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[Detoxicated]

Your way of thinking, that this should be allowed because there is some kind of difference between Swedish and middle-eastern children, is exactly what she is criticising above. Syrian children should not be allowed to be victims just because they're part of a tradition which thinks it is okay to marry and fuck children. They have the exact same rights to be protected from abusive behaviour as Swedish children do.

By the way, for those who are interested, the court ruling has been contested and will be taken up in a higher court.

I have never actually posted my way of thinking, I am merely triggering your hatred. The topic you discuss seems very clear to you, but even philosophers of the modern day do not come to a proper conclusion for these mind jumbles. Your belief of justice is merely your belief of justice, and just because we think it is right does not mean our right is right for everyone. It is easy to fall into this pseudo democratic autocratism within your speech if you do not acknowledge these countries, which you clearly don't, as you are still referring to them as backwards.

It is good that this is taken to a higher court as the decision of the judge was not enough to oversee this entirely.
I was merely striking out because to be honest many people on here sound like fascists, who are using words like child-raping refugees, and a comment about liberal blonde swedish that are turned opposite to that. As I was reading this line I was thinking: Oh wait he forgot to add the blue eyes... So two 14 year old were married, weird to me, weird to you apparantly, but it is not necessarily a rape situation. It might be a domestic oppression situation but even that is debatable as you cannot tell just like that. Most people I know had sex with 14, and they didn't consider it rape, they considered it liberation. So one must make a clear distinction between two 14 year olds that are getting married and a situation where an adult has married a 14 year old. There is a huge difference there.

[scriver]

Your argument is that this is okay because of their culture is different. If this is not your view, then why do you keep bringing it up? Do you think we don't already understand that my sense of justice is just my sense of justice? Moral relativism is nothing new. It also has no relevance on the topic at hand.

This is literally the case of an adult marrying a 12 year old (she herself claims she was 10 and that her papers are faulty) and her becoming pregnant with his child. She is 14. He is a grown man. I called him a child raping immigrant because he literally is a child raping immigrant.

and a comment about liberal blonde swedish that are turned opposite to that. As I was reading this line I was thinking: Oh wait he forgot to add the blue eyes...

You're just plain making things up at this point. You didn't just add "blue eyes" in your head, you made up the part about blonde hair as well.

[Detoxicated]

Tbh I'm not sure if Sweden can even be called a country at this point

It's funny (but also sad) that in the time I've been alive, Sweden has gone from a place memetically associated with sexual liberation and pale, blonde-haired people to pretty much the opposite.

It was not you that is true. In that article it did not state how old the husband was so how can you know. I do not read or write swedish... You are actually giving good arguments and I am glad that you are arguing with me in an acceptable manner.

[Detoxicated]

Then let us talk about the refugee situation all over, I am sure you're glad that your country is helping refugees out.
I suppose you have an interesting insight on this. One that is worth listening to, too.

[Helgoland]

Yeah, this might be one of the instances where 'lurk more' does apply.

[Wolfhunter107]

This is one of the very few cases where I find myself agreeing at least partially with Covanent. I don't give a single flying fuck how you try to justify it, child marriage is not okay, ever. No ifs or buts.

[Helgoland]

Ooooooor we could not do like the Yankee and embrace pluralism and open debate. Death to solid ideological fronts! Deploy the philosophical machine guns!

[Sergarr]

"Pluralism" and "open debate" is allegedly how many of those "ideological fronts" got formed in the first place. It's because humans are imperfect beings and so in conditions of open debate, they tend to stick together into tribes. Even if dedicated professionals can avoid it due to extensive training in logic, reason and self-doubt, many people can't.

To paraphrase it, the people can't handle the truth. Or better, they're not yet ready for it. The society must be divided in parts, or classes, in order to avoid unqualified people getting access to information that is legitimately dangerous to them and to everyone around them. The only question is how to do it without making it undemocratic and tyrannical.

[Silverthrone]

Oh, dear. And not a word of it in the papers, either. One suppose it would be "playing into the hands of xenophobic powers" to print it. It is scandalous. Scandalous, that the court saw fit to disreguard the law (for reasons known only to them, but they jolly well should be held on trial themselves), scandalous that paedophilia is being thus turned into a relative matter, and scandalous that it has not been given the attention it deserves.
I just cannot bloody buggery believe it. It makes one want to become a separatist. Believe you me, recent years of the Sweden-Experience^TM has been a very embarrasing and worrying experience, all together. But, this has simply gone too far. The law itself has been circumvented, either out of the cowardice or the corruption of the court, for the benefit of a stranger. It is wrong, and it should never be tolerated. It should not be like this, not in my bloody, buggery country.

Of course, this is turning into a weekly litania of mine. I am sorry that you must endure my muttering and my ravings here, but where better to release steam? Further, for what good it may be, I like to imagine that it might get the impression across that not everyone is in blind favour of what is happening. A canary in the mine; ripping its feathers off.

This is one of the very few cases where I find myself agreeing at least partially with Covanent. I don't give a single flying fuck how you try to justify it, child marriage is not okay, ever. No ifs or buts.

Careful. That's how I get ya

The Covenant train does rather rely on memes instead of rails at certain times, but I find myself aboard it quite often. It tends to go where I am going, and it is a good train.

[Grim Portent]

]To paraphrase it, the people can't handle the truth. Or better, they're not yet ready for it. The society must be divided in parts, or classes, in order to avoid unqualified people getting access to information that is legitimately dangerous to them and to everyone around them. The only question is how to do it without making it undemocratic and tyrannical.

A good start would be formal training in logic, philosophy and civics as part of education from a young age. It would probably be a better use of time than learning about religions or (non-modern) history.

Oh, dear. And not a word of it in the papers, either. One suppose it would be "playing into the hands of xenophobic powers" to print it. It is scandalous. Scandalous, that the court saw fit to disreguard the law (for reasons known only to them, but they jolly well should be held on trial themselves), scandalous that paedophilia is being thus turned into a relative matter, and scandalous that it has not been given the attention it deserves.
I just cannot bloody buggery believe it. It makes one want to become a separatist. Believe you me, recent years of the Sweden-Experience^TM has been a very embarrasing and worrying experience, all together. But, this has simply gone too far. The law itself has been circumvented, either out of the cowardice or the corruption of the court, for the benefit of a stranger. It is wrong, and it should never be tolerated. It should not be like this, not in my bloody, buggery country.

Paedophilia has always been a relative matter, even within Europe the age of consent ranges from 14 to 18 depending on country. In Greece it's 15, in the UK it's 16 and in Ireland it's 17, Malta it's 18. In several countries it's 14, generally with stipulations. In several countries 12 year olds are able to consent with others close to them in age.

It would have been entirely possible for me at age 16 to have entered a sexual relationship with an older person that wasn't paedophilia by British law, taken a holiday with my partner in N.Ireland, decided to take a walk across the border to check out some things in R.Ireland and have them technically be breaking Irish law for engaging in sexual acts with what Ireland would consider a minor if we did anything sexual while there. Most likely nothing would have come of it because most countries turn a blind eye to stuff like that because it just causes headaches for everyone involved, but the legal difference in consent laws is still there.




Interestingly (to me anyway) the age of consent and the age at which you can get married aren't always the same. Since Sweden is the current conversation topic, the age of consent is 15 according to what I can find, but you can't get married until 18, which seems like a big gap to me.

[Helgoland]

You wanna read something that's right up your alley? Go look up the pedophilia scandal of the German Green Party. You'll have a blast

[Silverthrone]

A "relative matter" as in "relative to race and ethnicity". The age of consent does shift, but what truly irks me is that this particular case seems to suggest that different laws of consent may apply in the same territory depending on race.

Marriage and age of consent are also rather different things. A marriage is a legal and official bond between two individuals, with certain rights and responsibilities, which is why it is reasonable to demand that both parties have reached adulthood.

The Covenant train does rather rely on memes instead of rails at certain times, but I find myself aboard it quite often. It tends to go where I am going, and it is a good train.

You're all such flirts, I'm getting embarrassed.

But anyway. I had to delete a slightly off-topic rant here because I actually found myself getting mad. Paedophilia and child abuse is something I absolutely detest. I think it's a crisis in our time, far beyond the scale of what is thought by the majority of the public. The fact that it is accepted in certain cultures is disgusting enough, but beyond that I think there is a real problem in our own culture, particularly within certain niche groups and by powerful individuals in the upper echelons, ranging from active-exploitation to 'just' a growing normalisation.

Witch-hunts and moral panics aren't the way to deal with these problems, of course. But still. Fuck paedos, in all their forms.

(And in reference to Grim Portent's last post - there is, of course, a debate about age of consent and such, and sometimes we need to accept our differences there. But there has to be a line, or else where does it end? I can't say where that line should be. But I can damn well say that a grown man should be locked up for a long time if he has sex with a 12-year-old (or 10-year-old, as scriver's point about the Syrian girl's document being wrong is correct).)

I do agree. I do not know enough to tell whether or not if the numbers or normalisation of molestations is growing, but it seems quite clear that cases like this will incease. The core question appears to be whether or not some demographics should be allowed to not follow laws that runs counter to their custom.

[Sergarr]

]To paraphrase it, the people can't handle the truth. Or better, they're not yet ready for it. The society must be divided in parts, or classes, in order to avoid unqualified people getting access to information that is legitimately dangerous to them and to everyone around them. The only question is how to do it without making it undemocratic and tyrannical.

A good start would be formal training in logic, philosophy and civics as part of education from a young age. It would probably be a better use of time than learning about religions or (non-modern) history.

It would be good, but, sadly, those concepts are a little bit too advanced for everyone to handle. And it's not particularly democratic.

I do have an idea on how to combine both democratic and qualification concepts at the same time. The citizens should be asked to pass tests - questions and answers for which should be made by citizens themselves, to ensure the proper democracy aspect (and yes, this means that there'll be inevitably some portion of "troll" or "insane" question/answer pairs - smart people will still tend to answer them better than the dumb ones, if not in a "truthful" manner) - and then the, say, top 20% in terms of number of answered questions, will pass forward to the next level of qualification. You can iterate that to get higher "citizenship" levels, where questions/answers for each level are made up by people of at least one level below and higher.

This "citizenship level" probably really shouldn't have any formal/legal powers, but it should instead serve as an informal sort-of-democratic-indicator of general expertise and being in touch with the people. It could probably be extended to more specific fields of study. Wouldn't work all that well in a polarized society like USA, though. You'd get identical questions where the answer will depend on the party affiliation of whoever was making them. Still, in more sane countries, it could really help to expose the "charismatic bullshitters" a la Trump for what they are.

[Grim Portent]

Personally I care little for most age of consent laws, they're usually not based on anything other than what minimum point made the person writing the laws stop feeling icky or the maximum point a morally protective sort thought they could get away with, neither of which is a good basis for laws, even if it is annoyingly the only method we have to determine some.

Historically they've varied wildly usually depending on how fast children were expected to act like adults, which was frequently as young as 12, younger in some times and places, because of how deadly life could be. The Norse used to marry between 12 and 18 (18 being the extreme outlier) and have kids before 20 because they only got 30 years or so to get their kids to adulthood before they dropped dead of malnutrition, cold, wild animals or getting stabbed by somebody.

Here in the UK it was 12 from 1275 to 1875, then 13 until 1885 when it became 16. It almost became 17 in 1917, but that was beaten by 1 vote.

Ideally I'd like there to be a proper scientific investigation into the way people's brains, personalities and bodies age, done on a properly representative (for the species, which means large sample sizes would be necessary) scale, that served as the basis for consent laws, but I expect the answer would be a fairly useless 'it varies from person to person,' and would take decades in any case, not too mention trying to get funding for such a large project. 

Based on personal experience there are people who are perfectly mature enough from a young age, I would in hindsight say I was mentally suitable from about 14 (never actually bothered until much later on,) but I've met plenty of people well into their thirties and beyond who I would not consider of sufficient mental maturity to consent and most of my peers as a teenager would not have been what I would consider mature enough to consent.

]To paraphrase it, the people can't handle the truth. Or better, they're not yet ready for it. The society must be divided in parts, or classes, in order to avoid unqualified people getting access to information that is legitimately dangerous to them and to everyone around them. The only question is how to do it without making it undemocratic and tyrannical.

A good start would be formal training in logic, philosophy and civics as part of education from a young age. It would probably be a better use of time than learning about religions or (non-modern) history.

It would be good, but, sadly, those concepts are a little bit too advanced for everyone to handle. And it's not particularly democratic.

I do have an idea on how to combine both democratic and qualification concepts at the same time. The citizens should be asked to pass tests - questions and answers for which should be made by citizens themselves, to ensure the proper democracy aspect (and yes, this means that there'll be inevitably some portion of "troll" or "insane" question/answer pairs - smart people will still tend to answer them better than the dumb ones, if not in a "truthful" manner) - and then the, say, top 20% in terms of number of answered questions, will pass forward to the next level of qualification. You can iterate that to get higher "citizenship" levels, where questions/answers for each level are made up by people of at least one level below and higher.

This "citizenship level" probably really shouldn't have any formal/legal powers, but it should instead serve as an informal sort-of-democratic-indicator of general expertise and being in touch with the people. It could probably be extended to more specific fields of study. Wouldn't work all that well in a polarized society like USA, though. You'd get identical questions where the answer will depend on the party affiliation of whoever was making them. Still, in more sane countries, it could really help to expose the "charismatic bullshitters" a la Trump for what they are.

That would also probably result in younger generations not being able to advance in citizenship levels if they held different ideals from the older generations. It would almost certainly have made it hard for pro-racial/LGBT equality movements, which generally got a lot of members and support from the young, get as much steam as they did, if the opponents of such reform could just point to the low civic level scores of the supporters as an excuse to ignore them.

[Sergarr]

That would also probably result in younger generations not being able to advance in citizenship levels if they held different ideals from the older generations. It would almost certainly have made it hard for pro-racial/LGBT equality movements, which generally got a lot of members and support from the young, get as much steam as they did, if the opponents of such reform could just point to the low civic level scores of the supporters as an excuse to ignore them.

That depends on whenever the youth will be able to recognize a question written by "an older generation" person (which could be quite easy, because they tend to have a distinguished writing style) and thus answer it as said person wants it to be answered. Which should be pretty predictable, considering that they don't exactly hide their opinions on the issue.

I mean, it's not exactly a test in the classical sense of the word, as in it's not testing what it says it's testing. It's not testing the knowledge of individual himself and his beliefs, but rather, it's testing knowledge the individual has about all other people in society and what they think. I believe that youth, being more intelligent than the old generation simply due to biological reasons, should be able to win such a contest of wits, if not very easily.