The feeling is kind of mutual =] Your posts are full of words, but lack content in my opinion.
I don’t oppose it and I don’t encourage it. It obviously has been my position all the time.
Somebody asked about " The right to have sex - at what age? " and I tried to provide a consistent answer, wich clearly doesn’t fit your cultural ‘preferences’ so to speak. That’s not my problem.
I hate to seem like I’m ganging up on you, Len - but nobody, not even NAMBLA, can advocate pedophilia. Pedophilia is the fascination, or urge - which nobody seems to be able to choose. Frankly, nobody is likely to decide “I think I’ll develop an erotic fascination for children - it seems like a great part of anyone’s life”. You’re confusing pedophilia (the desire) with pederasty, the act. With the witchhunt mentality common today, the word pedophilia is misused greatly these days - even to mean an attraction to a physically mature person who’s gonna be of legal age on their birthday tomorrow.
It’s hard enough to discuss these topics rationally when we’re communicating clearly - fuzzily-defined words won’t help at all.
I may have missed a few comments back there a bit, but I haven’t seen anyone advocating choosing a minor for sexual activity - just some advocating the right of the ‘underage’ person to chose for themselves.
Personally, I deplore an adult punishing a child for exploring with a peer, too - though in the USA, minors have been charged with statutory rape for sexual experimentation with another minor (less than 2 years of difference in age). A couple of decades ago, a guy got a year in jail for statutory rape - though he was married to the ‘victim’ when he was charged with the crime.
If you do, indeed, support the right of the Government to punish people for consensual sexual contact, I don’t see how you can claim to be a libertarian.
=-=-=-
This topic seems to have drifted from the original, which interested me more - a discussion of ‘Age of Consent’ laws. Any chance it’s going to get back to that?
Danno
That’s his argument for homesteading, in part. His argument for self-ownership is different; it minimizes conflict, yes, but at the same time, in order to assert control over another, I must make direct use of my body. This has the consequence of rendering any argument for indirect control over this other person as non-universalizable, and thus contradictory, as I claim direct ownership for myself but on the basis of no rational principle whatsoever refuse to extend it to another rational agent. The other argument he sometimes uses, borrowed from Rothbard, is showing how both collective ownership and slave/master type ownership, besides being praxeologically impossible, reduce to absurdity.
-Jon
You are quite right.
–Len
Any sex should be legal as long as no one was coerced.
Finally you concede a libertarian means of preventing “pedophelia”.
I don’t believe there is any such thing as a general age of consent. If a person can consent, they are an adult. If they can’t, they are a child. That can only be decided on a case-by-case basis, as every person matures differently. Thus an “age of consent” law is a bad law, in every application.
Look, I know that this is a side issue - but do you seriously believe that testicles automatically make someone more suitable for leadership than someone sporting ovaries? Or that a less-than-spectacular level of leadership makes one less of a man?
I’m … just flabbergasted. If you have a line of reasoning to support such an assertion, I’d dearly love to hear it - in another thread.
Danno
Okay - I’ve hunted for the originals, but they’re too far back - I’ll have to jump into this part in the middle - sorry 'bout that.
Why marriage? That’s a legal contract - sexual experience isn’t, and conflating the two is an error, if not downright disingenous.
The mentally retarded do, indeed, have a right to choose to have sex - it’s not even forbidden by law in my (remarkably paternal) state. It makes the “normals” squeamish on a regular basis - but I can see no rational reason to refuse them that right, if they can find a willing partner.
If insanity prevents consent, I could make a fair case that Socialists can’t consent. Modern psychiatry mostly doesn’t use the term ‘insane’ any more - it’s pretty much meaningless, clinically. Very few are free of any taint of neurosis, some psychotics can function in society.
If immaturity prevents consent, I’m not sure that I can give consent - and I’m past 50.
Consent isn’t really that tough to understand. Ever try to get a toddler to eat strained squash that they don’t want? Their lack of consent is remarkably evident. Their consent when you offer an Oreo, on the other hand, is clear.
I suspect that you’re assuming that consent must be informed. I consider the withholding of relevant information to be fraudulent, but this is not universal - caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is old, time-honored advice. Do you expect to live in a society where that advice is needless, or do we live in the same world? By this rule, every person who’s claimed to be unmarried when they were married, to be in love when they weren’t, or to “really never did this sort of thing before” is a rapist - and that is just not so. To claim that this is rape is to depreciate actual rape - hardly a worthwhile task.
And what about a case where neither partner was aware of the relevant information? Say, Sue has genital warts, but has no symptoms, so she isn’t aware of it - and Sam contracts them. Is Sue guilty of violating his consent because she didn’t inform him? If someone is required to have perfect information before they can act, nobody will be allowed to act.
If you posit “maturity” as necessary for someone to give consent to sexual activity, you’ll need to be able to identify and/or quantify maturity - and I’ve never seen that done coherently. It’d be interesting to see someone take a shot at it. Come to think of it, if being immature makes you off-limits for sexual activity, quite a few 30+ folks I know should be fitted with chastity belts, and every pre-mature person who indulges in masturbation is automatically a molester, while they’re being molested - mayhaps we should make underage masturbation a felony “to protect the children”.
As someone else pointed out, level of maturity is very much an individual thing - several teenagers of my acquaintence are considerably more mature than my sister, who’s pushin’ 60. This thread started out as an age-of-consent issue - and while it’s ranged near and far, I’ve seen very little quantitave discussion of that in the last several pages.
So, I’ll stick with my starting opinion - “they forced/coerced me” or “they tricked me” is (or should be) punishable at any age, and “yeah, I wanted to” should be allowable - at any age. If you disagree, please explain to me why someone should be prevented from engaging in a consensual activity (of any sort) with a willing partner, if it does not harm anyone who did not consent.
You have no right to forbid any activity to anyone unless you can show the harm it does to the unwilling.
Danno
I quibble two points in that statement. First, using force against rapists is perfectly libertarian, so nothing I’ve suggested so far has been “unlibertarian.” Second, shunning is only useful after the pedophile is exposed, so it’s not exactly “preventative.” It’s more in the line of non-aggressive retribution. So when a previously-closeted pedophile is caught for the first time having sex with someone’s toddler, the situation calls for defensive force, not shunning.
–Len
I wholeheartedly agree. But I do hasten to point out that there’s nothing about this viewpoint that condones or enables pedophilia. It’s an invalid argument to say, “If there’s no legal ‘age of consent,’ then adults can have sex with toddlers!”
–Len
Sure. Because such things are contextual, and an IQ limit is no more just than an age limit. Mentally retarded people marry, for example. But someone taking advantage of a retarded person is liable to a rape charge. The case will hinge on exactly what the person’s mental capacity was, what the perpetrator told him, etc. It must be decided on a case-by-case basis, like any other case of aggression (which, recall, includes fraud).
If you’re not dependent on anyone else, you can do anything you want to, including grind yourself into sausage to feed your own dogs. As long as you don’t aggress. Recall that I’ve carefully stated that the same goes for my son: immature as I might think him, if he isn’t dependent on me for support, he can do what he wants. While he’s dependent, there are conditions on my support. I also pointed out that that’s not exactly contractual, because he didn’t consent to be born.
That’s pure nonsense: I can forbid smoking in my house; I can forbid my employees’ ever saying “blue cheese”; I can declare my front yard a clothing-free zone; I can require anyone entering my store to dance like a chicken until it makes me laugh. It isn’t perfectly clear exactly what I can and can’t do with a comatose patient whose bills I’m paying, or an insane person I’m letting live in my house, or a newborn baby I’m supporting. But it’s clear that as the supporter, I have some authority. At minimum, I have the authority to withhold my support if I choose.
–Len
Doesn’t that become problematic? An ‘age of consent’ is, at least, quantifiable. For a ‘level of maturity’ rule, one must be able to measure and determine some method of determining level of maturity - a remarkably nebulous characteristic.
If there is no rule, there can be no prohibition - not in any system of law.
A plenitude of studies show that we’re born sexual. Kids self-stimulate at every age. It’s conceivable that a toddler could consent. Without a law prohibiting that child from consenting, one would have to say it’d be allowed.
Oh - one last time, it’s pederasty that you’d prefer to not condone or enable. Pedophilia is, literally, “love of children”, and remarkably widespread. Watch the women in a social setting when someone brings in an infant, and you’ll see a heartwarming display of that love. Let’s try to use the language properly, shall we?
Danno
Yes and no. States create quantifiable laws like quotas, ages, etc.–and specific sentencing guidelines–precisely because it’s incapable of exercising sound judgment. Which leads to all manner of injustice, because there’s no way to achieve justice without sound judgment. In a free society, “justice” isn’t so much a set of rules to enforce as a body of negotiations that take place. The only “law” is non-aggression, but applying that law in any given situation may be obvious or difficult. That’s not a defect in my viewpoint; that’s an inherent aspect of reality.
Of course there can. The rule is, “don’t aggress.” All that’s left is a (difficult!) question of fact: did the defendant aggress.
A point I’ve never denied…
That’s where the “retarded” analogy comes in. A toddler in general can’t begin to grasp the implications of such a decision, and is virtually guaranteed psychological damage by taking on burdens for which it isn’t developmentally ready. If the toddler in question is also an MD and a college professor, my general observations might not apply–but in general, they will. Which brings the caretaker into the situation.
A solid case can be made that an adult seeking such uninformed consent from an unready party is in fact aggressing. If the toddler lived in its own apartment, there would be nobody with standing to charge the adult, but since it lives in its parents’ home, and they assume responsibility for things like medical bills, they do have standing.
Bandying a dictionary against words’ common usage is mental masturbation. You could go blind.
–Len
Okay - I may be out of my depth here. If every case of agression is decided on a case-by-case basis, who decides what constitutes agression? There seems to be a paradigm here that I’m not aware of - my assumption of a written code of law may be irrelevant here, if the paradigm is that everyone decides for themself, and enforces those decisions (either personally, or via paid agents). A pointer to an article I’ve missed, or a discussion that would make this clear, would be appreciated.
I’ll cheerfully agree that you’ve got authority over those you have responsibility for - I’ve raised too many kids to dispute that. But by this, I hear you saying that if you find out that your son has been having sex with the 19-yo neighbor, your recourse is to discipline your son - the neighbor, not having committed agression, is blameless.
As the owner/proprietor of places like your yard, your house, your store, your business - you can make whatever rules you like, I suppose. (The requirement to dance like a chicken might restrict your customer base, but it might enhance it, depending on what you’re retailing.) This would seem to indicate that you’ve no interest in what happens outside of your domain, and that the neighbor who is trading ice cream to toddlers for sexual services outside of your property is none of your business, which seems a tad farfetched.
Again, I seem to be missing a paradigm here - I’m pretty much a new kid on this block. I’ve been assuming that if my neighbor is emulating Sweeny Todd or Jeffrey Dahmer, I should interfere in some way, but if they’re doing a David Koresh, and not committing agression, helping to defend them from agression would be merely neighborly.
Or are you being disingenous by referring entirely to behavior on your domain?
Danno
I’m no expert, but where I’m coming from could be summed up in the doctrine of “standing”: if you are a victim of the aggression, you have “standing” to prosecute; otherwise, you don’t. That’s also a doctrine in the present court system, and it’s basically the right one. If I assault you, you have standing to charge or sue me. If it happens on Joe’s property, Joe has standing as well, and can at least charge me with trespassing. If I cripple you and you lose your job, your dependents have standing to sue me. If I kill you, your heirs have standing. Third parties from Oshkosh, who read about my assault in the papers, can be outraged–but they have no standing and must stay out of it.
Standing can be delegated, by the way. Your lawyer acts as your agent, so he has standing within the limits of your contractual relationship. Your security provider probably has standing, as does your insurance company. Your heirs can inherit your standing, so if you’re robbed and then die of a heart attack, your heirs can sue to recover the property which is rightfully theirs. In Iceland, it was possible to sell your standing: a wronged clan-member often sold his standing to his clan chief. In that way he was compensated for the crime to his own satisfaction, and the clan chief would both pursue justice and pocket the winnings of his suit. (I’m definitely in favor of that. That’s how the “little guy” can take on “big business,” for example, without needing a government to do it. Got a complaint against Walmart? Sell it to Target’s legal department!)
That answers your “who decides” question in a very different way than the government approach. If you break into my home and get yourself a sandwich, but we’re actually friends and you’re starving, I can decide not to press charges. There IS NO state to press charges against my will, so your trespassing is justified, after the fact, by my retroactive permission. Only you have standing to press charges or not. If the home is mortgaged, and the bank has the deed, they might also have standing of course.
You mentioned witnessing a crime as a bystander. In that case you don’t technically have standing: you can’t sue the criminal or charge him; you’re just a witness. But you can repel his attack and protect the victim anyway, because in so doing you’re acting as the victim’s agent. You do run the risk of discovering that the “victim” was really the aggressor, in which case the “aggressor,” who is really the victim, can now charge or sue you. It’s also possible that the victim is a pacifist, and will demand that you not defend him. In that case, you cease to be his agent and cannot use force against the aggressor–the victim has basically consented to be robbed and beaten, so there’s no “crime” for you to stop. Defense cases can get thorny, because you’re assuming the victim would want you to defend him. Depending on all the circumstances, you might find yourself losing a suit by the aggressor, but that’s a risk you take.
A completely different way to come at the question is to notice that justice, in a free society, comes from the bottom up, not the top down. You’re always morally entitled to defend yourself against an aggressor, and the definition of aggression is absolute: the guy who starts it is always the aggressor. There is no “who decides” about it. On an island with exactly two people, that’s the end of the story. When there are more than two, the issue is that people with standing (like the aggressor’s heirs) and bystanders (who mistake the aggressor for victim, and choose to act as his agents) must be convinced that you’re not the aggressor, or else they’ll treat you as if you were. You agree to negotiate, or hire an arbitrator, or empanel a “jury,” because you want to prove that you aren’t the aggressor and get those people off your back. It’s not that they have a “right” to “decide.” You just want to make sure they don’t mistake you for a murderer, and execute you. A complete libertarian legal system evolves naturally from this.
But again, it’s not about “who decides.” It’s about convincing the people with standing of your innocence. In the case of relations with a toddler,
you’d want to be able to convince everyone that the toddler consented–which would be mighty hard. Even more immediately, you need to bear in mind that the toddler’s agents (including its parents) might use defensive force to kill you. That shifts the burden of proof to them: they have to prove that you aggressed, and they acted defensively. But with the bleeding toddler for evidence, how hard will they find it to make their case? Not very. Bearing that in mind, one would exercise extreme care in how they go about propositioning toddlers.
–Len
Well said, Len.
Okay - I see where we went wrong here. You’re an anarcho-capitalist (or anarchist of some sort, at least), and rule of law does not apply to your point of view. I hadn’t understood that. Frankly, I’m not all that comfortable counting on my neighbors to exercise sound judgement - so I’m arguing apples while you’re arguing oranges. Agreement isn’t going to happen here - not because of the issue at hand, but because our basic precepts don’t mesh.
That would tend toward a question of opinion, rather than fact, I’m afraid. In my neighborhood, the kids are being taught that I’m agressing against them by operating a motor vehicle or smoking a cigarette.
I’m not entirely certain that a 22-yo college student can grasp all of the implications of such a decision, either. However, I’ve personally witnessed two separate situations in which toddlers did have consensual sexual contact with someone older, without any apparent harm, either short-term or long-term - it’s commonly referred to as ‘playing doctor’. If, for example, my 4-yo son was caught playing doctor with your happy 2-yo daughter, would I be guilty of agression - my son’s behavior being my responsibility? You may, of course, choose to view the incident with tolerance - but you may not. Make the two kids 12 and 14, and things get to be even more of a question of opinion. Whose opinion rules?
This is probably the wrong thread in which to debate the virtues of anarchy versus libertarianism, so I’ll change tactics and ask you - at what age do you consider your daughter’s consent to be possible - in other words, where would you place the age of consent?
Personally, I consider precision in speech important in accurate communication. I dunno about blind - but I do use corrective lenses.
Danno, wondering why someone who doesn’t like written law is debating age-of-consent laws…
No, it’s anarchist vs minarchist libertarianism.
I’m sorry - I didn’t intend such a level of topic drift. I’d be more than happy to discuss this in another thread - I fear it’s not appropriate to a discussion entitled “The right to have sex - at what age?”, which I would like to continue as such. We can move this to a new topic that you start and point me toward, move this to a new topic that I start and point you toward, or drop it - those three options are the order of my preference, descending. But I do have a suggestion for a starting-off point:
So, if I were living in your vision of a free society, and the guy walking past my house was of the opinion that I was aggressing against him by smoking a cigarette, and shot at me, and I shot back and killed him, I’d have to come to some sort of agreement with his heirs about whether or not I was justified. If they refused to find agreement and shot me, then my heirs could go after them.
Isn’t this how the Hatfields and McCoys got their feud started? Someone does, indeed, have to decide - and if their decisions are not agreed with by others, conflict will ensue, with “who can marshal the most force” a likely deciding factor.
I’m pretty new here, and don’t yet know if there’s an elegant way to move this to a more appropriately-named thread - if you can, I’d appreciate some pointer towards it. If you’d prefer, I can figure out some effective (if inelegant) way of moving this.
Danno