I would like to point out some things about Dissident to others here at GC. Even if you are pro-legalization, his argument for it requires swallowing an awful lot of deluded, outrageous thinking. There are better, simpler arguments in favor, though naturally I think they are also inadequate.

First, note how he describes (most recently here: https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/726138.htm) in great detail what I know, what I think, and why I believe and act the way I do. It's profoundly disrespectful and arrogant. I don't think most of us would put up with that from a psychotherapist we'd been seeing for ten years.

What he has said about me is in all important respects dead wrong.

More important, what he says about the world is dead wrong.

Let's make his world view clear. He believes our society is rotten to the core. The nuclear family is horrible. The capitalist masters are horrible. Adults are a class that rules over children and seeks to keep children oppressed. He favors a socialist state. As I recall his complaint with the USSR was that they just didn't do it right. He has a faith that human nature is 100% good if only freed of the shackles of our system.

Note how he dismisses any suggestions for actual fundamental change as "wacky", "far-fetched", and "pie in the sky", etc. It's because he doesn't want these changes. It's that simple, and it's that obvious after years of engagement with him and his ilk.

There are millions of people in the West who are better read and more profound thinkers than either of us, and somehow it's only the tiniest minority that would buy into his analysis -- which he has the gall to say is "obvious"! Lots of them would like society to change profoundly, but in a variety of different ways. Radical green, radical pacifist, and radical anarcho-syndicalist come to mind. Some very smart people are passionate devotees of some religion or other. Even a heavily regulated and restructured capitalism would represent some huge changes from the way we live now, and many would favor that.

Surely, he says, almost all of those millions of elite thinkers (let alone the other 99%) are acting only in their narrow self-interest because they don't want society to change. Likely story! Dissident dismisses those with opposition opinions as slaves to the capitalist system, saying they dare not differ for fear of losing funding from the powers that be. It is thus a self-contained and un-falsifiable view.

A lot of very smart people want the world to change in big ways, but think hard about competing interests, the difficulty of change, and how a great many attempts at profound change have back-fired and had horrible consequences. The actual reason society doesn't change much in the short term isn't that people don't want it to change, it's that forces pushing in opposite directions keep it just about where it is.

Pro-choicers and youth liberationists are a major thorn in his side

Nothing that happens at GC is a major thorn in my side. It's not a big part of my life. But while I am here I try to engage people where they are and convince them of my views. In trying to improve the situation of pedophiles in society, pro-choicers and youth liberationists are an annoyance just because most people view them as ridiculous and the ridicule gets tagged to us too.

In summary, what you have in Dissident is someone who is arrogant and disrespectful of me, and someone who thinks that writing three times as much as his opponent means he wins the argument. (You should never assume that my failure to reply to Dissident means I'm left speechless by his logic -- I'm not sure that's ever happened.)

But far more important, you have someone arrogant towards 99.99% of the world, including those far more educated than he, feeling that his way is "obvious". You have someone who dismisses those with differing views as just corrupted by the system. You have someone who is a devout proponent of radical change in every sphere in life. You have someone who thinks the only thing in the way of achieving that profound change is not seeing things the way he does. He is seriously deluded.