Swat Somebody's Butt And Yours Belongs To The D.A (Mark Steyn On Oregon Nifong Excess Alert)

Orange County Register ^ | 07/29/2007 | Mark Steyn

[goldstategop]

District Attorney Berry told reporter Susan Goldsmith of the Oregonian that his department "aggressively" pursues sex crimes. "These cases are devastating to children," he said. "They are life-altering cases."

No, sir. The only one devastating children's lives is you. If you "win," and these "criminals" are convicted, 20, 30 years from now – applying for a job, volunteering for a community program, heading north for a weekend in Vancouver and watching the Customs guard swipe the driver's license through the computer – there'll be a blip, something will come up on the screen, and for the umpteenth time two middle-age men will realize they bear a mark that can never be expunged. Because decades ago they patted their pals on the rear in a middle-school corridor.

A world that requires handcuffs and judges and district attorneys for what took place that Friday in February is not just a failed education system but an entire society that's losing any sense of proportion. Without which, civilized life becomes impossible. So we legalize more and more aspects of life and demand that district attorneys prosecute ever more aggressively what were once routine areas of social interaction.

A society that looses the state to criminalize schoolroom horseplay is guilty not only of punishing children as grown-ups but of the infantilization of the entire citizenry.

[freekitty]

We really need to learn to say “NO” to this dimwits.

[angkor]

When you have teachers who don't want to "break the rules" and who also support zero-tolerance policies (e.g., a water pistol is a "weapon"; a peck on the cheek is "rape"); and administrators and principals who want to keep their jobs and also avoid civil lawsuits against them; and elected prosecutors who demonstrate their "get tough" profile by calling Mommy's pinking shears "a deadly weapon" and two Flintstones vitamin pills "a potentially deadly threat to our children", then you have created a system that not only encourage but **demands** the litigious assault against not merely minors (under 18), but little children of 8, 10, and 14 years old.

There are two problems here.

The first is school teachers and officials who are largely terrified of their own students, mainly because the have no legal right or ability to control those students in a civilized or rational manner (e.g., suspension, expulsion, etc.).

And the precipitating cause of all of this is a judicial system that is infested with judges who legislate from the bench, and who impose a whimsical and arbitrary system of justice that absolutely mocks cultural norms of behavior and subverts the ruole of law.

I am by no means supporting the reprehensible cowardice of teachers and administrators when they participate in prosecuting 9 and 11 year old children for someting that would have meant a note to Mommy and Daddy 25 years ago.

But I am saying that teachers, administrators, prosecutors, and communities have created an irrational and hysterical system full of unintended consequences, the most horrific of which is that little children from 7 to 13 years old can and do become felons for having a plastic picnic knife in their lunchbox.

This is entirely the fault and responsibilty of communities, who do have the power to change the rules. And if they instead choose to offload their civic responsibilities to such a twisted system of injustice, they deserve everything they get. Unfortunately it is their children who will pay the price.

[angkor]

I disagree. The teachers, administrators, and even the prosecutor are performing their jobs within the guidelines established by the voting citizens of Oregon.

Note if you will where Steyn properly lays the blame. Not upon the teachers or the police, but upon the citizens and the society of the state of Oregon.

"A world that requires handcuffs and judges and district attorneys for what took place that Friday in February is not just a failed education system but an entire society .... A society that looses the state to criminalize schoolroom horseplay....

[nyyankeefan]

now these kids are deemed sex predators and offenders...

the next step might be....one of them might contemplate a columbine....

then the lib/dems will cry and rant...WHY OH WHY????

pc crap run amuck!!!!!!

a petition should be started for jorge bush to pardon them!!!!

[NonValueAdded]

and spanked ... principal, vice principal, prosecutor, the whole lot of them.

[Philistone]

Yup. I’m sure glad I got out of Junior High School when I did. All of us (boys and girls) would labeled sexual predators today for some of the stuff we did. We were just fooling around, having fun. Little did we know that we were causing each other life-long psychologcal trauma...

[txdoda]

I disagree. The teachers, administrators, and even the prosecutor are performing their jobs

So why aren't the (guilty) girls being prosecuted also. ??

[NonValueAdded]

You don't happen to write for US News and World Report, do you? /obscure

Just teasing ... your examination of the issue is spot on.

[Jaidyn]

When I was that age, we boys would go around “snapping” bra straps. Now that I have outed myself, I sure hope there is a statute of limitations on “bra strap snapping”.

It was because of guys like you, that girls began wearing bras that snapped in the front. We really confused more than a few guys back then.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the school principal and vice principal need to lose their jobs over this. Totally inappropriate over-reaction that shows poor decision making abilities.

The individual parent has only one way of making his/her "no confidence vote" stick. And that would be to absent his/her children for that school - by moving out of district or by otherwise making different arrangements for the education of their children.

[mo]

I could be wrong, but I believe the zealous excesses of the King’s men with regards to the King’s subjects, had something to do with a war in 1776......

[angkor]

So why aren't the (guilty) girls being prosecuted also. ??

You're right about that.

I suspect it's a tactical "oversight" designed to keep the citizens from realizing what stupid leftist sheeple they are, and from clearly seeing the sick and irrational society they've created.

[UltraKonservativen]

.... the zealous excesses of the King’s men with regards to the King’s subjects, had something to do with a war in 1776......

There are days when the “nonsense” I read becomes too much to bear and the thought that we should be taking up arms to put a stop to it enters my mind and then I think...YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!

[angkor]

So why aren't the (guilty) girls being prosecuted also. ??

Apparently because in Oregon only males can be charged with "sexual assault by butt slap".

I said it was a sick, twisted, irrational, and whimsical system, didn't I?

[angkor]

You don't happen to write for US News and World Report, do you? /obscure

Not recently.

[OKIEDOC]

I am beginning to think that to be a DA, you have to have a law degree and no common sense, none, nada, zilch, is that correct?

What bothers me greatly about this injustice is that other DA’s are not speaking out about what is happening to the boys.

Sort of like the Muslims not condemning Terrorist or Jihadists.

Of course Oregon is wedged between California and Washington so some of the inane silliness of these two wacko states may be rubbing off on Oregon.

[DUMBGRUNT]

All football players will soon have a record?

[narby]

Within the last week, my son-in-law was accused of sexual abuse, our family vacation planned for six months was cancelled, my daughter lost custody of my grandaughter, and much more.

This was because a "therapist" misunderstood what a girl told them and reported the situation to the state, and a second girl who has a history of wild false accusations against adults reported that my son-in-law "looked at her chest and she didn't like it" (whatever that means). Even that second accusation is now in doubt, but hasn't been resolved yet.

This appears as if it will go away, but even still the state agency that is heading up the charges will retain the accusations on file forever. We have yet to find out if the charges are public domain and can be discovered by future employers in some computer scan of son-in-laws records.

Children need to be protected from sexual predators, absolutely. But there needs to be some genuine sexual predation going on, and not just improbable accusations from pre-teens that know full well they have the upper hand and cannot be held accountable themselves.

In a way, this reminds me of the Victorian era, except rather than the church enforcing idiotic standards of modesty while the back alleys are full of prostitutes, instead the state is treating normal activities and obviously false accusations with deathly seriousness, while schools teach abnormal sexual practices to first graders. Some common sense is called for, and the power of bureaucrats to teach deviancy to children while other bureaucrats go on witch hunts on parents must end.

[Balding_Eagle]

Given the scope of what this has all become by now, justice would be dragging the adults responsible to a public suare and hanging them.

I mean it.