Re: [SkyDaemon] Ron Sirull Arrested . . .
In reply to:
Such mentalities led to the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism. A society of easily manipulated people, riled up into an angry mob by having their emotional buttons pressed, allows their anger to become the law and damn innocent individuals.
More recent support for the above contention can also be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...exual_abuse_hysteria I'd also like to add that just as there are guilty men who go free (OJ being the classic modern example), there are quite a few more innocent men who go to prison. The legal system does not work as advertised a lot of the time, which is why such organizations as The Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries are kept very busy.
In reply to:
Simultaneously if Ron is guilty of the crimes he's accused of, it's of such monumental scope that making sport of it hardly seems appropriate... in fact, it hardly seems human.
This is my part of the argument to address, I guess, but I'm finding it difficult and painful.
If Ron is found guilty--and that seems likely to me, based on what I read--both the rage and the utter lack of concern over what he has done are examples of an extreme lack of empathy on the part of those expressing them, and it is that lack of empathy that leads us to straight to Golding's nightmare.
Humanity is defined by our ability to reason, our empathy, our ability to make sense of complexity. When we lose these traits, we become less than animals.
Child molesters are like vampires. It takes one to make one. When you consider the consequences of this, the lack of empathy for the child Ron Sirull once was is appalling.
On the other hand, while he has no real control over his impulses--because we have not yet figured out how to undo this kind of damage unless it is caught early (and most times, it is not)--he does have control over his actions, so for him to have inflicted on children what must have been inflicted on him is monstrous.
Acting as if it didn't happen ("I'd jump with him") does a terrible disservice to his putative victims, because they need to see that what was done to them is wrong and that such behavior will not be condoned. Moreover, because his personality is already formed, he desperately needs the containment that is provided by a society that will not tolerate such behavior.
He cannot help being what he is--although he must learn, unequivocally, that such acts as he is alleged to have committed are not tolerable--and the idea of extreme punishment ("hang'im high") for a victim reenacting his victimization (taking on the role of the original perp as a means to gain mastery*) is all too harsh.
(*Without early intervention, victims of child sexual abuse--and other forms of abuse--go on to perpetuate the cycle, either as perpetrators or perpetual victims, depending on their sex and the personality with which they were born. The usual breakdown is that male victims go on to become perpetrators and female victims go on to become perpetual victims--which is believed to be the result of the differences between male and female socialization--but there are plenty of exceptions.)
Thats not just a demon that is pure fing evil and ruins entire lives while some sick perv gets his rocks off. 
i do see your joke but cant laugh..