Re: Yes and a few thoughts

Yes, Americans cannot seem to decide what American values are, which is why I look to the Constitution. What it says about freedom in the Bill of Rights I totally agree with, and this is what is supposed to be the basis of American jurisprudence and its values. For instance, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief; the fact that many evangelicals consider this to be a "Christian" nation and that faith-based initiatives are therefore okay doesn't alter what America's true principles are.

What a law was originally created for, and what it's supposed to do in essence, has a lot to do with whether or not it's justified IMO. The fact that people now think the AoC laws are designed to prevent "abuse" of younger people conflicts with the very definition of statuatory rape, i.e., the issue of preventing a mutually consensual act.

In my opinion, the way to counter people's emotional thinking is to appeal to their emotions in the opposite way, by arguing cogently that civil rights--and the erosion of them--is a moral issue. We need to explain the differences between morality and moralism, and explain why the former can be codified into law but the latter cannot be in any system that purports to be a constitutional democracy or based on civil liberties first and foremost.

I disagree that it's biology that causes parents to act so protectively with their kids. I think the behavior is very learned, and part of it stems from their fear of losing their kids if they give them too much freedom. This is why we have to espouse the argument that the glue holding a family together has a false foundation if a major part of that glue is force or legal fiat rather than love and mutual trust, the latter two things being the only two meaningful things that make a family work.