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:
Did facebook silently delete the news about the topless ban proposal going down in flames? The evidence says yes. The original Free Keene post to facebook has mysteriously disappeared, which means that the nearly 1,000 people who liked and shared it prior to its deletion have all had their shares disappear from their pages.
Presuming the original post was reported by some prudes (despite having a “safe” preview pic), shame on facebook for not even letting us know of the removal.
So yeah, that confirms it. Facebook sent the censored preview photo to a blacklist of some sort, so one can still share the original article’s link on facebook, but no preview pic will come up.
Should you wish to share the story again on facebook, here’s what you have to do to make it a little tougher for the prudes to attack:
Then, once the pic is uploaded – type in whatever you want for the post, and drop in the link to the article.
That’s it!
Facebook never should have blacklisted the already-censored preview pic – it’s been posted countless times before and does not show any areola. I specifically made that version with facebook in mind, which should be obvious given the graphic used to censor. The pic in question has been attached to other articles that have been shared a lot on facebook, so WTF? If you try to share the link to the pic via a facebook post, it does give you a link to report their decision as wrong, which I did, and you are welcome to do as well. I have no idea if it will make a difference.
The horrible bill (HB 1525) that would enact a prohibition on female toplessness went down in flames 18-0 this week in the NH house criminal justice committee. It was a decisive move by the committee and came after a long public hearing where an overwhelming amount of people opposed the bill in verbal and written form.
Sparked by last year’s “Free the Nipple” protests, some prudish state representatives filed legislation that would make it a misdemeanor for women to be topless anywhere in New Hampshire. (They did make an exception for breast-feeding.) A topless lady would be facing up to a year in jail, were this terrible legislation to pass. Men would still be allowed to be topless under the discriminatory bill, HB 1525.
Thankfully, the bill is nearly dead thanks to a unanimous vote to kill it by the NH house criminal justice committee. The committee voted today 18-0 to “ITL” (Inexpedient to Legislate) the legislation. The bill is not yet off the table – that will happen later when the full house votes on it.
Liberty rep John A. Burt put forth the motion to ITL the bill and also wrote the majority “blurb” for the house calendar along with Free State Project early mover and state representative Amanda Bouldin. (Amanda previously had made headlines for defending topless freedom from attack by the prudish reps who proposed the topless ban.) Here’s the text of Burt and Bouldin’s blurb:
This bill expands the indecent exposure law to include the anus (regardless of gender) as well as the nipple and areola (only if female). The committee heard testimony from many who warned that, due to likely acts of civil disobedience, the state would face expensive court fees should this become law. The NHCLU testified that violation of such a law could be considered protected political speech, indicating that the state would be unsuccessful in litigation. The committee sees no sense in passing a law that cannot be enforced.
The committee also believes that this bill violates Art. 2 of the State Constitution, which states that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, creed, color, sex or national origin.” This bill attempts to apply a law to women only. This bill would also place police officers in the uncomfortable position of having to determine the gender of a potential offender. Lastly, an offender (if convicted) would be listed in the state’s sex offender registry after a second conviction, which many considered to be an excessive punishment.
In a state with a nippy average temperature of only 46 degrees, the risk of rampant nudity seems rather low. The committee considers this legislation inexpedient to legislate for these reasons.
Today is a decisive loss for the prudes. To them I say leave topless women alone – your kids will be fine. If you don’t like seeing female areola, then advocate all public property be abolished and turned private. Then you can have a private beach just for people who want to keep their clothes on.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on Free the Nipple NH.
The 2016 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, held this past weekend at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, was the usual gathering of hundreds of libertarians and anarchists for the annual conference. Different this year was the headlining event, drawing the largest crowd of the forum, and featuring a speaker who was occupying the opposite side of the globe. Broadcasting into the parlor via a live video feed was Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower famed for revealing the details of government surveillance operations targeting humans situated both within and without the borders of the United States.
In the approximately fifty minutes that Snowden was linked into the room, he was interviewed by Reason’s Nick Gillespie on a variety of topics from Snowden’s perspective on current events, the United States presidential race, ideological inspirations, and potential paths for the future.
Strangely, an announcement was made before the event requesting that all unofficial filming be suspended. In the interests of objective journalism, I ensured that an audio device was running for the duration of the event, which resulted in poor audio quality compared to what could have been captured without the restriction. Illustrated with images captured by multiple sources from the event, enjoy this presentation of Edward Snowden’s appearance before the audience of the 2016 NH Liberty Forum.
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…)
