[Dough with Fish]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5038682.stm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053101884.html

Last night I was listening to some NPR, and they had the BBC World News segment on. In that they had an interview with the partys founder. Now, I am all for tolerance and all that bull****. But a party for pedophiles? Thats... ****in that is just so twisted. When I heard the story, I sat there in amazement, disgust, rage.... basically numbed by the fact that people like that want to make a political party on this. Are we so far gone as a race that people who molest and rape children desire to be in places of power so they can make it alright to do so.

[Turambar]

its not like theyre going to win

[Wild Fragaria]

This is crazy.  Those people are crazy.  They are completely outta their freaking mind.

[Flipside]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,40027.0.html

And I was 100% right, the launch party was attended only by the media

[karajorma]

In a way it's good. Now the police know exactly who to watch. Lets hope the paedophiles in the rest of the world will be this stupid committed.

[Black Wolf]

So, what exactly would you suggest? Forcibly disband the party because it disagrees with the morality of the current ruling party (however well founded those moral beleifs are)? What if it was a party that, for example, was founded on the principals of legalizing euthanasia, gay marriage and abortion? Would it be just as bad? Would you want them shut down? Or what about a party formed in  1940s Germany with the main focus being against the slaughter of Jews? Should they be shut down because they beleive a policy of the current government is morally misguided?

The basic idea of representative democracy is that people with strong enough opinions form parties and allow the populace of a nation to vote based on the parties whos ideals most closely match their own. All you can say here is that the people who join the party are paedophiles. If they won, then you could make more generalist comments.

I'm not defending the party, or the viewpoint. But as long as they're not doing anything criminal (which they may well be), all they're doing is expressing their opinions, and they shouldn't be prevented from doing that.

[Dough with Fish]

So, what exactly would you suggest? Forcibly disband the party because it disagrees with the morality of the current ruling party (however well founded those moral beleifs are)? What if it was a party that, for example, was founded on the principals of legalizing euthanasia, gay marriage and abortion? Would it be just as bad? Would you want them shut down? Or what about a party formed in  1940s Germany with the main focus being against the slaughter of Jews? Should they be shut down because they beleive a policy of the current government is morally misguided?.

Really, other than the Christian Right, who gives a **** about gays getting married? I certianly don't think there is anything wrong there. Hell, if we let them get married, it may decrease the ammounts of divorces and failed marriages in the country, but thats beside the point. And as for abbortion and euthanasia, while hariy and hot-button topics they are, I can see circumstances where they are alright. I do NOT see that with pedophilia. At all. And don't compare gays and pedos together, one of them likes sex with members of the same sex, CONSENTING members at that. The other is, basically, the rape and abuse of children. They are nothing alike.

[Black Wolf]

I agree. But the idea that you could allow this political party to be suppressed for expressing their views, however wrong you may think they are, could very easily set a precedent that would allow parties promoting other morally questionable (to some people) activities like gay marriage, abortion etc. Push the theory to extremes and you have the suppressive state that prevents anyone with a viewpoint not perfectly aligned with the government from speaking out.

When it comes to democracy, you have to accept parties like this, and accept that there's no way enough people to make a difference (in terms of real power) would ever vote for them, otherwise you step onto the very slippery slope towards totalitarianism.

[Janos]

In a way it's good. Now the police know exactly who to watch. Lets hope the paedophiles in the rest of the world will be this stupid committed.

I certainly hope they are not watching those who just vote for this party, if you know what I mean.

ps. is this party even legit or is this just a joke

[Flipside]

They have every right to form a party with those goals.

We have every right to not vote for them.

[Mars]

This is more disturbing:

The extent to which pedophilia occurs is not known with any certainty. Some studies have concluded that at least a quarter of all adult men may have some feelings of sexual arousal in connection with children. A study by Hall et al. of Kent State University, for example, found that 32.5% of their sample — consisting of eighty adult males — exhibited sexual arousal to heterosexual pedophilic stimuli that equaled or exceeded their arousal to the adult stimuli. Further studies indicate that even men erotically fixated on adult females are generally prone to react sexually when exposed to nude female children.

In 1989 Briere and Runtz conducted a study on 193 male undergraduate students concerning pedophilia. Of the sample, 21% acknowledged sexual attraction to some small children; 9% reported sexual fantasies involving children; 5% admitted masturbating to these fantasies; and 7% conceded some probability of actually having sex with a child if they could avoid detection and punishment.

That just can't be true.

[aldo_14]

I would be very curious as to their testing methods.

[Mars]

The question had occured to me.

[aceofspades]

About that study, although I doubt the latter figures, I think part of the reason why for example we react strongly to hearing about sexual response to nude female children is that the response is more hard-wired into our biology. The problems with pedophilia are predominantly moral.
@Black Wolf - I'm with you all the way here. The whole point is that parties can act to change what is right and what is wrong. Sure, pedophilia is currently a crime. But in Afghanistan denouncing your Islam is a crime, and I would be happy if there were a party trying to change that. Hasn't anyone here heard Voltaire lately? Listen to Hall's paraphrasement: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You guys could learn something from that.

[TrashMan]

Push the theory to extremes and you have the suppressive state that prevents anyone with a viewpoint not perfectly aligned with the government from speaking out.

Push ANYTHING to the extreems and you'll have a whole lead of bull****.
Does that means we have to ban everything, out of fear it might get extreeme?

[aceofspades]

It's called the slippery slope argument, it's been used for billions of years. And like everything else in teh universe, it is used with varying degrees of validity.

[Mars]

About that study, although I doubt the latter figures, I think part of the reason why for example we react strongly to hearing about sexual response to nude female children is that the response is more hard-wired into our biology. The problems with pedophilia are predominantly moral.
@Black Wolf - I'm with you all the way here. The whole point is that parties can act to change what is right and what is wrong. Sure, pedophilia is currently a crime. But in Afghanistan denouncing your Islam is a crime, and I would be happy if there were a party trying to change that. Hasn't anyone here heard Voltaire lately? Listen to Hall's paraphrasement: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You guys could learn something from that.

I'm sorry, are you saying reacting stongly to hearing about nude female children is a hard-wired resonce, or "reponce" to seeing nude female children is hard-wired.

[aceofspades]

sorry if I was unclear. I meant the latter.

[Mars]

You're probably right, but I (fortunantly) wouldn't know.

[Black Wolf]

Push ANYTHING to the extreems and you'll have a whole lead of bull****.
Does that means we have to ban everything, out of fear it might get extreeme?

Of course not. I'm not talking about banning anything. I'm talking about the right to free speech and the protection of representative democracy. As long as these people aren't commiting a crime (and by joining this party, you can bet every single one of them got put onto whatever kind of watchlist the dutch police maintain for sexual predators), then their right to form a party and express their views have to be protected. As long as their views aren't representative of the overall populations, then we have nothing to fear from them.