Aight, I tried to have a reasonable conversation and now I'm getting attacked.
I'm bowing out, Dale.
I am not on a witch hunt. I am not supporting the concept of thought crime. I am not obfuscating. I am not compromising my principals. I am not in a "Pedo frenzy", whatever that is.
John, we are two adults, friends I hope, who have a disagreement and we are talking about it. I am simply engaging you honestly. You tossed out all these things out of context as if they were completely baseless and unsubstantiated points on my part. I'm going to try to demonstrate that I didn't pull any of it out of my ass, but I feel like you're ignoring a lot of things that I went to a great deal of trouble to explain already.
The fact that you are turning this into an ad hominem is fucking bumming me out, man. I deserve more respect than that.
I'm just addressing our disagreements. If you jump to extremely negative conclusions and stir up and validate the same in others about people you've never met based on the rumors of one very emotional person whom you've also never met, in contradiction to every other first-hand account from people you know better than her, I label that a witch hunt based on gossip. The term "witch hunt" is strong, I admit, and I'll address it shortly, but I chose it because it was a good analogy. I don't have more honest vocabulary for describing that. I'm addressing your points directly. That might technically be an ad hominem but it's honest and appropriate.
1. Witch hunt
To be fair, I do see the whole gossipy affair and the general pedo frenzy (I'll quote myself on that below so you guys can stop pretending to not know what I'm referring to) as a witch hunt but I will concede it is a reach to say you yourself are on a witch hunt. I should say that I would just expect you to rise above that and it just doesn't seem like you have. You've kind of peripherally joined in and advocated it.
2. Thought crime
Being a pedophile by its very nature requires someone else to act upon if the temptation or whatever is too strong. I junkie can shoot up and lie in bed with no one getting hurt. A pedophile can't fuck a kid and not fuck a kid at the same time.
I believe we have the same motivations, Dale. I am just not as nice a guy as you are. Fuck bad people. If they are sorry and make damn sure to prove it, then cool. No more fuck them. If they prove over time to continue being bad, then WAAAAAY fuck them. I have a pretty deep well of forgiveness, but it is conditional and not as deep as yours, maybe.
But he says he hasn't "fucked a kid" and we have no evidence to the contrary, but he's a "bad person" and "Fuck bad people." You're passing judgment on someone for a thought crime. What else should I call that?
3. Obfuscating
Lots of points about how pedophilia harms kids, and I agreed. But that's only if he acts on it, which he hasn't. Thus, these repeated points are irrelevant to this situation, and obfuscations, such as
Being a pedophile by its very nature requires someone else to act upon if the temptation or whatever is too strong. I junkie can shoot up and lie in bed with no one getting hurt. A pedophile can't fuck a kid and not fuck a kid at the same time.
A cannot also be non-A.
4. Compromising principals
If you point out where I specifically applied this to you, I'll gladly respond to it. My recollection is that
I, speaking for myself, feel that
I would be compromising my principles to throw someone to the wolves who is not clearly guilty of harming anyone. I failed to convince you that outing him in a pedo-frenzy culture (coming up) is equivalent to throwing him to the wolves, so it does not conclude that you are violating your principles, i.e. innocent until proven guilty before punishing someone.
5. Pedo frenzy
Somewhere around the 80s the pedo-frenzy started up. We are still living in that culture. People are living under bridges due to sex offender registries that won't let them live within X miles of children. This is probably useless for protecting any children because a real predator probably has the sense not to do it in or near his home. Pedophiles actually have a very low recidivism rate after release from prison, but thanx to propaganda, most people believe the exact opposite. Most successful predators are friends or family who have private access to a child and take advantage of it. They are rarely strangers trolling playgrounds and snatching kids-- another propaganda image that leaves people off-guard to more likely threats. There was a very popular show,
To Catch a Predator, which I KNOW you must be familiar with. I've only seen it maybe once or twice but it's been spoofed endlessly on things like South Park. They set up sting ops to catch people planning sex, not with children, but with teens who are just short of the birthday that will make them of legal consensual age. Then the people get lectured, labeled as a pedophiles when they're not, imprisoned, made semi-famous in a really humiliating way, and put on sex offender registries forever. Those aren't children. They're adult enough to consent by MANY people's standards, more so if there isn't much of an age difference.
I don't think "pedo-frenzy" is an exaggeration for all this absurdity and it is absolutely rampant.
6. Gossip
If the girl was lying, someone should have come forward and detailed the entire scuttlebutt the same way she did, and provided multiple sources of conflicting viewpoints and rebutted her point by point.
Note: A
scuttlebutt is a RUMOR. That's the word YOU chose.
And for the record...
...You were not there. You don't have the record. You have 2nd-hand out-of-context information from one extremely biased source.
And for the record...
You don't have any business going there. You were not there. You don't have the record. You have 2nd-hand out-of-context information from one extremely biased source.
I am not making emotionalist arguments.
There have been many unsubstantiated points and analogies like comparing someone with an admitted attraction to children as a heroin junky who would do anything and harm anyone for a fix and calling him a bad person when you're getting all your info 2nd-hand and out of context from a questionable source who contradicts the interpretations of a bunch of people whom you know much better than her who also spoke with the parties first-hand.
In this conversation between you and I, Dale, the person who has been calling names and getting angry is you, not me. I have been both calm and ameliorating in my behavior and have repeatedly spoken of and acted toward understanding. (Understanding YOU, not a pedophile.)
Don't try to read so much into my typed word. I'm frustrated, not angry. I feel like my carefully-crafted points are falling on deaf ears. I understand why, to a point. It is the nature of this subject, i.e. the pedo-frenzy that leads us to poor solutions for this problem (meaning pedophilia in general). I just have hopes of libertarians being able to rise above that frenzy and I'm just being disappointed.