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On November 07 2011 05:22 casualman wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 01:39 Dknight wrote:On November 07 2011 00:30 LilClinkin wrote:
Why is society so intolerant to the idea that some individuals may be sexually attracted to children?
Does any body ever stop to ask these people why they feel these sexual attractions? Personally I'd be fascinated to know what makes them tick. I have a hypothesis that many of them strongly correlate feelings of emotional closeness/love with sexual acts. Thus, when they want to be loving to a child (which is a normal human instinct) they unintentionally associate this with thoughts of sex involving the child. Maybe they don't wish to actually have sex with the child, but only to sexually pleasure the child? Who knows, I'm sure every paedophile is different and some may not have any logical grounding to why they feel their sexual attraction.
As far as I can see, the only thing wrong with a sexual attraction to children is the fact that any sexual act involving a child is inherently wrong, as a child is too immature to give informed consent to such acts.
Modern society has attempted to condition us to be tolerant of homosexuals, but historically they were shunned and stigmatised in a similar fashion to paedophiles of today. I personally have never been able to rationalise why homosexuals feel sexual attraction to members of their own sex, and I'll admit, the thought of homosexuals does intrinsically make me feel uneasy. However I'm a mature adult; I can accept the explanation from homosexuals justifying their behavior, even if I cannot rationalise it: "I was born this way, I just am the way I am, and you should accept and not judge me based on a sexual attraction that I have no ability to control". This seems quite similar to what a paedophile may say about their attraction to children. In my mind, you either simultaneously accept paedophilic attraction and homosexual attraction, or you dismiss both.
Remember, attraction and sexual acts are distinctly different things. If you are having trouble understanding or wish to deny this simple truth, consider this situation (this should be easy as the majority readership of TL is heterosexual males): Your best friend gets married. His wife is physically attractive to you: Blonde/brunette hair, well-endowed breasts, curvacious hips, assign whatever attributes you find physically attractive to this fictional wife. Would it be normal to feel sexual attraction to this woman? Yes. Is it a crime? Of course not. Feeling attraction and acting on the attraction to escalate to a sexual act are very different things. As I'm sure most (I hope) of you would agree, attempting to have sex with your best friend's wife, regardless of how attractive she may be, is a morally corrupt thing to do. Just the same as having sex with a child.
Hopefully you can see the distinction, and stop stigmatising paedophiles to the degree where it is considered OK for one to be locked up in jail for the entirety of their life.
Furthermore, for those who say that paedophiles who view pornographic content are 'supporting the industry', I have to strongly disagree. Child pornography (I assume) is such a niche market that the producers of content are most likely consumers of the content as well. Fact is, there will always be people producing child pornographic content. There's a growing following that is claiming pedophilia is a mental disorder. 'Pedophilia is biologically pathological to the extent that it causes the person to be uninterested in reproductively viable (i,e,, sexually mature, opposite-sex) persons. Given the reproductive significance of preferring fertile sexual partners, pedophilia in its stronger forms would meet Wakefield's (1992) definition of a mental disorder, and thus can be conceptualized as the result of disruptions in the mechanism(s) underlying sexual age preferences,' (Seto 2000). Padophiles have a higher reported PPG when viewing children than mature women. A lot of pedophiles tend to have significant mental disorders that include not finding mature women sexually attractive. They usually regress psychologically and actually believe the relationship to be mutually benefiting. This may occur as a teenager or when elderly. The fact that a pedophile is married is meaningless. You may disagree about child pornography but your opinion is simply wrong. It's estimated to be a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing insanely fast due to the internet. Organized crime is involved in smuggling of children for porn. By increasing the punishment for simple possession, it should significantly lower the demand for children and thus human trafficking/commercial sexual exploitation of children is reduced. And those interested in child pornography..it's estimated to be 1 in 1,000 adult males (Hamish McCulloch, assistant director for trafficking in human beings at Interpol). Just as a side note. It's annoying to see pedophiles and child molesters used interchangeably. Not all pedophiles are child molesters just as all child molesters are not pedophiles. A child molester is person who engages in any type of sexual activity with someone legally defined as a child (in some places, 17) while pedophiles' victims must be per-pubescent children (for instance, a toddler). According to this argument, homosexuality is also a mental illness. Why is homosexuality gaining social acceptance and not pedophilia? What is the difference? In a vacuum, the two are identical. They both have non-standard sexual preferences. The difference is one victimizes innocent children, which does make it unacceptable. However, stating that pedophilia is a sickness is incredibly myopic because it is, for all intents and purposes, as legitimate a sexual orientation as heterosexuality or homosexuality. Again, it is not the condition but the effect that makes it inappropriate. The troubling thing about this sentence is its effect upon judicial precedence. Disproportional punishment has the effect of incentivizing people with socially harmful desires to act upon their urges, because the justice system punishes these more drastic acts much less severely. What will probably occur is a successful appeal to a higher level court and a drastically reduced sentence, maybe 1~5 years in prison. The question is whether or not the punishment scale for sexual crimes will be reevaluated following this case.
Both homosexuality and pedophilia are sexual deviations. The difference between them is that, as many posters noted, one is between consenting adults that do not cause any clear harm to each other and to society, the other is non-consensual and often causes harm.
As for calling it mental illness. The name is not really importnant, but mental conditions are mostly treated as illness if they cause the person having them to not be able to lead normal life as a human being or as a member of society. Mental conditions that do not satisfy these criteria are not considered illness. This is the reason why calling homosexuality an illness is incorrect as it does not satisfy the criteria. Pedophilia actually does as it makes it impossible for you to lead a life as a member of the society.
To answer few possible counterarguments before hand.
Pedophile that is highly asexual and thus can easily lead a life in society should not be considered sick as a pedophile. But it is possible (evidence of negative effects of asexuality would be necessary) that sexual life is actually important for healthy life and thus he could be considered sick as an asexual. But that is much milder mental condition (if it even is one) and definitely does not necessitate stay in mental institution and similar.
Second, claim that with my definition of mental illness homosexuality would be mental illness in the past, as it was making it impossible to lead normal life in society, is somewhat correct. But the problem is easily rectified by noting that society without gay intolerance is not worse off than the one with such (it is actually clearly better) and thus the problem was with society and not with the homosexuals. There is no possible scenario where a society that allows pedophilia is not worse off.
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On November 07 2011 03:35 Cattivik wrote:
I will be going slightly offtopic with this post, but i hope it will help people in thinking about the root of the problems rather than making judgements about the symptoms.
Please excuse any grammar mistakes in advance, thanks.
please treat this post rather as personal opinions and theories rather than a listing of scientific facts.
It is more a mix of both.
topic #1 - pedophilia itself
I will start with the question: How do people realize what their sexual orientation is? In an experiment about sexual attraction, two groups consisting of pairs of straight men and women were made.
In one group, the so created couples had to cross a safe bridge, in the other group, they crossed an apparently unsafe one.
At the end of the task, the respective couples were asked how attractive they found their partner at task.
Results: The people crossing the unsafe bridge found their partner at task to be siginificantly more attractive.
Interpretation: The arousal while crossing the unsafe bridge wasn't attributed to the anxiety, but to the task partner being attractive.
Now, apart from this result being interesting in general, why did i mention this experiment?
Cause the first question is: How do pedophiles find out that they are pedophiles?
Like with homosexuals who have to find out that they actually are homosexual, there have to be situations which help people in discovering such parts of their selves.They have to attribute their state to a trait and accept it as stable.
I'm thinking of various alternatives:
1. They get aroused near children
This doesn't automatically show them that they are pedophile, cause the arousal doesn't have to be sexual, like you don't automatically get an erection while you are near chicks, they might just feel uneasy etc, they might think that they don't like children in general.This is where the individual attribution determines the outcome.
(now the deductional part)
-> This point might explain why sexual abuse mostly happens where people constantly interact with children (examples: priests, teachers, fathers and other relatives). Those are also the groups which are most at risk for such cases. Most of those people simply didn't know they were pedophiles until they came into contact with children. But that's not all! What the groups have in common here is that they all have a position of authority towards the children.But at this point it's too late to draw them away from this position, cause the pedophilia was latent all the time, now that those people have found the niche, they automatically abuse the power to exploit the children (willingly or not, abuse of positions of authority is very common among humans, see the stanford prison experiment for further information.)
So we can identify this as a factor putting these people at risk: position of authority over the children under the condition that pedophilia was never discovered (letting them achieve such a position).
2. They come across child pornography on the internet and get sexually aroused
Compared to point 1, this one is a pretty much immediate indicator of pedophilia. If one sees child pornography and doesn't close it, delete it or whatever, instead starts jacking off to it, he should have realized that he has a problem.
I don't have any reference regarding the interaction of attitude (towards pedophilia) and nature (pedophile or not), which comes into play when people commit sexual crimes towards children or keep child pornography on their computer, thus "embracing" that part of themselves.
Now i don't state that this is complete, you are free to add your own thoughts to this, but i want to skip to my
Interpretation and conclusion:
Looking at the points above, it has to be understood that being a pedo is not a choice.
Someone in this thread mentioned a 30 % prevalence found on a wikipedia article, which i personally find hard to believe, but i don't have any data.
For the hardliners on this thread:
1.Pedophilia isn't a choice, it's a disease.Both the children and the pedophiles are victims of a system of taboo not allowing optimal treatment until it's too late for both of them.
2.Now in this specific case they found a consumer of child pornography, but did they find the creators of that awkward material?This can't be called justice until the people who made these photos and videos are found and given an harder verdict.Don't forget that this guy only had the chance to embrace his pedophilia when he found the material under circumstances we don't know, but in any case, the main fault is of the people seeding and creating it.
3. You might even be a pedophile, but not knowing it yet. We are a product of genome,environment and own behavior , and if your genome favors pedophilia and the environment made it pop out, it might only be partially your fault.
Now this is a critical point:
If people realize that they are pedophiles when they have an authority position over children, then it might be too late to avoid abuse.
Considering this, the material on the internet is a double-edged sword:
1. It helps pedophiles in recognizing the sexual orientation, so opening the possibility of a treatment where it's possible before any child gets damaged.
2. It might favor the embracement of the disease, most likely in an environment where they have to keep that orientation secret cause they wouldn't get any help.They might aswell neglect their nature.
What i think is a better system for society:
-Give opportunites for people to out themselves anonymous as pedophiles in a medical environment and offer treatment, recognize it as a disease, not a choice. (And i believe there is even treatment for this kind of disease despite some people seeing castration as the only alternative.If not, just keep them away from children or under electronic surveillance or in an asylum)
-If you found material on the internet just now, would you report it to the police under the risk of being suspected of the possession? The criteria for guilt concerning possession of material are way too strict now for normal people to help the law enforcement at removing the material.
I would probably just close/delete it and try to forget what i saw cause everything else would be too risky under the current circumstances.
-Once it's recognized as a disease, law enforcement will be able to obtain the sources of the material from the pedophiles in exchange for no penalty and therapy
In this way the true baddies in the system will be discovered:
1.Pedophiles who want to earn money with this disease.
2.Pedophiles who want to look for and create "peers" sharing the same interest.Bringing them together would only make sense in a therapy.
-Teach pedophiles about the effects of sexual abuse on children to show them what the real problem is.A law shouldn't be justified out of itself.It will also help them at making the right choices.Every human being has at least some slight control over his actions.It's not like it's different for criminals.
topic # 2 - American law system in general
I don't have enough knowledge of it to make judgements.
topic # 3 - the catharsis hypothesis
Now there are people wondering whether it's better for people to consume something you are "addicted" to, though in this case it's not a drug, but pornographic material.
The catharsis hypothesis by Freud stated that to get rid of an emotion, you had to give in to that emotion. This has been proven as false. The best way to deal with an emotion is to control it and
canalize it into constructive directions instead of repressing it or giving in to it.
There are no actual results known to me concerning pornographic consumption, but i suggest that it's worse to be exposed to such material and pedophiles should be kept away from child pornography in order to
live a normal life.
Yes, that judge is batshit insane, but doesn't surprise me. I would never enjoy being a judge, go figure in the US.
Deciding over other peoples fates with the risk of being wrong and ruining innocent lives cause politicians want you to do so based on the hunt of electoral votes and other interests is something only few people can do while remaining normal.
well i wrote this as a PM coz no1 is really reading this thread just posting 1-liner and obvious crap, but thought i might aswell throw it in:
ur post was kinda interesting,
ive found that it is "latent" in a lot of people.
eg 1 for a lot of people, they are into anime, then they realise they like the young anime chicks, then they look at some older lolicon, then they look at some younger lolicon, then they find child modelling sites and realise "oh shit this is hot", then they go thru a fear/rejection phase, then maybe they come back to it and accept/embrace it
eg 2 ive linked friends to underage girls when they are horny and suddenly they are like "omg this is awesome....but i shouldnt be lookin at it...agh". they were completely oblivious until they started taking an interest
eg 3 the cool study that used to be on wiki in the "prevalence" section said they tested 100 men by attaching a ssensor to their penis and showing them a) pix/videos of women b) pix/videos of lil girls c) sexual sound of women & lil girls d) sound of pain of women & lil girls. the results were remarkable (damning). maybe you can check thru the log history of the wiki page to see what happeend to that section
it is a VERY complex psychological issue, either we (humans) are brainwashed to not find them attractive to begin with (lots of ways that this happens), or we learn it as a fetish, or many other things.
what i know for sure is once you are attracted to kids it doesnt make you desperate to go out and rape them. you need to be fucked up already , like any other rapist. wiki says (currently) that prevalence is around 1 person in 20 so thatd be pretty scarey if true. the weird thing is when you find people who are EXCLUSIVELY attracted to kid, or even worse to very young kids. a peroon could possibly brainwash himself into that dark avenue, just like a person can be brainwashed into knee-jerking puking when they hear about someone fancying a 15 year old.
i think us humans generally have a "base" attraction to certain things like big eyes, small heads (MAJOR factor in korean beauty), petite bodies, breasts, hips, smooth skin, youth, silky hair, cute vulnerable voices, etc etc. ontop of that lies the commanding psychological/brainwash aspect which controls what aspects a person notices or values or prefers, and more.
whether or not CP/child models is an "okay thing for people to view if its not hurting anyone else" is difficult. on one hand it does re-inforce the attraction (eg 1 if you make friends with a chubby girl and start to fancy her , then when you look for porn online you'll find yourself looking for chubby girl characteristics as your preferences suddenly become that. eg 2 you might look at 15 year olds, then suddenly find that the things you like in them (big eyes, small head) are even more prominent and cute in 14 year olds, then 13 year olds, then 12 year olds....until you reach a certain age of whatever fits.)
idk i wrote this coz i saw your ranty-style post and thought you'd like a response. youre not gonna get a decent one in a thread like that
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this is ridiculous even if this man has fetishes for little children and has gone out of his way to possess cporn why throw out the possibility of rehabilitation or reeducation? why just stamp a guy for life like that this is silly
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the choices he made were sick, but even murder victims find freedom down the road. locking this guy away till the end of his days is... its just too much.
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As a man sexually attracted to underage boys i find it very disturbing to said the least that this will encourage others with less self control to actually molest children instead of finding others source of relieve, not that i agree with child porn because i do not but you could say i have the inside view of the issue, hell there's always fictional histories and Japanese manga to all kind of fetish that does not harm any living creature, some may argue that fiction is the first step to moving into reality and while i cant speak for everyone that is not the case for me.
Just to clarify i have never nor do i want to rape/molest any boy, i do not own any kind of cp either, it may sound cliche but i really love boys and it breaks my heart to see or hear of one suffering afterall its not their fault who im attacted to.
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Why would we empathize with a criminal. Especially a pervert like this guy. It isn't like if hes an actual human being or anything.
Ohwai.
Its this kind of attitude is why the American justice system is so fucked up. There are no such thing as criminals only people who commit crimes. A justice system should aspire to punish crime itself, rather then create criminals.
This kind of thing happens when a society is less interested in stopping the crime itself and more interested refusing to acknowledge someone who does these things can exist.
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Christfuck what the hell happened to the justice system
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On November 07 2011 09:43 Tyrant0 wrote:
Christfuck what the hell happened to the justice system
Progress happened, good sir... yeah, I thought that after starting to accept homosexuals, we would be a bit more tolerant and understanding, but nope, I guess we're not that mature
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On November 07 2011 09:39 Half wrote:
Why would we empathize with a criminal. Especially a pervert like this guy. It isn't like if hes an actual human being or anything. Might as well just gas the fuckers.
Ohwai.
Its this kind of attitude is why the American justice system is so fucked up. There are no such thing as criminals only people who commit crimes. A justice system should aspire to punish crime itself, rather then create criminals.
This kind of thing happens when a society is less interested in stopping the crime itself and more interested refusing to acknowledge someone who does these things can exist.
Well, there is such a thing as criminals, just look at the mafia. But yeah, this is an important distinction to make. This was the guy's first offense, it's not like he's some career criminal.
I'm seriously worried about the American society these days though. What happened to the Constitution, and human rights?
I mean really, we're legislating about what people are allowed to think now? And people are OK with this? 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual.
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I wish there was a way to like posts, because the last line of that post is awesome
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On November 07 2011 09:36 PepperMD15 wrote:
As a man sexually attracted to underage boys i find it very disturbing to said the least that this will encourage others with less self control to actually molest children instead of finding others source of relieve, not that i agree with child porn because i do not but you could say i have the inside view of the issue, hell there's always fictional histories and Japanese manga to all kind of fetish that does not harm any living creature, some may argue that fiction is the first step to moving into reality and while i cant speak for everyone that is not the case for me.
Just to clarify i have never nor do i want to rape/molest any boy, i do not own any kind of cp either, it may sound cliche but i really love boys and it breaks my heart to see or hear of one suffering afterall its not their fault who im attacted to.
I think it's both mature and brave for you to come out with this post, but at the same time I think a lot of the pedos out there could learn from your example. Attraction devices are developmental, environmental, and oftentimes as unique to each person as their own fingerprint, but knowing the limits to how safe the expression of those devices is in a real world context is an important next step in the process that a lot of people never develop the wherewithal to properly cope with.
Big props.
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On November 07 2011 09:36 PepperMD15 wrote:
As a man sexually attracted to underage boys i find it very disturbing to said the least that this will encourage others with less self control to actually molest children instead of finding others source of relieve, not that i agree with child porn because i do not but you could say i have the inside view of the issue, hell there's always fictional histories and Japanese manga to all kind of fetish that does not harm any living creature, some may argue that fiction is the first step to moving into reality and while i cant speak for everyone that is not the case for me.
Just to clarify i have never nor do i want to rape/molest any boy, i do not own any kind of cp either, it may sound cliche but i really love boys and it breaks my heart to see or hear of one suffering afterall its not their fault who im attacted to.
Funny, then, that the Swedish legal system recently took a turn to include drawn images under the CP law. Funny in a very sad, maniac-laughter, kind of way.
Edit: This from a translator who was prosecuted for possessing anime, which he was translated, which included underage nudity of some sort. I'm not completely on the clear exactly what the anime pertained because I never cared to read the articles too much. To me, it doesn't matter if it was hardcore sex anime or innocent "I'm taking a bath" anime where some underage kid just happened to be naked in the story.
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I really feel like although the punishment is slightly excessive for the crime, I agree with the sentencing.
Prison isn't only about punishment, it's going to keep him away from society. It's such a sensitive subject, but let's say for instance they're born like that. You can draw parallels with, say, being homosexual, which was irrationally hated but perfectly fine. They're born like that, that's what they're attracted to, and that's fine (possibly, assuming they are born like that etc).
But the big difference is that it's children, and that makes it fucked up, instead of just different. I've never seen any evidence that people can be "corrected" either.
Discussing it from an ethics standpoint can actually be kind of dodgey ground, ethics change. Paedophilia in greece was fine, or more accurately Pederasty. It was thought of as pure. Which is not what we think now.
Nevertheless, society has to decide, and it has. The direction we want to go in is one that's absent from paedophilia.
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On November 07 2011 10:26 Deadeight wrote:
I really feel like although the punishment is slightly excessive for the crime, I agree with the sentencing.
Prison isn't only about punishment, it's going to keep him away from society. It's such a sensitive subject, but let's say for instance they're born like that. You can draw parallels with, say, being homosexual, which was irrationally hated but perfectly fine. They're born like that, that's what they're attracted to, and that's fine (possibly, assuming they are born like that etc).
But the big difference is that it's children, and that makes it fucked up, instead of just different. I've never seen any evidence that people can be "corrected" either.
Discussing it from an ethics standpoint can actually be kind of dodgey ground, ethics change. Paedophilia in greece was fine, or more accurately Pederasty. It was thought of as pure. Which is not what we think now.
Nevertheless, society has to decide, and it has. The direction we want to go in is one that's absent from paedophilia.
Prison might keep him away from society, but its also practically a death sentence. As soon as the other prisoners find out why he's in, he's done for.
Second, he didn't hurt any children. Sure, its gross as all fuck, and the people making the porn should be severely punished, but the thing is, this guy didn't actually make any of it.
Essentially, the porn is nothing more than video of a crime. You can't be jailed for owning snuff films (as long as you didn't make them of course), because it's not like you caused those deaths. Same with this. The worst he should get is rehab, and maybe a fine.
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On November 07 2011 07:51 saocyn wrote:
the more these cases come up the more i honestly think i lost faith in humanity and especially the justice system. none of these people who claim to judge rationally actually do it. none of these judges get checked on and trip on power until they actually are found to abuse it just like that other judge who abused his daughter.
Well, is the job of a judge to decide all by himself, or represent the general view of society? Admittedly there are laws and things in between.
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On November 07 2011 10:40 Deadeight wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 07:51 saocyn wrote:
the more these cases come up the more i honestly think i lost faith in humanity and especially the justice system. none of these people who claim to judge rationally actually do it. none of these judges get checked on and trip on power until they actually are found to abuse it just like that other judge who abused his daughter.
Well, is the job of a judge to decide all by himself, or represent the general view of society? Admittedly there are laws and things in between.
It's neither. It's the judge's job to do things by the book, and think carefully about the ruling, not lead a lynch mob. Society's opinion has no standing in an individual case, because if it did, every case would end with someone in the electric chair. The masses are often far too easily swayed to hasty, violent decisions, while true justice must be careful and calculated.
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On November 07 2011 10:36 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 10:26 Deadeight wrote:
I really feel like although the punishment is slightly excessive for the crime, I agree with the sentencing.
Prison isn't only about punishment, it's going to keep him away from society. It's such a sensitive subject, but let's say for instance they're born like that. You can draw parallels with, say, being homosexual, which was irrationally hated but perfectly fine. They're born like that, that's what they're attracted to, and that's fine (possibly, assuming they are born like that etc).
But the big difference is that it's children, and that makes it fucked up, instead of just different. I've never seen any evidence that people can be "corrected" either.
Discussing it from an ethics standpoint can actually be kind of dodgey ground, ethics change. Paedophilia in greece was fine, or more accurately Pederasty. It was thought of as pure. Which is not what we think now.
Nevertheless, society has to decide, and it has. The direction we want to go in is one that's absent from paedophilia. Prison might keep him away from society, but its also practically a death sentence. As soon as the other prisoners find out why he's in, he's done for. Second, he didn't hurt any children. Sure, its gross as all fuck, and the people making the porn should be severely punished, but the thing is, this guy didn't actually make any of it. Essentially, the porn is nothing more than video of a crime. You can't be jailed for owning snuff films (as long as you didn't make them of course), because it's not like you caused those deaths. Same with this. The worst he should get is rehab, and maybe a fine.
I disagree with the line
The worst he should get is rehab, and maybe a fine.
Is there any evidence to say rehab would work? Because I can't find any, at all. So you'd be putting a paedophile out on the streets. Yes, he just looked at pictures. But honestly, the risk is really high. Just like we aren't allowed pet hippos in our garden (the african animal which kills the most humans), you also don't want a paedophile anonymously living in the flat next to you and your children. Regardless of whether the hippo has killed or even thought about it before, it's too dangerous.
+ Show Spoiler +If they were out in society, I think people (parents) should be able to know if the guy next door is a paedophile. But let's face it, with popular opinion they won't have much of a life like that, and may not even survive for long in many areas of the world.
It is basically a death sentence yeah. If it was me I'd rather he was kept in some sort of institution away from society, with other paedophiles, but where he could be useful somehow. Cheap manual labour or something.
I understand he didn't make the films, and if he didn't pay for them he's not supporting the makers. But, in my view, there is something fundamentally wrong with him, that makes him unfit to be out in society.
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On November 07 2011 10:49 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 10:40 Deadeight wrote:On November 07 2011 07:51 saocyn wrote:
the more these cases come up the more i honestly think i lost faith in humanity and especially the justice system. none of these people who claim to judge rationally actually do it. none of these judges get checked on and trip on power until they actually are found to abuse it just like that other judge who abused his daughter.
Well, is the job of a judge to decide all by himself, or represent the general view of society? Admittedly there are laws and things in between. It's neither. It's the judge's job to do things by the book, and think carefully about the ruling, not lead a lynch mob. Society's opinion has no standing in an individual case, because if it did, every case would end with someone in the electric chair. The masses are often far too easily swayed to hasty, violent decisions, while true justice must be careful and calculated.
Yeah, there are laws in between public opinion and the judge. But the public appoint the government by vote to represent them, and they pass the laws, and the judge follows those. The laws and the judge should reflect what the public want.
You can argue the public don't know what's best for them, but the above is the way it should work in a democracy is it not?
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On November 07 2011 10:59 Deadeight wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 10:49 Millitron wrote:On November 07 2011 10:40 Deadeight wrote:On November 07 2011 07:51 saocyn wrote:
the more these cases come up the more i honestly think i lost faith in humanity and especially the justice system. none of these people who claim to judge rationally actually do it. none of these judges get checked on and trip on power until they actually are found to abuse it just like that other judge who abused his daughter.
Well, is the job of a judge to decide all by himself, or represent the general view of society? Admittedly there are laws and things in between. It's neither. It's the judge's job to do things by the book, and think carefully about the ruling, not lead a lynch mob. Society's opinion has no standing in an individual case, because if it did, every case would end with someone in the electric chair. The masses are often far too easily swayed to hasty, violent decisions, while true justice must be careful and calculated. Yeah, there are laws in between public opinion and the judge. But the public appoint the government by vote to represent them, and they pass the laws, and the judge follows those. The laws and the judge should reflect what the public want. You can argue the public don't know what's best for them, but the above is the way it should work in a democracy is it not?
At the base, there are still the human rights, which are defined by the constitution. For that reason, a sentence like "life without parole" is actually unconstitutional here in Germany, as far as I know. Putting that man away without a chance for him to reform himself and eventually rejoin society also naturally sounds weird to me, especially considering this was his first offense in that direction.
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On November 07 2011 10:56 Deadeight wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 10:36 Millitron wrote:On November 07 2011 10:26 Deadeight wrote:
I really feel like although the punishment is slightly excessive for the crime, I agree with the sentencing.
Prison isn't only about punishment, it's going to keep him away from society. It's such a sensitive subject, but let's say for instance they're born like that. You can draw parallels with, say, being homosexual, which was irrationally hated but perfectly fine. They're born like that, that's what they're attracted to, and that's fine (possibly, assuming they are born like that etc).
But the big difference is that it's children, and that makes it fucked up, instead of just different. I've never seen any evidence that people can be "corrected" either.
Discussing it from an ethics standpoint can actually be kind of dodgey ground, ethics change. Paedophilia in greece was fine, or more accurately Pederasty. It was thought of as pure. Which is not what we think now.
Nevertheless, society has to decide, and it has. The direction we want to go in is one that's absent from paedophilia. Prison might keep him away from society, but its also practically a death sentence. As soon as the other prisoners find out why he's in, he's done for. Second, he didn't hurt any children. Sure, its gross as all fuck, and the people making the porn should be severely punished, but the thing is, this guy didn't actually make any of it. Essentially, the porn is nothing more than video of a crime. You can't be jailed for owning snuff films (as long as you didn't make them of course), because it's not like you caused those deaths. Same with this. The worst he should get is rehab, and maybe a fine. I disagree with the line Is there any evidence to say rehab would work? Because I can't find any, at all. So you'd be putting a paedophile out on the streets. Yes, he just looked at pictures. But honestly, the risk is really high. Just like we aren't allowed pet hippos in our garden (the african animal which kills the most humans), you also don't want a paedophile anonymously living in the flat next to you and your children. Regardless of whether the hippo has killed or even thought about it before, it's too dangerous. + Show Spoiler +If they were out in society, I think people (parents) should be able to know if the guy next door is a paedophile. But let's face it, with popular opinion they won't have much of a life like that, and may not even survive for long in many areas of the world. It is basically a death sentence yeah. If it was me I'd rather he was kept in some sort of institution away from society, with other paedophiles, but where he could be useful somehow. Cheap manual labour or something. I understand he didn't make the films, and if he didn't pay for them he's not supporting the makers. But, in my view, there is something fundamentally wrong with him, that makes him unfit to be out in society.
He'd be put on the sex offender list too, probably should've mentioned that in my post, but w/e.
I honestly don't know if rehab works. It was my understanding that it worked alright, but they were never completely "cured", just that they then had enough self-control to not act on it; much like alcoholics or drug addicts. I like your asylum idea, at least for either repeat offenders, or people who could not be properly rehabbed
As for my other post about the judges; no, Judges are supposed to be protected from the general opinion, its why they're appointed, not elected. The populace has a sufficient method of voicing its opinion via congress and the senate. The idea is that since congress takes a fairly long amount of time to do anything, the legislation that gets passed is (hopefully) more thought-out and isn't just vigilante justice.
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