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July 28, 2007

A Dangerous Age

The Breakfast ClubAs fun as The Breakfast Club was, a day-in-the-life of five stereotypical teens of the 80's, could it be made today?

Maybe, but without "the jock", Andy Clark [Emilio Estevez]. Rather than spending a Saturday in detention writing an essay as punishment for taping the buns of some poor kid in the locker room, he'd be looking at ten years in jail and lifetime registry as a sexual predator.

The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran -- what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.

But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher's aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.

After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.

Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry in a case that poses a fundamental question: When is horseplay a crime?

Reasonable people don't excuse obnoxious behavior. Reasonable people would expect the school not only to discipline Cory and Ryan, maybe a few after-school hours, or Saturdays, scrubbing graffiti off the walls, or scrubbing down the restrooms, but to exercise the judgment of alleged educational professionals who work with children on a daily basis. And such judgment would not be to involve the police.

But hey, public school admins are filled with people who substitute written rules for judgment, law for morality. And why should we be surprised that they would want to palm off two immature 13 year olds to the criminal system when some of the purported "adults" involved act as unreasonable as the prosecutor?

To Rhonda Pope, mother of Christian Richter, 13, a girl named in the court papers as one of the victims, the charges are justified. "Slapping somebody on the butt is sexual harassment, and it is a crime," she said. "Considering what was going on and that my daughter was offended, it is a crime. And it's not OK." ...

Parents of two other alleged victims have told the school district they plan to sue because they face "significant expenses" for counseling to deal with the "sexual harassment and abuse."

I would say either we are dealing with hysterical adults with no sense of proportion or ones cynically jumping at a chance at lawsuit lottery.

Show of hands, please -- How many of you remember middle school as a damned period of growing up? I know I wouldn't go back and relive it for any amount of money. At my 12th birthday I was already 5' 7" and had ... ahem ... "blossomed" rather spectacularly in the chestoidal region. I swear I went through 7th grade where the majority of male classmates I interacted with never knew the color of my eyes.

Early adolescence is uncomfortable for just about everyone. We are walking sacks of hormones, newly changing bodies and immaturity right down to very fiber of our brains. However, for the majority of us ... scared, offended, uncomfortable, gawky ... we survive it. We learn, grow, hopefully guided by wise adults and gain some wisdom ourselves.

But what lessons are Cory and Ryan learning by being charged in the criminal justice system as sexual predators, on the same moral plane as rapists and child molesters?

It is also interesting to consider the reaction of radical Vagina Warriors to this story. When Karl of Leaning Straight Up first posted on the absurdity of this Zero Tolerance Insanity, he attracted the attention of one of the Shakespeare's sister crowd.

What the boys did was sexual assault, under the most basic definition. I doubt they thought of it that way before they did it, but that's what it was. ...

In short, while boys may be boys, that's no excuse for boys to be stupid. You're taught to keep your hands to yourself in kindergarten. These guys knew enough not to do this. They deserve to get punished.

More than that, this case has the feel of a rape case writ small, from the contention that the girls knew of the behavior and liked it, to the idea that the boys just couldn't help themselves, to the thought that this is somehow criminalizing normal behavior.

The abject stupidity of this writer is jaw-dropping. Only in the most fevered-imaginings of rape is however I define it of radical feminists is adolescent prankish, albeit obnoxious, behavior criminal and akin to rape.

But hey, even Jeffy's spearcarrying for VW's sounds reasonable when compared to one of his co-bloggers, Kathy, who not only picks up Jeff Feckes "prank = little rape" meme, but expands on it by comparing to a brutal gang-rape because...well...because Cory and Ryan are White Boys

Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison have automatic and unquestionable "bright futures," by virtue of their whiteness and socioeconomic status, the protection of which trumps their female classmates' right not to have their body parts touched, fondled, and slapped.
Not only is it reminiscent of the Duke hoax and such fabled VW's as the [to this day] unapologetic St. Amanda who declared the Duke players guilty by virtue of penises of pallor, but it also ignores that the "bright future" phrase was just recently used concerning Genarlow Wilson, a young man with a more melanin-enriched penis, doing ten years for a consensual sex act.

The saga of Cory and Ryan is not as isolated as we may think (or hope for). In a youth-oriented culture increasingly whipsawed between appeals to hedonistic behavior with sexual relations accorded all the value of a fast food hamburger and a political expansion of what constitutes "rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment" to mean anything as perceived by the aggrieved victim, we get willing suspension of judgment from the very people we trust to be exercising it and find even an 8 year old boy can be charged as a sexual predator.

Unfortunately, I don't see this improving. At one time, personal behavior was shaped, influenced and constrained by family and religion, two institutions under constant secular assault. Ironic, isn't it, that with the decline of the denigrated heteronormative family and Judeo-Christianity we've seen a breathtaking increase in law whose only purpose is to micromanage human behavior that can be honesty described as only obnoxious.

Into this schizoid social blender we drop adolscents, alternatingly telling them they are free individuals who don't have to listen to their parents about sex (those old, hung-up, repressed fuddy duddys out to spoil the fun! just use the condom, ok?) but also punishing them via the criminal justice system if they make even a singular bad judgment in offending someone else.

I gotta agree with Karl, stuff like what is happening to Cory and Ryan is just another good reason for parents to opt out of gubmint schools whenever possible. Vouchers, private, homeschool ... just get far away from schools that see no problem with felony charges against youths who Behave Badly.

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Posted by Darleen at July 28, 2007 08:54 PM

Comments

I hope to god none of the S.S. bloggers have male children. They'd probably throw him under a bus if they found the swimsuit issue under his mattress.

Posted by: Jason at July 30, 2007 07:36 AM

Daarlene,
You should just ponder the larger issues of Parenthood, lack of Parenting, and really, the larger scale of "Where has Parenting gone?"
More to the point, "WHEN IS THE KID TO BE TOLD, 'PHYSICALLY HARMING ANOTHER PERSON IS ASSAULT? & OH, YEAH, YOU COULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS... WHICH VARY FROM TOWN TO TOWN, STATE TO STATE, COUNTRY TO COUNTRY, and INSTITUTION TO INSTITUTION."
(Sidebar: Compare VA moving violations to other states and the fines attached, as to other states. My point: Each state deals with the offenders differently. Right now, I don't want to be caught with a moving violoation, or I'm hozed having to pay a fine for the next 3yrs.)

I just spent 15hrs of my day on the phone, on AOL, helping a colleague and friend, 25yrs of age who lives 4hrs from me, defusisng a Domestic Violence situation. The girl, a graduate of VA Tech, and the boy, a dropout from a Mechanic Certification College. I saw the symptoms screaming clearly, of what may come, yet both parties were blind in so many ways, both caring for a train-wreck they didn't see coming.
Yes, last I heard, the girl did as I instructed and called everyone in town that could come over, to come over, so neither party was without support and had reality on each side. Her Mom showed up, driving the 4hrs from my area, to rescue her newly college grad kid, and knock some sense of parenting into her kid, and the lessons of life...
A Parent's job is never done, ever.
Why don't they have mandatory relationship courses instead of these 'filler' courses as a supplement?
Stick it in there, between the Sex-Ed course and Political Science course groupings?
That just might stop the kids having kids,issue, or possibly dampen it...

IMHO - KIDS TODAY NEVER LEARN SOON ENOUGH,THE LESSON OF 'PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS."
LET ALONE, LEARN TO LISTEN.
BUT THAT ONLY SNOWBALLS INTO MORE OBLIVION, BECAUSE THE KIDS HAVING KIDS THESE DAYS, HAS QUADRUPLED (SP?) SINCE THE DAYS WE WERE IN SCHOOL. I DID AN ARTICLE ON THIS VERY SUBJECT MATTER... THE STATISTICS ARE ASTOUNDING AS THEY'VE HIKED UP THE PERCENTAGE SCALE FOR 'KIDS HAVING KIDS, TODAY.
These days, for kids you either 'HAVE' parenting happening, or NOTHING. It's just as pathetic as when you and I were discussing life... almost a decade ago now.
Telling someone who wouldn't listen, that 'This isn't a good thing, for you... but he married her anyways, lust is blinding...'
I know he now repents, but its nice to see him after the long foray into his difficult choices...
What I'm finding today, are extremist parents from one side of the BAR to the other side of the BAR.

Frankly, fight the 'right' cause, or real root to the issue, to get a more realistic penalty these boys should be held accountable, for their actions. And then maybe there will be justice...
The Sex Offender Registry is too extreme, but physically harming another person, IS assault.
From "Poking a person," to "Outright punching etc.." is of equal weight in the court of law.
I should know, I pressed charges against a Frat-Boy Mktg Club President in college for assault.
Ask me why I learned how to shoot a Smith & Wesson .357 afterwards?
And I ask, "What the hell and WHEN was this guy going to be held accountable for his actions? Why the hell did he think it was 'A Joke?' & 'Why Do I have to be the ONE to STOP and Make the laws be upheld for idiots like this, who should obviously know better?
How much you want to bet, he harmed more women after that incident???
Soo... Parenting... Where has it gone??? ahem, 'Accountability??"

A2Panther

Posted by: A2Panther at August 6, 2007 11:05 PM