Dr Fredrick Toben's arrest should alarm us all

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Have I ever said that movies or novels cannot include gaybashing? It could be a part of the plot of a rather dark movie, or a light-hearted one including the wacky antics of the Lavender Panthers. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 08,00.html


Right, and I tend to think that the psychological impacts are usually not enough to justify censorship, particularly because then we have the censorship creep on what is acceptable and what isn't. It really does seem to me that a big problem with child porn is because of the inclusion and often abuse of children.

What about loli pr0n?

Usually still under the age of consent.

But loli pr0n is drawn...

I am less familiar with it than you are. Sure, why not?

Haha, I don't look at lolicon. I'm throwing things out there to see how people will react.

Why not throw out the idea of necrophiliac child porn, with some bestiality thrown in for good measure? Or perhaps a film version of the 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade?

why not just throw out yaoi as well? (if i spelled it correctly)

not to mention that bullies don't have to be limited to the school yard. most schools are fairly localized. just because you get one to stop at school could possibly turn into them doing it outside of school.


and yeah, waiting it out was the only thing that worked for me.

Two points:

1) Although I intensely dislike any curbing of free speech, incitement to hatred is a difficult one. Unfortunately there are an awful lot of people out there who are highly susceptible to being manipulated by those that they admire and look up to. If people in influence (such as religious leaders) state that certain groups in society are worthless and better off eliminated - even if they don't give direct threats or explicit instructions, their influence is enough that some of their followers can take it to the logical conclusion of doing something active about the 'problem'. Perhaps it could be possible to limit the speech of people in position of power - however where does this stop? Who is defined as in 'power' (parents can influence children as much as religious or political leaders influence their followers), and what defines 'inflammatory speech' against expressing normal opinions (such as 'the government is useless and should be got rid of'). There is no real way to win in this situation - in an ideal world, all individuals would logically think through their own opinions and not be influenced by those of others, but we all know that this doesn't happen.

2) Regarding child pornography, as far as I see, the only problem with it is the exploitation and damage to children. If this could be removed I would have no problem with it (at least I would have no more problem with it than I have with mainstream porn, but that is a different story). Some people have suggested that it is 'morally corrupting'. However, isn't this what was said about gay porn not so long ago, and about heterosexual porn by religious people? Although child porn is disgusting for the exploitation of people that are powerless to give consent, the inherent nature of people that enjoy it is no different from the inherent nature of people that enjoy other non-mainstream forms of sex. In fact, attraction to young girls (although not very young children and babies) can actually be seen as being more 'natural' than homosexuality in a way, as being attracted to teenagers who are sexually mature and extremely fertile would be advantageous for passing on one's genes - people attracted to younger children can be seen as extremes of an evolutionarily successful scheme. It seems to me that most people are following current societal norms in vilifying people that are attracted to children, and supporting the rights of people that are attracted to people of the opposite sex, without thinking over the situation properly. To my mind, everyone's sexual preferences are something that they are either born with or acquire throughout childhood development through the things they experience. Unfortunately for certain people, society at different times has not supported or allowed certain sexual practises. Happily, we are currently in the west in the situation that (at least in theory) almost any sexual practise between consenting adults is allowed. However, we do not (and should not) tolerate sexual practises that exploit people that cannot give consent, or do so by force. This means that people who have the bad fortune to be attracted to children - many against their own will (but I imagine that you can't will yourself to be attracted to adults any more than you can will yourself to be straight and not gay), can never legally satisfy their desires. And unfortunately for them, they never will be able to, but we shouldn't vilify them for having these desires, only for acting upon them if they do so. And we should try to help them to curb these urges - not because the desire is 'wrong' - it is natural for them and they can't help it, but because being the way they are puts them at risk of temptation into breaking the law and harming children.

Don't tell jokes and then say 'they aren't supposed to be funny."

see: neil hamburger.

Then when a statment could be considered a threat and when it could be considered just an opinion, how can we make an accurate distinction and when it could be considered both if that can be possible?


Yes, that's the issue, in many cases I believe, words seem to do more than think of them as just words, so that example is likely a consequence in some situations, that, and also the issue of 'verbal abuse'. If we give value to the term verbal abuse then we are limiting free speech or separating that kind of speech from so called free speech, which we get to another issue here, that of establishing what is and how limited free speech should be. In my view, the problem is about where to draw the line and how to establish the limit of free speech and what is considered free speech and what is not, it is something that seems to be debatable and likely a universal agreement on this would be very difficult and unlikely to happen.

I am not sure about this whole thing either, it seems there has to be a balance when it comes to human rights and equal rights to all parties, freedom of speech versus the rights of minorities, seems to be something to really think about, I mean for the sake of freedom of speech, should we ignore the rights and protection of minorities? That question is obviously so vague that it does not provide a satisfactory answer, however I believe to be something to make an observation about.

Although I am not referring to just mere opinions, the issue is wondering, what if those opinions come from people who have power, and are or can be influential, let's say to the masses or something like that?

Last edited by greenblue on 12 Oct 2008, 5:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Where did I explicitly say there was no jocular intention whatever behind these remarks?

BTW

Hitler was inspecting one of his camps when he met a little girl, so he asks the girl how old she is and she says "I'm turning 10 tomorrow" to which Hitler responds "No you're not"

I <3 free speach, dont you?