If you think the Conservatives are bad, Libertarians are just plain disgusting

[corydoras]

Let’s suppose that you, or I, or someone we love, or someone we care about from afar, is raped while unconscious in a way that causes no direct physical harm — no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission. (Note: The Steubenville rape victim, according to all the accounts I’ve read, was not even aware that she’d been sexually assaulted until she learned about it from the Internet some days later.) Despite the lack of physical damage, we are shocked, appalled and horrified at the thought of being treated in this way, and suffer deep trauma as a result. Ought the law discourage such acts of rape? Should they be illegal?

You can all do your own Googling and look up the Steubenville Rape Trial. It does not make for nice reading.

[chesters1]

Its as controversial that "sex" only occurs if its penetrative

I have become confused about prostitutes and rape ,is rape the act of having sex without consent or leaving without paying?

Edited April 5, 2013 by chesters1

[corydoras]

Digital penetration without consent constitutes rape in many US States. Leaving without paying could be interpreted as fraud.

[Steve Walker]

Looks like a thought experiment which would have been in much less poor taste had the writer not unnecessarily brought in a reference to a real and horrific case.

[corydoras]

I'm not sure that I follow you Steve. If it had been a horrific fictional case would that have made it alright?

[chesters1]

If it were fictional would it be horrific?

 

Hmm remembering a film called the libertine yes fiction can be horrific although perhaps based on reality ,mr depp what were you thinking

Edited April 5, 2013 by chesters1

[corydoras]

This is them gloating about it chesters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22UsHZXPi7Q

[chesters1]

Sorry mate unless its me or mine effected i dont care ,i cant judge everyone one minute they are scum the next trained scum sent out to foreign wars to do it for the state.

Theres sickos everywhere unfortunately ,nothing i can do so i avoid looking ,not looking the other way ,just not looking

Unfortunately having human standards allows sub humans to exist

Edited April 5, 2013 by chesters1

[garylee]

Thats why the conservatives have cut their funding. oops sorry I thought you said librarians.

[Steve Walker]

He could have left the mention of that specific case out of it - for a start, it doesn't really suit the point of principle he asks us to consider.

His argument is;

Somebody else looking at pornography does not physically affect a person, but he doesn't like the thought of it - should his objection be grounds to stop that person?

Somebody else changing the environment somewhere a person will never go does not physically affect him, but he doesn't like the thought of it - should his objection be grounds to stop that person?

He then constructs this imaginary scenario in which a person is raped, knows they have been raped, but has no recollection of it and no physical effects to show for it - and effectively asks whether the person who feels entitled to object to being raped in this way is being inconsistent in answering "no" to the first two questions.

It looks to me like a thought experiment intended to explore two issues relevant to the first two cases - strong feelings of what is right and wrong, and ownership. He's asking;

"Is there any degree of finding something upsetting (despite it actually doing you no harm) which grants you a say in the matter?"

He's also asking;

"If you felt that your claim to the ownership of something (your own body) was utterly incontrovertable, should you be able to object to things being done to it which do not actually affect you"

It's an interesting argument to be raised by someone who is a hardcore Libertarian, because it is the kind of question someone arguing against his standpoint might be likely to make. It basically challenges the reader to answer a charge of hypocrisy.

Personally, I think that by conflating the two issues of ownership and feelings, he makes his thought experiment too woolly. There are too many get-out clauses, too much complexity. The issues involved are not simple enough to reduce to a thought experiment about hurt feelings. And I think his example is in poor taste, though I understand why he chooses it, because the ownership of the self is about as uncontroversial as property rights get and the example of rape is as offensive as it gets.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Steve Walker