> > The point is that - under positivist laws -- the prosecution has
> > whatever
> > (absolutist) powers are conferred by the 'legislation'.
> >
> There is no *other* legal theory that has a different result.
Yes there are -- several. But the problem is made very difficult by the
lack of internal and external metrics (see my CIX 'Liberty' (NCCL)
conference essay).
> If we concede that there are people who are too young to consent to sex, we
> are stuck with defining a statutory age (or else trying to establish
> majority on a case-by-case basis, a much worse outcome).
We can establish a civil-law rights-based approach, which provides for a
_presumption_ of incapacity to give informed consent below a defined age
(or alternatively, a set of objective parameters). The Courts (and the
judge) could test the validity of the presumption if it is challenged by
the older or the younger party. Kids have rights, too. Deprive them of
the right to say 'yes' and there saying 'no' becomes rather less valuable
and worthy of respect. That's part of the problem.
> One could conceive of monstrously unjust laws of all descriptions. The
> question is, is this law which is actually in force unjust and if so,
> why.
See (inter alia) my Amicus Curiae briefs to Judge Linda Lau's Court.
>
> There is a difference between the conviction and the sentence. The
> sentence in this case seems (to me) egregious to the point of
> unconstitutionality. She should have gotten probation and lost her
> licence to teach.
The statute and the prosecution are unlawful and unconstitutional. She
should walk free from the Court on August 29. And we need every good
teacher we can get, especially looking at the poor shape the world's in right now.
I've proposed that she teach again via the Internet and multimedia.
Best Wishes,
/ /\ \
--*--<Tony>--*--
http://www.agora.demon.co.uk
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/la-agora
| Anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk * http://www.agora.demon.co.uk |
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==========
liberty/2general #203, from anduril, 9206 chars, Jun 21 05:29 97
Comment to 202. Comments. More refs to 202.
----------
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] which I haven't read.
Let's look at this seriously.
Firstly, at a methodological level: (Pardon my French!)
Following logician 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 France 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 people 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 reproductive context. So
we're not dealing with sexuality at all -- pre-pubescent girls cannot
reproduce, and boys and men cannot reproduce at all, except 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 - an exchange of intellectual and sensory experience.
But erotic feelings are internally-experienced 'World II' phenomena --
again, there is no external 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 actually 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 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 [coercive-type] 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.
[ August 19 1997 Note: I'm an adviser to the Boulder, Colorado District
Attorney's Office in the JonBenet Ramsey case Either -- vastly unlikely
-- one or other of her parents killed her, or -- vastly more probable --
it was a carefully [plannned political] 'demonstration' killing, carried
out by paid psychopaths. The investigating authorities are not making it
very easy to discover the facts in this matter]. Time will tell.
Asking 'What powerful and unpleasant people has John Ramsey upset?' might
prove a fruitful line of inquiry.
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
The real-world solution is simple: equip all children with
personalized miniature radio 'search-and-rescue' beacons, 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.
Taining 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 involvemet 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.
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 trained to fly one-way nuclear mission against the USSR --
which would have killed and maimed million of people, had been ordered to
do it. Quite futile, too -- when someone asked 'but we haven't the fuel
capacity to get back, they were told: "What do you think will be left here
to get back to?"
He ceased to have any interest in younger boys as he grew older, but is
still an 'out' gay in Oz.
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 sister.
Tony
"Freedom means doing what 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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==========
liberty/2general #206, from anduril, 1489 chars, Jun 22 01:13 97
Comment to 205. Comments.
----------
In message <205>, pperrin said:
>In fact the sig would have to be a couple of megabytes long before it
>came anywhere close to the rest of the posting.
>
Address the issues.
If you think you have an argument, that is,
>Oh -- one statement was OK
>
>>not a 'popular' case to argue
>
>Indeed it's not, and it is pretty obvious why it is unpopular -- and
>quite rightly too.
That's the sort of response that says:
"We prefer killing people, destroying their lives. creating a climate of
terror, letting children suffer and die, instead of PREVENTING CHILDREN
BEING HARMED BY GIVING THEM FREE RADIO PANIC ALARMS as these trounlesome
defenders of unpopular cases keep telling us to."
Mustn't let the _children_ decide, and be in command of their own defence
in these matters, must we now?
Meanwhile, kids are suffering and dying, almost entirely at the hands of
adults who are known to them (including their parents), an an oppotunity
to extend draconian controls by the State goes unopposed -- by you,
anyway. For practical purposes, you're encouraging one of the worst
outbreaks of 'moral panic' for a hundred years, with dire 'knock-on'
effects on everyone's fundamental civil liberties.
That seems to be acceptable to you.
What the hell are you doing _here_, posturing as being concerned about
civil liberties -- including the rights of children to say 'yes' and 'no'
and have their wishes respected and enforced. That's what all this is
really about.
Tony
------------------- * * * * * ---------------