I don’t see either as dangerous. Offensive, but so long as the pedophile promotes his cause through the democratic process, it presents no danger to children.
Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights deals with freedom of thought and religion.
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights deals with freedom of expression.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties
and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities,
conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed
by law and are necessary in a democratic society,
in the interests of national security, territorial integrity
or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime,
for the protection of health or morals,
for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others,
for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence,
or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
That is the most milquetoast set of “rights” I’ve ever heard of.
It basically says you have these “freedoms” until we decide you don’t.:rolleyes:
I am going to talk just about the point of lowering the age of consent. As far as I know the age of consent varies from 12 to 25 around the world. Wikipedia says there is a range of 12 to 21 years of age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent
Also, as far as I know, in various places around the world the age of consent for sex has been lowered from before. Someone must have actually done some work to have the age of consent lowered. Does that mean those people were pedophiles? Obviously not.
I think the age of consent has been decreasing in law and in societal mores for decades around the world. These people in Netherlands are trying to lower it more(as well as other things).
I think they are wrong. I think the age of consent should be 16 or 18 even. I do not consider most 17 year olds able to make a good decision on sex.
On the other hand I do not think the police should be spending any significant time or resources trying to prosecute 17 teen year olds having consensual sex.
Exactly right, pkbites.
As a European I’m thoroughly ashamed of this piece of crap. Few, if any, countries would have the balls now to give people the rights embodied in the US Constitution.
You guys don’t know how lucky you are.
Some of us do, believe me.
I’m not sure how that is obvious?
I have to agree with you here, on both points. I do think that age differences or other balance of power issues do have to be taken into account. Two 12 year-olds having sex…well, I wouldn’t call that a crime, although I would have a lot of concern for those 12 year-olds and why they are so sexualized so young. Two 17 year-olds (or a 17 year-old and a 18 or 19 year-old having sex is not maybe the smartest thing in the world for them to do, but again, not a crime, and certainly understandable from a hormonal point of view.
On the other hand, the 18 year-old with a 12 year-old, a 30 year-old with a 17 year-old is a very very different thing. When there are these kinds of age discrepancies (or as I said, another power issue going on, like one party is a teacher, employer, etc.), it seems clear that there may be some sort of coersion or undue influence going on, which is completely wrong.
I am trying to think of a reason, though to shut down a political party that advocates sex with children. Seems to me, there is some kind of freedom of speech issue here. On the other hand, it also seems that there should be some kind of constitutional protection of children that would make changing the law impossible, so why have a political party that advocates it? But of course I don’t know enough about Dutch law to know if this is the case.
The party is fine by me. In Denmark we have parties from everything from one that propose mandatory pot smoking to one that calls itself the Cosmic Love Party by Mr. Fatman. They never get more than 0.0002% of the votes - except once, when a commedian was voted in on a platform that promised wind on the back of all cyclist and bigger christmas presents. He was quite appaled to get elected.
EU rights are not, as far as I know, entered into any country’s constitution. All EU countries, except Birtish, have their own national constitutions, which can be compared to the US constitution.
umm… Do you have some weird attractions you’d like to share BrainGlutton? But I guess you can rebook to Copenhagen, since bestiality is quite legal here.
To be scrupulously accurate, Britain does have a written consitution, albeit an uncodified one: that is to say, it is made up of a mixture of common law, statute law and judicial precedent that is now regarded as “fixed” and significantly more important than the majority of other statute law. It could be argued that since the EU Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into British law in 1998, it is now part of our “constitution”.*
As far as the OP goes, I have no objection to the “Paedophile Party” (great marketing, guys!)- it shows a healthy respect for free speech which is otherwise threatened in many parts of Europe. OTOH, as others have said, were I a Dutch law enforcement officer I would be paying significant attention to the meetings of said party.
Nitpick: Shouldn’t we techincally be calling them a “hebeophile [sp?] party”, since they want to lower the age of consent to 12?
*Ignoring the fact that the Cabinet pays little or no attention to the HRA, even when it is backed by judicial rulings. See also: Afghan hijackers dispute last month, ban on, in turn, detention without trial and house arrest (2003/5) and various others.
One of my friends told me about this the other day. My thought was: big deal. Unless a significant portion of the society feels the same way about the issue, nothing will change. This is a social issue, not a legal one. Sometimes the two are out of step, and occasions like this allow societies to correct an imbalance. I’m pretty sure that in this case nothing will change though.
The current mess of consent laws in the US stems from the varied success of turn of the century morality pushes. The initial arguments were geared toward protecting innocent young women from the predations of older men. Then, as now, legal solutions to social phenomena were largely prompted by prejudice and an overwhelming need to get involved in someone else’s business.
predations
There are probably 12 year olds who do want to have sex. Some of them, I’m sure, will want to or will actually have sex with older people. I don’t see a problem with that situation, as long as both participants are willing. The problem comes in when coercion and force are involved. Neither coercion nor force should be tolerated in any relationship, much less a sexual one. Fortunately, pretty much all societies have both laws and social repercussions to deal with those situations. Currently, I think the US sometimes goes too far.
We now have sexual harassment laws that put a big damper on people meeting at work and starting a relationship, partly because many people view the balance of power to be problematic (possibility of coercion). I have quite a few friends whose parents would never have met under these circumstances since they met at work and even flirting is discouraged at many workplaces. We’re now seeing a huge surge in social networking solutions to the problem created by it being socially unacceptable to find someone to date at work, where people spend an increasing amount of their waking hours.
My parents met when my mother was 16 and my father was 24. California law now, and then I believe, would have treated their relationship as statutory rape. My two younger sisters and I would not exist if my parents had had to deal with the same social conditions as now. Nor would another one of my friends, who is also the oldest of three, and whose father is 10 years older than his mother. My first few sexual experiences were technically illegal, since I was underage and doing it with people who were much older than I. The current attitude, that only people 18 years old or older are responsible enough to have sex, is frankly ridiculous in my opinion.
When you get into the position of legislating morality, you often get into the difficulty of judging where to draw the line. In debates about this very subject, the age of consent, you rarely see a consensus. Some people even think the age should be set higher than when they themselves first had sex. I think that it’s actually much easier to figure this out on a case by case basis since the cases are self-screening. If there’s a complaint, there exists a possible case of coercion or force being used. Both force and coercion are much easier to objectively determine than the age at which everyone should be able to have sex. Most rape laws would work for charging a perpetrator regardless of the age of the victim; consent laws are almost superfluous.
My God… it’s full of fangs.
It is never simple. There are a lot of countries where 12 year olds are given in marriage to older men. (see the mormons and Utah). It isnt necessary in America. We live longer and dont have to produce children at a rapid rate. An agrrarian society produces children to work on farms and help the family survive. It is sadly a reflection of economics not morality. We politicize and criminalize for economics. This week the Senate debates the marriage act. Why?
Because they think they can score political points,get re elected and gather more money. It is not remotely a threat to marriage.
In America sex with young gets you in trouble. (jerry lee lewis). It is wrong and unnecessary here. We allow our children to grow up slowly and make their own choices. It is a luxury we can afford.
That hasn’t happened in the mainstream LDS church in about a hundred years. Polygamists that practice this are not recognized by the Mormon church. Most Mormons are quite conservative with regard to dating, which typically doesn’t begin until the age of 16.
I wonder if this party wasn’t assembled as a response to both recent police busts of pedophile rings and/or a quirk of Dutch laws complicating the police investigation of political party officers/employees/activists or the like (perhaps enacted in an earlier wave of legal reforms, in response to a political party in power abusing their office to harrass their opposition with everything from illegal wiretaps to spurious tax audits, say). I have no idea if such abuses have ever occurred in The Netherlands (since WWII, anyway) or if there are extra administrative or procedural steps involved in such police surveillance of registered party operatives – I’m just throwing this out there as a hypothetical possibility.
:smack: Jeezus Gawd! Is that for real? Is that really him?
Yeah:rolleyes:, I can actually see 12 year old pre-pubers wanting to bed down with THAT! Yikes!:eek:
hehehehe. It’s one of them, yes.
At the moment he has to make do without his summer-caravan, because the other campers objected - ahem, if that’s the word - to him being on the same playground as the children of above named campers.
In Spain the age of consent is 13. That does not make sex between a 13yo and anybody else automatically legal - estupro (rape by someone who is in a position of power over the victim) can happen at any age.*
The reason to have an age of consent that most people see as way too low, and which is our lowest “maturity point”, is gipsy marriages. Traditional gypsies marry as early as 13 and don’t do the paperwork - therefore, they’re seen as “cohabitation” by Spanish law (don’t ask me for links, please, my sources are in Spanish and either newsprint or oral). Thus, listing 13 as the age of consent was done in order to avoid illegalizing a practice that had been in place for several hundred years.
Most parents, neighbors and teachers would still drag in front of a judge, by any appropiately painful organ, anybody 20+ who had sex with a 13yo.
- The figure of “estupro” has almost dissapeared due to some legal inconsistencies; “rape with the aggravant of threats to do worse damage” seems to be replacing it.
Actually, I’m pretty sure the teeth are photoshopped. The picture in my daily paper looked like that, but without the uh…well, the “my god, it’s full of fangs” factor.