I wasn’t going to write about this. I really wasn’t.

People have already said most of what I wanted to say. They’ve said it better than I can.

Then I saw that Maryland Senator Nancy Jacobs is proposing a bill that makes it a felony if a parent fails to notify the police within a short period of time after the death of the child is discovered.

What possible purpose would this serve? Other than making people who are upset over Casey Anthony’s acquittal feel a little better, what can this do? How does this help the (already dead) child, the parents, or the public?

There is the practical matter that there are reasons calling the police may not be the best idea.

Even assuming that there is nothing to worry about on that front, why on Earth would anyone want to burden an already grieving parent with a potential felony charge?

Sex offence is a treacherous subject.

As a father, I am gripped by the slight nausea and immediate gut-reaction of wanting to hurt someone who hurts children. I’m okay with that. Child rapists are among the lowest of the low; that’s not something I will change my mind about.

I feel similarly, if less viscerally, about a man who forces himself on a woman — your standard rapist.

If our laws were directed specifically at those miscreants, there wouldn’t be the (same) problems we currently have. Unfortunately, someone, and I’m not sure who, decided that the only way to keep our children safe is to come down hard on sex offenders. Sex offenders has become synonymous with child rapists in the mind of the public, so anything done to and in pursuit of sex offenders is fair game.

That by itself is worrying, since even the lowest of the low have rights, but it just keeps getting worse.

While hiding behind the cry of “Think of the children!” legislatures compound the problem by lumping everything they possibly can under the penumbra of sex offence. That’s why we’re left with the issues of children’s lives forever ruined by youthful indiscretion.
That’s why we’re left with people who need help, but who end up sentenced to spend the remainder of their lives in prison.

Fear mongering is an insidious evil that permeates every aspect of our culture and our nation, and the reason it’s not going away is because it works.

When we allow ourselves to be convinced that our children are not safe without the draconian and over-broad sex offence laws, we cheapen and insult victims of rapists and abuse, as well as willingly relinquishing our rights and turning a blind eye towards justice.

I just finished Judge Richard Posner’s …Not a Suicide Pact. It is an intriguing and thought-provoking read — however, I’m left with a particularly partisan taste in my mouth.
I quite enjoyed the background and realistic perspective Posner offers on national security and fighting terrorism. The distinctions he draws between past threats and the current threat of global, unconventional terrorism are valid… to a point.

J. Posner lays out his exceptionally valid argument for why police procedures do not adequately meet national security against terrorism; he makes intelligent (if not convincing) arguments for both why and how civil liberties must be weighed against national security measures in times of national emergencies. He pays lip service to civil libertarians but dismisses them, ultimately terming their views “excessive” and “irresponsible”, but that is to be expected; after all, he hardly expects to convince any libertarians with his arguments. The biggest warning flag was in the conclusion, a passage that was reminiscent of Justice Scalia’s dissent in Boumediene:

Though scattered by our invasion of Afghanistan and by our stepped-up efforts at counterterrorism, terrorist leaders may even now be regrouping, and preparing an attack that will produce destruction on a scale to dwarf 9/11.(p.148)

Compare that passage to Scalia’s:

I think it appropriate to begin with a description of the disastrous consequences of what the Court has done today… It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed… The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.

Why, must they resort to base fear mongering? I thought that was the exclusive jurisdiction of the media.
I would still suggest this book — it is an interesting read and at least gives excellent jumping off points for thinking the issues through yourself.

UPDATE — 1/1/09 –
I realized late last night that I failed to make any mention of the actual point of the book.
J. Posner points out many times that his main thesis in the book is that many of the “curtailments” of civil liberties in times of national emergencies are, in fact, constitutional. To his credit, he stipulates that just being constitutional does not necessarily make something morally correct.

The constitutional issues he raises and attempts to put to rest waver right on the edge — dependent on how you view the constitution and the importance of the framers’ intent. I compared his views to Justice Scalia’s earlier; those similarities exist only so far as their agreement about the danger of terrorism. I’m sure Scalia would have choice words regarding Posner’s view that:

Language and drafters’ intent are not the only or even, in my judgment, the best guides to constitutional rule making; they are merely the most orthodox ones.

That being said, I feel that Posner’s view is a much more practical and realistic one than Scalia’s; I simply disagree with the extent of some of the conclusions in this book.