We seem to have a basic need to dehumanize and demonize and ostracize particular unfortunate groups of people.
Male Sexual Predator Seeks Fourteen Year Old Miss America
A few weeks ago The Poet's Eye was dismayed and horrified to see the news story about the men in Miami who were paroled sex offenders and had been so restricted in their choice of living places that they were housed under a bridge as a result of the laws that say that if you are a sex offender you can't live within 2500 feet of school, church, playground, public restroom or a MacDonald's that sells happy meals. The CNN story showed footage of the parole officer making his pre-dawn bed check to insure that the animals were in their cages. The official residence of these men was the Julia Tuttle Causeway and by the conditions of their parole, they had to be at their official residence from 10:00PM to 6:00AM. These men are still in prison, why not at least give them three hots and a cot? Hey, GitBay is just a boat ride away, put them there in our National Leper Colony.
We seem to have a basic need to dehumanize and demonize and ostracize particular unfortunate groups of people. It's fashionable to create monsters who can be feared and reviled. The Jews have enjoyed this status, and Gypsies and Fundamental Muslim Terrahrists and Communists and Mormons and dope addicts and Anarchists and Sexual Predators.
The process goes something like this: First you define the group and give it a name. Then you try to dehumanize the group and list the reasons why this group is a threat to humanity. Then you point out specific atrocities committed by members of the group. and even though these may be totally anecdotal, you blame the entire group for the atrocities. Then you apply the Final Solution, something like putting them in a concentration camp or under a bridge in Miami.
Once you can apply the name, once you can call somebody a Jew or a Communist or a heretic or terrorist or a drug lord, then you can own them and all their property. This is a proven technique, it's worked for centuries. The Christians sat in the hotseat on the Colosseum floor at one time. When the Catholic Church became the authority they, in turn, persecuted other groups. This even has a name. They called it the Inquisition. All the heretics were fitted with global positioning ankle bracelets that melted off when they were burned at the stake.
Probably the sickest program on television is Amerika's Most Wanted. Something just coils up in the pit of my stomach when I see that little sawed-off Nazi John Walsh wearing his storm-trooper leather jacket doing his tough-guy judge, jury and executioner act. Now we have Lauren Nelson, the poor, stupid chic from Oklahoma who thinks that it is really cool to be Miss America posing as jail bait. Walsh, never one to miss an opportunity to be as sleazy as possible, jumped on the To Catch a Predator bandwagon that MSNBC's Chris Hansen has been riding, and raised the ante by recruiting Miss America to be his decoy. How quaint. Put her on the street corner wearing the same bikini that she wore in the pageant, why doncha? The Poet's Eye is discerning but it can't tell which of these guys is the bigger whore, playing to the voyeuristic tendencies of the American viewing public.
Most sexually abused children are not victims of convicted sex offenders nor Internet pornographers or predators, they are abused by people in their families or other people that they know. The notion that there is some epidemic of sexual predation on the internet is largely fiction. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "based on what we know about those who harm children, the danger to children is greater from someone they or their family knows than from a stranger." But it still makes for great TV. Everybody loves a monster show.
A convict friend of mine said to me, "Once you've got that X on your back, it's all over." In other words, once you are labeled as a member of a sub-species like 'criminal' or 'communist' or 'terrorist' or 'heretic' or 'short eyes' or 'sexual predator', life as you know it is over. You can't get a job, your friends desert you and you can't live within 2500 feet of a television set that might be showing a beauty queen posing as a fourteen year old.
The Poet's Eye would love to see John Walsh and Chris Hansen and Miss 'gotcha' America all living under a bridge in Miami.
Tell you baby oh you look so fine,
Sending quivers up and down my spine,
I don't care about our different ages,
I'm an open book with well thumbed pages,
Jailbait, oh and I ain't too late,
Jailbait baby get down
---Motorhead
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