<< APPLAUSE!!! >>
> I think if somebody wants to claim that something
> is wrong, he should provide good rational arguments
> why each of those parameters (age, authority, type
> of relationship, etc.) is chosen, and why authority
> and experience are so bad in one case while they are
> so good in another. Otherwise, such arguments will
> never lead anywhere.
I contributed these thoughts to the LIBERTY (National Council for civil
Liberties) conference on CIX.
<quote>
----------
>From Anduril, 9129 chars, Jun 21 05:29 97
----------
TITLE: From 'liberty/general'
In message <202>, doghouse said:
><<< Paedophiles constitute no particular threat to members of the public
>(of any age),>>>
>
>er...despite appearances, I'm not 'wading in' here....but could I ask
>what basis you have for this?
>
>:-) Mick Dyer (NB the smiley, its a genuine question.....)
>
OK.
This is not a 'popular' case to argue (civil liberties seldom are).
There's an academic study, 'Child Loving' written by (ISTR) William
Kinkaid [publ. RKP]. It attracted a lot of flack in the reviews -- I
haven't read it.
Let's look at this seriously.
Firstly, at a methodological level: (Pardon my French!)
Following Alfred Tarski, we can say:
"The statement 'Les pedophiles sont particulierement dangereuse aux les
membres de public' is thrue if -- and only if - paedophiles are, in fact,
particularly dangerous to members of the public." Ironically, such
relationships are known in French as 'Special friendships.' There's a
novel of that name, by Roger de Peyrefitte, which is on this topic. No
sex in it, BTW.
We do not have a good statistical basis for knowing how many members of
the population are 'paedophiles.' The American Academic Hypertext
Encyclopaedia by Grolier [1993] describes people who find pre-pubescent
children sexually attractive. But consider: such preferences are not
binary. They range from being completely erotically indifferent to
pre-pubescent children, through to finding them (or some of them -- but
which? One? All of them?) sexually _irresistable_.
Sexual attraction can only properly apply to a context of reproductive
acts. So we're not dealing with 'sexuality' at all -- pre-pubescent
girls cannot reproduce, and boys and men cannot reproduce at all, except
in conjunction with fertile females.
So we're really considering unilateral eroticism -- an internally
experienced erotic attraction, which ranges from (say) zero to a hundred
percent -- we have no _metric_ for it, anyway -- and reciprocated erotic
interactions.
But erotic feelings are internally-experienced 'World II' phenomena --
again, there is no external (or internal) metric. And they can therefore
have _no impact whatsoever on other people_ (except insofar as other
people can sense them at some tacit level).
Insofar as pre-pubescent children really have no capacity -- knowledge and
experience -- of and for for erotic arousal, they can hardly either sense
it in other people, or understand it either.
So we just don't know. The positivist assertion must therefore be false.
But is it perhaps objectively true, all unbeknownst to us?
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
Cut to the chase.
People are understandably very concerned about strangers who forcibly
inflict unwanted physical assaults (of varying degrees of severity) on
children who never sought out such behaviour. But this is very rare -- in
the case of grave genital or anal assaults.
Insofar as grave physical abuse by strangers _does_ occur, it
predominantly occurs in situations where the children are deprived of
liberty -- i.e. in childrens' 'homes' and schools. There is much
empirical evidence for this. Vastly more grave assaults on children
(genital and/or anal) occur at the hands of their parents, in the home:
people who have 'legitimate' power over them.
In almost all cases, these assaults can actually be completely prevented
and stopped, and children need no longer suffer, or -- like Jonbenet Ramsey,
aged 6, be hideously tortured and then murdered.
Either one or other of her parents killed her, or -- vastly more probable
-- it was a carefully staged 'demonstration' killing, carried out by paid
psychopaths. The investigating authorities are not making it very easy to
discover the facts in this matter.
Asking 'What powerful people has John Ramsey upset?' might prove a
most fruitful line of inquiry. The 'moral panic' brigade are obvious
candidates -- his daughter was intelligent, good-looking and clearly
enjoyed appearing before the public. Hateful, to some minds...
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
The real-world solution is simple: equip all children with
personalized miniature radio 'search-and-rescue' beacons, to be activated
in crisis situations and emitting a personalized radio alarm signal, This
can be instantly picked up, the source location triangulated and given
Global Positioning Coordinates, and appropriate rescue services sent to
the scene immediately, by the fastest possible means.
The small units can be worn as pendants, bracelets, on a belt.
Anywhere accessible to the child should they be in a crisis situation.
Training children to use them is simple. They're very cheap to manufacture.
Come to think of it, we could all do with these -- it results in
incident-driven policing at the behest of the person under threat. This
would be most fruitful in reconfiguring policing to be a system of
delegated self-defence, rather than a means of social control operated by
the governing hierarchical authorities.
Microlert was offering such a service for US $30 a year in California, in
the Seventies.
Advocates of authoritarian and violent parenting and schooling (Gillick,
Howard, Shephard) _hate and detest_ this sort of idea, which is now
actually being made available to children under threat within their
homes in America...
Ask yourself why it is, that the 'authorities' seem to have so little
concern for the phyical, psychological and emotional well-being of each
and every one of us -- children _and_ adults.
The exaggerated 'AIDS' propaganda backfired on the 'moral' authoritarians,
resulting in a vast proliferation of erotic non-penetrative activity --
so-called 'safe sex.'
The social-control freaks are _really pissed off about this failure. A
lot of effort and resources went into the scare.
Stuff called BHT (E321) -- a near-perfectly-safe food preservative and
anti-oxidant -- zaps all lipid-coated viruses it's so far been tesed on,
in 250 mg. oral daily doses. No side-effects, no immunocompromize effects.
It's generic, and sells for around five bucks a kilo.
Do a WWW search on 'Fowkes' and 'BHT'
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
The idea of children remaining 'innocent' in the context of modern
tobacco, confectionery and newspaper shops is quite risible, insofar as
there are all that many children incapable of erotic responses left. Go
look at the magazine racks in any shop. Just look at the cover pictures
and text.
Orchestrated witch-hunts against mostly harmless and inoffensive
people is much nearer what the 'authorities seem to want to go in for.
Coercion. Wonder why?
No civil libertarian should have much of a problem answering that: --
VOTES
MANIPULATION
SOCIAL CONTROL.
BIGGER BUDGETS
MORE CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
I'm hardly any kind of 'paedophile' -- my idea of 'attractive' is the
glorious Olivia Newton-John. >:-}
But I did see my best friend lying in a mortuary, with ice crystals on his
face, stone dead. He liked emotional involvement with -- and on occasion
mutual erotic play with -- good-looking boys between the ages of twelve
and fourteen. They seemed to welcome it, AFAIK. If I'd had any reason to
think that they didn't, he wouldn't have been a friend of mine for a
moment longer. We were just 20 years old...
With me was another good friend with similar inclinations. He went on to
become a top Royal Navy carrier pilot and a gifted 'TOP GUN' air combat
trainer. He ceased to have any interest in younger boys as he grew older,
but is still an 'out' gay.
I have no reason to think that either of them ever did any kind of harm to
anyone. I don't have friends who are like that.
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
One of the parents resented their son's attachment to my best friend, and
'sweated' a 'confession' out of their son... The police were summoned,
and very commendably seemed suprisingly unconcerned, and he was charged
with 'indecent exposure', ISTR. However, they told him he couldn't expect
to go on 'doing it.'
All too true.
A little later, he was found dead, by his mother and his sister.
Tony
"Freedom means doing whatever you damn well please." -- Barry Goldwater
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
| Anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk * Anthony Hugh (Tony) Hollick |
- <*> --------------------------* * * *-------------------------- <*> -
| Rainbow Bridge Foundation * * * Centre for Liberal Studies |
- <*> --------------------------* * * *-------------------------- <*> -
| 4 Grayling House, Canford Rd: * Bristol BS9 3NU Tel: 9501894 |
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