I am a firm believer in male curfews. Nothing good happens after 11:00 PM, especially where men are involved.
A quick glance at the FBI arrest tables should convince you that men are far more vulnerable to criminal activity than women.
It is both negligent and hazardous to allow men to roam the streets in the darkest hours, when low visibility and an alluring nightlife apply unnecessary pressure to their already underdeveloped decision-making processes. Laws requiring male persons to remain indoors from 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM except in cases of demonstrable necessity would take a pleasant chunk out of the numbers in the FBI’s charts, restoring security to honest women going about their late-night business. Just as importantly, those simple rules would save many thousands of men from incarceration, from ruining their and others’ lives in split-second, instantly regrettable decisions.
We, both men and women, have a duty as citizens to petition our state and city governments for male curfews.
Okay, calm yourself, reader. I’m just kidding. I don’t support male curfews, and I’m not defending sexism. But what’s really wrong with the above argument? Why is my statistically sound case a cause for recoil in so many people? Why will our policymakers never seriously consider that sort of legislation?
The answer is that we sympathize with the men who don’t fit the trend. Sure, we say, gender is a fair predictor of criminal activity, but what about the men who aren’t any more crime-prone than the average woman? It would be sexist to punish them with a curfew when they did not choose to be male and had no say in the actions of their fellow men. It would feel arbitrary to punish them just for their reproductive organs.
This is our conditioned response when the law restricts an entire group because that group tends, on the whole, toward undesirable behavior. We speak up for the rights of the innocent guy who loses his freedom just because he’s part of a statistic with a bad or supposedly bad track record.
If the majority of the public is not on board with the outcry, you can at least expect to find progressives writing their representatives and staging marches. Love them or hate them, at the core of their values is an emphasis on resisting efforts to generalize people.
Americans will recall the firestorm that was ignited in 2010 when Arizona Senate Bill 1070 seemed to suggest that skin color could play a role in stopping drivers for citizenship checks. Even many supporters of the bill were careful to repudiate the idea. They did not argue that generalizing was all right in this instance. If they wanted to retain public approval, they had to claim that the bill was being misread—that it did not and should not allow for racial profiling.
Why was it so precarious to suggest that looking Latino makes you more likely to be an illegal immigrant from Latin America—true—and so should subject you to greater legal scrutiny? It’s because that philosophy was seen by many to disadvantage Latinos who didn’t fit the trend, people whose skin color wasn’t indicative of a dishonest history. It’s because if you made such a claim, you could expect a war against progressives and others. The familiar progressive battle cry would be heard echoing over the dew-laden backyards and sunlit rooftops of America, right up to your doorstep:
“What about the people who don’t fit the trend?”
Arguments to restrict youth seem weak to the same rejoinder. They generalize with the same absolutism as male curfews. They use the same logic that garnered Arizona Senate Bill 1070 such vitriol. It goes like this:
- X is bad for all people.
- Group Y tends to be susceptible to X.
- We should place special restrictions on Group Y so they cannot engage in X.
By replacing Group Y with “young people” and X with “uninformed voting,” “irresponsible drinking,” “crime,” “smoking,” and “ignorance,” respectively, one can justify a voting age, drinking age, juvenile curfew, smoking age, and compulsory schooling age.
It may well be true that young people suffer disproportionately from certain faults, like men suffer a disproportionate inclination to violence. But each of these arguments disregards the substantial portion of young people who are free of the shortcomings ascribed to their peers. No system is in place to exonerate oneself if one is demonstrably innocent of these charges. No exception is made for the people who don’t fit the trend.
So I go outside, and I listen for the war whoops. I can’t wait to watch the progressives and staunch traditionalists go at it.
Silence.
Are these the wrong dew-laden backyards? Not the right sunlit rooftops? I feel like I’m standing alone out here. A dog barks somewhere in the distance. A discarded newspaper tumbles down the road. If I listen really carefully, and the wind is blowing the right way, I can sometimes discern a small voice (though it could be my imagination):
“What about the people who don’t fit the trend?”
Why so quiet? Where are the citizens concerned that we’re generalizing? Where are the angry progressives?
Some groups have even fallen under the premium protection of progressive ideology, and they avail themselves of its fire constantly. The battle cry sounds on a hair trigger. They’ve long since abolished every law with a hint of prejudice, and now they set their sights on the most trivial things, which they pursue with a dogged intensity.
For children I see nothing. Static. Silence. I see a debate about whether the government or their parents should be able to control them. No one ever mentions that they might have more control themselves.
I’ll cede that many—heck, most—children are ignorant. Teenagers can be irresponsible, rash, and rude. Minors are a notably uninspiring crew, but there are always, always exceptions. I’m not claiming I am one. I don’t care whether you are one or were one when you were young. It doesn’t matter. They’re out there, and no one speaks for them.
If I have to, I’ll stand alone in this hushed neighborhood and say what would be said by millions for any other group so restricted:
What about the people who don’t fit the trend?
Written: 11/25/2015
