3 ms·
That second quote is a summary of this Guardian article that he's linking to, published on the same day in 2013: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/03
by makomk 7y ago
That second quote is a summary of this Guardian article that he's linking to, published on the same day in 2013: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-bringing-dark-desires-light https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-...
What's more interesting is the reason that Guardian article exists. It's basically an attempt to justify why Liberty (then the National Council for Civil Liberties), a respectable British political pressure group with close ties to our Labour party, was lobbying the government to legalise sex between adults and children a few decades ago. (They were also affiliated with the Paedophile Information Exchange, which was exactly what the title suggests.)
Why does something that happened a few decades ago matter now? Obviously it was relevant to the whole scandal over historic allegations of childhood sexual abuse, especially since PIE was run by pedophiles in important political positions. On top of that, one of the most important current-day Labour politicians Harriet Harman bootstrapped her political career using the important roles her and her husband played in the National Council for Civil Liberties during the exact time period where they had those ties to PIE and were doing that lobbying. She's still relevant today; various journalists and politicians are trying to wrangle her a position as Speaker or maybe even Prime Minister.
We could well end up with someone building a path to one of the most important positions in UK government on her role in an organisation lobbying in support of pedophilia a few decades ago whilst Stallman is made homeless based, in part, on his summary of the apologia for that lobbying printed in the mainstream press.
(Stallman completely missed this subtext, but that's not surprising; I don't think the full details became public knowledge until some time later.)
- CathedralBorrow 7y agoThat's certainly a link you've made. Any thoughts on the first quote? The one where he writes "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children". Do you think he's just factually summarizing some news article there as well?
- makomk 7y agoPresumably that was his actual views back then. People have relied heavily on that second quote to prove that he still holds those views though.
- foldr 7y agoIf he hasn't very publicly retracted that view and apologized (and: he hasn't), then he shouldn't be surprised that people aren't willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he talks about sex crimes.
- flukus 7y ago> If he hasn't very publicly retracted that view and apologized (and: he hasn't) Except he has (https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html): > 14 September 2019 (Sex between an adult and a child is wrong) Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it. Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.
- foldr 7y agoThat was only posted after he came under pressure, and contains no apology.