Without further ado, let’s kick off round 2 of the Great Glibs Debate Series! This sees Jarflax square off against PieInTheSky. Topic as given: Sensationalism aside, it does anecdotally seem that there is an increase in stories of adult female teachers having sexual liaisons male teenagers; this is a topic that always seems to sharply divide the Glibertariat whenever it comes up. Many Glibs point out that male teenagers may, in fact, enjoy the affairs, while others argue that whether they enjoy it is irrelevant; still others bring up double standards if the genders were switched. To me it brings up larger questions of age of consent and the vagueness inherent in making hard-and-fast laws to problems with fuzzy borders. Thus, the topic is whether age of consent laws are, in and of themselves, ethical. If so, why? If not, why not?
Sex is a very fundamental, and therefore very powerful thing. People are as psychologically damaged by rape and abuse as they are by extreme violence. Children cannot protect themselves, and therefore need to be protected from sexual abuse. Parents have primary responsibility for this protection. However, in order to preserve the peace and avoid vendettas we have delegated punishment of crime to Government. This means that we have to either decide that sexual abuse of children is not a crime, or we have to craft laws that define sexual abuse.
Criminal laws that are vague are inherently unjust, because they allow people to be punished for behavior that they reasonably believed was allowed. That means that laws have to draw bright lines that allow people to know whether or not something is a crime.
So why can’t we just use the same rules we use for adults, and define sexual abuse based on consent? The problem here is that children are not born with the capacity to consent to things. You cannot consent to something unless you:
1. Have some degree of understanding of what the thing that you are consenting to is. (knowledge)
2. Have some degree of understanding of the context that allows you to at least guess at the consequences. (judgement)
3. Have the ability to say no to the request. (will)
The whole process of growing from birth to adulthood is the process of developing these three things, knowledge, judgment, and will. At some point the child has developed enough of all three to be capable of consent, before that point they are not able to consent. Age of consent laws, imperfect as they are, are our best attempt at a rule that allows us to define that point for the purpose of punishing abusers.
PieInTheSky
Age is just a number, as a vaguely creepy saying goes – and it holds a kernel of truth. It is fairly strongly correlated to development in humans, but not fully. Humans take a very long time to mature and are vulnerable in the meantime. The world dangerous and the young require protection. This, for most of history, was simply a parental duty, but, like in most things, it has been taken over by government via law. The ethics of a law are, in general, related to fairness, justice, and proportionality. Does it address a problem correctly without making things worse and without too much potential for abuse?
Human sexuality is, I don’t need to tell anyone, messy. There are a lot of, pardon the expression, blurred lines and there are no easy solutions. Just because there are no easy solutions, it does not mean apply something simple but wrong. Is a fixed age of consent – a number – the ethical way to protect the young from sexual exploitation? Age of consent does not have something objective underlying it. Is 20 to young? 18? 16? Why? This does not take into account circumstances, individual variation in maturity and, importantly, whether there was any harm done.
The essence of law should be justice. There is no justice with an arbitrary number as a fixed age of consent. Someone may be perfectly competed to give consent at 16, someone else not so at 18. Age of consent in themselves punishes the first while failing to protect the latter. Yes, an adult can manipulate a 16 year old into sex, but it can be the other way around, or it can be fully consensual. Legal age can be a matter of a calendar day and an insignificant biological change. The law ignores all this and basically says: A and B have sex this week, bad; next week, all fine. While there are predatory adults, often age of consent issues come from mostly young people barely out of their teens themselves, and not fully mature, who can have their lives ruined by consensual exercise of what youth hormones lead to.
An age of consent is not quite justice, just an expedient and generic way to “do something”, because something must be done, this is something, QED. Sure protect the children, but find a proper way. I would say that we can have a clear no before biological puberty – not tied to an age, but to a biological event. After biological puberty, on a case by case basis, should there be reason for suspicion, malevolence can be detected and punished without indiscriminately prosecution people who did no harm.
Vote here!
Chicks, foxes, and eye candy?
Or is that a vixen?
Dammit.
I hate debates where both sides are respectful and make good points.
Here. Have a song while I think some more about this.
Wasn’t that the whole point of the series?
Seems un-American to me.
^^^THIS^^^
? ?
Tundra, you ignorant slut!
Pie for the win.
Nice. I think i’m supposed to recuse myself or something.
If you are old enough to keep a site such as this going, you are old enough to consent is all I’m saying.
Hey, no arguing your point in the comments, especially with disguised appeals to authority!
“Disguised”? It’s right out in the open.
Cover up, Pie!
Fine. I did not say much last debate so I won’t now. Although I de feel these debates need a counter argument phase…
Oh, I was just giving you grief trying to be funny. I do agree with the counter argument phase, maybe if this happens again, the arguments should be sent to the other debater to respond to before posting?
To be fair, previous debate was against a lurker so not the same
Before you do away with age of consent laws you need to first become comfortable with eliminating age requirements for a binding contract, as sexual relations are an unspoken contractual agreement.
Well, that’s an interesting take.
Are you being factious, because I feel like that’s exactly what Jarfax was implying and I think it’s a pretty solid point.
Not at all facetious, my thought went from “contract? ridiculous” to “wait a minute, let me think about this a bit”. Not really sure where I come down on it at this point.
I like Pie’s point about biological puberty. What would happen if all of our laws (not just sexual ones) were aligned to considering people adults at age 12 or 13 instead of 16, 18, 21, or 26?
There’d be a lot more kids on the streets as parents kicked them out en masse.
Given what I know of teenagers – it’d be godawful. Who here was not a fucking moron at those ages?
Hey!
I’ll have you know I’m still a fucking moron.
Or a moron, fucking.
But you are a Minnesoda guy so that’s redundant
Just because socialism made you a teenage moron is not a good reason to increase the socialism.
This isn’t about biology, its about agency. As Caput points out, if you aren’t (deemed) old enough to consent to much of anything, how are you deemed old enough to consent to sex?
I think we can either do case-by-case, or have an arbitrary/bright-line rule. 18 seems pretty old for a bright-line rule on sex, but 16 seems too young for a bright-line rule on everything else.
My objection to statutory rape laws has to do with mens rea. Sure, the consent of the minor may not be valid, but if it was honestly believed to be valid by the “perp”, where’s the criminal intent?
Some states allow considering mens rea, at list in some instances. Pennsylvania’s statutes on sex crimes contain the following section:
OMWC would still be out of luck, but if you can prove that a 16 year old lied about being 18 and you can convince a jury that it was a believable deception you can use that as a positive defense against statutory rape.
Interesting. While I may be a criminal lawyer, I’m not the kind of criminal lawyer who is knowledgeable about the criminal law.
There is a large amount of variability between the states on consent laws, and an awful large amount of willful misinformation. Unless you were a defense lawyer practicing in Pennsylvania I wouldn’t expect you to be familiar, and even then unless your specialty was sex crimes I’d still be wary about your knowledge.
unless your specialty was sex crimes
Who says its not?
Oh, you meant professional specialty. Never mind.
looks around at the partners of the firm
Checks out, carry on.
Aren’t all lawyers criminal…s.
New York is a strict liability jurisdication – even if they lied and had a fake ID, if they were in fact underage, you are guilty.
A friend’s younger sister was having a school debate about raising the driving age, I suggested the following slogan:
When you are old enough to drink, you are old enough to drive.
I liked it for all the wrong reasons.
It seems retarded on the facts that people are “allowed” to drive long before knowing how alcohol affects them. At the very least the drinking age should be abolished.
18 seems pretty old for a bright-line rule on sex, but 16 seems too young for a bright-line rule on everything else.
IMO, this seems to bake in a worldview. Namely the “teenagers are idiots and shouldn’t be in charge of their own lives, but sex is a normal teenager thing” worldview.
What do you do about the modern left, who does not believe in biology?
Putting aside your assertion that sex creates a contract for a moment, the core issue is the same regardless. Entering into contracts, or sexual relations, or imbibing alcohol, or using anything containing nicotine, all entail possible long term consequences be they legal obligations, pregnancy, or addiction. We, in the loosest possible definition of the word, have decided that certain decisions cannot, or rather should not, be made by people that cannot fully grasp the potential ramifications. We can enforce such strictures in two ways, by deciding on a case by case basis whether someone is competent enough to have freely made the decision, or short circuit the process and decide that anyone above a certain age is presumed to be competent. The question of which system is better seems to be the real argument.
In general libertarians tend to favor case by case stuff (even in economic/safety/enviroment regulations) though this does not necessarily apply to getting frisky
Ignore this, I should not be commenting.
Nonsense, you just shouldn’t be commenting on topic. Here, some local news for you to comment on.
stock photo, aint no snow global warming fucked us up.
Then wouldn’t every sexual interaction have to be litigated regardless of age? If you say only those relations with children need to be evaluated on a case by case basis aren’t you already imposing age of consent?
Do we litigate every contract?
Yes.
*files suit against RBS*
We don’t allow minors to enter into binding contracts without a guardian and I’d imagine even those contracts are litigated at a higher frequency than standard contracts between adults.
But, if you’re completely eliminating age of consent and each instance is a case-by-case basis then I imagine there will be a slew of similar cases.
Then wouldn’t every sexual interaction have to be litigated regardless of age?
You just gave a gaggle of feminists an orgasm with that proposition.
The lawsuit is the sexual act for them. They get off on it.
Prostitutes are cheaper than lawers.
Depends on who you want fucked.
And you feel less dirty for hiring them.
And how do you determine the case-by-case basis? Maybe an “adulting” license with some set of questions to ascertain the applicant’s mental maturity?
You can drink, have sex, drive, smoke, work, you name it at 12 if you’ve passed the test?
What if you never pass?
Most people won’t.
Case-by-case still doesn’t obviate the need to make some judgement about fitness. You can leave it to the courts, but that’s not changing the fact that someone is making the call. Maybe an “adulting” license. If you can pass some test of mental maturity, you get the whole litany of adult rights and responsibilities (sex, drinking, driving, voting, etc.). The downside of that, of course, is I’m not sure I’d pass the test even yet.
Who designs the test? How can you prove the test shows maturity?
We can’t pretend as if the case-by-case method somehow reduces government involvement more than age of consent. They both require government
Age of concent is less of a proactive intrusion than an adulting test.
An “adulting test” (off topic, but I hate the word “adulting”) would inevitably develop in a case-by-case situation. Especially in our common law system
No, it would result in Top Men designing a qualification system for… everything. On your RealID, you could have all of your qualifications listed — driving a car, driving a motor cycle, driving a bicycle, driving a scooter, driving on federally funded roads, drinking 3.2 beer, drinking liquor, drinking alcohol mixed with caffeine, drinking soda, voting in local elections, voting in state elections, voting in federal elections, smoking maryjuwana, smoking tabaccy, eating sugar, eating gluten, eating nitrate-cured meats, eating meat…
The best part about this is it would give LEO an excuse to stop and check to make sure you were qualified to do any particular thing they observed you doing, PLUS when you swiped your card to prove you were qualified to engage in any particular vice like drinking booze or buying bacon, it would generate a record of your activity to the government so they could make sure you weren’t abusing your privileges…
Would there be a learner’s permit?
There would be a curriculum designed by the finest minds in the social sciences to ensure you were being taught in a culturally sensitive manner.
*grabs ak & pops tin of 7N6*
The debate is really just centered around “what would be the best method to employ government in said situation”.
Unless you’re willing to go full ancap, that is always the question when debating criminality.
Well said. Let the bugaloo commence
Folks, this was intended as a pointed joke. Ultimately, any system is going to draw on some standard. And, if you’re concern is Top Men devising the exam (and it’s a legitimate one), how do you get around the fact that you’ve got Top Men (judges) doing the case-by-case judging? Age is a lousy standard, and it misses a lot. But, at least it’s a objective standard.
And again, the case-by-case situation will inevitably result in some form of an “adulting test”, just like there’s the “Lemon Test” and all the other moronic tests that common law courts devise in order for their to be some sort of uniformity in their rulings.
A simple age of consent law is actually the less government alternative.
“have decided that certain decisions cannot, or rather should not, be made by people that cannot fully grasp the potential ramifications”
Congress, for example.
I believe in most countries those ages are not the same and not viewd as the same…
Are those the same countries that think Roman Pulanski is the bees knees and Americans are fuddy duddies for frowning on kiddie rape? Are they really the best example for your case?
I disagree. It is like saying a minor can’t go to McDonald’s by themselves because ordering a Big Mac is a contract.
If you reject the notion that it is a contract any different from purchasing a product then do you also reject paternity acknowledgement? If it’s no different than purchasing a product then isn’t the man’s part of the exchange finished once he has finished?
We play coy when we reduce sexual relations to simple transactions, but no one actually believes that they’re the same
I don’t see sex as different from any other interaction. All interactions need to be consensual or it’s a violation of the non consenting person’s rights. That is what needs to be litigated, the violation of rights, not a violation of statutes.
Do you actually believe that, though? You see no difference between a thirteen year-old being allowed to sign-up for the military and a thirteen year-old buying a cheese burger?
The military can set its own standards. Why would they want 13 year olds? For the rest it’s a parenting issue more than a legal issue. If your 8 year old is in the bar pounding shooters and smoking blunts, you are a bad parent.
So, you are honestly contending that you see no problem with a thirteen year-old enlisting in the military? Forget why the military may want to draft thirteen year-olds (I mean they do a lot of drone warfare now so a couple of video game weathered thirteen year-olds may fit right in controlling killer flying robots), it’s a significantly different contractual agreement than buying a cheese burger.
And I feel that sex, likewise, is significantly different from smoking blunts or drinking. Sex effects two people. Not all sex is without repercussion. Not just pregnancy, but also sexually transmitted disease makes that contractual relationship significantly different from ingesting whatever you want in your own body.
I think policing the world so parents don’t have to raise their children is a bad decision. Hysterical hypotheticals can be used to justify any law.
I just don’t see age of consent laws as some kind of “moral panic” driven endeavor. It just seems logical to me and we all pretty much agree that there are certain things that a ten year-old should not be allowed to do as we might allow an eighteen year-old to do.
there are certain things that a ten year-old should not be allowed to do
Is it just me, or is it kind of odd that OMWC is sitting this one out?
If a parent is letting a 10 year old go out with 40 year olds, they are a bad parent. If a 10 year old is seeking a sexual relationship they were likely abused. That is already illegal. People get laws passed with extreme cases and it’s alway people are the margins that get punished most.
If it’s legal for the 10yo to be engaging in those relationships, you can’t say for certain the abuse laws are still there.
you can’t say for certain the abuse laws are still there.-
No, that’s like saying if you allow for self defense you have to repeal murder laws.
My issue is picking hard ages makes an act illegal regardless of consent. It’s legal to have sex with a 60 year old. If she has dementia and is unable to give consent it’s rape. It’s not the age that’s an issue, it’s the lack of consent. Does every sexual encounter have to be litigated? No, only the ones where a victim files a complaint. If 17 yo is happy banging a 21 yo, it’s none of the court’s business.
It took this long for someone to finally bring up parents and the state removing their responsibilities.
It is like saying a minor can’t go to McDonald’s by themselves because ordering a Big Mac is a contract.
Its not a crime for a minor to enter into a (commercial) contract. Its that the contract is unenforcable against the minor. Since Big Macs are a cash transaction, enforcability isn’t an issue.
Sex is a one time transaction too…for me. ?
Do you mean “one-time” or “cash”?
Or both?
The prices always seem to go up after the first taste. I’m not made out of money!
Huh. Oldest known photograph opf a snowman 1853. But there were records of them going back to 1380.
I suspect people have been making snowmen since they first figured out snow could be sculpted.
So you’re saying Snowmen can consent?
Don’t stick in in Icy.
I’m guessing that writing your name in the snow is eons older.
You’d need writing first, so probably not.
It was in your Mom’s handwriting, Trebek!
Stuff like that makes me wonder what other kinds of things people used to do before photos and people writing things down.
They used to bang 13 year olds.
*Bringing it back on topic*
Snowman.
The appropriate amount of time having past, now to off-topic . . . . a show I might actually pay to see.
Just the headline at Slate — I wasn’t going to click through.
HOW TO DO IT
I Had an Orgasm During a Professional Massage With a Man. Should I Tell My Husband?
Uh huh.
They charge extra for that.
Pretty sure it’s a crime. She should call the cops.
And admit to solicitation?
Fake news
Should I Tell My Husband?
According to some internet documentaries I saw, you should make him watch while it happens again.
I liked the pro-age-of-consent argument even though I tend to find the age of consent laws too often arbitrary. It’s possible that we’re more likely to discuss more controversial cases when the age of consent laws seem to be particularly unjust.
Or maybe the fox picture that I saw while reading the pro argument pushed me in its favor.
There is also the point of vigilantism. Not that there’s inherently wrong with seeking ones own justice. And maybe daddy castrating the creepy old dude that banged daddy’s little girl is better anyways. Of course wasn’t that long ago when a single 16 yo was an old maid.
This is just part of a larger question of why people are different before they reach the age of majority.
Until you reach the age of majority . . .
– you can’t vote in elections
– you can’t sign a contract without parental consent
– you can’t get a drivers license without parental consent
– you can’t get married without parental consent
– you can’t get an abortion without parental consent . . . . oops, well some places you can
– you can’t fuck without parental consent . . . oops, well some places you can
When you reach the age of majority you can
– buy a house
– buy a car
– get married
– buy alcohol . . . . oops, not really
– buy tobacco . . . . oops, not really
I don’t like age of consent laws because they’re arbitrary and lead to many cases of injustice.
On the other hand, middle aged people having sex with tweens seems abusive to me.
Re: Playa’s link to Robbie Soave yesterday,
Isn’t it telling that when Robbie wanted a piece of art from the glory days of HyR, he knew he had to turn to the Glibs?
I must have missed it. What’s the context?
Robby was on the twitters asking for a copy of Injun’s Downfall meme, and he atted WeGlibs.
He should have come to the comment section here.
Not because it would be more effective, but because it would be entertaining.
I don’t know about others, but I think Fruit Sushi got a bad rap a lot of times. It would be hilarious to have him write an article about how he learned to change a tire posted on Glibs.
My main problem with Fruit Sushi was all of his knee-jerk “to be sure” nonsense. But he was one of the least bad at TOS.
It reached the point where all I got out his articles were his virtue signals.
I recall the criticism was the prevarication, to be sure.
Sushi never saw a solid libertarian argument that he couldn’t wimp out on in the end. It became grating toward the end.
Shikka was a fucking idiot who always got it wrong. Always.
I have a lot of respect for Robby going up in front of congress and having to endure the haranguing by “academics” screeching about how he is an alt right nazi because he happened to interview Richard Spencer for his book, in which he strongly criticizes Richard Spencer. But you know, he did interview the guy, so LITTTEERRALLLY HHIIITTLLLEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR1111111111111111111111111111111oneoneoneoneoneoneonelevenoneoneoneonehundredeleven
Yeah and he voiced his opposition to the notion of “hate crime laws”. I can’t imagine anyone else at TOS even whispering that before Congress. Not to mention all the grief he got for pointing out the bullshit narrative around the Covington Catholic fiasco.
He is a single balled man in a universe of eunuchs. And I respect his one tiny shriveled ball.
Robby got on my “meh” list for never, ever using the name of the UVA rape fraudster. Thereby supporting the narrative that she was a victim.
At least I think that was Robby. They all kind of blur together in my rearview mirror.
Robbie also took down the Rolling Stone UVA rape story.
And he did it without having a journalisming degree from Columbia!
bad rap was often deserved he had some shit points
Undoubtedly true that he had his own fair share of shit points.
I just mean on the whole, in comparison to his peers, he wasn’t too bad and was sometimes good.
I’ve been guilty of being overly critical of him before
That would have required effort on his part. Twitting is something he was doing anyway.
Searching would have required fewer keystrokes (although likely more brainpower) than twitting about it.
Twitter is love. Twitter is life.
*Kevorkians Not Adahn*
Some university prof/tutor/TA/something got the boot because they showed a Downfall meme. Apparently someone made a Downfall meme about Rico being late with the links over on HnR way back when, and so Robby asked Glibs via Twatter if they could help him find the video, which several people here managed to do by searching “robby late with pm links” or something, on the youtube, which “journalist” Soave apparently hadn’t thought to do.
oh ffs my dang computer took so long to refresh that and now I will go away
To be sure, we still appreciate the effort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsSzsOvojko
Took me all of 5 seconds. I remember seeing this back then.
I honestly don’t know if I found this link here or somewhere else. But on the topic of sex, what to serve when you’re having a lot of it in a relatively short amount of time.
Well argued, gentlemen. I think you both got to the basic issue – the tension between consistency in application of the law (an arbitrary but known age of consent), and “justice” in the individual case, which entails at least the risk of different outcomes on similar facts. There’s no lay-down winning argument here. My main beef with current statutory rape laws (as noted above) is that they are strict liability laws, which I don’t like for criminal laws. Absent that, I tend toward age of consent. I think. If it comes down to who do you distrust the least, legislatures or prosecutors and courts, man, that’s a toughie.
Justice = Equal Outcome is in tension with Justice = Response Matches the Action.
Or, Fairness v. Karma
Age of consent laws seemed to be the slippery slope for every other bullshit age-restricting law. Of which the USA has a shit ton, and Europe not as many. And even if one were to take Pie’s reasonable approach of puberty and apply a reasonable “age” to it – as had been the case in the past – it just opened up further escalation of the age for other liberty-restricting reasons. The longer you authoritatively delay real personal liberty/responsibility, the more likely people will be afraid of such concepts as they live longer without them.
finger makes a reasonable point I had not considered before.
GIT ‘IM!
Amusing spaghetti western trailer for The Mandalorian.
I posted that above, but apparently no one is interested in what I am willing to pay to see.
I am missing a fair number of comments, on account of having an older version of Monocle which won’t update.
I am debating whether to sign up for Disney+ just to watch it. Mrs. Dean is not opposed to Star Wars, so I just might.
Someone posted a link to Critical Drinker over the weekend I think. I think his response was “It’s Ok I guess”.
Look up the review. It’s very good.
I tried to put my 16 year old self in the position of being ‘chosen’ by an attractive (a 3 or 4) female school teacher. What would I have done? The answer came quickly, like a 16 year old. I would have allowed myself to be abused, time after time, and kept my mouth shut. Since it never happened I didn’t have to make that decision.
3 or 4 four… out of 10?
“16 year old”.
At least go for median.
I went to a small school, teachers had tenure…
I had a couple of hot teachers when I was serving my K-12 sentence…
One of them was a 20-something blonde chick; she looked so young that a lot of people mistook her for a student.
Another one was maybe early 30s brunette with a nice thicc figure and ample jugs. One time, my friend and I were discussing her hotness. I said I’d nail her any day, and he sat and pondered it for a while. As he was sitting there pondering, the teacher walked up behind him to get something out of a cabinet. He said out loud, “Yea, I’d totally fuck Ms. _____”. She fucking looked at him with the most shocked, offended, and disgusted expression ever, but eventually just walked away and nothing ever came of it (not that he told me, anyway).
Man i love listening to the floor debates from my state legislature. When they get really riled up there are always arguments where someone makes a point i would make, but in a sneering “What kind of moron would think that”. Case in point, one legislator (arguing against a bill to make holding your phone while driving a misdemeanor and primary traffic infraction), argued that people were not going to stop if the didn’t care already, so what was the point? Well then another Rep got up and said “Well maybe we shouldn’t make any laws then, what is the point if people won’t choose to do the right thing?” Then she went on about how the purpose of the laws were to change peoples behavior. I wonder if she thinks everyone is ready to murder their neighbors and rob banks, but it’s only the laws that are keeping the hordes at bay.
You’re a very strange person.
Isn’t that a given for this particular set of persons?
Sex is a very fundamental, and therefore very powerful thing. People are as psychologically damaged by rape and abuse as they are by extreme violence. Children cannot protect themselves, and therefore need to be protected from sexual abuse.
This (common and widespread) argument always sounds, to me, like, “We must protect children from their own sexuality.” As if that is possible.
Too much Adam-and-Eve-got-kicked-out-of-Paradise-for-filthy-nasty-urges for my liking.
Their age appropriate partners for that are their peers, not someone with a substantial amount of authority over them.
A teacher should be fired and/or publicly censured for inappropriate relationships with a student.
That’s like a President banging an intern.
If you weren’t willing to get on your knees for Bill, you didn’t support abortion rights.
Well, since I oppose killing the unborn… Easy choice.
Not all sex is without repercussion. Not just pregnancy, but also sexually transmitted disease makes that contractual relationship significantly different from ingesting whatever you want in your own body. We are pretending as if eliminating age of consent for purchasing cigarettes is the same as eliminating the age of consent for sexual relations, when we all know it’s not the same.
I once knew a girl in high school who at sixteen was dating a twenty-five year-old. She was…well…very developed for her age and “mature” enough to the satisfaction of a twenty-five year-old. She never brought him around, because we all said that we would kick his ass if he came around. Long story short, at the age of seventeen, after her and dude stopped dating, she found out that she had herpes.
Nothing in life is without repercussion
True. But, I’m not convinced that a sixteen year-old, let alone someone younger, has the mental capacity to understand the repercussions.
I’ve seen recent college grads that were nearly incapable of surviving in the real world.
And I see 16 year olds buying breakfast in the local McDonald’s that are negotiating significant business deals on their cell phones regarding the family farm.
People tend to mature when they are required to mature.
And I see 16 year olds buying breakfast in the local McDonald’s that are negotiating significant business deals on their cell phones
*nods*
regarding the family farm
Suuure. The “family farm”.
Good opsec, though, I’ll give them that.
Look, networking the weed sales counts as agricultural product distribution.
Getting hay delivered and getting a water buffalo moved around.
Interesting code words I guess.
^^THIS^^
“People tend to mature when they are required to mature.”
On average, though, a ten year-old, for instance, lacks the mental faculties to mature to the point of a twenty-one year-old simply based upon life experience. It’s easier to quibble over age of consent between sixteen and twenty year-olds, generally, but it gets a little dicey when we start pretending as if pre-pubescent children can be as mature as an eighteen year-old should be.
I said above I don’t like age of consent laws because they’re arbitrary and lead to many cases of injustice. On the other hand, middle aged people having sex with tweens seems abusive to me.
The crude formula 1/2 your age plus 7 actually solves the “ick factor” for many interactions.
I don’t want a 12 year old to be labelled a sex offender for life for playing doctor with a 10 year old.
But, I’d consider taking my chances with a jury and the shooting a 21 year old that messed with my 10 year old daughter.
The current legal standards are utter crap, but I don’t have a solid alternative to offer up.
“On average, though, a ten year-old, for instance, lacks the mental faculties to mature to the point of a twenty-one year-old simply based upon life experience.”
Are you using a biological study for those stats or a social study? Because the socialist bent of a society is going to dumb down ten year olds much more than a free society would. So you’re letting the arrested development of a socialist 10-year old be your standard.
But, I’d consider taking my chances with a jury and the shooting a 21 year old that messed with my 10 year old daughter-
Where is your 10 yo meeting 21 yo? Why is she being left alone with grown strange men when she is a child?
Where is your 10 yo meeting 21 yo?
No kids huh?
There is no such thing as 24/7 visibility with school aged kids. They are out of your sight for extended periods of time.
No kids huh?-
Nope. Seems like to do it properly it’s too much work.
Teens driving cars kill more teens than teens having sex.
I can see this line of argumentation quickly devolving into talk of gun control or dietary restrictions
No 13-yo should be allowed to buy a Big Mac-10
And high-capacity fries.
“No one needs more than seven fries to hunt a deer!”
-David Dinkum
But every 13 year old boy comes with a factory-installed thing that goes up!
Outlaw males. Its the only solution.
That’s because there’s not enough room in the backseat to move out of the front.
Damnit…
Driving your car while in the backseat is pretty dangerous tho…
Not if you’re tall enough
Just get your teenager a Dodge Demon. It doesn’t come with a back seat. Or a passenger’s seat.
OT:
I have a plumbing/legal question for you Tulpae:
A couple of weekends ago I rented a place at the beach for a few days.
On the second night of our stay(about 30 hours into it with a party of 3 adults), the sewer backed up into the second floor of our rental and I contacted the owner who had a plumber come by to look at the issue.
The plumber says the clog in the line is due to baby wipes being flushed down the toilet and we do have some in the bathroom at the rental. I don’t use them. My wife uses them for makeup or something and assures me she knows better than to flush them. So, the owner is asking us to reimburse them for the cost of the plumber. Normally, if I knew it was something I was responsible for I would have no problem with that request, but my wife has been adamant, after several attempts to get her to ‘fess up that she hasn’t flushed any wipes.
So, the questions are: Is it possible for that much water to back up after such a small amount of time because of a couple of baby wipes? If it were you deciding if we were liable or not, would the fact that we owned baby wipes be enough to meet the preponderance of evidence of liability? Couldn’t the flush have just as easily been done by someone before we arrived?
The volume of water depends entirely on how much has gone down the pipe. Is there another unit in the building? If not, the clog was there for a while.
It’s a 3 story house with the bottom floor reserved for the owners, who were not present.
Was it overflowing on the bottom floor as well, suggesting the blockage was past the bottom floor? If so hard to say what/when the blockage had occurred. If it was between the first and second your position is not so strong.
Its a cost of doing business, landlord should just bite it. You can Yelp, maybe.
The wording from the plumber is “clean main line from outside cleanout to city main”. This is on the ground floor and the rental is the top 2 floors.
Did he actually extract wipes from the clog, or did he see the wipes and jump to conclusions?
The plumbers “report” says a couple of wipes were in the line when they inspected it with a camera.
I wasn’t there when he did it. I had no reason to be concerned at the time since it was being taken care of.
The photos of the aftermath does look like shredded wipes or plastic, and a lot of it.
So could have been caused by any of the 3 floor parties or an accumulation over time. I had my kitchen sink drain clog after 25 years, just a build up of grease. Fortunately I could get it cleaned up my self.
Sounds to me like you have a good case not to pay.
If the flush were done by someone under 18 should they be held liable?
My first question before getting into any kind of dispute is: how much is at stake?
A little over $400.
Enough to argue about, then.
would the fact that we owned baby wipes be enough to meet the preponderance of evidence
Sounds like its too late to show the owner that your wife actually throws them in the trash. At this point, there’s probably little admissable evidence either way. The owner can meet the burden of production – testimony that baby wipes caused the problem, your admission that you brought them into the building. The denial (true or not) that your wife flushed them honestly strikes me as insufficient to prevail.
Offer half.
AIRBnB has their own arbitration process, so I haven’t been taken to court, yet. They’ve suggested I settle for $300.
Liable? Absolutely not. Tell that guy to pound sand.
If you had a toddler throw half a container in and flush ’em? Yeah, i could see your culpability.
Easily could have been previous occupants, or the owners, or just bad luck and the reason is made up.
Were the baby wipes provided by the owner as furnishings? And are they marked as flushable?
No, they belong to my wife.
If it backed up at the toilet, (meaning the toilet overflowed) then it’s likely on you. It only takes one flush and a stuck flapper for it to turn into armageddon.
If it backed up everywhere, like the shower and the downstairs then proximity is moved away from you and less provable/liable.
It backed up into the showers as well. This is why I was asking about such a large volume of water caused be 3 people.
It is still possible that you are the culprit, because the water from the upstairs tenant would have been obstructed at the same juncture that you were obstructed and you got their waste as well as your own.
But it is also possible that the plumber saw the wipes in the bathroom and blamed them, without actually seeing what was really the problem. If he ran a snake, the actual clog tends to get washed away.
Water coming up in your shower means the main line was plugged above the first floor.
We were the upstairs tenant. We occupied the top 2 floors and the ground floor was off limits…reserved for the owner. The sewer was backed up into the 2nd floor…never reaching the top floor and the clog was remedied on the ground floor in the main line to the city main connection.
I’m confident you, your wife, and your friend are familiar with toilets and how to work them. Don’t let this guy put his plumbing problems on you. Also, giving in leaves you in the position of letting this jackwagon effectively calling your wife a liar.
To me, the $400 is worth fighting, especially since you did nothing wrong.
I tend to agree with you. I do see some advantage in making it go away by offering half as Mr. Dean suggested though. As much as I sort of like civil court, I have better things to do.
I guess I’m wondering how much water it takes to fill up 2 whole floors of a house. Seems like a lot of water to be generated by 3 people in basically one night.
What diameter are the drains?
I don’t know. It looked like typical plumbing to me.
I actually had the same type of question and asked for schematics from the owner to ensure there was no other way possible for this to happen.
Also, we don’t know exactly where the clog was.
Since nothing was leaking on the first floor (else you’d never have it in the shower), it was probably above the pipes for the first floor, reducing the volume needed to fill the drain.
Because the water wasn’t draining very well due to the plug in the line. Seems like the first floor would have over flowed first, then keep on backing up to the second/third floor but with the first floor seeing a lot of water.
I have no idea what happened on the first floor since we didn’t have access to it. I know the clog was remedied on the line between the house and the city main, so one would think the bottom floor was hit pretty hard.
Sorry, I’m interchanging bottom floor with first floor.
one would think the bottom floor was hit pretty hard.
If that’s the case, then $200 is a cheap exit. Get a release.
With the $ amount, I’m convinced the clog is above the bottom floor and there was no flooding there,
The water normally comes out of the lowest hole (toilet/drain) before the clog. But the water that comes out can come from every source uphill from the clog.
Was there actually any damage/flooding in the bottom floor?
Since we’re really talking about filling the pipes inside the house (2″ or 3″ diameter), it doesn’t take a lot of water to cause a problem.
Yep. A single shower or two can fill the water lines inside a house.
Camping, my wife has clogged water lines twice with baby wipes and it takes way more than a single weekend to do so. It’s likely those are older wipes someone else flushed that just got snagged on a tree root or abrasion in the line and had nothing to do with the clog.
So.
Having had a wee bit of experience with plumbing issues, I will offer this:
A backup that bad does not happen woth a few baby wipes. It doesn’t even happen with a Kotex or two.
It happens woth years of shit being run down the drain.
The last plumbing issue we had was a clog that was a knot of long black hair shoved way way down in a stack.
We have lived here 14 years.
NONE of us have black hair, long or otherwise. My trusty plumber assured us (becauseI was blaming my son) that it was very old, very deep, and very compacted.
No way did a few baby wipes do that.
My money says he knows about the problem and is using this to get the bill covered.
A future debate should be on changing not having sex.
Speaking of senseless screech – uh – debate. (t)Reason’s comment section has really gone to hell.
Not a complete waste of a site yet.
I found out this exists:
https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/7466139-qasem-soleimani-art
Why would you wear that?
Because you like getting your ass kicked?
Che t-shirt was dirty
There’s a stage that some teenagers go through where they want to offend and shock as many people as possible and don’t really care about the message of what they’re doing. As long as it gets parents, teachers, and popular kids mad at them, it’s a success.
I’ve been there before, then I got slightly less dumb and grew out of it.
That cries out to have a Three Wolf Moon version of that made.
I had never seen that Downfall thing before. Holy moly that was awesome.
Paging Tundra.
Lol!
That’s awesome! Thanks, Mad!
Where does the smoke come out of?
And does it leak (mark it’s territory) all over your table?
Not all sex is without repercussion.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that. Doing (foolish) things for thrills is part of growing up. Climbing trees, jumping off bridges, riding your bicycle too fast down a blind hiking trail, saying something insulting to somebody you have never seen before, fondling that cute girl who sits in the front of the classroom and knows all the answers….
All of those things *can* have repercussions. Sometimes, they do.
*shrugs*
fondling that cute girl who sits in the front of the classroom and knows all the answers
Oddly specific, Brooks.
A 2 or a 3, but Brooks was 16 and needed to pass, and she wanted the attention.
One regrets all of the breasts one does not grab.
No. No, some of those are pretty skanky, and a bunch are actually moobs.
That used to be a thing in middle school. I can only imagine the repercussions today.
Geraldo Rivera✔
@GeraldoRivera
Supporters of @realDonaldTrump have to have the guts to tell him this war is a stupid idea.
I believe Trump has explicitly stated his desire to avoid war.
True, as far as it goes, but I think we need as much:
Supporters of @real
DonaldTrumpAyatollah have to have the guts to tell him this war is a stupid idea.I think someone did.
Khamenei Says Iran Must Directly Attack U.S. Interests
https://www.thedailybeast.com/supreme-leader-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-reportedly-says-iran-must-directly-retaliate-for-soleimani-killing
I think he just sent a message to Iran’s proxies not to do anything dumb. And since we’d retaliate against a direct attack I don’t think Iran wants to go down this path either.
https://www.city-journal.org/howard-stern#.XhTDd6je_Ks.twitter
OT: Howard Stern Pretty Much Sucks Now
FTA:
In any event, this latest round of interviews made for a sad spectacle. A great entertainer was disowning the best part of his oeuvre; a former rebel leader was bowing to the king to win favor at court; a master at skewering high-level hypocrisy had gone over to the other side. “You’ve gone from filth merchant to talk of the town,” Jimmy Kimmel told him in October. Stern’s opening commentaries on the interviews in his new book seem designed to make old fans wince: he considers Madonna “a kindred spirit,” calls Stephen Colbert “very evolved and emotionally connected,” praises Rosie O’Donnell for her “wisdom and graciousness,” applauds Lena Dunham for her “wisdom” and “understanding,” and touts Gwyneth Paltrow’s “humanity.” When Amy Schumer recalls the time her boyfriend touched her without explicit permission and hesitates to call it rape, Stern insists that it was, and concludes by saying, “I want to apologize for all men.” He even manages to work in a sympathetic word for Christine Blasey Ford. And the references to his own “personal growth” keep on coming. After a while, he sounds like someone who’s joined a cult.
Stern’s transformation reached its apotheosis when, on December 4, he welcomed Hillary Clinton into his studio for more than two hours. Even for a longtime fan who’d watched Stern’s persona shift over the years, I found the man who interviewed Hillary barely recognizable. Finally he was the shock jock he had always been accused of being—because his relentless flattery of the former First Lady was truly shocking. It was as if he were determined to prove that he could fawn over Hillary more fervently than her most ardent supporter. “My fantasy,” he told her, “was not only to meet you but to tell you what a hero you are to me. . . . You had the expertise I wanted in a president. . . . I wanted you to be president so bad.” He’d thought that hers would be “a spectacular presidency” because “she cares,” because she knew everything and everyone, and because she had “devoted her life to public service.” He agreed with her that Trump’s presidency has been a disaster and that Trump represents an existential threat to America. Once a hero of free speech, Stern criticized Facebook for not censoring Trump fans enough; one of Hillary’s problems in 2016, Stern told her, was that she had been “too truthful.”
I won’t throw bologna at your ass and you won’t kill me, cool?
“I want to apologize for all men.”
Fuck. Off. That’s not how people interact sexually. Go until she says “no”.
That is nauseating. I never really listened to him, just not my thing, but that’s just appalling.
I never really listened to him, myself, but the first time I ever heard the word “libertarian” was from my uncle who was a big Howard Stern fan back in the day (also Steve Dahl fan from before then).
Anyone remember when Stern floated with running for governor or mayor or something in the LP? Even now, newly woke Stern would still be better than Bill Weld, somehow
Howard Stern Apologist is born.
Haha
I did, every morning, for years. Trust me that this is a complete 180.
Yep, same here. He’s exactly the kind of person he used to mock mercilessly, and his lame explanation is he’s “grown”. Whatever. The show sucks ass now.
As a longtime former Stern fan, I agree with every word of that. What made Howard great back in the day was his irreverence, his ability to puncture overinflated egos, and his disdain and mockery of celebrity culture.
He’s just a Hollywood kissass now. There hasn’t been a reason to listen to him in well over a decade.
“too truthful.”
This whole paragraph is a steaming pile but I would like to point out that “Clinton” and “truthful” do not belong in the same sentence together.
It would be truthful to say that Clinton is a liar.
When Anthony Cumia got fired from Sirius for being who they paid him to be, and Stern defended the decision, he was dead to me.
So was Sirius.
Cumia’s show is pretty funny on Compound Media. Dave Landau is an underrated comedian.
Oddly specific, Brooks.
Unrequited lust, unfortunately. The scars run deep.
And I didn’t want her for the answers. I knew them, already.
Kids are going to have sex with each other. That’s just human nature, and while I personally hope that my kids take things slow due to the many possible pitfalls, I am realistic enough to realize that there’s a good chance they won’t.
It shouldn’t be with adults, though. That’s not a level playing field. Yes, a handful of teenagers might be mature enough to understand the complexity of emotions that sex tends to bring about, but those are the rare exceptions.
Current statutory rape laws are an incoherent mess. OTOH, you (generally) have strict liability for adults. OTOH, you (generally) have exceptions for minors who are close in age. I see no way to reconcile those on a principled basis. Its like they were written by soccer moms, who suddenly realized that their dream of jackbooting anybody who touched their precious snookums meant their own kid might get the jackboot.
” Its like they were written by soccer moms”
There’s no “like” about it.
Why isn’t it principled to hold adults to a different standard than minors? Many laws do.
I’m looking for a principled basis for saying banging a 14 year old is a strict liability crime, unless you are 16.
The first is based on the presumption that she can’t consent, period, and banging her is so beyond the pale that we basically won’t allow a defense other than mistaken identity for the defendant. How does that not apply when you are 16? We don’t let 16 year olds walk for other “crimes”, much less strict liability crimes which are justified as being indefensible under any circumstances?
Where we have leniency for minors, its based on their lack of judgment, mens rea, etc. But that’s not a defense to statutory rape.
What about using the x/2+7 rules for those under 18?
Under 14 is verboten. 18+ is okay. 14-18 is a sliding scale from 14-22 for the older partner.
That’s fine, but that’s getting the age limits. My problem is with the combination of strict liability for some and exceptions for others.
Is there a category of almost, but not quite, strict liability?
You could tweak it by allowing an affirmative defense of some kind or by saying its presumed that the perp knew she was underage but that presumption can be rebutted. But neither of those is really consistent with strict liability, which is basically “you do X, you are guilty, we don’t care about any other facts”.
“14-18 is a sliding scale from 14-22 for the older partner.”
This seems stupid to me. It basically says someone between the age of 14-18 is only capable of making a reasonable decision based on SOMEONE ELSE’S age. Just because you find it distasteful that a 15 year old is having sex with a 28 year old is no reason to codify into law that the 15 year old is incapable of reasonable consent.
If you don’t want someone using a position of authority to take advantage of someone, the remedy is to not have the position of authority. And we know we’re talking about teachers and teenagers. But this was hardly ever a problem when compulsory education stopped at 8th grade. I had old enough relatives (since deceased) that were teenagers marrying people in their late 20’s and nobody thought it was creepy. Then when the labor unions and urban progressives tried to restrict the supply of workers by calling for an extension of the compulsory schooling age (economics) it opened the door for this kind of behavior (biology). One hundred years ago a 13 year old was EXPECTED to make life decisions about their future and it’s urban progressives that have since infantilized people to the point that 20-year olds aren’t even expected to. (The AOC – heh – is 21 in Washington state.)
I just mean on the whole, in comparison to his peers, he wasn’t too bad and was sometimes good.
You know, I see Robby as almost the basis for a tragic figure. His instincts were pretty good. A lot of times, he could tell something was dreadfully wrong. But, he’s never been able to make that leap from what he’s been inculcated with and lived with his whole life. In the literary version, that destroys him.
There’s something to this. I could see an internal struggle, a tragic flaw, that handicapped him.
Fair point. I would also add that I think Robby is a tragic figure, because he pretty much fucked over his job opportunities by not following the media hysteria surrounding VA rape hoax, Covington Catholic hysterics, and most recently the “OMG- those cadets are doing racist hand signs and I’ve never played that game before growing-up, because I had no friends” madness.
At best Robby will get cycled through to another Koch outlet, maybe slumming at at a less ritzy, but libertarian publication or if he’s really lucky some conservative publication where he gets to play contrarian.
If there is one thing that “journalists” can’t accept is being shown to be fools and Robby has exposed that a couple times, so there’s no NYT or WaPo parachute for him that certainly exists for the Kochatarians at TOS who never question the narrative.
by not following the media hysteria surrounding VA rape hoax, Covington Catholic hysterics
I thought he had, somewhat. He’s on Kennedy often, as well as Tucker. And give him a break; he’s young still.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/06/politics/lincoln-chafee-presidential-run-2020-libertarian/index.html?utm_content=2020-01-07T00%3A25%3A07&utm_source=twCNNp&utm_term=image&utm_medium=social
“Lincoln Chafee files to run for president as a libertarian”
If you want to run liberal Republicans who are terrible on individual rights (as liberal Republicans have always been- the worst of both worlds) then by all means start the “Liberal Republican Party”, but stop embarrassing yourselves by claiming that these candidates you are running have any policy even remotely resembling “liberty”.
I thought the worst of both worlds were Blue dog democrats.
Same thing, different letter after their name.
What I like about Chafee is that the dude is dead on arrival. Johnson got to skate by two times, because he was mainly just terrible on foreign policy (How terribly, you ask? Well the Weekly Standard praised his foreign policy during the 2012 run, so pretty terrible.) and a coward on most other issues when pressed. A lot of libertarians can look past the terrible foreign policy, especially since there are Objectivists and other flavor of libertarian who are more supportive of a hawkish foreign policy (or at least not as dovish of a foreign policy as Rothbardians, for example).
However, Chafee is terrible on guns and I can’t imagine many libertarians looking past that. (How terrible was Chafee on guns? He was a favorite of gun control groups who supported his campaigns, so pretty terrible).
It depends on how many members Sarwark has been able to import into the LP.
Or run off.
True.
Voter fraud? What voter fraud?
Have you voted in last 4 years? No — removed.
it doesn’t entirely solve the problem, but it would be a good start.
Registration every year. If you haven’t registered in the last twelve months, you don’t get to vote. You shouldn’t get to keep voting fraudulently just because you do it regularly.
Not Philadelphia county? Also surprised they don’t have Montgomery on the list.
I would be surprised if Philadelphia cooperated with any investigation into their voter rolls at all.
Fair point.
Cocaine Mitch
McConnell has locked down sufficient backing in his 53-member caucus to pass a blueprint for the trial that leaves the question of seeking witnesses and documents until after opening arguments are made, according to multiple senators.
That framework would mirror the contours of President Bill Clinton’s trial and ignore Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s demands for witnesses and new evidence at the outset.
No final decision has been made to move forward with a partisan approach, but in a brief interview, McConnell said he would address the possibility of spurning Democrats on Tuesday afternoon. He’s already won key backing from the handful of Republican swing votes heading into the trial.
Why a “partisan approach” is bad in the Senate, but totes OK in the House, is an exercise for the reader.
“Democrats good. Republicans bad.”
Let’s see. Iran threatens retaliation against the US. People with Iranian backgrounds entering/reentering the country are questioned. What exactly is the issue?
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/01/groups-demand-answers-after-iranians-say-they-were-detained.html
The issue is OrangeManBad.
So you and your husband come from an autocratic theocracy shithole and your kid is worried about you being taken in the US? Maybe some self examination is in order.
I don’t think her daughter was saying that at all.
How long were they detained for questioning? Were any arrested/denied entry?
Up to 2.5 hours.
Uh, more than likely those Iranian families are white also. Certainly if they identify as Persian.
Rereading, I see elsewhere up 11 hours for a LPR.
Another family they were traveling with was similarly detained, and they said they saw about two dozen other families — all of Iranian descent — in the same waiting area, Hekmati said. Only one white family passed through the area while they were there, she said, and that family was allowed to leave within minutes.
She looks pretty white, to me.
And I see they were detained for about 5 hours, which would suck, but allowed in.
This little tidbit stuck out, also:
Really, though, if they are citizens, then I don’t think we should be putting them through anything unusual on entry to the country. Non-citizens? Sure.
Assuming he’s the same age as her, that military service was post-Iranian revolution. Given the potential current threats, his past history, and a pattern of travel outside the country, it wouldn’t be out of bounds to re-examine whether there was a ongoing connection to Iran.
If we aren’t careful they might attack us with a bad copy of 1960s US aircraft technology.
How do we know it’s a bad copy?
I believe they’re also still flying F-14s as well.
So, they failed to copy the F-14s? Okay, it probably is a bad copy.
One does not need to have been born in Iran to get the questioning mill at the US/Canadian border. My old, and I mean old, fishing partners must have looked particularly dangerous with our fishing equipment, dirty clothes and a week’s worth of whiskers when we returned to the US side. I was not a happy guy running the interrogation gauntlet.
Am I the only guy who’s managed to cross that border without much hassle?
Today marks twenty five years since the passing of Murray Rothbard.
Dude was ahead of his time: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENp2O6WXkAA8-vx.jpg
And five years since the death of Rod Taylor.
I don’t know what my opinion is. I didn’t know befre this debate and I still don’t know.
What I am is a mother in the toxic thrall of her feelz, trying to mitigate freak influences for my kids that we didn’t have back in the day. Add innate character issues, mental illness, physical illness, and a pharmacy of drugs they’re on and I’m a wreck.
Teenagers having sex, or at least experimenting, is normal, I agree. I am erfectly phlegmatic about other people’s children. I am not in the least bit phlegmatic about MY kids doing it.
My libertarianism apparently stops at the threshold of my front door.
“My libertarianism apparently stops at the threshold of my front door.”
Since I doubt you are a government, I don’t think it actually does.