I have often stated that the best method registrants and families of registrants have of stopping some of these laws or even getting a few of them repealed is to present the unfairness of the registry from the families point of view, the wives and the children, especially the children.

I have harped on this for years now and it is a point that was brought up by LegalGuardian and a few others in a recent thread.

Let's all be realistic and face the facts here----outside of our own family, nobody will ever be sympathetic to the plight of a registrant. Neither the politicians nor the general public care about the registrants themselves. Their attitude is that the registrants committed the crime, so they have to live with the circumstances. They made their bed so to speak and now they should not complain how they are treated. As far as the wives of offenders are concerned, the general public has a smidgen more understanding, but the prevailing view is that if the wives do not like having to endure the hardships of the registry, she should just pack it in and get out of the relationship.

Skewed thinking and thinking not based on a true understanding of the registration process or any common sense for sure, but this is the reality of the situation.

So as much as we complain and regardless of the intelligence of our protestations concerning the registry, the fact is that nobody really cares what we, as registrants, have to say. Period.

We need to get the families involved, the wives, and especially the children to take our fight to the politicians.

I think this is a strategy that could yield better results than registrants complaining about their plight. Not that they do not have a reason to complain at times, but nobody will listen.

There is a precedent in this country that the families can make a difference and that precedence was set over forty years ago.

That precedent was this nation's foolish excursion into a war we could never win, the War in Vietnam.

I lived through that period, so I don't have to have history books to tell me what happened. I saw it all.

The war in Vietnam was the last major conflict that utilized the draft, whereby men 18 years old were mandated to be available for military duty. Many were sent to Vietnam. Far too many shed their blood and died.

As the war escalated, and especially after the Tet Offensive in 1968, it was obvious that we were not going to win that war and it was a mistake to be there any longer. Our brave, young men were getting killed and wounded over there for no apparent reason. But of course, our government could not admit they made a miscalculation there, so the war dragged on.

All the GIs hated the war, the heat, the nightly patrols in the jungles, and just the fact of being over there. Did the government really care how the GIs felt? Of course not. Just like the registrants of today, the GIs did not garner much sympathy, as people felt it was their patriotic duty of be over there.

Nobody cared what our brave soldiers thought about the war just as nobody cares today about the registered citizen.
After all, what did the soldiers know? They were just grunts anyway.

But as the war dragged on to its eventual casualty rate of 58,000 young men, the mothers of these men and any future draftee became very angry and very vocal that they wanted an end put to this war.

What did the mothers and wives do? They took to the streets, they approached politicians, they carried signs, they contacted the media and explained what this needless war had done to their family. In short, the wives and mothers became like pitbulls.

The government and much of the public did not care about the individual GI, but they had to listen to the wives and mothers whose husbands and sons were being mutilated over in that God forsake place for absolutely no valid reason.

Soon these fighters, these ladies, the wives and mothers, had reached enough people and the politicians began to toy with the idea of a withdrawal---and the war finally ended.

The war in Vietnam did not end because this country ran out of soldiers or could no longer economically fight the war. The war in Vietnam ended because the wives and mothers got out in droves, confronted the politicians, and demanded an end to the war.

So the key, I believe, is to make the public understand how unfair the registration process and all its regulations is to the family and especially to the children.

The families of offenders need to approach these politicians in droves, involving the media, and going on some kind of publicity campaign to make people understand how the registry punishes the families, especially the children, who did nothing to deserve it.

This hopefully would make the politicians realize the we are real families and tax payers who want some fairness, not just some number or statistic. It would put a touch of humanity on the children and the family.

We should in some way get the children of the registrants involved and have them ask questions for things that they actually and really do not understand. Blowing off an adult is one thing, but doing that to a child is another.

Blowing off an adult might be permissible at times, but no politician wants to see a media story the next day how he treated a child.

If we could ever get a fair shake by the media or even get the media to report the terrible affects the registry has on the family members, we can make better progress. What could make a better story than a child being treated badly, not for something they did, but because of the registry?

The children could play a vital role. How does a politician respond when a child is talking and crying and asking why daddy cannot go to her school play or why daddy cannot walk to the park with her? And how do they respond when little Billy asks why his dad cannot attend some of his Little League baseball games? And what do they say when the children look them in the eye and ask them why daddy cannot pass out Halloween candy like their best friend's dad does?

Any sensible response would be difficult for any politician. Most all politicians have children themselves and they can identify with children who just want to do normal things like have their dad watch them play baseball or pass out candy on Halloween. Many politicians are ruthless, but many do have a heart toward children. Who doesn't?

So I don't know how it can be done---and maybe my thought are too simplistic---but we need to involve the families in our public relations campaign against some of the laws which have been passed for the registration process.

Barring a major court decision, I don't see the registry being abolished for a very long time, maybe never. There is no incentive to abolish the registry because nobody cares about the individual registrants. But I do think we can make some progress if we involve the family in getting some of the regulations repealed, such as residency restrictions, the Halloween mess, the ability to find employment, and the entire myriad of laws that are a ramification of the registy.

The registrants themselves will never be able to slay this dragon we call the registry.

Just my thoughts.

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