5 ms·

He seems to have expressed a couple distinct arguments: 1. It isn't pedophilia if the person is sexually mature. Pedophilia is sex with prepubescent children.

He seems to have expressed a couple distinct arguments: 1. It isn't pedophilia if the person is sexually mature. Pedophilia is sex with prepubescent children. 2. He draws a distinction between statutory rape (can't legally say yes according to the law, but otherwise willing and sexually mature) and forcible rape (when someone says no). He made a point about how statutory rape wouldn't be considered rape if it happened in a different location (e.g. Italy) or if the person's birthday were slightly adjusted. I agree with you that in the Epstein case you have a situation with a dramatic power imbalance. Stallman seems to consider Epstein a serial rapist (possibly for that fact?). He seems to be more pushing back on the pedophilia accusations. Also - there seems to be a thread lost. It really looks like Epstein was a US Intelligence Officer filming powerful people having sex with young women (including foreign officials) to obtain leverage on them for the United States. This whole aspect of the conversation seems to have melted away in the various other controversies.

johnny22 7y ago
well it might also have to do with that folks like bill clinton and donald trump were associating with him..
rjzzleep 7y ago
I'm not going to argue one way or the other. But for those saying legally it's one way or the other. In Germany (and I find this disturbing) the legal age under which a grown up (over 21 years) can have sex with a kid is 14[1][2]. Of course a judge can find that the child or their legal representative not having been capable of giving consent in which case it's still considered child abuse. Western societies themselves have such vastly different legal definitions of consent. To be honest I find germanies version to be the weirdest I've seen although I don't know much about the other european countries. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzalter https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzalter [2] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__176.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__176.html
- poisonborz 7y ago
  14 is a common age of consent in East-EU/Balkans https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-consent-europe.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-co...
  - meruru 7y ago
    It looks like most of the world has it at 16 and below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent
- tannhaeuser 7y ago
  Could you explain what it is that you find so disturbing and weird about this?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  > Germany (and I find this disturbing) the legal age under which a grown up (over 21 years) can have sex with a kid is 14[1][2]. It is not. The general legal age of consent in German is 16 years. § 182 (3) The special legal age is 14 and it's only legal if the other party is under 21. Even then there are a lot of further exemptions that would make sex with a minor illegal. Prostitution and/or pornography involving minors is always illegal.
  - tpush 7y ago
    Not quite true. In Germany, having sex with someone in the 14-15 range can be illegal if the other party is above the age of 21. Relevant passage in German, from the parent's link: "Über die Vorschriften des § 182 StGB Abs. 1 und 2 (Zwangslage, Entgelt) bezüglich des Schutzalters 18 Jahre hinaus, die auch für unter 16-jährige Opfer gelten, können sexuelle Handlungen von Erwachsenen, die über 21 Jahre alt sind, mit 14- und 15-jährigen Jugendlichen nach § 182 Abs. 3 StGB bestraft werden, falls ein gesetzlicher Vertreter des Jugendlichen Strafantrag stellt und im Strafverfahren das Gericht feststellt, dass der Erwachsene eine – etwa mit Hilfe eines Sachverständigen – festzustellende „fehlende Fähigkeit zur sexuellen Selbstbestimmung“ des Jugendlichen ausgenutzt hat. Der Bundesgerichtshof hat 1996 festgestellt, dass der bloße Hinweis auf das Alter der 14- oder 15-jährigen Person für eine Verurteilung des erwachsenen Beschuldigten nicht ausreicht." (emphasis mine) To summarize: Having (consensual, of course) sex with a 14 year old is always legal in Germany if you're under the age of 21 and not a teacher or some such, and can be illegal if you're over that.
fenomas 7y ago
> He made a point about how statutory rape wouldn't be considered rape if it happened in a different location (e.g. Italy) or if the person's birthday were slightly adjusted. I understand what RMS is trying to say, but this strikes me as an incredibly weak argument. All laws are arbitrary, but pointing that out isn't a meaningful defense of someone who broke one. It's like contesting a parking ticket by saying "well if parking had been allowed on that street at that time then I wouldn't have done anything wrong."
- lopmotr 7y ago
  While I don't know about this case, a common problem with people arguing right/wrong and legal/illegal is that one side picks right/wrong and the other picks legal/illegal and they talk past each other. If the law happens to agree with somebody's opinion, they'll use that to justify that they're "right" and if it doesn't, they'll use some higher moral standard and disregard the law. Sometimes it's obvious which the sensible choice to make is. If you're arguing whether the GPL allows linking to a proprietary library or not, then it's the law that's more important. But if you're arguing if sex with children is OK then it's some higher moral standard that's important and appeals to the law are essentially appeals to popular opinion as support of some moral standard. Luckily, people usually agree on what the law means, so they just have to make sure they're arguing about the same point that their opponent is actually making.
- boring_twenties 7y ago
  That is a poor analogy, because if you can't park where you want that is a moderate inconvenience at the very worst. If you find yourself "in love" with a 17-and-a-half-year-old, it's not so easy as finding another spot.
  - bad_user 7y ago
    That's what you think happened here? You think Epstein felt in love? With a child being trafficked for sex?
    - bscphil 7y ago
nkurz 7y ago
> Also - there seems to be a thread lost. It really looks like Epstein was a US Intelligence Officer filming powerful people having sex with young women (including foreign officials) to obtain leverage on them for the United States. I agree that the reporting silence on this aspect of the case is odd. The federal prosecutor who worked out Epstein's plea deal (Alexander Acosta) appears to have told the press that the deal was done because he was told "Epstein belonged to intelligence". This was widely reported in July (https://www.google.com/search?q=acosta+epstein+intelligence https://www.google.com/search?q=acosta+epstein+intelligence), and then this revelation was almost completely dropped when Acosta resigned from his position as Secretary of Labor due to fallout from his involvement with the plea deal. I'll note though that Acosta did not explicitly claim that Epstein was working for the US intelligence services...
- eesmith 7y ago
  I thought it was because that was a clear lie used to provide cover for his generous plea deal, based on his connections with higher-ups. The federal prosecutor was not in a position to be able to verify that claim. No other evidence for it has come forth, making it hard to accept your view that "it really looks like" that's the case.
  - nkurz 7y ago
    > making it hard to accept your view that "it really looks like" that's the case I didn't use those words, the parent poster did. Personally, I think the possibility that Epstein was working for a government agency (domestic or foreign) merits further investigation, but is far from a certainty. I agree that Acosta might have been lying. But if this is the case, I find it doubly odd that there has been so little follow up reporting.
    - eesmith 7y ago
      My apologies for the misattribution. Suppose Acosta started the lie, and refuses to talk about it. What would the follow-up reporting look like? "I contacted 16 US intelligence agencies. 9 of them denied that Epstein worked for them, and the rest would neither confirm or deny that Epstein worked for them."? Would you have seen that sort of reporting? Would it be convincing? How many relevant intelligence agencies are there in the US?
smallmancontrov 7y ago
> Stallman seems to consider Epstein a serial rapist (possibly for that fact?). He seems to be more pushing back on the pedophilia accusations. Wait, what? I thought he was objecting to the claim that Marvin Minsky assaulted one of Epstein's victims. https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
- mtrower 7y ago
  There are numerous items in play at this point. You are correct about the events of the past week. What's being referred to, in regards to his opinion of Epstein, is this piece from April: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#25_April_2019_(Plea_deal_for_Epstein) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#25_April_201...
joe_the_user 7y ago
He draws a distinction between statutory rape (can't legally say yes according to the law, but otherwise willing and sexually mature) and forcible rape (when someone says no). He made a point about how statutory rape wouldn't be considered rape if it happened in a different location (e.g. Italy) or if the person's birthday were slightly adjusted. One can draw a distinction between rape by physical force and rape by coercion, manipulation and deception - but it's kind of undesirable to push any kind of line that a lack of force makes this a automatically a different kind of crime. For example, sex with police officer or prison guard when someone is in custody is in many jurisdictions automatically considered to be rape because the circumstances mean a person can't really consent - and that's entirely logical. In this sense, "statutory rape" and forcible rape aren't entirely different. Maybe one might find situations where under-aged sex isn't rape by manipulation - where you can argue consent could reasonably given (an eighteen year old with sixteen year in the same High school is hard to argue against). But the Epstein situation is clearly the wrong place to look for this.
- throwstallman 7y ago
  Yes, I think this is true, and also that Stallman agrees.

johnny22 7y ago

well it might also have to do with that folks like bill clinton and donald trump were associating with him..

rjzzleep 7y ago

I'm not going to argue one way or the other. But for those saying legally it's one way or the other. In Germany (and I find this disturbing) the legal age under which a grown up (over 21 years) can have sex with a kid is 14[1][2]. Of course a judge can find that the child or their legal representative not having been capable of giving consent in which case it's still considered child abuse. Western societies themselves have such vastly different legal definitions of consent. To be honest I find germanies version to be the weirdest I've seen although I don't know much about the other european countries. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzalter https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzalter [2] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__176.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__176.html

poisonborz 7y ago
14 is a common age of consent in East-EU/Balkans https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-consent-europe.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/age-of-co...
- meruru 7y ago
  It looks like most of the world has it at 16 and below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent
tannhaeuser 7y ago
Could you explain what it is that you find so disturbing and weird about this?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rndgermandude 7y ago
> Germany (and I find this disturbing) the legal age under which a grown up (over 21 years) can have sex with a kid is 14[1][2]. It is not. The general legal age of consent in German is 16 years. § 182 (3) The special legal age is 14 and it's only legal if the other party is under 21. Even then there are a lot of further exemptions that would make sex with a minor illegal. Prostitution and/or pornography involving minors is always illegal.
- tpush 7y ago
  Not quite true. In Germany, having sex with someone in the 14-15 range can be illegal if the other party is above the age of 21. Relevant passage in German, from the parent's link: "Über die Vorschriften des § 182 StGB Abs. 1 und 2 (Zwangslage, Entgelt) bezüglich des Schutzalters 18 Jahre hinaus, die auch für unter 16-jährige Opfer gelten, können sexuelle Handlungen von Erwachsenen, die über 21 Jahre alt sind, mit 14- und 15-jährigen Jugendlichen nach § 182 Abs. 3 StGB bestraft werden, falls ein gesetzlicher Vertreter des Jugendlichen Strafantrag stellt und im Strafverfahren das Gericht feststellt, dass der Erwachsene eine – etwa mit Hilfe eines Sachverständigen – festzustellende „fehlende Fähigkeit zur sexuellen Selbstbestimmung“ des Jugendlichen ausgenutzt hat. Der Bundesgerichtshof hat 1996 festgestellt, dass der bloße Hinweis auf das Alter der 14- oder 15-jährigen Person für eine Verurteilung des erwachsenen Beschuldigten nicht ausreicht." (emphasis mine) To summarize: Having (consensual, of course) sex with a 14 year old is always legal in Germany if you're under the age of 21 and not a teacher or some such, and can be illegal if you're over that.

fenomas 7y ago

> He made a point about how statutory rape wouldn't be considered rape if it happened in a different location (e.g. Italy) or if the person's birthday were slightly adjusted. I understand what RMS is trying to say, but this strikes me as an incredibly weak argument. All laws are arbitrary, but pointing that out isn't a meaningful defense of someone who broke one. It's like contesting a parking ticket by saying "well if parking had been allowed on that street at that time then I wouldn't have done anything wrong."

lopmotr 7y ago
While I don't know about this case, a common problem with people arguing right/wrong and legal/illegal is that one side picks right/wrong and the other picks legal/illegal and they talk past each other. If the law happens to agree with somebody's opinion, they'll use that to justify that they're "right" and if it doesn't, they'll use some higher moral standard and disregard the law. Sometimes it's obvious which the sensible choice to make is. If you're arguing whether the GPL allows linking to a proprietary library or not, then it's the law that's more important. But if you're arguing if sex with children is OK then it's some higher moral standard that's important and appeals to the law are essentially appeals to popular opinion as support of some moral standard. Luckily, people usually agree on what the law means, so they just have to make sure they're arguing about the same point that their opponent is actually making.
boring_twenties 7y ago
That is a poor analogy, because if you can't park where you want that is a moderate inconvenience at the very worst. If you find yourself "in love" with a 17-and-a-half-year-old, it's not so easy as finding another spot.
- bad_user 7y ago
  That's what you think happened here? You think Epstein felt in love? With a child being trafficked for sex?
  - bscphil 7y ago

nkurz 7y ago

> Also - there seems to be a thread lost. It really looks like Epstein was a US Intelligence Officer filming powerful people having sex with young women (including foreign officials) to obtain leverage on them for the United States. I agree that the reporting silence on this aspect of the case is odd. The federal prosecutor who worked out Epstein's plea deal (Alexander Acosta) appears to have told the press that the deal was done because he was told "Epstein belonged to intelligence". This was widely reported in July (https://www.google.com/search?q=acosta+epstein+intelligence https://www.google.com/search?q=acosta+epstein+intelligence), and then this revelation was almost completely dropped when Acosta resigned from his position as Secretary of Labor due to fallout from his involvement with the plea deal. I'll note though that Acosta did not explicitly claim that Epstein was working for the US intelligence services...

eesmith 7y ago
I thought it was because that was a clear lie used to provide cover for his generous plea deal, based on his connections with higher-ups. The federal prosecutor was not in a position to be able to verify that claim. No other evidence for it has come forth, making it hard to accept your view that "it really looks like" that's the case.
- nkurz 7y ago
  > making it hard to accept your view that "it really looks like" that's the case I didn't use those words, the parent poster did. Personally, I think the possibility that Epstein was working for a government agency (domestic or foreign) merits further investigation, but is far from a certainty. I agree that Acosta might have been lying. But if this is the case, I find it doubly odd that there has been so little follow up reporting.
  - eesmith 7y ago
    My apologies for the misattribution. Suppose Acosta started the lie, and refuses to talk about it. What would the follow-up reporting look like? "I contacted 16 US intelligence agencies. 9 of them denied that Epstein worked for them, and the rest would neither confirm or deny that Epstein worked for them."? Would you have seen that sort of reporting? Would it be convincing? How many relevant intelligence agencies are there in the US?

smallmancontrov 7y ago

> Stallman seems to consider Epstein a serial rapist (possibly for that fact?). He seems to be more pushing back on the pedophilia accusations. Wait, what? I thought he was objecting to the claim that Marvin Minsky assaulted one of Epstein's victims. https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...

mtrower 7y ago
There are numerous items in play at this point. You are correct about the events of the past week. What's being referred to, in regards to his opinion of Epstein, is this piece from April: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#25_April_2019_(Plea_deal_for_Epstein) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#25_April_201...

joe_the_user 7y ago

He draws a distinction between statutory rape (can't legally say yes according to the law, but otherwise willing and sexually mature) and forcible rape (when someone says no). He made a point about how statutory rape wouldn't be considered rape if it happened in a different location (e.g. Italy) or if the person's birthday were slightly adjusted. One can draw a distinction between rape by physical force and rape by coercion, manipulation and deception - but it's kind of undesirable to push any kind of line that a lack of force makes this a automatically a different kind of crime. For example, sex with police officer or prison guard when someone is in custody is in many jurisdictions automatically considered to be rape because the circumstances mean a person can't really consent - and that's entirely logical. In this sense, "statutory rape" and forcible rape aren't entirely different. Maybe one might find situations where under-aged sex isn't rape by manipulation - where you can argue consent could reasonably given (an eighteen year old with sixteen year in the same High school is hard to argue against). But the Epstein situation is clearly the wrong place to look for this.

throwstallman 7y ago
Yes, I think this is true, and also that Stallman agrees.