Ever more on guard

Don’t worry, we’re all being looked after: The first story is part of Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign against smoking, the second and third have to do of course with current anxieties about the victimization of children. I can’t help but think that all these anxieties have less to do with cigarettes and child pornography as such than with a general feeling that things have gone wrong, and especially that in a liberated and post-feminist age the situation of children has become intolerable. No-one is inclined to discuss the real issues, so something else becomes the issue.
Posted by Jim Kalb at December 17, 2002 10:56 AM | Send
    
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On the child pornography thing, can’t children be protected AND store clerks use common sense? If not every store clerk was blessed with a minimum of common sense, isn’t there a supervisor who can be called?

I don’t know what the solution is. Right now I’m so mad that I hope this woman sues Walmart for a very large sum and collects. Let that be a lesson to stores to have at least one supervisor present at all times who has his head screwed-on frontwards.

Posted by: Unadorned on December 17, 2002 1:01 PM

The child protection racket is just another symptom, in my view, of what has happened due to our servile acceptance of the idea that the American people can’t be trusted to rule themselves. Instead we get one-size-fits-all rules and guidelines that endanger everyone. If a kid is caught with an aspirin in school, he’s kicked out as a drug abuser. If his mom spanks his butt because he refuses to obey, she’s a child abuser. If the kid likes to run around naked, the father is a child molester.

Posted by: Jim Newland on December 17, 2002 5:10 PM
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