Jewish World Review August 2, 2002 / 24 Menachem-Av, 5762

Lori Borgman

Lori Borgman
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Consumer Reports


We should be a nation of 'nuts'!

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | At this moment, with every ounce of my being, I wish we were a nation of crazies. That's right. I wish we were a nation so aggressive, so vigilant and so crazy about children, that every child molester would sooner hurl himself off a cliff than to even think about brushing up against the soft, small arm of an Elizabeth Smart, a Samantha Runnion or an Alexis Patterson.

I know that we are a country ruled by reason and law. But after stomaching the latest updates on child abductions, sexual assaults, murder and yet one more kid found starving and locked in a dark closet, the law better sit down and buckle up. Right now, passion is behind the wheel.

I wish we stood with such force against harming children that the predators roaming our streets would tremble with fear. I wish they couldn't eat or sleep, that they experience ten-fold the terror of their victims as they listen for the footsteps of the platoons fanning out across cities and hillsides, turning over every rock, looking behind every bush, in order that a swift and mighty justice might be served.

Justice? No, not a trial before a jury of your peers, the like-minded twisted and sick, the experts who say your low self-esteem made you burn a baby with cigarettes, or the pompous academicians who pontificate about the harmlessness of pedophiles. Not today. Today, my idea of justice would be a trial before a jury of retired police detectives, World War II veterans, pre-school teachers, emergency medical technicians and grieving, shell-shocked mothers and fathers with dark, hollow eyes.

I grew up when the interstate kidnaping of a child was a death penalty offense. Knowing that helped me sleep well at night. I'm sure I slept better than kiddos today who are dragged off to special "fairs" to have their pictures taken, and fingerprints made in case mommy needs to take the info to the police. That's not a childhood. That's a nightmare.

We've blurred a lot of lines for a long time and now it's time for clarity:

Working with children is a sacred trust. One strike, you're out. No second chances. Ever. Doesn't matter if you're a coach, a desk jockey, teacher of the year or a priest.

Children are defenseless, hence they rely on adult protection, from the womb through childhood. It's time to quit acting like we don't know where this callous disrespect for children gets its life. It has been bred by a nation that winks at a gruesome form of infanticide known as partial-birth abortion. It comes from a country that yawns at the likes of Pete Singer, a Princeton professor who advocates the right to kill babies up to 30 days after birth.

Child pornography was not what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the first amendment. Pornography often leads to perversion, perversion fuels perverts. It's time to find a strangle-hold.

If you're a single mom, think long and hard before moving in with that marvelous boyfriend. Statistically, you will put your kids at increased risk for violence and abuse. Do they deserve to be cuffed around by some guy who wants to have sex with you but can't bother to marry you? How marvelous is that?

A parent's responsibility is to protect and preserve the wonders and joys of childhood. To those who would dare get in the way, we say ENOUGH. You strip a child of the innocence and purity of childhood, we strip you of every freedom known to man. We're not the ones who are going to run scared. You are.

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JWR contributor Lori Borgman is the author of I Was a Better Mother Before I Had Kids. To comment, please click here.

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© 2001, Lori Borgman