No, a bigot is someone intolerantly devoted to one's prejudices. I don't dislike you based on any preconceived notions. I don't dislike you in the first place, nor do I make a habit of judging my discussion partners. It's the words I criticize.
Which neither of them were. That's character assassination, pure and simple.
I have taken some psych classes, yeah. And I don't "support" pedophilia. In fact, previously, I had only ever considered the individual's ability to reason and make choices in my thoughts on the matter. Your proposal that marriage and child-bearing should be considered is not one I have discussed, so that's neat.
It is an interesting point as well...if one has not completed high-school then the chances of them being able to support even a 2-person household is minimal at best. So it would make considerably more sense not to have so strict an age limit so much as an education and family fitness one. I must remember to tell this to my friend that actually does support lowering age of consent to 14.
If one has not completed high school [or dropped out] then it's still shaky ground. You are essentially making the point that because low and behold they drop out, they should be given the responsibility with the adult consequences of sex and sexual matters, which is rather foolish.
Teenagers are hardly rational beings , and I know it myself for I was one , and cannot fully comprehend the responsibilities and consequences of the act itself. How would it be ethical to allow the age of consent to lower itself to an age where teenagers cannot comprehend the full brunt, and then not only basically create a toxic culture where children drop out in droves like a third world country [where children have children anyways, and you know die.] but are in risk of diseases from unprotected sex they are most likely having as well as older people [or people in general] that will take advantage of them sexually.
That is why the age can never be lowered in any capacity because of the psychology and its lack of ethics at all.
Due to laws on child labor, students can't exactly work or even hope to work , alongside the fact that many jobs nowadays require an education in high school or higher. Unless you mean a McJob of course, where those teenagers won't have a future but be criminals ,become prostitutes, sex slaves [if they end up in the wrong crowd] if not a low ranking job of menial labor stuck with the consequences of a screw up from their irrational minds because society decided it was in their best interest to have the capability to blow their lives away. What a great future for those children.
Yes, this is very true. What I found so objectionable in your original post was that it was made from such a staunch position that supporting lowering the age of consent is tantamount to raping minors. You made a prima-facie argument for that without going into real depth and then proceeded to paint anyone that supports such a law as a deviant. Perception or not, phrasing oneself in this way only furthers those perceptions in anyone that reads a post like that.
Proponents of such a law, particularly if they are LGBT, only fuel the flames of any misconception society has towards them. Lowering the age isn't just about raping them in the obvious way, but of raping them of their futures they could have had had society been more moral. I have read into the statistics, and the various things about children at those ages and frankly, it does seem that way.
OR, society at the present has it wrong and one should work to correct what errors they see in it, instead of conforming to it to avoid persecution. They are both viable strategies.
I didn't say conform in any way you may be thinking. People can be themselves without acting like their "differences" such as skin color or sexuality are meaningful enough to establish them as dividers. And this goes for any sort.
Why do "ethnic" Americans call into attention their nation of ancestry? Why do LGBTs go out of their way and act like their sexuality is a big deal and play the victim when their forced message isn't well received? Why do African Americans call themselves African when most have never set foot or inhabited those very lands and been perpetually been in the Americas since the race-based Slave Trade began in the 15th century and are in reality hardly African? And furthermore, why do people of ethnic minorities cry foul when some of themselves outcast themselves rather than join in with society at large in the language they use?
I don't call myself a French-Canadian-French-German-Irish-Native American American now do I or act like my skin color is anything, so realize how ridiculous it is? Americans are Americans as people are people, period. What happened to wanting to positively changing society rather than waiting and pressing for the rest of society to conform to them? Thats not how the world works.
Which goes back to my core point. If a group of people do not want to be perceived for any negative reason, people have to defy the perceptions and become the change they want to see in the world rather than ***** and complain about how the world isn't served on an idyllic silver platter. You might not be able to completely override those assumptions, as likely there will be holdouts from both sides that don't want peace and love or integration but hate, but people can make an effort to actively change the world for the better and bring justice, which is what this forum is the basis of. And its not hard to do, because it just requires by starting with yourself and to others around you.
Martin Luther King Jr. would be ashamed of Americans today as well as the government for dividing and judging others based on petty factors such as this while celebrating racial ,sexual and ethnic, let alone class warfare/division.
In the past, yes. Now, not if I can help it. And I combat it wherever I see it.
By calling Kingranger and LazerWolf bigots, you did judge them.
Oh very much yes. People are awful, generally speaking. LazerWolf and KingRanger though, they've been real dicks to me. So it's not so much a case of "this glass of dirt is full of dirt" so much as "this glass of milk is full of dirt". This place is full of bigots, but that doesn't mean everyone here is.
It's hard to be nice to someone that calls you a bigot [ the typical calling card just like how the word racist means nothing anymore] for being opposed to a failed and relatively disgusting practice such as pedophilia rather than rationally arguing your case and perhaps admitting you were incorrect.
