in my old age i've gotten pretty paranoid. i've always wanted to expose my children to so many things so that they have choices in life. i want them to choose what they want and what they like, and not only know what i know. it's been over 2 years now since we discontinued cable tv coming into our home. and it has been even longer than that since we quit allowing the news to come into our home. it had just become so violent, and it would scare the kids. and it was always so depressing. the media seemed to go for the shock value and wanted to find the greatest tragedies to report on. with that said, i seem to base my fears on what has happened to others. i guess i figure if it happened to someone else, it could happen to me. thus, the paranoia.
while we were living in SD, a teenage girl was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. it has become a nationally known story. and there is now state legislature in california that has passed because of the case. while the girl was missing, it really hit home for me. partly because people we knew from church knew her. email came through my inbox while they were looking for her. she was found just a few minutes from where we lived. and we now have teens approaching her age. i became obsessed with making sure we didn't have a set routine each day. i worried that anyone could be watching any of my children walking anywhere at any time. this girl was a junior in high school and was kidnapped in broad daylight.
tonight i read an article about the bill that was passed in CA as a result of her death. you can read it HERE. i really hate getting involved in politics. it seems there just is never any great solution. only decent ones that satisfy part of the people while the rest whine and complain because it didn't go their way. i hate that some people feel cheated out of their rights or that you just can't make everyone happy. i always feel bad for both sides and end up just wanting to keep my opinion to myself so as not to offend anyone. but i do love a good debate. not an argument per se, but just a great intelligent conversation being able to share viewpoints without anyone getting offended.
anyway... getting back on point. the argument of the article is that CA is already in deficit that they can't afford to reform sex offender laws and should not be trying to do so just to appease someone's grief. on that specific point i totally agree. but how do we change things if we 'can't afford' to do so on a state level? isn't the country and the state government always in a deficit? won't it continue to be like that? and haven't they continued to progress and pass laws in that situation for years and years now? why beat a dead horse? but is it really necessary to name a law after your child, especially one that doesn't provide much solace to the situation? and chelsea isn't the only girl this guy killed. what about the others that suffered at his hands because he wasn't kept in prison long enough? and keeping sex offenders in prison for life doesn't really seem like it will ensure our children won't be hurt or killed. some people change and reform. to guess which ones have and haven't seems like an impossible task to me.
but all politics aside, i also agree that a parent would probably have to feel like they were making some sort of changes after a tragedy. i wonder if a parent could ever completely recover from an event such as this...
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