Last Thursday, a sexually violent predator moved within two miles of our home and yesterday, our family cell phones arrived. I thought an SVP near the neighborhood would be tolerable but my whole routine has already changed.
Take this morning I would have allowed Lizzie to walk the half a block to school alone but what about the SVP? This afternoon, I would have allowed both girls to walk home alone but what about the SVP? But, a bit later this afternoon, when Lizzie realized she forgot her math homework and her journal - both due tomorrow - I let her walk back to school alone. She called me when she got to the school and we chatted as she walked back to our house. It took a total of EIGHT minutes but still...
I know not all sex offenders are registered and for all I know there could be a sex offender living right across the street from me, but I know this guy is in my neighborhood and it makes me a bit nervous and a bit impatient to sell (or more likely lease) this house RIGHT NOW.
4 comments:
interesting. the whole idea of registered sex offenders and identified sexually violent predators points to a huge problem within the justice system. if they shouldn't be out on the streets then change the sentencing laws.
have you identified all the convicted DUI's in your neighborhood, so that you know which cars to steer your children away from? more children die from drunk driving accidents each year than are assaulted by sexual predators. not that i'm sticking up for predators, mind you, just saying.
but you know what's really fun? replacing the "SVP" and "sexually violent predator" in your post with "illegals" and "illegal aliens" or with any minority group of choice. you can say there's a world of difference between a sexually violent predator and an undocumented worker, but really it all comes down to semantics.
those who control the language control the debate. isn't that a good chunk of how the law operates?
Thanks to the Family Watchdog site I DO know a lot about the type of convicts that live near my neighborhood.
I worry about keeping my children safe. If I lived near a bar or a liquor store, I might be more worried about drunk drivers. I (and the new neighborhood predator) live within a two mile radius of three elementary schools. So, I'm a bit more worried about the child rapist right now.
I'm not afraid of illegals. Why would I be? It's well-known they buoy our economy. As a New Mexican native, I've been friends with quite a few and aside from being "undocumented" they have many of the same values as we do.
Besides, it's only semantics if you actually believe the rhetoric.
ha ha! the old "some of my best friends are minorities" argument.
as for the SVP your stance is NIMBY. that's the issue, that you worry for yourself and your neighborhood but like most americans not about actually addressing the root cause. the answer isn't a watchdog website because the problem isn't keeping track of SVP's; it's about rethinking the laws on the books and actually trying to figure out why we have this problem in the first place.
I don't think the NIMBY approach works, and perhaps the hyper-sexualization of children in our culture needs to be examined at the same time and with the same zeal if we ever hope to not live our lives in fear of who might be living nearby.
I am a minority so it's not an "argument," it's the truth.
Yeah, NIMBY is a fair way to characterize my stance, but I'm not insulted by that label because I'm in good company: the rest of the United States.
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