What would you have done?

[Fraggle Rocker]

My problem with pornography of any sort is that we live in an era when anything can be faked. Sure they talk about "digital signatures" and "background noise discontinuities," but that's on "La Femme Nikita." I'm not convinced that in real life it's possible to distinguish a good job of computer animation from live action photography. If it is today, it surely will not be within a year or two and nobody knows when the technology will be perfected because it will undoubtedly be a government agency that does it to use against humanity and then it will leak out like it always does, to the highest bidder or the best spy.

If I were on a jury I would never convict anyone of anything based upon an array of pixels.

So anyway I'm not convinced that people who look at child pornography are looking at actual live videos of children being molested.

That simplifies the ethical question to whether people who like to look at child pornography should be imprisoned. And that takes us to the slippery slope of whether people who like to observe XYZ are absolutely guaranteed to slide down the slope and eventually commit XYZ live.

We libertarians place far too much faith in free will to ever agree with any blanket statement like that. You get to bust people after they've done something. You never get to bust them because you're positive that they will eventually get around to doing it. You're setting yourself up as a god and assuming that your certainty is of a higher power than the other person's free will. And that is the first stirrings of majoritarianism -- democracy at its ugliest.

We have all kinds of inventive techniques for preventing people from doing very dangerous things that we believe they are going to do, without having to throw them in prison. Even unrepentant drunk drivers get hard-wired breathalyzers in their cars. And in terms of damage to society, unrepentant drunk drivers are right up their with child molesters, and way beyond the level of people who view child pornography but don't actually molest children.

So I don't give a damn what the law says. (We libertarians have no patience with laws that the government has no actual right to enact because they violate the constitution, anyway, so this is no stretch.) I will not call the cops to investigate behavior that I do not believe should be classified as criminal.

That doesn't mean I will ignore it. We are not weak, spineless robots who rely on the government to create a nice environment for us. We can keep an eye on the guy and we can tell everyone not to let him near their children. Some people don't keep good track of their childrens' activities and they are the ones we should be stomping on. Whether the children fall prey to a molester or start smoking ganja in the sixth grade or have uprotected sex in the eighth, parents need to do a far better job of parenting and all these kids wouldn't be walking around like victims waiting to be victimized in the first place.

It's OK for private citizens to discriminate against people they don't like, as long as it's not the rather small list of protected classes that we've spent a couple hundred years defining: ethnic minorities, religious minorities, women, gays, the handicapped, etc. We can discriminate against OJ Simpson because we all believe he's guilty and we can discriminate against people who like child pornography because we don't trust them. But what we can't do is transfer the ability to discriminate to the government because the government is the most inept executor of responsibilities ever created. They're always getting the wrong guy or letting the guilty guy go free because of a technicality, or outlawing the wrong things, or simply turning our society into a mobocracy because of a poorly thought-out prohibition.

We can't tell the cops to throw this guy in jail because we believe there's a hundred percent correlation between child pornography and child molestation. (In fact we don't even think that, it's well below a hundred percent in all clinical studies that weren't directed by the government.) But we can be the guardians of our own freedom and that of our children. It works better that way, it's a hell of a lot cheaper, and it doesn't create a government that starts getting too big for its britches like the one we've got.

So I pretty much agree with everything that was done here with one very important exception: I would not, under any circumstances, bring the government's inept and easily corrupted thugs into the picture.

 

[zanket]

So anyway I'm not convinced that people who look at child pornography are looking at actual live videos of children being molested.

That guy arrested for making an atomic bomb in his garage had faulty instructions? Then let him go I say.

 

[fadeaway humper]

That simplifies the ethical question to whether people who like to look at child pornography should be imprisoned. And that takes us to the slippery slope of whether people who like to observe XYZ are absolutely guaranteed to slide down the slope and eventually commit XYZ live.

Irrelevant, libertarian bullshit. People who like to observe XYZ are encouraging other people to actually commit XYZ live. Absolutely guaranteed.

Oh, but I forget: individual rights are sacred, as long as they are YOUR very own individual rights, isn't that so?

 

[Bells]

I'm still amazed that possessing child pornography is not illegal in your part of the world Magi. Here in Australia we've just had a very public crack down on people who possess child pornography and lets just say that people from all walks of life were caught and are being charged... be they police officers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, politicians as well if I recall correctly, etc. You did the right thing by reporting it. Had you not and he had actually been the one to take the photos or create the films, not reporting it would have ensured that it would have continued.

I have to agree totally with fadeway here. By not making the possession of child pornography illegal, it sends out a message to those who create it that it's ok to do so as long as you don't get caught because there are still peons out there who like downloading and storing it on their computers and its legal. While your friend may not have taken the photos himself, just downloading it on purpose (and you said that the policeman originally looked at 20 to 100 images?), makes him just as sick as the people who created it. Had it been one or two images that were installed into his file through pop-ups that you sometimes get (as in he did not intentionally download the images himself), then it would be a totally different matter. But to actually search this stuff out on Kaaza intentionally, then by all respects it should be a criminal offence.

As to his parents suing you. Well no court should ever allow such a case to continue as it would set a dangerous precendent. The fact that you've stated that some have lost in such cases astounds me. Maybe its time you started to harrass your local representative and your State representative to try and get the laws changed. Contact the media if need be. Invasion of privacy by looking at confidential files and reporting it or making it public is one thing. But when such files are the product of a crime, then that's another thing altogether.

 

[Bells]

So anyway I'm not convinced that people who look at child pornography are looking at actual live videos of children being molested.

Surely you're not saying that just because the image is not live then the child was not molested? While the images may not be 'live', the child was molested for the images to be captured.

That simplifies the ethical question to whether people who like to look at child pornography should be imprisoned. And that takes us to the slippery slope of whether people who like to observe XYZ are absolutely guaranteed to slide down the slope and eventually commit XYZ live

Tell me something fraggle. If your child's teacher liked to look at child pornography, would you be comfortable in letting your child stay back after school, alone with this teacher?

As you've said, that teacher may not commit the crime, they just get pleasure in looking at photos of children being raped, abused, sexually assaulted. If they like to look at the images, if they actually set out to attain these images, they do so for their own pleasure. While they may not commit XYZ themselves, they like to look at images of others committing XYZ and dream about it. They get pleasure from it. So again I ask. Would you let your child remain alone in a classroom after school with a person who gained pleasure from looking at children your child's age being molested by an adult?

We have all kinds of inventive techniques for preventing people from doing very dangerous things that we believe they are going to do, without having to throw them in prison. Even unrepentant drunk drivers get hard-wired breathalyzers in their cars. And in terms of damage to society, unrepentant drunk drivers are right up their with child molesters, and way beyond the level of people who view child pornography but don't actually molest children.

Child molesters don't just damage society as a whole. They damage the individual children they molest forever. So what do you suggest one should do to people who like to look at child pornography as a preventative measure? Castration? Cut off their hands so that they cannot hold a child? Stop them from having contact with children just in case? You can't hard-wire a person who likes to look at child pornography the way you'd hard-wire a car for a drunk driver. You can't even compare it. Creating child pornography is a crime. So how can you honestly say that looking at the images gained from a criminal activity and gaining pleasure from it not a crime? After all, the images are created not solely for the pleasure of the creator, but for the pleasure of those who seek them out. When you bite into a bad apple, do you throw it away or do you cut it up to try and find the one bite that may not be worm infested, with the knowledge that some small worm may have infested that one piece that you can't see with the naked eye?

So I don't give a damn what the law says. (We libertarians have no patience with laws that the government has no actual right to enact because they violate the constitution, anyway, so this is no stretch.) I will not call the cops to investigate behavior that I do not believe should be classified as criminal.

I'm sure the parents of those molested children would thank you and kiss your feet. Don't call the cops if you are ever in such a position. But just keep in mind that your child could one day be in such a position and ask yourself if you'd want the person who discovers such images to report it to the police.

That doesn't mean I will ignore it. We are not weak, spineless robots who rely on the government to create a nice environment for us. We can keep an eye on the guy and we can tell everyone not to let him near their children. Some people don't keep good track of their childrens' activities and they are the ones we should be stomping on. Whether the children fall prey to a molester or start smoking ganja in the sixth grade or have uprotected sex in the eighth, parents need to do a far better job of parenting and all these kids wouldn't be walking around like victims waiting to be victimized in the first place.

Interesting. I doubt you even know the meaning of being a civil libertairian. As a so called self-professed civil libertarian you feel disgusted at the thought of reporting it to the police, but feel no remorse at telling everyone about him/her even though you yourself have no idea whether they have molested children themselves because you have no way of investigating whether they did it or just looked at the images? How hypocritical of you. You're not a civil libertarian. You're a vigilante.

And tell me something Fraggle. Do you spend every waking moment with your child? Do you sit in your child's classroom every single minute of every single day?

 

[robtex]

My problem with pornography of any sort is that we live in an era when anything can be faked. Sure they talk about "digital signatures" and "background noise discontinuities," but that's on "La Femme Nikita." I'm not convinced that in real life it's possible to distinguish a good job of computer animation from live action photography. If it is today, it surely will not be within a year or two and nobody knows when the technology will be perfected because it will undoubtedly be a government agency that does it to use against humanity and then it will leak out like it always does, to the highest bidder or the best spy.

If I were on a jury I would never convict anyone of anything based upon an array of pixels.

So anyway I'm not convinced that people who look at child pornography are looking at actual live videos of children being molested.

That simplifies the ethical question to whether people who like to look at child pornography should be imprisoned. And that takes us to the slippery slope of whether people who like to observe XYZ are absolutely guaranteed to slide down the slope and eventually commit XYZ live.

We libertarians place far too much faith in free will to ever agree with any blanket statement like that. You get to bust people after they've done something. You never get to bust them because you're positive that they will eventually get around to doing it. You're setting yourself up as a god and assuming that your certainty is of a higher power than the other person's free will. And that is the first stirrings of majoritarianism -- democracy at its ugliest.

We have all kinds of inventive techniques for preventing people from doing very dangerous things that we believe they are going to do, without having to throw them in prison. Even unrepentant drunk drivers get hard-wired breathalyzers in their cars. And in terms of damage to society, unrepentant drunk drivers are right up their with child molesters, and way beyond the level of people who view child pornography but don't actually molest children.

So I don't give a damn what the law says. (We libertarians have no patience with laws that the government has no actual right to enact because they violate the constitution, anyway, so this is no stretch.) I will not call the cops to investigate behavior that I do not believe should be classified as criminal.

That doesn't mean I will ignore it. We are not weak, spineless robots who rely on the government to create a nice environment for us. We can keep an eye on the guy and we can tell everyone not to let him near their children. Some people don't keep good track of their childrens' activities and they are the ones we should be stomping on. Whether the children fall prey to a molester or start smoking ganja in the sixth grade or have uprotected sex in the eighth, parents need to do a far better job of parenting and all these kids wouldn't be walking around like victims waiting to be victimized in the first place.

It's OK for private citizens to discriminate against people they don't like, as long as it's not the rather small list of protected classes that we've spent a couple hundred years defining: ethnic minorities, religious minorities, women, gays, the handicapped, etc. We can discriminate against OJ Simpson because we all believe he's guilty and we can discriminate against people who like child pornography because we don't trust them. But what we can't do is transfer the ability to discriminate to the government because the government is the most inept executor of responsibilities ever created. They're always getting the wrong guy or letting the guilty guy go free because of a technicality, or outlawing the wrong things, or simply turning our society into a mobocracy because of a poorly thought-out prohibition.

We can't tell the cops to throw this guy in jail because we believe there's a hundred percent correlation between child pornography and child molestation. (In fact we don't even think that, it's well below a hundred percent in all clinical studies that weren't directed by the government.) But we can be the guardians of our own freedom and that of our children. It works better that way, it's a hell of a lot cheaper, and it doesn't create a government that starts getting too big for its britches like the one we've got.

So I pretty much agree with everything that was done here with one very important exception: I would not, under any circumstances, bring the government's inept and easily corrupted thugs into the picture.

Weather or not the pixels are real or not the person viewing them are pretending they are and masterbating to it.
You may be a libertarian but I am guessing you are not the spokesperson for them. I am sure that a lot of them would be annoyed if they knew you were voicing opinions for the whole group on the advocation of viewing child pornography.

A drunk driver while dangerous is not a predator a child molester is There unfortunately no stats on the correlation of child porn watchers to child molesters but I would contend that of the people whom do watch porn that most people watch what turns them and more importantly what they like to do when engaged in acts of intimacy. People that favor oral sex heavily are probably more apt to buy oral sex tapes and preform that with their partners during intimacy. People who are gay probably buy gay porn and choose same sex partners, People who have a fantasy for public sex probably are partial to outdoor sex videos doggie sex to doggie sex video ect ect..and people who prefer

SEX WITH MINORS probably buy mostly or exclusivly child sex videos. It follows the same logic. People are not going to buy or download porn that does not turn them on in mass quanties. The line of arugement shouldn't be so much that child porn watchers don't commit child molestation but that they are more apt to because they find it pleasurable. That is reality.

On the last footnote nobody can tell the cops to throw anyone in jail. They can report a potential crime like magiawen did and than let the professionals handle it. Police officers have to get a license to practice their profession for a reason. I have friends who are police officers and can tell you as a matter of fact to get licensed they have to know a lot more about the law and about public safetly than most laymen will ever know. I find it disturbing that you seem to trust someone who views child porn more than someone who is an officer of the law.

 

[MagiAwen]

I need to comment on this statement I made earlier

The officer that first arrived to check out my allegations (before viewing said files) said, "Possessing child porn is not illegal, but making and/or distributing it is."

This is what I was TOLD this was not and is not the LAW. I believe this officer told me this because I probably looked like I might be some sort of threat to this man's public safety. But just as Fraggle said, you cannot or it is very hard to convict someone of a crime they have not committed. Granted, possession of child porn IS illegal but I have NOT YET found a case where that was the only charge.

Zanket posted a link for "proof" that child porn possession is illegal but if you read the article, as I have ready hundreds of articles and case histories, they are charged with possession AND making it, selling it or otherwise distributing it as well.

However, just as owning say a sawed off shotgun that is shorter than it is supposed to be, if that gun was registered, not in the possession of a felon and was not used in any crimes, the only thing to be done is what? A fine and destruction of the weapon. They don't haul to to jail because you possess the gun and you live in a bad part of town so it must have been going to be used in a driveby or drug shooting or something.

Fraggle said:

I'm not convinced that in real life it's possible to distinguish a good job of computer animation from live action photography. If it is today, it surely will not be within a year or two and nobody knows when the technology will be perfected because it will undoubtedly be a government agency that does it to use against humanity and then it will leak out like it always does, to the highest bidder or the best spy.

Wow there's a whole lot o' conspiracy and paranoia in that statement. I can guarantee you there is and always will be a way to tell whether or not something is computer generated. Possibly not to everyone but to enough people and yes government agencies to be able to complete an investigation.

So I don't give a damn what the law says. (We libertarians have no patience with laws that the government has no actual right to enact because they violate the constitution, anyway, so this is no stretch.) I will not call the cops to investigate behavior that I do not believe should be classified as criminal

I don't know a whole lot about libertarians, I purposefully keep myself ignorant of some things as they always end up being a basis for arguement and contention. That is not to say I ignore everything like it has nothing to do with me. But you make Libertarians sound like anarchists. Huh. Is that what they are?

The question so much is not that looking at child porn is a criminal act as the fact that they were real videos of real children really being sodomized and sexually assaulted. That is a crime. It may not be a crime to watch it but it is a crime to do it and also one to not report it. He may or may have not been technically commiting a crime by viewing it and he may never act on his sexual desires to be with a child intimately, however the people who made the material did commit a crime.

 

[laughing weasel]

I do not like police but I respect their function in society. They keep people like me from becoming violent mobs and accidentally killing innocent people they perform an unbiased investigation and if there, is enough evidence then society tries and punishes the criminal. This is not a perfect system but it the best one so far. It works a lot better than destroying someone reputation by spreading rumors. I support registering sex offenders after we convict them not before. I am not qualified to investigate weather some one is guilty or innocent nor do I have the time that is the police’s job. No disrespect but I do not think tat any one on this board (except for police officers) is qualified to do so.