JD, dude, you don't even have a kid so any opinion you have is not applicable. While it's fine to opine you do not have a clue what you would feel or do until you have responsibility of the life and welfare of a little one.
My job as a parent is to take care of those in my family. Period.
My role as a conscientious normal adult is different. If I saw something not right (man pulling kid by arm into van for example) I would immediately report it to the authorities.
I won't go looking for trouble. If trouble finds me or my family I will do anything to help. If I see trouble in other cases I report it.
How's that for exactly how I feel.
You always find ways to disqualify my opinion based on something personal, rather than address it.
Ad hominem.
That WAS a good articulation of how you feel. The only thing I would second guess is your statement that if you saw a man pulling a kid by the arm into a van you would report it to authorities. In my mind it may be too late by the time the authorities respond. Also, you dont address the reality that not all children are going to have great parents. It's all well and good to say that parents need to do a better job, and I agree, but its not a realistic solution.
Just to clearly clarify my own position on this; I don't find it easy to take either side. I see problems with both positions. I created this thread after seeing hundreds and hundreds of local people supporting this idea and very few opposed. I thought it was interesting as I personally tend to lean towards agreeing with the majority of you on this forum.
As someone who can see the issues with either position I have been forced, in this forum, to argue for one side more than the other, but as I've said I find it hard to take a clear stance on either side because
I AGREE with a lot of what has been said against it.
BUT I do see several problems with that position that haven't really been addressed.
-Parents will never be perfect, therefore there will always be kids with the potential to be victims of these predators.
-Reactive rather than proactive will lead to more kids being victimized before something is done.
-In my mind its important to quantify risk, and in my opinion, the likelihood that a 'free' pedophile will eventually abuse a child is greater than the likelihood that a confronted pedophile will cause harm to the public as a result of said confrontation. There is risk in confronting them, I agree. But there is also risk in having these pedophiles unidentified walking the streets looking for victims, right?
