| | Bill Dwyer:
"...of all the defamations that he is guilty of, perhaps the worst is the defamation of libertarianism - associating it with the idea that children have the same rights as adults and the capacity to make the same decisions as adults. Peron is not alone in this view, by the way. It is more common among libertarians than you might think."
After checking in on my last post, I feel obligated to enter a brief response to this statement by Bill Dwyer, since it is at the very heart of this "discussion", (which, depressingly, has happened already some time ago, in great length on A2 and SOLO)...
As was pointed out to Bill before (on A2) using the word "children" in this context is next-to-meaningless, without proper qualifications.
It is most appropriate to ask (in relation to Bill's assertion), what is a child, and at what age is it reasonable to believe that the individual has a reasonable amount of control over his or her self-faculties, in order to make a reasonable judgement call with regard to sexual relationships? The history of "age of consent" laws is varied and quite interesting, and it is something that really ought to be considered when discussing such topics. What is reasonable? 10? 12? 14? 16? 18? 20? Or maybe 11? 13? 15? 17? 19?
I happen to believe that most 14 years olds, for example, are more than qualified--from a legal perspective--to make rational decisions about sexual relationships (as well as huge variety of other things and circumstances) and ought to, in general, be afforded the same rights and considerations as any 18 year old. And further, I believe that the "age of consent" ought to be lowered to around this age (in order to be a rational law).
I know many of my peers (male and female) who engaged in sexual relationships at this age, (and earlier) and are certainly none-the-worse for the experiences. This is not to say that there weren't any "difficulties", but when in life aren't there?
This entire "discussion" (if it is too be more than a smear campaign) is really an age-of-consent debate, which in all likelihood can not really be objectively settled (past a certain, foggy point), since all human beings ARE INDIVIDUALS whose rational, emotional, and sexual faculties develop at wildly different rates.
In my humble opinion, throwing about loaded terms like "children", in this context, without proper age qualifications, quickly reduces a valid discussion into emotive nonsense.
RCR
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