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Police Publish 'An Introduction To PEDO BEAR'
According to this article, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department knows that Pedobear is an Internet joke, but that hasn't stopped them from trying to warn the public about him. Their most recent tool in the fight against internet memes is this public safety information bulletin entitled: "An Introduction to PEDO BEAR." I look forward to the bulletin warning parents about the dangers of children playing in Chocolate Rain.
a guaranteed life of obesity seems somehow better than a slim [...] chance that they will be molested. [...]
it's a real and terrible thing.
I know a LOT of people that did stuff when they were 8-14. This includes people that were 10-12 and getting/giving oral to other kids in their class, or (common) girls who were 12-13 the first time they screwed an 18 year old boy. Hell, I know a lot of girls that were 14-15 and actively seducing 22-25 year old guys; this had at one point been an annoyance for me because ... well, they're not unique, and I've been hit on by 14 year olds. Easy fix for that is hang out in bars where 14 year olds can't go, and work in a secure building you need a clearance to get into (cleared commercial contractor or federal building)... no more annoying teenagers trying to get me in trouble! (Yes I'm paranoid; teenage girls are evil and they MUST be fishing for blackmail material, I swear... don't fucking touch them)
Overall though, the people I know that went through that stuff... had fun, and are actually pretty happy about it. People I know that didn't seem more uptight and afraid of their own shadow, and also more prone to rely on the opinions of others even when their own feelings differ (group-think... you can tell, because they either get very uncomfortable or very aggressive while they try to blend in).
Of course, I know people who were raped and they're not happy about it, and have some lingering issues... after over a decade they understand their issues, but still have a little trouble. I don't know anyone whose been raped and murdered, though... for obvious reasons.
People make a lot of noise about nothing.
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The intellectual capacity required for a reasonable skepticism seems to be escaping a larger and larger swath of the populace
It seems this way, but if you look at history it's really just that more of the population has the ability to communicate to a large audience. Modern communications haven't resulted in better quality of information--it's just made communication cheaper and more accessible.
I've been living around SLO now for six years or so. The Sherriff's Department is in a bit of an awkward position. On one hand, they have local politicians breathing down their necks to be tougher on crime. Between the Cal Poly party scene and the inevitable knee-jerk hatred of the college kids, there is definitely a sharp ideological divide between the SLOcals and the Polywags. On the other hand, there are some pretty high crime rate areas in the county (like my current town, Oceano) where violent crimes and gang activities are pretty common. Thus, the Sherriff's department is usually in a game of tug-o-war between what the county-seat residents demand (more enforcement in San Luis Obispo proper) and what is probably needed most (more enforcement in surrounding communities). As such, the Sherriff's department has to come up with a lot of unique ways of addressing odd problems.
It wouldn't surprise me if this flier was released in response to some of the SLOcals shitting bricks over something one of their teenage kids read in an internet forum. However, the Sheriff's department probably doesn't want to spend any time or manpower on the issue. So they probably released the flier to shut the local whiners up while maintaining enough autonomy to do their real jobs. For what it's worth, every time I've dealt with a Sheriff deupty here, it's been pretty pleasant. One of them helped scrape me off the road when I crashed my motorcycle, and even gave me a ride home when I refused to go to the hospital. Another couple of them recognize me when I am jogging now and wave and say hi if they are outside of their cars. I've never had them stop me for trivial bullshit. I've never had them stop me period. It's always been SLO PD and the CHP that give me shit over ridiculous stuff.
All in all, SLO county is a delightfully weird place to live. the SLO folk are so hell bent about maintaining a nice community that they pass all sorts of batshit insane, jerk off laws. For instance, just this year a city-wide ban on smoking was enacted. You can't smoke anywhere in public now, or within 20 feet of another person's residence. So if you smoke, you're screwed. Then there was the measure that made it so noise ordinance violations could be classified as "unruly gatherings" and, rather than simply fining the offenders, all members present can now be criminally prosecuted and arrested. As such, I'd hate to work for the Sheriff's department. They are stuck between trying to prevent real crimes (like the constant stabbings in Oceano, or the poaching of wildlife up in Cayucos) and pandering to a bunch of rich whiny twats that want to create the "perfect community." It's strange.
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A few studies (they're really hard to find and finance) that try to determine the number of people in a population who are pedophiles, seem to indicate that they represent a non-trivial amount of the population (at least several million in the US/Canada) and something like 60-90% of them never do anything illegal.
Do you SERIOUSLY advocate locking up all of these people to "err on the side of caution"? Yeck.