Why don't we have registries for drunk drivers? They sure kill a lot of people, and it's been shown that drunk driving has a very high ricidivism rate. I would even suggest that they represent a much greater threat to the community than some deviant who gets caught with some pictures of naked kids on his computer.

Or what about registering people involved with spousal abuse that isn't necessarily sexual? It sure would be nice to know in advance if you were going to buy a house next to some violent prick who likes to smack his wife around on a regular basis, wouldn't it?

It wouldn't hurt to know if your neighbors were murderers, car theives, dope dealers, tax cheats, speeders or musicians, either. Or if your bigoted neighbor was convicted of denying employment to a single mother or a black man, ruining those families' chances at a better life. You'd like to know that, wouldn't you? Maybe we could figure out some system where the miscreants would have to put a big, bright letter on their house for every crime they've been convicted of. That would be a big help for everyone.

Well, I guess you could say that isn't fair, since a lot of these folks were convicted and "paid their debt to society." They shouldn't have to keep paying for a crime their entire lives, right?

But sex offenders are different, aren't they? Sex offenders are twisted. It's in their blood and they can't help themselves, even if they've gone to prison and supposedly "paid their debt" (yeah, right!).

Okay, sort of like drunk drivers, too. They have a disease, too, and can't help themselves. And sure, sex offenders don't generally SLAUGHTER whole families, like drunk drivers. But some guy diddling a little kid is so much worse than him losing his temper during one of his frequent fits and accidentally bashing his wife's brains in (2nd degree murder), isn't it? I mean, killing somebody is really so minor compared to touching some kid's pee-pee, even in the abstract, right? Because it's SEX! SEX! Boooooo! Booooooooo!

I guess it's too bad all sex offenders don't kill their victims. That would make it easier on everybody. The sex offender/killer would be locked up and away from society, there wouldn't be a worry and a need in the community for a registry, the perpetrator wouldn't be hounded the rest of his life, the victim wouldn't be tormented the rest of their lives by the memory. Everybody wins!

What sort of signs would you like? I was thinking letters, but maybe it would be better if they were little colorful pictograms like you see on the sides of semi trailers. A little cocktail and a beer bottle for a drunk driver. Maybe a little circle/arrow symbol for a sex offender. How about a needle and joint for a drug offender? Speeding would of course be a car zooming along.

Some of the more abstract crimes might require a little imagination, but there are plenty of talented graphic designers out there who could come up with something appropriate, I'm sure.

You know, just in case, it might be good for us to label the houses according to what race and religion the owner is, too. Should we ever happen to go to war, I'm sure you'd like to know if your neighbor was a Muslim or a Jew or one of those sneaky Chinese Methodists. And homosexuals, you know. Just so everybody knows where everybody else is coming from and we can steer the kids in the right direction. Like I said... just in case.

And it sure will make it easier for my storm troopers to find the right houses. That's gonna save a lot of time and expense.

I'm pretty smart.

I'm pretty smart.

Usually, you are pretty smart, IMHO. But not in this case. That's a ridiculous justification and you know it. Hasn't someone thrown out that Franklin quote about those willing to give up a little freedom for safety are deserving of neither? Pretty smart guy, that Benjamin Franklin...

For instance, we all want to try to keep the happy family from being killed by a drunk driver. And if you're a drunk driver and you kill a family, that's a crime and you'll go to jail for it. But in trying to stop that crime before it happens, we decide to pass a lot of laws and make more things illegal. Can't sell alcohol after a certain time at night. Can't drive with a certain level of alcohol in your blood. Can't buy alcohol unless you're a certain age. Can't drive without a seatbelt on (that's a good one, because in order to save an abstract family that hasn't even been killed yet, it creates more criminals, including the potential victims). So now instead of just the one crime, we have a whole array of crimes. Has it decreased the number of families that are killed? Hard to say. Has it increased the number of criminals whose lives have been ruined even though they've never harmed anyone? Yes. The irony of this scenario is that the actual sentence for drunk driving and killing a family is pretty lenient, probably because drunk drivers can equally include the country club set, the people who make the laws.

Sex crimes are another matter. There was a recent Supreme Court case about a real scumbag who liked to write very graphic descriptions of kids doing all kinds of sex stuff. He got arrested through a police sting and had the stuff on his hard drive. Now, he had never molested any little kids. He never hurt anyone. But he has been sent up the river for a long, long time because in spite of the fact that there's "freedom of speech" in this country there are laws that restrict what you can say and write and view in the privacy of your own home. The only person who suffered because of the crime is the scumbag. And you could say "Well, if it saved one little child from being hurt..." But study after study has failed to find a causal link between porn and violence or molestation. So there's no way to say for sure if this fictional kid would have had a crime committed on them or not. And the irony here is that the vast majority of child abuse happens inside the family, not as an attact by some random pervert. And you can say that it's all still good to keep the twisted away from society.

But what if in the near future society decides that anyone who likes gay erotic poetry is "twisted?" Or maybe anyone who publically expresses a fixation on the romantic aspects of darkness and death? Or anyone who stands up and says the United States' drug policy is hypocritical?

This is not necessarily a reductio ad absurdum; it's a speculation drawn from observing thing that are happening right now. Sure, it's easy to say that society will know where to draw the line with this stuff, but the question is when they do, what side of the line are YOU going to be on? What crime will you eventually commit that is meant to decrease the possibility that you might hurt or kill someone who is abstract, someone who doesn't even exist?

Personally, I'm all for coming down very, very hard on criminals after they've harmed someone. That way we're all very clear about what happened. Trying to stop crime before it happens ends up making criminals and prisoners of us all.

However, I'm not sure that publically villianizing our criminals is the answer. I certainly don't think that they should be coddled or anything; after all, they are criminals. But shouldn't their jail sentence end after they get out of jail? I can understand if this were made a part of their sentence, but to slap this additionally onto their time served just doesn't sit well with me. It's almost like we're becoming a society of bitchy old women. If you screw up once, we'll never ever let you forget about it, live it down, or, God forbid, make restitution.

This all seems to go back to the age old question: What is the purpose of the penal system? Are we punishing people or trying to help them overcome their problems and rejoin society as productive members? You make the call! :) (God, I miss that "feature" from football; do they still have it?)

I would like to say that I could agree with you, but real life hasn't shown me that your ideas are the way it works.

Which flamer or foul mouth will show up first?

I can spell 'mindless'...

You dub yourself a "jester," a jester if you didn't already know is nothing more than a boring balladeer from ancient times. Much like the origins of the name, you too have overstayed your welcome.

and you can't debate my position so you fall back on insults...

which is what many others here have...nothing but insults.