By Mark David Blum, Esq.
Leave it to Oneida City Mayor Leo Matzke to strip naked the liberty of an entire community upon the alleged report of a young girl who said she was scared to go to school because a known sex offender was hanging around the premises. Since when does the fear of a single child change the laws and liberties of all adults in a community. Something else is afoot here and most likely, someone is running for re-election and is trying to look tough by attacking America’s newest boogeymen; the sexual offender.
Query what motivated Mayor Leo Matzke to bring this issue to the table. Has Oneida solved all of its homeless and hunger problems? Do all taxpayers in the town have the best of schools, roads, police, and fire? How reasonable is a Oneida City tax bill? For a representative to waste valuable taxpayer dollars on an issue like restricting residences for former convicts, either Oneida has a serious problem with pedophiles or Mayor Leo Matzke has lost sight of his real job and responsibilities.
Let’s talk about pedophiles: While the Oneida legislation appears to target post conviction, post sentence, post release, former felons, in reality it does nothing whatsoever to either prevent any crime or halt the threats to children. A pedophile, a person who has a sexual lust for children, is without more, a threat to no one. We humans can not control the fantasies that fly through our heads. What we can control is our behavior. A predator who stalks and attacks children is the most cowardly of human beings. Despite the shrill outcry in recent years, pedophiles are not the most dangerous people in society. Of late, they are just the fashionable whipping boy du jour. (A decade ago, it was drug users and drug dealers. Five years ago, it was terrorists. Today, it is pedophiles. Tomorrow – hopefully, Republicans).
We are a nation “conceived in Liberty”. Bile rises in my gut every time I hear a politician argue that a law should be passed because of what someone “might” do. Argued as the fundamental principle behind the proposed law, Oneida’s Mayor declares that a convicted sex offender “might” re-offend and as the City’s Savior, he has to do something about it. He considers the danger of such re-offending to be so high, that he led the charge to assure that no sex offender lives within so many feet of a school or park. This restriction will reduce the threat posed by sexual predators as if to say an evil minded person cannot walk the extra couple hundred feet to pick off a victim.
The argument goes that a level 2 or level 3 sex offender constitutes a high risk of re-offending. So too might a murderer re-offend. A thief might steal again, an abuser might abuse again, and an alcoholic may drive drunk again. We cannot know what is in a person’s heart and mind. Based on Oneida’s logic, they seek to protect children from predators, but care not one whit about murderers, thieves, or drunk drivers prowling the City. Where is the legislation restricting where those people can live?
At its core, the whole Oneida argument flies in the face of our constitution and laws and more than 200 years of history. Simply put, once you pay your debt to society, you are allowed to return to society and be a productive member thereof. Whatever may have been the prison sentence; once a citizen is released from custody and from disabilities, nobody and least of all the Mayor of Oneida should have the power to decide where that person lives. The rights to assembly and to travel freely are fundamental rights. Oneida’s pandering is slowly and in small steps, dismantling some of the most basic freedoms and principles upon which this nation was founded.
Shame on the City of Oneida. Their ideas are ineffective and reflective of the worst in American politics: Kicking at straw men, pandering to fears, ignoring real issues, and in the end, accomplishing nothing but removing another cornerstone of our freedom.
