at first i thought LoneSnark was doing that Libertardian "devils advocate" thing.

but now i think he's serious.

http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=460812&page=2

2/12/2007 3:39:56 PM

because child pornography only hurts children.

And children can't vote anyway, so who cares about them.

2/12/2007 3:51:04 PM

Because it's a good principle taken to its ridiculous extreme.

And that's Libertarians in a nut(no pun)shell

2/12/2007 4:06:17 PM

Simple, because they don't. Like I and every other Libertarian has advocated, perpetrators of Child Abuse should be executed on the spot, no trial necessary.

Or is it your assertion that someone can create child pornography without engaging in Child Abuse? I'd like to see you rationalize that one.

[Edited on February 12, 2007 at 4:47 PM. Reason : .,.]

2/12/2007 4:46:05 PM

Quote :

"ike I and every other Libertarian has advocated, perpetrators of Child Abuse should be executed on the spot, no trial necessary."

i hope that's hyperbole

2/12/2007 4:51:38 PM

once again, try talking to a Libertarian about Child Pornography. They won't do it.

They always try to covertly shift the discussion to "child abuse" -- as if there is a distinct separation.

Quote :

" Like I and every other Libertarian has advocated, perpetrators of Child Abuse should be executed on the spot"

because, in fact, they are compelled to defend the possession of Child Pornography under their warped fantasy-world interpretations of First, Fourth, and Tenth Amendment rights.

and for another thing, please spare us your self-serving hyperbole. The Libertarian platform is explicitly opposed to the death penalty. Its a major plank.



And you wonder why NAMBLA donates so heavily to local, state and national Libertarian campaigns?





[Edited on February 12, 2007 at 5:43 PM. Reason : ]

2/12/2007 5:25:18 PM

the more I see these wonder kids post the more I realize that they are only libertarians when it comes to their money.

2/12/2007 5:28:06 PM

the more I see these wonder kids post the more I realize that they are only libertarians when it comes to their money.

2/12/2007 5:30:23 PM

LoneSnark's Libertarian Perspective on the Relative Harmlessness of Child Pornography:

Quote :

"joe_schmoe, are you saying pictures have harmed someone? I ask, because last I check having pictures of someone being murdered is not illegal and does not land anyone in jail. If possessing pictures of children being abused is harmful, then why is not possessing pictures of adults being murdered?"

he is apparently so impressed with his logical flourish, that he needed to post it twice. (from the link at the top of this page)

LoneSnark's Libertarian Perspective on How to Handle Child Porn Afficionados:

Quote :

"Confiscate the photos, interrogate them to find out where they got the photos, and then let them go."

same link.

2/12/2007 5:37:56 PM

I think it's pretty obvious here that LoneSnark is himself a child pornographer.

2/12/2007 6:14:12 PM

Quote :

"They always try to covertly shift the discussion to "child abuse" -- as if there is a distinct separation."

Again, are you trying to say there is not a distinct separation?

And I posted the same sentence twice in response to you posting the same giberish twice.

Bakunin, hence why I think Child Pornographers should be shot on sight. Guess I'm suicidal.

[Edited on February 12, 2007 at 6:16 PM. Reason : .,.]

2/12/2007 6:15:42 PM

^^ well, i wouldnt go that far.

but i think it conclusively demonstrates the absurdity and intellectual bankruptcy of the Libertarian Party's political philosophy.



[Edited on February 12, 2007 at 6:18 PM. Reason : ]

2/12/2007 6:18:33 PM

I would consider myself a libertarian, and I don't support/condone child pornography.

Or is this a question for capital-L Libertarians as opposed to regular libertarians?

You claim that they (whichever type you're talking about) support child pornography due to "warped fantasy-world interpretations of First, Fourth, and Tenth Amendment rights." Or put another way, they support child pornography because (they believe) the pictures don't actually hurt anyone (the whole "do what you want as long as it doesn't cause any harm to anyone else" thing). But the only problem with this is that a child isn't necessarily old enough or aware enough to be making those sorts of decisions. Is little Timmy getting nekid for the camera because he wants to or because Jim-Bob promised him candy and ice cream?

Most people can agree that children simply do not have the adequate mental facilities to be making any decisions when it comes to a lot of things, and that includes sexual-related activity. Therefore, child pornography must necessarily involve the exploitation of a group that cannot possibly know or defend itself from any ill consequences. Hence child pornography is bad.

As to what age it becomes acceptable? I guess current laws are sufficient. If I had to ere on the side of caution, though, I'd say at least they need to be at least 18 before they could do that sort of stuff.

2/12/2007 6:18:41 PM

Quote :

"once again, try talking to a Libertarian about Child Pornography. They won't do it. They always try to covertly shift the discussion to "child abuse" -- as if there is a distinct separation."

I consider myself libertarian and I'll talk about it.

Are you saying child pornography does not equal child abuse?

I believe the government should stay out of my life. I should be allowed that as long as I don't bring harm to others, do something criminal, or infringe on other people's life in a negative way. Someone explain to me how that viewpoint means a libertarian is pro-child pornography?

So are states that are notoriously libertarian like Alaska, New Hampshire, and several Rocky Mountain states pro-child porn in your eyes?

Quote :

"but i think it conclusively demonstrates the absurdity and intellectual bankruptcy of the Libertarian Party's political philosophy."

A faction of the Libertarian Party go by the policy of anarcho-capitalism. Pretty much the government does nothing, everything is privatized through voluntary funding by the populace. (That is a very simplistic view.)

There is a faction of the Libertarian Party that is trying to moderate the party's views. And they have had some success as far as moderating the party's platform to make it more open to people that just want less government in their lives -- no "No Child Left Behind", no "Department of Homeland Security", no "Department of Education", something that the states are in charge of to start with, no policy of corporatism where costs are socialized and profits are privatized -- something that neither a Republican nor a Democrat can claim with a straight face. Here is their website:

http://www.reformthelp.org

Quote :

"Restoring liberty in the near future is feasible. Given the constraints of the U.S. political system, the logical course of action follows: Observation 1: The Democratic and Republican parties are loath to nominate libertarians. Corollary 1: The cause of liberty requires a libertarian party to get libertarians on the ballot. Observation 2: The United States elects its legislators using district-based elections. Corollary 2: Winning office requires actually winning elections. Garnering 5-10% of the vote at-large wins nothing. Conclusion: Fringe politics does not work in the United States. A political party must appeal to a plurality of voters (effectively, at least 40%) in some districts in order to win elections. Since districts vary, such a party could get away with appealing to less nationwide, but it must at least appeal to 20-30%. In other words, for the Libertarian Party to be effective, it must appeal to the top 20-30% of freedom-lovers. Appealing to the tiny minority of freedom-lovers who want no government at all, or something very close to that, is a recipe for failure. The platform and message of the Libertarian Party is extreme, sacrificing practicality and political appeal in favor of philosophical consistency with a single axiom. As such, the party currently appeals only to a tiny fraction of the voting public. The Libertarian Reform Caucus is working to reform the Libertarian Party, to turn it into an effective tool for increasing liberty."

[Edited on February 12, 2007 at 7:21 PM. Reason : .]

2/12/2007 7:04:14 PM

Is no one getting it? The "Creation" of child pornography is condemned by Libertarians on the grounds of child abuse. The "Possession" of child pornography is identifiably unrelated to the original crime of child abuse and is therefore not a felony in the eyes of Libertarians.

2/12/2007 8:40:49 PM

you lose

[/thread]

2/12/2007 9:18:29 PM

L-Snark, I think the gov't is trying to take the same approach to child porn as they are to the drug war. They are trying to both stop it at the source and decrease the supply available to users.

The actual photos are the 'supply' the gov't is trying to eradicate. They are finding, in this age of the internet and digital photography, that stopping people who are highly motivated to posess child porn is going to be just as tough as trying to round up all the drug users.

It's even fuzzier when you consider digitally created child porn. There are no actual children abused, but that images can be just as disgusting. Should it be illegal to create or possess this?

2/12/2007 10:18:08 PM

Libertarians want the government to protect their interests. Their interests include safety and financial freedom, not arresting people for looking at pictures.

2/13/2007 12:30:06 PM

Quote :

" The "Possession" of child pornography is identifiably unrelated to the original crime of child abuse and is therefore not a felony in the eyes of Libertarians."

It's a supply/demand type of thing.

The creators wouldn't create if they didn't have an outlet to make money off of the possessors. If we let the possessors have their kiddy porn with relatively no punishment, then it would keep the market for demand of child porn flourishing.

Child porn in general I don't think is not that big of a problem, and is way overblown by the media, but it seems disingenuous or ignorant to claim that child porn possession is not hurting anyone.

And the reason this is different than murder pics is because people don't go around murdering other people to sell pics on line, but people DO go around abusing kids to sell their pics online.

2/13/2007 12:36:40 PM

Quote :

"It's even fuzzier when you consider digitally created child porn. There are no actual children abused, but that images can be just as disgusting. Should it be illegal to create or possess this?"

Absolutely not. In this case, no childern were harmed. The government should not be involved. Seems clear to me.

People should be free to creates images of whatever the hell they want.

2/13/2007 1:18:42 PM

Quote :

""It's even fuzzier when you consider digitally created child porn. There are no actual children abused, but that images can be just as disgusting. Should it be illegal to create or possess this?""

Yes, because the same people that procure this type of imagery probably would seek out and "enjoy" the real stuff too, so their demand is still there, maybe if not expressed yet.

I can't imagine though someone with a collection would have ONLY the fake ones, but i'm not a child pornographer.

You have to realize, the people who seek out child porn are not normal, rational people.

[Edited on February 13, 2007 at 1:22 PM. Reason : ]

2/13/2007 1:21:38 PM

^ By that reasoning, should it be illegal to have fake images of people being killed?

2/13/2007 1:26:46 PM

It shouldn't be illegal to have any images of people being killed, because there is no killing-people-and-taking-their-pictures crime ring, AFAIK, like there is with child-porn crime rings.

[Edited on February 13, 2007 at 1:37 PM. Reason : ]

2/13/2007 1:37:32 PM

Quote :

"Yes, because the same people that procure this type of imagery probably would seek out and "enjoy" the real stuff too"

Yay guilt by correlation.

Quote :

"there is no killing-people-and-taking-their-pictures crime ring"

Terrorist decapitation videos. Snuff films.

2/13/2007 1:45:51 PM

hey, i'll be honest.

the libertarian views that I subscribe to have everything to do with keeping as much of the money I earn as possible.

Usually it's the people who have a shitty work ethic who are in favor of high taxes so they can get their handouts from big daddy government.

2/13/2007 1:47:47 PM

Quote :

"Is no one getting it? The "Creation" of child pornography is condemned by Libertarians on the grounds of child abuse."

that is plain idiotic, seriously. what if two kids (range: 8-15) decide to willingly have sex with one another, someone finds out about it and suggests that they will pay them x amount in cash if he can film it and then the child couple says "okay" How is that child abuse? Assuming its not, is it okay for that person to offer those kids money so he can record them and sell their video for a profit?

2/13/2007 2:15:12 PM

What about CGI porn?

2/13/2007 2:18:21 PM

^^ children cannot legally consent to sex.

2/13/2007 2:20:00 PM

Quote :

"Yay guilt by correlation. "

That part was me thinking out loud. I would bet you though 100% of the people who possess fake child porn also possess real child porn.

Quote :

" Terrorist decapitation videos. Snuff films."

Umm... terrorist decapitation videos aren't done for monetary gain. And i've never seen evidence that a snuff porn ring actually exists.

2/13/2007 2:29:03 PM

murder is illegal

2/13/2007 2:30:23 PM

Quote :

"Usually it's the people who have a shitty work ethic who are in favor of high taxes so they can get their handouts from big daddy government."

wow. just wow.

2/13/2007 2:34:18 PM

Quote :

"^^ children cannot legally consent to sex."

not even with each other? or are you saying that they can't consent to being video taped? I figured they couldn't agree to be taped, but we're talking about from a hypotheticala libertarian perspective. if them being video taped "doesn't hurt anyone" then it shouldn't be illegal from a libertarian perspective. thats where that was coming from. i didnt think i'd need to do the back explination for that.

[Edited on February 13, 2007 at 2:38 PM. Reason : 't]

2/13/2007 2:38:38 PM

ah, well, from the libertarian perspective, I got nothing.

the only lib philosophies i like are the ones that put more of my money in my bank account.

2/13/2007 2:53:15 PM

Nope, sorry. You need to elicit Anarchists or the like to find people that think young children are morally able to consent to sex, even with other children.

Now, I suppose if you got a signed affidavit from the future written by the child (who is at that time 18 years of age) you could morally allow the child to engage in sexual activity with anyone.

2/13/2007 2:54:16 PM

^so what you're saying here is that morality and an actual understanding for the ingnorance of others should be reviewed when considering public policy. wow, that doesn't sound very libertarian.

2/13/2007 2:58:13 PM

[Edited on February 13, 2007 at 4:54 PM. Reason : nevermind, someone else beat me to it]

2/13/2007 4:53:22 PM

^^ Why not? Libertarians are all about morality. They believe much of what the government does is immoral, case closed. Bravo.

2/13/2007 5:25:53 PM

Quote :

"I would bet you though 100% of the people who possess fake child porn also possess real child porn."

*shrug* Define fake child porn. CGI? Japanese lolicon? Naked Lisa Simpson? Either way, I doubt there's a 100% connection.

Quote :

"terrorist decapitation videos aren't done for monetary gain."

Since when is profit an issue? I thought the point was that child porn is illegal because people watching it causes people to create it. Well, there have also been cases where someone's murder was taped in part to show it to others.

2/13/2007 5:42:49 PM

Typical of gov't regulation... it never ends where you want it to end. Once it establishes itself with the best sounding intentions, it continues to grab more and more control over you.

Quote :

"N.C. poses Web rules Cooper wants sites such as MySpace to enforce age of users By James Romoser,JOURNAL RALEIGH BUREAU,Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Each day, thousands of teenagers log onto myspace.com and other social-networking Web sites. They listen to music, send messages to friends, keep online diaries and post photos of themselves. They also may be putting themselves at risk to child predators. That risk is serious enough, says North Carolina's highest law-enforcement official, that nobody under 16 should be allowed to use those sites. Criminals who target children see MySpace as a "smorgasbord," Attorney General Roy Cooper said yesterday. "In my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of other law-enforcement officials out there, 14- and 15-year-olds should not be on MySpace," he said. Cooper said he wants North Carolina and other states to pass legislation that would limit access to MySpace by requiring minors to get parental consent to sign up. He also supports policies that would force MySpace to set a minimum age limit of 16 and to verify its users' ages. Cooper's call for additional safety measures on MySpace is part of a broader package of legislative proposals aimed at child predators and child pornography. Other proposals include enacting tougher sentences for certain crimes and requiring that photo developers report child pornography to the authorities. Cooper's push is part of a nation-wide effort by some officials who worry about the growing popularity of mostly unmonitored online "communities," where children's personal information frequently can be seen by anyone. Cooper said he is working with more than 30 other state attorneys general. The group has threatened to sue MySpace if the site doesn't put in place new security measures on its own. A lawsuit would be costly to MySpace, which has 60 million monthly users in the United States and was bought in 2005 by News Corp., the media giant owned by Rupert Murdoch. The site also does not want to alienate its younger users. Last month, the site announced optional parental-monitoring software that parents can use to find out what name, age and location their child is using on the site. It has a policy stating that users must be at least 14 years old, but right now, there is nothing to prevent younger children from lying about their age and signing up. A spokeswoman for MySpace did not return phone calls for comment yesterday. Two legislators in North Carolina - Sen. Walter Dalton, D-Rutherford, and Sen. John Snow, D-Cherokee - are supporting Cooper, a Democrat. Yesterday, the three of them offered anecdotes of adults who targeted children online and then tried to meet them in person. But questions remain about the practicality of what Cooper is proposing, and some experts have raised concerns about privacy or whether the proposal would be very effective. Though acknowledging that any system would have holes, Cooper said that there are programs that MySpace could use to ensure that children obtain parental consent before signing up. He also said that there are ways that the site could check users' ages against public databases. David Krackhardt, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on social networking, said he is wary of excessive governmental monitoring over the Internet. He is also the father of three children - ages 11, 14 and 17 - and he said he believes that online predators are a serious problem. "I'd hate to see us move in the direction of China, where they've decided to take over all kinds of control on the Web," Krackhardt said. "I think there has to be a compromise." He added that he finds age-verification systems troubling. Rather than controls mandated by the government, Krackhardt said he prefers common-sense rules set by parents. For instance, he does not allow his own kids to have computers in their rooms or to own Web cams. Cooper agreed that some responsibility lies with parents. He said he believes that many parents do not realize the dangers of social-networking sites. Other popular sites are face---book-.com and xanga.com. Cooper said he is focusing only on MySpace, in the hope of establishing an "industry standard.""

Can you see where this will go? Soon, everyone will have to register to use MySpace -just to make sure they aren't predators. Then we will have to register with the gov't on every web group we join. Then we will need to obtain a special "internet user" license from the gov't. All internet usuage will be subject to instant and unannounced gov't monitoring.

Eventually, the life and vibrancy of the net will be sucked out by strangling gov't regulation. The only sites left will be Disney and NPR.

[Edited on February 14, 2007 at 1:05 AM. Reason : .]

2/14/2007 1:05:12 AM

Clearly not thinking it should be a felony means you support it.

Likewise, you must support rape if you don't support the death penalty for rapists, right?

For fucks sake, I think it ought to be a felony and I can see the flaws in your logic. Lock this fucking thread, it could have been handled in the referenced thread.

2/14/2007 6:56:01 PM