In a March report, three United Nations entities, the International Committee of Jurists (ICJ), UNAIDS and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated,
“Sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law. The enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them. Pursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity, and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees.”
The United Nations is deliberately endorsing the rationalizations used by every teacher that seduces a student, every sexual predator who rapes a boy, every religious cultist who takes a child bride, and every father who has incestuous relations with his teenage daughter. As with workplace sexual harassment,the only ethical system that works to prevent child sexual abuse is absolutism. That means no exceptions. An adult’s superior power and presumed authority must be presumed to render consent from a child under the age of 18 invalid. The “Love is Love” platitudes are simply slippery slopes to rampant molestation. This isn’t an issue that can be decided on a case by case basis.
I’m sure the North American Man-Boy Love Association, which advocates pedophilia and works to abolish age-of-consent laws, is popping champagne bottles at this very moment. Also the bestiality lobby: after all, who can say that a dog that really, really loves her master can’t consent to night of passion?
What’s going on here? Several things, probably. The language of the report seems to have been broadly crafted to give support to the transsexual movement, which wants to empower children to make decisions about “gender affirming care.” In addition, many U.N. member countries allow child rape, and as with other ethics issues, those stick-in-the-mud, non-conforming Americans just don’t get it. Love is Love!
Somehow, I don’t think Woodrow Wilson envisioned his ideal of an international organization seeing its mission as making child molestation easier and risk-free (though knowing Wilson’s warped character, I could be wrong). The United Nations doesn’t stop wars any more (or even condemn them, if they involve Russia or China), but it does presume to pollute world ethics standards, which are polluted enough already.
Among the many issues President Trump was right about was the absurdity of the United States giving exorbitant and disproportionate financial support to this disappointing, corrupt and untrustworthy organization, which aspires to world government but constantly shows itself to be unfit to provide it.
Ethics Alarms 
Chris Marschner was right when – months ago – he wrote that making pedophilia legitimate was a consequence of the trans-gender movement.
Yes! I had forgotten that! Kudos to Chris.
What do they say. A stopped clock is right twice a day. 😉
You, sir, are almost always right. There is a delicious clarity in your writing. I look forward to your comments.
jvb
This story is another piece of evidence to support claims that our entire moral foundation is being intentionally undermined. Here’s another one; the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association are trying to overturn a state law passed in 2022 that bans sexually explicit material from schools, yes these people seem to be wanting sexually explicit materials in our schools. Seriously folks, what happened to common decency when it comes to exposing minors to sexually explicit materials? Absurdity abounds.
When identity groups focus on pushing their agenda they resort to the ends justify the means, flushing critical thinking down the proverbial toilet, and dive straight into moral bankruptcy.
Speaking of abounding absurdities, I probably should at least share this again for informational purposes, so don’t let it deflect this thread….
Epidemic Levels Of Absurdities Are Infecting Our Society
I understand your concerns, but I’m not sure I completely share them. Any legislation is necessarily arbitrary: teenagers’ emotional maturity is not a switch that is mystically switched to the “on” position on the morning of their 18th birthday (or whatever date a particular jurisdiction decides upon). There are 16-year-olds who can make adult decisions about such matters and 20-year-olds who cannot.
There are going to be–what to call them?–mistakes (?) whatever the law says. It’s going to be too permissive or insufficiently permissive to fit a specific scenario. The law as it exists is objective but not necessarily just. Changing it to allow specific circumstances could prevent miscarriages of justice. What it would definitely do, however, is to clog up the system with claims from literally every defendant that there are special circumstances in this particular case. If Ben Franklin (or Voltaire, or whoever) was right that it’s better to let the guilty escape than to punish the innocent, then perhaps this is a reasonable amendment.
The fact remains, however, that a violation of the law as written–even if it shouldn’t be written that way–is still a violation of the law, and a perpetrator knows it (or is legally responsible for knowing it). So we’re not punishing the innocent, only those who might legitimately, given the circumstances, be perceived that way.
I guess what I coming around to saying is that I agree with you, but I do so a little reluctantly.
“I guess what I coming around to saying is that I agree with you, but I do so a little reluctantly.”
In the end, everyone who has ever known me very long eventually arrives at the same point….
🤣
I look forward to knowing you long enough. I believe it will be awhile yet.
Heh.
“There are 16-year-olds who can make adult decisions about such matters and 20-year-olds who cannot.”
That’s true, but part of standardization is weighing the cost of not tailoring the standard to every scenario. For instance, how much does it cost a 16-year-old human to wait two years before having sex with someone at least two years older than them? I’d consider that an inconvenience more than an injustice.
I might quibble with your phrasing, but your point is well taken, which is why I ultimately come around to the idea that the status quo is probably as good a place to be as any.
And can’t older people “just say ‘no'” to having sex with anyone under the age of eighteen? Is that difficult?
I wouldn’t expect so, but the human libido is strong enough that can override ethics alarms with decadence, and does so frequently enough that cultures usually make up religious rules about sex that are strict enough to themselves frequently override ethics alarms with dogma. Secular laws grounded in ethical principles are preferable, though. As Jack says, where ethics fails, the law steps in.
That is, I wouldn’t expect saying no to be difficult. However, toxic cultures and toxic paradigms can erode people’s ethical standards, either directly by attacking those standards or indirectly by making people feel there are no better paths forward. We can support and to an extent obviate the law by replacing those cultures and paradigms with more wholesome ones.
I agree with you, too. The best we can do to avoid clogging up the justice system is to set a boundary and make sure everyone is aware of it.
Some years ago, a relative of mine was arrested for having sex with a minor. There was some reason to believe he didn’t know the girl was a minor and she’d been caught with men in the past and even after my relative was arrested.
I remember my mother pointing out that 14 was not so young and that her grandmother had gotten married around that age.
I reminded her that her grandmother went into marriage when girls often got married young and generally already knew how to take care of a household and children, had no education and no other prospects for an independent life. I told her that teenage girls today are not the same in general and that society has decided there has to be a boundary set between adults and children.
It was my relative’s responsibility, as the adult, to make sure the boundary was enforced, regardless of how mature (or irresponsibly reckless) the girl in question was. The law set a boundary. As judges often have the flexibility to adjust sentencing based on individual circumstances, my relative got as reasonable a sentence as he could have hoped for.
Funny how mostly Muslim cultures in the Middle East and South Asia are joining forces with the U.N. and U.S. hillbillies to make sure their guys get to rape and marry anyone whomsoever they damned well please with total impunity.
Next up: polygamy!
Thanks for the nip slip.
You should have seen what I cropped out…
I know, I know!! “Math” 105.