At long last there is some reconsideration of the child molestation hysteria that has sent innocent people to jail for long terms behind bars, often with zero evidence and with testimony from children who have been heavily pressured or manipulated by "experts."

 Genuine child molesters certainly belong behind bars and a case could be made that they should never be allowed out again. But that is wholly different from saying that an unsubstantiated allegation should be automatically believed in a court of law.

 The New York Times Magazine in its September 19th issue had a long article featuring one of the children who made false accusations against a man who spent 15 years in prison as a result. The supposed victim now says that all of it was a lie. Why did he lie? Because "experts" leaned on him to say what they wanted him to say and he was just a kid at the time.

 Were those "experts" trying to frame this particular man? Probably not. More likely, they just had a set of preconceptions about the world -- a vision -- that made them believe that the accused man was guilty, so they saw their duty as getting the kid to testify in a way that would get a conviction.

 CBS News probably didn't set out to frame President Bush with a forged document about his National Guard service. More likely, the story they heard fit their vision of the world so strongly that they believed it -- and brushed aside any witness or expert who told them something different.

 Visions are powerful things. For some people, visions make facts unnecessary and can even over-ride facts to the contrary.

 In the years leading up to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Lenin developed a whole vision of the world of the past, the present, and the future. Although he spoke in the name of the workers, he never bothered to ask what actual flesh-and-blood workers thought. In his years of exile before returning to lead a revolution, he never bothered to go where workers lived or worked.

 Lenin was just the first of the great vision-driven dictators of the 20th century. Like Hitler and Mao after him, Lenin was prepared to sacrifice the lives of millions of human beings on the altar to his vision.

 Even in democratic nations, there are people who can impose their vision on other people, with no consequences for being wrong and no requirement that they prove themselves right. Continued...