^^^^^^^
To add to the above comment, there is one other thing going on. As fewer and fewer people from the chattering class have kids, fewer will identify with parents and parents' concern with kids.
What you see happening in these comments is a bunch of people who (most likely) are not parents, don't plan on being parents, and therefore have no maternal or paternal instincts. This puts them in a different mindset than adults in previous generations who might have had one or two kids already at their age.
When you're a parent, your perspective changes. Your kid becomes the priority and you're a lot less likely to "intellectualize" a defense of a pedophile and more likely to run him out of town (see the book or movie "Little Children").
These people can't put themselves in the place of someone whose child will be victimized. That's not real to them.
If the future brings fewer parents and more childless adults, I wonder if this kind of thinking will become a trend. These comments may show a turning point in our society. I can't imagine anyone even making them in the liberal Clinton years.
To add to the above comment, there is one other thing going on. As fewer and fewer people from the chattering class have kids, fewer will identify with parents and parents' concern with kids.
What you see happening in these comments is a bunch of people who (most likely) are not parents, don't plan on being parents, and therefore have no maternal or paternal instincts. This puts them in a different mindset than adults in previous generations who might have had one or two kids already at their age.
When you're a parent, your perspective changes. Your kid becomes the priority and you're a lot less likely to "intellectualize" a defense of a pedophile and more likely to run him out of town (see the book or movie "Little Children").
These people can't put themselves in the place of someone whose child will be victimized. That's not real to them.
If the future brings fewer parents and more childless adults, I wonder if this kind of thinking will become a trend. These comments may show a turning point in our society. I can't imagine anyone even making them in the liberal Clinton years.