Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: We ... WHAT!?, in reply to James Butler,
It took nary more than a raised eyebrow to get rid of Judge Harvey.
That was, however, his own doing. No suggestion that pressure was applied on him by those who are acutely sensitive to the raised eyebrows of Foggy Bottom's residents.
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Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
You can make a good argument for victims, once adults, being able to make their own choice about the lifting of suppression so they can speak out.
That particular case has already been made, successfully. It is possible for adults to apply to have the order suppressing publication of their identifying details lifted. That is, however a choice that they are making, not one that is being made for them irrevocably.
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Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Steve Barnes,
teenagers, are not that nasty
Steve, pray tell, where do you live?
Where I live, teenagers bullying each other to death has become enough of a problem that no lesser beings than the Chief Coroner and the Law Commission are proposing curtailment of electronic expression to try and stem the tide. -
Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Russell Brown,
Boys have been put on registers for age-of-consent violations with their girlfriends
Both sides have ended up on sex offender registers for "child porn" offences involving sexting, because they're both under the age of consent for pornographic participation, too. The US situation is utterly fucking ridiculous.
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Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Sacha,
It would hardly be the first or only retroactive law change
No, but they are used sparingly and very, very, very rarely on matters criminal. Even the retroactive authorisation of police surveillance (which wasn't about punishment or criminality) triggered a whole lot of angst because it was retroactive, without getting into the other aspects of a surveillance state, etc.
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Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Steve Barnes,
The strawmen not so much.
Uh, what?
Here's the thing: consenting individuals get to choose who they let into their sexual histories. Who, how, what, etc, it's up to them to decide who knows. Publishing the details of those who have been sexually assaulted removes from them any choice in the matter.
You consider it implausible and contrived that such details being made public would lead to teenage victims being subjected to questions from their peers that they may well not wish to hear? Or that future partners might make use of knowledge about what had happened and the psychological effects of such offending for their own advantage? Really? -
Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Steve Barnes,
and if you are forced to have sex you have been defiled and are deemed worthless?.
I suggest you look into some of the other things that victims of sexual assault frequently suffer from before blithely talking about it being all down to society deeming them to be "defiled and worthless". Some of those things could end up with them being further victimised and manipulated if their identities became known.
Plus, we're talking about children. You want to take away their freedom to determine in the future who they talk to about what's gone on in their past. Again you wrap it all up in this nice picture of an open society that doesn't treat sex as dirty, but a) we don't live in that society, and b) even if we did it would still be morally abhorrent to predetermine that it will be public record forever that someone who could not have given consent even if they desired to do so has had xyz sexual experiences. You wish them to be subjected to the ordinary insensitive conversation that accompanies being a teenager, for example: "So, did he make you swallow?" "How big was he? Did it hurt?" etc etc. You're naive if you think that an accepting society would not deliver consequences to young victims that have absolutely nothing to do with sexual puritanism. Think, also, how those details could be played out in all kinds of horrible ways by insensitive or manipulative future partner during the dating ritual.
But, hey, it's all about how our society treats sex as dirty and we just need to get over that and it'll all be gravy to announce to the whole world the names of people who have been sexually assaulted.
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Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Hilary Stace,
No, name suppression was not at the request of those who had been subject to his behaviour.
Uh, there are legal requirements around sexual offending and juveniles. The wishes of the victims are irrelevant in those cases.
You may be right, but you also seem very willing to jump to a conclusion that can be countered based on the facts that you have provided. -
Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I would respond that you are daring to suppose that it should be up to anyone other than the victim to decide who they let into their life. Strip away any societally-imposed shame (for want of a better phrase) and we’re still talking about things that have life-long impacts on people that extend far beyond feeling guilty based on social mores.
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Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to John Armstrong,
in Wilson’s case, in making such provision retroactive so that both he, and we, are safe.
We might be safe from him, but one of the reasons that retroactive changes to law are such a dangerous step is that these lines tend to be crossed once and then it's no longer really taboo to cross them again. It's a classic "First they came..." scenario.