There's No Such Thing As Common Sense Anymore

Nothing makes me want to go around punching random people in the face more than a lack of common sense. And the world is falling to shit right now because it seems that more and more people seem to forget that this notion ever existed. Everyone acts with such a knee jerk reaction that it literally makes my head hurt.

I guarantee that every single person that reads this blog has at least one picture of themselves in the bath tub as a kid. There has been a picture of baby jeanshorts in the tub with a shampoo mohawk on our families fridge for 20 odd years. It's a right of passage. Something your parents can break out in front of your girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, what have you for years to come just to embarrass you when you're an adult. But apparently the state of Arizona has never heard of this concept before.

I found this story on ABC News. Basically AJ and Lisa Demaree took their vacation photos in to get developed at Wal-Mart. The person working at Wal-Mart saw photos of the Demaree's three children in the bath. Said employee freaked out and handed the photos over to the police. The police proceeded to go to the Demaree's home, seize a bunch of their family photos which included more pictures of naked babies, and removed the children from the home and put them into Child Protective Services, for a month. A fucking month. Because these parents have pictures of their own children without clothes on. Are, you, fucking, serious? And on top of that both of the Demaree's are now registered sex offenders for some reason.

Now I don't really fault the Wal-Mart employee. Lord knows people working at Wal-Mart are some of the dimmest people on the planet. And I'm all for preventing child molestation, child pornography, child abuse, etc. So it is a pretty solid thing that Wal-Mart has a policy to report fishy pictures of children to the police. But come on. You can't tell the difference between family photos and photos taken for some kind of disgusting, perverted pleasure? And if the first words that pop into your pea size brain when you see pictures of naked children is "child pornography" or "sexual" or "erotic" or any other adjective along those lines, then clearly you are the one with the fucking problem.

And far, far worse, police offers AND state employees working for Child Protective Services couldn't tell the difference either? No wonder Balsillie wants to take the Coyotes out of Phoenix so bad. Apparently everyone there is a fucking moron. Again these people are just doing their job and it's in their best interest that they do everything in their power to protect children, but perhaps instead of rushing to all these conclusions and taking action before asking any questions, they could have taken a minute to look at all the pieces, and this whole catastrophe could have been avoided. All suspects are guilty until proven innocent I guess. And if we let people take photographs of their own children having a bath then the terrorists win.

I was watching Cops the other day (fuck you it's a good show) and this 19 year old kid got arrested for Domestic Battery because he got in a tiny scrap with his 17 year old brother. Two teenage boys, doing what teenage boys do, and now one of them has a domestic battery charge on his record for the rest of his life. Un-fucking believable. The cop seemed like he was more than willing to just let them shake hands, and let bygones be bygones, but according to the state law he was ordered to arrest the kid that started it. Separation of common sense and state I guess.

The fact that in this day and age, innocent photos of your own children are interpreted as child pornography speaks volumes about our society. Are we that scared of our own shadow? Every single person has all of a sudden become a pervert/molester/kidnapper/killer/rapist? Children aren't even allowed to walk around by themselves anymore because supposedly there is a stranger with a van full of candy waiting for them on every block. People need to stop believing all this sensationalist media bullshit we are fed every day and start taking a second to think about things for once. Naked bodies are a fucking wonderful thing. That's all these parents were trying to teach their kids, to be comfortable in their own skin. And now because some assholes overreacted or did things "by the book" rather than using their brains, these kids and their parents have suffered some emotional damage that may never heal. I hope the city of Peoria, the Peoria police department and the school board that fired Lisa Demaree all get sued out the ass. Thank god I live in Canada.

-jeanshorts