And what is your point there, Markie? You seem to take it as a given that it's inherently wrong for us to have full romantic relationships with kids if it wasn't against the law, and we didn't also have to fear our paramours would be hauled off to therapy to convince them that we were only using them.

I didn't say anything about whether you'd do it if it weren't against the law. I said most here would do it if they knew they wouldn't get caught. Not exactly the same thing, is it?

And saying we don't care about the latter concern, but only our own necks, is a huge insult to the pro-choicers that bears no fruit when much of the objective scientific evidence that even VirPed doesn't regularly try to downplay or ignore makes it clear that MAPs are not typically bereft of a conscience and general concern for others, particularly those we love and respect. Or are you verifying the suspicion many here have that the VirPed's are attempting to demonize pro-choice MAPs in that manner?

I'm willing to wager most MAPs are moral individuals. But I'm equally willing to wager most MAPs aren't pro-contacters either. Yes, there is some overlap between pro-contacters and moral individuals. Maybe you're in that overlap. But I don't think most of the people in your camp are. What I see is a lot of pro-contacters spending an insane amount of time and effort looking up every little thing that they can use to twist reality to make their argument and using youth rights issues as a shield to mask what they really want, which is, and has always been, to have sex with kids. If there was zero chance the youth rights card would give them an in, they would never have gravitated to it. You brought the youth rights issue with you when you came here, so I will give you credit for being sincere. But the rest of these guys probably never gave it a thought until they were introduced to it by you or other pedos. It was never something they were passionate about. There is no need for us to demonize the pro-contacters--their agenda is obvious to anyone with half a brain.

Because the majority of us have nothing to fear about the hysteria, including losing our jobs, our families, custody of our kids, having our families targeted by smear campaigns directed at us, etc.? And most anti-choicers do not seem to be revealing their real identities in droves anyway.

I'm saying that it's a tad hypocritical for you, Dante and the rest to attack VirPeds for selling out when you guys aren't exactly out in the streets proclaiming your right to have sex with kids. You ARE compromising in your own way, even if you don't recognize that's what it is. Whether your safety is at issue is beside the point, isn't it? What's right is right. If you genuinely believe children are being horribly oppressed, you should be out rioting in the streets. If I thought children really were being horribly oppressed en masse, you can be damned sure I would be protesting. Loudly. But what I see is you guys sitting comfortably behind your anonymous screen nicks, calling us sellouts! What a joke.

Meanwhile, I actually discuss my sexuality in Facebook, and I am out fully. There are things I do anonymously, yes, but they are nothing I couldn't or wouldn't do in the open if I felt it would be more effective to do it that way. But for the most part, what you see is what you get with me. I'm a mess, it's true. I'm far from the best person to represent the MAP community, but I'm the only one I see who is willing to do it fully in the open. Has it cost me? Damn right, it has. But I think it's important.

So I don't want to hear another word about how I or the other VirPeds have compromised on our principles for the sake of politics. Of course we have. So have all of you, even as you hypocritically espouse your 'all or nothing' philosophy. You compromised the minute you decided not to be fully open about who you are and what you believe, every single one of you.

Thank you. Some of us, like me, are out to an extent in the offline world, and well known to those we live with, work with, and associate with on a regular basis. But even I admittedly fear putting a target on my family, friends, and colleagues for daring to accept me. And if you claim that's not a serious concern, then you haven't been paying any attention to the manner in which vigilantes work, especially when they did that very thing to you a few years ago despite you having become loudly anti-choice by then. And I guess you forget the support we gave you, and which you received even from most of those you were constantly quarreling with here at the time.

See, you keep saying that, but who can verify it? Many anti-contacters at VP are out to someone, so they can make the same claim. You fear putting a target on your family and friends? Bullshit. You fear putting a target on yourself. I am out fully and no one has targeted my family or friends. Besides, don't you think activists in the past had the same concerns? Of course they did. But if things are really as bad for kids as you say they are, then the risks should be trumped by your willingness to help those already in harm's way (as you see it): the kids. No, let's not pretend any of this is really about the kids, because it isn't.

Meaning, they never have to stand for anything and can be ignored whenever a majority feels like it. Because they aren't that important to human beings simply because we create them, and nature doesn't. Yet our ability to create such principles to live by are what separates humans from all other members of the animal species.

No, it means they stand for what we say they stand for. They did not exist in any a priori sense--they were human creations/realizations, just like all values. We as a society have to individually and collectively decide what our values are. Ideally, we all have the ability to put our opinions and beliefs into the Marketplace of Ideas to be reviewed, accepted or rejected. There are no trump cards. We don't get to decide individually what rights everyone gets or doesn't get. We get to make our case and hope it resonates with enough people to make an impact. That's it. Sorry, but it's the best you're ever going to get.

No, it does not. It removes near-absolutist parental power, not their rights as human beings. Do not confuse the two. Granting rights to all people never require disempowering another group.

No, the state does that, and guess what the state is informed by? So basically, no matter what, majority rules. Even when the majority decides that minorities get some say in their own lives (as ideally they should), it's still the majority that decides, and they can change their minds. So the concept of inalienable rights is at best a joke and at worst a lie.

Granting rights to others absolutely does remove rights from others. You call it power, but they are the same thing. Why do they call it being empowered when people have rights? Because it invests them with power they didn't have before. And there is no such things as rights that exist in a vacuum, because we all share a common space.

Legality is one of those rules that humans create, and which is not always guided by lofty principles, but sometimes actually defends power imbalances, which are inimical to the notion of civil rights. Again, do not confuse power over with rights.

That's true and it sucks, but nevertheless, it does not change reality. We can pretend like it does, but it doesn't. Power imbalances exist and will always exist regardless of the law. Dante and qtns like to pretend that removing power from the state will fix this problem when in reality it never has and never will. You at least realize that centralized power keeps things relatively peaceful; it ideally keeps the various factions of the power-hungry from just steamrolling over others in their war with each other. We live in a pretty stable country with a lot of resources. Our kids are much better off than many around the world. So, they have to obey their parents sometimes. So, it's not a perfect life, but even the GC libertarians' hero Robert Heinlein said that you should not handicap your children by making their lives too easy. But it hardly warrants a revolution and a complete overhaul of the system. It can be changed in some small constructive ways, sure, but making them the equal of adults is ultimately not the solution. And again, power and rights are the same thing, whether you choose to recognize it or not.

And too many parents under the current regime do not make sure their kids are healthy and well-adjusted, but instead force them into dependence, ignorance, impose racist & sexist ideologies upon them, and perpetrate the greatest amount of actual abuse of every sort against them. The problem isn't parenthood itself; it's what happens in the isolated confines of the nuclear family household when the greater community is considered to have "no business" showing concern, and parents are given tyrannical power. You know this, but do not care. You defend parental power, deliberately misrepresenting it as "rights," to be popular and accepted. That's what is most important to you.

American parents, for the most part, do an adequate job of making sure their kids are healthy and well-adjusted. Many go above and beyond that. Some don't. Again, the fact that this system isn't perfect hardly calls for a complete overhaul of the system. I agree that children tend to fare better when others in their community have some say in children's lives. That's one reason why I live communities like the commune in the article I linked to recently. Those kids seem to do better than average. But the adults still have power over them. So, giving more adults power over kids rather than less seems to improve kids' lot. Why? Because those adults who have a stake are more likely to care, I reckon. By contrast, adults who have no stake in raising kids are less likely to care.

Again, shared DNA is not the biological equivalent of an owner's license upon one's progeny. They share that DNA with their parents at no fault or choice of their own. It no more gives another person inherent right to power over another than purchasing them with currency does.

It doesn't give them an owner's license, no, but surely it gives them some say in the matter. I'm not going to defend the notion of natural law, but I do think parents who have some say over what happens to their children also have responsibilities to those children, so it is a two-way street.

I'm sure people who paid money for other people in the past thought so too. I'm sure I can come up with many rationalizations with why I should have a stamp of ownership over you, too. Or at least anyone who is Irish.

Again with the slavery. Honestly, this is why nobody outside of this community takes the pro-contacters seriously.

And since I support that too, and do not break the laws, and agree to work within the system to establish respectful dialogue with Non-MAPs... how exactly do I and most other pro-choicers fail to reasonably compromise or understand what it means? The only major difference between us is our views. And many anti-choicers refuse to even consider the Epstein-Dumas Test, and you know that.

You're right: many anti-choicers do refuse to consider the Epstein system, probably because most of them have never heard of it. Diss, I'm tired of arguing with you. I'm sorry if this was a little harsh, but I'm just sick of watching you guys attack Ethan. We're all just trying to live with the shitty hand we've been dealt, okay? But if you're going to keep impugning the character of the VPs, then expect the same in return.