Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Whatever happened to Jobs and the Economy?

Last update: February 15, 2011 - 1:36 PM
 
H. L. Mencken once opined, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”.
The truth in that statement often results in policy makers exaggerating the need for their existence, discounting objective data and at times solving problems that don’t exist.

Then Governor Pawlenty’s actions, redacting major portions of a legislatively commissioned report on treatment of Minnesota Sex Offenders, is the most recent example.  The report, while compiled by people who actually work with sex offenders, and who most people would consider experts, did not gel with Pawlenty’s political ambitions, or his intuitive beliefs.  And since he held the bully pulpit, he, or his minions, decided what the legislature, and by extension the public, should hear.

Now, at least one of our elected representatives has suggested castration as a punishment.  Perhaps this amused his committee, or the people he represents, but anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the Constitution, and its’ protections against cruel and unusual punishment, knows better.  And I would guess that Introductory State Representative Class 101 includes some reference to the Constitution.  But then maybe he was just playing to the media.  When the expert witness told him that there were many motivating factors in why people offended, and testosterone was rarely one of them, he opined, “well it works on the farm”.  Unfortunately, his experience suggests he knows as little about farming as he does about sex offenders.  Before being elected to the legislature, he sold insurance.

The same committee that was asked to consider castration for sex offenders has also endorsed a proposal to certify 10 year olds as adults in serious criminal cases.  It has been brought up for at least the past 4 years, but never passed out of committee before now.  No one can ever remember a case where a 10 year old was convicted of the types of crimes covered by the proposed certification provision.  The law change is being sought by the parents of a young girl who was tragically murdered by her daycare providers’ 13 year old son.  They are more than entitled to be passionate in their quest to make some sense of their daughters’ death, and take steps to assure others don’t suffer a loss like theirs.  But putting a 3rd grader in the adult corrections system likely would not have prevented the death of their daughter.   The truth is, we can never eliminate risk, we can only manage it.  Groups that represent both law enforcement and County Attorneys, along with corrections professionals, behaviorists and experts on the development the adolescent brain have all testified against the proposed law change.   The committee passed it nonetheless.
Coincidentally, the committee also endorsed a proposal to make the sale of handguns to adults, who do committ the kinds of crimes referenced above, less cumbersome.

Back in grade school social studies, we learned that we elect our policy makers to represent us, and make difficult, but informed, decisions.  We also need them to be courageous, and not pander to the base fears and intuitive quest for simple solutions that we all lean toward.  We need them to listen to the experts, not play to the media simply to create a platform from which to skewer their opponents for voting against a law they never intended to pass anyway.  In short, we need them to act like adults. 

Somebody should pass a law.

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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.


But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?


All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution


Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
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What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
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I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”