The Limits of Blame-Gaming

Remember Remsen Benedict? He was sentenced yesterday to six and a half years for possession of child pornography.

Just like Robert Hochulski's family, Remsen's wrote letters bragging on his community service, his dedication to the Boy Scouts and Big Brother as though that should somehow absolve him and earn him a lighter sentence. I find it fascinating actually and shows the families are still in denial.

The fact that Remsen was a Scout leader and drove a school bus has to do with the fact that he's a pedophile who sought ways to be around little boys. It's even more reason to make sure he's never around little children again.

And he won't be. Legally anyway.

After Wikisposure notified the school district and Boy Scouts of America regarding Remsen's internet pedophile activity, such as membership at sites like Boylandonline, Bliss, BoysMagicWorld, Boys Scout Camp, Boylover.net and BoyMoment - his computer was seized and forensic analysis revealed

hundreds of videos and thousands of child abuse images - the equivalent of 22,275 images under the sentencing guidelines. The images and videos showed prepubescent and pubescent children being sexually assaulted and molested by adults, as well as children engaging in sexual acts with other children under the direction of adults.

When Remsen is released he'll have to register as a sex offender. His internet activity will be restricted and he'll be required to stay away from anyone under the age of 18. It is a part of his sentence and is absolutely imperative so that no parent who is aware of just exactly what Remsen is will ever trust their child around him.

Another thing I found especially interesting regarding the case of Remsen Benedict is how much something Mary Duval has talked about reminded me of him.

You see, Mary has a friend who won't allow her daughter to ride the Church bus unless there is someone else on the bus. Mary claimed her friend was hysterical and had "a hate-on for men"

Mary claimed the bus driver was a fine upstanding member of the community, an elderly gentleman without a criminal record, a father, a grandfather and that her friend was hysterical. Mary repeated this story at least 4 times that I know of. Lenore Skenazy agreed with Mary.

But ya know? I didn't think it was hysterical at all. No, I thought about Remsen. He was a "fine upstanding member of the community" as well. He had no criminal record. He was a father, a grandfather - he drove a school bus.

I wondered what Mary might know about the church bus driver that other people don't? Since she's so sure of how safe he is that she mocks her "friend" to multiple guests on her show she must have some sort of inside and all-knowing information regarding him.

But there's one guest Mary had that she didn't tell the story to and that's Margie Slagle. You see Margie as an attorney works tirelessly to get sex offenders off the registry and other sex offender related activity. Margie is on their "side". But Margie said

Now I know that 93% of all sex offenses occur because we as parents have trusted the offender with our child so I'm far more worried about who I trust my children with than I'm worried about a list.

When my son took guitar lessons at first I'd just drop him off because I thought, well this is a nice guy he gives guitar lessons at church it must be safe and then I realized what the heck are you doing take a book and sit for half an hour you moron. Why would you trust a stranger with your child?

So I have become smarter as a parent and that's the only way to prevent sex offenses against your children is to just be aware of who you trust your children with. I don't want my kids riding home alone in a car with one of their coaches, are you kidding me? You don't set them up that way.

But the registry doesn't do that for you as a parent that's the problem. Parents are not educated enough to protect their kids and if they're relying on a registry they're leaving their kids vulnerable.

I wonder if Mary called Margie hysterical? I wonder if Mary asked Margie what she thought about Lenore Skenazy letting her 9 year old child ride the subway alone in New York City? I wonder if she asked Margie if she thought it was appropriate for convicted sex offenders to mock parents for protecting their children then blaming them if they don't protect them enough? I wonder what a discussion like that would look like. I wonder if it's possible for Mary to take a stand and stick with it and stop changing her story depending upon the guest? So far all we've seen is flip-flopping. Time will tell. The fact is however, that if you support UNDER protecting children you cannot be taken seriously as someone whose goal is to "educate and prevent" sexual abuse. And you certainly can't be taken seriously when one day you say children shouldn't walk home from school and the next day you mock parents who won't let their child walk home from school. You can't have it both ways. Even blame-gaming has it's limits.