From Trevor Bothwell's commentary -- "Oregon boys being Nifonged" -- in the DC Examiner:

According to ABC News, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face up to 10 years in jail and a lifetime as registered sex offenders if convicted, all over a stunt Mashburn claims was practiced by girls and boys alike every Friday during school.

Bradley Berry, the district attorney who appears to be doing his best Mike Nifong impression by prosecuting the boys seemingly for doing little more than acting like kids, maintains that his office "aggressively" pursues sex crimes that involve children. "These cases are devastating to children," Berry said. "They are life-altering cases."

Berry is correct, though he isn't referring to Mashburn and Cornelison, whose lives he's apparently trying to destroy single-handedly. Instead, he perversely suggests that teenage girls are going to be ruined for life because a couple of 13-year-olds behaving like clowns smacked them on the backside.

I agree, and I wrote an earlier post about this ridiculous but outrageous affair, which I castigated as a a "too damn typical" example of the "complete lack of common sense which now seems to have modern America in a deathlock."

Complaining about these problems does not seem to make them go away. Nor does complaining about a lack of common sense seem to restore common sense.

In the old days, boys who did something like this would have had their own butts beaten -- by adults. I suppose if we use today's standard, the adults who beat the boys bottoms would be arrested and prosecuted, not for violating some new law against spanking, but for "felony sexual abuse." And why not? What's good for the goose...

Does anyone really know what's good for the goose anymore? Are we to look into the mind of the perpetrator to determine what is and what is not "sexual"? There are people who really get off on having their butts spanked, are there not? Likewise, there are people who really get off on delivering the spankings. How are we to know?

Is a teacher who takes pleasure in spanking a child a child molester? Or is this too inflammatory a question even to pose in this blog? If it is, then I think it's all the more reason to pose it.

Let's take a trip down memory lane.... These archives are full of accounts of school canings and whippings. I don't think I need to provide lurid examples, but trust me. Caning and whipping may have been abolished in recent years (by a vote of 231-230) but the accounts will live on forever in cyberland.

Well, perhaps I shouldn't have said "forever." It would not surprise me to see the same governments that abolished what were once standard practices to impose censorship on even utterly factual accounts of them. People might enjoy reading about it, and we can't have that! Bad boys might get ideas. (Fraternity paddling is probably another example of sexual abuse, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if by merely mentioning it I have run afoul of the various net-nanny moralists of the "left" and the "right.")

And Tom Sawyer's teacher Mr. Dobbins, despite the "merciless flayings" he clearly enjoyed administering, completely escaped punishment for inflicting what were obviously "devastating" and "life-altering" traumas. Why? Because this was completely normal for a Victorian schoolmaster, that's why.

(To even point this out is by definition moral relativism.)

Today, Ritalin has filled the ecological niche once reserved for corporal punishment. Whether this is right or wrong isn't up to me. Probably just as well, because many people would consider me highly immoral. For the life of me, I've never been able to understand why whipping someone or punching someone in the face is less harmful than so much as touching the same person's genitalia. When I was a child if I had been given that choice, I'd have gladly chosen the latter as the lesser of two evils, notwithstanding society's determination that it is far, far worse. (I feel the same way as an adult, BTW.) I'm not saying it's right to touch someone on the genitals, mind you. It just strikes me that there is something profoundly illogical going on. But however logical my view may be, many would consider it immoral. Knowing this does not help me understand why.

I don't know what to do here. Perhaps another unscientific poll.

First, the punishment of the boys:

Finally, a simple either/or question:

criminal prosecution for sexual abuse 10% 1

a stern lecture plus suspension from school 50% 5

a severe spanking 40% 4

MORE: Had to redo it again, as I had trouble with the "and or." (You cannot use a "slash" mark, so the psychiatric treatment choice would not appear.)