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> Well, no, rape is not just rape because the law says that minors up to some age are not capable of making decisions on who they have sex with willingly And t

> Well, no, rape is not just rape because the law says that minors up to some age are not capable of making decisions on who they have sex with willingly And that's absurd. Do we all agree on this? for different reasons - 17 years 364 days is any different from 18 years old 0 days? - Stallman was talking (at the time) about consensual sex, not rape - Stallman said he found absurd that rape was defined in terms of `minor details` not that rape does not exists. He's not wrong. > still American moral and culture norms apply. In USA people should be horrified by Facebook spying kids[1], not about what Stallman thinks [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/

ivanhoe 7y ago
It is, because one is illegal, the other is not. Just like drinking with 21 and 20.99 years is not the same, because you have to draw the line somewhere and it is drawn there. In my country the age of consent is extremely low, just 14. So by applying your logic to that, 13 and 364 days would be OK too? How do you feel about that, not entirely comfortable right? Because you're used mentally to 18 years being the line, and then breaking the law "a little" seems like no big deal. Moving it down to 13 feels crazy. But all the laws are like that, some red lines that it's not OK to cross, little or not. If 18 is the legal age, you just don't mess with minors, how complicated is that really?
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  > It is, because one is illegal, the other is not Rape is always illegal. Sex is not. > Just like drinking with 21 and 20.99 years is not the same, because they're American. We start at 18, no problems here, no mass shootings, no one selling out to older people to buy alcohol for them. > So by applying your logic to that, 13 and 364 days would be OK too? So by your logic 14 and 1 days is ok? Or, as Stallman said, rape cannot be defined by minor things such as the place where it happened or the age when it happened? > How do you feel about that, not entirely comfortable right? Completely. It's your country that allows older people have sex with baby girls, not mine. > Because you're used mentally to 18 years being the line, Don't assume we are all like you. I'm mentally used to being normal at 15-16... Because that's the age when people around me started, when I was their age. > But all the laws are like that Not even those about rape are all black and white. Even statutory rape is usually treated differently if the minor is just around the age of consent or not. > If 18 is the legal age, you just don't mess with minors, how complicated is that really? That's exactly what Stallman did. He never messed with minors. What upset you so much?
  - ivanhoe 7y ago
    > Rape is always illegal. - If person is 18 and sex is consensual it's not a rape. - If person is 17y 354 days old it doesn't matter what the minor person acted like, because law treats it as a non-consensual sex, so it's statutory rape. > So by your logic 14 and 1 days is ok? If both persons involved are living in Serbia it is OK. Unusual thing nowadays and to many here (me included) not seen as something morally positive, but some minorities have a different customs than mainstream Serbian culture, so it's fully legal. Most of Europe has the age of consent at 16, which in my own eyes makes more appropriate age than 14, but law is what matters. > That's exactly what Stallman did. He never messed with minors. No one said he did. But he, completely uncalled for, defended someone who did - who broke the law in a very obvious way - and he did it by trying to put the blame on a victim, although her being a minor makes her behavior completely irrelevant from the legal point of view. And that sucks.
    - lostjohnny 7y ago
      > If person is 17y 354 days old it doesn't matter what the minor person acted like, because law treats it as a non-consensual sex, so it's statutory rape That's why USA are the motherland of mass shootings then... I'm 18 today, my girlfriend is one day younger than me, it's rape. What a lovely country. > If both persons involved are living in Serbia it is OK But is it OK for you? Because you implied that I was ok with it... I'm curious now. > No one said he did. But he, completely uncalled fo Like he always did? Did someone called him to invent the GPL? > defended someone who did But he did not. That's utterly false. > and he did it by trying to put the blame on a victim He was arguing that it wasn't not pedophilia but statutory rape. I don't know why you people love so much to put words in the mouth of RMS, he's perfectly capable of shooting himself in the foot. It won't be the last time. It still does not make him someone who argues in favour of rape.
- codyb 7y ago
  I think a window system makes sense. If you’re 19 and your sweetheart you’ve been dating is 17, that’s a lot different than a 25 year old and a 17 year old I think. I guess it’d make sense to base it on brain development. I have no idea what the best windows would be to promote the greatest reduction in false positive rape cases. The biggest thing we as a society really need is a culture where the raped feel more comfortable speaking up. It’d probably be a decent thing to fund testing the massive backlog of rape kits piling up at the nation’s police forces as well. No solution will ever be perfect so you can only attempt to do the least harm and help the most people in these awful situations. Improving sexual education across some of our more religiously oriented states would be a positive as well. Hopefully we keep moving forward. And what would be really nice is if some of these awful people Epstein trafficked these girls to went to prison. It’s high time the rich and powerful started being held accountable for their absolutely atrocious behavior, whether it’s selling enough oxycontin to hook huge swathes of the population on heroin (the Sacklers certainly seem to be getting a better treatment than your average crack dealer), raping underage sex slaves, or leaking hundreds of millions of Americans social security numbers the rich and powerful seem to laugh and shrug it off. That’s gotta stop.
  - parliament32 7y ago
    Canada, for example, has "close in age exception"s. Specifically, age of consent is 16, but "a 14 or 15 year old can consent to sexual activity as long as the partner is less than five years older and there is no relationship of trust, authority or dependency or any other exploitation of the young person." https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/other-autre/clp/faq.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/other-autre/clp/faq.html
_jal 7y ago
There are two things going on here. (Well, more, I'll focus on two.) Legal drafting always leads to absurdities. It is not possible to draft laws that don't; the practical need for unambiguous rules combined with complex reality means there are always edge cases. Illustrating this general fact with the highly specific case of old rich men screwing young, powerless kids is going to cause other people to wonder about why it seems like you're only interested arguing about legal absurdities in this specific context. After all, you could illustrate your point with, say, the catch 22s inherent in the modern debt peonage systems in the US, or how pro-bono plaintiffs are regularly abused for not following rules they have no access to see, or a nearly endless parade of other examples. Let's just say that if defending rich old men screwing young kids is apparently your hill to die on, a lot of folks are going to be less focused on your nuanced legal argumentation.
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  > Legal drafting always leads to absurdities Agree, and that's exactly the kind of absurd RMS was talking about. That's it, just that. He can't concive that something is illogical. Does he deserve the blame for it? > let's just say that if defending rich old men screwing young kids is apparently your hill to die on It never happened though. That's the point: in court you could be charged for saying it.
  - _jal 7y ago
    No, it is not just that. You are apparently intent on ignoring the point of my post, so let me rephrase: If someone has a history of complaining about absurd legal results, it would not be surprising to hear them use this situation as an example while beating that drum. (It may be a tacky example to use, but that's a different question.) On the other hand, if someone has a history of doing and saying things that other people take indicative of treating women as less than fully equal, and, having never before shown any interest in a particular legal argument, trots it out to defend (and yes, that exactly what it was) abhorrent behavior, people are going to take it differently. > That's the point: in court you could be charged for saying it. You lost me here. Do you mean to say someone could claim I libeled them? Well sure. In the US, people can sue over anything they like. But if that's what you meant, I still have no idea what "charges" you're talking about.

ivanhoe 7y ago

It is, because one is illegal, the other is not. Just like drinking with 21 and 20.99 years is not the same, because you have to draw the line somewhere and it is drawn there. In my country the age of consent is extremely low, just 14. So by applying your logic to that, 13 and 364 days would be OK too? How do you feel about that, not entirely comfortable right? Because you're used mentally to 18 years being the line, and then breaking the law "a little" seems like no big deal. Moving it down to 13 feels crazy. But all the laws are like that, some red lines that it's not OK to cross, little or not. If 18 is the legal age, you just don't mess with minors, how complicated is that really?

lostjohnny 7y ago
> It is, because one is illegal, the other is not Rape is always illegal. Sex is not. > Just like drinking with 21 and 20.99 years is not the same, because they're American. We start at 18, no problems here, no mass shootings, no one selling out to older people to buy alcohol for them. > So by applying your logic to that, 13 and 364 days would be OK too? So by your logic 14 and 1 days is ok? Or, as Stallman said, rape cannot be defined by minor things such as the place where it happened or the age when it happened? > How do you feel about that, not entirely comfortable right? Completely. It's your country that allows older people have sex with baby girls, not mine. > Because you're used mentally to 18 years being the line, Don't assume we are all like you. I'm mentally used to being normal at 15-16... Because that's the age when people around me started, when I was their age. > But all the laws are like that Not even those about rape are all black and white. Even statutory rape is usually treated differently if the minor is just around the age of consent or not. > If 18 is the legal age, you just don't mess with minors, how complicated is that really? That's exactly what Stallman did. He never messed with minors. What upset you so much?
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  > Rape is always illegal. - If person is 18 and sex is consensual it's not a rape. - If person is 17y 354 days old it doesn't matter what the minor person acted like, because law treats it as a non-consensual sex, so it's statutory rape. > So by your logic 14 and 1 days is ok? If both persons involved are living in Serbia it is OK. Unusual thing nowadays and to many here (me included) not seen as something morally positive, but some minorities have a different customs than mainstream Serbian culture, so it's fully legal. Most of Europe has the age of consent at 16, which in my own eyes makes more appropriate age than 14, but law is what matters. > That's exactly what Stallman did. He never messed with minors. No one said he did. But he, completely uncalled for, defended someone who did - who broke the law in a very obvious way - and he did it by trying to put the blame on a victim, although her being a minor makes her behavior completely irrelevant from the legal point of view. And that sucks.
  - lostjohnny 7y ago
    > If person is 17y 354 days old it doesn't matter what the minor person acted like, because law treats it as a non-consensual sex, so it's statutory rape That's why USA are the motherland of mass shootings then... I'm 18 today, my girlfriend is one day younger than me, it's rape. What a lovely country. > If both persons involved are living in Serbia it is OK But is it OK for you? Because you implied that I was ok with it... I'm curious now. > No one said he did. But he, completely uncalled fo Like he always did? Did someone called him to invent the GPL? > defended someone who did But he did not. That's utterly false. > and he did it by trying to put the blame on a victim He was arguing that it wasn't not pedophilia but statutory rape. I don't know why you people love so much to put words in the mouth of RMS, he's perfectly capable of shooting himself in the foot. It won't be the last time. It still does not make him someone who argues in favour of rape.
codyb 7y ago
I think a window system makes sense. If you’re 19 and your sweetheart you’ve been dating is 17, that’s a lot different than a 25 year old and a 17 year old I think. I guess it’d make sense to base it on brain development. I have no idea what the best windows would be to promote the greatest reduction in false positive rape cases. The biggest thing we as a society really need is a culture where the raped feel more comfortable speaking up. It’d probably be a decent thing to fund testing the massive backlog of rape kits piling up at the nation’s police forces as well. No solution will ever be perfect so you can only attempt to do the least harm and help the most people in these awful situations. Improving sexual education across some of our more religiously oriented states would be a positive as well. Hopefully we keep moving forward. And what would be really nice is if some of these awful people Epstein trafficked these girls to went to prison. It’s high time the rich and powerful started being held accountable for their absolutely atrocious behavior, whether it’s selling enough oxycontin to hook huge swathes of the population on heroin (the Sacklers certainly seem to be getting a better treatment than your average crack dealer), raping underage sex slaves, or leaking hundreds of millions of Americans social security numbers the rich and powerful seem to laugh and shrug it off. That’s gotta stop.
- parliament32 7y ago
  Canada, for example, has "close in age exception"s. Specifically, age of consent is 16, but "a 14 or 15 year old can consent to sexual activity as long as the partner is less than five years older and there is no relationship of trust, authority or dependency or any other exploitation of the young person." https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/other-autre/clp/faq.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/other-autre/clp/faq.html

_jal 7y ago

There are two things going on here. (Well, more, I'll focus on two.) Legal drafting always leads to absurdities. It is not possible to draft laws that don't; the practical need for unambiguous rules combined with complex reality means there are always edge cases. Illustrating this general fact with the highly specific case of old rich men screwing young, powerless kids is going to cause other people to wonder about why it seems like you're only interested arguing about legal absurdities in this specific context. After all, you could illustrate your point with, say, the catch 22s inherent in the modern debt peonage systems in the US, or how pro-bono plaintiffs are regularly abused for not following rules they have no access to see, or a nearly endless parade of other examples. Let's just say that if defending rich old men screwing young kids is apparently your hill to die on, a lot of folks are going to be less focused on your nuanced legal argumentation.

lostjohnny 7y ago
> Legal drafting always leads to absurdities Agree, and that's exactly the kind of absurd RMS was talking about. That's it, just that. He can't concive that something is illogical. Does he deserve the blame for it? > let's just say that if defending rich old men screwing young kids is apparently your hill to die on It never happened though. That's the point: in court you could be charged for saying it.
- _jal 7y ago
  No, it is not just that. You are apparently intent on ignoring the point of my post, so let me rephrase: If someone has a history of complaining about absurd legal results, it would not be surprising to hear them use this situation as an example while beating that drum. (It may be a tacky example to use, but that's a different question.) On the other hand, if someone has a history of doing and saying things that other people take indicative of treating women as less than fully equal, and, having never before shown any interest in a particular legal argument, trots it out to defend (and yes, that exactly what it was) abhorrent behavior, people are going to take it differently. > That's the point: in court you could be charged for saying it. You lost me here. Do you mean to say someone could claim I libeled them? Well sure. In the US, people can sue over anything they like. But if that's what you meant, I still have no idea what "charges" you're talking about.