BrianGarst.com

I saw this story on Red Eye the other night about two boys being prosecuted for butt-slapping, but apparently it was so ridiculous that I blew a gasket and couldn’t offer up any commentary. Thankfully, the ever insightful Mark Steyn was able to identify the underlying social ills this case brings up.

He is right on the mark when he declares that our society has lost all sense of proportion. We get hysterical over the kind of adolescent behavior children have engaged in since the beginning of civilization, but we do absolutely nothing about a former National Security Adviser pilfering classified documents. We charge people with hate-crime felonies for placing a book in a toilet, but refuse to condemn the thuggish intimidation tactics routinely used by jihadist front groups and Islamist apologists. Is there no sanity left in this nation?

Oh, and just to put the final nail in the coffin holding our common sense, we’re now suing criminals instead of, you know, using the rule of law the way it was intended (arrest -> presumption of innocence -> trial -> etc.).