Neglect. Kid constantly sick & underfed. Poorly dressed, usually in ragged t-shirts and skimpy shorts in mid-winter. Action: Talk to parents at once, making them aware that failure to act will result in immediate contact with government agency. Etc.
Meh, skip the first step. It adds anonymity for yourself- minimising problems in future encounters with this neighbor and the risk of retaliation- and by putting it in the hands of an official agency adds legitimacy.
The abuse I'm talking about is physical - usually with implement - and would classify as assault in any country I'd live in.
See above.
{Just a little side-issue here. It's funny that you think I sound like a cop. I have no record, but the cops and I have had a few run-ins over the years. There are quite a few people who would find that comment fairly amusing, to say the least.}
The cops and firefighters I've known personally have the same hightened sense of personal responsibility for people in their immediate vicinity, whether on the job or off. It seems to be very stressful, as they none of them seemed all that happy and the divorce rate is high, but they are nice to have around when the s[rule 8] hits the fan.
Have no fear - my first call is to the cops, but on occasion, maybe it isn't appropriate to call them just yet, a very nosy neighbour can sometimes solve the problem, so check first.
You have my thoughts, above.
The example of the drunk guy was a situation where he was about to force his girlfriend to let him take a baby away with him in a car which he was about to drive. He was so drunk and incapapble that he was only just getting free of his wife/woman. The cops would have been far too late and I went and suggested that he get the #### [OMG, I typed it in and only saw when I checked! I am lmao!] out and leave the baby with its mother. He did. I didn't enjoy that and don't want to have to do it again. These things aren't everyday occurrences, but an accumulated volume over the last 15-20 years since I started noticing it myself. There are lots of things going on that many people just don't see or hear.
If I saw something like that, I might- MIGHT- step in. It's hard to say until it happens. I have never once seen anything like that, though. And it's not because I'm "blind" to it.
APOLOGIST! (Smiley thing to show that no offence is intended)
Why would I be offended? It is just a fact that the old tribalist notion of everyone in the community being responsible for each of his neighbors does not work in larger, non-insular, and fluid communities. It is far too much of a burden for the typical individual to bear, so a professional class was developed to shoulder the bulk of this responsibility. The same way that the costs of effective military defense is too great for the individual, thus the professional soldier. This is not a new thing, nor is it a failing- it's pretty basic to even early civilisation.
It doesn't work in small towns, either. When people do notice, they do the Horatio Nelson job and look with the wrong eye. Apathy rules.
No, civilisation rules. People, professional people- who are trained in the myriad of laws and in proper, safe and effective techniques, and who act under the auspices and control of the will of the people as expressed in the body of law- they administrate those rules.
What you are describing borders on vigilantism. Are you wearing spandex under your street clothes?
How many cops do we need? One on every street corner?
I dunno. Sounds like you need a few more that whatever you have now. My town seems to be okay, but then we just went on a hiring spree.
This is where I disagree and why I quoted my bastardised version of Edmund Burke.
I don't really see that your version added anything, but that's neither here nor there.
If we strive for less than perfection, we're cheating.
More high sounding but meaningless rhetoric. Set an impossible goal and you always fail.
If we don't aim for 100%, what becomes a benchmark, and why?
"As many as we can do something about". Because it is realistic.
Once I was browsing in a used bookstore and I saw this cheesy Sixties dime novel about doctors titled "That None Should Die", and I thought
How dumb is that? Everybody dies. A lot of them under a doctor's care. Moreso now than in the Sixties.
Good drama, poor policy.
Let's use your example of the drunk driver. This is clearly a problem- I've had a friend die because of one. Is intercepting 100% of drinkers and manually intervening going to work? Of course not. Even if every single bar patron, minimum-wage convenience store clerk, and concerned family member devoted a signifigant amount of time to the project, a few would slip through. And no one- not even professionals, can devote that much attention to this
one problem.
"100%" isn't a benchmark. It is posturing. And if we are going to get anywhere we have to put aside posturing and rhetoric and just do what can be done.
Why is 95% acceptable, why not 75%?
Why try and slap an arbitrary number on it?
It's precisely why any attempt to re-institiute the death penalty here or in England (and most of Western Europe) is immediately stopped - because we won't accept that one dead innocent is worth it, despite its obvious advantages.
"Obvious advantages"?
In any case, Capital Punishment and Freedom of Expression are very different situations.
You've declared your argument - you're prepared to accept that harm may be a consequence and can take that as an end result.
Harm is a consequence of life. Any human activity may concieveably cause harm to another. Our purpose is not to eliminate all harm. If I've given you that impression, you've misread.
Yes you damn well can, or you would have raised your kids in that bubble.
In any other group than kids, I'd most likely agree.
That's drawing a fairly long bow, I think. I'm always going to see issues with kids in a different light.
Why? Are they a different species? Some fundamental difference in biology from the rest of humanity? A "baby brain" that is replaced in mid life by another, like a tooth?
I think most people do, which is precisely why these laws and discussions on them are so convoluted.
People approach subjects such as these with biases, emotions and superstitions as varied as they are, which is indeed whyt the laws and discussions are thusly convoluted. Which is precisely why we need to ditch the emotive posturing- posturing like "not one child harmed" and emotions like "this is my ickle widdle pwecious baby and he needs to be hugged extra tight so the baddie waddies don't get him"- and get to the objective core of the issue.
You're putting the cart before the horse, here. I think the best case you could put is that there may be positive results and there may be no negative ones.
No, the best case I can put forward is the one I did. Show me why the standard of only criminalising explicit materials that actually involve harming children in their production results in children being harmed. to do this, you are going to have to:
Show me how someone else's fantasy hurts me or my daughter.
Show me the direct correlation that shows the majority of people who fantasise about sex with children go on to harm children.
Show me the direct correlation that exposure to the material in question causes people to harm shildren that otherwise wouldn't.
Show me how and why commercially produced explicit material "porn" harms children, while similar material that falls under the aegis of art does not. And after that, show a clear and universal definition to distinguish the two.
Even change "may" to "probably",
I didn't say "may" or "probably". I said there
are two important positive results, and I told you why and how.
it's still a long way from "grounded in logic and reason".
May be. But it's closer than "won't somebody think of the
children" hand waving.
Whatever assertions are made, one thing is clear, the jury is still out on this.
That's not what the moralist would have you believe. That's not the immpression you yourself are putting out there.
Even Kevin was unable to come up with better than conflicting evidence.
Kevin's arguing something different than me. I haven't even read his links, because as I said, I'm not talking about consent right now.
I don't really think superstition comes into those laws to any greater degree than any other.
su·per·sti·tion–noun
1. a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.
2. a system or collection of such beliefs.
3. a custom or act based on such a belief.
4. irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, esp. in connection with religion.
5. any blindly accepted belief or notion.
One, four and five seem to prevail in most people's ideas on this subject, and frankly whether it is in "any greater degree than any other" is irrelevant. Any non-zero degree is too much.
It sure as hell plays no part in my assessment.
"but where children are involved, established protocols giving children a higher place in the safety heirarchy continue to work "
"lots of parents allow kids to sexualise themslves by learning about life earlier than necessary from inappropriate tv/video/DVD/gaming/PC life. This problem could be made to largely disappear just with a small amount of supervision."
"How are you going to able to show cause and effect in this situation? I think asking for evidence of a believable nature is a bit like asking for Jesus' nails to be displayed. You're looking for something which doesn't exist. Or maybe you expect to gain honest answers from convicted paedophiles."
Seems to from here.
No, but a perceived victory will encourage them to use legislation as the thin edge of the lever. The winning/losing has nothing to do with it.
And yet the standard of "not harming kids" kicks that lever away- assuming, for now, we maintain that adult sex with a minor child of sufficient age discrepancy constitutes harm, in a legal sense if nothing else.
I'll repeat it again:
"Having or creating fantasies about, distributing, selling, or passing around explicit material about, talking about, writing about, singing about, shouting about, online chatting about, or harbouring a desire for f[rule 8]ing a child is not f[rule 8]ing a child.
F[rule 8]ing a child and photographing, video taping, or otherwise recording f[rule 8]ing a child is f[rule 8]ing a child."
That neatly cuts out those nasty NAMBLA-ites.
Let's go on the slippery slope of legislation for a minute. New rule: any porn is allowed as long as nobody under 18 is involved.
Any
explicit material. Porn is a red herring. And not "involved"- "harmed".
Deliberately and egregiously harmed.
NAMBLA makes video, using 12/13 year old boy, playing a schoolboy. The boy, in life has been groomed for years and will swear to being 18 and holds fake ID proclaiming him to be 18.
Falsifying evidence and witness tampering do not mitigate the act.
Make him an Asian boy - half the 23 year old ones I meet look 12, never mind 18!
Oh, that's nice.
They can distribute the film, show ID to cops who investigate, sworn statement by the boy, how are they going to be caught? Yes, that's drawing an even longer bow, but it is a potential outcome.
It is a potential outcome in any criminal situation, which is precisely why we let professionals do this job and not well-meaning citizens.
And I do believe it was me that said that NO solution was going to be 100% effective, wasn't it?
Further, simple economic pressure is going to lean against them taking the huge risk of using an illegal 13yo if using a young looking 18 or 19 year old is legal. Which is what we see now.
If we outlaw even the ersatz "young lookers", that pressure evaporates. Doesn't this put the 13yo at more risk?
The only difference your scenario is going to make is that these boys are locked up tight and never see the light of day- which is just what we have now.
Find some bloody evidence to say that this happens and I'll be there with you on the steps of (................../insert local legislature)!
The point is we don't know yet, so let's not shut down the possiblity because of some pretty slogans that make us feel like we're accomplishing something.
Just their reasoning is always goddidit, so it's pretty hard to answer.
No, it isn't hard to answer. "Goddidit" is not a reasonable or logical position. The only thing the IDers have is emotion and superstition. Yet they still get laws passed. Thus, "To change a law requires a strong reasoning" is false.
Here again, we see the lack of hard data coming into play. Reporting has gone up, so the convictions have gone up. Has the rate of actual offending gone up? I don't know, does anyone?
I don't know. Does it matter if the offence rate has gone up or not? The point is, even the harshest restrictions did not and will not eliminate the problem, but they do cause other, very serious problems.
What we are talking about here, in essence, is treating a tapeworm by telling the patient to swallow uranium pellets. Tapeworms are a serious problem, no question. The pellets may even make the tapeworm leave- or they may not. But we do know the patient willl be too concerned about their hair falling out and the blood they're caughing up to care anymore.
Back to my perfection argument again. Try every available means to avoid taking to the lifeboats, but sure, if you need 'em, make sure you have plenty of good ones for all.
Then you don't need a special rule about putting kids first in the best ones, do you?
