Why I Worry For America

Some creep with a capital C had a web page devoted to the pursuit of little girls; it got a bit of media attention in the New York Times. The web site itself is gone, but the really creepy archive of it (minus the pictures of dressed little children that this creep photographed) is here. Professor Volokh mentioned it here, as well as the understandable but likely useless (perhaps even counterproductive) effort by a number of outraged parents to get the California legislature to make what this creep was saying illegal. (It might be more productive to find out why the government supports this creep--he's on some form of public assistance, apparently.)

What's fascinating are the comments defending this creep made by the often quite disturbed and disturbing people that hang around Volokh Conspiracy. Here's one that really upset me:

Until this guy hurts a child, who cares what he says. For the first time in human history all you children-loving "give away our freedoms to protect the children" folk have the identity of a potential child predator BEFORE he does anything, and you have a problem with that? Yeah we better ban this guy from being allowed to get his sexual release (no matter how gross) by not harming anyone, so he will go out and do the real thing and molest a child.

Frankly, if his website is taken down by whiners, I hope he does molest a child. People need to learn to think about cause and effect before they legislate something away that bothers them.

This guy is a pretty stereotypical libertarian. You can read his blog (replete with foul language--how else can someone express himself?--here.

This one really raised my blood pressure:

We libertarians need to start hoisting the fascists by their own petards. A pedophile is, like Lewis Carol, a person who likes kids. If parents don't like the idea that others like their kids, they can stop having the damn kids! I think it great what the guy is doing and am considering taking photos of all kinds of kids. If the parents don't want photos, they can keep the kids indoors with their declawed cats.

In the meantime, we who are subsidizing their breeding have rights, whether the like it or not. It will be a cold day in hell that I give up the right to photograph, converse with and relate to ANY kid I meet in public.

Sad to say, while most people I know who call themselves libertarians have enough grasp on reality to recognize that pedophiles are a danger, Libertarian Party Conventions were always great places to meet people so in love with an idea that they had convinced themselves that red equals green, 1 equals 0, and yes equals no.

An ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory.