Preying on Youth, Online and Off

So I just saw this story on KOMO about a website called myspace.com. The gist of the thing was how teenagers post personal material about themselves on the web. Of course this attracts pedophiles that prey on these kids, often with tragic results. Teenagers, being teenagers, hold the mistaken assumption that they are somehow invulnerable and could never fall victim to such predators. Kids do not understand the concept of mortality.

This is exactly why they make easy prey for the military. Just as it is illegal for pedophiles to cruise the high school looking for victims, it should also be illegal for military recruiters to troll our educational institutions for their fodder. After all, the pedophile and the recruiter both count on youth’s delusion of invulnerability to get what they want. Kids do not understand the reality of coming home without all of their parts or in a body bag, and it is that sense of immortality that the military exploits. But somehow this exploitation, which endangers the lives of young people, is acceptable.

We all want our children safe from predators. I simply think that we need to expand the definition of predator.