Who's to say it wont embolden them to do it again?
You be the judge - sexual assault?
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Who indeed? I'm only asking about this time. Without a perceived threat, is there an assault?
They (the airline) would know about it, of course. They could get him off the airplane quickly once he landed so no one saw him.
Well, no, you've been saying that THINKING about doing something could be a crime. It cannot be. There needs to be action. THAT is cut and dried.
Once that action is taken, then you start getting into circumstance and intent. Did he intend to go into the bar and kill the guy? Then it's premeditated murder. Did he go into the bar, get into a fight and kill him as a result of the fight, not out of an intent to kill him? Then it's manslaughter. Did he intentionally kill a guy because the guy had a gun and was holding the bartender hostage? Then he would likely not be charged with anything.
But no matter how hard he THINKS he wants to kill that guy, until he acts, there is no crime.
I ASKED you if thinking about something could be a crime and I accepted your answer.
OK, sorry. I wasn't sure if you had.
OK, a person takes photographs of his friends' children in various states of undress--states which normal people would regard as innocent and acceptable, i.e., not perceived in any way as suggestive, pornographic or erotic. He disseminates these photos online (dark web) amongst a network of pedophiles. Neither the children nor the parents have any knowledge of this, and it never gets back to them at any future stage. Still a crime, right?
I think I would have to say no, it shouldn't be. Same as it shouldn't be a crime to distribute drawings of pedophilia or stories about pedophilia. No victim, no crime.
Then he can't predict the future. That would presuppose the assaulter himself doesn't know how much of a threat he is; he doesn't know if he is going to get caught. Yet, knowingly chose to commit a crime. The only way it is not a crime is if he actually believes it is not a crime. The laws will make him pay for it, however, unless something like politics, or being in the midst of re-writing laws gets in the way.
I thought of how what I posted above should affect the leg humping scenarios in the OP I made, but when you laugh at the absurdity of such a task, it's the thought that counts.
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Do you actually believe our current civilization would benefit from this?
No. Peeping is always a crime. Looking isn't.
If something is on public display and you happen to see it, without taking any action, no crime.
If you take some action to be able to see something you're not invited to see, it's peeping and it's a crime.
C'mon! This ain't rocket science!
The crime is in the act, not in the perception.
From what I hear about stuff happening with female snowflakes glancing at someone the wrong way is almost same as raping and getting them pregnant
Not indictable.From what I hear about stuff happening with female snowflakes glancing at someone the wrong way is almost same as raping and getting them pregnant
Only what you do - to whomever you do it, snowflake or rustflake, date-rape drugs or spiked punch, high-school hijinx or college exuberance, or whatever - what you actually do may be a crime. So, don't.
There are lots of questions in this thread about what is and isn't a crime.
The answer to that question is usually simple, because these days most crimes are defined by statute. That is, there is a specific, written, body of law that specifically sets out the elements of each crime. There used to be common-law crimes too - including staples like murder and theft - but those have now been codified in most places.
There are also wrongs that aren't crimes. Many acts give a person a right to sue another in the civil jurisdiction, even if they are not crimes that can be prosecuted by the police.
And, of course, there are perceived moral wrongs that are neither crimes nor breaches of the civil law.
With that in mind...
As for assault, different types of assault are commonly covered in many different laws that deal with particular circumstances. Generally, assault tends to require that an act makes the victim apprehensive of imminent harm to the person.
For many offences, judicial officers can exercise some discretion in sentencing, although there are usually guidelines as to what they can and can't take into account. Typically, statutes set maximum sentence limits, but not always minimums.
Some crimes have mandatory sentences in some jurisdictions, set by statute.
Start with the commission of the crime. Clearly, a theft of the nickel took place, provided the relevant intent was there on the part of the offender. (If he took your nickel by accident, it's not theft, for example.)
The next question is the penalty for the crime. In this case, a court might well decide that the process of going through a trial in itself would constitute sufficient penalty for stealing a nickel, for example. But would this case ever go to court in the first place? It is most unlikely. If the police were on the spot when the crime occurred, they might well ask the offender to return your nickel. They might take other actions, too. If, on the other hand, you were to report this crime to police at a later date, most likely you would be advised that the police time and effort and public expense involved in pursuing the criminal would not be justifiable given the sum of money involved. That wouldn't mean there was no crime, of course. This would be a crime that went unpunished. Of course, if you could identify the offender, you would have the right to privately sue him or her for the return of your nickel, although I'm guessing that, like the police, you would make an economic decision as to whether to pursue the matter.
The answer to that question is usually simple, because these days most crimes are defined by statute. That is, there is a specific, written, body of law that specifically sets out the elements of each crime. There used to be common-law crimes too - including staples like murder and theft - but those have now been codified in most places.
There are also wrongs that aren't crimes. Many acts give a person a right to sue another in the civil jurisdiction, even if they are not crimes that can be prosecuted by the police.
And, of course, there are perceived moral wrongs that are neither crimes nor breaches of the civil law.
With that in mind...
In the case of theft, noticing is typically not a required element of the crime. Theft is typically defined as something like dishonestly appropriating another's property with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it. See the elements? Dishonesty, appropriation, property, intention of the perpetrator - all right there in black and white. Those are what need to be established in a court for a successful prosecution for theft.
As for assault, different types of assault are commonly covered in many different laws that deal with particular circumstances. Generally, assault tends to require that an act makes the victim apprehensive of imminent harm to the person.
It's not an assault, for starters. See why? The fear being provoked is not a fear of imminent physical harm to the person, for example.
It might or might not be. It depends on the particular definition of assault that is being applied. Note also that the question of whether it is a crime is separate from the question of whether a wrong has been committed.
Again, it depends on the elements of the crime, as defined. As a rough generalisation, though, the victim's knowledge is typically less important to a crime than the perpetrator's intent. Having said that, there are certain offences where intent is irrelevant. These are strict liability offences; do the crime and you do the time, regardless of your intent. Think of speeding fines, for example. your excuse that you didn't mean to break the speed limit won't help you to avoid the ticket in court (though it might influence the police officer's decision to decide to charge you with speeding in the first place).
Crimes are typically defined more specifically than by reference to vague notions of "harm". See the example of theft, above, for example. There is no mention of harm in that definition.
The matter of sentencing of an offender is a separate matter from the determination of guilt. There are many aims to sentencing offenders, including rehabilitation, punishment, denunciation, community protection and deterrence (specific and general).
For many offences, judicial officers can exercise some discretion in sentencing, although there are usually guidelines as to what they can and can't take into account. Typically, statutes set maximum sentence limits, but not always minimums.
Some crimes have mandatory sentences in some jurisdictions, set by statute.
What do you think?
Start with the commission of the crime. Clearly, a theft of the nickel took place, provided the relevant intent was there on the part of the offender. (If he took your nickel by accident, it's not theft, for example.)
The next question is the penalty for the crime. In this case, a court might well decide that the process of going through a trial in itself would constitute sufficient penalty for stealing a nickel, for example. But would this case ever go to court in the first place? It is most unlikely. If the police were on the spot when the crime occurred, they might well ask the offender to return your nickel. They might take other actions, too. If, on the other hand, you were to report this crime to police at a later date, most likely you would be advised that the police time and effort and public expense involved in pursuing the criminal would not be justifiable given the sum of money involved. That wouldn't mean there was no crime, of course. This would be a crime that went unpunished. Of course, if you could identify the offender, you would have the right to privately sue him or her for the return of your nickel, although I'm guessing that, like the police, you would make an economic decision as to whether to pursue the matter.
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Clicking is not entirely a distraction, but is hardly necessary.
Something goes here about what he is trying to maneuver around; and also something about "climate change"↑. It's just that we see so much wrong in his apparent gaslight about fearmongering:
1) General application presumes "fearmongering" true.
2) By this presupposition, we inherently discount aspects of fraud about fearmongering.
3) Climate change presents a strange context for analogy:
2) By this presupposition, we inherently discount aspects of fraud about fearmongering.
(a) We are also similarly discounting incitement to violence.
(1) It is not especially unusual around here that I shrug at one's argument requiring their own immense ignorance; to wit, I have a hard time taking seriously the requisite proposition that Sideshowbob does not know what fraud or incitement to violence are.
3) Climate change presents a strange context for analogy:
(a) Those who consider "climate change" to be "fearmongering" overwhelmingly tend to disbelieve the general proposition.
(b) For those who accept a general scientific consensus that human influence on climate, i.e., climate change, is real, the question arises whether Sideshowbob accepts conspiracy theories about evil women and rape reporting are true, or thinks that manner of slander and libel is somehow proper, either for being not untrue or, y'know, whatever.
(1) Our neighbor is unlikely to declare climate change an invalid proposition or some manner of conspiracy theory, as such, though maybe that is some manner of easy prejudice, because I haven't paid such close attention that I couldn't have missed Sideshowbob denouncing climate change.
(b) For those who accept a general scientific consensus that human influence on climate, i.e., climate change, is real, the question arises whether Sideshowbob accepts conspiracy theories about evil women and rape reporting are true, or thinks that manner of slander and libel is somehow proper, either for being not untrue or, y'know, whatever.
One troubling aspect of my own outlook is that there comes a point in life and daily experience when I say, "Brain chemistry is brain chemistry." The acknowledgement makes a weird practical difference, I think, in trying to understand the black man having a bad day and the white cop who shoots him to death for having a bad day, or the woman trying to tell us something very important and the male cop calling her a criminal suspect because she reported a crime. To the one, it's really easy to say the black man doesn't need to die just because he's having a bad day. To the other, the implications of the male cop threatening the woman just because he's suddenly having a bad day are terrifying. The implications of the white cop having a bad day not particularly for danger but, rather, blackness, are staggering and nearly societally existential.
Scaling back to our moment, what if it's not a calculated gaslight? Brain chemistry is brain chemistry; as a practical matter it's harder to enumerate, in any given case, the functional implications about the differences 'twixt blindly reacting and thereby landing in a range, to the one, and cooly reacting by calculating how to land in that range.
Acknowledging masculinism, as such, long enough to observe the phrase, "War of the Sexes", there comes a point at which an apparent failure of the masculinist political argument insists, and that has to do with the point of brain chemsistry being brain chemistry somehow making a given moment inevitable. The seemingly unrelated image above makes a certain point; the three mug shots are of a family that was arrested after police showed up in response to an apparent DV call. Beverly, the mother, is thrashed apparently because she jumped a cop. Scott, on the right, apparently picked up that head wound attacking a female officer who went to the aid of a third, her partner. And look at Gary, in the middle. You know why he's under arrest? All he ever did was strangle that third police officer unconscious for trying to intervene in Beverly's assault of the one. And that's the thing about brain chemistry being brain chemistry: Get these people through the moment alive, and they will at some point cease being an imminent threat. This part seems obvious in its own right, and, certes, there is a question of individual and public safety in any given moment, but that's the thing about the brain chemistry of the cops, a perception that these people are white enough to foresee such a time of reduced or absent threat, which is granted white people choking cops to unconsciousness but not a black man walking away. We should, however, take a moment to honor the professionalism of the police; not only did they not shoot the white family, we also lack any reports that they stopped at Burger King on the way to the station.
In the War of the Sexes, there are many detailed routes, but more generally we might suggest a couple or few pathways, by which we arrive at the prospect, oft-denounced as radical, that men are inherently dangerous. And in this case, as with pretty much any achieving this threshold, we only arrive at such consideration because of what he said. I do a morbid joke about the difference 'twixt sinister and stupid being difficult to discern; in the question of brain chemistry being brain chemistry, the obvious problem, whether we find it on one path or another, such as blindly reacting and landing in a dangerous range compared to calculating one's ingress to that range, is the fact of and relationship to the range in question.
There is also the morbid joke that any excuse will do, and the question of whether raping her↑ such that she does not realize she has been raped↑ because she is unaware of the sexual act↑ is still rape↑ really does make some point of its own just for having come up. In the end, all this argument is after is a man's right to a freebie↑; we might note the repeated comparing of women to currency, and even with declining value↑. Indeed, women are so objectified as a man's sex toy in Sideshowbob's argument that sexual assault, per the topic example, and, explicitly, rape, as established in later discourse, are not something done to a person, but, rather, "'something' done in her presence"↑, according to the principle "that she doesn't know about" it.
The point isn't just to bang on Sideshowbob and rape advocacy, but to make the point that actually paying attention to what men say when certain questions arise is one of the reasons people wonder at and consider inherent danger. How does this actually relate to any one person's state of mind? In the given moment, where is this going? Does one instinctively land in the range, or instinctively calculate to achieve the range?
It's one of those weird things; Infinite Prevention Advice would have a woman guard against all potential rapists, and while feminists object as a human rights question, men apparently blame feminists for the objectionable advice because it makes all men suspect; but while all that is going on, I don't know, maybe men, as such, could just stop presuming privilege and arguing for freebies. It's like, yes, yes, we get you, sir, not all men are rapists; humanity is just really, really better off if more of them to stop acting like they are or want to be.
And even in terms of Sciforums compared to reality, well, sure, there is always someone around to raise that disgusting banner, but it's not like some newbie just stumbling through as that old pretense has it, and it's not like the penguin made them do it↱.
In that sense, we've been here long enough for an old sense of human commonality to erode. I used to make the point about one of our colleagues that he and I could probably drink beer and watch football together, we both believed in America but just disagreed about how to do it, and all that. I've not been so certain about that for a while, but the other interesting thing to consider is the flip-side of the penguin's innocence. Way, way back, there was a guy I argued gay rights with; I had previously lived and worked the fight in a state where he still was. Years later, he would show deeper detail of his supremacism including alt-right rape advocacy. And while it's true people change, he didn't become a misogynist overnight. Nor did our neighbor Bob.
Nor am I anxious to do the line about how men so often presume entitlement we actually need to learn to not be rape advocates. Oh. Well, there we are, then.
And the thing is that if the penguin really did make them do it, we're still talking about their own priorities. Just like landing in the range for reacting blindly. Why land there? Or calculating ingress. Why go there?
Perhaps it feels more visceral today because it's not ineffable; I can actually kind watch its pieces move. To the other, perhaps it feels less visceral other days because it's just not existential for me the way it can be for, well, women.
Here's where I turn to the fourth wall and drop something about how the problem is that it perpetually looks and sounds dangerous. And, well, duh, it is dangerous. But it's not just one person's inherent danger, as such; the nature of the argument extends to cover all heterosexual men. How ... er ... ah ... okay, whatever.
(sigh)
The children in identifiable photographs may, as they grow older, and especially if they attract attention from the viewers of those photos, regard themselves as having been victimized. Threatened, at a minimum. Are they wrong?
And certainly they signed no model release - they could sue anyone except the kiddie porn guys for that. So why not the kiddie porn guys?
Bells
Staff member
And you don't think stealing from a rich person can cause harm?
How do you define harm, exactly?
I'll give you a perfect example.
Your 12 year old daughter goes to see a doctor, and the doctor requests a urine sample, then tells your daughter to undress, get on her hands in knees and he then inserts a catheter into her urethra to obtain the urine sample. Your daughter believes this is how it is done, as her doctor has always obtain urine samples this way.
No harm right?
No crime?
That same doctor, is the doctor your family have always taken your children to. Terrific pediatrician. Very thorough. In fact, he inspects your daughter's vagina from the moment she was only a few weeks old. He sticks his hands into her diaper and touches her vagina. She is unaware of it of course. So no harm and no crime, right?
As per your argument, Dr. Earl Bradley should only be charged for the cases of rape, where he molested and raped his young patients so violently that they had to be resuscitated.. Then again, they were probably unconscious, so has a crime actually been committed, because they would not have known about it?
If Dr. Bradley's victims are unaware that anything untoward was happening, or if they were not conscious or even capable of understanding what was happening (such as with the babies), has he really committed a crime, sideshowbob?
Did they?
I am responding to you and your comment though, particularly about the sexual assault and questioning if it is really a crime if the victim is unaware that it happened. For example, if a woman is drugged or drunk and is raped while unconscious, or if a woman is on an operating table, knocked out and is raped by her surgeon.. Do you think those are crimes?
I'll give you a comparison..
Case A
Involves several doctors how sedated or gave their patients anaesthetics and sexually assaulted and raped them while they were knocked out. The patients were often unaware of what was happening, since you know, these women were knocked out. Like these doctors:
Years before Dr. Frederick Fieldwas convicted of sexual abuse and rape for assaulting some dozen patients under anesthesia, another Oregon physician, David Oliver Burleson, was sentenced to five years in prison after being charged with sexually assaulting multiple patients under anesthesia. A California plastic surgeon, Peter Lieh-Chuan Chi, was accused of sexually assaulting dozens of female patients, from ages 16 to 57, many of them while they were unconscious during post-operative exams. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to charges involving 36 patients and later was sentenced to six years in prison.
Case B
George Doodnaught of Canada, who worked as an anaesthesiologist at the North York General Hospital in Toronto, was found guilty of sexually assaulting the women while they were under anaesthetics.
The victims were aware of what was happening, but were unable to move their limbs, the court heard.
Doctor Doodnaught kissed the patients as they lay on the operating table. He fondled their breasts and made explicit sexual remarks.
In 13 of the cases, he was accused of placing his penis in the mouth or hands of the victim.
By you, sure.
But not by the child. In fact, not only is the child unaware of what has happened, but the child has not been harmed at all. So, is it still a crime?
And then have fearmongering get to the point where people act on it to commit crimes because they have been incited to commit said crimes...
Something something about incitement goes here.
Dr. Bradley really connected with his patients. They adored him. He was fondling them, jamming his fingers into their diapers and vaginas as he cooed at them and they cooed back. Is there really an assault? After all, there is no "perceived threat".
You know, most people, after digging themselves into this kind of stupid hole, would have given up by now and possibly even outed themselves as a troll...
We would tut crankily, close the thread, issue an infraction and move on.
Not you though, champ. No no, you just keep digging.
So I will say what is probably on everyone's mind right now upon wading through the fetid arguments you have presented throughout this thread, only to come to this:
Have you lost your fucking mind?
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Bells, I find your response immoderate. There is no way that sideshow bob is any kind of troll and I don't find the arguments foetid.
I think it is quite an interesting question to debate what constitutes a crime. It is only natural that some rather unpleasant examples should be brought forward in order to tease out where the line lies between criminal and merely objectionable.
I was just thinking that crime probably encompasses not just acts that cause harm to the victim , but also loss (as in unnoticed theft) and danger (as in speeding). The case of distribution of innocent photographs to those who, due their sexual perversion, might finding them exciting is a tough one where children are involved, for obvious emotional reasons that we all feel strongly. One feels is ought to be crime but I am not sure what the grounds would be.
Perhaps we should instead use a similar example we can all agree is absurd enough to find funny rather than sinister: shoe fetishists on the dark web! Suppose someone has a collection of high-heeled shoes to sell and takes photos of them, being worn by a young woman, in order to facilitate sales on Ebay. Someone gets a copy of these and circulates them to shoe-pervs on the dark web. Is that a crime and if so, on what grounds?
If we can answer that, perhaps we can then see how the case changes if the photos are of people, not shoes, and why.
My suspicion would be that it is something to do with the concept of privacy, by which we mean a particular sort of intangible property that a person is deemed to possess. So infringing privacy causes someone to suffer effectively a form of loss.
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Invasion of privacy with the potential to cause them harm (how can you know it "never gets back"?)
Reckless endangerment at least.
I agree with exchemist.A very interesting (philosophical) question.
Nobody has mentioned "intent" yet although my "reckless endangerment" seems to take some account of it.
Or, you can pick an actual event. Some doctor who grew up in a country where female circumcision is practiced normally, emigrates to a Westernized country. He performs the operation there, gets arrested and doesn't understand why.
I think he should be convicted because, it would be a sign of a regressive state to say the least.
Another crime... I knew I was breaking the law by having
in my pocket as I mentioned in the OP, but charging me of a crime wasn't worth it.- Status