sex offenders: The new threat to security.

Broken lives, broken homes, broken families. How could this occur in America? How can we, as a people, condone abuse? I'm speaking, of course, about the latest big problem in America: Sex offenders.

Sex offenders have become the latest political hot button. One can distract a detractor from nearly anything by invoking that specter of child abuse.. but is it really what we think it is? Are we buying our 'security' at the expense of all our freedoms, and gaining nothing at all? We talk of protecting our children, but what of the children of the offender? Some would claim that offenders have no right to family, no right to love, no right to live, even.

Are they not still human? Are their partners, their children still human? Think well before you answer this in the negative, as soon as any man can be said to be inhuman, and his rights and freedoms restricted by writ, all men can be.

But is this the work of a just and fair society? Indeed, what is perceived as a sex offense is not just and fair, but should we abuse to prevent abuse? Should we torture to prevent torture, murder to prevent murder?

This is what the sex offender laws lead to... since we have no right to police protection, and must police ourselves, would not an honest man justify many things in the name of protection? If such a man were to commit acts of vigilante 'justice', could he not claim he was condoned in such by the government itself? When we wrap a people, any people, for any reason in a label where they may be targeted, are we not, indeed, creating a situation where people will be targeted?

There is no fairness, in this world, nor in many cases recourse, but we ask, and demand only one thing, the right to be human. Should that right be denied, by any man, to any man, then the denier is guilty of fostering tyranny and slavery. We are a country based upon the rights and freedoms of men, based upon the ideal that all men are created equal, and that includes all of humanity, all genders, all colors, all creeds in the 'human'.

When you children cry out in the night, do you not fear for their safety? When the child of a sex offender cries in the night, who hears? When they sit at the schools, and are tormented, not for anything they have done, but the perception of what a family member has done, is that fair or just? Should they be torn from their homes, does that not deny their rights?

What have they done to deserve such a torment? How is this just or fair, that people judge them, judge their family, and judge their very existence, not even for their own acts? How is it fair that same law destroys those children, forever, in the name of their own protection? How is it just or fair that children are labeled as molesters and rapists, in many cases, simply for having a teenage relationship?

Is this the part of a wise and just government? Is it truly protection? Think about it. Look at the department of justice statistics. The greatest number of those approached by police officers, charged, and convicted of 'sex offenses' are between fourteen and eighteen. The ratio decreases over time.

And the greatest part of new sex offenses comes from those not on the registry. What protects you from those? Is it the destruction you visit upon those on the registry? Is it the vigilantes that call friends, neighbors, jobs? Is it forcing those on the registry from their homes, upsetting family situations, repealing the rulings of judges to place new trials upon them, trials, not by the court or by juristic right, but by the legislature without reviewing any kind of information on the offense or the situation surrounding it?

We, the people, of the united states, includes all the people. Young and old, rich and poor, felons, citizens, legislators, and even presidents and those that live on the edges of society.

How is it just or reasonable to press more, however, to those edges of society? How is such power for the protection of others, when it forces people into situations where no man can see hope, and where justice is a fading memory in the daily trials of survival?

Is a label such a good thing to give a man? Should a man rebuild his life from the ground up, and then be destroyed again, not for a new offense, but for being judged guilty of a future offense which may never occur?

That, friends, is the future you're creating... a future of guilt until proven innocence. A future of no rights, of no hope, of no security. When all are registered, who can say what the registry will be used for? Nobody will protect the children then... nobody can... for when the rights of any are limited, and the freedoms taken by writ... all freedoms have fallen, and all rights will be restricted.
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Protection and the Federal Government

The federal Government has numerous times attempted total disarmament of felons.. and in some cases, there is substantial argument for that impairment. But given the distinct argument in DC vs Heller, as to the necessity for the firearms for self-defense, upheld by the supreme court... might there not be an argument for felons?

There have been numerous attempts in the Federal level to expand the blanket prohibition to misdomeanor sex offenses, mentioned in the congressional 'debate' (if one can call it a debate when the time and argument is assigned by the promulgator of the bill) on H.R. 4472. But at what point does the government establish a protected right to the expectation of protection?

If there is no right, under a number of rulings to protection, then where does the protection lie? Naught but in our own hands, friends. But denial of the ability to protect oneself, is an implied assumption of the duty to protect, and the right to the same protection.

"Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect
individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty
is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection
of the general public." (Lynch v. NC Dept. Justice)

". . . a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen."--Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181)

Cases known supporting this:
South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. (HOW) 396,15 L.Ed., 433 (1856)
Bowers v. DeVito, U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, 686F.2d 616 (1882)
Riss v. City of New York, 293 N.Y. 2d 897 (1968)
Keane v. City of Chicago, 98 Ill App 2d 460 (1968)
Hartzler v. City of San Jose, App., 120 Cal. Rptr 5 (1975)
Reiff v. City of Philadelphia, 477F. Supp. 1262 (E.D.Pa. 1979)
Chapman v. City of Philadelphia, 434 A.2d 753 (Sup. Ct. Penn. 1981)
Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A.2d 1 (1981)
Davidson v. City of Westminster, 32 C.3d 197,185 Cal. Rptr. 252,649
P.2d 894 (S.Ct. Cal. 1982)
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A2d 1306 (D.C. App. 1983)
Morris v. Musser, 478 A.2d 937 (1984)
Calogrides v. City of Mobile, 475 So. 2d 560 (S.Ct. Ala. 1985)
Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E. 2nd 247 (N.C. App. 1989)
Marshall v. Winston, 389 S.E. 2nd 902 (Va. 1990)


Can any government protect, however? No, they cannot. There is no way to balance protection with rights. If you look to the protection programs for federal witnesses, the conditions are those of a prison.. they are protected 'for their own good' and have no civil rights. This is not the part of the Government, nor in its power for any class of citizens.

When is it that we must demand our right to be protected, or to be able to protect ourselves? At what point does that protection become a mandate? And, considering the nature of protection, do we dare ask them to protect?

Protective custody is still custody, and after all, the ghettoes of Germany were originally protective in nature. It is easier once one is out of sight, and out of mind of the people that they are being protected from, to remove them utterly.

So in whose hand lies our defense? Is it the hand of god? Or does god work through us? If there is a just and loving god, that has granted the foundation of our nation, as was argued by the founding fathers, is it not just as binding upon us and our foundation? Are we not still citizens, bound to the cause of liberty? If we cannot protect our own rights, we also cannot protect the rights of others. If the police cannot protect, we gain the duty to protect ourselves, and our families.

By opening the registry to the general public, and sensationalizing and demonizing the registrants, is it not removal of the limited protection of privacy? WHen before, one had to search out the information, and actually be affected by it, is it not a de facto destruction of our right to self-protection and self-determination?

By what means do they argue that such is applicable? By interstate commerce... but are we not as well those who engage in it? Does this not still make us all citizens?

Should they strip that too of us, does that make their actions any greater? Are we not still humans? How long until we again are stripped of even that dignity?

And is it not already occurring? Shows like 'to catch a predator' and news reports sensationalizing the 'worst of the worst' as they like to call it...

The stereotypes written of 'chester the molester' and so many other things are only going farther in this demonization. We look out into the world, and fear for our safety, as citizens and as humans. We fear for the safety of ourselves, our children, and even the ultimate rights and freedoms of those who persecute us.

But what means have we to resist? Only education, now, and prayer, and thought, and remonstrance. We have no power beyond that of the poll, and the education, and they attempt even to take that away from us.

Is it not truth that any nation that removes any rights from any citizen, natural rights, not freedoms, rights granted, not by the government, but by the state of being human... has ceased to respect all rights of all citizens? Is it not true that any removal of rights expands to the maximum of the void of outcry which is the part of all speakers, all voters, all citizens?

Mercy is the other pan of the balance of justice, and in no case can any weight be removed on either side of that scale. This is the purpose of the jury, to try the law and the facts, to try the very constitutionality of the proceedings, and to try with a just conscience the dictates of what it is to be human.

That is justice... and when the debt to society is paid, even if it is paid by the life of the one judged, the debt is over. No more can be asked of any man, nor an indeterminate sentence given by writ of the congress can be instituted, nor can a community nor any human being deny them their rights and freedoms, as those freedoms were restored after the service of their sentence.


This is the fight we fight... a fight of lassitude, of ignorance, of prejudice, of hardened hearts, and closed minds... but we can and must fight. We have the advantage of truth, a sword that while two-edged, cuts through the armour of lies and hypocracy that surrounds the issue.

And should there be no end to the ties, should we not cut the gordian knot? If there be no patience, no compassion, and no redemption within the government, when the government respects not the rights of even the least citizen... is it still a duly and justly constituted government?

When we, as a people, are guaranteed the rights for which our forefathers fought... is it the place of any duly elected government to deny those rights?

It is time to take back our powers from our government. It is time to take back our places of polling from easily-influenced machines, to return the counting and storage of the votes into the public view. It is time, from the county level to the state level, to remind the federal government that they are, and must be servants of the people and of the several states, and that intrusions upon the sovereign rights of any human being is not to be tolerated.

Our battle is at the polling places.. from county to federal. Our battle si for the hearts and minds of those who would do wrongly to their fellow men. Our battle is one of redemption, not of condemnation. Our battle is one of love.. not of anger. Returning ourselves, and our government to the fold from which it has separated itself is our duty, our right, and our oath as citizens, not by violence, but by the simple act of recognizing our rights and powers as citizens, and the governments derived powers which we grant them.

Lest we forget... that the government is of, by, and for the people. It is a servant of our interests, a steward of our nation, and as such, should such a steward fail in his duties, it must be gently, but firmly reminded of whence the duties originate.

And that is the path of the citizen, and the society.. remonstrance, discussion, honesty, compassion, are all parts of government... even for those who wrong us. No man may be removed of his right to self-protection save by his own choice.. and any man who would be so foolish to allow another his protection, has admitted that he has none.
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Showing who we are

I've been responding to a number of things this morning, as is my nature. I've been looking back through them, and pondering them, and even, somewhere, deep in this battered, and scarred heart, praying about them. I'm not a religious man. I'm not one who feels that he has a mandate from god, nor should I. I am simply a man.

I have, however, in the days following my research into the depth and breadth of the problem of the sex offender laws, found a new purpose, a drive, and a fire, a spark of the divine, the inspiration. I've not written thus in many years, since I actually believed in something. Perhaps this is simply the rekindling of my belife speaking through this medium of electrons and bits.

I believe all humans are equal. I believe that no man has the right, or privilege, or power granted to deny this fact, and that no human being should be deprived of their rights for any reason, nor can they. I believe that we as a people are, and must be, people of compassion, love, and forgiveness. We must be people of strong character, strong ideals, and work toward those ideals, while keeping the rights and freedoms of others firmly in our minds.

We must deal with personal responsibility. I am not responsible for the actions of others, but I am responsible for their freedoms, rights, and privileges, by my own actions. Should I infringe upon those rights and freedoms, I am as guilty as any other would be.

We must look out over the world with compassion and caring, with dignity without regard to the circumstances that we have placed ourselves in, or been placed in. With love and compassion, the denial of the judgments placed upon us, we must look out over the world, strong and resolute, to break the chains of hatred, of bigotry, of anger.

To do this we must become angry, but make it a righteous anger, an anger, not with a person as a target, but hate as a target. An anger that moves us, not to attack, but to preserve, defend, and restore. Our hand is a hand of redemption, a hand of restoration, the same as that given by god, and extended to all mankind.

Our rights and powers are given us by that same hand, and imbued within each person is that same divinity. We are not sheep, we are not wolves, we are human. Our frailty and mistakes were as equally built into all, our humanity brings us to the realization and choices that make those mistakes with the best possible knowledge at the time, and brought into action by the emotions, feelings, and knowledge that one has at the time.

I defy any man to say that, in the same situation, the same knowledge, and the same thoughts as any man had at the time of any offense... that they would do different. With the same understandings, that they would change what occurred.

This is why the hand of redemption, justice tempered by mercy, is so utterly important. Incarceration for a time is needful, not to punish, for separation from society is a punishment, but for remediation. It allows one to reflect, ideally, upon what one has lost, and then be re-embraced into the society. And this should be extended, equally, to our opponents... a re-integration, a chance for redemption.

Those that claim themselves Christians and judge... forget that Christ came not for the saved, but for the sinners. He came not to raise the righteous up to heaven, but to extend a hand to the fallen. He came to redeem.. and that redemption again.. was extended to all mankind.

None of us is without sin. All of us have hurt others.. and all of us bear the same personal responsibility to gaze out into the darkness within our soul and defy it. All of us bear the responsibility of our actions, the responsibility for our intrusions on the rights of others, but bear equally the knowledge that humans are fallable, and imperfect.

This is the knowledge from which we fight.. not a knowledge of our perfection, but a knowledge of our imperfection. It is a knowledge, not of our past, but of our future, and that is the knowledge which we must take with us, in any battle, any future. That is the touch of the divine, of whatever god, whatever mind, whatever conscience you believe in.

We are human. Nothing more, nothing less. And that is the greatest thing to be of all.
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Breaking out of darkness.

Compassion and conscience cannot die.. to imply such would be to say that they could be murdered... they but sleep to nurse deep-held wounds, rest to be awakened again to their endless toil to make a way for mankind to become beyond what they are.

Compassion, conscience, love, acceptance, these are the messages of one Jesus Christ. Not the judgment, not the condemnation, but redemption for all. Love, peace, and hope are only possible so long as you hold them close. Justice is only just so long as there is mercy and compassion.

Should we ever fall so far as to forget who we are, to forget what we are, and to abandon compassion, conscience, and care beside the road, beaten and abused, we would no longer be human.

Those are the very qualities that separate us from the rocks, and trees, the caring for others of our kind, the stewardship of our rights, duties, and privileges, and the freedoms and rights of others.

For, in truth, no man can be denied of their rights. Their freedoms, perhaps, for a time, but their rights cannot be alienated from them. This is the purpose of prison, a limitation on freedoms, not to be punished, but to separate one from the society one has wronged, to allow the wounds on both sides to heal, and to attempt to make right the wrongs which were done against that society.

These laws are not about protection, they're not about preservation, they're not about society, nor about anything but condemnation and control, and maintaining that condemnation, maintaining a scapegoat for corrupt politics and broken societies.

It is compassion that creates societies.. and hardness of the heart that destroys and breaks them. It is fear and anger and hatred that destroy societies.. compassion, love, and forgiveness that allow them to heal.

Many offenders have victims, yes. But none of them have to remain so. They can rebuild their lives, even though there may be scars, they can turn their world into a thing of beauty even so. Allowing yourself to weep, allowing yourself to learn to love yourself again, and accepting that the abuse you were put through is not your fault are all steps on the process, so is anger, so is hurt, so is reconciliation with yourself. And those scars are as much against ourselves as our perpetrators, and left unhealed, the infection grows and may cause us to hurt others.

Our purpose as humans is not to get the most 'stuff'... be it power or anything else on this planet. It is to simply love, help, and heal each other and our world. Not our planet.. our world.

Because we are part of that world. And though our nation is one society, there are many.. and all make larger societies of humanity... and between members of that human race there are no differences, there are no barriers save those made by those who would remain in control.

If any person tells you that you cannot reach, you cannot strive for something that keeps and holds those rights for yourself and others.. he seeks to control. If he seeks to keep you silent, he seeks to victimize.

How many of the very 'worst of the worst' abusers had victims that were afraid to leave? How many of them could not see a way out, so never tried, and often died in captivity? How sadistic were the abusers to make ways out but not let them dare to reach for them? And to kill them when they tried to escape?

This is what madness is. This is hatred, this is fear, this is control, and external control is tyranny.

The ultimate control over the fates of mankind, over everything we are, comes from within. If we lack that control over self, lack that responsibility that comes with it to shape our destinies and by our own shaping, to lead the destinies of others, then we are doomed forever to repeat our mistakes.

That is the ultimate thing they try to deny us... the ability to shape our destinies as our conscience sees fit. The ability to rise above who we were, who they claim us to be, and the ability to burn brightly for the world to see.

Ultimately, the future is what matters.. even if we are not here to see it, and the only indication of the future is by the past, compared with the present. Judging by that past, it is a certainty that things will get worse if we do nothing. More and more bills pass by the desks of Congress making certain of this.

Do we really wish to live on the world which they shape? When personal responsibility becomes collective responsibility.. is it not true, at all times in the past, that all bear the punishments and restrictions of those few who offend? When we can no longer stand up and claim that 'THIS IS WHO I AM' and not be punished for it.. when we can no longer simply be, and create, and work toward the true good of society, where all humankind is free, and recognizes the results of their actions toward one another, and their responsibility for those actions they take...

It is a nightmare coming to pass. It is a damnation of the soul, of the spirit of humanity. It is a destruction of all that mankind holds dear, from the very right to work the ground that they have tilled, to the right to eat the food one has grown or purchased, to the right to keep the money that one has worked for, and to use it to better ourselves, our children, and our society.

That is why I fight. They claimed that I cared very little about others.. but I have learned to care perhaps too much. I see the results of action and inaction, of changes and choices, and I see my own responsibility in it. I pray and work, I dream and hope, and I will not see any person's dreams crushed and stand idly by.

That is personal responsibility, that is the trials of conscience, and that is the reasons I can do nothing else. It is why I fight abuse in all its forms, from abuse of the sexual sort, to the physical and verbal, to the governmental and regulatory, to the very abuse that is inherent in keeping people ignorant of the fact that they are being abused.

That.. is conscience. Not a shame.. not a guilt.. but a fire that burns inside us and pushes us, fuels us, consumes us to make changes in who we are, and what we do. It is not something that says 'I am bad' but something that says 'I must change'. Sometimes that is not enough.. and sometimes we cannot hear it clearly enough. That is what jails and prisons are for.. to silence the external and let the internal speak.

A temporal judgment is a temporal judgment. The greater one is that which lives inside your heart and judges you every day, and that is why so many condemn. It is what they fear in themselves that they judge. They judge not on what is true or real for each individual person, but on the fears in their own hearts, their own being, mind, and conscience, and that judgment, ultimately, is a judgment of their own being.

It's time to make an end to all of this, and neither man nor any court or entity can stop what is coming. Our nation yearns to be free from the heavy yoke that has been placed on us and weighed down so slowly we forget its very weight. We seek and hope, yearn to reach out and dare to dream again.

We yearn to be able to throw paper airplanes, and, childlike, wonder-filled and awe-struck at our world, and not have to work eighty hours a week just to make the least payments, then go further into debt on our credit cards just to eat and get to work.

And I can't ignore it any longer.

Tried By Conscience.
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