TheRightToArmBears said:
Responsibility doesn't always fall solely on one person's shoulders. I'm not saying what this guy did was ok (neither did the judge), but saying that everyone under 16 is utterly incapable of taking any responsibility ever seems wrong to me. These cases can be very complex and can vary wildly, they need to be treated with discretion rather than a one-size-fits-all attitude.
You're playing a dangerous game; trying to apply logic to a situation ruled only by fear and mass paranoia. Scientists even attempted to study the effects of child-adult sexual relationships, and when they found that it was possible for such a relationship to not be damaging (namely, when the younger party initiated and adult did not coerce them) the US congress jumped up and down to have the results of the study silenced/purged. Why? Because it would interfere with their fear and paranoia campaign. The knowledge that not every adult that has sex with a 16 year old completely ruins their lives undermines quite a bit of their fear-mongering.
Obviously a line has to be drawn, but the failure comes in actually policing the cases. If it's the younger party's fault, the case should be studied thoroughly to determine damage done. Assuming that the younger party was just instantly and irrevocably mentally damaged is literally insane, and that's how the current courts deal with these situations. 16 year old + older party? Instant assumption of guilt, sex offender label for the rest of that person's life, and it's very possible he did
nothing wrong morally or conscientiously.
But, again, you'll be hard pressed to get any support on that front. It's one of the government's trump cards; people are naturally protective of children, and are very easily emotionally compromised when the subject comes up. At that point all logic goes out the window, and "won't you think of the children!?" becomes the only talking point, at which point the government/courts can do whatever the fuck they want with no chance of backlash... because if someone DOES speak up, all they have to say is "Oh, are you a pedophile? Why else would you be questioning this?" and *blam* argument closed. No logic involved (in fact, it's a logical fallacy) but it's very effective for shutting down any honest conversation on the topic.
If you've given it any thought at all it will piss you off immensely, especially the hilarious irony of the situation (even in prisons, sex offenders are often attacked/beaten/raped/killed because other prisoners - ones in jail for murder, rape, etc - see a sex offender as a lesser being, despite many being either wrongfully prosecuted or the cases not being nearly thoroughly investigated enough). In some states, pissing in public is enough for a sex offender label - the same label that gets applied to *actual* sex offenders, rapists and child molesters and the like. But the legal system does not distinguish, and neither do the prisoners intent on beating someone to death to vent some frustration.
Edit: Link to wikipedia article about that series of studies I mentioned [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rind_et_al._controversy]. From the first paragraph: "The debate resulted in the unprecedented condemnation of the paper by both Houses of the United States Congress. The social science research community was concerned that the condemnation by government legislatures might have a chilling effect on the future publication of controversial research results." AKA, fuck science, fuck research, if you try to discredit our fear propaganda, we're going to shut your ass down.
