Quoteokay. Let's see much I can condense this one :

Child porn = BAD

Porn with adult women & men is Good.

On the face of it, that's basically the case (though I'd edit it, were it I, to say that porn between consenting adults probably isn't usually bad), but even that basically true statement, like I noted, probably needs some qualification.

And even though everyone here is on board with the "child porn = bad" diagnosis, there's still debate about legality, harm, free speech, artistic merit, animation vs. real-life, and, while I don't recall it coming up here (since it's basically muck up the intent without really helping a measured discussion), what defines 'child' or 'underage' since these are concepts that vary legally and conceptually between nations and cultures.

So, we're not experts, but it's still an involved discussion.

Quote from: Malleus ArianorumDiscredited but still in vogue.    How did [Kinsey] get this data?

According to Kinsey, these conclusions were based on statistics gathered from mysterious sources such as "Mr. X" and other "trained observers" who sent him reports about their sexual activities with children. These "trained observers" were later discovered to be pedophiles. "Mr. X" turned out to be Rex King, a man known to have been responsible for the rapes of hundreds of children.

Another consort was the notorious former Nazi and pedophile Dr. Fritz Von Balluseck. Von Balluseck contributed data about his child abuse to Kinsey's research database during the twenty year period of 1936–1956. Von Balluseck was on trial in Germany for the rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl when correspondence from Kinsey was found in his possession. Kinsey's letters encouraged Von Balluseck to continue sending the results of his "research" on children and even warned him to "be careful."

Considering his sources, one hardly can wonder why Kinsey believed that the vast majority of adult-child sex is harmless. He claimed that adult hysteria over the matter was more harmful than the rape itself. The perpetuation of these outrageous myths has had an enormous impact on the lives of children. Not only has it fueled an ever-growing movement to legalize pedophilia, but it is also behind the graphic sex education allowed in classrooms for children as young as five years.
 Like John said, it's hard to find an unbiased study but if you'd like to see a quick summary look here. It's hosted by Catholic.com. (Can you guess which way the bias leans? :Catholic:  )

 

Jesus, you fucking papists sure hate Kinsey, huh? I guess it makes sense, since the guy was one of the prime movers in slowing down your ability to milk money and obedience out of sexual guilt.

In any case, I would think Catholics would be the last people to be "throwing stones" (pardon the pun) about child sexual abuse, and would be hardly qualified to pontificate about what constitutes sexual health.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Malleus ArianorumDiscredited but still in vogue.    How did [Kinsey] get this data?

According to Kinsey, these conclusions were based on statistics gathered from mysterious sources such as "Mr. X" and other "trained observers" who sent him reports about their sexual activities with children. These "trained observers" were later discovered to be pedophiles. "Mr. X" turned out to be Rex King, a man known to have been responsible for the rapes of hundreds of children.

Another consort was the notorious former Nazi and pedophile Dr. Fritz Von Balluseck. Von Balluseck contributed data about his child abuse to Kinsey's research database during the twenty year period of 1936–1956. Von Balluseck was on trial in Germany for the rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl when correspondence from Kinsey was found in his possession. Kinsey's letters encouraged Von Balluseck to continue sending the results of his "research" on children and even warned him to "be careful."

Considering his sources, one hardly can wonder why Kinsey believed that the vast majority of adult-child sex is harmless. He claimed that adult hysteria over the matter was more harmful than the rape itself. The perpetuation of these outrageous myths has had an enormous impact on the lives of children. Not only has it fueled an ever-growing movement to legalize pedophilia, but it is also behind the graphic sex education allowed in classrooms for children as young as five years.
 Like John said, it's hard to find an unbiased study but if you'd like to see a quick summary look here. It's hosted by Catholic.com. (Can you guess which way the bias leans? :Catholic:  )

 Good thinking Spike. Build your kiddy porn clubs where they'll do the most good -- next to gradeschools and playgrounds. Build two or three inside Disneyland. :rolleyes:

 I need coffee too!

Wow, way to go with the personal attacks!  Show me where the bad priest touched you on the doll while you're at it.

First of all, the stuff I was referring to was not specific to 'child porn', merely that we could extrapolate mainstream porn, and its effect on viewers to child porn and its potential effects on pedophiles.

Related note:  Apparently there is a syndrome of men who, having watched so much porn, no longer find themselves aroused by real partners. Now, I'm hardly going to site this as a strong authority, like the previous studies (which, incidentally, you confirmed the existance of at least one source of such studies) I only know of it through anecdotal sources.

As for your attack: First of all, I don't advocate building anything of the sort. At MOST I suggest putting existing confisticated materials to use by the government, which incidentally, makes it easier to track those who are interested in that sort of thing, as part of a treatment program.  Where you got the idea of building parlors and schools and suchlike is the result of your own fevered imagination.

Is there such a thing as an Appeal to Hysteria?  

I know Kinsey is controversial, and I know he talked to reprehensible people, possibly even suggested morally questionable (or reprehensible) behaviors to them, as you suggest.  

That, however, does not necessarily mean that the data he collected is worthless.  We learned a great deal of things about the human body from the Nazi concentration camps, which created a minor moral quandry when it was discovered.  Destroy the data because the methods by which it was gain was inhuman, incidentally making the sacrifices of the victims mean even less than they already did, or keep it and put it to use regardless of the source so that no one else would feel the need to recreate those expirements to recapture the data later, and potentially saving lives in the process.


I'm not sure why I'm bothering with you. I already don't particularly like you. You don't seem to be here for the gaming, you blindly push your particular religious agenda with the smug certainty of the righteous... which certainly suggests to me that you don't have faith, you have belief... and I doubt you understand the difference.  

On the other hand, I am utterly certain that if we were to meet I could easily kill you and find you quite delicious. I find Catholics are quite tasty, a bit like pork veal if you can imagine such a thing, and go excellent with a little wine sauce, though raw isn't bad either. Keep an eye out for small yellow furballs, lunchmeat.

Quote from: SpikeThat, however, does not necessarily mean that the data he collected is worthless.

No, but he was biased and it does raise questions about the data and the motives behind his conclusions.  For example, Kinsey famously estimated the homosexuality rate at around 10% but marketing companies assume that gays and lesbians make up 5% of the population, and they don't have a bias to set the number to any particular value.  Other scientific studies also fali to reproduce Kinsey's numbers about various things.

Also, one should always be suspicious, whether it's the Kinxey Institute or anti-pornography Feminists or Christian researchers when they won't release their raw data for independent validation and analysis.  What are they hiding?

Quote from: SpikeWe learned a great deal of things about the human body from the Nazi concentration camps, which created a minor moral quandry when it was discovered.  Destroy the data because the methods by which it was gain was inhuman, incidentally making the sacrifices of the victims mean even less than they already did, or keep it and put it to use regardless of the source so that no one else would feel the need to recreate those expirements to recapture the data later, and potentially saving lives in the process.

I guess you missed the part about encouraging the subject to gather more data and to be careful.  I think that implies the researcher was an accessory to the crime.  When you are getting an ongoing stream of data about the sexuality of children, one should question where it's coming from and whether it's ongoing.  I suppose you could argue that, like Planned Parenthood, Kinsey's first priority was not stopping child abuse but something else like gathering data for his cause.

It's also important to remember that the Japanese doctors who performed similar experiments as part of Japanese biological warfare units used their data as a bargaining chip and many were apparently not prosecuted for any crimes and let go upon turning over their data.  From this site:

   Abstract  Japanese microbiologists and other scientists, as early as the 1930s, used humans for test purposes in their quest for a viable offensive biological warfare system. Thousands of men, women and children were tested with a host of pathogens to determine the appropriate dose required to kill. Those who survived the initial tests were subjected to other experiments. No one left the test sites alive.  They were either killed in the experiments, or they were 'sacrificed" when they outlived their usefulness. Field tests in China unleashed plagues that killed tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands.

American intelligence in early 1942 discovered that Japan had a large biological warfare enterprise in Manchuria and China. By the end of the war, Intelligence was in possession of a comprehensive outline of Japanese operations. American scientists at Fort Detrick, Md., home of the American biological warfare program, learned of the Japanese research. They sent emissaries to Japan to negotiate with those scientists who escaped from Manchuria and returned home. After two years of negotiations, a deal was made. The Japanese would turn over to the Americans their research data. The Americans would not prosecute the scientists as war criminals. Not one Japanese scientist under American jurisdiction was ever prosecuted, but, instead, was permitted to live a normal life in post-war Japan.

Out of curiosity, how do you feel about the morality of that?  Utilitarianism is a harsh mistress.

John:  I'm no expert on Kinsey, though I am aware of his work, obviously.

Thus I'm poorly placed to argue the specific validity of his data. I'll agree that the arguements against him are damning of him as a human being if verifiable.  Then again, I think a difference between 5% and 10% between two groups of researchers on something as 'uncomfortable' and frankly nebulous as human sexuality is hardly horrible.  Kinsey's research is like ancient greek mathmatics (where Pi is 3.25 or so...) in that it was accurate for its level of refinement.

And I'll certainly account for Bias. I'd LOVE to see more rigorous research with more ethical views being used. I'm not likely to see it in my lifetime, but c'est le vie.

As for the Japansese biologists: yes I am aware of that.  If you feel its more relevant then by all means, lets us it rather than the contemporary Nazi example, though I don't see how it is more, or less relevant.  The use of it as a bargening chip is not relevant to Kinsey, and more to the point, the tradeoff was for weapons technology, not life saving or even just 'life improving' technology.

I can claim, comfortably, that I'd handle the situation similarly IF the technology was life saving, though I have never been in that situation. Revenge is a fine thing, but if their research has the potential to save lives, even many more lives, then revenge is a silly motive.  The IDEAL situation is to punish them in some way while still aquiring the data, though punishment again falls to revenge.  If we strip away the more beastial aspects of humanity, then punishment is a poor second choice to correction.

That's a high minded ideal to live up to, correction.  I didn't pick the path, nor do I necessarily approve of it.  But then, I also don't see much value in the punishment route either.

That's one reason I support the death penalty. Its not punishment, nor revenge (though it serves both those purposes), nor is it 'correction' for the offender...

But it fits my preferred mentality: if correction is not an option, removal of predatory members of the species is the only recourse.


To bring this back to the Japanese Scientists:  once removed from the Japanese military establishment you have corrected the situation, they are no longer threats to the people around them.  Obviously there is slightly more to it than that, and even the most high minded idealist would probably prefer to see an actual 'correction' than simply removing them from opportunity.. but our tools in this regard are incredibly primative, even rudimentary.  Short of sticking an icepick in their nose and ruining them as human beings (revenge again), not much is going to work as a corrective.

The gain, in this specific example, is not worth it.

Now, since revenge is still a valid point of view in my personal philosophy, if of limited value, simply deciding that biological weapons tech wasn't that valuable to us, killing them to make a point/satiate our animal bloodlust would have been equally valid.



But since the point was tossing data, not potentially saving/killing people who did things we don't like....  again, the relevance just isn't there for me.

Now, you finished with a 'utilitarian' jab, which is amusing as I've never claimed to be one.  I have not attempted to say 'they are just doing what nature intended them to do', which is what I assume the Utilitarian point of view is.    My concern is that we have two potential reactions to the continued existance of people sexually attracted to children (let us, for the moment, restrict Pedophiles to the segment of this group that is actually predatory. Not accurate but for the sake of discussion.).

Now: We can punish them, which makes us feel better but otherwise serves no inherent purpose. We can correct them, which is the 'high road', difficult, problematic and possibly not within our means, or we can dispose of them.

Right now we continue to use the punishment model, despite its dubious ethics.  Punishing them is essentially masturbatory.

Correcting them MIGHT be possible. We have some research that suggests that their desires might be controllable, thus preventing them from engaging in predatory behavior. More research, which incidentally doesn't require dabbling in the inhuman end of the pool, might clear this up. Does prolonged exposure to pornography reduce the sex drive, even eliminate it as the fantasy life becomes more engaging than the real one?  Its a valid, and potentially solvable question.  Other corrective measures are equally 'squeamish' from an ethical standpoint, including surgical and chemical neutering, which might not prevent predatory behavior in some cases.

Disposing of them, as a whole, is the hardest one to swallow when you really think of it.  If even 1 percent of the population can be described as 'enjoys child porn' by your criterion you are calling for the execution of over three million human beings in America alone.

Now, for predatory pedophiles, the number is vastly smaller and we can argue that they are beyond correction. That leaves punishment, the current, unsatisfactory system and disposal which is my personal choice.  We have established that these predators do not meet the criterion of 'human being', they have regressed to an animal state by the act of predation, and are a threat to the existing community.  By all means, get rid of them. The numbers are much easier to take than simply rounding up all the described 'child lovers' and butchering them en masse, and you don't run the risk of straying into thought police territory, trying to determine which ones are the real sickos and which ones are the mostly ordinary folks whose tastes run into the not quite normal range.  Do we execute that nice young man from Georgia who made the mistake of continuing to fuck his girlfriend after his 19th birthday?  


I am not particularly inclined to maintain predators in a cage for eternity, or until parole when we release them to hunt again, be they pedophiles or serial killers, or just people who never learned not to kill human beings over trivial concerns like broken x-boxes or money.

I"m willing to entertain arguements for correction and I'm never ashamed to admit that I'm willing to put a bullet in their skull from close range and drop them in a hole somewhere.  

What I am increasingly uncomfortable with is the hidebound, even moribund method we have now. Ignoring it until its popular to be hysterical, then punishing everyone we can get our hands on to feel better about ourselves.

The thing is that I believe that many of the anti-research or anti-fiction arguments work against the safety of our children.  If you condemn confidential research on sexual behavior as immoral because the researcher doesn't condemn or turn his subjects in to the authorities, then you are making conclusions blindly or nearly so.  

For example, it is common to picture a child molester as a lonely deviant hanging around the playgrounds.  However, when you do the research, most child molesters are married or in a stable relationship.  They prey not on strangers, but on children who are known to them -- often in their family.  

Of course, you can just condemn certain sexual material as evil from a priori principles without research, and just force people to follow them.  For example, we should really listen to the Catholic church about managing people's sexuality, because it's had centuries of practice at it, and we can see their excellent results at stomping out child abuse.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: SpikeThus I'm poorly placed to argue the specific validity of his data. I'll agree that the arguements against him are damning of him as a human being if verifiable.  Then again, I think a difference between 5% and 10% between two groups of researchers on something as 'uncomfortable' and frankly nebulous as human sexuality is hardly horrible.  Kinsey's research is like ancient greek mathmatics (where Pi is 3.25 or so...) in that it was accurate for its level of refinement.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.  I think that's just one example of a systematic bias.  Either a researcher is doing science or they are doing propaganda.  That there is so much propaganda in the social sciences (from all sides) is one reason why many people don't consider it real science.

Quote from: SpikeAs for the Japansese biologists: yes I am aware of that.  If you feel its more relevant then by all means, lets us it rather than the contemporary Nazi example, though I don't see how it is more, or less relevant.  The use of it as a bargening chip is not relevant to Kinsey, and more to the point, the tradeoff was for weapons technology, not life saving or even just 'life improving' technology.

Somehow, I can't think that Americans would have been willing to just let them go had the victims been a few thousand American POWs rather than Chinese prisoners, though it's possible some captured Americans were included in their experiments.

Quote from: SpikeIf we strip away the more beastial aspects of humanity, then punishment is a poor second choice to correction.

I disagree, because I think that while you acknowledge removing a criminal from society as a legitimate way to respond to a crime you are skipping over one of the primary purposes of harsh punishment, beyond simple revenge.  The objective is deterrence.  If you let people know that they can cut living people open without anesthesia to experiment on them in times of war and then they can cut a deal to live out their life in peace, you give people no reason not to do things like that to each other.  Basically, it sends the message that if you can give something useful to your enemies when they win, you can literally get away with murder.  No, mild punishments and a handful of executions years after the crime aren't much of a deterrence but serious corporal punishments can be, for example, Singapore.  In fact, this particular quote from the Wikipedia entry on Law in Singapore is relevant to this discussion in more ways than one:

   The criminal law of Singapore is largely statutory in nature. The general principles of criminal law, as well as the elements and penalties of common criminal offences such as homicide, theft and cheating, are set out in the Penal Code.[92] Other important offences are created by statutes such as the Arms Offences Act,[93] Kidnapping Act,[94] Misuse of Drugs Act[95] and Vandalism Act.[96]
In addition, there is a perception that Singapore society is highly regulated through the criminalization of many activities which are considered as fairly harmless in other countries. These include failing to flush toilets after use,[97] littering,[98] jaywalking,[99] the possession of pornography,[100] the sale of chewing gum,[101] and sexual activity such as oral and anal sex between men.[102] Nonetheless, Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world, with a low incidence of violent crimes.[103]
Singapore retains both corporal punishment (in the form of caning) and capital punishment (by hanging) as punishments for serious offences. For certain offences, the imposition of these penalties is mandatory.

Quote from: SpikeTo bring this back to the Japanese Scientists:  once removed from the Japanese military establishment you have corrected the situation, they are no longer threats to the people around them.  Obviously there is slightly more to it than that, and even the most high minded idealist would probably prefer to see an actual 'correction' than simply removing them from opportunity.. but our tools in this regard are incredibly primative, even rudimentary.  Short of sticking an icepick in their nose and ruining them as human beings (revenge again), not much is going to work as a corrective.

Do you think that John List should have been left alone after murdering his family since he had been living a crime free life for years and hurting nobody?  Are you fine with Mel Ignatow walking the streets because of double jeopardy protections since the police found the pictures he had taken of Brenda Schaefer before he raped and murdered her after he had been acquitted because he's been a good boy and hasn't murdered anyone else?  Just how much can a person get away with and have society say, "Ooopsie!" and just let them go?  Do you, in general, agree with the idea of war crimes and punishing people for them, then?

The letters suggest that Kinsey collected "data" from a man who was actively abusing children, encouraging him to collect more data and to be careful.  If someone is reporting the details of the responses children have to sex, data that person couldn't possibly be collecting ethically, is asking for more data an ethical response?

Quote from: SpikeNow, you finished with a 'utilitarian' jab, which is amusing as I've never claimed to be one.

The jab was at Utilitarianism rather than you, in particular.  

Quote from: SpikeNow: We can punish them, which makes us feel better but otherwise serves no inherent purpose. We can correct them, which is the 'high road', difficult, problematic and possibly not within our means, or we can dispose of them.

Right now we continue to use the punishment model, despite its dubious ethics.  Punishing them is essentially masturbatory.

So your argument here is that a person can wrong others with reckless abandon and so long as they sin no more (repentance not required), they should just be let go to enjoy their lives?  The revenge reflex that you describe as "masturbatory" is part of the innate sense of fairness that's showing up as an emotional response on MRI scans and can be found in other primates and social animals.  The reason why it evolved (or God gave it to people, take your pick) was that presumably revenge serves some legitimate and useful survival purpose, even it's not obvious to you.

Game theorists who preach the merits of cooperation and forgiveness are amazed when, again and again, human beings and even chimpanzees would rather suffer themselves to take revenge out on others who have wronged them than to forgive and receive a small gain.  But when you look at people normally respond to each other, I think it's pretty clear just how useful revenge is in encouraging fairness and cooperation.  

For example, if I give one person $10 and tell them to divide the money between themselves and another person and that the other person will decide whether they both get to keep the money or give it back to me, people will naturally divide the amount roughly evenly.  Why?  Because they know that if they don't, the revenge instincts will kick in and the other person will reject the deal, even though game theorists argue that it would be better to take even $1 in an unfair trade because that's $1 that they didn't have before.  In fact, other experiments show that people are willing to lose money and hurt themselves to get revenge on others who have wronged them.

So like a game theorist, you are arguing that there is no value to revenge when the value is that it makes people think twice about wronging others, something that's a big plus when we talk about horrible crimes like rape and murder.  When people know that they can get away with something, they'll do it.  When they think they can't, they won't.  For example, I found one study that claims that 60% of Canadian college-aged men said they would commit sexual assault if they were certain they would not get caught.  The value of retribution is not letting people get away with it, which makes them think twice about doing it in the first place.

Quote from: SpikeWhat I am increasingly uncomfortable with is the hidebound, even moribund method we have now. Ignoring it until its popular to be hysterical, then punishing everyone we can get our hands on to feel better about ourselves.

You seem to feel that the desire for revenge is some sort of psychological failing that people should try to fight.  I think the research shows that it's an evolutionary (or God-given, take your pick) response that has important positive social and survival value for social species like human beings.  Letting people get away with wrongs without punishment is like letting the first person in the $10 exercise get away with giving you $1 when asked to split the money.  What happens the next time they have the choice of treating you fairly or ripping you off?  Get ready for a life of getting the $1 because once people know they can get away with it, they'll shaft you up and down because they know you'll put up with it.

Quote from: jhkimThe thing is that I believe that many of the anti-research or anti-fiction arguments work against the safety of our children.  If you condemn confidential research on sexual behavior as immoral because the researcher doesn't condemn or turn his subjects in to the authorities, then you are making conclusions blindly or nearly so.

So if you found out that your son was molested and some university researcher knew all about the perpetrator because they were studying the molester but didn't tell the authorities because they didn't want to scare the child molesters they were studying away, you'd have no hard feelings?  How would you feel if you found out that the university researcher had also been encouraging the molester to gather more data and to be careful?

I mean I know liberals are notoriously indifferent to victims and empathetic toward perpetrators but I'm sure you are a decent guy, John.  Can you really just ignore the trail of victims and destroyed lives that these guys leave in their wake and would you like someone else making that decision for you if your son were the victim?

ADDED: If it's not clear to you, that's essentially what Kinsey is being accused of.

Quote from: jhkimFor example, it is common to picture a child molester as a lonely deviant hanging around the playgrounds.  However, when you do the research, most child molesters are married or in a stable relationship.  They prey not on strangers, but on children who are known to them -- often in their family.

Sure.  And some are men who get involved in relationships with single women specifically to get access to their children.  And of course there are even fathers and women who engage in that sort of activity.  I really don't care who it is or who they are molesting.  If an adult knows that another adult is abusing children, I can think of very few reasons why they should not be obliged to let someone know and stop the abuse, and gathering more data for a sex study and not making young girls afraid to get an abortion are not among the exceptions that I have in mind.  In fact, that's why there are laws that require many adults including counselors, teachers, and those Planned Parenthood workers to report such abuse.  I was recently on the phone with a friend who is working as a social worker and while talking about my daughter, he jokingly informed me that he's a mandatory reporter.  If I tell him that I'm hurting my daughter, he's required to report it to the authorities.

Quote from: jhkimOf course, you can just condemn certain sexual material as evil from a priori principles without research, and just force people to follow them.  For example, we should really listen to the Catholic church about managing people's sexuality, because it's had centuries of practice at it, and we can see their excellent results at stomping out child abuse.  :rolleyes:

Do you really want to discuss the specifics of what was going on in the Catholic Church which involves more pederasty and homosexuality rather than true pedophilia?  The problem with the Catholic Church is less one of celibacy than a shortage of people wanting to be priests, which has led to a lowering of standards.

I'm all for research but just as everyone (to my knowledge) here as agreed that child pornography using real children crosses the line because there is no ethical way to use children to create pornography, I think that the same applies to studying child molestation in progress.  There is no ethical way to do it.  And this is exactly why I said that Utilitarianism is a harsh mistress.  Once you start compromising morality for utilitarian reasons, it's not a big jump to excusing the enabling of child abuse to serve some apparently greater good.

More food for thought, now from TIME:

QuoteDo Americans Care About Big Brother?

Friday, Mar. 14, 2008 By MASSIMO CALABRESI/WASHINGTON

Pity America's poor civil libertarians. In recent weeks, the papers have been full of stories about the warehousing of information on Americans by the National Security Agency, the interception of financial information by the CIA, the stripping of authority from a civilian intelligence oversight board by the White House, and the compilation of suspicious activity reports from banks by the Treasury Department. On Thursday, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report documenting continuing misuse of Patriot Act powers by the FBI. And to judge from the reaction in the country, nobody cares.

A quick tally of the record of civil liberties erosion in the United States since 9/11 suggests that the majority of Americans are ready to trade diminished privacy, and protection from search and seizure, in exchange for the promise of increased protection of their physical security. Polling consistently supports that conclusion, and Congress has largely behaved accordingly, granting increased leeway to law enforcement and the intelligence community to spy and collect data on Americans. Even when the White House, the FBI or the intelligence agencies have acted outside of laws protecting those rights — such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — the public has by and large shrugged and, through their elected representatives, suggested changing the laws to accommodate activities that may be in breach of them.

Civil libertarians are in a state of despair. "People don't realize how damaging it is to a democratic society to allow the government to warehouse information about innocent Americans," says Mike German, national security counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Or do they? In all the examples of diminished civil liberties, there are few, if any, where the motivating factor was something other than law and order or national security. There are no scandalous examples of the White House using the Patriot Act powers for political purposes or of individual agents using them for personal gain. The Justice IG report released Thursday, for example, examined some 50,000 National Security Letters issued in 2006 to see whether the FBI misused that specialized kind of warrantless subpoena. The IG found some continuing abuse of the power, but blamed it for the most part on sloppiness and bad management, not nefarious intent. In a press release accompanying the report, Fine said, "The FBI and Department of Justice have shown a commitment to addressing these problems."

There may, nonetheless, be reasons to feel wary of the civil liberties vs. security trade-off into which Americans have bought. If the misuse documented in the Justice IG report stems from incompetence, Americans may not be getting the security they bargain for in sacrificing their civil liberties. It's also possible the Justice IG may yet find among the abused Patriot Act powers examples of an FBI agent stalking his girlfriend or doing a favor for a political operative friend. Fine is still preparing a report on the illegal use of "exigent letters" in unauthorized demands for records from business.

For now, however, civil libertarians will have to continue to argue that the danger lies not in how the government's expanded powers are being used now, but how they might be used in the future. "The government can collect information about the average citizen without any concern for their rights, but the citizen can't find out what the government is doing, and that's inimical to government of we the people," says the ACLU's German. So far, that argument hasn't convinced the people.

Quote from: John MorrowSo if you found out that your son was molested and some university researcher knew all about the perpetrator because they were studying the molester but didn't tell the authorities because they didn't want to scare the child molesters they were studying away, you'd have no hard feelings?  How would you feel if you found out that the university researcher had also been encouraging the molester to gather more data and to be careful?

I mean I know liberals are notoriously indifferent to victims and empathetic toward perpetrators but I'm sure you are a decent guy, John.

This is a bullshit argument.  John -- you're a believer in democracy and law and order.  How would you feel if someone who murdered your family went free because of some quirk of the law?  Would you have no hard feelings and welcome that person into your house simply because the law says so?  For any principle, one can invent a hypothetical scenario where sticking to that principle would be painful.  That doesn't make the principle wrong.  

Yes, having principles mean that there can be painful to stick to those principles.  I also am a firm believer in constitutional civil liberties.  That means that, at times, some people who are guilty are going to get away without punishment compared to a state where there are no limits on the government's power over the people.  I also believe that there are cases where war is justified, yet I wouldn't like to be bombed either.  

I don't think that condition of anonymity -- like lawyers and their clients, doctors and their patients, or reporters talking to informants -- are fundamentally wrong.  If Kinsey had turned in people to be arrested for illegal sexual behavior they told him, then almost no one would have admitted anything to him.  So there would have been no gain.  It's not like people just randomly walked up to him and admitted such things on a whim.  The only reason why people admitted deviant and/or illegal sexual behavior to him was that he promised anonymity to them, and gave non-judgemental responses to everything said.  

Given the blatant bias in the rest of the article, I am not inclined to simply take the article's word for it that Kinsey encouraged child molesters rather than simply listening to them.  It does not jibe with other accounts that I have read of that issue.  If the letters were public, then I suppose I might read them and judge for myself, but in the meantime I am skeptical.

Quote from: John MorrowI mean I know liberals are notoriously indifferent to victims and empathetic toward perpetrators...

Pure class, man.

Quote from: jhkimThis is a bullshit argument.  John -- you're a believer in democracy and law and order.  How would you feel if someone who murdered your family went free because of some quirk of the law?  Would you have no hard feelings and welcome that person into your house simply because the law says so?  For any principle, one can invent a hypothetical scenario where sticking to that principle would be painful.  That doesn't make the principle wrong.

No, but it's fair game to ask whether the principle is worth the cost and to consider that cost personally.  Note, for example, that double jeopardy protections have been eliminated in the UK for many crimes because the cost is seen as being too high, and there are discussions about that in the United States.

Quote from: jhkimYes, having principles mean that there can be painful to stick to those principles.  I also am a firm believer in constitutional civil liberties.  That means that, at times, some people who are guilty are going to get away without punishment compared to a state where there are no limits on the government's power over the people.  I also believe that there are cases where war is justified, yet I wouldn't like to be bombed either.

What is the purpose of constitutional civil liberties to you?  

Quote from: jhkimI don't think that condition of anonymity -- like lawyers and their clients, doctors and their patients, or reporters talking to informants -- are fundamentally wrong.

I do, if it's used to cover up an ongoing crime and the law often agrees with me.  All 50 states have mandatory reporting laws for child abuse that for psychologists and these same laws generally cover social workers, physicians, nurses, police officers, and others.  Texas and Mississippi also require attorneys to report child abuse even when it's discovered in the course of their representation of their clients.  Several other states also require psychologists to report child abuse even when working in a legal capacity.  Constitutional protections are designed to protect the innocent from false conviction, not to help the guilty escape just conviction, and I can find no benefit toward that end in anyone covering up an ongoing crime.  Do you think that people should take it upon themselves to ignore these laws if they think they have a compelling reason to?  

Quote from: jhkimIf Kinsey had turned in people to be arrested for illegal sexual behavior they told him, then almost no one would have admitted anything to him.  So there would have been no gain.

My response here is, "So what?"  What was Kinsey doing that was so important as to justify the molestation of children?  When RPGPundit said that Planned Parenthood wasn't reporting statutory rape because he felt that one of their primary goals was to make sure that girls aren't afraid to come in for abortions, I don't agree with that at all but I can at least understand the thinking behind it.  I just don't see what Kinsey was doing that was so important as to justify his handling of pedophiles.  Even if you consider his research very important, it's not even as if the main points of his research hinged upon the data he collected about children.

Quote from: jhkimIt's not like people just randomly walked up to him and admitted such things on a whim.  The only reason why people admitted deviant and/or illegal sexual behavior to him was that he promised anonymity to them, and gave non-judgemental responses to everything said.  

And if he had been denied that information, how would society have suffered?  He still could have performed the research he performed on adults without crossing that line.

Quote from: jhkimGiven the blatant bias in the rest of the article, I am not inclined to simply take the article's word for it that Kinsey encouraged child molesters rather than simply listening to them.  It does not jibe with other accounts that I have read of that issue.  If the letters were public, then I suppose I might read them and judge for myself, but in the meantime I am skeptical.

You can find the Kinsey Institute's responses here.  While it addresses some of the more sensational charges, it doesn't entirely answer the questions about the letter in question nor does it go into any detail about 9 men that he interviewed who had sexual relations with children, one of which seems to be the source of data that appeared in his report.  Were they actively molesting children or describing past activity?  The Kinsey Institute doesn't say.  And just as the German Doctor was never actually used as part of his research, we have no way of knowing if there was other similar correspondence because the Kinsey Institute response seems to be carefully limited in scope.  So despite their response, some of the more critical questions remain, which I find curious.

Here is a more lengthy interview with a head of the Kinsey Institute  in 1996 that acknowledges that, "Yes, he did have an unrepresentative sample. Yes, he did over-sample--in particular, men in penal institutions.", that the commonly mentioned 10% homosexuality figure was more like 3% for exclusive homosexuality and 3% for bisexuality when the data was reanalyzed and the interview mentions another study that came up with a number just below 3% for men and below 2% for women).

The interview acknowledges, "It might certainly say that people made observations of children and, indeed, may have timed things" and that they observations were not made "by people in the Kinsey Institute", but doesn't say whether the timing (rather odd behavior) was encouraged by Kinsey's request for information, which comes back to the issue of whether he was talking to men about currently ongoing cases of abuse.  The interview also says, "Dr. Bancroft admits without hesitation that the man who provided the data for tables 31 through 34 undoubtedly sexually exploited the children whose behavior was chronicled. 'The question is,' Bancroft continued, 'why was Kinsey not totally open about his man being the only source for those tables? Obviously, I can't answer that.'"  And why was this man timing the children?  

Wikipedia claims, "Former and current directors of The Kinsey Institute confirmed that some of the information was gathered from nine pedophiles and that Kinsey chose not to report the pedophiles to the authorities, balancing what Kinsey saw as the need for their anonymity against the likelihood that their crimes would continue." but I don't have access to the other citation for that quote.  Given the recidivism rate for child molesters, the likelihood that one or more of them would continue to molest children was probably near 100% even if Kinsey was relying on past information, especially since the man he used gave him information about hundreds of children.  So we're back to Kinsey's "need for anonymity" to justify not reporting pedophiles to the authorities, something that current laws would make mandatory of any psychologist or doctor.  And for what?

Bancroft also makes the statement, "And, you know, everybody in the field has read that chapter and taken it entirely on face value. This is, of course, the reasonable approach."  Why is it reasonable to read detailed data about the sexual responses of children and not wonder how the data was gathered and whether it was gathered ethically?  In fact, it seems that it only came out in response to the criticism that some of that data was based on the reports of only one individual.  Yet nobody questioned it or noticed it.  I'm sorry but I don't find that reasonable.  I find it more than a bit creepy.

Apparently Abraham Maslow was also critical of Kinsey's sampling and use of volunteers, which apparently Kinsey didn't want to try to correct.  So I think that even if you exclude the more overblown claims made by Judith Reisman and others, Kinsey was pushing an agenda, his science was flawed, and I think serious ethical questions remain about his handling of child molesters.

Quote from: Thanatos02Pure class, man.

Sorry, but I know John is a decent guy and I'm finding his defense here a bit difficult to understand.  While the wording may have been a bit extreme, the focus here does seem to be on protecting child molesters and I'm not seeing a lot of regard for the victims or the possibility that their being protected could allow there to be many more victims.  And, yes, I do think liberals have historically been perceived as being weak on crime because they seem to care too much about the perpetrators of crime and too little about the victims.  In fact, if you haven't noticed, countries have been eroding the right to self-defense and charging people for hurting criminals even when the criminals were attacking them (e.g., here).

Quote from: John MorrowDo you really want to discuss the specifics of what was going on in the Catholic Church which involves more pederasty and homosexuality rather than true pedophilia?  The problem with the Catholic Church is less one of celibacy than a shortage of people wanting to be priests, which has led to a lowering of standards.

Oh my my... so apparently Kinsey and Planned Parenthood are utter bastards, but the Catholic Church gets a free pass in John Morrow´s world. What a surprise. :rolleyes:

And please.. "more a case of pederasty" than pedophilia? What the fuck does that even mean?!  Are you saying that those priests were engaged in some kind of "socratic relationship" with the kids, and thus it was ok for them to bugger the fuck out of little orphan boys for decades with impunity?!

Your two-facedness is showing badly, John.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditOh my my... so apparently Kinsey and Planned Parenthood are utter bastards, but the Catholic Church gets a free pass in John Morrow´s world. What a surprise. :rolleyes:

Nope.  Not at all and I should have made that clear.  The Catholic Church's cover up of what the priests were doing is the exact same thing that I'm accusing Kinsey of doing and Planned Parenthood of doing -- individuals taking it upon themselves to not report the abuse of children because they think they are doing something more important.  You are absolutely correct to call me out on this and I should have said that from the start.

Quote from: RPGPunditAnd please.. "more a case of pederasty" than pedophilia? What the fuck does that even mean?!  Are you saying that those priests were engaged in some kind of "socratic relationship" with the kids, and thus it was ok for them to bugger the fuck out of little orphan boys for decades with impunity?!

What I meant was this.  It's widely argued that adults attracted to very young children don't necessarily care what the sex is because pedophilia trumps sexual orientatoin and given that young children have few distinctive differences, I'm willing to buy that.  When when you start dealing with young teenagers, we're talking about kids who are starting to have gender specific traits and the offenders seem to pick victims that match their orientation.  So I see that can be more of a matter of picking a weak target than a specific attraction to the physique of children.  And, yes, heterosexuals do the same thing.  My point is that I think it's a different issue than pediophilia, though certainly quite awful, too.

Quote from: RPGPunditYour two-facedness is showing badly, John.

No, you just caught me not stating my position and were certainly justified in calling me out for it.