It’s daylight, but you dare not go outside for fear you’ll be recognized. Besides, you don’t have written permission to travel. State-sponsored hatred inflated by public ignorance has made it dangerous for you to be you. Political propaganda and pop culture has twisted lies and misinformation into a reasonable facsimile of the truth. It is much better to hide and obey, secretly longing to escape to a place where you might be tolerated. But there is no such place, except the blurry details of lands across the seas that are impossible to get to. The other alternative is to assume another identity and try to pass yourself off as one of them.
It wasn’t all that long ago when the first legislation made it a crime for you to not publicly declare yourself. Next came the ordinances that restricted where you could live, tightening the noose until it was practically illegal for you to live anywhere. There are officers in charge of you and every detail of your life; overseers given unlimited power to send you away for the slightest infractions. The state-induced behavior modification programs were cleverly supported as "therapy." To avoid the prison camps, you must admit that your very existence is in and of itself a crime in order to be eligible for their therapy. Then, you had to confess that there was no hope for you – that you are every bit the detestable, loathsome boogeyman society knows you to be. They use these confessions to reinforce current laws and bolster support for more stringent controls. But as long as you work hard and honestly in therapy, you’ll remain "free." Polygraphs, proven unreliable for the desirable citizens, are used periodically.
When the news shows yet another one of you who has gone astray, your heart sinks because the rise in hatred can be felt like the August heat. You will be sneered at, spit at, threatened or beaten and it’s best to lay low. Talk of legalizing your execution is heard in the whispers of the damned and party crescendos. Sometimes, you wish that were so. The despair can get to the point where you are constantly wishing they’d just take you away and get it over with. On the days you manage to muster the resolve to persevere, you swear that just one more straw and you will run – which is exactly what they want.
"A free society is a place where it’s safe to be unpopular."
… Adlai Stevenson
That isn’t WWII era Germany or an Orwellian Neo-Nazi future. That isn’t fiction or a rise in anti-Semitic sentiment.
This is the reality of sex-offender legislation. Before you discount these parallels as the stark ravings of a lunatic sex-offender, consider where you stand on the issue of freedom and security, with freedom and human rights being interchangeable. If you are a true proponent of freedom, then it should not matter to you whose freedoms or unalienable rights are being infringed upon. Anything else is elitist. If you crave security, you probably are most apt to fear first and understand later. You are therefore most likely to be a constituent of politicos who are more concerned with capitalizing on those fears, rather than enlightening the public.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither"
…Benjamin Franklin
I’m sure I will catch a lot of flack comparing sex offenders and the Jews who suffered under the Nazi regime. Except I’m not comparing the two groups; I’m comparing the treatment of them. It is inconsequential that the Jews did nothing to warrant such a vicious and malicious campaign. The common element is that Jews and sex offenders are equally offensive to the societies that harbor hate against them. To those Germans, being Jewish was offensive. It did not matter if those Germans were ignorant, ruminating in the fear and humiliation of a defeated society to the point where any charismatic demagogue could fan the flames of empowering anger. Germany was a proud and robust nation and it was given a channel to direct those feelings of fear and hopelessness. This is the objectification of hatred and, sadly, it offers a false sense of safety and security to those in the grips of terror.
"How fortunate for leaders that men do not think."
…Adolph Hitler
The least desirable of a society’s population tends to be the focus of that hatred. In America, the least of you is the criminal. Of that group, the sex offender beats all, hands down. Even amongst other inmates and criminals, the hierarchy of rationalization is almost comical. I am slightly amused by someone else using my past as an excuse to be intolerably cruel. That very cruelty is indicative of society and makes a clear distinction between the conditions in which a prisoner lives and the treatment he or she receives.
"One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals."
…Rutherford B. Hayes
I do not contend that my behavior is excusable or did not warrant appropriate corrective action. And while it can be argued whether or not prison is an effective measure against crime or cruel and unusual punishment, that is a separate issue.
The point is that sex offender legislation says more about the society that condones it than the group it is enacted against.
"As you have done unto the least of these you have done unto me "
…Jesus Christ
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