People are stupid. People looking for love can be some of the most stupid people around. So when I started reading articles like this about legislation to prevent people from being sweetheart swindled online, I wanted to smack someone. Can our legislation focus on something more important, like perhaps finding ways to better fund our education system? We have 17-year-olds who can’t read in this country – but God forbid Granny loses $500…
This legislation would require dating sites to prominently post whether or not they do background checks on their members and also post safety tips for online daters. Many sites already comply with this in varying degrees. Match.com does not background check and has several tips for keeping safe. There are services like True.com that do background checks, but they have always marketed it as “be sure he’s not married” checks, not “be sure he’s not a convicted felon” checks.
Now, I do feel bad for defenseless old ladies who don’t know that the internet is a scary place full of less that virtuous people. But these old ladies get swindled by telemarketers all the time, and I don’t see a bill being pushed through to require telemarketers to announce whether or not they’ve been background checked by the Better Business Bureau.
The bill itself doesn’t anger me. What angers me is the fact that Florida is spending money (and the legislators’ time = money) debating this insanity when we’ve just had to lay off 16 teachers at my school (and all schools in my county have had similar layoffs).
How about this? We can set up a sweetheart scam that swindles money from horny government officials (and we all know there are plenty of those!) and donate the money to the schools! Who’s with me?
About e
Power to the people!
Let the revolution begin!! >-)
Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
Conning elderly widows out of their fortunes is how I make half of my income. Am I going to have to go back to good old-fashioned stagecoach robbery because of this?
It is sad to say that people do seem to either 1. Want the government to tell them how to run their lives and expect the government to protect themselves from being stupid. I’m sorry, but that’s what Darwins rule is for. You either learn from your mistakes or the species is doomed. 2. People seem to be super interested in resolving petty issues that only affect a small percentage of the population, while leaving defits with major issues such as education, in the country at large.
Forte – Where are you finding stagecoaches these days? I’ve just been robbing middle-age-crisis-men in their Miatas!
Kat – Indeed, it is a sad commentary on the state of our nation. On the flip side, once the govt tells us how to run our lives, the same people will be complaining that the govt tells us how to run our lives. *sigh*
No worries soon the Government will decide who needs an education and who doesn’t. Then we will be able to continue to cut the budget for silly things like schools & teachers. This way we can continue to fund wars in other nations. Not to mention we will have more money to rebuild said nations. Got to make sure they have schools, you know?
e – I’m not giving away all my good highway robbery tips to just anyone. Get yourself a mask, hat and cloak and I’ll consider taking you on as an apprentice.