Via Dr. Helen, I learned about a real life horror story in which an apparently innocent old man became a casualty in the war on sex. For inappropriately touching a girl, he was sentenced to life in prison:

FORT PIERCE -- A 69-year-old Port St. Lucie man who volunteered as a reading mentor at Morningside Elementary was sentenced Friday to life in prison for inappropriately touching an 8-year-old girl.

Anthony J. Tripoli was convicted in May of sexual battery on a child less than 12 by a perpetrator older than 18, which is punishable by a mandatory life sentence.

Tripoli also was found guilty of lewd or lascivious molestation and sentenced to 25 years in prison to be followed by lifetime sex offender probation by Circuit Judge Larry Schack, who allowed the two sentences to run concurrently.

The victim told authorities Tripoli, whom she knew as "Mr. Tony," would reach into her pants during one-on-one reading sessions. On the witness stand, the girl said Tripoli "touched me in my wrong spot" and penetrated her with a finger to the point that "it hurt."

Tripoli denied the allegation, both in a police interview and on the witness stand; and there was no physical evidence corroborating the girl's story.

I am reminded of Mayella Ewell's accusation against Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird. The jury didn't care that the state had presented no physical evidence that the crime occurred. At her father's behest, young Mayella was accusing a big black man of raping her, and according to the code of the Jim Crow south, that was enough for the jury to feel duty-bound to convict.

Today's accused criminal is a older white man, of course, and the accuser is a child. According to Wendy McElroy, who has studied the case, the child shows every indication of having been coached. (No doubt by activist "therapists" with agendas galore.)

It's all too easy for me to assign blame to left wing activists, though. I don't know when the Florida statute which calls for mandatory life sentences for sex crimes based on the unconfirmed word of a child was written, but it would not surprise me if Republicans had at least as much a hand in it as Democrats, maybe more. In some circles, even suggesting that a statute like that be revised could get you branded (by mandatory life sentence activists) as "soft on pedophilia."

Not that I'm in any way sympathetic to anyone committing a crime against a child; I think people who have sex with kids are despicable and deserve long prison terms. But that does not mean creating a legal scheme which can punish the innocent.

And from a philosophical standpoint, is a sexual touch in fact that much more horrible than other forms of violent or offensive touching? Does the law allow life imprisonment for punching a child in the face or dislocating a child's arm? The reason I'm asking is because I was a child once, and had someone asked me whether I'd prefer inappropriate sexual touching or being punched in the nose, I'd have chosen the sexual touching any day. Am I crazy, or are there others who feel that way too?

How far do we go with this stuff?

I shudder to think how many children today might come to realize the enormous power they have. (To say nothing of the therapists who want to "help" them....)

As Dr. Helen warns men, "Keep away from the kiddies or you could lose everything you have."

This case and others like it provide a very rational reason to fear having anything to do with children.