221–230 of 315 posts
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There was no jury. This was a Supreme Court ruling.
Which is inexcusable. The Supreme Court is clearly corrupted and failing at its one job.... which is to shut stuff like this down and be a check on the irresponsibility of the legislative and executive branches.
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No victim means no crime. (Morally, I'm using the word "crime" here to refer to a moral crime.) But it also means that the prosecution of such non-crimes is itself a crime, meaning the "guilty" party here is the victim and everyone involved in their prosecution, up to and including the supreme court, is criminal.
This is hard to do in practice. I've heard someone vehemently defend a relationship they had at 14 with an older fellow. They categorized it as a positive experience that helped them discover themselves. It may have even been 13; I forget. Was it a crime? It might. be tempting to say no, but laws do exist as a deterrent.
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No victim means no crime. (Morally, I'm using the word "crime" here to refer to a moral crime.) But it also means that the prosecution of such non-crimes is itself a crime, meaning the "guilty" party here is the victim and everyone involved in their prosecution, up to and including the supreme court, is criminal.
This is hard to do in practice. I've heard someone vehemently defend a relationship they had at 14 with an older fellow. They categorized it as a positive experience that helped them discover themselves. It may have even been 13; I forget. Was it a crime? It might. be tempting to say no, but laws do exist as a deterrent.
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It's not easy to frame someone successfully, the law is pretty careful about stuff like this. However you could probably get someone fired or develop a bad rep.
My wife uses a local mail client. So recently, I was helping her find an attachment. And I happened to browse the embedded images folder. She was very surprised ;) Anyway, putting someone on a CP spam list, and then getting them busted, might well do it.
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I think the abortion discussion is much easier than its made out. I like Peter Singers approach to ethics which sets the goal to be avoiding of suffering. Now the question is easy: at what stage of the pregnancy can the being suffer? The entire abortion conversation is completely ruined by most people wearing glasses colored with existence bias.
If avoiding suffering is the issue ten anyone can be murdered morally under the right conditions. I can stab you in your sleep (painlessly), and that would be fine according to this criterion.
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I think the abortion discussion is much easier than its made out. I like Peter Singers approach to ethics which sets the goal to be avoiding of suffering. Now the question is easy: at what stage of the pregnancy can the being suffer? The entire abortion conversation is completely ruined by most people wearing glasses colored with existence bias.
If you like Peter Singer's approach so much, then you agree with him that one should be allowed to "abort" babies for a long time after birth as well? No? I guess it's not so easy after all.
So effectively yes, this is already the state of things, and there is no serious movement to restrict this form of post-birth abortion. Who would have imagined that all it would take for abortion to gain acceptance is to frame it as a religious liberty?
(correct answer: anyone who's lived in America)
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> There's a quote about doing the same thing and expecting different results... It's the definition of insanity. The abortion topic is interesting because we're talking about how we socially define a human life in a realm where science can't help at all (or at least has failed to give a concrete answer thus far). If it was an accepted truth that human life begins at conception, then abortion is murder. Even our laws…
There is a lot to disagree with in your statement. First, you use "murder" incorrectly. Abortion, in the US, is legal, and therefore not murder. Murder is defined as an illegal killing. That is why when someone is given the death penalty, they are said to be killed, not murdered. We say soldiers kill the enemy, not murder the enemy. By using "murder" you are adopting the conflation that anti-abortion activists have b…
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> There's a quote about doing the same thing and expecting different results... It's the definition of insanity. The abortion topic is interesting because we're talking about how we socially define a human life in a realm where science can't help at all (or at least has failed to give a concrete answer thus far). If it was an accepted truth that human life begins at conception, then abortion is murder. Even our laws…
There is a lot to disagree with in your statement. First, you use "murder" incorrectly. Abortion, in the US, is legal, and therefore not murder. Murder is defined as an illegal killing. That is why when someone is given the death penalty, they are said to be killed, not murdered. We say soldiers kill the enemy, not murder the enemy. By using "murder" you are adopting the conflation that anti-abortion activists have b…
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Actually I do agree with that as well. Where I'm much more of a bigot is when it comes to the much more obvious issue of how we treat animals. I was a vegetarian for several years but have up on it because I didn't believe it was making a difference. If we had a vote though to ban animal slaughter and especially factory farming I'd vote for it in a heartbeat.
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> No victim means no crime This isn't true in the least. Jaywalking and speeding can be done in a world with "population: 1", yet caught on camera would constitute a crime.
Well, that example is pretty bad. There is no jaywalking crime when you're the last man on earth.