Exactly! Think of all those cases of Child Labour! Wait, we only consider ‘child labour’ oppression because they are children and that violates one of the many rights we grant children due to their age.
People who are under a certain age have the most restricted set of rights of any group in the United States, with the possible exception of convicted felons.
They can’t vote. They can’t sign contracts. They can’t serve on a jury. They are restricted in the ways they can earn an income. Even if they do earn an income, it is rarely enough to be self-sufficient, and they have limited ability to control how the money is spent. They can’t consent to sexual relations. They can’t purchase certain legal substances. They can’t hold political office. They can’t drive cars. They can’t travel freely, instead needing permission from someone else. They can’t direct their own education. They can be forced to attend religious services against their will. They can’t control their own medical treatment, and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will. They can’t choose where to live. They can have their genitals modified without their consent.
In almost any group of people you’ll find hierarchy. When groups of adults form in the real world, it’s generally for some common purpose, and the leaders end up being those who are best at it. The problem with most schools is, they have no purpose. But hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one out of nothing.
We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest. And that’s exactly what happens in most American schools. Instead of depending on some real test, one’s rank depends mostly on one’s ability to increase one’s rank. It’s like the court of Louis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids become one another’s opponents.
I more or less agree with you. But just for the sake of the exercise:
They can’t vote.
I’d let them vote. It isn’t going to make the decision making process all that much less rational.
They can’t sign contracts.
An interesting one. I’d almost appreciate paternalism on that one. Contracts are more useful for the party with the power to see them enforced.
They can’t serve on a jury.
Innocent until the jury finds out they’re missing the Simpsons by dragging things out! (Just how different is that to current practice?)
They are restricted in the ways they can earn an income. Even if they do earn an income, it is rarely enough to be self-sufficient
Being incapable of producing significant economic value isn’t ‘oppression’. The obligation of parents to support the economically weak is more credibly a violation of liberties here.
The most obvious restriction on the ways children can earn an income, the one cutting the most value from their income earning potential is of course child prostitution prohibitions.
and they have limited ability to control how the money is spent.
Yeah, that sucks.
They can’t consent to sexual relations.
That’s seriously harsh. Not just the parents but the law deciding when you’re allowed to have sex? No surprise that teenager’s gain a reputation for rebelliousness.
They can’t purchase certain legal substances.
Don’t even get me started on the legality of substance purchases. They treat the rest of the population like children and the children even worse!
They can’t hold political office.
That would be a pleasant change.
They can’t drive cars.
While we’re at it, I just read that there is a new law here that children under 8 must be booster seats whenever in the car, for safety purposes. I hope at least that rule stays if the driving age limit is lifted! More seriously, a skill based regulation replacing the age one could be ok.
They can’t travel freely, instead needing permission from someone else.
Permission sucks.
They can’t direct their own education.
Another pet peeve. I did a postgraduate degree in teaching and have been left with an altogether cynical view of the entire system. I consider the whole thing blatant abuse. I would quite seriously prefer intermittent beatings by my parents.
They can be forced to attend religious services against their will.
School. Religious services. Very little difference from what I can see.
They can’t control their own medical treatment, and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.
That one is scary. I don’t trust either parents or the pharmaceutical industry to make that sort of judgement.
They can’t choose where to live.
Well, ‘My House, My Rules’ makes a certain amount of sense in this case.
They can have their genitals modified without their consent.
That’s seriously harsh. Not just the parents but the law deciding when you’re allowed to have sex? No surprise that teenager’s gain a reputation for rebelliousness.
Yes, the US is one of the more puritan “Christian” countries. In the US, two teenagers cannot have consensual sex together, by law. If they do have sex, they are both punished. (Some states have recently passed exceptions that tend to start at age 16-17, for couples that are of the same age. Even then, two 17 year old can have sex but an 18 year old can’t have sex with a 17 year old because one’s a major and the other one’s a minor. Choose your mate’s birthday carefully.)
As an aside, many US teens who took nude photos of themselves and gave them to their boy- or girlfriend have been charged with the high crime of distribution of child porn. Here is a report on one such Florida couple, aged 16 and 17, who were convicted (on the appeal, too). They kept the photos for themselves, but someone tipped off the police, the court record doesn’t say who—possibly the parents. The appeal judge wrote in his opinion that one reason he wanted to punish them was that if left alone they might in the future sell their photos to child pornographers to make money.
The CNET article doesn’t say what their punishment was, and anyway it was a random Google result out of at least dozens of similar cases, but I would imagine registration on the sex offender list for many years—which takes away a lot of rights no matter what your age—and jail time and/or probation and/or whatever they tend to give to 17 year old felons in Florida.
As an aside, many US teens who took nude photos of themselves and gave them to their boy- or girlfriend have been charged with the high crime of distribution of child porn.
It is scary that that judge is allowed to vote, let alone pass sentences.
The appeal judge wrote in his opinion that one reason he wanted to punish them was that if left alone they might in the future sell their photos to child pornographers to make money.
You know how bad the media is when it reports science? Well, it doesn’t get much better for law, sadly.
The defendant’s appeal claimed that her right of privacy was being violated by this prosecution. An essential part of that is whether she had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The conclusion was she did not: if teens take naked pictures of each other, there’s a meaningful chance that those pictures will be shared with third parties. This same reasoning has been used to break the privacy defense for photographs of prisoner abuse. This doesn’t help her:
In fact, the defendant in this case expressed her concern to law enforcement that her co-defendant might do something disagreeable with the photographs.
The opinion is interesting, though I say that from a law-oriented background. The law being idiotic does not necessarily make the judge idiotic, and there’s at least a very good argument that the majority applied the law correctly. No expectation of privacy, no right to privacy defense.
They may have erred when they ruled this prosecution counts as the “least intrusive method” to uphold state interests, but I just don’t know the case law on that.
You know how bad the media is when it reports science? Well, it doesn’t get much better for law, sadly.
My lament referred explicitly to the “the appeal judge [who] wrote in his opinion that one reason he wanted to punish them was that if left alone they might in the future sell their photos to child pornographers to make money” and so it stands. You haven’t said as much directly, but am I to take it that you do not believe this judge is factual? If so, I rejoice in his absence from reality.
The CNET report was sensationalized, as Psychohistorian pointed out to me in another comment. You can read the judge’s (appellate majority) opinion here.
The appeal was about their right to privacy, and the judge’s opinion that “if left alone they might...” was saying that because they might do this in the future, and because he expected them to do so, they gave up their right to privacy by creating those photos. Because digital photos are so easy to distribute, so they would surely do so someday even if by mistake. So if they use cellphones to take photos, they give up privacy.
...No, it doesn’t sound much better put that way, does it? But it wasn’t the justification for the original conviction; CNET doesn’t link to that opinion.
Even this is a caricature of the actual legal question. In order for a right of privacy to attach (and that’s her argument against the law), you have to have reasonable expectation of privacy. In this context, that means that you have to have a reasonable expectation that no third party will be exposed or involved. The majority concluded that a high school teenager cannot reasonably expect that no one will ever see the naked pictures she takes with her boyfriend and then sends to his hard drive. In fact, the defendant explicitly stated that she was worried her boyfriend might distribute those naked pictures. The decision also states that, in the context of a more mature or serious relationship, privacy would likely have attached, because some expectation would have been reasonable. There’s still plenty of room to disagree with this, but it’s a lot less absurd than people are trying to make it.
As far as the whole decision goes, if you keep in mind that the judges (and, more importantly, the law) see child pornography (even of basically adults) as an evil that is abhorrent to society, and that damages society by its mere existence, the whole decision is a lot more understandable. Whether you agree with that view or not is largely irrelevant; the voting public seems to have made it rather clear that that is their attitude.
Future guilt had nothing to do with it. The question was about whether an expectation was reasonable; an expectation is necessarily about the future. The court concluded that one cannot expect a teenage boy to keep naked pictures of his girlfriend to himself indefinitely. It may be incorrect or unfair, but it isn’t absurd or unreasonable. It certainly isn’t convicting anyone on the basis of future guilt.
It is my understanding that if the court had not made this determination, it might have had to uphold the defense’s claim to right of privacy, and the defendants would have have been acquitted on appeal.
It is worthwhile quoting the entire relevant part of the judge’s opinion, for those who don’t want to spend time reading the source:
First, the decision to take photographs and to keep a record that may be shown to people in the future weighs against a reasonable expectation of privacy. See [....]
So, he equates privacy with deliberate secrecy. That’s not a presumption of privacy. Note that I’m commenting on common reason, not on whatever the relevant case law may be.
Second, the photographs which were taken were shared by the two minors who were involved in the sexual activities. Neither had a reasonable expectation that the other would not show the photos to a third party. Minors who are involved in a sexual relationship, unlike adults who may be involved in a mature committed relationship, have no reasonable expectation that their relationship will continue and that the
photographs will not be shared with others intentionally or unintentionally. One motive for revealing the photos is profit. Unfortunately, the market for child pornography in this country, according to news reports, appears to be flourishing. See, e.g., [....] These 117 sexually explicit photographs would undoubtedly have market value.
(My emphasis.) So, he says that because they are teenagers, their relationship cannot be “mature and committed”, and so we must assume that one of them will in the future hurt the other for money (not even in revenge or somesuch).
In addition, a number of teenagers want to let their friends know of their sexual prowess. Pictures are excellent evidence of an individual’s exploits. A reasonably prudent person would believe that if you put this type of material in a teenager’s hands that, at some point either for profit or bragging rights, the material will be disseminated to other members of the public.
Distribution of these types of photos is likely, especially after the relationship has ended. It is not unreasonable to assume that the immature relationship between the co-defendants would eventually end. The relationship has neither the sanctity of law nor the stability of maturity or length. The subjective belief of these co-defendants that
the photos might not be shared is not dispositive. In fact, the defendant in this case expressed her concern to law enforcement that her co-defendant might do something disagreeable with the photographs.
The mere fact that the defendant may have subjectively believed that the pictures would remain private does not control; it is whether society is willing to recognize an objective expectation.
(My emphasis.) IOW: each of them is capable of harming the other in the future. Because they are teenagers, we assume they will do so. We explicitly disregard their trust in one another; the relevant point is that we, the society, do not trust them. Therefore we will punish both of them proactively by withdrawing their right to privacy.
It is scary that many judges and public prosecutors in different states agree on charging such young people and declaring them guilty. I don’t know the percentage of charges and of convictions out of all proposed cases or reports and accusations made to the police, but the actual count is apparently in the dozens (google tells me).
It is not, however, surprising, considering common (and legal) attitudes to morality, sexuality and young people’s rights in the U.S.
The logic that it is frightening that this man’s decisions have power over us, whether in his capacities as judge or as voter. Hence it is frightening that a great many people in whom we would not entrust our lives also have votes.
Jurors are treated very differently from voters. They are selected so as not to be biased, they can be removed during the trial, they are kept away from outside influences, the evidence they are allowed to hear is very restricted, they are given instructions on how to vote for various charges and it is the judge who determines the actual sentence in response to their decision. If it is deemed that something went wrong (even years after the sentence is handed down), a mistrial may be declared.
More realistically, they’re selected so as to have a bias acceptable to the counsels and the judge, they are kept away from, uh, undesirable influences, they are given the evidence that the counsels & judge think will make them vote appropriately.
The only possible way a jury system could be any good is by being compared with even more horrid alternatives, like a judge-only court. Sort of like democracy.
There’s plenty of countries where democratic rule is good and stable, and it’s not too hard to predict those. Some obvious predictive variables are tradition of rule of law (which you get transitioning out of some dictatorship like Korean, but not some others like Soviet), low economic inequality, and stability of political system.
All happen to be false in case of South Africa. But these also tend to correlate with wellness and stability of any other political system—so democracy might still be the least bad system for South Africa, given such constraints.
Sweet Jesus, I hate the media. If you check out that article, note the ”...” in the summary of the majority opinion. Here’s how it reads as quoted:
As previously stated, the reasonable expectation that the material will ultimately be disseminated is by itself a compelling state interest for preventing the production of this material. In addition, the statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment… Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision about engaging in sexual conduct and memorializing it. Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved.
Here’s that ”...:”
Without either foresight or maturity, appellant engaged in the conduct
at issue, then expressed concern to law enforcement personnel that her
co-defendant may do something inappropriate, i.e., disseminate sexually
explicit photos that were lodged on his computer.
In other words, the article is deliberately constructed to make the concern that the photos be disseminated seem absurd. But the defendant herself expressed a concern that they would be disseminated!.
Also, fun fact: it wasn’t a picture. It was 117 pictures. Might that increase the odds that one or more gets distributed? Story doesn’t bother with that little fact.
She “expressed a concern”? When it wasn’t her idea to talk to the police in the first place, and when the police’s job is to make her look as bad as possible so she can be convicted? For all I know it went like this:
Police interviewer: did you intend for your boyfriend to spread those photos?
Defendant: no I didn’t. And he hasn’t.
Police: but it’s possible he’ll do it one day, right? If you break up, say.
Defendant: I don’t believe he’ll do it, but I suppose it’s possible.
Police: imagine he has done so. And all your class has got nude photos of you. Doesn’t that scenario concern you?
Defendant: yeah, that would concern me if it happened...
Bottom line: the majority opinion says “he statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment”. How do they protect them? Not, say, by having the police destroy the photos and telling them to go home and be smarter next time. They protect them by putting them through court and a conviction.
Here’s a relevant part of the majority appellate opinion:
The Court further finds that prosecuting the child under the statute in question is the least intrusive means of furthering the State’s compelling interest. Not prosecuting the child would do nothing to further the State’s interest. Prosecution enables the State to prevent
future illegal, exploitative acts by supervising and providing any necessary counseling to the child. The Court finds that the State has shown that Section 827.071(3), Florida Statutes, as applied to the child, is the least intrusive means of furthering the State’s
compelling interest in preventing the sexual exploitation of children, rendering the statute constitutional.
Least intrusive? Really? It must have taken some creative law-writing to make it so, when ordinarily the state has so many ways of interfering in a teenager’s life.
Not, say, by having the police destroy the photos and telling them to go home and be smarter next time.
How much of a deterrent effect do you think this has? “OK, kids, you’re creating a thing that is a complete abomination to the people of this state, a form of speech so vulgar that even the first amendment won’t touch it, and that mere possession of it carries a prison sentence. And if you do it, you’re going to get the worst talking-to you can imagine! We’ll tell you that what you did was wrong! And that you shouldn’t do it again! And we’ll delete all the digital copies! Well, all the ones we can find, anyhow! That will teach you to manufacture child pornography! And you can bet we’ll be devoting serious police and prosecutorial resources to ensure that we gently slap you on the wrist!”
It has to be the least intrusive means of furthering the state’s compelling interest. Giving kids a lecture and telling them “don’t do it again” does not effectively further those interests. The legislature has determined it should be criminal, and it’s not in the power of the courts to say, “Well, it’s a second degree felony, but screw the voters, we think it should be a fourth degree felony!” The state has a compelling interest, and any reasonable action short of criminalization will not effectively further that interest. It’s not the place of the courts to be fine-tuning criminal punishments because they think the ones the legislature came up with are too easy (or too harsh).
As far as the summary of her talking to the cops, that’s pure conjecture. We don’t even know if she was interrogated; they certainly didn’t need to talk to her once they had that evidence. For all we know, they found about the pictures because she called them out of fear her boyfriend would distribute them. I also doubt that the police were sophisticated enough to be prying into her grounds for a constitutional defense at the appellate level. And such an interrogation certainly isn’t mentioned in the dissenting opinion (which is right below the majority one). And it’s somewhat irrelevant; if she genuinely believed her boyfriend had a realistic chance of distributing them, she did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. And if she didn’t think there was any such realistic chance, she shouldn’t have told the cops she was actually worried he’d distribute them.
This is a law governing the existence of a thing so abhorrent, mere possession of it is a felony. The state has a compelling interest, not merely in punishing those who create it, but in ensuring that it is never created in the first place. You may take issue with this, and say, “Well, it ain’t so bad,” but that’s simply not what the law says, and you don’t get to rewrite the law.
Merely to reiterate that the law on child porn doesn’t care what the age of the creator (photographer) or the possessor is. It only cares what the age of the photographed minor is, for the purposes of defining child porn. But the two teenagers were found guilty in part because they were teenagers. If they had been adults, in possession of the same child porn (photos made of themselves years ago at age 16), then privacy protections would have applied. And so this is a small part of the relevance of this whole story to the original discussion on youth rights.
But the two teenagers were found guilty in part because they were teenagers. If they had been adults, in possession of the same child porn (photos made of themselves years ago at age 16), then privacy protections would have applied.
If I went to a bar, met some woman, went home with her, and we consensually took naked pictures with each other, and sent them to each other, privacy would not attach (at least under the reasoning of this ruling). The minors were not denied privacy for the simple fact that they were minors; they were denied privacy because the nature of society and of their relationship did not create a reasonable expectation of privacy. I believe that if a significant expectation of privacy had been demonstrated (they were engaged, they had been in a relationship for an extended period of time, they had drawn up some kind of non-disclosure contract, etc.), the case would have turned out differently.
Edit: I remembered the judge’s opinion incorrectly, so I withdraw my comment here (it was only posted for a few minutes). My apologies.
I can add though that the whole case makes people uneasy because it’s convoluted, as court cases often are. The appeal’s argument is that the state should have respected the teenagers’ privacy. The appeal court denies the argument for privacy because it feels the girl must be protected from her boyfriend, who may use those photos against her. As the court opinion says,
Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved. Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors’ careers or personal lives.
So how do they protect her in case her boyfriend hurts her in the future? By making her a felon, putting her on probation, and using up her money on court cases.
Just to be fair, although the child pornography laws are ridiculous (you want to make its production illegal, fine, but not its possession and distribution), some states have laws that make a little more sense when it comes to age of consent for sexual relations. In Florida (which I know only because I live there), a person under the age of 24 can have sex with a person who is at least 16 years of age legally. Of course, this still isn’t that great because the law considers anyone under the age of 16 unable to consent (not listed in this statute), but at least it opens up a wide “grey area” that eliminates the majority of silly “rape” cases.
They can’t control their own medical treatment, and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.
That one is scary. I don’t trust either parents or the pharmaceutical industry to make that sort of judgement.
Who would you trust ? The state ? The child himself ? I don’t think either of those would make better choices than the parents.
It sucks when parents make bad decisions about their children’s medication, but I don’t see any easy way out of that. Better information for the parents could help some cases.
In those rare cases child-wedrifid rejected the will of authorities he had a damn good reason to. If he was (counterfactually) forced to take psychoactive medications against his will it suggests that neither the parents nor the doctor were able to supply any semi-plausible evidence that the medication would benefit him. I would trust his judgement and denounce the coercion.
Among cases where parents and their child disagree as to whether the child should take psychoactive medication, do you think that there are more where the child is right, or more where the parents are right ? (“right” meaning more or less “better for the long term health and happiness of the child)
Among cases where parents and their child disagree as to whether the child should take psychoactive medication, do you think that there are more where the child is right, or more where the parents are right ? (“right” meaning more or less “better for the long term health and happiness of the child)
An answer to this question would be more a comment on the efficacy of popular pharmaceutical interventions than a comment on human judgement.
More generally, I do not consider the possible stupidity of other people to be a good justification for the abuse (pharmaceutical or otherwise) of me, or people like me. I feel absolutely no obligation to support mores that would be bad for me or an entire class of people that I empathise with.
I feel absolutely no obligation to support mores that would be bad for me or an entire class of people that I empathise with.
But how do you know that giving the children (instead of the parents) the last word on whether or not they take psychoactive medications will actualy result in better results for the children ?
Or is it that you only emphathise with smart children, not with stupid children ?
I’m not convinced that the policy you propose (children get the last word) will result in the result you describe (it will be better for the children), or I’m misunderstanding you.
I haven’t made a proposal. I’ve made a statement about who I trust and also rejected ‘best for a particular majority group’ as a reason that I should personally support a specific brand of coercion.
(children get the last word)
This is different from ‘parents can force a child to take psychoactive medications against their will’. In the latter case may be tempted to assign policy for at what age this ‘parental right’ expires. It would be less than 17. It would also apply to a far smaller set of situations than that for which psychoactive medication may legally be offered or recommended to or by the parents.
A few of these are a bit hyperbolic, particularly consent. There is never a situation where they are the criminal but an adult wouldn’t be, as opposed to, for example, buying alcohol. So the harm falls on their lovers, not them. Also, these laws are quite poorly enforced.
Non-consensual genital modification generally occurs at birth, and in all Western countries is strictly limited to male circumcision. I am not sure, but I don’t think you could have your 12 year old circumsized against his wishes. So this bullet point is a bit exaggerated.
More generally, and more importantly, minors have substantial privileges. People are legally obliged to care for them and ensure they have a certain standard of health. Schools are obliged to educate them for free. Crimes against them are punished far more severely. Their own crimes a punished (usually) far less severely, and they are in many cases not legally responsible for their own actions.
You certainly have a point, but it’s a bit unbalanced to simply list the downsides. Minors may be among the most restricted groups, but they’re also amongst the most heavily protected by the law.
It may be worthwhile to separate general goods and evils from specific opportunities. The protections you list make children safer from things that are bad for everyone—violence, poor health, inability to get educated. These are, arguably, things that everyone should be more protected from. Saying that children have more of these protections than adults says something about the inadequacy of protection for adults—this sort of intuition drives the affection many people have for universal health care, for instance. Meanwhile, what adults have that children don’t are opportunities to pursue things that they specifically find good and desirable. A child gets an education, but can’t choose its content except in fairly trivial ways—apart from picking a foreign language and a music class, and testing into certain higher-level academic courses, I didn’t get real course selection until college, where I was treated as an adult and had much more loose requirements to fill. As adults, we might or might not have access to education, but if we do, we can pick what kind.
So basically, the protections children get are nice and well-motivated, but they’re one-size-fits-all and poorly suited as a substitute for adult freedom to children with personalities.
A well made argument. Particularly agree to the one-size-fits-all argument.
Our evolution as mammals has forced us to protect our young ones for the survival of our species. The concerns CronoDAS has made are from the perspective of a modern society, especially that of western countries. Even now, millions of kids in third-world countries do not have the option to choose most of the things in that list. In such a situation, more responsible adults need to make a decision on behalf of the children and make available whatever they can for their own benefit.
Non-consensual genital modification generally occurs at birth, and in all Western countries is strictly limited to male circumcision. I am not sure, but I don’t think you could have your 12 year old circumsized against his wishes. So this bullet point is a bit exaggerated.
There is another circumstance in which this applies. Intersex infants with ambiguous genitalia are often surgically modified to better match one of the two standard genders. (But, yes, I admit that the bullet point is exaggerated.)
There is never a situation where they are the criminal but an adult wouldn’t be, as opposed to, for example, buying alcohol. So the harm falls on their lovers, not them.
But in most places, sex between two minors is illegal (edit: below a certain age, not just below the age of majority), and both are liable. And while court cases are rare, punishment at school and at home is common, and most teenagers have to vet their romantic partners with their parents.
More generally, and more importantly, minors have substantial privileges. People are legally obliged to care for them and ensure they have a certain standard of health. Schools are obliged to educate them for free.
Like Alicorn said, these are privileges that should be extended to adults. In many countries, a standard of free health care is guaranteed to all. In some countries, university education is free to all citizens. I’d like to see more of that.
Crimes against them are punished far more severely.
But this is only necessary because they’re prevented from defending themselves the way adults would. Most crimes against young people (it’s silly to call 16 year olds “children”) are done by someone the law forces them to be in daily contact with, even if they hate that person. Such as parents and family and schoolyard bullies. (Most people aren’t allowed to veto their K12 school, class, or teachers.)
Their own crimes a punished (usually) far less severely
If we’re taking the US as a reference point, I would argue that adults should be punished a lot less for most crimes...
Crimes against them are punished far more severely.
I have to correct myself after reading your answer. I think in reality, counting parents, relatives, and schoolteachers, people really aren’t punished more severely when they commit crimes against children. Particularly parents. It’s only strangers who commit crimes against children, or people who commit sexually based offenses against them, that we really bother punishing.
On the other hand, it would be really interesting to see a workable alternative system proposed. This is all, “Kids don’t have these rights!” as opposed to, “Here’s the rights we should give them, how we’d enforce those rights, and how it would work out for the better!”
But in most places, sex between two minors is illegal, and both are liable.
Googling it says otherwise. In 27 states, there’s a “grace period” in which minors can consent within a certain age range, and in 10 states the defendant must explicitly be an adult. Facts are fun!
I stand corrected… So, although the age limit varies by state and is not the same as the age of majority (gaining full legal rights), every state has an age limit below which sex is illegal in all circumstances; usually around 14, but 17 or 18 in a few states. The separately stated age above which all intercourse is valid (i.e., with much older people) is 16 in most states, never lower.
Wikipedia also has an interesting map of worldwide age of consent by country (not representing rules for age differentials or categories). Oh, and quite a few Western countries have laws against specific sexual acts or against certain numbers or sexes of participants.
“Non-consensual genital modification generally occurs at birth, and in all Western countries is strictly limited to male circumcision. I am not sure, but I don’t think you could have your 12 year old circumsized against his wishes. So this bullet point is a bit exaggerated.”
a major controversial choice with extremely opposing opinions and no medically correct answer is non-consensually taken away from the child before he has the ability decide for him self.
“People are legally obliged to care for them and ensure they have a certain standard of health.”
the child is forced to live with a adult who choses to have em and can chose to give him up for adoption at any time.
“Schools are obliged to educate them for free.”
the child is forced to be educated with or without there will so the will hopefully profit society in the future
“Crimes against them are punished far more severely.”
unlike other laws the laws that only affect children are not decided by those the laws will affect. (laws that “protect children” are made for them with out there input)
“Their own crimes a punished (usually) far less severely, and they are in many cases not legally responsible for their own actions.”
this shows the most that they are thought of as lesser children are not thought of as having the ability to be a threat to society but only the pawns of adults.
Point one: you write this as if you’ve thought of a better way. I’d imagine many six year olds would love to never go to school and eat nothing but candy. That it is decided for them that this is not an acceptable option is a net good thing, unless your sole terminal value is freedom of choice.
the child is forced to live with a adult who choses to have em and can chose to give him up for adoption at any time.
Point two: Your objection seems almost entirely directed at bad parents, not the nature of the parent/child relationship. The vast majority of children are actually quite happy about this arrangement, and for some strange reason show distress when you attempt to free them from these terrible, terrible adults. And the claim that adults can choose to give them up for adoption at any time is both misleading and absurd. Legally, yes, but this doesn’t actually happen much, for many social and personal reasons. Comparably, anyone who was willing to go to jail could torture and murder you pretty easily. I hardly think that’s a serious infringement on your freedom, because that subset of people is incredibly tiny. I also must live in constant fear of being slain by a meteorite, but somehow this does not make my life much worse.
Point three: Your final point rather clearly indicates that your mind has filled in the bottom line and is filling in everything above it. This is an unequivocal benefit—I cannot imagine any situation in which someone would prefer to be tried as an adult than as a child (though a tiny number may exist). When you’re at the point of taking clear benefits and saying, “But really, it’s a bad thing,” it’s unlikely that you’re seeking truth.
We would have to enforce each of these below some age. It’s never going to be a good idea to let two year olds hold political office and drive cars, and I think this holds for every one of the items you’ve mentioned. The debate is only which age is the correct cutoff, and I agree that this parameter may need re-evaluating.
alexflint:
We would have to enforce each of these below some age. It’s never going to be a good idea to let two year olds hold political office and drive cars, and I think this holds for every one of the items you’ve mentioned. The debate is only which age is the correct cutoff, and I agree that this parameter may need re-evaluating.
When I saw this my answer was, “No, age is not how we should decide this. Skill and comprehension is.
But these two made me rethink the matter. . .
wedrifid:
In the case of political office, how about simply the ability to get the suckers to vote for you?
Emile:
That one’s easy, it’s self-correcting. Others—alcohol, sex, voting—are not.
If we had a tests to see if we were ready to assume the responsibilities involved then the tests might be flawed, or even deliberately sabotaged to prevent or mislead the thought processes of those taking it.
Maybe this is why they rely on age instead. It will block those already prepared to handle whats involved, but reduces mistaken or malicious meddling .
Religious services? medically unnecessary genital mutilation? I’m not sure you need an age cutoff at all for those two.
“and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.” is one I had… opinions… about. And yes, while I was being forced to do so. (to this day, I’m not sure my parents ever managed to really comprehend what it was that I objected to)
“and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.” is one I had… opinions… about. And yes, while I was being forced to do so. (to this day, I’m not sure my parents ever managed to really comprehend what it was that I objected to)
Seconded.
Even if ‘right to make medical decisions’ is an unrealistic solution to the problem, I think ‘right to refuse care’ would fix this problem without too many repercussions. It would’ve done the job perfectly in my case (and did, when I turned 17 and gained the right to refuse).
Or at least, there ought be rather strict rules about when medical care can be forced. I guess forcing a kid to take an antibiotic in the case of them having a nasty bacterial illness that doesn’t go away on its own, etc etc… is one thing. ie, if there’s a clear unambiguous no one could reasonably dispute it “you’re unhealthy now, you’ll be better off with this” thing, then okay.
But “well, kids are teasing you, you’re a bit different, we’re not even really going to diagnose you with anything, but it’s just easier for the teachers and everyone if we make you take ritalin ‘to make you focus’ and supposedly ‘help you cope’”, well… zah? (excuse me? You want to forcibly chemically hack my mind, that which makes me, well, me… and without even a really compelling justification?) (yeah, they did mean well, but...)
But yeah. I do admit though that, like most things in this world, pretty much any rule we adopt is going to probably have nontrivial downsides.
I suspect that your suggestion wouldn’t’ve helped in my case. I did fine on the ritalin; it was when I decided that I wanted to learn how to function without it that the problems started: They decided I was being oppositional because I was depressed, and forced antidepressants on me. I had bad reactions to every single one, and wasn’t believed when I told them about the issues. (It turns out the ‘my thoughts feel fuzzy’ issue I had on the prozac was probably a result of me being unable to code things into long-term memory—my memory is pretty sharp for events before and after that two-year stretch, but nearly nonexistant for events during it. I’m still horrified.) I actually became depressed while on the antidepressants, because of how poorly I was being treated, so even an objective evaluation of whether I was having a problem ‘worth forcing treatment of’ wouldn’t’ve helped at that point.
Limiting the situations where treatment can be forced to physical issues would be safer for the kind of situation I’m concerned with, but there’s also the issue of kids with, say, cancer, where the parents may want to signal ‘being a good parent’ by doing everything possible, and the kid knows from experience that the treatment is worse than the disease. I don’t want to screw them over, either.
Well, my suggestion is more along the lines of “the justification for forcing a psych medication against the consent of the patient/victim had better be really strong. Not just ‘you do okay’ with it but that + ‘the situation is really absolutely unambiguously no question about it vastly worse in a reasonable objective sense without it, so much worse that the extreme level of violation of forcibly hacking someone’s mind is actually not as bad as letting the situation continue’”
So that rule would have probably taken care of your situation, I think.
Who gets to decide if it’s ‘unambiguously worse’, though? And how do you make sure that they’re deciding rationally, and from unbiased information? My mother had very little trouble getting the doctors to go along with her way of seeing it, and never mind that I’d never actually been violent or threatened suicide or anything.
Also note, I’m specifically talking about the situation with the antidepressants. While I wish in retrospect that I’d been more informed about the side effects of the ritalin (gee, maybe my dangerously high blood pressure as a kid wasn’t because of ‘too much salt’, especially given that I eat about as much salt now as I did then and it’s fine), I didn’t have any objections to it for the first 8 years I was on it, and wouldn’t’ve chosen to refuse it. If we’re going to talk about how to make it so I never would have been on it at all, that’s a bit of a different conversation, and I’m not actually sure that I agree that that’s a worthwhile goal.
Well, as far as the anti depressants… did they clearly unambiguously show that you were to such an extent clinically depressed (rather than just saying “heh, he’s oppositional. We can’t be wrong, we can’t even be forced to consider his own opinion on its own merits, therefore it’s clearly a symptom of something”) to the extent forcing you (rather than giving you the choice) on them against your will would have been acceptable even under a strict standard?
She had the power, she had a goal. She was going to get what she wanted either through greater experience in the arts of influence or by finding out which doctor was the best candidate for a preferred ‘second opinion’.
The stated rationale, at least at the beginning, was that it was clearly not in my best interests to go off the ritalin, because keeping my grades up was just that important, and thus justified to take other measures to ensure that I kept taking it. I disagreed about the importance of the grades compared to the importance of learning to function without being drugged. Your (Psy-Kosh’s) ‘dramatically objectively worse’ qualifier isn’t clear enough to detangle this issue, because it doesn’t talk about what should be measured. If grades were the measure, I should have stayed on the ritalin and not objected to it strenuously in the first place: My grades did indeed drop dramatically when I went off it, as I expected them to. The same issue comes up with the antidepressants: My mother swears that I was easier to get along with while I was on them, and that they were therefore justified. (I can’t comment, because I don’t remember. D: ) If that isn’t an appropriate thing to measure, what is?
I wasn’t stating or proposing a specific standard. I don’t know exactly what it should be. But I don’t mean just grades. I mean something that could reasonably be described as “a situation that is bad objectively, like obvious physical illnesses, and the situation being so bad that it would actually justify forcibly hacking someone’s mind against their will”
ie, that’s more of the spirit of what I had in mind. I don’t know how to make that explicit sufficiently to have a starting point for a legal standard.
If that isn’t an appropriate thing to measure, what is?
The mass of each pill of SSRI as you steadily taper off your dose. ;)
You start the process only after you have successfully convinced your oppressor that you have submitted to their will. You then take whatever measures necessary to convince them that you are going along with their plan and do whatever you can to thwart it, within the limits of what you think you can get away with. In this case it is fairly difficult to ensure that a victim has swallowed a tablet without intrusive physical intervention.
Disagreement, argument, defiance and even ‘oppositional’ behaviours, undesirable as they seem at first glance, are actually a something of a privilege that you are granting. In the absence of bystanders whose allegiance could be manipulated these all imply that you trust them enough for honest engagement to be in your interests. You (you being a general hypothetical entity in related circumstances) don’t owe this kind of intimacy to anyone, particularly if you suspect their response will be to have you forcibly sedated!
There is a time and place for honest assertiveness. That time and place can be loosely described as ‘when it works’ (with a whole bucket load of caveat). In all other situations lie through your teeth, hide the pills near your cheek and spit the unsavoury incident and unwanted pill out of sight and mind at the earliest possible opportunity. Better yet, use the Prozac to spike her coffee. That’d almost certainly do more to enhance your personal wellbeing than taking it yourself.
It appears to be part of my innate nature to be nicer than that, ironically enough, though I did say ‘fuck it’ and discontinue the prozac on my own after they blatantly lied to me about what I’d have to do to get permission to go off of it.
Thing is, if they’d caught me, they could (according to the threats they were making) have taken even more drastic measures—it’s not exactly difficult for a parent to have a child locked up in horrible conditions, especially if the kid has a psych diagnosis or two.
Thing is, if they’d caught me, they could (according to the threats they were making) have taken even more drastic measures—it’s not exactly difficult for a parent to have a child locked up in horrible conditions, especially if the kid has a psych diagnosis or two.
Ouch, yes, I very nearly brought up that ‘Therapy’ earlier but refrained because the very topic makes my blood boil.
I go more ‘flight’ than ‘fight’ over it, but either way, it’s part of the reality of being in that kind of situation, unfortunately, and it’s not rational to ignore it.
You know, I agree with the general thrust here about the suboptimal treatment of children, but my reaction to this particular sub-thread is to be somewhat envious of those whose parents were actually informed enough to have them put on psychiatric medication for these types of issues. Myself, I was in graduate school before I found out that I needed this sort of treatment. My parents, I think, always viewed my difficulties as character flaws, blamed me (and themselves) for them, and attempted to correct the problem mainly through shaming and punishments of various sorts.
In contrast to the experiences of a lot of other people, I tend to think that if I had been given something like Ritalin from an early age (say middle school), I might not have nearly flunked out of high school (which resulted in my having to attend a run-of-the-mill state university, and so on).
“and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.” is one I had… opinions… about. And yes, while I was being forced to do so. (to this day, I’m not sure my parents ever managed to really comprehend what it was that I objected to)
Wow, I just read about Ritalin on wikipedia… ugh. I would be nearly as worried by doctors prescribing ritalin for gullible adults as for children.
I was on it for quite a number of years actually. I forget exactly. Actually, for a while, they started throwing other things into the mix, for a bit had me also on meleril(a depressant, IIRC) at the same time. but yeah.
I voted you up for 2(!) points. Bugs like children.
I find this reduced set of rights particularly problematic as children are quite unbiased by popular political opinion and are able to come up with very novel solutions to hard problems.
Indeed, “children” is the world’s most oppressed minority group...
Exactly! Think of all those cases of Child Labour! Wait, we only consider ‘child labour’ oppression because they are children and that violates one of the many rights we grant children due to their age.
I’m serious.
People who are under a certain age have the most restricted set of rights of any group in the United States, with the possible exception of convicted felons.
They can’t vote.
They can’t sign contracts.
They can’t serve on a jury.
They are restricted in the ways they can earn an income. Even if they do earn an income, it is rarely enough to be self-sufficient, and they have limited ability to control how the money is spent.
They can’t consent to sexual relations.
They can’t purchase certain legal substances.
They can’t hold political office.
They can’t drive cars.
They can’t travel freely, instead needing permission from someone else.
They can’t direct their own education.
They can be forced to attend religious services against their will.
They can’t control their own medical treatment, and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.
They can’t choose where to live.
They can have their genitals modified without their consent.
Do I really need to continue?
The worst is probably the social environment they’re forced to be in. The rest aren’t that bad, in comparison.
That was an extremely interesting article, thanks for posting a link to it.
I more or less agree with you. But just for the sake of the exercise:
I’d let them vote. It isn’t going to make the decision making process all that much less rational.
An interesting one. I’d almost appreciate paternalism on that one. Contracts are more useful for the party with the power to see them enforced.
Innocent until the jury finds out they’re missing the Simpsons by dragging things out! (Just how different is that to current practice?)
Being incapable of producing significant economic value isn’t ‘oppression’. The obligation of parents to support the economically weak is more credibly a violation of liberties here.
The most obvious restriction on the ways children can earn an income, the one cutting the most value from their income earning potential is of course child prostitution prohibitions.
Yeah, that sucks.
That’s seriously harsh. Not just the parents but the law deciding when you’re allowed to have sex? No surprise that teenager’s gain a reputation for rebelliousness.
Don’t even get me started on the legality of substance purchases. They treat the rest of the population like children and the children even worse!
That would be a pleasant change.
While we’re at it, I just read that there is a new law here that children under 8 must be booster seats whenever in the car, for safety purposes. I hope at least that rule stays if the driving age limit is lifted! More seriously, a skill based regulation replacing the age one could be ok.
Permission sucks.
Another pet peeve. I did a postgraduate degree in teaching and have been left with an altogether cynical view of the entire system. I consider the whole thing blatant abuse. I would quite seriously prefer intermittent beatings by my parents.
School. Religious services. Very little difference from what I can see.
That one is scary. I don’t trust either parents or the pharmaceutical industry to make that sort of judgement.
Well, ‘My House, My Rules’ makes a certain amount of sense in this case.
OUCH! That’s serious oppression.
Yes, the US is one of the more puritan “Christian” countries. In the US, two teenagers cannot have consensual sex together, by law. If they do have sex, they are both punished. (Some states have recently passed exceptions that tend to start at age 16-17, for couples that are of the same age. Even then, two 17 year old can have sex but an 18 year old can’t have sex with a 17 year old because one’s a major and the other one’s a minor. Choose your mate’s birthday carefully.)
As an aside, many US teens who took nude photos of themselves and gave them to their boy- or girlfriend have been charged with the high crime of distribution of child porn. Here is a report on one such Florida couple, aged 16 and 17, who were convicted (on the appeal, too). They kept the photos for themselves, but someone tipped off the police, the court record doesn’t say who—possibly the parents. The appeal judge wrote in his opinion that one reason he wanted to punish them was that if left alone they might in the future sell their photos to child pornographers to make money.
The CNET article doesn’t say what their punishment was, and anyway it was a random Google result out of at least dozens of similar cases, but I would imagine registration on the sex offender list for many years—which takes away a lot of rights no matter what your age—and jail time and/or probation and/or whatever they tend to give to 17 year old felons in Florida.
It is scary that that judge is allowed to vote, let alone pass sentences.
It is not the fault of the judiciary that the people consistently elect profoundly stupid legislators.
You know how bad the media is when it reports science? Well, it doesn’t get much better for law, sadly.
The defendant’s appeal claimed that her right of privacy was being violated by this prosecution. An essential part of that is whether she had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The conclusion was she did not: if teens take naked pictures of each other, there’s a meaningful chance that those pictures will be shared with third parties. This same reasoning has been used to break the privacy defense for photographs of prisoner abuse. This doesn’t help her:
The opinion is interesting, though I say that from a law-oriented background. The law being idiotic does not necessarily make the judge idiotic, and there’s at least a very good argument that the majority applied the law correctly. No expectation of privacy, no right to privacy defense.
They may have erred when they ruled this prosecution counts as the “least intrusive method” to uphold state interests, but I just don’t know the case law on that.
My lament referred explicitly to the “the appeal judge [who] wrote in his opinion that one reason he wanted to punish them was that if left alone they might in the future sell their photos to child pornographers to make money” and so it stands. You haven’t said as much directly, but am I to take it that you do not believe this judge is factual? If so, I rejoice in his absence from reality.
The CNET report was sensationalized, as Psychohistorian pointed out to me in another comment. You can read the judge’s (appellate majority) opinion here.
The appeal was about their right to privacy, and the judge’s opinion that “if left alone they might...” was saying that because they might do this in the future, and because he expected them to do so, they gave up their right to privacy by creating those photos. Because digital photos are so easy to distribute, so they would surely do so someday even if by mistake. So if they use cellphones to take photos, they give up privacy.
...No, it doesn’t sound much better put that way, does it? But it wasn’t the justification for the original conviction; CNET doesn’t link to that opinion.
Even this is a caricature of the actual legal question. In order for a right of privacy to attach (and that’s her argument against the law), you have to have reasonable expectation of privacy. In this context, that means that you have to have a reasonable expectation that no third party will be exposed or involved. The majority concluded that a high school teenager cannot reasonably expect that no one will ever see the naked pictures she takes with her boyfriend and then sends to his hard drive. In fact, the defendant explicitly stated that she was worried her boyfriend might distribute those naked pictures. The decision also states that, in the context of a more mature or serious relationship, privacy would likely have attached, because some expectation would have been reasonable. There’s still plenty of room to disagree with this, but it’s a lot less absurd than people are trying to make it.
As far as the whole decision goes, if you keep in mind that the judges (and, more importantly, the law) see child pornography (even of basically adults) as an evil that is abhorrent to society, and that damages society by its mere existence, the whole decision is a lot more understandable. Whether you agree with that view or not is largely irrelevant; the voting public seems to have made it rather clear that that is their attitude.
No, it really doesn’t. But I do understand the desire to justify the decision that he had made.
Actually come to think of it that description sounds even more scary. Guilty (in the future) when that the media in question is proven reproducible.
Future guilt had nothing to do with it. The question was about whether an expectation was reasonable; an expectation is necessarily about the future. The court concluded that one cannot expect a teenage boy to keep naked pictures of his girlfriend to himself indefinitely. It may be incorrect or unfair, but it isn’t absurd or unreasonable. It certainly isn’t convicting anyone on the basis of future guilt.
It is my understanding that if the court had not made this determination, it might have had to uphold the defense’s claim to right of privacy, and the defendants would have have been acquitted on appeal.
It is worthwhile quoting the entire relevant part of the judge’s opinion, for those who don’t want to spend time reading the source:
So, he equates privacy with deliberate secrecy. That’s not a presumption of privacy. Note that I’m commenting on common reason, not on whatever the relevant case law may be.
(My emphasis.) So, he says that because they are teenagers, their relationship cannot be “mature and committed”, and so we must assume that one of them will in the future hurt the other for money (not even in revenge or somesuch).
(My emphasis.) IOW: each of them is capable of harming the other in the future. Because they are teenagers, we assume they will do so. We explicitly disregard their trust in one another; the relevant point is that we, the society, do not trust them. Therefore we will punish both of them proactively by withdrawing their right to privacy.
It is scary that many judges and public prosecutors in different states agree on charging such young people and declaring them guilty. I don’t know the percentage of charges and of convictions out of all proposed cases or reports and accusations made to the police, but the actual count is apparently in the dozens (google tells me).
It is not, however, surprising, considering common (and legal) attitudes to morality, sexuality and young people’s rights in the U.S.
Given the context it seems ironic to let them off based off youth. No, I’ll let them off because the crime itself is absurd.
It’s a pity you didn’t extend the logic further.
The logic being that I disapprove of the judge’s ruling and wish to undermine his credibility with mockery?
The logic that it is frightening that this man’s decisions have power over us, whether in his capacities as judge or as voter. Hence it is frightening that a great many people in whom we would not entrust our lives also have votes.
And there’s that whole ‘jury of my peers’ thing that really scares me. Good point (that I really didn’t want to be reminded of.)
Jurors are treated very differently from voters. They are selected so as not to be biased, they can be removed during the trial, they are kept away from outside influences, the evidence they are allowed to hear is very restricted, they are given instructions on how to vote for various charges and it is the judge who determines the actual sentence in response to their decision. If it is deemed that something went wrong (even years after the sentence is handed down), a mistrial may be declared.
More realistically, they’re selected so as to have a bias acceptable to the counsels and the judge, they are kept away from, uh, undesirable influences, they are given the evidence that the counsels & judge think will make them vote appropriately.
The only possible way a jury system could be any good is by being compared with even more horrid alternatives, like a judge-only court. Sort of like democracy.
Good points. I’m reminded of Robin’s Law as No-Bias Theatre.
Old South African government didn’t really “work” for anyone who wasn’t white.
Some black south africans disagree.
Just because the new black government is bad, doesn’t mean the old white government wasn’t bad.
Some government collapses go quite well, others like South Africa and Soviet Union don’t.
Fair enough. The point wasn’t that white rule is good, but that democratic rule is bad.
There’s plenty of countries where democratic rule is good and stable, and it’s not too hard to predict those. Some obvious predictive variables are tradition of rule of law (which you get transitioning out of some dictatorship like Korean, but not some others like Soviet), low economic inequality, and stability of political system.
All happen to be false in case of South Africa. But these also tend to correlate with wellness and stability of any other political system—so democracy might still be the least bad system for South Africa, given such constraints.
Sweet Jesus, I hate the media. If you check out that article, note the ”...” in the summary of the majority opinion. Here’s how it reads as quoted:
Here’s that ”...:”
In other words, the article is deliberately constructed to make the concern that the photos be disseminated seem absurd. But the defendant herself expressed a concern that they would be disseminated!.
Also, fun fact: it wasn’t a picture. It was 117 pictures. Might that increase the odds that one or more gets distributed? Story doesn’t bother with that little fact.
This just in: don’t believe everything you read.
She “expressed a concern”? When it wasn’t her idea to talk to the police in the first place, and when the police’s job is to make her look as bad as possible so she can be convicted? For all I know it went like this:
Police interviewer: did you intend for your boyfriend to spread those photos? Defendant: no I didn’t. And he hasn’t. Police: but it’s possible he’ll do it one day, right? If you break up, say. Defendant: I don’t believe he’ll do it, but I suppose it’s possible. Police: imagine he has done so. And all your class has got nude photos of you. Doesn’t that scenario concern you? Defendant: yeah, that would concern me if it happened...
Bottom line: the majority opinion says “he statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment”. How do they protect them? Not, say, by having the police destroy the photos and telling them to go home and be smarter next time. They protect them by putting them through court and a conviction.
Here’s a relevant part of the majority appellate opinion:
Least intrusive? Really? It must have taken some creative law-writing to make it so, when ordinarily the state has so many ways of interfering in a teenager’s life.
Oh, fun! I get to advocate for the Devil.
How much of a deterrent effect do you think this has? “OK, kids, you’re creating a thing that is a complete abomination to the people of this state, a form of speech so vulgar that even the first amendment won’t touch it, and that mere possession of it carries a prison sentence. And if you do it, you’re going to get the worst talking-to you can imagine! We’ll tell you that what you did was wrong! And that you shouldn’t do it again! And we’ll delete all the digital copies! Well, all the ones we can find, anyhow! That will teach you to manufacture child pornography! And you can bet we’ll be devoting serious police and prosecutorial resources to ensure that we gently slap you on the wrist!”
It has to be the least intrusive means of furthering the state’s compelling interest. Giving kids a lecture and telling them “don’t do it again” does not effectively further those interests. The legislature has determined it should be criminal, and it’s not in the power of the courts to say, “Well, it’s a second degree felony, but screw the voters, we think it should be a fourth degree felony!” The state has a compelling interest, and any reasonable action short of criminalization will not effectively further that interest. It’s not the place of the courts to be fine-tuning criminal punishments because they think the ones the legislature came up with are too easy (or too harsh).
As far as the summary of her talking to the cops, that’s pure conjecture. We don’t even know if she was interrogated; they certainly didn’t need to talk to her once they had that evidence. For all we know, they found about the pictures because she called them out of fear her boyfriend would distribute them. I also doubt that the police were sophisticated enough to be prying into her grounds for a constitutional defense at the appellate level. And such an interrogation certainly isn’t mentioned in the dissenting opinion (which is right below the majority one). And it’s somewhat irrelevant; if she genuinely believed her boyfriend had a realistic chance of distributing them, she did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. And if she didn’t think there was any such realistic chance, she shouldn’t have told the cops she was actually worried he’d distribute them.
This is a law governing the existence of a thing so abhorrent, mere possession of it is a felony. The state has a compelling interest, not merely in punishing those who create it, but in ensuring that it is never created in the first place. You may take issue with this, and say, “Well, it ain’t so bad,” but that’s simply not what the law says, and you don’t get to rewrite the law.
I’m not going to argue with the devil :-)
Merely to reiterate that the law on child porn doesn’t care what the age of the creator (photographer) or the possessor is. It only cares what the age of the photographed minor is, for the purposes of defining child porn. But the two teenagers were found guilty in part because they were teenagers. If they had been adults, in possession of the same child porn (photos made of themselves years ago at age 16), then privacy protections would have applied. And so this is a small part of the relevance of this whole story to the original discussion on youth rights.
If I went to a bar, met some woman, went home with her, and we consensually took naked pictures with each other, and sent them to each other, privacy would not attach (at least under the reasoning of this ruling). The minors were not denied privacy for the simple fact that they were minors; they were denied privacy because the nature of society and of their relationship did not create a reasonable expectation of privacy. I believe that if a significant expectation of privacy had been demonstrated (they were engaged, they had been in a relationship for an extended period of time, they had drawn up some kind of non-disclosure contract, etc.), the case would have turned out differently.
Edit: I remembered the judge’s opinion incorrectly, so I withdraw my comment here (it was only posted for a few minutes). My apologies.
I can add though that the whole case makes people uneasy because it’s convoluted, as court cases often are. The appeal’s argument is that the state should have respected the teenagers’ privacy. The appeal court denies the argument for privacy because it feels the girl must be protected from her boyfriend, who may use those photos against her. As the court opinion says,
So how do they protect her in case her boyfriend hurts her in the future? By making her a felon, putting her on probation, and using up her money on court cases.
Just to be fair, although the child pornography laws are ridiculous (you want to make its production illegal, fine, but not its possession and distribution), some states have laws that make a little more sense when it comes to age of consent for sexual relations. In Florida (which I know only because I live there), a person under the age of 24 can have sex with a person who is at least 16 years of age legally. Of course, this still isn’t that great because the law considers anyone under the age of 16 unable to consent (not listed in this statute), but at least it opens up a wide “grey area” that eliminates the majority of silly “rape” cases.
As a matter of record: most states set the age of consent at 16 not 18.
Who would you trust ? The state ? The child himself ? I don’t think either of those would make better choices than the parents.
It sucks when parents make bad decisions about their children’s medication, but I don’t see any easy way out of that. Better information for the parents could help some cases.
Myself as a child, absolutely.
In those rare cases child-wedrifid rejected the will of authorities he had a damn good reason to. If he was (counterfactually) forced to take psychoactive medications against his will it suggests that neither the parents nor the doctor were able to supply any semi-plausible evidence that the medication would benefit him. I would trust his judgement and denounce the coercion.
Among cases where parents and their child disagree as to whether the child should take psychoactive medication, do you think that there are more where the child is right, or more where the parents are right ? (“right” meaning more or less “better for the long term health and happiness of the child)
An answer to this question would be more a comment on the efficacy of popular pharmaceutical interventions than a comment on human judgement.
More generally, I do not consider the possible stupidity of other people to be a good justification for the abuse (pharmaceutical or otherwise) of me, or people like me. I feel absolutely no obligation to support mores that would be bad for me or an entire class of people that I empathise with.
But how do you know that giving the children (instead of the parents) the last word on whether or not they take psychoactive medications will actualy result in better results for the children ?
Or is it that you only emphathise with smart children, not with stupid children ?
I’m not convinced that the policy you propose (children get the last word) will result in the result you describe (it will be better for the children), or I’m misunderstanding you.
Yes. Certainly. For the sake of argument, why would anyone do otherwise?
I haven’t made a proposal. I’ve made a statement about who I trust and also rejected ‘best for a particular majority group’ as a reason that I should personally support a specific brand of coercion.
This is different from ‘parents can force a child to take psychoactive medications against their will’. In the latter case may be tempted to assign policy for at what age this ‘parental right’ expires. It would be less than 17. It would also apply to a far smaller set of situations than that for which psychoactive medication may legally be offered or recommended to or by the parents.
A few of these are a bit hyperbolic, particularly consent. There is never a situation where they are the criminal but an adult wouldn’t be, as opposed to, for example, buying alcohol. So the harm falls on their lovers, not them. Also, these laws are quite poorly enforced.
Non-consensual genital modification generally occurs at birth, and in all Western countries is strictly limited to male circumcision. I am not sure, but I don’t think you could have your 12 year old circumsized against his wishes. So this bullet point is a bit exaggerated.
More generally, and more importantly, minors have substantial privileges. People are legally obliged to care for them and ensure they have a certain standard of health. Schools are obliged to educate them for free. Crimes against them are punished far more severely. Their own crimes a punished (usually) far less severely, and they are in many cases not legally responsible for their own actions.
You certainly have a point, but it’s a bit unbalanced to simply list the downsides. Minors may be among the most restricted groups, but they’re also amongst the most heavily protected by the law.
It may be worthwhile to separate general goods and evils from specific opportunities. The protections you list make children safer from things that are bad for everyone—violence, poor health, inability to get educated. These are, arguably, things that everyone should be more protected from. Saying that children have more of these protections than adults says something about the inadequacy of protection for adults—this sort of intuition drives the affection many people have for universal health care, for instance. Meanwhile, what adults have that children don’t are opportunities to pursue things that they specifically find good and desirable. A child gets an education, but can’t choose its content except in fairly trivial ways—apart from picking a foreign language and a music class, and testing into certain higher-level academic courses, I didn’t get real course selection until college, where I was treated as an adult and had much more loose requirements to fill. As adults, we might or might not have access to education, but if we do, we can pick what kind.
So basically, the protections children get are nice and well-motivated, but they’re one-size-fits-all and poorly suited as a substitute for adult freedom to children with personalities.
A well made argument. Particularly agree to the one-size-fits-all argument.
Our evolution as mammals has forced us to protect our young ones for the survival of our species. The concerns CronoDAS has made are from the perspective of a modern society, especially that of western countries. Even now, millions of kids in third-world countries do not have the option to choose most of the things in that list. In such a situation, more responsible adults need to make a decision on behalf of the children and make available whatever they can for their own benefit.
There is another circumstance in which this applies. Intersex infants with ambiguous genitalia are often surgically modified to better match one of the two standard genders. (But, yes, I admit that the bullet point is exaggerated.)
But in most places, sex between two minors is illegal (edit: below a certain age, not just below the age of majority), and both are liable. And while court cases are rare, punishment at school and at home is common, and most teenagers have to vet their romantic partners with their parents.
Like Alicorn said, these are privileges that should be extended to adults. In many countries, a standard of free health care is guaranteed to all. In some countries, university education is free to all citizens. I’d like to see more of that.
But this is only necessary because they’re prevented from defending themselves the way adults would. Most crimes against young people (it’s silly to call 16 year olds “children”) are done by someone the law forces them to be in daily contact with, even if they hate that person. Such as parents and family and schoolyard bullies. (Most people aren’t allowed to veto their K12 school, class, or teachers.)
If we’re taking the US as a reference point, I would argue that adults should be punished a lot less for most crimes...
I have to correct myself after reading your answer. I think in reality, counting parents, relatives, and schoolteachers, people really aren’t punished more severely when they commit crimes against children. Particularly parents. It’s only strangers who commit crimes against children, or people who commit sexually based offenses against them, that we really bother punishing.
On the other hand, it would be really interesting to see a workable alternative system proposed. This is all, “Kids don’t have these rights!” as opposed to, “Here’s the rights we should give them, how we’d enforce those rights, and how it would work out for the better!”
Googling it says otherwise. In 27 states, there’s a “grace period” in which minors can consent within a certain age range, and in 10 states the defendant must explicitly be an adult. Facts are fun!
I stand corrected… So, although the age limit varies by state and is not the same as the age of majority (gaining full legal rights), every state has an age limit below which sex is illegal in all circumstances; usually around 14, but 17 or 18 in a few states. The separately stated age above which all intercourse is valid (i.e., with much older people) is 16 in most states, never lower.
Wikipedia also has an interesting map of worldwide age of consent by country (not representing rules for age differentials or categories). Oh, and quite a few Western countries have laws against specific sexual acts or against certain numbers or sexes of participants.
Could you elaborate?
“Non-consensual genital modification generally occurs at birth, and in all Western countries is strictly limited to male circumcision. I am not sure, but I don’t think you could have your 12 year old circumsized against his wishes. So this bullet point is a bit exaggerated.”
a major controversial choice with extremely opposing opinions and no medically correct answer is non-consensually taken away from the child before he has the ability decide for him self.
“People are legally obliged to care for them and ensure they have a certain standard of health.”
the child is forced to live with a adult who choses to have em and can chose to give him up for adoption at any time.
“Schools are obliged to educate them for free.”
the child is forced to be educated with or without there will so the will hopefully profit society in the future
“Crimes against them are punished far more severely.”
unlike other laws the laws that only affect children are not decided by those the laws will affect. (laws that “protect children” are made for them with out there input)
“Their own crimes a punished (usually) far less severely, and they are in many cases not legally responsible for their own actions.”
this shows the most that they are thought of as lesser children are not thought of as having the ability to be a threat to society but only the pawns of adults.
Point one: you write this as if you’ve thought of a better way. I’d imagine many six year olds would love to never go to school and eat nothing but candy. That it is decided for them that this is not an acceptable option is a net good thing, unless your sole terminal value is freedom of choice.
Point two: Your objection seems almost entirely directed at bad parents, not the nature of the parent/child relationship. The vast majority of children are actually quite happy about this arrangement, and for some strange reason show distress when you attempt to free them from these terrible, terrible adults. And the claim that adults can choose to give them up for adoption at any time is both misleading and absurd. Legally, yes, but this doesn’t actually happen much, for many social and personal reasons. Comparably, anyone who was willing to go to jail could torture and murder you pretty easily. I hardly think that’s a serious infringement on your freedom, because that subset of people is incredibly tiny. I also must live in constant fear of being slain by a meteorite, but somehow this does not make my life much worse.
Point three: Your final point rather clearly indicates that your mind has filled in the bottom line and is filling in everything above it. This is an unequivocal benefit—I cannot imagine any situation in which someone would prefer to be tried as an adult than as a child (though a tiny number may exist). When you’re at the point of taking clear benefits and saying, “But really, it’s a bad thing,” it’s unlikely that you’re seeking truth.
We would have to enforce each of these below some age. It’s never going to be a good idea to let two year olds hold political office and drive cars, and I think this holds for every one of the items you’ve mentioned. The debate is only which age is the correct cutoff, and I agree that this parameter may need re-evaluating.
You assume that age is the correct parameter. There are others that are perhaps more relevant.
More relevant, maybe, but age seems to be the simplest and the easiest to put into law.
Other viable conditions could be some academic achievments, or financial independance … these would be good, but age is just simpler.
In the case of political office, how about simply the ability to get the suckers to vote for you?
That one’s easy, it’s self-correcting. Others—alcohol, sex, voting—are not.
alexflint: We would have to enforce each of these below some age. It’s never going to be a good idea to let two year olds hold political office and drive cars, and I think this holds for every one of the items you’ve mentioned. The debate is only which age is the correct cutoff, and I agree that this parameter may need re-evaluating.
When I saw this my answer was, “No, age is not how we should decide this. Skill and comprehension is. But these two made me rethink the matter. . .
wedrifid: In the case of political office, how about simply the ability to get the suckers to vote for you?
Emile: That one’s easy, it’s self-correcting. Others—alcohol, sex, voting—are not.
If we had a tests to see if we were ready to assume the responsibilities involved then the tests might be flawed, or even deliberately sabotaged to prevent or mislead the thought processes of those taking it.
Maybe this is why they rely on age instead. It will block those already prepared to handle whats involved, but reduces mistaken or malicious meddling .
Religious services? medically unnecessary genital mutilation? I’m not sure you need an age cutoff at all for those two.
“and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.” is one I had… opinions… about. And yes, while I was being forced to do so. (to this day, I’m not sure my parents ever managed to really comprehend what it was that I objected to)
Seconded.
Even if ‘right to make medical decisions’ is an unrealistic solution to the problem, I think ‘right to refuse care’ would fix this problem without too many repercussions. It would’ve done the job perfectly in my case (and did, when I turned 17 and gained the right to refuse).
Or at least, there ought be rather strict rules about when medical care can be forced. I guess forcing a kid to take an antibiotic in the case of them having a nasty bacterial illness that doesn’t go away on its own, etc etc… is one thing. ie, if there’s a clear unambiguous no one could reasonably dispute it “you’re unhealthy now, you’ll be better off with this” thing, then okay.
But “well, kids are teasing you, you’re a bit different, we’re not even really going to diagnose you with anything, but it’s just easier for the teachers and everyone if we make you take ritalin ‘to make you focus’ and supposedly ‘help you cope’”, well… zah? (excuse me? You want to forcibly chemically hack my mind, that which makes me, well, me… and without even a really compelling justification?) (yeah, they did mean well, but...)
But yeah. I do admit though that, like most things in this world, pretty much any rule we adopt is going to probably have nontrivial downsides.
I suspect that your suggestion wouldn’t’ve helped in my case. I did fine on the ritalin; it was when I decided that I wanted to learn how to function without it that the problems started: They decided I was being oppositional because I was depressed, and forced antidepressants on me. I had bad reactions to every single one, and wasn’t believed when I told them about the issues. (It turns out the ‘my thoughts feel fuzzy’ issue I had on the prozac was probably a result of me being unable to code things into long-term memory—my memory is pretty sharp for events before and after that two-year stretch, but nearly nonexistant for events during it. I’m still horrified.) I actually became depressed while on the antidepressants, because of how poorly I was being treated, so even an objective evaluation of whether I was having a problem ‘worth forcing treatment of’ wouldn’t’ve helped at that point.
Limiting the situations where treatment can be forced to physical issues would be safer for the kind of situation I’m concerned with, but there’s also the issue of kids with, say, cancer, where the parents may want to signal ‘being a good parent’ by doing everything possible, and the kid knows from experience that the treatment is worse than the disease. I don’t want to screw them over, either.
Well, my suggestion is more along the lines of “the justification for forcing a psych medication against the consent of the patient/victim had better be really strong. Not just ‘you do okay’ with it but that + ‘the situation is really absolutely unambiguously no question about it vastly worse in a reasonable objective sense without it, so much worse that the extreme level of violation of forcibly hacking someone’s mind is actually not as bad as letting the situation continue’”
So that rule would have probably taken care of your situation, I think.
As far as the last, tricky… hrm...
Who gets to decide if it’s ‘unambiguously worse’, though? And how do you make sure that they’re deciding rationally, and from unbiased information? My mother had very little trouble getting the doctors to go along with her way of seeing it, and never mind that I’d never actually been violent or threatened suicide or anything.
Also note, I’m specifically talking about the situation with the antidepressants. While I wish in retrospect that I’d been more informed about the side effects of the ritalin (gee, maybe my dangerously high blood pressure as a kid wasn’t because of ‘too much salt’, especially given that I eat about as much salt now as I did then and it’s fine), I didn’t have any objections to it for the first 8 years I was on it, and wouldn’t’ve chosen to refuse it. If we’re going to talk about how to make it so I never would have been on it at all, that’s a bit of a different conversation, and I’m not actually sure that I agree that that’s a worthwhile goal.
Well, as far as the anti depressants… did they clearly unambiguously show that you were to such an extent clinically depressed (rather than just saying “heh, he’s oppositional. We can’t be wrong, we can’t even be forced to consider his own opinion on its own merits, therefore it’s clearly a symptom of something”) to the extent forcing you (rather than giving you the choice) on them against your will would have been acceptable even under a strict standard?
She had the power, she had a goal. She was going to get what she wanted either through greater experience in the arts of influence or by finding out which doctor was the best candidate for a preferred ‘second opinion’.
What Wedrifid said. (And I’m female, by the way.)
The stated rationale, at least at the beginning, was that it was clearly not in my best interests to go off the ritalin, because keeping my grades up was just that important, and thus justified to take other measures to ensure that I kept taking it. I disagreed about the importance of the grades compared to the importance of learning to function without being drugged. Your (Psy-Kosh’s) ‘dramatically objectively worse’ qualifier isn’t clear enough to detangle this issue, because it doesn’t talk about what should be measured. If grades were the measure, I should have stayed on the ritalin and not objected to it strenuously in the first place: My grades did indeed drop dramatically when I went off it, as I expected them to. The same issue comes up with the antidepressants: My mother swears that I was easier to get along with while I was on them, and that they were therefore justified. (I can’t comment, because I don’t remember. D: ) If that isn’t an appropriate thing to measure, what is?
I wasn’t stating or proposing a specific standard. I don’t know exactly what it should be. But I don’t mean just grades. I mean something that could reasonably be described as “a situation that is bad objectively, like obvious physical illnesses, and the situation being so bad that it would actually justify forcibly hacking someone’s mind against their will”
ie, that’s more of the spirit of what I had in mind. I don’t know how to make that explicit sufficiently to have a starting point for a legal standard.
The mass of each pill of SSRI as you steadily taper off your dose. ;)
You start the process only after you have successfully convinced your oppressor that you have submitted to their will. You then take whatever measures necessary to convince them that you are going along with their plan and do whatever you can to thwart it, within the limits of what you think you can get away with. In this case it is fairly difficult to ensure that a victim has swallowed a tablet without intrusive physical intervention.
Disagreement, argument, defiance and even ‘oppositional’ behaviours, undesirable as they seem at first glance, are actually a something of a privilege that you are granting. In the absence of bystanders whose allegiance could be manipulated these all imply that you trust them enough for honest engagement to be in your interests. You (you being a general hypothetical entity in related circumstances) don’t owe this kind of intimacy to anyone, particularly if you suspect their response will be to have you forcibly sedated!
There is a time and place for honest assertiveness. That time and place can be loosely described as ‘when it works’ (with a whole bucket load of caveat). In all other situations lie through your teeth, hide the pills near your cheek and spit the unsavoury incident and unwanted pill out of sight and mind at the earliest possible opportunity. Better yet, use the Prozac to spike her coffee. That’d almost certainly do more to enhance your personal wellbeing than taking it yourself.
It appears to be part of my innate nature to be nicer than that, ironically enough, though I did say ‘fuck it’ and discontinue the prozac on my own after they blatantly lied to me about what I’d have to do to get permission to go off of it.
Thing is, if they’d caught me, they could (according to the threats they were making) have taken even more drastic measures—it’s not exactly difficult for a parent to have a child locked up in horrible conditions, especially if the kid has a psych diagnosis or two.
Ouch, yes, I very nearly brought up that ‘Therapy’ earlier but refrained because the very topic makes my blood boil.
I go more ‘flight’ than ‘fight’ over it, but either way, it’s part of the reality of being in that kind of situation, unfortunately, and it’s not rational to ignore it.
You know, I agree with the general thrust here about the suboptimal treatment of children, but my reaction to this particular sub-thread is to be somewhat envious of those whose parents were actually informed enough to have them put on psychiatric medication for these types of issues. Myself, I was in graduate school before I found out that I needed this sort of treatment. My parents, I think, always viewed my difficulties as character flaws, blamed me (and themselves) for them, and attempted to correct the problem mainly through shaming and punishments of various sorts.
In contrast to the experiences of a lot of other people, I tend to think that if I had been given something like Ritalin from an early age (say middle school), I might not have nearly flunked out of high school (which resulted in my having to attend a run-of-the-mill state university, and so on).
Wow, I just read about Ritalin on wikipedia… ugh. I would be nearly as worried by doctors prescribing ritalin for gullible adults as for children.
I was on it for quite a number of years actually. I forget exactly. Actually, for a while, they started throwing other things into the mix, for a bit had me also on meleril(a depressant, IIRC) at the same time. but yeah.
I voted you up for 2(!) points. Bugs like children.
I find this reduced set of rights particularly problematic as children are quite unbiased by popular political opinion and are able to come up with very novel solutions to hard problems.