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There’s an article out of Maine discussing a proposed new law that basically makes it illegal to look at a child in public locations in such a way as to cause sexual arousal in the viewer. The article mistakenly suggests that it will now be illegal under the new law to look at clothed children for sexual arousal, but that’s irrelevant. What’s more important is how amazingly scary it is that the government is getting into the business of thought crime.

The article cites an anectode from a police officer about a situation in which “a man … appeared to be observing children entering … community bathrooms” at a public beach. The police couldn’t charge him with anything, and were only able to tell him to move along. This new bill would address this so-called “visual sexual aggression” against children, making it a felony.

What’s particularly interesting about this episode is that the guy only “appeared to be observing” children, nothing more. He wasn’t talking to them, he wasn’t masturbating, he wasn’t taking pictures, he wasn’t doing anything except looking, and even then they’re not sure. Basically, the police thought that the guy was “creepy” and didn’t want him there. I can understand this, as I wouldn’t want some creepy guy staring at my kids either, assuming I had kids. Nevertheless, it scares the hell out of me that the police wanted to charge the guy with anything at all despite him complying with their request to leave the area. Since when are the police entitled to patrol the thoughts of American citizens? Even IF the guy was staring at the kids so that he could pleasure himself later, I find it absurd that some random cop on some random beach can make that determination without any evidence and throw some guy in jail on a felony charge. Utter nonsense.

By the way, it’s for similar reasons that hate crime legislation pisses me off. It shouldn’t matter why someone committed a crime, only that they did it. If white-skinned man A stabs white-skinned man B, does it hurt B any less than if A stabs a black-skinned guy because of racism? I tell you, if I’m ever stabbed, I hope a white-skinned guy does me in. If a black-skinned guy did it because he hates whites, that knife is probably going to hurt way worse. This, of course, is just plain stupid.

If the guy watching kids is creepy, move him along and keep an eye on him. If he continues to do it and people are feeling threatened, charge him with something like physical intimidation. The threat of rape is a real crime, and a grown man who persists in leering at small children after warnings from police could be legitimately conveying this threat. But, to make up some bullsh*t felony of “visual sexual aggression” and to actually create a pre-crime over someone’s sexual thoughts is just plain frightening. Since when did Joseph Stalin start running Maine’s government?

I will give the author(s) of the bill some credit: the bill doesn’t make it a crime to stare at someone over 12 or 14 (depending on the circumstance) in this way. I say this not because I’m happy that creepy men can intimidate 15-year-old girls, but because this apparently recognizes the distinction between pedophilia and just “regular” sexual attention paid towards a minor. In semi-scientific terms, if a human being has secondary sex characteristics (e.g. developed breasts or hips in girls), it’s not pedophilia to be attracted to them. We still don’t want grown adults taking advantage of minors who may be sexually—though not mentally—developed, but attraction towards secondary sexual characteristics is normal. Sexual attraction towards children with no discernible secondary sex characteristics is not considered normal, and falls into the category of paraphilia. I have no problem with crimes that penalize adults for taking advantage of unwitting minors, but to say that an adult can’t be sexually aroused by a 16-year-old who is just as developed as an 18-year-old is just dumb. This bill doesn’t do that, thankfully, but I wonder if it’s on the horizon.

Who knows what could be next? Maybe we can bring back debtor’s prison and throw away people who merely consider skipping a credit card payment. Rather than help the potential pedophile or the potential bankruptcy candidate before they do an offending act, we can just preemptively ruin their lives. Everybody wins. Hooray!

To close, let me quote George Orwell’s 1984:

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.

Despite my wild imagination, everyone in the world does not read my blog, apparently. I blame me for not being funny, but mostly I blame you. I think we both know why.

For those of you not from California, there’s a place called Bakersfield, and then there’s a place called “everywhere else.” If you’re in Bakersfield, it doesn’t take you very long to get there. You could get in your car to drive to Bakersfield, but then you could get out again because you’re already there. So that’s cool. But, if you’re “everywhere else”, Bakersfield is in the middle of f’ing nowhere. You could be all like “hey, I’m going to Bakersfield and maybe I’ll get a burger when I’m there because I’m hungry” and then go get in your car and start driving. Unfortunately, you’ll starve to death before you get even half way because Bakersfield is in another dimension that takes a thousand years to get to and is inhabited by demons. Seriously, if you’ve never been to Bakersfield, don’t go. Tell your friends to go though, it’ll be funny. Especially if they don’t like demons.

Anyways, I drove to Bakersfield yesterday to go to a surprise birthday party for one of my closest friends. His birthday’s not until May, but we had it on April 12th anyways. Did I mention that besides being inhabited by demons and residing in another dimension, Bakersfield is also apparently in the middle of the sun? At first, I was “everywhere else” and I was comfortable and then my tires started melting and I realized that I was getting close.

What the heck was I talking about? Oh yeah, I know: you people didn’t listen when I told you that I was going to throw you to the lions when I was elected VP of the world in a few years. Because Bakersfield is in Thailand, I had a long time to observe the driving habits of my fellow man on the way out there. 80% of you drive kind of slow, 20% of you drive too damned slow, and the rest of you are dicks. I don’t understand why people have such a hard time realizing that cars and trucks are dangerous weapons.

Let’s say that you and I are hungry for a tasty fruit and yogurt parfait from McDonald’s, so we go to one near our house. Because my house is in the middle of the rain forest, I had to blaze a trail to the restaurant. While we’re eating I decide to show you what I looked like clearing a path to the Garden Grove McDonald’s. I take out my trusty machete and start pretending that I’m cutting down bushes and fighting off jaguars. No one else is in the joint besides you, me, a hot 17-year-old behind the counter who is trying to lure me to jail, and a family with some obese kids. I start playing the air-machete, and within 2 minutes a cop breaks through the door and shoots me in the face. Why did he do this? Probably because I was swinging a dangerous weapon around and the obese kids might have eaten it…or…something like that.

If, instead of fighting off jaguars I took the freeway to McDonald’s, I could drive my multi-thousand pound truck like an absolute madman, and no cops are going to shoot me in the face. The worst I could have done with my machete was kill or injure a small handful of people, but in my truck I have the power to wipe out whole families by making one wrong lane change. I pulled a kid out of an upside down car once after he hit 4 other cars, rolling one other besides his own. Fortunately, no one was killed, but he caused over $100,000 in damage to property and injured several other people, and all he got was a trial date, a $500 fine, and probation. Listen to me, you brain dead ass hole: your car is a deadly weapon. Slow the F down, make some decent lane changes, and turn down your Eminem. If I had it my way, I would shoot you in the face and save cops the trouble. Alas, my contract as a superhero with the government prevents me from killing civilians, so you’re off the hook…for now. At the moment I can only kill people who don’t speak God’s language (English), but that contract is up in 4 years. I swear by almighty Allah that I’m going to own a coliseum by then and I’m not going to feed my lions and tigers and bears until my contract is up. Oh my, are they going to be hungry.

(Yes, I did pull a muscle typing that last bit; thank you for asking.)