Bureaucrats, and why we hate

Bureaucrats, and why we hate them
David Aaronovitch in the Independent picks up the story of the Edinburgh’s (Scotland) council banning the filming of school plays without the written consent of all parents.

Although the council argues that the rule is “common sense”, it is actually the opposite. One senior councillor has commented that “we have heard of cases in Scotland and England where paedophiles are found with video footage taken at school plays”. Maybe. Those same paedophiles are likely also to possess images of children shot on beaches, out skate-boarding, at the swimming-pool, walking around shopping centres and begging on street corners in South American shanty towns. In fact any images of children will do. There are “boy love” sites dedicated to early photographs of Princes William and Harry, to boy movie stars (Harry Potter has almost certainly been a big hit with the child-abusing fraternity), and Lolita sites that feature girl actors.
Actually “common sense” tells us to maintain our own idea of what constitutes acceptable behaviour, and not to have it defined for us by perverts. As the expert treater of paedophiles, Ray Wyre, has said: “People who offend should not be deciding how we should behave.” The reproduction of non-sexual, non-exploitative images of children should be regarded as not just normal, but as a desirable part of our enjoyment of our children. To have this normality inverted, as Edinburgh has done, is profoundly wrong and – I think – psychically damaging.