Look, I don't want an innocent person to be lashed to a tree and die of exposure, but we must understand what we are giving up in the name of safety.

Do you want a police state in which people can be dragged in and forced to give testimony against themselves by chemically overriding their free will?

Do you understand the abuses that that gives rise to?

Just as an aside, if I were the prosecutor -- since Florida is a death penalty state -- I would happily agree to seek life without parole if he would tell the court what he told Carley to get her to go with him without a struggle. Did you see that tape? He took her by the arm, but she didn't resist him in any way. What did he say to her?

Since my girls were little, they've been encouraged to make a scene -- to pull back, kick, scream, bite, gouge, throw things and run -- if someone tried to take them away. I have impressed upon them that a promise to let them go if they cooperate is a lie, and that it's better to abandon all their belongings and to jump from a moving car than to sit quietly and hope to be rescued. When I was in high school, a girl I knew was raped and murdered in a stand of trees within a mile of her house, in a nice neighborhood. She, too, was tied to a tree, and bled to death there. Her murderer was never found. I don't believe any of us is "safe". As a parent, I want to know what happened so that prevention techniques can be developed to counteract it.

We will always have predators among us. Unless we intend to keep our children under 24-hour surveillance, our best defense is to teach them what to look for.

Regards--
Mary Anne