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[Bauglir]

probably because pedophilia is a condition people experience, while fucking children is an action, would be my guess

pedophilia is acceptable in the same way as some kinds of epilepsy are - it's an objectively bad, yes, but i'm not about to judge someone immoral for suffering it until they do something wrong, which i guess in this analogy means that driving a car in a crowded city knowing you could have a seizure and lose control of the vehicle without warning is akin to engaging in sexual relations with minors?

i'm not seeing any dissonance

[mainiac]

What does this have to do with making pedophilia acceptable

This depends on what you mean.

I am starting to suspect that you feel that people with sexual disorders are bad merely for existing.  Pedophilia seems to not be an action but a physiological condition and we should hate them for having this condition, not for their actions.

Everyone else seems to be judging them based on their actions.  Someone who commits a sexual crime is a criminal, someone who desires to but does not is not a criminal.

[Shadowlord]

pedophilia is acceptable in the same way as some kinds of epilepsy are - it's an objectively bad, yes, but i'm not about to judge someone immoral for suffering it until they do something wrong, which i guess in this analogy means that driving a car in a crowded city knowing you could have a seizure and lose control of the vehicle without warning is akin to engaging in sexual relations with minors?

i'm not seeing any dissonance

You can't choose not to have a seizure. You can choose not to drive, but equating driving with child molestation makes no fucking sense.

[mainiac]

Nobody here is excusing sex crimes.  People here are excusing having the desire to commit sex crimes by people who dont act on that desire because it would be harmful to do so.

[Descan]

pedophilia is acceptable in the same way as some kinds of epilepsy are - it's an objectively bad, yes, but i'm not about to judge someone immoral for suffering it until they do something wrong, which i guess in this analogy means that driving a car in a crowded city knowing you could have a seizure and lose control of the vehicle without warning is akin to engaging in sexual relations with minors?

i'm not seeing any dissonance

You can't choose not to have a seizure. You can choose not to drive, but equating driving with child molestation makes no fucking sense.

driving in this scenario would be more like

choosing to work as a kindergarten teacher or something like that

[Flying Dice]

And again, in any case it's literally advocating for thought-crime enforcement and prosecution to suggest that people should be judged based on their desires rather than their actions.

As before, I think that a simple "Judge not, lest ye be judged," is supremely fucking appropriate here. Especially considering, LW, that the argument you're balancing on the other hand is for it to be legal for random assholes to own tools whose only purpose in modern society is killing other people. Someone has immoral desires but refuses to acts on them? HALT CRIMINAL SCUM! Someone wants to be able to buy a gun and shoot anyone that they feel threatened by? HAIL FREEDOM!

On another note: Your claim that the homicide rate in the U.S. has been steadily decreasing? That's true, if you're fucking myopic. The per-capita murder rate in the U.S. rose steadily from 1900-1935ish, fell sharply until 1960, rose sharply until around 1992, and then decreased sharply again. If you really want to try to make an argument about meaningful trends by carefully cherrypicking one section of time from a regular cyclical movement, the real argument to make would be that federal firearms legislation does negatively affect the rate of violent crime: the National Firearms Act of 1934 required firearms taxes and paperwork filed as well as working to remove automatic weapons, sawed-off shotguns and rifles, and hidden holdout weapons from circulation. The Federal Firearms Act of 1938 heavily restricted the interstate transport and sale of firearms, including the creation of a license requirement for owners, the requirement that sellers record the names and addresses of buyers, and a prohibition on selling firearms to those without a permit or with a criminal record of certain crimes. These two acts were written into law right before and during (respectively) the opening months of the first major recorded drop in U.S. homicides.

What about the drop you tried to cherrypick, then? From 1968 to 1994 there were seven major federal actions (Gun Control, Law Enforcement Officers Protection, Firearm Owners, Crime Control, Brady Handgun Violence Prevention, Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement: Acts. Also the creation of the ATF) to restrict gun ownership and crime. In the early 1990s, the second major drop in the U.S. homicide rate began.

So, both times that the U.S. homicide rate dropped sharply, it did so after a decade or two of the Federal government passing and beginning to enforce heavier restrictions on gun ownership. But no, it's definitely really because more people owned guns, right?

[Arcvasti]

As before, I think that a simple "Judge not, lest ye be judged," is supremely fucking appropriate here. Especially considering, LW, that the argument you're balancing on the other hand is for it to be legal for random assholes to own tools whose only purpose in modern society is killing other people.

Not that I'm disagreeing with your points here, but all the gun owners I know[Relatively small sample pool] here in Canadia mostly just use them for recreational porpoises at a shooting range or hunting or whatnot. Or just for having a collection of vaguely manly objects you can attach to a wall. Whether that this constitutes a legitimate non-murdery use for guns is debateable, but it is still the primary civilian use for a gun.

[wierd]

FD, you are pushing my MAD button when you assert falsehoods like "(guns) have no use in modern society besides killing people."

This is a lie. A damned lie, and a perniciously damned lie.

NOT EVERYONE LIVES IN A CITY. PEOPLE LIVING IN RURAL AREAS ARE NOT LIVING IN THE PAST.

I hate to use shout caps, but damn it man-- Stop that shit.
People in rural settings need guns for animal control. You might not like it, but this is a fact. Framing an ideological position on a falsehood? You can do better than that.


Likewise, arguments about cherry picking that themselves cherry pick, I dont know where to begin.

A LOT of things happened in the time periods cited besides federal arms regulation and enforcement. Namely, BIG socio-economic ones, like the depression. A major correlation exists between being financially destitute and criminality. The same dip in crime rate can be attributed to improvements in the economy and social mobility. ... Cherry picking indeed...

[Flying Dice]

I wasn't trying to cause offense, but killing dangerous wildlife is decidedly not an aspect of modern, urbanized, post-industrial society. I should have been clearer--note that in the case LW was trying to make, he's arguing that Britain needs looser gun control laws; their problems with wildlife are pretty much exclusively in the past, and have been ever since they finished killing off the wolves in the British Isles.

Okay, speaking of cherry-picking, if you're going to try to tie economic conditions to violent crime, how do you explain there not being an equivalent spike in violence during the Great Recession? The only upward movement at all in recent years was a very small one in 2006. Where was the Great Depression-level economic crisis that helped cause the massive spike in crime during the latter half of the previous century?

So yeah. At least the central cause I identified fits the data. Your counterexample doesn't even work for the main point you tried to raise: that downturn in homicide rates in the U.S. began years before the end of the Great Depression.

[Strife26]

. . .  You're bitching about cherry picking data & cherry picking dates in the safe post.



That's an impressive damn accomplishment right there.

[Reelya]

No cherry picking needed. If you look at upspikes in the USA's murder rate you can see that they are intimately tied to handguns. In 1986, Reagan loosened up gun sales restrictions on small caliber weapons, and there was a steady increase in small-caliber firearms murders every year after that until 1994, when the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act went into effect, and the spike permanently disappeared after that. During that period, all other classes of homicide actually declined steadily. There was no concurrent spike in knife murders for example. If it was due to economic pain you'd expect that any weapon you could get your hands on would also have some matching rise.

So, constantly rising murders from 1986-1994 isn't really explained by the economy. The economy had ups and downs during that period, and before then and after then, but we don't see the same thing happening at all, e.g. There was a smaller spike in handgun murders around 1980, but that doesn't match the economic theory either: the worst point for unemployment was in 1983 but that matches a lull in homicides.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Meanwhile, unemployment dropped by half from 1983-1990 but that coincides with the start of the massive handgun murder spike. Go figure?

[wierd]

the downward trend in crime can be attributed to a wide array of factors besides economy or gun availability.

reduction or environmental lead levels
increased incarceration rates
reduced use of cocaine per capita

many possible sources besides just guns.

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_crime-decline.html


also, fd---

rural residents enjoy a modern standard of living, with public education, running water, telephone and internet access, and all the trappings of post-industrial society.  they simply have slower emergency response times, and lack city animal control. they do not live like it is 1930.

[Strife26]

And own personal weapons in large numbers, which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

[Loud Whispers]

This depends on what you mean.
I am starting to suspect that you feel that people with sexual disorders are bad merely for existing.  Pedophilia seems to not be an action but a physiological condition and we should hate them for having this condition, not for their actions.

You don't say, it's almost like pedophiles have a mental disorder or something

Everyone else seems to be judging them based on their actions.  Someone who commits a sexual crime is a criminal, someone who desires to but does not is not a criminal.

Yeah they're not a criminal, they're a pedophile

probably because pedophilia is a condition people experience, while fucking children is an action, would be my guess
pedophilia is acceptable in the same way as some kinds of epilepsy are - it's an objectively bad, yes, but i'm not about to judge someone immoral for suffering it until they do something wrong, which i guess in this analogy means that driving a car in a crowded city knowing you could have a seizure and lose control of the vehicle without warning is akin to engaging in sexual relations with minors?
i'm not seeing any dissonance

One of my friends was epileptic, dead now - he'd go into seizures and you'd have to hold him, keep saying his name to bring him back and make sure he didn't fall over and injure himself on anything in his seizures. How is this is in any way the same as wanting to fuck children, no matter how fancily you dress this up as being "pro-contact" with children or "engaging in sexual relations with minors?" As if there's ever a situation in society where "oh no I've lost control of my actions, better molest some children"?

"In the midst of that dark era in my life, I discovered an unhealthy pedophile forum. Nothing illegal was happening there, but many of its most influential members were pro-contacters, meaning they believed that sex with children was theoretically OK and supported the elimination of age of consent laws.  That forum still exists and I won’t name it here, but suffice it to say, I found myself taking up the same pro-contacter chants, if only to feel like I belonged somewhere."
The only way we know he did nothing wrong was by his word, which is frankly worthless. I thought peeps turning blind eyes to pedophiles was a national thing, not international :|
Apologies though, Salon is just being so brave and contrarian for for pushing for pedophile acceptance

And again, in any case it's literally advocating for thought-crime enforcement and prosecution to suggest that people should be judged based on their desires rather than their actions.

So someone who wants to fuck children should not be judged on their desire to fuck children, or else we're literally 1984

As before, I think that a simple "Judge not, lest ye be judged," is supremely fucking appropriate here. Especially considering, LW, that the argument you're balancing on the other hand is for it to be legal for random assholes to own tools whose only purpose in modern society is killing other people. Someone has immoral desires but refuses to acts on them? HALT CRIMINAL SCUM! Someone wants to be able to buy a gun and shoot anyone that they feel threatened by? HAIL FREEDOM!

In what bizarre world do you live in where I represent some mass murder faction fighting the pedophile faction? You can address my arguments or you can address my strawmen

On another note: Your claim that the homicide rate in the U.S. has been steadily decreasing? That's true, if you're fucking myopic.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why do I even post links if people don't bother reading them, it's like they don't give a shit about sourcing they just like the glow of that yellow link which probably means I'm not just talking out of my goathair

I wasn't trying to cause offense, but killing dangerous wildlife is decidedly not an aspect of modern, urbanized, post-industrial society.

If you don't have foxes killing your neighbourhood's pets

I should have been clearer--note that in the case LW was trying to make, he's arguing that Britain needs looser gun control laws; their problems with wildlife are pretty much exclusively in the past, and have been ever since they finished killing off the wolves in the British Isles.

Nope, we've got to keep the deer populations and fox populations down, we just don't have to worry about wolves - I also was not arguing that Britain needs looser gun control laws, I was replying to someone who had brought up that the USA has a higher homicide rate than the UK and I was replying by saying that the USA does not have 1 camera watching every 10 people

Okay, speaking of cherry-picking, if you're going to try to tie economic conditions to violent crime, how do you explain there not being an equivalent spike in violence during the Great Recession? The only upward movement at all in recent years was a very small one in 2006. Where was the Great Depression-level economic crisis that helped cause the massive spike in crime during the latter half of the previous century?

Lol when have I made these arguments

[Sheb]

LW, do you think pedophile choose to be attracted to children? If someone do feel attracted to children but keeps his urges in check, why should we condemn it? He literally did nothing wrong!