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MP Seeking To Outlaw Written Accounts of Child Abuse
First time accepted submitter Anduril1986 writes "A UK Conservative MP is seeking to expand censorship in another 'think of the children' debate. The plan this time is to make it illegal to possess written accounts of child abuse. According to Sir Paul Beresford, the MP for Mole Valley such writing 'fuels the fantasies' of offenders and could lead to the physical abuse of children."
This is the logical culmination. We've already had decisions that making a sexual cartoon involving Bart Simpson is child porn http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7770781.stm. This isn't much farther than that.
It's about time someone is passing a law against any written words about any illegal or illicit activity. Let's burn all the crime mysteries since they just foster and encourage people to commit crimes and murders. And those thrillers that glorify spies and espionage are a clear threat to governments anywhere. Any book that describes any immoral activity should be immediately banned as well, if no one reads about adultery they'll never commit adultery.
From now on, only stories about unicorns and rainbows should be allowed to be published.
Child abuse is abhorrent and should be severely punished, but is there any evidence that reading any type of extreme (or non-extreme) porn leads one to perform that activity?
But overall this is nothing more than the thought police coming around again. "Now that we control the pictures, we must control the words!"
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
"could lead to the physical abuse of children."
So not only does it want to ban the material entirely because of a few 'bad guys', he also doesn't even know if what he's saying is actually true. Can we ban all books and other media depicting any violence or sexual content whatsoever because they could (but likely wouldn't actually be the cause of it) lead a minuscule portion of the population to commit crimes, too? Actually, can we just ban moronic politicians? They are, without a doubt, ruining just about everything, for everyone.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Goodby Lord of the Flies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies
Feel free to say goodby to other great books. Add them to the list.
It's OK, it for the good of the children...
Why is Snark Required?
I was molested as a child (by a relative, but not my parents), and it seriously messed me up. When I was a teen, I sought help though online support groups, and really healed a lot though talking about it. I'm still not really normal, but it could have been a lot worse. Should I be prosecuted for posting my story (including some details) online in the forum where I received so much help?
This is utterly absurd.
Actually the porn/arousal part was the last on my mind when I read the headline.
The first thing I thought is, how are we going to record any actual child abuse? How about social workers detailing such events, are they falling foul of the law with their reports?
Probably there will be some exception there.
For the rest, from the face of it, this suggestion sounds a bit like "let's bury it, then it doesn't exist any more". Like how the Party tried to introduce Newspeak, key of which was not so much a "simplification" of the language but the absence of certain words (like "democracy") so people would have no way to think about or discuss those concepts.
Because there's plenty of horrendous accounts in that text.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Meanwhile, physical and sexual abuse of children in the form of male genital mutilation continues to be ignored.
We should forbid birth and thus make reproduction illegal. It is proven that birth leads in 100% of cases to death, hence, we will defeat death itself by this move.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I agree that the absolutism of the laws can ensnare non-perverts. The specific point about ubiquity of Google Glasses and accidentally becoming a witness seems too far fetched for now. Punishing consensual acts of the barely underaged is definitely a problem, and kiddie porn law isn't the only example. Using this as a pretext for other bullshit is also definitely a problem.
http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/11/child-porn-laws-arent-as-bad-as-you-think-theyre-much-much-worse/
The biggest point added in his followup is about how ridiculous it is to criminalize fictional and/or nonsexual work.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
We need to outlaw children - that way paedophiles can't see them anywhere, can't hear of them, can't imagine them and in a generation it'll be pointless.
"Let's bury it, then it doesn't exist anymore"
That's already how society deals with actual child abuse (aside from the occasional meaningless symbolic outrage), so why not do the same with evidence of child abuse?
the way i see pedophilia: it's sort of like being a homosexual, it's an innate biological desire
biologically, if you are born a pedophile, it's like being born with cancer. through no fault of your own, your genetics has created a mind that finds the wrong thing to focus on sexually. it's a biological error. it's "wrong", it's an "error" BIOLOGICALLY, because attraction to the same sex or prepubescent children results in no offspring
however, homosexuality is not MORALLY wrong, because it is between consenting adults. therefore, homosexuality should be 100% legal
meanwhile, pedophilia means you are attracted to someone whereby any actions you take on your attraction results in inevitable psychological harm, because a prepubescent child can never informed consent to sex. and you have permanently warped their self-image, confidence, and how they think about transgressive, inappropriate, unwanted behavior at a very impressionable age. you've done real substantial damage to another human being. simply by acting on your erroneous but innate and irremovable desires as a pedophile
what a horrible hell
the worst part is, if i am correct about pedophilia being like homosexuality, we must admit then that it can never be cured. you can't cure homosexuality (nor should you try)
but then if pedophilia is an innate biological attraction, it means you are dealing with a human being who is doomed. i mean really, really doomed. to a lifetime of suffering. they must continually suppress their natural desires. what does this do to their happiness? or, act on their desires, and be a horrible transgressive criminal. that's their choice
what a horrible curse. cancer sounds better
willpower is not infinite. no matter how moral the person. therefore everyone who is a pedophile is a potential time bomb. you simply cannot trust them on their own in society
perhaps this explains why so many pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood. as a moral person, who is aware they carry around a permanent desire that means they are in constant danger of acting immorally in a moment of weakness, their reaction is to embrace moral fortitude as hard as they can. and yet so many still fall, and still transgress against children, simply because you are dealing with a strong innate desire and the human mind is not a steel cage, we all have moments of weakness
someday, they will be alone with a child, through accident or chance, no matter how hard they try not to be, and if that day overlaps with a moment of weakness, that we all have, then you have doomed an innocent child to suffer a transgression which will screw them up psychologically. imagine carrying around this curse!
we are left with a horrible conclusion: the only way to "treat" pedophiles, in my mind, is permanent banishment from society
it is an awful thought
but i honestly cannot think of a superior arrangement if pedophilia is like homosexuality and is therefore innate. such people, once identified, simply cannot be allowed to roam freely in society where there is also children, because we have as our duty as moral people to understand the danger they present to children, and themselves
permanent banishment. can anyone think of a better way? castration has been shown to not work. but my mind finds it an inescapable conclusion about the nature of the pedophilia, if i understand it correctly
depressing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Not to mention how easy it is to use kiddie porn hacks to sabotage someone else's reputation.
Bart Simpson being choked is *not* abuse, but if you draw him having sex that *is*??? Not only that it's consensual sex in the cartoon, yet whether it was 'abuse' never could be questioned, because the language is defined now that underage sex is abuse (Bart has been '10' for 22 years now, although he's actually voiced by an adult woman).
The thinking is all broken there.
Prosecutors with dodgy cases would add a child abuse allegation simply to be able to suppress the evidence from public scrutiny. Just as now they make terrorism claims to make use of the 'state-secrets' doctrine in the US. If you create a path for abuse of the legal system, it will be abused.
The situation now with divorce cases is that the wife will throw in an unsubstantiated claim of abuse in order to gain sole custody. The risk for them is that false claim is open to inspection outside. What if they can shut down the details of the divorce case simply by adding in a claim of abuse?
He should be ashamed.
No, it wasn't difficult - which is why you should stop being pathetically lazy and do it yourself next time.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Banging 16 year olds is simply both illegal and unfavorable in today's society
It's legal at 16 in the UK, and "unfavorable" is very subjective indeed.
It's an extremely complex moral area, and the law has to cut through the crap by applying somewhat arbitrary limits. Obviously it's a nonsense that sexual intercourse with someone aged 15 years and 364 days is wrong, but doing it the very next day is fine. But it's also nonsense that driving with 799mg/L of alcohol in your blood is fine, while driving with 800mg/L is wrong. But the only manageable way to codify this stuff into law is to draw a line at some arbitrary point somewhere near where the public consensus is.
> Care to explain how someone can "find" God?
The problem is you are looking outward instead of inward.
There are as many paths to find God as there are religions, that is, infinite ways.
Here is but one path: When you have a hobby where you are so caught up in the pure enjoyment that time seems to stops, you are *starting* your journey.
There is no *single* right answer, because everyone has the ability to experience god in their own unique way.
Right. This answers perfectly my question. God is a feeling or a state of mind, nothing else. Most certainly not a superior being all powerful and forgiving.
Thanks for the clarification.
Write boring code, not shiny code!