I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who would abuse a child in that way, and would enthusiastically endorse some sort of public punishment involving railroad spikes being pneumatically propelled up their rectums while a chorus of children chants "see how YOU like it" in harmony. But only if and when they have been tried and found guilty in a court of law and NOT public opinion, and ONLY those who are legally culpable.

There is a Discworld book where the characters are going to Hell and see the road leading there with various "Good intentions" written on the paving stones. The most prominently noted is "It's for the children." It really seems that some of the worst governmental, judicial or societal offenses are actually perpetrated in the name of protecting or avenging children, from taxing the rest of us to pay for the educations of the offspring of irresponsible breeding couples who can't or won't pay for a rather crucial aspect for child-raising, to the outrageous measures taken to enforce child support rulings, to the horrifically inequitable Megan's Law to the hyperbolic outrage over child molestation scandals.

Child molestation is really, really bad. That does not justify the punishment of innocent or peripherally guilty parties or unjust punishments of those involved. Why do we not have an equivalent of Megan's Law for violent drunks who assault their neighbors or vandalize their property when they get their drink on? Because that's the kind of ex-con I'm more worried about, and I actually pay taxes, unlike the supposed beneficiaries of Megan's Law, who actually help their parents avoid said taxes just by existing. We don't have a law that informs other potential victims of a past criminal in their midst because it would be as unconstitutional and unjust as all get out. As it is for Megan's Law. If the offender has paid his debt to society, it should be over and done with, and he should be entitled to the same presumption of innocence until proven guilty as everyone else.

Regarding the defense of children, that is the responsibility of the parents. They are the ones who are supposed to be paying attention to where the kids are and what they are doing, not the rest of us. Not the police, nor the courts, nor an entire division of bureaucrats who then take their mandate to defend the children to whole new levels of privacy invasion and over-regulation, just out of simple bureaucratic tendencies. In the midst of all the hollering and shrieking about the innocent children, no one seems to ask why the parents are letting the children be in a position to be alone in the showers with a college coach, or a surgery-abusing pop star. I say this too as someone with no use for Michael Jackson's music and not much respect for college football (or mainstream Catholic priests) and who has six younger siblings and eight nieces and nephews under the age of 10, and a reputation for supporting "draconian" punishment.

And now we have the same thing going on at Penn State. A local (female, big surprise) sports columnist has been crowing in delight over the chance to attack a man who, by everything I have heard, has run one of the cleanest programs in college football. The actions of a former employee, on his own private time, are somehow supposed to redound to the discredit of the boss. The supposed shame of Paterno is that this non-law enforcement septuagenarian, as one of the few employees of Penn State who has to work year-round, did not play private eye and involve himself in the investigation of allegations made by one assistant against another. Instead, he passed the allegations on to his own superiors who then appear to have shirked their duty. Paterno was not in charge of the athletic department nor was he in a position to supervise the coach's off-duty activity. The exact same media people who are now harping on Paterno and demanding to know what he knew and when he knew it, would have had just as much of a field day savaging a coach who tapped the phones and bugged the houses and put a tracker in the vehicles of his assistants or players, or instituted mandatory drug testing or questioned them on their sex lives. Just a few months ago, ESPN magazine ran an article carping about college basketball programs that promote a family-friendly attitude to their recruits and recruits' parents, because they allegedly use "family" as a code word to denote a lack of sexual shenanigans going on. In other words, they sell the program by saying "Nope, no Coach Sanduskys at THIS school." The bastards. How DARE they take such measures to reassure parents that the coaching staff will not engage in deviant sex with their offspring! That is apparently ONLY the job of Joe Paterno, and no one else!

Now, maybe Paterno could have done more, and maybe at his judgement God will have some pointed remarks to say about what he turned a blind eye to... but that is absolutely no one else's business but Paterno's and God's, especially in a society that does not officially or legally recognize the existence of that relationship. Punishing a man for private and subjective sins of omission is no more society's business than punishing a church-goer for not tithing or showing up every Sunday, and that includes public opinion. A law enforcement officer, who, while in the process of announcing the legal innocence of a subject, goes on to comment about the moral shortcomings of the actions which are not legally criminal (as happened with Paterno), should not only be disciplined, but should arguably not be holding any sort of position of authority in law enforcement. Making moral judgments in case in which he explicitly admits there is no criminal culpability violates the spirit of much of the system of civil rights and protections that exist in this country. The police are not the guardians of right and wrong, but the enforcers of the law, and beyond that, absolutely nothing should be their professional concern. This is just a minor thing in the scope of this whole affair, but it seems to be a fair example of how people push past the usual restraints and reasonable standards using the interests and defense of "the children" as an excuse.

Enough is enough. Enough Megan's Laws and Caylee's Laws and other egregious violations of civil rights simply in the name of vengeance for crimes that would not happen with more responsibility on the part of the parents, and which really only victimize the most resilient and replaceable and noncontributing members of our society. If you, yourself, cannot protect your kids from molesters, you are not ready to be a parent. It's YOUR body and YOUR rights and no one else has a say when you want to stick a fork in its skull and vacuum out its brains, but once you inflict the kid onto the world, suddenly you are entitled to a cut of everyone else's paycheck and can demand the curtailment of everyone else's civil rights simply to protect & sustain the byproduct of YOUR body? This is exactly why smarter people did not want to let women vote.