Danny, your analogy is not valid. We are talking about ‘A’, not ‘B’. Besides, what does QED allude to ? What is exactly being proved or disproved ?
Geoffrey,
My held up post is the one at 4:28 PM, in case you want to take a look at it.
Of course it’s innate. But that doesn’t mean two-month-old babies innately want to have intercourse with adults. That was a reductio, of course, but broadly speaking, the sex drive is linked to puberty. Babies can tell when something feels nice, or at least I assume so, but it doesn’t become a primal need until the gametes are in production and the delivery apparatus is throbbing like the motor on a monster truck.
Somewhere in between babyhood and puberty, kids these days learn (too much) about sex. That may make them insterested, but doesn’t turn them into testosterone-squirting horny teenagers–to do that, you have to include testosterone. And the interest ramps up, just as puberty itself is not an instantaneous process.
But I’m not even talking about urges primarily: I’m talking about basic knowledge. A randy teen and an ovulating female are likely to figure it out very quickly, by trial and error, even if they were raised with a complete information blackout about sex. What distinguishes the latter from the former is a bit of programming put over on us by our genes, which are designed to inject themselves into the future as efficiently as possible. A young child doesn’t know where to stick the parts unless someone tells him. He can’t think, “I’d sure love to shove this into a vagina,” because he doesn’t know what a vagina is. He can’t think, “I’d like something just like this, only bigger, shoved up my rump,” because the idea has never occurred to him… until someone tells him. Which these days happens around age four, I suppose.
So I agree with you that “sex is innate.” But it’s a huge leap from that to, “toddlers will naturally invent all the positions of the Kama Sutra,” and it’s an equally huge leap to, “young children want their various orifices impaled by adults, even though it’s reproductively useless, physically dangerous and emotionally confusing.”
–Len.
What does baloney allude to ? You’re clearly denying reality so that it conforms to your naive and/or puritan prejudices.
As an aside, I can’t endorse your approach, if I understand it right. You seem to be saying, “Lets get real! Sometimes ya just gotta coerce.” In practice I’m as guilty as you, since I discipline my kid. To which you’d probably reply, “QED.” But the notion immediately generalizes to taking drunks into “protective custody” and regulating carbon emissions to “save the earth.” This is a case where the ZAP is hard to apply quite right, but that doesn’t justify what amounts to renouncing the ZAP.
For the record, by the way, I’d ask, “Whose property is this drunk standing on?” You appear to be assuming “public” roads, which creates your dilemma. Since nobody owns it, nobody can do anything with Mr. Drunk. In a free world, the road’s owner would either evict or detain him on a trespassing charge, and when events finish taking their course he will either have slept it off, or found his way back into his own home, where he’s 100% free to kill himself–and I would not stop him, and very well might help him defend himself against invaders attempting to “save his life.”
–Len.
Well, your conceding that you don’t know and that you think age two is too young is pretty much inconsistent with your previous objections to our position. In fact, it places you close to our position such that the point of diagreement between us is a matter of degree, not kind. What we seem to disagree on is the approximate age in which children ought to have full exercise of their rights. To sum up: You do now appear to agree that children below a certain age shouldn’t have full exercise of their rights; the disagreement just appears to be at what age.
Please read carefully. I said “kids don’t know where the parts go until they’re told.” This can be proven by induction, so it’s hardly a “denial of reality.” On the day a baby is born, it doesn’t know anything about the function of its sexual organs. On the day it conceives offspring, it does know what to do with its organs. Therefore, there was a first day on which the child actually understood that penises are specially shaped for insertion into vaginas. There is also a first day on which they realize that penises are reasonably adaptible for insertion into pretty much anything, including mouths, rectums, nostrils and pencil sharpeners. Prior to that first day, they don’t know where the parts go.
Granted it’s possible, in theory, for a child to figure out where the parts go entirely by trial and error, say, prior to puberty. It’s vanishingly unlikely, though, since the kid would have to have an unclothed vagina laying around the house to experiment with–and presumably he has custodial parents around who periodically dust, straighten the chairs, and put away any naked vaginas left lying around the livingroom floor.
So you’ll have a devil of a time explaining how a child decides all on his own, with no input from anyone else, that he’d like to engage in anal sex with an adult. It doesn’t do any good to reply, “You’re just denying reality. Pre-schoolers are actually all desperate for a little anal action.”
–Len.
Not exactly. Age is not the important issue. Consent is. You seem to be saying that despite a child giving his/her consent, the action is still not consensual because the child is not really a rational actor. So, how do you know he’s not a rational actor ? Because you’re a clueless puritan like Len who don’t want to face reality ?
You want to reduce the problem to an objective one - you want to be able to say that before the age of ten (say) children are not rational actors. That’s simply not true.
You are obviously infringing on his right to decide to have sex with grownups by training him so. How dare you.
Now that was rude and uncalled for. Do try to be civil. Otherwise, you’ll have to be moderated.
Well, now I’m not sure on what basis you can say that age 2 is too young. What makes age 2 too extreme?
So, it’s OK to make threats like this :
“Please be aware that I’m not the only one in Pittsburgh who shares my views on the matter, and a high percentage of us consistently carry concealed weapons.”
That’s a civil and polite remark I suppose (in Len’s world)
Children at two can’t even speak sometimes. But as I said, I don’t have a hard and fast rule. On the other hand I don’t think you’re really addressing my position. If you agree that children have individual rights, then they should be free do engage in sex if they so wish (consent)
Do you realize that your solution to the problem is not really a solution, just a ‘conventional’ answer ? What happens when I sign a contract but then claim that I didn’t have full information, so my decision wasn’t actually ‘rational’ ?
A child is UNABLE to give consent in any rational sense. That is what makes them CHILDREN.
That’s just circular reasoning.
I think that actually illustrates my point. It may just happen that despite maxpot46’s so called training, his son would choose to do something maxpot46 thinks is not right. So, what happens then ?
No it is not. Children in rights theory are people who are incapable of exercising their rights rationally by virtue of their age. To deny that is to say that there is no such thing as a child.
More circular reasoning.
Did he treaten to initiate force against you? No, not really. He implied he would be willing to defend his and his child’s rights against initiations of force. And even if he did make an uncivil threat against you, that doesn’t justifiy you being uncivil to me.
I don’t think you’ve really addressed my position. You’ve pretty much ignored my main points in favor of voicing your unsupported opinion. It seems to me that your position is only different from mine in terms of degree (what age is too young) and in not being as clearly thought out (the why).
I reject the sort of Kantian-style, deontological, extreme rationalist, a-contextual conception of the NAP that you seem to have. It’s not possible or even desireable to deduce the whole of libertarianism and all its applications ex nihilo from the NAP. My position is not merely conventional, it is philosophical and grounded in eudaimonistic theory of virtue ethics and natural rights (a form of natural law).
This question you posit does not follow from my position and is yet another mischaracterization. I get the distinct impression you aren’t making much of an effort to engage us in serious debate. You’ve shown no evidence of even attempting to understand my position, including important distinctions and points I have made, because you’ve mainly ignored or mischaracterized them in your responses.
That’s precisely what he’s doing, i.e., denying the standard non-circular distinction between children and adults in rights theory.
Rights are abstractions until they are exercised rationally. A child does not have the capacity to exercise their rights rationally - THEREFORE THEY ARE CHILDREN. Get it? As a custodial agent, he can stop the child from acting in a manner in which he believes the child would not act if his son were a rational agent, which he is not. If a parent fails to act in that way, he is neglecting his role as custodian.
If he does so in a manner that is harmful to his son, let him recompense later. But to say that a parent who enforces the rules of their household is violating the rights of the child is absurd, because the child’s rights are subject to the parents’ judgment of what is good for them - that is, what the child would have chosen if he or she were a rational agent at that time.
To prove my point, there are a great number of things to which children object upon which a parent must insist in order to maintain their custodial role. Children don’t like having thier diapers changed much of the time. Children don’t like being fed much of the time. Children not restrained in a crib or playpen may fall down the stairs. Children run out in front of cars unless they are prevented from doing so. Children will drink poison unless they are made to understand that it will harm them. Children will get themselves into situations into which they would NOT enter as adults.
This is because children are not rational agents - they are purely sensual beings at first, and gradually grow into their rational capacity. Until the time that they obtain that capacity, to the extent that they lack it, they are not in possession of their rights. Their parents are, and must exercise it for them to the best of their own judgment. That’s what it means to be a parent.
But the question of sex is an easy one - children don’t solicit adults for sex. They cry for food, or changing, or affection - but they don’t cry for sexual attention. If they want it, they’ll just play with themselves. It is indefensible to say that a child who allows an adult to assert him or herself sexually upon that child is consenting in any meaningful way.
I noticed, and I’m wondering if it is worth it to continue at this point. I don’t usually debate someone who won’t accept objective definitions of basic concepts.