What?
The one and ONLY reason pedophilia is strongly condemned today is because it’s a handy way for leftists to shit on the Catholic Church. Period. If there was a pedophilia scandal among Buddhists priests, it wouldn’t be a scandal, it would be taken as a wake up call to the ‘shameful stigma adult-child relationships have faced in the West’. I am entirely unimpressed by the fact that the American left continues to maintain one and only one sexual taboo, and it just happens to be the one sexual taboo that their age-old political enemy has been caught involved in. Especially, especially since everything about leftist sexual ethics endorses child sex in principle, as the thread creator has rightly pointed out.
It also has to be acknowledge that, since the most repugnant thing about relativism and leftism is that it ultimately does justify things like pedophilia, loudly condemning a sexual taboo that everybody hates (even in full contradiction of your own convictions) is a great way to diffuse that criticism. I mean, isn’t that what’s at play here- “Leftism can’t be accepting of pedophilia, just look at how hard the left condemns it!” is the argument I see. This assumes that the left is motivated by consistency of their positions, and not by shrewd political efficacy. As any conservative who participates here will be repeatedly told- politics is a harsh business, things like that are to be expected, and the best way (for the leftist) to deal with people with which they disagree is insults, manipulation, and etc.
Can you back up the implicit time table? From what I remember, in my lifetime, the left and especially the feminist left was very much against adult child sexual relations well before the - what was it 90s - scandals in the Catholic Church. Further rape, including rape within marriage is another sexual taboo. The left has also been critical of sexual where there are other kinds of power differentials - doctor patient, professor student, etc.
To mirror you would be to try to undermine conservative dislike for priests having sex with children as only being based on judgements of sex. Which is just as ludicrous. You seem not to be able to grant anything to the left, any beliefs you share with them are really based whatever half assed theory you have about their slimy real motives. It is a pernicious habit making everything utterly black and white.
If you go much before the 90’s, the Catholic Church were a reliable voting bloc for the Democratic Party, which had been true as far back as like…Jim Crow. That only started falling apart in the past couple of decades as the pro-life message as been gaining traction through the 80’s-90’s, and social issues compete seriously with economic issues for religiously-driven voters. You can see Catholic voting history as divided into four periods-
1.) “Anything but the Know-Nothings”- favoring Democrats.
2.) Pro-Racism - favoring Democrats.
3.) Favoring social justice- favoring Democrats.
4.) Social justice concerns warring with ‘family values’ and traditional social conservativism- a split between Democrats and Republicans, with an increasing trend to the right.
Furthermore, sexual ethics have dramatically changed for the left too- though the seeds were always there. Remember, the feminist left of the 70's and 80's that you are referring to were rallying against [i]pornography[/i] for Christ's sake, they aren't exactly a good measuring stick for how things are now. The left of [i]today[/i] is heavily invested in a 'do whatever the hell you want as long as it feels good' approach to sex- largely even the feminists. That's a further wedge between them and the Catholics, which makes the Catholics more of an estranged voting bloc, which makes them more appealing for politically vocal leftists to bash.
Anyway, you've got three different groups at play here- leftists "the Daily Show is a news program" dullards who are completely amoral, hate Catholics, and see pedophilia as a way to bash them. Leftist academics who have always resented religion in all it's forms, but have been semi-margianalized because Catholics were such a reliable pool of voters, and lastly leftist politicians who are coming around to the idea that amoral dullards are a bigger, more reliable bloc than Catholics (if only they would show up to the polls). They all have slightly different motivations and histories, but the general theme is as I've described- Catholics fucking suck, pedophilia is a great (and not completely undeserved, don't get me wrong) way to bring them down.
All of this to say, actual leftist ethics of today with regards to sex provides an exceedingly poor explanation for why any leftist would be against pedophilia- or at least ‘mild pedophilia’ as we’re talking about here. That prominent religious leaders have been caught involved in a child sex scandal provides a much better explanation.
Either I’m misunderstanding this sentence, or it’s absolutely true. What the else could a condemnation of pedophilia be based on than a one’s judgment of sex?
Oh, is that what we need here? More people bending over backwards to grant they benefit of every possible doubt to the political left? I wasn’t aware. Meanwhile, the last political thread I participated in where YOU showed up consisted of you declaring that if American conservatives lived in the 1700’s, they would have all been Royalists. But yeah, you’re right, assuming cynical motivations for one’s political opponents is totally inappropriate for a place like this, how dare I.
Dawkins apparently clarified himself after his statements were interpreted as “mild pedophilia is OK.” Maybe you guys should read this.
fuse- I accidentally screwed up your post in the course of replying to it, I couldn’t recover everything you wrote, so I deleted it so you wouldn’t be misquoted. Very sorry, if you want to repost, feel free. To answer your questions to me as best as I remember them-
I agree with you that Buddhism would be sullied in the eyes of many if it suffered from a pedophilia scandal. I disagree that American leftists academics would be among those many.
I agree that both conservatives and liberals condemn pedophilia. Conservatives do it because pedophilia actually conflicts with their values. Liberals do it either because they misunderstand the implications of their own values, or for one of the reasons I cited- it's a convenient way to shit on Catholics, and it's a scapegoat to make them not seem like utterly amoral hedonists.
I'm a paleoconservative who thinks pedophilia is evil, and deserves the scorn it gets. I think nothing in modern progressive philosophy compels this same sentiment, so there must be some other explanation.
As far as seeing a political issue where there is none, Hegel, Marx, Marcuse and Foucault all thought that EVERYTHING is inevitably political, so you tell me. I think it would be great if there were some things that weren’t political.
So to summarize, Dawkins declares that he personally experienced pedophilia, and it didn't cause any lasting harm, it was just kind of embarrassing, and we shouldn't judge the pedophile (who killed himself, poor guy) by today's standards.
Then Dawkins clarifies by saying that today’s standards have been shaped by the knowledge that pedophilia causes lasting, permanent harm, and therefore we ought to condemn it in the strongest possible way.
So then, Dawkins believes that pedophilia is extremely harmful except in the one case of pedophilia that he actually has any knowledge about, and based on that, pedophilia should be condemned these days when priests are doing it and not in those days when coaches were doing it, because waaaaaay back in the ancient times of the 1950’s, human understanding hadn’t advanced to the point where we knew that you shouldn’t diddle children, but now we do know, on the basis of the discovery of harm, which Dawkins explicitly denies the existence of in his anecdote that started the whole fracas.
OH NOW I GET IT.
On the subject of relativism, the Dawkins comment isn’t needed- on these very boards, relativists declare that there’s nothing wrong with pedophilia so regularly that the proper method of discussing the subject is specifically addressed in the forum’s rules. That a prominent leftist super hero feels it’s timely to tell a tongue-in-cheek anecdote about child molestation is a sign of the times, but Stoic’s point certainly doesn’t turn on it.
Why do you think pedophilia is evil?
That is, even a paleoconservative has to have some sort of reason why pedophilia is evil, whatever you take ‘evil’ to mean.
I for one am looking forward to the day when sixteen year old and adult sex becomes no longer illegal again. 
Don’t worry mom and dad. Your daughter is in good hands. I’ll show her the ways of the force. 
=D> 
:-"
[ 16 is the youngest I go for on the public record. I like to call them young catches. ]
Lots of reasons. It's inherently disgusting, it's a sexual perversion that involves somebody vulnerable to having their understanding of sex twisted before it's fully developed. Being a pervert is a largely private vice that a person has to contend with, and can do so in a way that doesn't involve others, but this one sucks another person into it when they are at their most vulnerable. It violates a spiritually/theologically correct understanding of what sex is for, and it endangers the relationship between adults and children (and really, between parent and child a lot of the time) that our thriving society has built itself up on. In a nutshell, what is wrong with pedophilia is what is wrong with progressivism- they are both destructive shots at established norms for nothing more than one's immediate gain.
Well the age of consent is of course pretty arbitrary, because it’s a legal convention, like the voting age, the driving age, the drinking age, or whatever.
Exactly. If she’s old enough to get wet down there and wants a ride on the pleasure pole I don’t think anybody should refuse her desire to especially if it’s with me. 
Now, here’s a old video presentation of this very subject. Enjoy!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WMh18YF2o[/youtube]
So basically, you think pedophilia is harmful in one way or another? i agree. However, i don’t think most pedophiles really are into it because of the fact that it is a destructive shot at established norms, they’re into it because they have actual physical desires that deviate from the norm. i don’t think they are evil, but i do think it is wrong to do what they want to do.
You amuse me, as usual.
The harm of pedophilia is completely circular- the primary harm of sexual vices like homosexuality and pedophilia comes in how they perpetuate themselves and other vices. Pedophilia is harmful because it leads it's victims into sexual vice and degregation. If you try to understand what I said purely in terms of harm, you arrive in a circular argument- sexual vice is harmful because it leads to more sexual vice. This only makes sense if you see sexual corruption has an evil in and of itself, independent of harm.
So pedophilia is incidentally harmful, but not in a way that can be identified by a leftist, and not in a way that can completely account for the evil of it. Think of zombies. If you try to account for why zombies are bad purely in terms of the fact that they turn other people into zombies, you haven't created any content- somebody is still left wondering what's so bad about being a zombie. On the other hand, [i]given[/i] that zombies are bad independent of the harm they cause, the fact that they turn other people into zombies certainly makes them worse than they would otherwise be.
Agreed. I suppose most of them aren’t violating children specifically to destroy society. They simply have a desire, and the fact that acting on it damages society isn’t sufficient to convince them not to act on it- which makes them evil in a specifically selfish sort of way.
So, I thought about going to a local highschool foot ball game to pick me up some deviant youngins. Yeah, that’s my Friday night this week. Wish me luck! 
I think this has been proven true in practice, though a plausible explanation for why it is not a scandal is because there are so few Buddhist monks in the western world. Certainly that is also a problem for leftism, but one of a different sort.
This isn’t a fair summary. Compare it to pregnant women drinking. At some point, we didn’t realize the harm that this could do. Now, we realize that heavy alcohol consumption by pregnant women carries a risk of long term damage to the child. But some light consumption can be perfectly safe. Still, we are right to condemn even light consumption by pregnant women because there is a risk that it will cause lasting damage, and because shaming all consumption makes heavy consumption significantly less likely.
Dawkins states that he suffered no lasting damage. He also points out that many who experienced chronic abuse have had long term harms. It seems consistent to say that, knowing what we know now and not then, we should judge even “mild” pedophilia by a harsher standard now that we should have at the time.
Certainly not that it is evil, no. I don’t think a consistent progressive philosophy allows for evil. But I think there’s plenty in progressivism that allows for the condemnation of pedophilia. A general principle that is consistent with (and demanded by) progressivism is that children shouldn’t be used for the pleasure of adults. In some cases, application of the principle is hard: grade school pageants sure seem like they’re for the benefit of adults, but one can make the argument that there’s some educational value in them etc. In the case of pedophilia, the application of the principle is easy: children are non-sexual, so any use of a child for sexual purposes must be for the pleasure of the adult involved.
In any case, isn’t it obvious that pedophilia and homosexuality are different in kind? They may have similarities (they are both sexual, they both contravene some sexual mores), but the fact that one is consensual and between adults, and the other is not, is a significant difference for any morality that values any negative right of the individual.
There certainly are few Buddhist monks in the Western World, but there is a huge almost comical degree of fascination with Buddhism among the American left, which hasn't been shaken even the slightest by pedophilia scandals that I'd still like to pretend I'm speaking hypothetically about.
The problem is, we actually DID discover that alcohol does horrible thing to fetuses, based on some fairly straight forward science of what a human brain is, and what alcohol is, and what a uterus is. There is absolutely not any such comparable facts from which Dawkins can conclude that pedophilia is harmful, and in fact, the story he tells implicitly declares that he thinks it's not. It's not as though we learned something amazing about penises in the past couple decades that reveals the terrible effects they have on contact with children.
So you'd have me think that Dawkins condemning pedophilia despite having a personal experience of it being no big deal has nothing at all to do with how he otherwise feels about the Catholic Church?
Another difference between pedophilia and pregnant women drinking is that we didn't have any reason to find pregnant women drinking to be disgusting and horrifying BEFORE the science on fetal alchohol syndrome came out. Do you, or Dawkins, want to say the same thing about pedophilia- that there was no reason to condemn it prior to a psychological study from a think tank you favor telling us it was harmful, and pending some psychological study from a think tank you favor telling us it's not?
I think Dawkins DOES want to say that, I think plenty of other liberals want to say that, and I think that if pedophilia wasn’t a Catholic problem, the left would stop looking at the studies that say pedophilia is harmful, and start looking at the ones that say it isn’t- because let’s face it, there is research on both sides, and that’s just the political nature of deciding what research to view and what not to. We’re not talking about ‘what happens when a pregnant woman drinks’ or ‘what happens when you touch a hot stove’ here. I think what we saw here was a bit of cognitive dissonance- Dawkins the lefty waxed ambivalent about pedophilia for a while, because at heart he thinks it’s no big deal if a kid gets felt up now and again. Then he was reminded of his career as a Church-hating asshole, and he had to batten down the hatches.
Science is malleable now, you can pay a group to do a study and get the results you want to get, especially about ‘squishy’ things like nutrition, psychology, and etc. What isn’t malleable is the logical/rational entailment of one’s beliefs. The left’s attitude towards sexual ethics entails acceptance of pedophilia.
As children as extended more and more rights by the left, the idea that they need to be protected from sexual pleasure is becoming increasingly silly. A child doesn't have to involve their parents when they get an abortion in some states now. Children are all grown up now. I can't even imagine how one could consistently claim "two children having sex is none of their parent's business" while claiming "a child having sex with an adult is everybody's business".
In other words, the exploitation argument depends on a perceived need for paternalism. Liberals think the poor need paternalism, blacks need paternalism, that women need paternalism, that gays need paternalism. The current trend has been to argue that children do NOT need paternalism- except with regards to labor of course, which is more about anti-corporate sentiment than pro-child.
The left doesn’t give a shit if a child is raised by two parents, the left doesn’t give a shit if a child has a mother and father, and both of these things are demonstrably better for children than the alternative- but in both cases, the rights of a random number and configuration of adults to have a pet child if they want to is more important than child welfare. So I don’t see your principle coexisting in a friendly way with other leftist principles.
That said, I do concede that opposing pedophilia as a sort of exploitation does fit with the progressive principles of a past era- those leftists that Moreno was talking about, the porn-hating feminists, would be on board with your approach for sure. The left could end up there again, for sure.
But not while supporting abortion rights. Feminists used to be against abortion too, after all.
Homosexual sex isn’t always consensual, and pedophilia isn’t always non-consensual, except by legal convention. Homosexuality doesn’t always involve adults. You haven’t identified any real difference between the two. If that seems petulant, my point is that if I can show a pedophilic act is consensual, then I’ve shown there’s no moral difference between it and homosexuality, given the above.
Can anyone explain to me why this thread seems to exclusively define peadophilia as an adult man having sex with an underage girl?