Good Visions thread

[ruckman101]

Obviously there are bombs. But I don't want to live next door to one my neighbor is building in his garage with the help of manuals and an online bomb making forum. Too dangerous. Mistakes happen. Boom.

A bomb for personal self defense? Again, this is a loooooooong stretch of logic in my book.



neal

Bombs ain't the best example to bring up. Colin brought it up, and he said the other day he was mystified by an example I brought up, raw, milk, something we just talked about.
Bombs, how often do we even need to worry about this, and, how often are we going to know about it if he never sets it off.

I feel this thread was soiled.
All because I joked about if beer was still legal.

Beer built this modern world.

But to condone child-porn and bomb ownership struck a nasty chord for me. I ask if you have problems with the chinese and muslims because you chose them in your example to exemplify "the enemy". That strikes me as perhaps buried racism. Please don't comfirm it by telling me you have lots of muslim and chinese friends, therefore you can't be racist.


neal

[steve74baywin]

Beer built this modern world.

But to condone child-porn and bomb ownership struck a nasty chord for me. I ask if you have problems with the chinese and muslims because you chose them in your example to exemplify "the enemy". That strikes me as perhaps buried racism. Please don't comfirm it by telling me you have lots of muslim and chinese friends, therefore you can't be racist.


neal

Wow, I'm starting to see why there is such a problem.
This is exactly why I say logic needs to rein, not what your doing.
I don't condone arresting people who view nude pictures of youth.
That doesn't mean I condone child porn.
I don't condone looking at nude pictures of minors, but I also don't condone arresting people who do. Talk about black and white, you need to see more than two colors. Are you able to see the difference?
So, because it struck a nasty chord, you didn't understand what I typed but instead misinterpreted and reacted as if I said the worst image that popped in your brain instead of what I actually said? Is that what your saying?

Your missing the point of using logic.
Crime, crime needs a victim and an actual crime needs to take place.
Your jumping to arresting someone with a pic of a nude minor as if he is having sex with the kid.
I'm not sure if you will ever see how this rationalizing and using emotions to chuck away logic is the very cause for most of the things you too think are bad. It is just a different day and a different duck, but it is the same flawed, lack of logic thinking. It is going by no natural common sense rules but instead shooting from the hip. If you think the offense is so bad you then start going beyond the bad offense and go to extremes due to fear.

[ruckman101]

A consumer of images of child porn is just as guilty as those who captured the images and committed sexual acts with those children. Yes, it is different than shots of your grandkids in the bath, but that difference is stark. You're right. For me, child pornography or the sexual abuse of children has no grey areas, only black and white.


neal

[steve74baywin]

A consumer of images of child porn is just as guilty as those who captured the images and committed sexual acts with those children. Yes, it is different than shots of your grandkids in the bath, but that difference is stark. You're right. For me, child pornography or the sexual abuse of children has no grey areas, only black and white.


neal

Yes, and that is what is wrong with the world, that is how most if not all wrongs have been justified...An excuse to throw out logic.

For you to say the are just as guilty shows me you have chosen to step out of reality and live in fantasy. I hate to say it, but is this also a form of doublethink?
Sometimes I think you'd make a good far right wing conservative.

[ruckman101]

Oooooohhhhhhhmmmmmm.

I'm envisioning a world where all have mutual respect for each other. Bliss. No guns, bombs or control needed, food and shelter for all that we my explore artistic and artisan endeavors.



neal

[ruckman101]

A consumer of images of child porn is just as guilty as those who captured the images and committed sexual acts with those children. Yes, it is different than shots of your grandkids in the bath, but that difference is stark. You're right. For me, child pornography or the sexual abuse of children has no grey areas, only black and white.


neal

Yes, and that is what is wrong with the world, that is how most if not all wrongs have been justified...An excuse to throw out logic.

For you to say the are just as guilty shows me you have chosen to step out of reality and live in fantasy. I hate to say it, but is this also a form of doublethink?
Sometimes I think you'd make a good far right wing conservative.

I'm not that far left yet.

Sorry, if you collect snuff films, you are as guilty as those who made them. If you know physical or sexual abuse is happening, regardless if it is in the privacy of someone's home, and you say nothing, your silence is consent and you are just as guilty. That silence allows the injustice to continue, thus condoning it.

I see lots of greys, even grays, in this world, but not when it comes to those issues.

To cite "logic" as "rationalization" is disingenuous. You are only fooling yourself.


neal

[ruckman101]

A consumer of images of child porn is just as guilty as those who captured the images and committed sexual acts with those children. Yes, it is different than shots of your grandkids in the bath, but that difference is stark. You're right. For me, child pornography or the sexual abuse of children has no grey areas, only black and white.


neal

Yes, and that is what is wrong with the world, that is how most if not all wrongs have been justified...An excuse to throw out logic.

For you to say the are just as guilty shows me you have chosen to step out of reality and live in fantasy. I hate to say it, but is this also a form of doublethink?
Sometimes I think you'd make a good far right wing conservative.

I'm missing that. Could you point out the excuse I've used to throw out logic?


neal

[steve74baywin]

[
I'm not that far left yet.

Sorry, if you collect snuff films, you are as guilty as those who made them. If you know physical or sexual abuse is happening, regardless if it is in the privacy of someone's home, and you say nothing, your silence is consent and you are just as guilty. That silence allows the injustice to continue, thus condoning it.

I see lots of greys, even grays, in this world, but not when it comes to those issues.

To cite "logic" as "rationalization" is disingenuous. You are only fooling yourself.


neal

But guilty of what? You say they are as guilty.
Break it down. What is the crime? What violating of rights took place?
Take if from there. You will still have someone to put in jail, but think it through.


I think anyone supporting instead of ditching Obama or Bush is party to killing many innocent people. They aren't guilty for the same thing, but it may be correct to say they should share in it, they need to take some responsibility for their actions, their condoning, their enabling is what it is. However, should you Neal, assuming you support instead of ditching Obama, should you be as guilty as Obama, Rumsfield or Cheney, and what about the troop who killed an innocent Iraqi, should all of you be as guilty as each other, or should we intelligently evaluate the situation. Then again, if it was a child that got hurt, maybe we should just burn them all on a stake?

[ruckman101]

I don't remain silent about the inhumanity of dropping bombs on people and am vocal about my dissenting opinion. I don't condone, so no, not as guilty. I am an unwilling party because of taxes I pay that support these atrocities, but my taxes support good causes, too, and I can't afford a lawyer able to argue my right not to pay those portions of my taxes that go towards the death machine.

Yes, by providing a market and participating in the sexual abuse of children, albeit from an armchair, those folks are violating the rights of those children to live unmolested, free, happy, productive, etc.


neal

[steve74baywin]

Yes, by providing a market and participating in the sexual abuse of children, albeit from an armchair, those folks are violating the rights of those children to live unmolested, free, happy, productive, etc.


neal

That means they have their part.
Just go after the one committing the crime. A dam picture is just that, better yet, it is a digital image. If they concentrated their efforts to those actually committing a crime we'd be better off than them busting some fat dude who lives on his computer.

Would it be possible for you to reflect back to when you first thought this?
I know there has been alot of crap on the TV, and the power there is great, mix kids in the picture and they could have us bombing whole countries for two guys making films in a tent.

Maybe I should use a different way of getting the "apply logic" point across.
You say "by providing a market and participating in the sexual abuse of children, albeit from an armchair, those folks are violating the rights of those children ".
I say, just those who forced them to do it.
So, they are guilty according to your reasoning because they
provided a market, IE, participated by utilizing these items, by using these items they aided in those people committing crimes.
If this is applied to other things does it seem to be the norm?
Would you be for being treated as badly as the criminal just because you use something, hence provided a market for it?
Perhaps Oil is a good example, have you stopped using oil yet? Your usage of oil "provided a market" and makes a participant in the wars for oil, albeit from far away, but are you not party to any crimes committed by getting oil?
Shall we go on?
Does it pass the test?
Are you for treating anyone who uses something as a criminal just like any actual criminal in the supply chain just because they consume the item?
I think most people would not, they are for this one because of the "kids".
The greater problem I see is this.
They let emotions override logic, and now we have overreaching laws, which is a wonderful benefit for those controlling society. Get the people to toss out logic, then we can get laws that violate rights. This is why I argue that, not because I sympathize with the guy watching the porn, I see the problem with letting the leaders use emotions to get the people to allow violations of rights.
Is this not what they did with the drug laws? Used emotions to create fear, mixed kids in there, and presto, now a Drug War without even a Constitutional Amendment.
After 9/11, the same thing, used emotions and other clever means to induce fear to get the people to give up liberties and support the wars.
This is similar, emotions due to kids to get people into wrong laws.

[ruckman101]

A marvelous bit of mental masturbation guised as intellect echoing current legal minutia that enables the very reality you rail loudest against.

Not comparable to drug law. We could explore the concept of "victimless" crimes such as drug use, yet even then there are victims. The addict, family, friends, community, especially when you layer on the burden of the criminal justice system, lost labor and productivity for Walmart, the financial victims, unable to grow richer on the backs of the government supported work force, or is it a political tool of control, the whole drug thing? Other politics. Those are abstract victims, politics and dancing, force and guns as you like to reference, a no win situation except for the enforcers.

Yes I have an emotional reaction to abuses of the core tenets humanity aspires to realize, reflected through spiritual strivings to connect and grasp the divine against injustice, brutality, etc etc that every spiritual endeavor of expression endorses, though shalt nots.

Shattering innocence because you are bigger and stronger and can strikes me as a craven crime compared to the equally appallingly horrific crime of men with guns taking your property and tossing you into the concentration camp because they can. Don't tell me the armchair consumer of child pornography is committing a victimless crime, because my emotions, gut, karma, psyche know better.

Images are not harmless. They are not benign. They are loaded with a narrow perspective framed by everything excluded from that frame. Native Americans are right, every photo captured is stolen from the person's soul. I collect stolen bits of people's souls, but don't publish them without permission if the bit of soul stolen is substantial. I have permission to share. Only the willing, no victims.


Sheesh, Steve has reduced me to Steve.
Hey, it makes sense to me,

neal

[Amskeptic]

A consumer of images of child porn is just as guilty as those who captured the images and committed sexual acts with those children. Yes, it is different than shots of your grandkids in the bath, but that difference is stark. You're right. For me, child pornography or the sexual abuse of children has no grey areas, only black and white.


neal

Can you believe it? I find a thread of agreement with Steve74baywin ....

I agree with Steve74baywin that some shmuck with a collection of downloaded porn is absolutely NOT "just as guilty as those who captured the images and committed sexual acts with those children."

As a human being who has experienced the reality of sexual abuse, I am annoyed as fuck by the hysterical indiscriminate exploding irrationality of the Defenders Of Children Everywhere. It is precisely the over-the-top reactiveness such as the above, that continues to drive the perpetrators and victims underground where true help is not going to occur. On a legal/justice/moral foundation, there are definitely degrees of culpability.

If you ask a child of abuse if an anonymous loser behind the monitor is as bad as the person who ignored their pleas and caused them pain and sealed them behind a shameful secret, you will have a better idea of non-politicized justice.

However, Steve, I do think that the government (us) has a right to invade the home of the anonymous loser who has a collection of child porn. As Ruckman101 stated, the images carry something of a person with them. That they even exist drags us all down. I destroyed images of myself taken against my consent and found it empowering and necessary.
The loser who is dismayed that the "government" ruined his secret addiction, could just as easily discover that his path out into the light and towards personal freedom from shame, started the very day that the government invaded his personal hell.

THAT is where I would come down. The government has the right to declare our values as a people, to hunt down the supply and the demand of the illegal market, and to provide assistance for those crippled by their addictions ... assistance that will only help our bottom line, help our children, help break these cycles.

Neal and Steve, I can disagree with you both even as I agree with you both.
Colin

[Velokid1]

That's powerful, Colin. Thanks for sharing.

It's important to remember that child pornography (the actual images and files) has forensic value. It is evidence. The bombs analogy isn't entirely accurate, but if we are going to use it (was it this thread or another that's currently active where an explosives analogy was used?), it would be similar to a situation where someone had in their home images or other files/documents of an illegal attack* committed with the use of explosives. Beyond just being an indication that the person possessing them may be involved (or may just have a perverse fascination with violent images), those files very well could lead to the actual criminals.

I have to temper my desire to strangle people who abuse children but I have to say, I don't think any sort of sexual "perversion" should be illegal in and of itself. If you want to fantasize about abusing other people, knock yourself out. But acting on it in any way should be illegal, as all abuse should, and knowingly possessing evidence of such actual abuse should also be illegal.

*I know where this will be taken: that America's military attacks are often illegal on some level, or by some interpretation, and so should someone with images of attacks on civilians in Iraq have their home raided in search of that "evidence." IMO, that's a separate issue. Not wholly dissimilar... just separate.

[Velokid1]

Haha. Yeah, we couldn't be any more off-topic than this.

So who wants to be the one to start the Child Pornography thread?

[edit- post this was referring to has been deleted. :)]

[RussellK]

Haha. My comment was toward the weirdness of a child porn discussion in a good visions thread. I deleted it because I didn't want my comment to detract from a serious discussion. Oh well. Carry on.