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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
Shakran, as tempted as I am to go through your post line by line, I'm not going to. What I am going to do is try to sum up your point as I interpret it - don't do anything at all including discussing it with any one at all until you find out the facts. Is that correct?
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In today's information age, when finding out that information is a mouse click away, you should absolutely find it out before you go running around telling people about it. Protect your children, but don't unfairly paint your neighbor as evil until you KNOW he's evil.
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The indisputable fact at the center of this discussion is that the guy is a sex offender. He's on the registry, and that's the sole basis of the definition as we're using. That also means her information isn't "shaky".
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Let's say for the sake of argument that we also have a murder offender list. Anyone ever convicted of killing anyone else is automatically put on that list. You get drunk one night and run someone over. Involuntary manslaughter, you're on the list. You finally get out of jail, move into a neighborhood, and suddenly you have a neighbor running around saying you're a murderer. They're all buying guns and trying to get you kicked out of the neighborhood because they ASSUME you killed someone in cold blood, simply because you're on that list. Are you seeing yet where that list might not exactly contain all the facts that you should have before you start persecuting someone? And in the situation I described frankly you committed a worse crime than the just-turned-adult having sex with the not-yet-adult girlfriend.
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Exactly what sex crimes he committed was only answered in NG's last post (flashing), and until now we haven't had any idea whether or not he's a threat.
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Exactly my point. So don't treat him like any more of a threat than ANY unknown person is. Frankly the sex offender list can be a bad idea for parents - - Oh my next door neighbor isn't on the list, he must be a wonderful guy. I'll just go watch the soaps while the kid plays outside.
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Even now, we still don't really know.
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And yet you advocate stirring up the neighborhood over an unknown?
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If I've gotten your point correctly, you would disallow any neighbors asking if they knew anything about the sex offender that just moved in down the street.
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They're allowed to say anything they want, no matter how morally reprehensible it is.
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You would also disallow one neighbor letting another know that there was a potential threat.
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Before the internet you might have a point. Used to be it took several weeks to find out convictions information on someone. If that were the case, sure, let people know the guy might be a threat. But from the time you find out he's on the sex offender list it will take a maximum of 10 minutes to find out the details of his conviction. Are you saying that the situation is potentially so dire that you can't wait TEN MINUTES before shouting the news to the neighbors? Gimme a break!