Quote:
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Originally Posted by Chez Daja
I heard there Japan was 12. That's got to be the sickest thing I have ever heard.
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And with that comment it's time for me to enter the thread promoting ultra-liberalism.
It may be "sick" but if a 12 year old girl wants to have sex with a 60 year old man, then that's fine as long as both parties are consenting and understand the consequences of their actions. I don't see a problem with such a law. I'll also put in this post something else I've posted up in another thread before:
Arbitrarily selected levels of anything are nearly impossible to avoid, without running into serious problems. My ultra-liberal friend was attacking my stance on drugs, sex, selling rights etc., which I know to be logically flawed. For those who don't know, I hold a very liberal attitude in many areas and a great belief in the power of contracts. However, before I'd allow a person to, for example, legally purchase drugs, sell their body or voluntarily enter into slavery I'd require them to be educated to a certain level of information so they are aware of the consequences and are making an informed choice. This level would therefore be arbitrarily decided by me and advisers, although not naively nor randomly, which is important to keep in mind. For saying I would make these arbitrary choices I came under renewed attack. Not only would I educate people to an arbitrary level of information but I'd also be making an arbitrary choice in the areas which people would need a qualification for! "Why not require a qualification for being informed about the dangers of eating ham past the sell by date?" I was asked.
NB: The qualifications would be fairly difficult to obtain and it would be unlikely younger members of society would be able to attain them. The difficulty would be set for around the intelligence level of the average 17 year old. Citizens would be able to be tested for the qualification certificate at any stage of their life.
"If someone wants to make an uninformed choice then that is their right." Maybe so, but there isn't a choice. If you are uninformed then you can only make an uninformed decision whereas if you have been informed you can only make an informed decision. I'd rather have the latter than the former. Yes, people make plenty of uninformed choices in their life time and I wouldn't propose the state forces a qualification to be obtained in some of them. However, the cases where the state does force a qualification to be obtained would be the arbitrarily selected set of activites and deemed to be more important than other activites where a "line" has been drawn at an arbitrary point so there is less of the "slippery slope" problem. A lot of paper wasted? More later.
We deal with imperfect information (instances of asymmetrical information) in many transactions, especially when purchasing expensive second hand goods, like houses and cars. Alright, monetary loss can be damaging to a lifestyle, but I believe that people are educated about avoiding large monetary losses on 'big ticket' items through life experience and when most people get to the point of buying a house, car or other expensive good they are likely to check the good thoroughly to minimize risks. However, I do think a five year old should be protected from having sex with a 60 year old if the five year old is uninformed. I posed the scenario to my friend: "A 60 year old man offers a five year old girl a chocolate bar in exchange for sex. Because the girl wants the chocolate she might say yes, not realizing what she is agreeing to because she is uninformed." His reply: "She agreed to the transaction, and since sex would be illegal by default, there would need to be three witnesses from both parties to sign a contractual agreement. Once done, even though she is uninformed it's fine because she wants to carry out the exchange. She would quickly learn." Just like the mentally unfit would be protected from entering such transactions by the state, uninformed citizens would be too with regards to issues where informed numbers would be low if it weren't for a complusory state education before legal participation.
He said he would make sex illegal by default because I forced him into admitting he'd otherwise have to make arbitrary decisions. Initially, he claimed that certain activities should not require three witnesses, such as people looking for one night stands. However, how does the state decide which activites to allow "relaxed" contracts to be used in? The commonly performed tasks by the public? How is commonly defined? A large amount? An arbitrarily large amount? And in his view arbitrary = always bad. I'd make it law that all contracts must have three witnesses from both parties, these witnesses cannot be passers-by and must personally know the parties involved and of course, witnesses would have to supply an address and contact details so they can be traced. This would prevent, for example, seven slavers going around seizing people and then signing contracts that stated the seized would have to be a slave.
I've always thought not changing your mind when faced with a wholly logical argument that refutes your beliefs is foolish, yet I am guilty myself. I can't escape making arbitrary selections even though doing things arbitrarily is logically unsound. The alternatives of not being arbitrary are perceived by me to be worse, so I choose the lesser of many evils.
I quickly re-read it and it sounds terribly unorganized, but I don't suppose it matters much since roughly 0 people at TFF read these long posts of mine.
EDIT: I must write a clarification for a previous statement. Where I wrote:
"...as both parties are consenting and understand the consequences of their actions. I don't see a problem with such a law." The law I am referring to is in fact the one I describe in my short essay and to which I allude to in my sentence; and not the current law in Japan if the age of consent is indeed 12 years old; as I believe Japan does not operate with the same informed decision making scheme that I propose.
Also, isn't the age of consent 12 years old in Holland? If it is then just imagine I wrote Holland everytime instead of Japan in my post.