More teacher persecution

It's happened again. a Burbank teacher, 33-year-old Amy Beck, has been arrested for having sex with a student. Why is this a crime? I can understand a school policy and that there can be authority issues, and that teachers who engage in sex with students might be disciplined, even fired. But where's the crime that has to involve government authorities? For there to be a crime there has to be a victim, and I can virtually guarantee that the 14-or 15-year-old boy in this case did not consider himself a victim. If he's anything like most 15-year-old boys -- it's been a while, but I remember -- he figured he won the lottery, not that he was victimized. And the teacher is not at all bad looking, either. The chances that he will be traumatized now or later in life are close to nil. So where's the victim?

The handling of this case was -- so far -- utterly absurd. The teacher apparently felt guilty and turned herself in. The prosecutor wanted bail of $175,000 but the judge said oh, no, it's going to be $400,000. This lady's life is ruined for a mistake in judgment that to my way of thinking doesn't qualify as a crime. She faces a maximum sentence of up to -- get this -- 7 years in state prison! She's unlikely to be good-looking when she comes out if she gets that kind of sentence.

I learned about this from Tim Conway Jr. (son of that Tim Conway from the old Carol Burnett show) on radio KFI. He was outraged too, and good for him. It takes a certain amount of cojones to take that stance in public, on the radio. But this prissy self-righteous attitude that sex is something close to the worst thing people can do to a young man needs to be challenged.

Plenty of social critics have noted that modern America is one of the few societies in world history that artificially extends childhood with adolescence (some would say many Americans extend childhood well into their 40s). My grandfather was sent out on his own to make his way in the world at 15 (he ended up working on the railroad and later became a civil engineer).

Aaarrrrggghhh!!