Yes, you are...because you know that a toddler can not consent. You just aren't sure exactly what the age should be.
State determines lots of things about children. Does requiring children to go to school also strip them of their ability for self-determination? What about requiring children to be in the care of parents or guardians....don't they have the right to self-determine if they want to live on the streets? Parents make medical decisions for their children...are we robbing them of the ability to self-determine whether they want those "ouchie" vaccination shots?Is it right for the state to deny someone the right to consent, based on personal feelings/social mores/arbitrary rules about their particular age? You can look at the extremes and say yes, but what about the middle cases? It's very serious for the state to become the arbiter of who can and cannot consent to something. It's a rather insidious idea - consent is the fundamental foundation of a liberal society, to say that someone can't consent is to strip them of their entire ability for self-determination.
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply,” Stephen Covey.
That is exactly what I said: law making does not necessarily reflect science, which is why religious morale, for example, may carry more weight into changing a law than new scientific findings. It is also what commonly happens...
Anyway, you still have not grasped - or are being purposely dense - the difference between age of consent and maturity. The former reflects what we believe is right or wrong, for a number of reasons, it is a law and yes, we do not all agree on what is right and wrong; the latter explains the stages of cognitive development and it is based upon scientific research. According to science a 14 year old is not in the same developmental stage than a 34 year old, thus she simply cannot give the same informed consent an adult would do because she is not an adult yet - I am keeping the feminine because of the article but of course the same goes for boys. If the law puts the age of consent at 14, the 34 year old will not have any legal trouble but he will still be fucking a person that is nowhere nearly as mature as he is, that is just a biological and psychological fact.
The difference in the age of consent among teenagers is that teenagers are in the same developmental stage, meaning there is not such an high risk for manipulation or emotional abuse. If we were to follow what psychology and neuroscience tell us, we would have brackets for age of consent that correlate to the stages of maturity: circa from 12 to 17 y.o., then from 18 to 26 y.o. and finally from 27 y.o. on. Obviously, the law would become very complicated and likely never pass! Try telling people that the new age of consent for sex among adults is 27 because before that humans are not quite adults yet...
How do I know? I'm not in their heads. Why don't you think the "not ready at 40" is equally ridiculous anyway?
And once again you're begging the question, who gets to decide at what exact age you're a minor?
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No, it's also possible that there is no age at which it changes and that different people mature at different rates and times.
You don't think that robbing someone of their ability to consent is a little more serious than fining their parents if they don't go to school?
And actually as you'll no doubt know from this very forum parents making medical decisions for their children is also a controversial topic. Also, minors can emancipate themselves from their parents if they can show it's in their best interests. You can't emancipate yourself from age of consent laws though, the state has decided it knows better than you.
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And they get to decide what constitutes "a child"?
If your argument didn't say how old you are, this would have said it.
As much as it's been derided, religious-based morality would indeed carry a lot of weight.
I'm beginning to wonder if your even old enough to be posting here.
The people created the state. Why is this difficult to grasp?
If you want things to change you have to convince people. And your posts as well as one other's, have already been interpreted "as defending an adult's desire to screw children."
So get out there and tell people that an adult should be free to do whatever with a 10yr old.
But you damn well better not live in the US. We have Megan's Law here.
Answered twice, then you ask it again?
How many times does it take to sink in?
If you had children or even cared for them you wouldn't be talking this shit.
So if you think your older than me...(not likely. I recall that there might be two others here that might be...and you were neither of them) I can only conclude that your "in the closet."
But think! What happens when you go public with your arguments that de facto defends child predators?
I don't think this is a compelling rebuttal. I say things here that I don't say publicly; this isn't because I don't genuinely think I'm correct but because we have a cultivated a social system that deeply punishes even the slightest defection on certain matters. In some ways, I think this is basically OK, but it does mean that anonymous discussions will tend to be more open and tend to have more room to explore taboo ideas.
I think Mormolyce's views on this topic are viscerally repulsive, but that isn't actually an argument. I've mostly stopped engaging in this thread and it's basically because I think even discussing the idea of a 13 year old consenting to sex with an adult ticks me off and doesn't add value, but if someone's going to discuss it with these people, it's worth engaging with better arguments than "someone would hit you IRL".
Well yeah, like I said, I'm not going to bother. I stopped engaging people after roughly the 14th lap around the autistic relationship to the world that a bunch of people in this thread have. All I'm saying is that it's not compelling to basically say, "your argument is socially unacceptable".
When you think about how we legislate stuff into laws...it actually is.
For example, in MA, "upskirting" wasn't illegal until a particular case became hot with the media, moral outrage and complaints flew fast. Equally fast was legislation. I think it took all of one day to get that bill signed into law.
Which is a good thing. Good morality ( while subjective to what is good ) is a important force against evil in the world. And any attempt to justify sex by a adult with a minor is evil in my opinion. It is just my opinion and not one supported by some laws, but sex with anyone who is not a legal adult by a adult should be unlawful.
I'm in complete agreement...even the "morality" part, which tends to shift at times with every generation or so. I just hope that the current context doesn't shift to a point where morality becomes irrelevant. Maybe I'm getting old and sappy, but I a tend to take a reassured pleasure seeing little children play, the innocence I equate with puppies, kittens, and butterflies...let them play just a little longer.
You understand this is a bad thing, right?
Not by anyone with an ounce of sense. Fun fact: You can make an argument without supporting whatever it is you're supposedly "defending".
The second sentence has absolutely no relevance to the first sentence.
There is no such thing as "good and evil".