Once again, the liberty community is divided, this time over the issues about age of consent that have been raised by the recent arrest of state representative Kyle Tasker for allegedly soliciting a 14-year-old teen for sex.
Purported libertarians are on the warpath against those of us who believe teens are humans who can make decisions. The opinions that people in the community seem to hold are one or more of the following:
People under some arbitrary, government-selected age are just children, and cannot consent. Anyone who is attracted to teenagers is a pedophile and deserves to die, go to prison, or be severely beaten.
Kyle, like any accused, deserves the presumption of innocence. Reactionary libertarians should know better than to believe the police.
If the allegations against Kyle are true, what he did was inappropriate, but he did not create a victim and does not belong in jail.
The first group is driven by emotion and fear and have dropped all pretense of being principled libertarians in favor of piling-on against Kyle and anyone else who doesn’t jump on their violent bandwagon. Their belief that teens are children is insulting to young people everywhere who are mature enough to make decisions for themselves. Further, they equate attraction to teens with pedophilia, which is just plain wrong. It’s an emotional, ignorant viewpoint. Here’s more on the difference between ephebophilia, hebephilia, and pedophilia.
We discussed the issues of age of consent and relationships with people under the legal age of consent on Friday night’s episode of Free Talk Live. It got real when Rich Paul revealed his first relationship was at age 13 with a 23-year-old woman. Not only did he consent but he pursued having the relationship in the first place, something that the ageists do not believe is possible. They would tell Rich that he was a victim and that his partner belonged in prison or worse. Calling teens children is a true insult that disempowers young people who just want to be respected as equals.
Here’s the full archive from Friday night’s show if you want to hear a rational, calm discussion on these matters. This link will jump you to the beginning of the second hour of the show where we began the discussion in earnest, though the first hour covers some ideas of independence for young people:
Mark Edge is a host of nationally syndicated talk radio show, “Free Talk Live” and moved to New Hampshire in 2006 as an early mover for the Free State Project. This week, while traveling, he and his family stood up for their rights at a Border Patrol checkpoint East of El Paso on I-10. Mark is under no obligation to give the federal agents any information absent “reasonable articulable suspicion” that he’s committed a crime, and informs the agents that he knows his rights. Here’s the video:
He also correctly points out that no one is a citizen, which is proven by various Supreme Court decisions, such as Warren v District of Columbia, where it’s made clear that government has no obligation to protect you. With no obligation to protect, the citizenship “deal” is null.
It’s a nitpick, but something he could have tried, that he did not, was to clarify the first’s officer’s statement of, “do me a favor and (something unintelligible about pulling over here)”. Was the officer asking him for a favor? If so, Mark can politely refuse his request. Or, was the officer ordering him over there? Questions would have revealed more about whether the officer is willing to use force to achieve compliance, or was just asking for a favor.
Further, Mark could have asked the agents to identify themselves, for the record, though his wife’s capable camerawork under pressure was able to ID two of them.
Overall, Mark and family do an excellent job of asserting their rights, with multiple officers attempting (and failing) to intimidate them with their own cameras, and a dog sniff of the car.
Amusingly, the main officer claims that by Mark knowing and asserting his rights, he has proven to the officer’s satisfaction that he is a “US Citizen”, though Mark just explained to the agent how no such thing actually exists. At the end of the encounter, the agent even claims Mark is an “outstanding citizen” and thanks him for “helping law enforcement”.
Here are the citations to prove Mark’s claims about the falsity of citizenship: (more…)
After ten years of service, Shire Free Church minister Mark Edge is leaving the airwaves of Free Talk Live, where he spent eighteen hours per week on-air creating entertaining radio with a variety of co-hosts and callers.
Now, he’ll no longer be behind a microphone on Free Talk Live and will be spending an indefinite period of time with his family each night. He is leaving it in listeners’ hands to decide when he can return to the show.
This week’s AKPF #1 installment features no content of particular offense to the audiences of You Tube, enabling it to be viewed by a much wider demographic. Enjoy special episode Trielium, featuring footage captured in Keene on October 02, 2015.
We finally got an official app for Keene-based Free Talk Live and LRN.FM! We need your help – the developer of the new LRN.FM & FTL listening app tells us that the first 30 days are the most important timeframe to get downloads from the Apple and Android stores. If there’s a good initial download amount, the stores are more likely to feature the app!
Even if you already use another app to listen to FTL or LRN.FM, please take a moment to install this app via the links below and give it a try. It’s free! There are still a few tweaks that need to be made to the features, but it sounds great and allows you to listen to both the FTL 24/7 streams and the LRN.FM streams in the same app.
Please download and then rate five stars, and then share the link on your social media. Thank you!
Last week I had the pleasure of being the guest on Manchester Public Television‘s “Matt Connarton UNLEASHED“. Matt is a liberty-friendly New Hampshire native and we had an excellent conversation covering talk radio, Free Talk Live, the Free State Project, conspiracy theories, the Libertarian Party, ballot access restrictions, and market justice. Here’s the full hour of what was a live television broadcast on Wednesday at 2pm on MPTV.
