Right speech, right time, right now. Engage!
By Michael Rosenberg . . . The criminalization of the speech of registered citizens ensures Tom and Jane Public can continue with a campaign of blissful ignorance; the proliferation of enthusiastic comments beneath news articles in which our rights are violated is a quick study illustrating the detrimental effect of our inability to use our right speech when and where it could do the most good.
When before, when else today is it not only okay but standard operating procedure to subject a group as a whole to obloquy? Add to that these commentators have for the most part an absolutely indestructible ignorance, one with a focused frame of reference which includes a few outlier cases, the Kankas, the Wetterlings. The news stories that made the most sensational news, that everyone agreed with one another, ‘those sickos need to die.’
Yet most of us on the registry are not outliers, we did not “sexually abuse” but had a case of an age difference the law does not allow; we were not “child molesters” but a 9 year old and an 8 year old playing doctor; we did not display “publicly lewd and lascivious behavior” but needed to urinate by the side of a road for a lack of a restroom; we did not “kidnap” but held someone up who had been hit by a car, then lecture this young person on the dangers of playing so close to the road.
I had my jaw broken in prison because someone heard “sex offender” and spread the word. The attack came by surprise, though I had expected it for months. The prison awarded the inmates who attacked me with new housing and fresh pillows, and a few words of encouragement. Both got to keep their parole dates. I got shipped out to ad-seg for 90 days for being “out of place” on my own housing unit.
It would be satisfying to see courtrooms become places in which compassion and an attempt to understand the motives behind an act and the result from potentially years in prison were considered. Today we have arrived at a point at which fast-tracked legislation includes strict liability laws no room for interpretation of mens rea. The powers of judiciary and legislative over-lap, perhaps, when judges have no ability to think about how to implement a law, and when prosecutors are playing a game to see who can snuff the greatest number of bad guys, and the cops are charging folks with crimes with the same sort of prejudice we can all see, smell and hear all over the net and the television. People are simply doing what they believe other people want them to do, and what they have to do in the face of so many ‘sick and deranged pedophiles’ running around abducting children.
What is terrifying, really and truly, is the way in which those sex offenders enduring the stigma of Megan’s Law are being scape-goated for behavior not only have they not committed, but which they might possibly commit in the future and might have done in their past. In the news of might have done, a distraught father discussed the shooting of his son by person(s) unknown, then links the murder to the likelihood of it being a sex offender. Just because. As for might have done, when are we going to get it across to folks that not everyone’s past is as sinful as the papers would have them believe? Since news is largely entertainment, and since feelings of disgust and hatred are extremely easy to conjure up, news stories give people that nice mix of hatred to stew upon, and they come back for more.
To be fair, it is not always a simple matter to discern fact from opinion – in fact, the two are marvelously interwoven; now eggs are good, now not so much. This guy is a father of two, now he is a horrific monster who took family photographs, one of which was of his kids bathing.
The fact is that facts are laid out in a manner to convince us that we ought be of another mind, and opposition is created. Instead of rightly seeing how we can agree, contrarianism reigns, for peace is difficult and war easy. Let us not call opinion fiction. Maybe the point is none of us knows.
Sometimes a good feeling arises from feeling the enemy has been beaten down. But what of when we are the enemy? Reading a recent YouTube comment about a “sexual predator” nearing his mandatory release from prison, the author saw a gushing wave of criticism, hate and filth directed at the man in question, but more generally, a group with which he has been largely associated.
No matter your feelings on his crime, whether you sympathize after having been bum-rushed yourself by an aggressive police-force, or sustain a lively hatred for those people charged with lewd behavior around a child, a general question arises, and we need not an answer, but questions, plural.
a) Do we have a way to forgive when we do not understand?
b) Need we understand in order to forgive,
c) and lastly, do we need to forgive in order to live and let another (wo)man live?
So for instance, this video seemed to bring out some unfavorable commentary from a keyboard vigilante, and to which recently the author responded to as a newly established vigilant citizen. Read, digest, then come up with some citations you might include. People actually open up to education, even the ones who talk about killing and pedophiles needed the gas chamber.
You will please note the desire of ‘Martell Tha Cool’ in the link above to present himself as a gun-wielding-child-savior-man-of-invincible-ignorance, an ignorance protected by the mob mentality which we have allowed and continue to allow by responding with feelings we pretend are facts. I’ll give him credit, there are a lot of things I do not understand, and yet I have never felt my uninformed, decisive conclusions about entire groups worthy of posting to the world at large. But, lucky us, Martell Tha Cool feels just such gumption, expressing his desire to put some lead in the heads of some, well, you know, the much derided sex offenders.
So what do we do? Well, let’s scroll to the bottom where the denizens deride registered citizens, conflating crimes and amalgamating titles so that a sexual offender is now a non-entity, a creature whose value to others need not be considered, who has signed away all rights, whose family can be castigated with no remorse, who deserves no second look.
Please, if you have time, if you want to help, go out and educate those who look to have the harshest opinions not backed by fact.
Offer the misinformed a second look, a calm perspective shift, because what they do not know can hurt us.
Cant post anything
Pulled you back out of the loop. Somehow got flagged as spam.
I can’t read through comments on YouTube videos because I get enraged. I replied to 3 idiots on there and I’m sure that my comments made so much sense that they’ll be responding shortly with the typical “you’re a pedo” replies.
If it’s not a crime by now, it should be made into a law that when people post comments ANYWHERE on the internet and social media that they’d KILL, STAB, SHOOT someone due to a sexual offense, that commenter should be PROSECUTED for a death threat. Then they can have a criminal record to deal with when they apply for jobs and housing.
If someone directly threatens you or someone else online, report it. They should take it seriosly if it is a direct threat with a sppecific victim.
With the registries growing so rapidly, it won’t be long before those expressing violent desires towards registrants have a family member or friend on it, if they are not on it themselves.
I try to remember that those who lash out with such rage at others who make them uncomfortable are often merely trying to cover up something they hate about themselves.
Right on!
Amen!
I tried that approach with a police officer who does the local sora. After giving him a legal lesson and leaving him nearly defenseless, his final defense was, “you’re a sex offender.” And then threatened to arrest me.
I’ve heard and seen most of the reasoning behind peoples hatred and discrimination. Covers everything under the sun, but I have never seen people threatened and imprisoned simply for exercising the rights everyone else uses freely, well except for people who are enslaved.
Everyone knows these laws are not only illegal, but ineffective, costly, and provides no safety of any kind. Just keep suing these people and bankrupt the legal system and eventually the cost will have its affect. You can count on the american way, when stuff costs to much, you find a way to get rid of things.
Michael,
I applaud most of your comments although I feel that you employed a bit of deflection with regards to the different levels of sex offenses – in other words that perhaps you feel that some people convicted of certain sex offenses more or less deserve the public scorn i.e. child molesters etc. and that those on the margins such as perhaps your crime shouldn’t. I personally believe that no one should face the vilification that is going on today.
Every person convicted of a sex offense, regardless of the nature of their crime, should be individually assessed and never lumped into a category of hatred and scorn that is happening with such wild abandon throughout our country and the world. The people who are true repeat offenders, i.e. psycho-sociopaths, are definitely in the minority and I feel could be easily identified with modern assessment tools available today.
All persons identified as registered citizens must band together and approach this struggle as one if we are going to succeed. There are so many, the vast majority in fact, persons convicted of sex offenses against children that are remaining offense free and shouldn’t be excluded in any way from being a part of this movement. I don’t know if you meant it that way but it is was what I perceived to some extent.
George,
I hear you. The line I drew was between one type of perceived sex offense and the muddling of it with a lot of others. I can speak from personal experience there, the point illustrative of only one way in which labeling does not work well when it involves us humans.
Perhaps it would have been better had I gone on to explain that I am in support of everyone working on herself who never again commits a sex offense; registries work, if by ‘work’ we mean create more victims.
I appreciate your adding clarity to this impassioned-if-not-fully-fleshed-out article/statement/request.
I participate in online forums frequently about RSOs and one thing I’ve found out is that instead of defending people in our status, we can gain more ground by showing how the current laws actually make people less safe. Someone can say “kill ’em all!” all day long, but they would never pick up the weapon to do it. I strive to convince these people that they are advocating for laws similar to Singapore and middle eastern countries where they kill anyone convicted of a crime. America will never go that route I hope.
I try to convince people that this issue does not have “sides” in the traditional sense of the word because if the registries were effective, most of us would stand by it, but they’re not. I show people that I am on the side of keeping children safe and free from harm and there are better ways of doing that than branding a criminal class.
Right speech, Right time, Right now. Fred, Maestro, Rick and all others this article when you look at it makes a lot of sense. We all might have different sex offenses. I might be low on the scale or how enforcement grades people in this distorted fashion but truth is truth.
We as sex offenders have all been discriminated in one way or another in this who ordeal we are going thru. I have been given an opportunity to go back to court. Now Brenda Jones is doing good with helping and even her chapters are doing their parts all across the USA in the combat of all this sex folly or government endeavor.
Everybody’s input is important that has been involved in all this discrimination sex folly.
You know sometimes I get to a state where I don’t know how to listen to but at others I’m just as mad and upset as all of you all are on here about this registry. We have all different ages of people involved yet, authorities say put them in jail, punish them, put them on probation for so long and if one slips up toss them in jail or if one knows how to fight fire with fire, than stand your ground.
A lot of this is ludicrous in lot of ways and infringes on ones right as a human. Can you see any love in any of this?