On Mon, 27 Oct 1997, Ratbert wrote:
I'm not sure the right to free speech includes the right to endorse guys fucking little boys, whether they give it a moniker like "transgenerational love" or not. Any sex with a minor is rape, since they can't legally give consent.
There's a huge difference between people talking about fucking little boys, and people actually doing it. The latter is certainly rape, and perpetrators should certainly be jailed at the very least. However, for all that it may be offensive, data doesn't hurt children, except in that it records previous crimes, or foreshadows future ones. Even if we were to admit some of this information constitutes a thought crime there's still no shortage of far more important physical crimes against children for our protectors to deal with. Read some de Sade from your local library. For many liberal people, it can be challenging to reconcile a general belief in freedom of speech and thought with their revulsion at what he wrote. It's easy to believe in freedom in the abstract: you have to look at the boundary cases to decide what you really believe. -- Martin Pool