my year 7 maths teacher got arrested for child porn

[Pencil]

I guess you could argue that liberty is the highest moral. It is the only moral that makes sense to be applied in law, because it is the moral that allows everyone to choose morals for themselves (where there is no absolute moral code, this is the most humble and humane option).

The value of the Harm Principle (the idea that we cannot harm each other) is a fundamental idea of liberty, because this is how we can all live with our own morals. There is no need to enforce morals among other people.

The most important thing is we respect each other's rights.

Agreed.

[Collin Li]

I guess you could argue that liberty is the highest moral. It is the only moral that makes sense to be applied in law, because it is the moral that allows everyone to choose morals for themselves (where there is no absolute moral code, this is the most humble and humane option).

The value of the Harm Principle (the idea that we cannot harm each other) is a fundamental idea of liberty, because this is how we can all live with our own morals. There is no need to enforce morals among other people.

The most important thing is we respect each other's rights.

Agreed.

Excellent. I will continue to be the watchdog on this forum to make sure people decide with liberty, rather than personal morals I hope you will join me too.

[Pencil]

Excellent. I will continue to be the watchdog on this forum to make sure people decide with liberty, rather than personal morals I hope you will join me too.

Haha you are very convincing. I hadn't really looked at it like that

[brendan]

In May 21 1944 a vast ?I Am an American Day? ceremony was held in Central Park, New York City. Many thousands of people were present, including a large number of new citizens. Here is the honorable Judge Learned Hand?s brief address:

We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty; freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This we then sought; this we now believe that we are by way of winning. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.

What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.

[enwiabe]

how so? do they not have an equal amount of choice in the type of person theyre attracted to?

god that's the same as saying 'well paedophiles are like homosexuals, because paedophiles can't help that they are attracted to young children, just like homosexuals can't help that they are attracted to people of the same sex'

thats exactly what im saying... same as heterosexuals. Theyre attracted to the opposite sex, and they cant help it...
Im not disregarding their responsibiltiy for their actions, im saying that noone can choose their sexuality.

Your entire argument is fundamentally undermined insofar as the correct approach to child pornography is to stamp the big red NO on it. What starts out as a sick and twisted fantasy fetish soon leads people to wanting to make it a reality. The best, and indeed only way to deal with possessors of child pornography is to put them through rehabilitation so that they are cured of such perverse and disgusting fantasies. Children are innocent - there is nothing physically, mentally, or emotionally attractive about them. The only way for a grown man/woman to be attracted to a child is to have a chemical imbalance in the brain which can be treated.

Anybody who gets off on seeing a defenseless child penetrated by an adult honestly does not deserve to be a part of mainstream society until such a time as they stop gaining gratification and pleasure from such terrible acts. Your parallel of homosexuality to child pornography is most disturbing and makes me seriously question your logic. I do hope you see the fallacial nature of your argument and realise that the only way to deal with child pornography is to stamp it out and make its possession illegal in order to cut down on child abuse. It's just sick.

[Collin Li]

What starts out as a sick and twisted fantasy fetish... such perverse and disgusting fantasies.

Anybody who gets off on seeing a defenseless child penetrated by an adult honestly does not deserve to be a part of mainstream society until such a time as they stop gaining gratification and pleasure from such terrible acts... realise that the only way to deal with child pornography is to stamp it out and make its possession illegal in order to cut down on child abuse. It's just sick.

Your loaded emotional appeals mean nothing for logical argument. It is your personal opinion that the fantasy is sick and perverse, but it has no logical ramifications on why or how child pornography should be stopped. I state these facts because the language should not get in the way of the logical argument here.

I agree that rehabilitation should be invoked, but jail seems ridiculous for possession of child pornography. I am neutral on mandatory rehabilitation, but I would support a decriminalisation (by which I mean no jail) for possession. We must punish the suppliers of child pornography, rather than the users. The users are mentally incompatible with society, and they need brainwashing, to put it un-euphemistically, to make them compatible with society. Putting the users in jail will not help, the rate for repeat crimes after jail is high.

The ones that should go to jail are the ones who have managed to go beyond mere possession (actually committing sex crimes), and of course, the ones who are filming unjustifiable acts of child pornography. (By unjustifiable, I am not being emotionally loaded, I am alluding to the notion of inability to consent in children)

[enwiabe]

It is impossible not to feel emotional when talking about such acts. I have mentioned in my post that users should enter rehabilitation. It shouldn't be jail but they should have centres for rehabilitation back into society.

[Collin Li]

Then we agree on the final conclusion, but I do not agree with referring to emotions and morals for arguments like these. If you argue that emotions are valid in propelling an argument, then the comparison to homosexuals is legitimate: a 100 years ago there was emotional dissent against homosexuality.

The point is that emotional and moral arguments are inconsistent. We should be thinking about a logical legal system that maintains liberty, rather than thinking about what is "wrong" or "right," because no one has The Book that says all on that.

[costargh]

What starts out as a sick and twisted fantasy fetish... such perverse and disgusting fantasies.

Anybody who gets off on seeing a defenseless child penetrated by an adult honestly does not deserve to be a part of mainstream society until such a time as they stop gaining gratification and pleasure from such terrible acts... realise that the only way to deal with child pornography is to stamp it out and make its possession illegal in order to cut down on child abuse. It's just sick.

Your loaded emotional appeals mean nothing for logical argument. It is your personal opinion that the fantasy is sick and perverse, but it has no logical ramifications on why or how child pornography should be stopped. I state these facts because the language should not get in the way of the logical argument here.

I agree that rehabilitation should be invoked, but jail seems ridiculous for possession of child pornography. I am neutral on mandatory rehabilitation, but I would support a decriminalisation (by which I mean no jail) for possession. We must punish the suppliers of child pornography, rather than the users. The users are mentally incompatible with society, and they need brainwashing, to put it un-euphemistically, to make them compatible with society. Putting the users in jail will not help, the rate for repeat crimes after jail is high.

The ones that should go to jail are the ones who have managed to go beyond mere possession (actually committing sex crimes), and of course, the ones who are filming unjustifiable acts of child pornography. (By unjustifiable, I am not being emotionally loaded, I am alluding to the notion of inability to consent in children)

It's hard to believe you got (was it 36?) in English. Lol
You're incredibly persuasive... although enwiabe does also make a good point that when dealing with such issues emotions are invoked regardless of whether you want to display them or not.

[Collin Li]

It's hard to believe you got (was it 36?) in English. Lol
You're incredibly persuasive... although enwiabe does also make a good point that when dealing with such issues emotions are invoked regardless of whether you want to display them or not.

Thanks, you're not the first to say that about my writing skills. I wish I was better at writing though (not in a VCE English way), I've definitely got room for improvement.

I believe that the ability is write is strongly related to the clarity at which one thinks, so I often tend to concentrate my efforts there, and this year my writing ability has gone up a lot.

300th post

[enwiabe]

Then we agree on the final conclusion, but I do not agree with referring to emotions and morals for arguments like these. If you argue that emotions are valid in propelling an argument, then the comparison to homosexuals is legitimate: a 100 years ago there was emotional dissent against homosexuality.

The point is that emotional and moral arguments are inconsistent. We should be thinking about a logical legal system that maintains liberty, rather than thinking about what is "wrong" or "right," because no one has The Book that says all on that.

But isn't this where it all stems from? Our human compassion and morality? Without our emotions. Without our emotional attachment to the declaration of human rights that effectively forms the basis of our laws, then why are we arguing the point?

It is from these emotions that we feel sympathy for the abused child and that we feel disgust towards those in society who would take pleasure from such acts - and - moving on those emotions, we act. We make the laws that see them rehabilitated.

It is with our emotions that we form the basis of our logical arguments. The two go hand in hand, in this debate anyway. What causes you to see the wrong in child pornography? It is your compassion for your fellow man. It is the emotion that you feel in seeing the innocence stripped away against a child's will.

The emotional dissent towards homosexuals in centuries past was a xenophobic fear. It was more of a "we don't understand it and because of that it must be terribly wrong so let's quash it out now". In this day and age we understand the attraction between grown adults and children to be morally defunct and unconscionable. As a society, we have learnt that two consenting males/females can have those feelings for each other. But what chance does a child have? And we feel pity, and we feel anger, and it is our emotions that rule our decision to stamp out child pornography.

So, yes, emotions have their place in this argument. They're the very reason why we're having it in the first place.

[Collin Li]

Here's what I said before

I guess you could argue that liberty is the highest moral. It is the only moral that makes sense to be applied in law, because it is the moral that allows everyone to choose morals for themselves (where there is no absolute moral code, this is the most humble and humane option).

The value of the Harm Principle (the idea that we cannot harm each other) is a fundamental idea of liberty, because this is how we can all live with our own morals. There is no need to enforce morals among other people.

The most important thing is we respect each other's rights.

In summary, it argues that the only emotional and moral aspect we can afford in law-making is one of liberty, where liberty is defined by the Harm Principle (you may do anything that does not harm another).

How this fits into the whole argument is that we should not rely on sensational loaded language to prove our point, but instead make the simple argument that children are unable to consent, because of the risk of manipulative coercion, so therefore child pornography will never be of legal supply. Hence, child pornography should be banned (on the supply side).

It's true that we have let rationality shine through on the homosexuality viewpoint, but they were through arguments of liberty! If we continue to shed dogmatic views on issues that could be better treated with liberty, then we would have a much better and understanding society.

[enwiabe]

... and once again, the child pornography industry harms children. It impinges on their right to safety, to privacy and to their innocence. Any person participating in such an act should be dealt with in an appropriate manner. Rehabilitation is that manner. But that harm principle AGAIN forms the basis of your response. You FEEL compassion towards the harmed, you FEEL sympathy and you FEEL compelled to act. Emotions govern our actions. To try to delineate them from an argument is just silly. Your emotions are what's compelling you to argue.

[costargh]

Yeh you're very concise in your arguments. I like that about your writing style.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned cause I havent gone through the entire thread but has a comparison been made between different crimes and their structures.

Eg. Drug possession and Drug Trafficking/Supplying and the somewhat leniency with sanctions for possession, not to mention the 'victim' aura of some drug possessors who use addiction as an excuse.

I mention this because with Child Pornography their does not seem to be the same approach to tackling the crime. With illegal drugs the aim seems to be to stop the supply so that it never reaches the possessors/buyers.
But with Child Pornography their seems to be this notion that possession and distribution of the material are both equally serious.

Both drug users and people who have a strange fetish for children could both claim they have an 'addiction' but it seems that with Child Porn their are very very severe consequences and sanctions for  the crime of possession compared with drug possession.

This is not to say that I support Child Porn or think that sanctions are too harsh for possession of Child porn or sanctions for drug possession is too lenient. I am simply making the connection.

Considering that something like 70% (or higher from memory) of prisoners have some sort of connection with drugs (usually possession which leads to their crime eg. assault or murder), I find it strange that their is such a lenient approach to drug possession when the police and law makers continue to apply a different set of rules for a structurally similar crime (ie possession, distribution and possible claims of addiction)

[Collin Li]

Yes, but I am arguing that the only emotional argument that is acceptable in a law-making exercise is liberty (by the Harm Principle), they are mutually bounded by definition. I argued this because this is the only moral and emotional argument that allows for compatibility of everyone's individual beliefs, and it is done with the simple restriction that one cannot harm another.

Other emotions and morals are unnecessary and irrelevant to debate, because they are merely personal opinion, and an argument propelled by these emotions will require an enforcement of moral codes on others.