Tom Flanagan is okay with child pornography

[photon]

Originally Posted by First Lady

The victim knows the pictures are out there and that they continue to circulate.

Think of it like the Amanda Todd case. One photo haunted her for years.

True, but that's just a general harm from the pictures getting into the public in the first place and the media saturation age we live in, not a specific harm from person x viewing media file y.

If technology wasn't a limitation, would that be a situation where a certain picture / media file / etc should be made to just disappear?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Delgar

Having taken classes from him a long time ago, I always understood he was particularly libertarian, but this isn't even that--- you can't actually justify his position from even an extreme libertarian position unless you also think that creating child pornography is OK.

Actually, this is exactly what some libertarians believe.

The defining characteristics of libertarian legal theory are its insistence that the amount of government intervention should be kept to a minimum and the primary functions of law should be enforcement of contracts and social order, though "social order" is often seen as a desirable side effect of a free market rather than a philosophical necessity

To be fair, this kind of falls on the Anarcho-Capitalism side of Libertarian theory, but to say it's not in sync with the general belief is false.

[c.t.ner]

Originally Posted by Jacks

I see the media is falling over themselves trying to drag Harper into it.

Well to be fair to the media, Flanagan's popularity, prestige and notoriety are directly tied to the political success of Harper, The CPC and The WildRose. He's built a career off his work as one of the most successful campaign managers in Canada. If Karl Rove, David Axelrod or even Stephen Carter (a prominent member of Nenshi and Redfords campaigns) said a similar thing, the media would do the same thing. The average person who isn't a political junkie has no idea who Flanagan is (as seen in post three of the thread), so there has to be some context in the reporting.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by photon

How? I don't understand this.

If the victim knows person x is viewing the video then I guess that would make sense, but if they don't, then how is the victim harmed?

That is a very limited view of privacy that you have. For example, is a peeping tom is morally blameworthy for peering through your bedroom/bathroom window even if you never discover that he is doing so?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by photon

The producers of child porn aren't people operating a business making child porn to sell and that's just their day job.. The only people who would even consider making child porn are the people who want to view it, so I don't think the demand argument applies here.

Adult abuses child and makes a video of it for their own reference, then uploads it would seem to me to be the most likely scenario, not adult films another adult abusing a child for profit but actually is against child porn.

If there was no demand for child porn, is the adult who would do the abusing in the first place stop just because they're not going to get as many downloads on bittorrent?

Removing the demand for child porn isn't going to stop people making it, stopping people from making it is going to stop people from making it.

Child porn is a business. Its not like these guys make the porn for ####s and giggles. Organized crime is by far the largest group behind child porn and we all know nothing comes free from organized crime . There's a lot of money to be made in child porn and that is definitively driven by demand. Its no different than any black market item, the black market provides the things people want. And organized crime is there to do so, at a nice profit to them.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by valo403

Legal precedent please

I don't have access to case law and I'm not about to google child porn.

I know there have been cases though of parents being (wrongly) charged for having naked pictures of their own children.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by First Lady

I don't have access to case law and I'm not about to google child porn.

I know there have been cases though of parents being (wrongly) charged for having naked pictures of their own children.

http://www.canlii.org/en/

[photon]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Porn comes in many forms.

Regardless, of whether the child is clothed, unclothed, being violated, etc. if it is being circulated and used as porn, it's porn.

So someone with a shoe or foot fetish if they look at pictures of the red carpet parade at the Oscars and get pleasure from all the shoes and feet on display that's porn?

I think your definition crosses into thought crime as well since I can remove the camera and still run afoul.

Someone's walking to work and they see a very attractive person jogging down the path, and later that morning while bored at work have a pleasurable fantasy involving that person. Is that porn? If it's involving that person's shoes, is that porn?

What if it's a child walking on the path, is that porn?

In your definition they are since that's how those thoughts are being used.

[Rathji]

I think the point she is trying to get across is it is still a violation for that person, even if they are unaware of it.

[flylock shox]

Having now watched that video, I think Flanagan won't have too hard a time backtracking on his comments - he really didn't get much of an opportunity to articulate his views on the issue, and it seemed he was speaking to it only tangentially to the group's larger questions about aboriginal issues.

In fact, the most damning thing he said was admitting he was (somehow) on the NAMBLA email list for a couple of years. If not for that, I think it would be fairly easy to dismiss his comments as a theoretical question-raising with respect to the issue of child pornography - an issue he never went on to fully explain his views on since it wasn't really topical to the main issues the group was discussing. He might also be forgiven for abandoning his exploration of that subject matter given the treatment he was given by the crowd.

The email list thing though... that's what will prevent any of the groups who severed ties with him from giving him another chance. Exploring an academic issue is one thing, but making an admission like that isn't a matter of theoretical debate - and the way it came out tends to give it all sorts of credence.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by c.t.ner

Well to be fair to the media, Flanagan's popularity, prestige and notoriety are directly tied to the political success of Harper, The CPC and The WildRose. He's built a career off his work as one of the most successful campaign managers in Canada. If Karl Rove, David Axelrod or even Stephen Carter (a prominent member of Nenshi and Redfords campaigns) said a similar thing, the media would do the same thing. The average person who isn't a political junkie has no idea who Flanagan is (as seen in post three of the thread), so there has to be some context in the reporting.

I expect them to drag the Wildrose into this, he was involved with them last year. He hasn't worked for Harper for a decade.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I think the point she is trying to get across is it is still a violation for that person, even if they are unaware of it.

Yes, thank you. And as someone else has mentioned; the peeping Tom scenario is a good example.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Makarov

That is a very limited view of privacy that you have. For example, is a peeping tom is morally blameworthy for peering through your bedroom/bathroom window even if you never discover that he is doing so?

Morally blameworthy for what? What harm has there been? There's some crimes that cause harm even if the perpetrator hasn't been caught, but peeping isn't one of them.

But I can see what you mean in that those kinds of things being public is a privacy issue, but as I said that's a general harm from the media making it into the public in general, the harm doesn't change because person x does or does not view the video. And like I asked before, if there was a magic button to be pressed that could remove all of a certain image or video from existence, is that something that should be used?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Jacks

I expect them to drag the Wildrose into this, he was involved with them last year. He hasn't worked for Harper for a decade.

Regardless, this fluff piece is hilarious in hindsight.

http://thewalrus.ca/the-man-behind-stephen-harper/

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by First Lady

I don't have access to case law and I'm not about to google child porn.

I know there have been cases though of parents being (wrongly) charged for having naked pictures of their own children.

In any event, "child pornography" is explicitly defined in the Criminal Code:

163.1 (1) In this section, “child pornography” means

(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,

(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or

(ii) the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years; ...

[photon]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I think the point she is trying to get across is it is still a violation for that person, even if they are unaware of it.

I understand that, I just don't see how it is still a violation.

If someone goes home and rubs one out after seeing an attractive woman/man at the gym, has that person been violated even though they're unaware of it? If that person did it while watching the other person it would certainly be a violation.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I agree with this. I think if it was me in the videos or pictures, I would feel that way.

Just for arguments sake (and slightly OT), couldn't the same be said of viewing videos of other crimes? For example, I recall that video of the man getting his head cut off in Iraq and a lot of people (and some people on this forum even) said they watched it. To me, that is in the boat with the only difference being that we know the guy is dead now. Both things are videos of terrible cirmes and both are at moments that I would consider to be extremely private and shouldn't be open to public viewing. It's one of the reasons that I could never bring myself to watch them. The family must have felt violated just knowing that it was out there.

this is what i don't understand. how is viewing child pornography a crime (which i do agree with) but viewing snuff films not? how do those gore fetish websites continue to operate openly while an 18 year old kid could be put in jail for posting a video of his 16 year old girlfriend?

it's an ugly double standard when it comes to if what you watch is a criminal offense or not

[CarlW]

Quick question reading through all this arguing about the definition etc. of child porn, just curious would it be illegal if a 16 year old had say nude pics of their 15 or 16 yr old girlfriend? what if it was video? When they get older and marry and look back at their personal teenage pics and vids would that also be illegal?

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by photon

Morally blameworthy for what? What harm has there been? There's some crimes that cause harm even if the perpetrator hasn't been caught, but peeping isn't one of them.

But I can see what you mean in that those kinds of things being public is a privacy issue, but as I said that's a general harm from the media making it into the public in general, the harm doesn't change because person x does or does not view the video. And like I asked before, if there was a magic button to be pressed that could remove all of a certain image or video from existence, is that something that should be used?

Again, this sort of Millsian individualistic conception of "harm" seems too limited to me. What about harm to society and social life?

In any event, the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly rejected restriction of Parliament's criminal law making power by Mills' harm principle.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by photon

If someone goes home and rubs one out after seeing an attractive woman/man at the gym, has that person been violated even though they're unaware of it? If that person did it while watching the other person it would certainly be a violation.

Well, masturbating in public is an offence, but it isn't at all a thought crime. The criminal behaviour in your second example is totally different than the behaviour in your first example.