From Salon:

There’s a new electronic device out there that can protect your children from perverts! Or so the manufacturers would like us to think. Offendar, a tiny radar device the size of an electronic car key, alerts people that a sex offender is approaching.

This, in an age in which California passed a law requiring sex offenders to wear GPS monitoring bracelets for the rest of their lives and To Catch a Predator is a consistent ratings winner.

I don’t know why we feel that pedophilia is the one crime that should be treated differently than any other crime. Personally, I wouldn’t be too psyched to live next door to a murderer or a thief, either, but I can’t look online to see if there are any murderers in my neighborhood like I can with pedos. (BTW, if anyone from the California Registered Sex Offender website is reading this, you really should get some Google Maps action going on your website. That mapping system you have up right now is terrible! 5 children could have been violated in the time it took me to find my address!)

We are terrified at the thought of sexual perversion, more so than we are at any other crime. I wonder why that is? Is it because child molesters represent America’s darkest fantasies? Or do they seem like the weakest of all criminals, like that kid in high school who even the nerds could pick on?

Regardless, I sure don’t think anyone should be forced to wear a GPS tracking for the rest of his life, no matter what he’s done. And I don’t understand why, if we’re so terrified of child molesters, we don’t just put them in jail for longer periods of time? Why would we proclaim that they’re ready to reenter society yet force them to live as outcasts? I think I’d rather just stay in jail.

Any pederasts out there want to chime in?

Sidenote: here’s a website someone has set up to make money off of the child molester registry. God bless America!

Update: This registered sex offender website is really fascinating. I can get the names, pictures, and addresses of all the sex offenders in my neighborhood, so that the next time I see them at the bar I can say, “hey, get my friend here an 8-year old scotch … and an 8-year old!” The scariest part is that there’s a special icon for “multiple sex offenders” in one location. It is so common for sex offenders to live together that they had to invent a special icon for it.