You and I have disagreed in this forum on the expansion of liberty issues, but I cannot agree with you more on the subject stated above.
The greatest gift a parent can give to their children is individualism and self-sufficiency.
Life is full of situations were the risk of injury or death is imminent.
Teach your children to discern and analyze "risk" as correctly as possible.
My deepest and heartfelt empathy for the parents of this missing girl.
I'm not ready to throw the towel in yet. I lived in Aruba back in the 70's before the tourist boom. Contrary to the belief expressed in many of the posts here, Aruba does have a police force and many governement postions are staffed by Dutch nationals. And the Dutch Antillies is not by any means a third world country at least by Carribean/African/Central American standards. I realize that a lot can change in the 30 years since I lived there, but back then, the Island was relatively crime-free, which says a lot considering it housed one of the largest oil refineries in the Western Hemisphere, which produced a lot of drunken merchant sailors and oil workers.
True story: When I lived there, my 19 year old sister came to visit for a few days. On day five she "disappeared" for two days. Turns out she hooked up with a 20 year old guy from Chicago she met in one of the casinos. She was all smiles when she finally showed up for breakfast one morning and didn't think her disappearance was a big deal.