So that noone will get me wrong, I am asserting, up front, that there is no scientific evidence that a pedophile can be cured. Also, I'm asserting that the recidivism rate of a pedophile is over 90%, and that the other 10% have some sort of illness or have a dramatic religious conversion which basically exiles them from the presence of children.

            What in the WORLD does this have to do with Robert A. Heinlein, the great futurist thinker, moralist inventor, and Science Fiction legend? Well, in his mostly misunderstood book, Starship Troopers, he has his hero, when asked what to do in the middle of battle against the despicable and disgusting bug enemy, says, "Kill 'em! Kill 'em all!" They got that right in the movie version, too, by the way, and it was about the only thing they got right.

            What ELSE can we do with people who are so "bent," as C.S. Lewis use to say, that they cannot be healed? If we can't put them out of our misery, then the only thing left is to lock them up, forever. None of this, of course is going to happen.

            Why? Because there are too many people in this country who are moral relativists. The only answer to any psychological problem, they say, is study and treat and heal. Of course it doesn't matter that there has ever been proof that transactional analysis cures anything. And exactly how would you study the behavior of a pedophile? Most psychological referent studies are meaningless when they depend on third party information. Unless, of course, they were allowed to watch the predator prey. And that's unthinkable.

            There is an answer, but it will require far more science than we have. Drugs. We know that lithium and other reality binding drugs do work on certain psychotics. Maybe, some day in the next 25 years or so, someone will find a combination of chemicals which will cause people not to want to sexually abuse children.

            There are several studies, however that point to no cure, ever. A psychiatrist is doing work on autistic children which have been preyed upon. In EVERY instance - EVERY INSTANCE, mind you - the autistic child begins to prey on children. Autistic children who are not preyed upon rarely become predators. This is also true of a study done of homosexual autistic children, but we're not talking about that right now. Apparently, once the predation is done, the pattern is somehow set. And set for good.

            So, here we are. No drug, no working therapy, just more and more predators. Like a virus, the illness spreads from grownup to child and on and on and on.

            We must ask ourselves - are we prepared to pay more and more and more so that these broken people can breathe and eat and have sex in prison? Or should we use a more basic cure, as they did in the bad old days? How far does charity go? Do we keep them alive on the hope of a cure that may never come? Or do we exterminate them like so many termites?

            I think a cheap and responsible way of treating this, until we know more, is to banish them to an "island of predators," if you will. We're not talking Papillion, here, or Escape from New York. We're talking more of a leper colony. They would be fed well, given modest clothing, clean, warm, single housing, and even many communal TVs. Books. DVD's. They can develop their own society but physical crimes would not be allowed. If they escape, they're not killed. They're just put back on the island which is constantly patrolled and supervised. No internet. No true freedom. Ever. One strike. An island would be preferred; the US owns many of them in Alaska. We can afford that.

            We cannot afford to pump money into a system that patently does not work. And the only alternative, which we do not have the moral will to enforce is to kill 'em - kill 'em all.