Republicans Seem To Have A Big Pedophile Problem

[Elixir]

We could still end up at "pedophile trials" in which gay and kinky people end up under attack.

Meh. I doubt it. Not a good look.
The bloodthirsty MAGAts are looking to get Bill Clinton and all his pedophile pals. Trump hasn’t been warning them about gays, he’s been warning them about HIMSELF, but identifying himself as “Democrats”, meaning political opposition.

The fact that gays are part of his political opposition doesn’t make them stand out particularly. In fact I think that overall, the fear of gays thing has become less effective since it has been so ridiculously overused.

 

[Jarhyn]

We could still end up at "pedophile trials" in which gay and kinky people end up under attack.

Meh. I doubt it. Not a good look.
The bloodthirsty MAGAts are looking to get Bill Clinton and all his pedophile pals. Trump hasn’t been warning them about gays, he’s been warning them about HIMSELF, but identifying himself as “Democrats”, meaning political opposition.

The fact that gays are part of his political opposition doesn’t make them stand out particularly. In fact I think that overall, the fear of gays thing has become less effective since it has been so ridiculously overused.

The problem with your assessment is that "Christian" MAGA churches are explicitly equating homosexuals and pedophiles.

If the Republicans are getting ready to weather the storm of the regime going down, their principle pivot will be against the thing that had "corrupted their party".

They will use this momentum to attack the LGBT community, which is all 'just homosexuals' and thus 'just pedophiles' in their perception.

I'm quite concerned with the direction of the supreme count especially, with taking up Obergefell v Hodges' most recent challenge from none other than Davis herself.

 

[Elixir]

The problem with your assessment is that "Christian" MAGA churches are explicitly equating homosexuals and pedophiles.

Churches are perverse - nothing new there. Their foothold on American society is the problem, and the Republican right is starting to see what happens when you grant them that, much as they'd like to. Increasingly, the whole sexual predator threat from the LGBTQ sector is being shown to be a paper tiger. It's the guy in the suit ya gotta watch. And even that guy becomes a level 3 priority when you're hungry and cold.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Imagine if any prominent democratic commentator said this.

Megyn Kelly says Jeffrey Epstein was 'not a pedophile' because 'he liked 15-year-old girls'

Megyn Kelly says she has it on good authority that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was not in fact a pedophile because he 'liked 15-year-old girls' that could 'pass for even younger.'

ew.com

 

[Toni]

Condoning or even encouraging racism, misogyny and sex crimes is almost a guiding principle of the Republican agenda these days.

These days are very little different from those days. The last decades when Repugs had any rightful claim to high ground was probably the 1950s.

If MAGGOTs could see themselves as well-informed people do, they'd be ashamed.

The complete lack of self-awareness and unbreakable shamelessness that defines the MAGAt segment is not a naturally developed state. It is carefully cultivated, fed by fear and reinforced by intentionally inflicted pain.

By my reckoning , the last decent Republican POTUS was Eisenhower.

 

[Toni]

Imagine if any prominent democratic commentator said this.

Megyn Kelly says Jeffrey Epstein was 'not a pedophile' because 'he liked 15-year-old girls'

Megyn Kelly says she has it on good authority that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was not in fact a pedophile because he 'liked 15-year-old girls' that could 'pass for even younger.'

ew.com

She sounds like Derec, trying to make it seem not bad for adults to want to fuck 15 year olds.

 

[Derec]

Imagine if any prominent democratic commentator said this.

She is not wrong regarding the actual definition of pedophilia, as that refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
She should have said "barely illegal in many jurisdictions".

 

[Derec]

She sounds like Derec, trying to make it seem not bad for adults to want to fuck 15 year olds.

Wrong. I did not say that it was "not so bad" for adults not close in age to have sex with 15 year olds. There are certainly good reasons to have laws to protect teenagers under a certain age when it comes to sex, even if we disagree how those laws should look like.
What I was that it's not pedophilia, which is different, and accurate. Why does your Ilk insist on hyperbolic and inflammatory language here?
16 is also the age of consent in most of the developed world (incl. many US states) and to pretend that being attracted to anybody below 18 is "pedophilia" is just ridiculous. Btw, is a 19 year old having sex with a 16 year old a "pedophile" in your book? Should he or she be prosecuted for a crime and be labeled a "sex offender" for life? I don't think so, but overly zealous laws to protect teenagers do lead to such unjust outcomes.

I also think that if you had your way, you'd raise the age of consent to 21, and call everybody who even looks at a 20 a "pedophile".

 

[Jarhyn]

Imagine if any prominent democratic commentator said this.

She is not wrong regarding the actual definition of pedophilia, as that refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
She should have said "barely illegal in many jurisdictions".

Passing for younger than 15 is "visually pre- or mid-pubescence"

She sounds like Derec, trying to make it seem not bad for adults to want to fuck 15 year olds.

(A whole bunch of weasel words trying to walk back attempts to make it seem not-bas for an adult to want to fuck 15 year olds).

You keep ignoring the fact that you also don't seem to support laws that would actually make it illegal for adults to fuck 15 year olds.

Curious, that.

In fact you whine like a stuck pig about such irrelevance whenever it's pointed out that the people arguing for this aren't 19, they're 40, or even 80.

We can make laws that allow kids to 'explore' while still banning old-ass pedophiles from creeping.

Instead of presenting a structure of better laws that prevent pedophiles from creeping, you make posts like these defending those broken laws that let adults rape children, and pretend we can't or shouldn't do better.

 

[Jarhyn]

In short, the Republicans around here aren't doing much to beat the pedophile charges.

 

[Shadowy Man]

It’s hypocritical to be pedantic about these definitions only when it serves your own side’s purpose. I don’t see people like Kelly being so pedantic when it comes to terms like “woke” or “critical race theory”.

I will respect that opinion once she and others are intellectually honest and consistent with their application of such pedantry.

I once saw a standup comedian discuss the differences between the words related to the age of child one is attracted to and ended the joke that nobody makes these distinctions in speech because you can’t do it without sounding like a pedophile.

 

[Elixir]

In short, the Republicans around here aren't doing much to beat the pedophile charges.

There’s not a lot they can do. 2028 is coming, inexorably. The MAGA stalwarts in Congress are already imagining life after Trump, and it is becoming ever more apparent that they DO have a pedophile problem and its name is Donald.
They can’t defy him at this point because he still has tools at his disposal to destroy their careers. But they can’t afford to stay anywhere close to him much longer or, as is also becoming more and more evident, they’ll be seen as attaching themselves to a pedophile and all his unpopular policies.
Mark Liebovich wrote a piece titled “Donald Trump is a lamer duck than ever”, which is an accurate observation IMO.

Whether he can cobble together a band of rogues who will help him try to overthrow democracy remains to be seen, but the scales are tipping and Trump looks more like a decrepit loser every day. I’d like to write him off at this point but he’s like a bad infection that keeps coming back.

 

[Toni]

Imagine if any prominent democratic commentator said this.

She is not wrong regarding the actual definition of pedophilia, as that refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
She should have said "barely illegal in many jurisdictions".

I understand the distinction between pedophilia and hebephilia and ephebophilia. In many US jurisdictions, there are so called Romeo and Juliet laws that recognize and do not criminalize sexual relationships between individuals 14-18, within a narrow age difference. IOW, teens can legally have sex with other teens, as long as there is consent and a small or no age difference. It’s not generally considered legal or even socially OK for adults to have sex with minors.

 

[Jarhyn]

It’s hypocritical to be pedantic about these definitions only when it serves your own side’s purpose. I don’t see people like Kelly being so pedantic when it comes to terms like “woke” or “critical race theory”.

I will respect that opinion once she and others are intellectually honest and consistent with their application of such pedantry.

I once saw a standup comedian discuss the differences between the words related to the age of child one is attracted to and ended the joke that nobody makes these distinctions in speech because you can’t do it without sounding like a pedophile.

I find it interesting, this, because I am perfectly willing to split the very finest of hairs for the sake of situations where it is important to actually be "right", and some of those hairs have come up here with respect to "consenting adults with consenting adults who act in the moment as if they are a dog/penguin/child/car or what-have-you."

I find it so very telling that these people unwilling to confine their activities to adults and role playing will then refuse to split that hair, calling such people zoo/pedo/carphiles or what have you, when sitting next to it is a hair shredded to powder, split as it was on the subject of whether someone fucking a 15 year old is really a "pedophile", and the reality is "some old-ass walking fucking scab of a human raped a 15 year old" vs "some old-ass walking scabs fucked each other with consent while playing dress-up".

In short, the Republicans around here aren't doing much to beat the pedophile charges.

There’s not a lot they can do. 2028 is coming, inexorably. The MAGA stalwarts in Congress are already imagining life after Trump, and it is becoming ever more apparent that they DO have a pedophile problem and its name is Donald.
They can’t defy him at this point because he still has tools at his disposal to destroy their careers. But they can’t afford to stay anywhere close to him much longer or, as is also becoming more and more evident, they’ll be seen as attaching themselves to a pedophile and all his unpopular policies.
Mark Liebovich wrote a piece titled “Donald Trump is a lamer duck than ever”, which is an accurate observation IMO.

Whether he can cobble together a band of rogues who will help him try to overthrow democracy remains to be seen, but the scales are tipping and Trump looks more like a decrepit loser every day. I’d like to write him off at this point but he’s like a bad infection that keeps coming back.

The easiest way to die from an infection is to hope it will go away on its own.

You have to lance that shit and drain it and wash it out. It hurts, and takes active work and decisions to do this, and maybe even antibiotics if it doesn't heal cleanly.

 

[Elixir]

You have to lance that shit and drain it and wash it out. It hurts, and takes active work and decisions to do this, and maybe even antibiotics if it doesn't heal cleanly.

Right now Repugs are holding the lance. They’re eyeing the wound and starting to understand their quandary, but they’re not ready to take action. There are probably some in red districts who are hoping that Dems will rid them of their pedophile problem after ‘26, before their own seat goes up for grabs.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Imagine if any prominent democratic commentator said this.

She is not wrong regarding the actual definition of pedophilia, as that refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
She should have said "barely illegal in many jurisdictions".

I understand the distinction between pedophilia and hebephilia and ephebophilia. In many US jurisdictions, there are so called Romeo and Juliet laws that recognize and do not criminalize sexual relationships between individuals 14-18, within a narrow age difference. IOW, teens can legally have sex with other teens, as long as there is consent and a small or no age difference. It’s not generally considered legal or even socially OK for adults to have sex with minors.

Also the legal definition of a child (in the U.S.) is a person under the age of 18. So the distinction is irrelevant. Oh and some of Epstein's victims were as young as 12. So... yeahhh.

 

[Toni]

Imagine if any prominent democratic commentator said this.

She is not wrong regarding the actual definition of pedophilia, as that refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
She should have said "barely illegal in many jurisdictions".

I understand the distinction between pedophilia and hebephilia and ephebophilia. In many US jurisdictions, there are so called Romeo and Juliet laws that recognize and do not criminalize sexual relationships between individuals 14-18, within a narrow age difference. IOW, teens can legally have sex with other teens, as long as there is consent and a small or no age difference. It’s not generally considered legal or even socially OK for adults to have sex with minors.

Also the legal definition of a child (in the U.S.) is a person under the age of 18. So the distinction is irrelevant. Oh and some of Epstein's victims were as young as 12. So... yeahhh.

Plus, there is the whole issue of consent. Given the age of some of these girls, it is very easy to see how little agency they had with what ‘work’ they did or the circumstances. Boundaries were gradually but relentlessly blurred, the sex was described as just a normal part of the job and when girls protested, they were threatened, as were their families. It is difficult to give consent when you don’t really know what is going to happen , and once it has happened once, it is difficult to figure out an excuse for why you won’t do it again. For those who disagree, I want to point out: It can be hard for some adults to refuse to do something a second time that they did the first time. A teenager is far too uncertain of their agency, their rights to refuse an adult anything to be able to actually give consent. Kids are raised to respect and obey adults. If your family’s financial wellbeing is involved, it makes it much, much harder to advocate for yourself.

When I was a young adult, I looked much younger than I actually was. A couple of the jobs I worked at were mostly jobs held by teenagers. I saw and experienced first hand how badly certain adults were willing to treat kids they employed. And we’re not even talking sex work—just food service and ag work. Protesting, however justified, got you fired. Again: legal jobs although one work place definitely violated labor laws. The ag job? Laws were much more lax. But we were local white kids so we were t treated that badly and didn’t expect better, to tell the truth. For me, those were jobs I took out of desperation. And stuck with out of desperation.

 

[Derec]

Also the legal definition of a child (in the U.S.) is a person under the age of 18. So the distinction is irrelevant.

A person is a minor under 18. That does not mean that the law treats everybody under 18 the same.
First, age of consent varies by state, with states variably setting it at 16, 17 or 18.
Second, most of these laws have some sort of close age exception.
Third, these laws generally make distinctions based on the age of the minor - it's not one size fits all.

On the other side, gradations matter as well when it comes to criminal responsibility of minors. Few would agree with nutjobs like former Los Angeles DA that minors should never be tried "as adults" (i.e. in criminal, rather than family, court). All states have provisions to try minors "as adults" under certain circumstances.

For example: 4 teens accused of carjacking, dragging woman to death will be tried as adults, D.A. announces
Note that the victim's life might have been saved had the DA gone for an adult charge for a previous carjacking case of one of the defendants.

So, your simplistic "everybody under 18 is just a child" is not that simple.

Oh and some of Epstein's victims were as young as 12. So... yeahhh.

12 would be far worse, yes. So, contrary to your facile claim above, age does matter, and the distinctions are very much relevant.

I do not think it is in any way sane to equate 12 year old preteens with, say, 17 year old almost adults.

 

[Derec]

IOW, teens can legally have sex with other teens, as long as there is consent and a small or no age difference. It’s not generally considered legal or even socially OK for adults to have sex with minors.

Those two things are contradictory. Some teens are adults. So you you bad any adults having sex with any minors, you also criminalize sex among some teenagers.
If you cling to "anybody under 18 is a child and it's all pedophilia" as is being done in this thread, you make it more likely that laws will be written and applied in an overly draconian fashion. Like two teenagers, close in age, but one over 18, and the older one goes to prison and gets put on sex offender registry for life.

One can make laws that prohibit adults not close in age to not have sex with say 15 year olds without criminalizing close-age relationships. But such laws persist (for example in California) and young people do get ensnared.

And the absolutist, black-and-white, "if you disagree with calling anything below 18 pedophilia you must secretly want to fuck 15 year olds you monster" rhetoric prevalent in this and the "Epstein" thread makes such "moral panic" overreaches more likely, not less. Btw, this rhetoric has already invaded unrelated threads thanks to Swammi, who never passes an opportunity at an ad hominem, the more disgusting the better.

 

[Derec]

I once saw a standup comedian discuss the differences between the words related to the age of child one is attracted to and ended the joke that nobody makes these distinctions in speech because you can’t do it without sounding like a pedophile.

And that kind of moral totalitarianism is how you end up with laws criminalizing 18 year olds sleeping with their 17 year old girlfriends.
Or a mob beating up a guy in similar circumstances.