by officials at election time and the patient greed of all those who benefit from lifetime imposed fines and fees. It’s a cancer that ravenously hunts for new potential offences and offenders in every nook and cranny.
“But today, it would ruin him. I’d probably be traumatized, too, because I’d keep being told I was a sexual assault victim until I believed it.”
I know some adult siblings who have been irreparably damaged by one of these childhood transgressions. To not go into detail, an older brother was curious about what his baby sister’s genitals looked like. He was old enough that he should have known better, but it really was just childish curiosity. (He was very sheltered and given no information about that kind of thing.) He was caught, punished, and never did anything like that again. The baby was young enough that she would never have remembered it, but another relative has told her over and over and over for her entire life that she was a victim of sexual assault. She’s tried to kill herself multiple times. Their family is torn apart. The brother feels like the whole thing is his fault.
“As I read the sentence about “coerced,” it appears that they are saying that the sexual behavior of the child on the registry was coerced, not that the behavior of the victim was coerced. This would happen if a person (peer or adult) coerced a child into engaging in some sexual act with another child. For example, a boy’s friends pressure him into reaching up the shirt of a girl on the playground, something he really didn’t want to do.”
That’s what it seems to say based on the excerpt, but if you open the full (38 pages!!!) article and read more, I think it’s just poor wording. It appears the author was actually trying to make a distinction between whether the victim was willing or coerced. She gives the example of a 14yo having sex with a willing 12yo partner, and then goes on to say that, admittedly, this is not always the case, and sometimes children use force or coercion in sex acts against other children.
When I was 37, I was dating a woman with 3 children=-then aged 7, 3, and 2.
The 7 year old tried to compare my artificial leg with my real leg..
In doing so, she touched me in 3 places-including my penis.
I was in a dilemma-should I tell the mother or not.
I decide not to-I thought this would be acting like a tattle-tale.
NOTE: After that, I decide to talk with my friends-who had children.
I asked, “If your child touches my private parts, should I tell you..
Mr…..said,’Yes
NOTE ALSO
If a similar thing were to happen again, I would have a talk with one of the parents-of the child involved.
I might tell the child the following:
(a)If you were to do that with someone your own age, that person will likely slap you
AND
-If I were to touch your father-in that spot, he could lay a criminal charge-of indcent asssault-and I would be convicted.
@EricS Children of poverty who peddle their warez as 7-8 years old or even younger become criminals, victims or perpetrators of violence much more often then children of helicopter parents in America. Ultimately, it is not working for them all that great in the long term.
Yes, German, French, Japanese or Finnish use public bus alone to get to/from school. It works well for them. The situation does not work so well for children of poverty.
Even so-called experts on child sex offenders live in a fantasy world about children’s anatomy. One expert said he believed a report that an 11-year-old had anally “raped” his 9-year-old brother. As far as I know, that’s physically impossible.
With the right person, like this nine-year old, I believe this whole regime could become open to legal challenge.
A lifetime registration operates very much like a bill of attainder, which is unconstitutional.
660,000 people are registered sex offenders in the United States.
For the legal discussion, see http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=plr.
No one is in charge. I’ve said that a few times before and you’re probably tired of hearing it. I first heard it from the book, ‘The rule of Nobody’ by Philip Howard. He knows a lot more about bureaucracy than I do. However when we combine the ‘no one in charge’ problem with the ‘us vs them’ problem things become really sticky.
A sex offender is part of the ‘them’ tribe. Our job is to protect the ‘us’ tribe. Furthermore we can’t tell the difference between a child rapist and a person that peed in a parking lot. They’re all sex offenders. They deserve what they get!
Actually we can can the difference but we don’t care. (more on that later) It’s political suicide to take a stand and try to change laws that have gone too far. That’s because the headlines will read, JOE BLOW IS TRYING TO ALLOW CHILD RAPIST TO WALK FREE!
@anon: Wow – that sounds like the adults definitely did ALL of the damage there… Poor children.
“an older brother was curious about what his baby sister’s genitals looked like”
Like human origami, at least the ones I’ve seen… I can totally imagine why the brother would want to take a look (assuming baby was happy and he wasn’t poking her or inserting stuff or anything).
On Big Brother Australia there was a ‘turkey slap’. It’s a prank more like a wedgie. It’s sort of like mooning someone. It’s more like a ‘F***k you’ then anything sexual. The ‘victim’ saw it more as a wedgie and laughed it off. That is until she was told that she is suppose to be traumatised by it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8I5luYyKrw
Anon’s story reminded me of it
There is another, equally insidious, government list which is ensnaring thousands of kids all over America, It’s called the child abuser list. And it’s a secret list
Child abuser lists started some twenty years ago as a means of screening potential employees for the child care industry. But the lists have ballooned to include children who have been fingered for allegedly mistreating other children, often over incidents that they don’t even remember years later.
In Texas, there are some 700,000 persons on the child abuser registry. That’s 1 in 36 Texans. Of those 700,000 Texans on the list, some 40,000 of them were added to the list while they were children themselves. Obviously many have crossed over into adulthood in the past two decades. But some 5000 persons on the list are children right now. Persons as young as age 10 can be put on the list.
And the list keeps growing at a breakneck pace. Every business day some 200 additional adults and 10 additional children are added to the list.
This list is not to be confused with the widely known sex offender registry, where a person has to be convicted of a crime in a court of law to be listed. This child abuser list is largely made up of people who have never had their day in court because an allegation (anonymous phone call from an ex or disgruntled neighbor) is all it takes to land one on the list.
Persons on the list–even those added while they were children themselves–are permanently banned from working in most major career fields, and cannot volunteer with most charitable organizations. Children placed in the list in grade school may not find out about their listing until they complete college, only to find out they are banned from working in the field they trained for.
So how could the number of people on the list be so high? Because the registry is actually little more than a “tattletale list.” I submit that if there REALLY were so many genuine child abusers out there, we would be seeing rampant child abuse going on in our routine daily lives. And it would be all over the news every night.
So far, child abuser registries have been struck down on constitutional grounds in at least 14 states. But so far not in Texas.
I am sorry to say this, but children can be sex offenders of the worst kind. I has a friend with a 12 year old son who repeatedly raped his two much younger sisters and six other family members. He was then put in an institution to keep him away from his victims. He was moved to a place with much less supervision due to good behavior and victimized two more girls. He was then moved back into a facility with more supervision. Maybe it is because I am in groups with other mothers who have adopted children from abusive situations, but I know of several more children who have done similar things and reoffended. We tend to think of children as innocents, and the vast majority are, but there are some children who have experienced horrors as normal everyday life and these children can repeat what they have learned. Children should be on the sex offender registry, but maybe just as in the case of an 18 year old having sex with his 16 year old girlfriend, maybe we should not automatically assume that every sex offence means the child will do the same thing again.
I also believe in the sex offender registry. My children’s grandfather raped a woman at knife point and stabbed her three times. In trial he said that it was not his fault he stabbed her because she resisted, if she had just stayed still, he would never have stabbed her. He should be on the registry. I do agree that it is vastly overused. I am staying anonymous to protect my kids’ and my friend,s kids’ identities.
The problem is that it is perfectly natural for adult men to be attracted to teenage girls. And, it is perfectly natural for premature developing youths to not have a defined concept of proper sexual behavior. If someone ever fantasizes about a high school crush, are they a dangerous predator? It is all just nonsense.
But the world is growing more hateful and cold, because we are kept in constant fear by our media, and living on a treadmill thanks to this debt-backed privately controlled delusion of currency we are using. So, that the average person, simply tries to carve out their own space in life; having very little more than vain ambitions, (thoughtlessly agreeing with whatever is indoctrinated to be ‘normal’ through bruit,) as a survival mechanism.
All the problems in the world are at the root of this evil. A lack of true Christian faith, replace by: Trust in false money, desire for all of our own vain things from the world, and a morality that in its practice is pure hedonism growing into nihilism. There is no amount of philosophy that will solve our problems. As the overpopulation increases, and natural resources get tighter, just expect mankind to become more expendable. Willing to step on anyone’s head to lift himself up a little.
Expect more hatred and coldness. Very soon any subjective interpretation of speech or conduct, may be deemed dangerous or threatening; and a serious crime. That people will just say, ‘oh well, what can you do,’ as it continues to criminalize everything we think, feel, say, or do; as inappropriate.
Get the State-machine out of the life and education of children and give teachers back their old authorities and powers, a kid sexually harrases another kid? He gets spanked, end of the story. Does so again? Gets spanked again. Keep cops, courts and teh State-machine out of the school system.