RE: When Did We Go Crazy as a Society?--When the Victim and the Assailant are the Same Person
It's more complicated than just one reason, but I'll throw a couple of possible reasons in the ring.
One simple answer is "growth complex" theory; prosecutors get bigger budgets when they "punish" high-profile crimes. Sex gets headlines, and "illegal teen sex" gets big bold headlines. Growth complex theory suggests that as organizations grow, they become more directed towards further growth than by serving the mission they were created to do.
Charging a teen for "sexually abusing" herself is about as stupidly obvious a proof of this as you can see.
Politicians, burrocrats, and journalists all lie like hell. There is a network of understanding in these things...the newspapers sell more copies, the prosecutor gets a new special office and two assistants to "focus on sex crimes", and nobody questions how these things came about in the name of justice.
The other side of this is the public's demand to have their hands held all the time. Libertarian P.J. O'Rourke said that Americans want a "whiffle ball" world where nothing can harm them. Therefore they tolerate the kind of intrusive nanny-stating government that pulls stunts like this.
I don't know if you watched a lot of "The Simpsons", but the reverend's wife was always running around saying "But who will think of the children?"
What she was REALLY saying, ( and echoing a large segment of voters) is:
Who will save us from ourselves? Please hold my hand and tell me how to think!
Great article here, and well-researched.
Followed.
Thanks, @stevescoins. I appreciate your thoughtful comments. And they are spot on. I think you've nailed it here. It makes me sad for the world that so many people would rather have the government tell them what to do than make decisions for themselves. When did we surrender our collective adulthood to the state? It boggles the mind, and our more self-reliant ancestors would most definitely not approve.
I used to watch The Simpsons, though I haven't in years. I DO remember "But, who will think of the children!", though. That was almost a national catchphrase for a while.
On a second read, I shouldn't exclusively criticize Americans for wanting that whiffle ball world; that's a pretty universal tendency.
If you get a chance to read Rourke's A Parliament of Whores, I think you'd enjoy it.
Sounds interesting. I'll have to give it a look. Thanks for the tip.
What it comes down to, stevescoins, is that our nation is gradually becoming a Fascist totalitarian police state. Did you ever see the film "Midnight Express"? It was about a young American man locked up abroad in a Turkish prison back in the early 1970s. Turkey was a despotic system back then, and this young man experienced it firsthand behind bars in that country. Our prisons have become just as dangerous as the prisons were in Turkey back in the early 1970s; but our criminal justice system is perfectly okay with it, because it creates fear among Americans on what could happen to them if they defy the state in any shape, way, or form. It's all so disturbing.