I agree with above posters who say that opposition to pedophilia is a non-partisan issue.
Although, can you just picture a debate where one candidate tries to brand the other as “soft on statutory rape”? Whooooooo!
As to whether the tactics practiced by those devoted to preventing sexual exploitation of children seem to butt up against the practices of various repressive types, I can see some validity there.
I think the parallel arises from the fact that our justice system tends to be REactive instead of PROactive. That is, we tend to allow acts to occur, then punish them, rather than try to prevent them from occurring in the first place, other than using the threat of punishment as a deterrent. More direct means of prevention are generally left up to the individual.
This system has proven to be ineffective in dealing with child sexual abuse. Leaving protection of the children up to the children themselves is not realistic, and laying the burden on the parents gives free reign to those parents who abuse their own children. There are certain professions (e.g., teachers) who are legally responsible for the report of any signs of sexual abuse, and other precautions, but in the end, the only non-intrusive way to put a sexual predator behind bars is to wait for them to have their way with a child, then catch and prosecute them. This involves the sacrifice of an unspecified number of children.
While there are many “sting” operations against various crimes where the benefit to society can rightfully be questioned in light of use of resources and loss of personal freedom, I would say that pursuit of child predators is not one where you’ll find a whole lot of reasoned argument against it, other than from radical libertarians.
To say that such pursuit is an unreasonable infringement of rights is to suggest that there is a vast number of now-dead people who spent their lives thinking about sex with children, writing about it , making art about it, discussing it, promoting it, etc., while never once in their entire existence making any moves to engage in the act itself unless “provoked”.
I would venture to say the list of such people is extremely small, and that tactics used to draw them out to where they can be caught before they harm a child are unlikely to snag an “innocent” victim.