Prosecuting US citizens for unsavory ideas sets a tricky precendent.

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“The government is arresting individuals on terrorism charges based on what individuals have said or thought—not on actual, concrete plans,” editorialized the Daytona Beach News-Journal about Hamid Hayat, one of countless Muslims nabbed after 9/11 for “providing material support or resources to terrorists.” The feds “only proved that he did things that sometimes precede acts of terrorism.”

Most people have indulged in discussions about how to rob a bank or get away with murder. They obviously don’t intend to carry out their “plots.” Yet any of us could fall victim to the recent tendency to equate crimes of intent to crimes of action.

Jack McClellan, 45, is a self-described pedophile who runs a blog that advocates sex with children. “If you look at things he has posted, he clearly is a pedophile,” says one sheriff in Los Angeles, where McClellan lives. As far as we know, however, he has never acted on it. His record is clean.

Local mothers are plotting—er, organizing—“to push lawmakers in Sacramento to legislate Mr. McClellan out of business,” reports the New York Times. “Just the idea that this person could get away with what he was doing and no one could press charges has made me angry,” Jane Thompson of East Los Angeles told the paper.

I don’t blame her. But McClellan hasn’t done anything. Do we really want to live in a culture that penalizes violent and impure thoughts?

Thoughtcrime pours big bucks into CBS Television, broadcaster of the take-a-bath-after-viewing program “To Catch a Predator.” No one cares about entrapped suckers like the guy “in a SpongeBob SquarePants jacket, armed with a bottle of K-Y Jelly.”

Like dozens of other would-be pervs, the 21-year-old thinks he’s going to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex, only to find Dateline’s Chris Hansen and a passel of cops waiting.

One sexual predator is too many, but the problem isn’t as widespread as we’ve been led to believe. Many of the registrants are statutory rapists like the 17-year-old Georgia boy doing hard time for consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl.

“Anti-predator stings involving decoys may actually outnumber crimes involving real victims,” reports Rolling Stone. “To Catch a Predator” claims there are 50,000 child molesters online. But a recent University of New Hampshire study estimated that there were fewer than 2,900 arrests for online sexual offenses against minors in a single year. What’s more, most “victims” approached on the Internet were actually cops posing as kids.

Most men who fantasize about sex with children don’t actually do it. Perverted Justice, the group that trolls chat rooms to set up stings for “To Catch a Predator,” has a fitting name.

We’d all better watch what we think.  

TED RALL’S MOST RECENT BOOK IS WAKE UP, YOU’RE LIBERAL! HOW WE CAN TAKE AMERICA BACK FROM THE RIGHT.

Local Spin will return next week.