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?

Clearly you seem to be implying that doing it if a MAP and his/her younger partner knew for a fact they couldn't get caught (for whatever hypothetical reason) would be inherently wrong simply because the law says it is. But if the law didn't say it was, then it wouldn't be, I suppose. If two intergenerational lovers couldn't possibly be caught, then the law would be irrelevant, but that is an extreme hypothetical that we know better than to take a chance on in real life. So again, this seems like a veiled ad hominem that we would be prone to committing immoral acts.

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.

Anti-choicers are often prone to making baseless assumptions that either no evidence supports or (as in this case) available evidence actually refutes. This is one or those baseless assumptions that is made simply to suggest to readers, in an underhanded manner, that MAPs who are pro-choice are intrinsically your alleged minority of MAPs who are selfish and generally amoral. Again, this undermines the public claims of VirPeds on the MAP boards that they do not make moral aspersions on MAPs who do not follow the party line.

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.

Mmm-hmmm. Thank you for admitting that. And you wonder why your baseless insults on the pro-choicers who are in the majority on GC constantly piss us off, and then you cry "foul!" and claim persecution "for having an 'alternative' view" whenever you get taken to task in a less than polite manner. Yet you then keep associating with an ideological camp of MAPs whom you claim are "mostly" (your word) a bunch of immoral individuals for daring to respect kids and believing they should have their rights, and for not thinking our attractions would be toxic to act on in a mutually consensual and respectful manner. Thank you again for saying this publicly. I'm sure many who read this will remember this the next time you claim to be treated here unjustly, especially when you constantly cast aspersions on us that your actions strongly indicate you do not really believe.

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

Like many objectively constructed research initiatives by Non-MAP clinicians that public sensibility is against but no reliable scientific evidence? That's not twisting reality, that's publicly sharing uncomfortable truths that offend many on an emotional level, like if I publicly said to a group of fundamentalist Christians that I didn't believe in their conception of God. But since the anti-choice view is mostly about emotion, not logic, reason, or scientific validity, of course you would make such a claim.

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.

You know how old saw it is to claim that pro-contacters are a bunch of immoral and selfish individuals who cannot possibly really respect youths as people. Because, by your emotionalistic "logic," if we did, then we would fully agree they deserve no respect or recognition of their personhood, huh? And of course, you harbor the Victorian-inspired, sex negative belief that individuals who do not believe the sexual component of their attractions need to be stifled must necessarily only be interested in sex, because it's so "obvious" that good, moral people try as hard as possible to be asexual, and that sexual desire cannot harmoniously exist with love and respect. Mm-hmm. You claim to believe all of this readily repudiated nonsense, yet here you are saying it will associating with us, and still striving to be one of the "family."

Until your mental state changes next month, of course. After all, shame and guilt over one's own natural sexual desires does breed emotional instability, huh?

If there was zero chance the youth rights card would give them an in, they would never have gravitated to it.

Translation: Guys, we need to discredit the validity of youth liberation within the MAP community! Youth lib is an obstacle for the anti-choice view! We need to make the pro-contacters that we still associate with look as bad as possible for supporting it so that they will stop supporting it! After all, that always works for the conservatives when they attack the liberals in this way...

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.

Thank you sincerely. Yet, many MAPs of the pro-choice camp who came here without having first learned of the youth liberation movement already displayed a powerful ideology towards respecting youths as people, and treating them as equals. They had clearly thought well outside the box on many issues regarding youths. Like it or not, respect and feelings of equality often stem from the pro-contact position. I had youth liberationist ideals not only long before I heard of the movement itself (which was beaten back in the 1980s, when I entered high school), but long before I realized I was a hebephile. I didn't need to learn about the platform before adopting the basic set of ideals. Learning there was a real youth lib movement outside the MAP community entirely simply validated opinions many of these pro-choice MAPs always had. It's often a natural byproduct of seeing youths as worthy romantic partners, and newbies like WalkinginthePark make their allegiance to these ideals prior to the joining the community here quite obvious.

I'm sorry, Markie, but what you are saying here is not only mean-spirited, but it's entirely baseless.

There is no need for us to demonize the pro-contacters--their agenda is obvious to anyone with half a brain.

If you truly believed that, then you wouldn't try so hard, and so often to either convert us or obviously demonize us. You are clearly quite concerned about the youth lib agenda catching on in the greater MAP community, because you well know it's a platform that works against the anti-choice/protectionist ideology on pretty much every level. There are a good number of pro-choicers who sincerely want to work with anti-choicers on any matter we can find common ground on (Joey Bishop is prominent among them, as is Baldur, as am I), but when a good number of prominent anti-choicers attack and insult us like this, that hardly does anything to promote even a grudging degree of unity and shared purpose. It just fosters further animosity and antagonism, as well as personal grudges.

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 make that statement in a very loaded fashion, as if you're strongly trying to convince any lurking reader - and possibly some registered newbies - that this is all the pro-choice stance is about, i.e., based on your belief that if someone doesn't reject the sexual component of their being, then that must mean sex is the only thing they want. You know better, but you do not want others to know better. And it's the direct result of people like you, and throughout the media, demonizing us in this manner that we have to be afraid to come out publicly, or fully, and have to worry about our families, friends, and employers being targeted for associating with us in a friendly manner, and pressured into ostracizing us and firing us, respectively. And you know this. Hardly hypocritical when detractors like you attempt to frame the debate this way.

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.

No, the safety of ourselves and our families is not irrelevant in this type of climate. At all. And yes, what's right is right, which is why we adhere to our stance despite how public sentiment is against it. Going with the party line on hot button issues like this is the easy thing to do, Markie. Yet you are an example of an anti-choice MAP who has still paid the price for being completely "out." The consequences of you "coming out" is one of the major factors that has caused your break downs and lack of emotional stability over the years. Yet you continue to cast aspersions on pro-choicers for fearing to fully come out of the closet en masse.

If you genuinely believe children are being horribly oppressed, you should be out rioting in the streets.

Markie, stop being the hypocrite that you accuse us of being, okay? You well know that several times in the past you cogently noted that this is not the correct political climate to do such a thing in, and that if we did, we would be "taken down like dogs" (your words, from one of the posts you made during your claimed "agnostic" period on the contact issue). You fully understand the political situation we are in and what would happen if we took to the streets in such a manner at this point in time. When you "play dumb" and contradict your own frequent statements that make it clear you are indeed aware of the situation, you deservedly destroy both your own credibility and the ability of many here to respect you. My own respect for you just plummeted when I saw this particular line of hypocrisy flow from your typing fingers. This also clearly validates my assessment that you anti-choicers are motivated largely by desperation, if you say many things even you don't even believe to make your points.

If I thought children really were being horribly oppressed en masse, you can be damned sure I would be protesting. Loudly.

No, you wouldn't, because you know how foolish and counter-productive that would be in today's climate. Again, you're "playing dumb" and not realizing how much this contradicts statements many of us saw you make in the past. And then you will cry about being persecuted here when others make it clear they can't respect you or take you seriously, and then you project and accuse others in the pro-choice camp of doing the same thing you frequently do, very blatantly and publicly. If you dig your own grave, Markie, you shouldn't cry if sometimes people in your community think you should lay in it for a while.

And it's not that you actually do not believe children are oppressed. The evidence speaks for itself. You simply do not care, because it goes against the agenda you align yourself with to gain acceptance, something you desperately feel you need to alleviate your intense shame, guilt, and self-hatred. And you take the easy, moralizing, Victorian-inspired position that anyone who stifles his natural sexual desires is the person of stronger character. This despite how much you flagrantly lie and contradict your previous statements, and make it clear that such individuals so often lack mental and emotional stability. But you figure many will overlook that because you say what you feel they want to hear.

But what I see is you guys sitting comfortably behind your anonymous screen nicks, calling us sellouts! What a joke.

Because I think you want to see us all fully "come out" and have our families, friends, and employers targeted, as you feel the harm done to them and us as a result will cause us to flee to the anti-choice side en masse as a way of begging for forgiveness for going against the party line out of fear. You know, like the current liberals are famous for doing, and which you did yourself to assuage your own fears and negative feelings. We simply aren't as stupid as you hope we are, Markie. Especially when so many know that you know the consequences you suffered as a result of coming out, and how the vigilante targeting continued unabated when you fled to the anti-choice side. You have no integrity to be lecturing others on their alleged lack of the same. You would never go against the party line if you felt it was the "right thing" to do, because you're more concerned about doing the popular thing, bro.

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.

No, they can't. Because they maintain a view that they feel will make them more likely to be accepted. I, and other pro-choicers, are out to some and accepted despite having views that do not embrace the party line. We are often continued to be respected and liked despite disagreements because of our actions and displayed integrity as people; we do not rely on our views to get respect and acceptance.

You fear putting a target on your family and friends? Bullshit. You fear putting a target on yourself.

MMm-hmm. Because I can't possibly care enough about my family for that. My family receiving harassing e-mails - like what happened to you - and subjected to seeing flyers with my pic and name on it spread around the 'hood to "warn" the neighborhood about me despite the fact that I'm fully law-abiding wouldn't case any distress to my family, huh? And no way would my employer ever be pressured to fire me due to receiving harassing e-mails... you know, like your employer once fired you for baseless claims being made about you in regards to your attraction base?

And of course, my desire not to be fired is sooooo self-serving. After all, how important is one's financial livelihood at the end of the day, right?

I am out fully and no one has targeted my family or friends.

You know what I mean by that, and you are a total liar. Many of us remember the firing you got, and the e-mails sent to family members by vigilantes some years ago. Are you now going to claim that never happened?

Besides, don't you think activists in the past had the same concerns? Of course they did.

And they often found themselves fired, blacklisted from whatever vocation they worked in, threatened, had their families contacted and "informed" about them, and even infiltrated by the FBI. After all, no way does our situation in any way parallel what happened to the "communists" - real and simply accused - during the McCarthy era, or what happened to the Black Panthers. And of course I'm exaggerating by saying the FBI ever infiltrates unpopular groups with unpopular social agendas... but wait, they did that very thing to NAMBLA!

I guess this also makes the great majority of homosexuals during the 1950s a bunch of self-serving, amoral hypocrites. Especially the numerous among them who continued to maintain what was then illegal relationships behind the scenes that greatly offended public sensibilities, including the liberals of that era.

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.

Except we are well aware, as are you, that stampeding in public - rioting, as you actually put it elsewhere in this discussion - would not help them. It would simply have us "put down like dogs," as you once adroitly put it. We choose to work peaceably within the system via the use of words, peaceful agitation, and research. That's the right way to do it. You know that, and it alarms you and your fellow anti-choicers that we are doing things the right way. You would love it if we foolishly attempted to riot (as you put it) in this day and age. We aren't stupid enough to listen to the words of an obvious agent provocateur, Markie. Again, pretending to be dumb yourself, and assuming we're all actually dumb, destroys your credibility and undermines your claims that you're a person of integrity. When your mental state is like this, integrity and honor are alien concepts to you.

No, let's not pretend any of this is really about the kids, because it isn't.

Perhaps you should stop pretending that this is anything about protecting kids so much as your own "good" image, no matter what it sacrifices in terms of civil rights for everyone, including kids and us.

Meanwhile, I actually discuss my sexuality in Facebook, and I am out fully.

And are simultaneously pandering to public sentiment. And your words on the MAP boards where everyone isn't anti-choice make your mental stability and lack of integrity while accusing others of being hypocrites quite obvious. Maybe this is why you're so desperate to get public acceptance any way you can. You know that, at least when you're in this state of mind, you can't rely on character to do it.

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 it's not effective for us to do it that way right now. I fully agree that if more if us were "out," regardless of what our views were, things would be much easier. One of the things we are hoping for is to encourage more MAPs to come out publicly, but this is going to be a gradual thing that takes individual consideration and thought, and it cannot be an en masse, all at once sort of thing.

But for the most part, what you see is what you get with me.

An individual with a lot of self-hated, guilt, and shame who is desperate for acceptance any way he can get it, and who routinely lashes out and demonizes the very people who have supported and accepted him, has an extreme persecution complex, is extremely inconsistent in his statements, stated views, and alliances from one set of months to another, and who thinks nothing of contradicting himself on a regular basis if that's what it takes to get that acceptance. That's what we see, Markie, and that is what we get. If you do not like that, and truly want acceptance, trust, and respect, then work on changing your ways.

I'm a mess, it's true.

Yet you give other people in your community lectures on morality and integrity when you display none of the same during the times you have these emotional bouts. And we still accept you and support you at your worst. Maybe you should do some re-thinking about many things, including how truly "immoral" or deficient in character the majority of us on this board happen to be.

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.

Yet my being out on the level that I'm out has done the same. Has it cost me? Yes, but I have no regrets, and I never felt the need to change my views.

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.

Then stop doing that, Markie, and you won't.

Of course we have. So have all of you, even as you hypocritically espouse your 'all or nothing' philosophy.

No, as we espouse the philosophy of choice, full personhood for everyone, and respect and equality of opportunity for everyone based on proven individual merits. Plain and simple.

You compromised the minute you decided not to be fully open about who you are and what you believe, every single one of you.

And you think holding onto our views no matter the opposition, or lack of popularity, or the huge amount of censorship and hunting by vigilantes counts for nothing; and simply being "out" while holding a view that makes it much easier, and which you admit here was a huge calculated political compromise, makes all the difference in integrity. Mmm-hhmm. I doubt you even fully believe that, and I'm betting many outside the community don't either.

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.

And as long as we stringently stick to them no matter the test or challenge, they do mean something.

They did not exist in any a priori sense--they were human creations/realizations, just like all values.

Yet that doesn't make them any less valuable to sentient beings who have the ability to mentally conceive them and actually live by them - or not. It means humans are capable of standing behind what they say they believe in, or only do that when it's convenient.

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.

You think "Marketplace of Ideas" deserves to be capitalized as a proper noun? Interesting.

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.

But living by certain values has a tremendous impact upon what quality of life we get, either as individuals, as members of certain groups within the greater society, or as members of society as a whole. It doesn't invalidate the importance of picking values and rights that benefit everyone the most with the least amount of negative side-effects. This is why the Constitution was constructed to declare certain rights inalienable, that is every human being deserves to have no matter what the majority or any oligarchy may feel about it.

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.

Wrong, because the state is not a majority, even if elected by them. Their job, whether done properly or not, is to protect constitutional rights that are considered inalienable no matter what the majority thinks or feels.

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.

No, it's a valid concept that creates the best type of situation for everyone in society, especially since every person who belongs to any group may someday end up a minority. It's only a joke or a lie to those who believe that values have no inherent meaning simply because they are human-made, and that whatever the majority says is automatically right by default. It's a common excuse used to justify fascism.

Granting rights to others absolutely does remove rights from others. You call it power, but they are the same thing.

No, they are most certainly not the same thing. The legally granted ability to make decisions regarding your own life, state whatever your positions are, access any information you want, and to choose a lifestyle for yourself alone, is a right. The legally granted ability to control the decisions of others, enforce your own lifestyle upon them, stifle their ability to state their positions if you disagree with them, etc., is power over others.

Why do they call it being empowered when people have rights?

Empowerment means power over yourself, free from the control of others. It does not mean power over others, which is very distinct and actually its antitheses.

Because it invests them with power they didn't have before.

Over themselves only.

And there is no such things as rights that exist in a vacuum, because we all share a common space.

And many who adhere to the principles of constitutional democracy and liberty believe that the best type of society for sharing that space is individual empowerment to all, not power of some over others, especially not based on any arbitrary factors.

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.

Power imbalances such as differences in strength, differences in intelligence, differences in ability, etc., will always indeed exist. However, that is not the same thing as differences in ability to choose based on equality of opportunity that are contingent upon individual merits. Arbitrary power imbalances are entirely artificial, and rationalizing them is nothing less than attempting to justify draconian measures that de-humanize certain groups. They are values that are based on disempowering certain humans for the benefits of others that have no logical reason. The fact that modern liberals back up such horrid rationalizations shows exactly how far they have fallen and compromised everything that made them great in previous eras.

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.

Material comfort due to dependence on others do not make them nearly as well off as they could be, especially when more than enough kids in America live in conditions of poverty and neglect no matter how worse it may generally be for kids in other parts of the world; too many of our ample resources are not used to better the conditions of kids or common citizens in general. And merely pointing out that kids in other parts of the world are worst off makes it clear that fundamental change on a global scale is necessary. Things being better for people living in one geographic location as opposed to - and likely at the expense of - another should never be acceptable to anyone who claims to adhere to principles of freedom and equality.

So, they have to obey their parents sometimes.

The thing is, oftentimes their parents make the wrong decisions. And it's not just "sometimes" and you know it. Parents are legally considered nearly all-powerful authority figures, and their kids are not allowed to responsibly evaluate the merits or righteousness of their parents' commands and demands. You know it's nowhere near that simple an inconvenience to kids, so this is again a case of you "playing dumb" on behalf of your ideology that is not based on individual empowerment, but authoritarian power.

So, it's not a perfect life,

It doesn't have to be perfect, but it can be considerably better, and that is our point. Nobody should be at the mercy of anyone else, because that just invites all sorts of abuses of power that children are all too often subjected to within the largely isolated confines of the nuclear unit's typical home. The fact that anti-choicers gleefully ignore this fact over and over again, and join the public in externalizing the problem, makes you guys hypocrites for accusing pro-choicers or anyone else of being selfishly motivated and not actually being concerned about the welfare of kids. We don't dismiss any type of abuse as being the rightful actions of any group of people, including ourselves. Nor do we a take an "oh well, things can't be perfect" attitude about it.

If you can fight so diligently to prevent specifically MAPs from committing acts of abuse against kids, you could and should be equally diligent about fighting to prevent parents who are oftentimes not actually MAPs from committing the same and other types of abuse against children, especially since they are known to be the ones to commit such abuse the most, not the pedo living on the next street over. By not doing so, it shows where your true priorities lie: Not protecting kids, but rather the status quo institutions at almost any cost.

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.

Many of us argue that the system need not be extremely overhauled to incorporate youth liberation. This is why youth lib boards are filled with people from all political stripes, including conservatives. I will argue that a revolution is greatly needed for reasons well beyond simple youth lib, because the current system has failed over and over, but that is a whole other topic that is largely off-topic. Though I will mention, again, that modern liberals deserve to be put paid for becoming loyal to the very institutions and way of doing things which they made the greatest progress in society by fighting against. Their agenda has clearly changed dramatically, not just their tactics.

It can be changed in some small constructive ways, sure, but making them the equal of adults is ultimately not the solution.

Mmm-hmm, no matter what their individual merits may be, and despite the fact that they are, like or not, autonomous human beings who have great potential that is currently being stifled. The fact is, adults have not done a good enough job controlling and running the world entirely on their own to be in a reasonable position to argue that they deserve the right to oppress younger people and keep them away from the table. No group of people can claim that right. Once again, you prove your loyalty to the status quo, and present small little tweaks that actually change nothing substantive to be some type of solution. Just as liberals have been doing for the past 30 years as the U.S. went about building its empire and imposing its power via pre-emptive wars and constant economic sanctions against other nations.

And again, power and rights are the same thing, whether you choose to recognize it or not.

You do a very good job of proving otherwise with every desperate statement you make in favor of draconian measures. Thank you for continuously reminding me of what a joke mainstream liberals have become since they capitulated to the conservatives. Reagan and Thatcher would be proud.

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.

Having the power to control their freedom of speech, the knowledge they access, the direction of their education, how they worship (or don't), and every personal aspect of their lives does not justify basic material comforts given to them. We do that for our pets also, and masters have always done that for their slaves. Even the best parents do not change the following: A benevolent dictator is still a dictator. That's why the abolitionist ideology didn't tolerate the continued power of the many slaveowners who were basically kind to their slaves and didn't beat them or overwork them or take sexual advantage of them.

Again, the fact that this system isn't perfect hardly calls for a complete overhaul of the system.

Except it doesn't need it to incorporate youth lib. You continually ignore this.

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.

But it need not be that way. Communal life can be fully democratic, much as the Sudbury School campuses are. That is our point.

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.

Which is why adults who truly respect kids based on their individual merits and both their individual and collective potential tend to become youth liberationists, or develop a closely aligned ideology.

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.

Simply because they conceived the kids, at no fault or choice on the latter's behalf? That sounds similar to arguing that if a family of serfs conceive a child while living on your property, that gives you at least some say in what religion the child should be, what opinions they should have, what information they access, or what type of lifestyle they may live. That is they way people used to think, when power over others were based more on currency than DNA. But both are equally accidents that are totally beyond the child's control or choice.

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.

The responsibility to maintain their kids' basic material needs, pretty much, which is a responsibility all masters have over their slaves. The kids lose far more than they gain, because they have no choice but to be in that situation, and lack the legal opportunity to seek economic independence so they can care for themselves or in unity with other groups who may choose to share expenses to each other's benefit.

We see that played out with the small amount of kids who gain lucrative jobs in the entertainment industry: These kids are more than capable of hiring any number of people to see to their basic material needs in place of their parents, yet their parents still often full legal control over their financial assets and make all their decisions for them simply because of their biological relationship to them! This is why Ariel Winters recently fought her parents for emancipation when she turned 16. It was something she should have been allowed to do much earlier, when she realized what parasites her parents were and how unjust their power over her finances where when she was the one working so hard at a vocation she enjoyed to earn that sum.

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.

Dismissing the analogy because it's not convenient for your selective application of freedom doesn't make it less than apt. And you have a lot of nerve making that dismissal when you know the only reason anyone listens to the anti-choicers is because they have public sentiment on their side. Not facts, not scientific evidence, certainly not history, and certainly not integrity, which this post of yours alone makes more than clear, let alone your entire years of posting. Like it or not, these are the facts: the majority in power once believed that race gave some people the right to own others. The exchange of money was used as the rationalization. These owners were responsible for the material upkeep of these slaves. The parallel is apt and unmistakable, and the fact that modern liberals - who are notorious for compromising their values and principles for any reason they deem convenient - doesn't change this.

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.

Yet the majority whom me or another pro-contacter informed them of it dismissed it out of hand, including your current buddy Ethan. That's when he said how much he wasn't impressed by it. So don't go there, dude.

Diss, I'm tired of arguing with you.

Yet you frequently make the choice to do it. That's your right. I'm not adverse to being challenged by you whenever you feel the need to do it. What do you expect me to say?

I'm sorry if this was a little harsh, but I'm just sick of watching you guys attack Ethan.

And I'm sick of you and him expecting us not to challenge him when he tries to convert us and rarely has anything else to say or do on this board. Even you often have other things related to the broad topic of GL to discuss. We don't agree with him, and we will tell him so. Even though he keeps within the rules of the FAQs and will thus be allowed to post here as long as he continues to do so, what he does is similar to spamming, and he is very snide and insulting in what he says despite doing so within the veneer of civility. You and him can both be as harsh with me and other pro-choicers as you want, but when you do, you shouldn't cry foul when we respond in kind. Because we will, just as we always have.

We're all just trying to live with the shitty hand we've been dealt, okay?

True, but some of us don't want it to get any shittier, and sorry, but we have different ideas on how to go about that.

But if you're going to keep impugning the character of the VPs, then expect the same in return.

You've always done a healthy job of that yourself, Markie, and you know it. As have the VP's. If Ethan has nothing better to do with his time here than to constantly challenge us - which is well within his rights - then he will be challenged back. It's that simple. Respond to us as you like, because when you do, a lot becomes clear in the resulting deluge and exchanges. No skin off my back.

If, on the other hand, you guys want to find some common ground with us, then incessant attempts to convert us, and making insulting assumptions about our character, is not the way to do that. I don't sincerely believe that working with us for a common goal is what Ethan really wants, or at least isn't his main priority, based on what he posts here about 95% of the time. Maybe take a different approach and try to come together about ideas we can at least more easily find common agreement on would be the way to move past all the antipathy. Constantly challenging us about the contact issue and the pro-choice support of youth lib is within your rights (as long as it doesn't become a flamefest), but it's not going to establish common ground. So any anti-choicer on this board needs to post subjects based on where their main priorities lie. If you constantly berate us on the contact issue and about our support of youth lib, then heated debates and animosity are going to ensue. This has been proven many times over to the case, and it's not suddenly going to be different the next time that happens. Find other issues to talk about that we can more easily find agreement and unity on, then that may result in more camaraderie across the camps. That's all I can suggest to you if you want the arguments and belligerence to at least be diminished in intensity and frequency.