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The idea that the Western world (at least, my country, the UK) uses laws to criminalize groups of people seems about as old as time itself to me. We don't puni

The idea that the Western world (at least, my country, the UK) uses laws to criminalize groups of people seems about as old as time itself to me. We don't punish drug use because we care about people taking drugs. We punish drug use because we want to eliminate the influence of 'junkies' on society. We don't punish radical views because we disagree with them. We punish radical views because we want to eliminate their influence on society. Let's talk about child abuse. A terrible crime. As a UK resident - it feels to me, that people don't actually care about the actual act of child abuse as much as they care about the... 'othering' of the perpetrator. It's the idea of a child abuser as being an animal, a strange alien, a completely non-understandable beast, that really riles us up. That's why 'think of the children' works. We're not thinking about the children, really. We're thinking about the threat from human actors who don't have world-views that quite fit - we can't grok them, they can't be trusted. That's what I think these sorts of laws are fundamentally about. They are about trying to remove 'scary' individuals. I don't care about terrorism because I think it's vanishingly unlikely to occur. But people, as a mass, fear the unknown - they fear the humans who don't have the same limits that they do. The humans that can, and will, do anything. 'Terrorist' is just the new 'criminal', because 'criminal' doesn't hold the same cachet when everyone is a criminal.

rorykoehler 11y ago
>We punish drug use because we want to eliminate the influence of 'junkies' on society. & >They are about trying to remove 'scary' individuals. It's not so clear cut. It's more about having the ability to selectively remove them if and when they become a nuisance. Consider GW Bush for example. Coke fiend but establishment, ends up becoming US president. Is he not a junkie? Did he not have a huge influence on society including societies beyond his immediate society? The law is about power not morality. Morality is the thin veil used to present the tool of coercion that is the legal system to the masses.
kagamine 11y ago
> that people don't actually care about the actual act of child abuse as much as they care about the... 'othering' of the perpetrator. It's the idea of a child abuser as being an animal, a strange alien, a completely non-understandable beast, that really riles us up. I disagree, that is how the media sells papers and gets page clicks, but is that what the man-in-the-street thinks? I'm also from the UK, and to me the vilest part of it is that children have little understanding of these adult things; sex, relationships, normality, an inability to protect themselves from adults. They have a right to be a child during childhood (it is a humanitarian right in many countries 1). It isn't about demonizing a person, it is about being saddened by the loss of a child (within a child's body) and the loss of faith in humanity within myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_th...

rorykoehler 11y ago

>We punish drug use because we want to eliminate the influence of 'junkies' on society. & >They are about trying to remove 'scary' individuals. It's not so clear cut. It's more about having the ability to selectively remove them if and when they become a nuisance. Consider GW Bush for example. Coke fiend but establishment, ends up becoming US president. Is he not a junkie? Did he not have a huge influence on society including societies beyond his immediate society? The law is about power not morality. Morality is the thin veil used to present the tool of coercion that is the legal system to the masses.

kagamine 11y ago

> that people don't actually care about the actual act of child abuse as much as they care about the... 'othering' of the perpetrator. It's the idea of a child abuser as being an animal, a strange alien, a completely non-understandable beast, that really riles us up. I disagree, that is how the media sells papers and gets page clicks, but is that what the man-in-the-street thinks? I'm also from the UK, and to me the vilest part of it is that children have little understanding of these adult things; sex, relationships, normality, an inability to protect themselves from adults. They have a right to be a child during childhood (it is a humanitarian right in many countries 1). It isn't about demonizing a person, it is about being saddened by the loss of a child (within a child's body) and the loss of faith in humanity within myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_th...