But I must urge caution when it comes to passing new legislation in a climate of fear and anger.

May I use the gun control lobby as an example for the dangers I see in more ‘predator’ legislation? Gun conrol advocates are always calling for new and more restrictive laws to take guns away from people. Conservatives argue that we should just enforce the laws we already have. Few conservatives say that convicted felons should be allowed to carry guns, but also recognize as bogus the Left’s sensationalizing of emotionally charged and high profile incidents such as Columbine to force through more gun control legislation that results in the disarming of honest citizens. The Left continuously broadens the defintion of ‘assault rifle’, and makes up terms for non-entities such as ’saturday night specials’ for the purpose of inciting the public to demand new laws. The result is more stealth legislation than does nothing to decrease gun violence, but only weakens the individual citizen’s freedom and choice to protect themselves, and increases the governments’s power to control the individual.

In like manner, I’m not arguing that children shouldn’t be protected from predators. But we already have laws against rape, molestation, and sexual exploitation of children. Violation of these laws comes with severe penalties. Why not just enforce the laws we already have?
How justified are we in locking people up forever when we are continuously broadening the definition of ‘molestation’ of ‘predator’? What was once innocent behavior, like skinny dipping at Summer Camp –almost an American tradition — can now get a camp councilor a life sentence.

Whenever I hear of new laws to ‘protect the children’, my alarm bells go off. I smell stealth legislation. Such laws seldom do anything to address the problems they claim to remedy. They merely broaden the definition of what is criminal, and increase the State’s power to interfere with the individual’s — in this case the parent’s — right to decide what best for thier own children. If you think that new laws passed in the spirit of moral outrage won’t be bent to purposes
far removed from the scope of rape and molestation, then you put way too much faith in the goodwill of the State.

In conclusion: I’m no fan of the ACLU, they do a great deal of harm to our society. I think that most of their energy is spent on things that have nothing to do with civil liberities. But who else is standing up to put the brakes on increasing government power? Where are the conservative legal organizations telling the government ‘No! You can’t have unlimited power!’?

I guess we could put a stop to child molesters if we just put everyone in prision for life.

First, the Supreme Court did not strike down the law on the merits but instead struck it down for the legislature’s procedural errors.

Second, I notice none of the posts supporting this predator law argues in favor of changing the rules and procedures necessary for a constitutional amendment in Hawaii. Even the ACLU did not argue on the law’s merits but simply argued the law was unconstitutionally put on the ballot.

Third, the scope of the bill’s text is far smaller than the scope of ignoring legislative procedure. The bill’s text only affects a small population — child sex offenders. The procedure, or abuse of procedure, used to pass this amendment is wide in scope. A procedural violation is far more egregious than a contextual one because it’s potential impact on the legislative process is far greater. I simply cannot support a political philosophy that has, at its core, the belief that the means justify the ends.

If the law was so great and had such wide support, why didn’t the legislature follow the constitutional procedure and avoid this mess? Why did they feel the need to ignore the rules? Child predator laws are a good thing but I cannot support a violation of constitutionally mandated procedure to get those laws on the books.

If you look around you will see that I am also very concerned with the judicial branch.