Morality based Law

[Classact]

If there is no victim should there be a crime? Should the American people be able to create laws based on religious or personal morals?

This is a debate between the progressive liberal and conservative population of America. It is my personal opinion the majority of progressive liberal secular folks do not believe in good and evil or clear cut right and wrong.

I was stationed in Germany which has a very progressive secular liberal majority. While there I was a member of a community ice hockey support club... the members were mostly single young Germans and we drowned victories and defeats over beer in local clubs. One day one of my German friends says to me and several other club friends: last night I sent Mercedes (an 18 yr old girl with a four month infant out of wedlock form a former boyfriend) out for some beers (they were shacking for a few days) and I let her daughter give me oral sex. I was shocked as I looked to the other friends for reaction.

How do you feel about mixing morals with law? Was there a victim? What do you think the reaction of the other ice hockey support club was?

[darin]

Most law is morality-based, IMO. Laws assign good or bad to various actions or inactions.

[Cheyenne]

If there is no victim should there be a crime? Should the American people be able to create laws based on religious or personal morals? .....How do you feel about mixing morals with law? Was there a victim? What do you think the reaction of the other ice hockey support club was?

How else are laws made? We don't kill because it's morally wrong. We don't allow our children to be abused (such as in this case) because it's morally wrong.
About the only thing I can think of that we have pertaining to something that doesn't involve morals is our traffic laws. Everyone trying to go through an intersection at once is just chaos.

[Hagbard Celine]

I think morality and law are intertwined. Morality is the instinctual compass we all have inside of ourselves that lets us define "right and wrong." I think law is the corporeal manifestation of the version of right and wrong that we all agree upon. That being said, I think there should be less actual laws. Especially when it comes to things like sex, drugs, etc. with qualifications of course. For instance, I think the age of consent laws are definately a good thing. I think we all agree that pedophilia is one of the "bad" things that should be restricted absolutely. But other sex laws, like the ones pertaining to sex positions, oral sex, etc. should be done away with. It's not the "people's" place to be dictating what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
I'm a little confused. Did Mercedes give the oral sex or did the four month old? It's not clear the way you wrote it. Because if it's the latter, that dude is sick. If it was Mercedes, all's fair in love and war.

[Immanuel]

I agree with the others, all laws (including traffic laws) are based upon someone's idea of morality. For instance, the anti-smoking laws in California we have been discussing are based upon the view, liberal in this case, that smoking significantly harms others and is thus immoral. All laws are based on someone's idea of morality.

Your description of the oral sex didn't make sense to me. You said Mercedes (who is 18) was sent out for some beer and that she had a four month old infant and that this friend of yours allowed Mercedes' daughter to perform oral sex on him. Was Mercedes' daughter the 4 month old? Heck! at 18 she could not possibly have a child more than three or four! Okay, I don't really want to know the details. Did you and I just not connect on the description of the incident?

Immie

[Classact]

Yes it was the four month daughter that he was bragging about that gave him oral sex... he wasn't really bragging but laughingly telling about the act...

The other German guys that were there didn't seem disgusted by his story... I no longer associated with this puke... and, I told Mercedes of what the guy told me... she broke up with him.

The reason I brought this up is because it came to mind when I was watching Bill O'Reilly the other day when he was condemning the VT leglislation and judges that had treated child abusers so forgivingly... some probation for young child abuse and some very short jail terms that seen to display that the judge/state legislation dissagrees with the moral base of the child abuse laws.

If you have followed the Bill O'Reilly campaign on protecting children do you see progressive liberalism as a means of lowering the bar on moral responsibility clouding the black and white to a shade of grey?

[darin]

a FOUR Month old? That baby wasn't giving him a BJ, that guy was raping that child. Wow. That's HORRIBLE.

[April15]

I agree with the others, all laws (including traffic laws) are based upon someone's idea of morality. For instance, the anti-smoking laws in California we have been discussing are based upon the view, liberal in this case, that smoking significantly harms others and is thus immoral. All laws are based on someone's idea of morality.

Your description of the oral sex didn't make sense to me. You said Mercedes (who is 18) was sent out for some beer and that she had a four month old infant and that this friend of yours allowed Mercedes' daughter to perform oral sex on him. Was Mercedes' daughter the 4 month old? Heck! at 18 she could not possibly have a child more than three or four! Okay, I don't really want to know the details. Did you and I just not connect on the description of the incident?

Immie

The smoking laws are not a morality issue but a health issue. You can still poison yourself just not the people who are near enough to be poisoned by your habit.

[glockmail]

Claasact I don't understand your premise. This guy raped a 4 month old and you're saying that there's no victim? The guy belongs in prison or on a chain dragging behind my truck.

[Classact]

Claasact I don't understand your premise. This guy raped a 4 month old and you're saying that there's no victim? The guy belongs in prison or on a chain dragging behind my truck.

I agree that my morals also would demand that this person be separated from society for the rest of his life or until he no longer has the ability to harm children in such way... That brings me back to the Judges/state legislation in VT... it would appear that they dissagree with us.

My dad was born in 1905 and he told me a story as a young man about how the common law used to be for child abusers... he said in the beginning of our nation that a convicted child abuser was removed of all property and then stoned in the public square and then removed form that community boundry... logic being that if a a guy with no personal possessions shows up in your hood with busted up ribs and knot on his head he shouldn't be welcome. He went on to say that in his youth the common manner of dealing with child abusers didn't involve the court (this was in West Virginia)... "the men" would take the child abuser into the woods and place him on a stump of a tree and then staple all his goodies down to the stump... then they would give him a knife and cloth for a bandage and tell him he is at his own free will to be free.

The law in Germany and morals were in doubt to me so I didn't find it in my interest to report the incident to the police because I seemed to be the only person upset... Even Mercedes wasn't of high or even recognizable morals since she would leave the baby alone in her appartment for hours of parting and dancind and Ice hockey games... But then again it is quite common in Germany to see baby strollers parked outside of very expensive shops with three inches of snow on the covers in freezing temperatures... The children are all bundled up and would take to much time to unbundle them to shop so they park em in the snow unattended...

My interest is in the moral slide in VT and other areas as they differ in treatment of young children... in the mind of the other German guys when I asked them they said the baby will not remember so there was no crime...Do VT judges think similar to them?

[PostmodernProphet]

in the mind of the other German guys when I asked them they said the baby will not remember so there was no crime...

that has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard....I recommend you shoot them and forget you ever knew them.....that way, there will be no crime.....

[Immanuel]

The smoking laws are not a morality issue but a health issue. You can still poison yourself just not the people who are near enough to be poisoned by your habit.

On this you and I will have to agree to disagree. This is a morality based law. Not to mention heavily slanted to the "politically correct" side as well.

In fact, by your own statement this is a morality based law. You guys think it is immoral the adversely affect the health of another. With that I will not disagree. Therefore, you have made laws affecting the freedoms of people whom you believe to be immorally affecting the health of another.

Immie

[Cheyenne]

........they said the baby will not remember so there was no crime...

This is where they're misinformed. The mind NEVER forgets. It may be buried in the subconscious but it is still there.

When this child has problems growing up or as an adult; they will never understand where it comes from.
That is one of the reasons why we are instructed to be careful what we hear & see.

And with that reasoning it would be okay to attack any severely retarded or Alzheimer person. Or what about someone under anesthetic or some other drug induced state? I have a friend who actually had this happen to her.
Any way you slice this, it's wrong.

[Classact]

This is where they're misinformed. The mind NEVER forgets. It may be buried in the subconscious but it is still there.

When this child has problems growing up or as an adult; they will never understand where it comes from.
That is one of the reasons why we are instructed to be careful what we hear & see.

And with that reasoning it would be okay to attack any severely retarded or Alzheimer person. Or what about someone under anesthetic or some other drug induced state? I have a friend who actually had this happen to her.
Any way you slice this, it's wrong.

I agree completely... It is freaky what the mind hold in... One morning about four years ago I dreamed about the school bully from decades ago... he and I used to fight regularly for no apparent reason other than he would start it... any way I dreamed of searching him out and not even facing him face to face but shooting him in the knee... as I did it in my dream I suddenly woke up and had a hard time going back to sleep but when I did I dreamed about how bad I and all of the other children were to a extremely fat girl with a gland disorder in elementary school... she is the only girls name that I can remember from elementary school in the 1950's...

I didn't want to leave you folks with the idea that German people are basically immoral but simply a little hard to understand when it comes to sex... They advertize bra's starting with a nude woman and then she puts it on and complements its fit... no German male pays attention... likewise, most young US soldiers learn early when they meet a German girl and are invited to their home to ask to see the family photo album... they all go to Spain and all take nude pictures on the nude beach... they will show them to you with mom and dad sitting right beside. Sex and the nude body are not one and the same... they have no idea what a wardrobe malfunction is or why it is news. Public baths and steam baths have one undressing room and shower... it isn't sexual to see another person nude.

[glockmail]

......My interest is in the moral slide in VT and other areas as they differ in treatment of young children... in the mind of the other German guys when I asked them they said the baby will not remember so there was no crime...Do VT judges think similar to them?

I'm old enogh to remember the old Vermont. You decribed it yourself with your Dad's stories. Unfortunately Vermont became populated with hippies from New York who stuck around after Woodstock. Until then they thought the Catskills were the northern edge of the world. Upstate New Yorkers knew all too well about the down-state kids so demanded that they all go back to mum and dad. Being a rebellious lot many of them wandered over to Vermont where the locals knew little of them. Then they took the State over and we now have the result.

So to answer your question: yes, VT judges think sex with children is cool.