Men and Children Can Coexist

I reject traditional masculinity and promote child guidance instead, and does it make me virtuous? Does that make me the ideal man? One brimming with patience, sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and love? Not in the eyes of a society where it would be more acceptable and profitable that I should be the man they can best sell to, and though I've done nothing, be kept from even sitting next to children on airplanes based on my sex alone. The sensitive man is not any more profitable than the man who complains about such sexist discrimination, for both are cast with the same suspicion of deviance just for being what they are--men who question social prejudice in one way or another rather than just accept it as men are expected to, and as many do. Where do we fit in as men when it comes to children?

The sensitive men are feared at best, ridiculed, emasculated, and then outright hated at worst. Those who can't understand our lifestyle look at us with a light-hearted condescension at first, jokingly making us surrender to judgment for the crime of heterosexual, and homosexual, male non-conformity. When I refuse to let it get to me, and carry on anyway because the world needs more compassion in it from our side towards children (which the world itself also says is lacking), the fearful among them unleash their ignorance completely--as if offended by their own inability to get under my skin--and amp up their assault not with more "efem" jokes, but with real threats. I could be kicked off an airplane simply because I'm a male sitting next to an unattended child and I refuse to move. Now I want to know what impression it is having on children where, wherever they go, they are to see men scatter, or be beaten back with sticks. That's child abuse in my book.

It seems all those who reject the commercially manufactured beer-swigging, sex-crazed lifestyle of the modern man are subject to termination by not only its benefactors but its hive-minded heterosexual adherents, raised to hate children instead, as if that was preferable to loving them. In the eyes of the world, child guidance is not a suitable interest for the modern man, no matter how necessary it is. Men and children however, can coexist in the same world without someone pressing a panic button, because we have existed in the same world for millions of years, even long before people decided to start putting paranoid sexist discrimination before human dignity. When certain people decided to start separating every man from every child, they separated their humanity from themselves. It's time we separated them from their perches. 

Unsung Heroes

In my mind, being against child molestation is not enough, nor does it make you a good person by itself. It does a person no good to be against child molestation if they are doing wrong by children in more socially permissible ways, for they would be in good company. Parents who repeatedly assault their young children in the service of discipline are fearful and hateful of child molestation too. Politicians who would (if they could at any instance) send your children out to fight and die to preserve global business interests in unstable regions, also hate and are fearful of child molestation. Even the school officials who would trap up a 9-year-old autistic boy in a duffle bag to discipline him...they too are (most likely) hateful of child molesters. Are you no better than an abusive parent? A corrupt politician? A "well-intentioned" school teacher? One has to wonder if even the child molesters also hate child molestation, for as Christ said, "Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" What good then does it do to hate child molestation?

Surely, the list of who is against child molestation also includes the broad majority of society that also finds these similar acts reprehensible (although not to the mob- mental destructive fervor they reserve for child molestation), but hatred makes strange bedfellows of them nonetheless. Blinding hatred is just that, blinding, because it stops a person from being able to discern what is moral and just, even when guided by one's own intuition. We start to over-sing the psalms of damnation upon one propped-up source of mob-mental aggression, the "child molester," only to ignore other forms of abuse just as objectively destructive. It is as if we've been blinded by the lightning shot which crackles one by the hour, and have forgotten about the billions of raindrops. We'd let our children freeze to death in that rain by the hundreds before we eased our horror that even one may be struck by a random bolt. Truly, there's more to being a good person than simply hating on that which is demonstrably vile (as the vigilantes do).

To be a good person in this sense, you actually have to not cause harm to any child by intention, and if necessary (in some "life or death" situation), only with the pain of regret guiding your hand. This not only includes child molestation, but all those more socially acceptable means adults have invented over the millenia to abuse children into submission. The many who don't routinely abuse children under the guise of discipline, who don't spoil children into dependence, or give the order to put young people into harm's way for someone else's gain--those are the unsung heroes. If society can permit anyone who simply hates on child molestation to claim to title of "hero," and then orchestrate songs of praise for their good intentions, imagine how society ought to treat the broader majority of people who don't just have good intentions but put them into practice for the good of others. If such were the case, these heroes would no longer be unsung. 

However, western culture (Babylon) continues to fetishize the perverse anyways, despite all the good intentions in the world. This is how a man can hold up a convenience store or cause an accident in a high speed chase and gain not only news headlines but even highlights on television clip shows, but the good act of charity that some other man participated in will never be given any spotlight in anyone's mind. If an action is not spotlighted in the mind by culture (whether it's right or wrong), then it is almost always more right, more just, and more decent by its sense of genuine earnestness than any flimsy public moralistic spectacle could ever be. Moral spectacle is merely pretense laying on a bed of perverse fetishism. The more virulently popularized that moralistic spectacle is, the more justified its unsung, unnoticed, cousin act becomes. For example, parents shouldn't consider themselves good people because they hate and fear child molestation, or any other heinous act, as everyone else, but rather, by whether or not they read to their child before telling them to get some sleep. And even if one isn't a parent, one could almost justifiably judge themselves along the same criterion.

Sure, the act of reading to a child is not going to win you an award, nor is it going to bestow on you the mantle of "Protector of Children" (as many of the anti-pedo vigilantes covet), but you will have done right by a child in doing so, in almost all cases. The only song you will ever have played in your life will be sung from the souls of the individuals you nurtured and gave your love and time to. That, to me, is a more justifiable vindication than this more "culturally-accessible fear and hate mongering" will ever be, concerning the worst among us--the very thing that, though so attractive to our sentiments, becomes the most vile thing of all. 

The Mysterious Stranger

Lucifer the angel was cast out of heaven for possessing the properties of God: omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and a property he thought equal to God's omni-benevolence--its opposite, omni-malevolence. The Satan of Twain's "Mysterious Stranger" appears to us in a physical representation, a young Satan (nephew to the biblical Satan) who is able to court three boys. In dealing with their lives, he displays his power to know all things by telling of foreboding doom, displays his power to do all things by responding to their pleas to avoid it, and just as well displays his destructiveness in averting it only by killing them one by one. Satan's perspective still persists, because it'd be hard to refute that his actions are wrong without resorting to mere preference. You disagree with him out of preference toward good, rather than any quantifiable reason.

That is to say, there is nothing strange or abnormal about Satan's approach, particularly in his way of mystifying children--it all seems to make sense on the surface, and because it seems to make sense, it has to come in the guise of a stranger just so people may begin to treat it as hazardous. Had it come in the guise of a parent, then it would have gone unnoticed. Modern society has turned the face of Satan on everyone who would spend even the most nurturing and wholesome time with children only because it puts its trust over its children solely in the recognizable face. The unrecognized face may as well be Satan's nephew all over again.

But the question inevitably remains, are we really all so different? So too have the child molesters been cast out for possessing all the characteristics of those we'd put trust in: those who would lie to children, those who would treat them with less than human dignity, those who would exploit them for personal gain, those who would justify their abuse--all save for the one quality that separates the trusted from the untrusted:  a recognizable face. We tend to think an evil that looks familiar is more wholesome than an evil that is strange to us. Child molestation is strange to us because we can't figure out who could be so evil as to sexually exploit a child, when at the same time, exploiting children for financial gain seems right at home with us.

In the fear that someone might accidentally harm our children, we have let a physical manifestation of Satan go off his chain. He has convinced us of foreboding doom, and we have begged at his side so that he might release us from the grip of destiny, and he has responded in his own way.

The short of it is, we repeat this narrative because we wish to see evil put in its place, and yet only succeed in giving it further legitimacy. By repeatedly flashing the killer's face on the news for dramatic effect, we build him up to the status of folk hero in the eyes of those who are society's equals in ability and opposites in moral compass. By thinking we can solve child sex abuse by pushing all that which is strange to us off to some island in the pacific ocean, we succeed in being ruled by the mysterious stranger among us--ruled by the terrorists we're trying to eradicate. By banishing Lucifer to hell, God gave him legitimacy in knowledge that good will necessarily triumph over evil. We are not gods though, so we are in no position to make that assumption when we do likewise.

Concern Yourself

One is not always right when he is guided by love, but his passions for the wellbeing of others are genuine. Those passions can either lead him to ruling the situation by expressing concern, or to being ruled by the situation through fear. When one is guided by fear into doing some action, it is normally geared to protect oneself from having to be afraid (by evolution)--the effect it has on others is secondary. On the contrary, love is an action that motivates a human to do something in the best interests of others, whether for better or worse. How easy it is to confuse our fear and love as our primary motivations in doing something. Good intentions are not good enough, whether motivated by love or fear, but those governed by fear alone only jump the gun.

If love is the pleasuring thing itself, fear is the worry over losing that which is loved. In this way, the thing that is loved is not the impetus for destruction, but rather, the fear of losing the thing that is loved. Fear is as well a genuine force of action though, but all it is capable of doing is calling our attention to danger, to rely on it is to fall prey to needless worry. One can express concern without falling prey to worry--worry is nothing but a furrowed brow, an increase in adrenaline, a impetuous impulse--there is no thinking part of worry because to think while one is experiencing fear is what we call "concern."

All this is a means to say why it is perfectly fine to express concern about vigilantes, child molesters, terrorists, and other workers of inequity where our concern is due, so long as we don't fear them. Expressing concern is when you criticize those who bring inequity and inspire others to see the inequity they bring. Worrying about them is when you submit to their inequity without question because you fear their retaliation, or, it is when you go out of your way to be physically responsible for their destruction because you fear their influence. Worrying focuses your mind on how to evade the aggressor, as it has evolved over millions of years (even when fear is the aggressor)--concern, instead, focuses your mind on how to conquer the aggressor.

When the proverbial good man ducks and covers from fear, and in doing so, gives the workers of inequity a pass, he implicates himself in their works and becomes one of them. The good man who criticizes the workers of inequity as good citizens ought to, casts it in a negative light for all rational people to see. One is either part of the solution, or part of the problem, and passivity is part of the problem, choosing not to choose is part of the problem. An act of non-involvement is tacit agreement with child molesters, vigilantes, and other workers of inequity.

As I've articulated many times before though, this does not mean that after you've chosen to be active (whatever that means) in "the solution" (which is unattainable) any course of action is justifiable. In short, it doesn't mean anything is justifiable, it just means that doing nothing never is.

Slaying the Dragon

In the town of Silene there was a large lake that housed a monstrous dragon that cast a shadow of fear on the community. In order to subdue the dragon, the townspeople began setting loose two sheep a day on its territory, and when they ran out of sheep, they began giving it their children. Every child was put onto a lottery to be sacrificed, just to keep the dragon appeased, and therefore, non-threatening. This happened until the lot fell down on the king's daughter, and though he bargained his riches and his kingdom in exchange for her to be spared, the townspeople revolted, and had her sent out to be sacrificed like all the others.

At that time, St. George was passing through, and he heard her cries. With her help, he was able to bind the dragon and bring it back to the town. He'd kill it if they converted to Christianity, and they promptly agreed, so he raised his sword Ascalon, and killed the dragon in one blow. This is the story of St. George and the Dragon.

I just can't help but be moved by how similar this story is to the situation we find ourselves in, even with the hint at a possible redemptive end. If we frame this story through the perspective of CL, the independent volunteer could be said to be represented by St. George--the outsider who took interest in the girl's plight when all of society had sent her out to be killed. The girl obviously represents children, boys and girls, who are the unwitting pawns of society's fear, cultural oppression, and bureaucracy.

The dragon represents that hysteria to which we see parents willingly "give their children up" to appease (and thus turn the laws made to protect children on the children themselves) if only to douse the fear they've been filled with. How many times have we heard the "protect kids at any cost" line, only to be let down by the fact that part of the cost is the security and happiness of the children themselves? This is what could be meant by the townsfolk and their willingness to feed their children to the dragon to subdue it.

Ultimately though, the outsider prevails, even if it's just in the life of the one child they've made a positive connection with, and in doing so, they slay the "fear society" with their own version of the sword Ascalon... genuine love. The CL does not get the same heroic status as St. George for accomplishing the same feat, but it could be said that even just one out making a child's life genuinely better through genuine actions is a "small victory" over the dragon that is our fear-fed society.

The part about conversion is admittedly the only part that doesn't fit, because it is too idealistic to say that independent CLs will actually end up swaying our culture off its self-destructive fear--our victory isn't something instantly attainable, it's a continual process of good works and charity working parallel to the destructive elements of society. The way I see it, once you decide to be a force for good in the world, that's one small victory against the "dragon."

Hate-Fear-Love

It has been argued that the most primitive emotion is fear. This is because fear is what alerts our senses to danger in the environment and gives us the energy and impulse to react in ways that could potentially assist in our individual survival. In this basic schematic, we could understand love and hate as primal orientations to and away from that which is being feared. What is loved is that which we perceive as ensuring survival, and what is hated is that which we perceive as endangering us, and by framing this simple analogy out, we have a basic mechanism for the motivation behind every human activity. What is pleasing is assumed better for our survival, and what is hated is assumed hazardous to our survival.

It is then no question that these three fundamental starting points play into how society manages to raise its children. What is deemed hazardous is hated, and what is deemed helpful is loved. What is better for the child's survival is loved and what is aversive to it is feared. This would be all well and good if human nature were as binary as a computer, incapable of seeing a hazard where none exist and inflicting harm on the child in the process, or failing to see a hazard where there is one, also allowing harm onto the child. Because we are as children and fail in our reasoning, we cushion our lapses in judgment with punitive laws set to eliminate the need for reason. These are called "line in the sand" laws, because a line can be drawn at any point along a beach and these determinations are arbitrary, yet just as definitive. The age of consent, for instance, is designed to eliminate the need to reason about whether a child is ready for sex, because they are when the law says they are.

This protects the adult from having to worry about a child having sex when they are not ready--a potential hazard. It justifies the hatred of those who would cross the boundary even on the youth's request, and the love of those who would enforce this law. The one thing it doesn't do is protect the child. Because such line in the sand judgments are built on assumptions, it is the assumption itself that inflicts the most harm on the child--the assumption that they are all equally incapable until the law deems them ready. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to educate the child to reach "readiness" by the time the law would determine them to be legally ready, they see this line in the sand as the essence of "readiness" in and of itself.

The youth's questions go unanswered because they have not reached the line yet, they "aren't old enough." Everything is done to make sure the youth is not ready by the time they are supposed to be ready. Readiness is essential for survival though. Would the parent of any mammal species that nurtures its young to adulthood as humans do be wise to withhold information from its young about how to find food, or how to avoid detection? What if such a law were established, on the basis of misguided fear, that established no bird could fly until a certain number of weeks had passed, irregardless of capability, and upon which date would be then expected to fly with ease? How long would they survive in the wild?

The bottom line is, there is the world governed by fear and hate, and then there is the world governed by common sense, which is ultimately a world governed by love. By showing respect for the growing capacities of youth and just a mindful observance toward potential hazards, we are showing them the greatest love because we are not being governed by fear.

A Parent's Fickle Trust

Parents can't be blamed. If children can get away with dragging others down by their ignorance, then parents should be afforded the same for doing the same. They're just as destructive a force in society as their kids and twice as easy to manipulate. If it is reasonable that children be taught not to talk to strangers, than it should also be reasonable that parents be taught not to listen to them.

As easy as it is for a parent to see their children manipulated by some predator, it is nearly impossible for them to see themselves manipulated by five o' clock predator scare on the news. And just as blind as they accuse children of being to the consequences of letting that stranger lead them into the backseat, parents are completely blind to the consequences of letting that stranger on TV take them by the hand through the land of paranoia. The consequences of which are the poison that never fails to trickle down to the child's level.

Of course parents don't have as much influence as they think, having surrendered a lot of that direct influence over to other entities--to strangers no less. Trust is a funny thing, because sometimes the only thing that separates a potential predator from a trusted caretaker is a piece of paper--most of the time it's nothing but the judgments in a parent's head. When the protections for children are not strong enough, parents will cut in line to defend a law that makes it illegal for any adult to be within 50 feet of a child, and they will cheer its success, but will they too take that 50 foot step back from their own? If not, then they have to decide, who should be taking that step and who should not?

Just as parents can be manipulated into trusting no one, they can also be manipulated into trusting people who may actually pose a threat. This is because every parent mind comes with a schema of trustworthiness they use to judge an individual. If the individual comes with paperwork, they are trustworthy. If the individual is clean, they are trustworthy. If the individual is friendly, they are trustworthy. However, if an individual breaks any of these criteria, and others like them, then there's no way the kids are safe around them. It's important to note that these judgments are often irrespective of harm. A person who meets the criteria and yet still manages to harm a child is always held in higher esteem than a person who doesn't meet the criteria and yet causes the child no harm.

This is not to say a parent will allow the molestation of their child if the perpetrator is, for instance, young and good looking--just that they'll never see it coming. Sad, but that's the folly of human nature.

Vigilantism (The Scourge)

When hate and fear possess the soul of a human being already driven to the depths of madness over satisfying a power lust, the result is what we call a vigilante. His behaviors are a curse on humanity, because his hate and fear have eroded every last nerve of dignity and humility left, leaving nothing but an empty automaton, a slave to desire. Despite this, the modern vigilante has been given a great deal of law enforcement leeway, financial endorsement, and judicial control, for his craftiness has provided him a perfect victim for which to exploit--one without the resources or willingness to fight back--the "pedophile."

Anyone who preaches a love doctrine shouldn't expect to be the victor when preyed upon by the hateful, and no one should expect the weak to be protected when the hateful have them under their wing. The good (Childlovers) are mistaken for evil (child molesters) while the real evil (the vigilante) is handsomely rewarded for masquerading as the good. The victim (whether pedophile or not) is ridiculed--their life and property in ashes regardless of their guilt or innocence, and the so-called weaklings--the children--are no more safer than they were before, except in the imaginations of those entertained by this vicious struggle. And the end result? Children are less safe, some innocent people's lives are ruined, and the smug satisfaction of the vigilante's lust is fulfilled.

But the damage doesn't end there. The malignancy of vigilantism gains more power and political control until people begin trusting in it over the failings and inadequacies of legitimate justice systems. Evidence obtained through illegal means (as procured by vigilantes) suddenly starts popping up in courts and precedents are set in the proceedings of those brought to justice under some rogue's discretion. We increasingly live in a world ruled by the hateful and the fearful, those who wouldn't think twice about finding some way to pin you to the ground if they knew that their actions would throw such a weight on your life that you could never lift yourself back up.

Freedoms mean nothing to a vigilante, only his lust. Each one is an antichrist, a wolf in the guise of a sheep, a so-called "protector of children" who's real mission is to destroy the objectively innocent to satisfy his lust. Anyone who stands in his way is guilty, even the children themselves. He'd leave a child to die on the side of the road if it meant he could blame it on his personal enemy--that's anti-pedophile activists for you.

If we knew children could inspire such evil, we'd be hard pressed at calling them pure. Fortunately, the vigilante is not worth fighting because he'll sooner take himself and his confederates to the grave. As he is the servant to fear in his own world where justice is not given but taken, he begin to fear other vigilantes. Once they've all let that demon amok amongst themselves, that which has consumed their souls will begin taking their lives. He who lives for a child's love, lives. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.