Posted on 08/02/2010 7:13:54 AM PDT by laotzu
San Antonio police Saturday night arrested a 38 year old teacher in the Northside ISD and charged her with engaging in sexual activity with a 12 year old boy.
An arrest warrant obtained by 1200 WOAI news claims that Lucinda Caldwell, 38, is a fifth grade teacher at Cable Elementary School on Pinn Road.
The affidavit claims Caldwell picked up the boy at his far west side home Friday night and drove to a hotel, where the sexual contact allegedly took place.
But when she tried to return the youngster to his home early Saturday, his dad was waiting, so she drove off and drove into Medina County, where police there arrested her and rescued the boy.
It is not known whether the boy is a student of Caldwell's, or whether he attends Cable Elementary School. Caldwell is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. A spokesman at the Bexar County Jail said he didn't have information on whether bond had been set.
Officials didn't say how the contact between the boy and the teacher was made, because school is not in session, or whether the two had some sort of ongoing relationship.
Has it occurred to you that there are genetic reason for incest laws? Regardless of any religious or cultural beliefs, incest does produce inferior offspring.
Your next red herring argument. Yes I am aware of good reasons for incest laws...just like there are good reasons for age of consent laws. By the principles you have stated both of these laws have failed in protecting children and should be replaced is that not so? The only way you could cause me to hyperventilate is by laughter from your ever more tenuous arguments.
Yet another off topic argument but I will play along for the moment. You didn't mention three legal systems and lawyers generally are not historians. Regardless, if you want to waste your time on argument that isn't germane to the issue at hand you should look up what "chattel" actually means and show how under Jewish law children were considered disposable property and then further explain why, if they were in fact disposable property, why so much care, attention and affection was placed on children by Jews. Then look up Roman law. Roman slavery was a much more complicated system then chattel slavery, and while Romans could in fact sell their children into slavery, they were not considered chattel.
Before trying to defend that one, consider what Lot told the riotous crowd wanting him to turn over some strangers.
I will not have a discussion with you concerning the bible. In America parents are not allowed to legally prostitute their children and they cannot arrange marriages. Parents can, at least in theory, forbid their children from seeing someone they find undesirable but they cannot legally force their children to have sex. None of this should have to be explained to any American adult with a high school education. In the western culture forced arranged marriages were never the norm although parents did try to do what they could minus force. Parents still do. What barbaric cultures around the world have done and are doing is beyond the scope of this conversation. The average age of marriage in western cultures has been around 25 for most of recorded history. Exception don't prove any point. I think the lowest average in America was 21 in the early 1800's.
The only failure in our current child protective services system if a failure to aggressively prosecute child molesters. Your constantly stated desire to get rid of age of consent laws would remove this as an option and only make the problem worse.
Claiming the non-government interference route is nothing but a smoke screen to promote immorality and come out looking like the hero. It’s the same vapid argument used to stealth support abortion, euthanasia, prostitution, pornography, you name the immorality.
It’s a lie and nobody on this forum is being fooled by it.
***************************
Agreed.
I’ve never seen more straw men, backpedaling or obfuscation.
Actually, it seemed to me that the proposal was to REPEAL incest and age of consent laws and leave it up to families to decide what is best.
Anarchists masquerading as libertarians typically don't understand that we have governments and laws for a reason:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
Amen.....twice.
Inuit lesbianism. Har!! Good one.
The reason why age of consent laws were put in place was to remove the issues with commonly found with “frontier” justice. It’s not a step forward but a step back.
Your question is based on an incorrect assumption—that moral standards are always derived from utilitarianism.
So the implied conclusion is equally false.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Boy oh boy, I’ve been reading this thread for 2 days - I actually have to make a matrix on out on paper labelling every user and their stance - Just so I can try to make sense of it.
I can’t.
I have decided that everyone in this thread isn’t really getting what the others are talking about. I, for one, am having a lot of trouble figuring out why so many people (Off this forum as well) are disagreeing so vehemently (Spellius Wrongus) with my stance.
I have found, however, that ultra-religious members of this forum seem to side with the “positive benefits” of a younger wife and older husband idea. I just got married to a woman 7 years my junior, after dating someone for a year who was 13 years my junior. I can tell you that I have seen important differences. It was “legal” for me and my ex to be together, but it was wrong on many levels. My wife and I are much better together, I feel, because she had time to develop personality and character traits on her own.
The age of 25 is arbitrary for me. I am sure, however, that as the modern world grows around us, things gain complexity, and our choices expand recursively - We should all stand back and ask ourselves “Is 18 old enough?”
Thank you all for your time - and thank you ALL for your input. This (FreeRepublic.com) is STILL the only place on the entire internet where myself and others can get such a unique view on moral absolutes and issues of morality.
I urge you all to read these words, and carefully consider :
“Thank you for being here. Thank you for your input. Thank you for your counterpoints. Thank you Free Republic.”
-> Steve
The libertarian label is an easy one for anarchist to slap on themselves to hide their true agenda. Too bad more people aren’t wise to this.
Libertarianism and anarchism have so many types and variations that it’s mind boggling.
Yes.
Reasonisfaith’s comment above is extremely important.
The principle of of utility cannot be the foundation of actual human civilization, laws, mores, social standards and so on. The deepest foundation must be moral absolutes. When they are thrown away and the utility takes their place, Soylent Green is the inevitable outcome.
I’ll have to go back and look at it, as I suspect it is an important issue. I’ll be back!
“The only failure in our current child protective services system if a failure to aggressively prosecute child molesters.”
Durus, I simply can’t and won’t deal with your persistent denial of the systemic failure of child protective services in general, and Florida in specific.
I wish those goobers in all those gooberment agency jobs we pay for at such cost were effective, but they are not.
I have come to the conclusion further effort is fruitless. Your faith in bureaucrats being able to achieve what no other socialist system has accomplished is hardly something I share or understand.
I simply will not respond to any further historically wrong whopper of yours such as the following from your post #202:
“The average age of marriage in western cultures has been around 25 for most of recorded history. Exception don’t prove any point. I think the lowest average in America was 21 in the early 1800’s.”
Marriages occurred far earlier than your revanchist “history” claims.
Credible post result from a researched premise, not what you want history to have been. True for marriage ages in ages past, and true of the parent’s ownership of the children.
It has been interesting, but has become fruitless.
Consider premise revision.
It was short and to the point, and here it is:
Your question is based on an incorrect assumption—that moral standards are always derived from utilitarianism.
So the implied conclusion is equally false.
The poster’s mind doesn’t seem to be very well grounded.
The latest trend for these types on this forum is to make a claim from deep within the leftist camp, and then back it up by calling their opponents statists or liberals.
As always, their only means is deceptiveness and nonsense.
I’m sure before too long the State of California will rule this as perfectly legal.
Your comments are always reasonable and in line with faith. I agree 100%.
Their “arguments” and methods are deceptive, slick, arrogant, and always on the offense. Duplicity and deceit are their constant companions.
Incest is bad for the gene poll of the community. Hard fact, one could even call it “hard data”, too - assuming the use of those terms doesn’t cause more hyperventilation.
Wow. GG, you are definitely a sick person. So, we can't have age of consent laws because all government intervention is bad?!
But then you go on to say that incest laws are good because incestuous relationships produce inferior offspring. So, by that rationale, we can continue on that relationships that may produce "inferior offspring" should be outlawed. Hey, flat-footed people are inferior as are people with traits [family history] of sickle cell anemia, spinal bifda, heart disease, and cancer. Hell, why stop there with the eugenics program? We're just a few "inferior offspring" laws from creating a master race.
The anti-incest laws are ground in Judeo-Christian values and traditions.... that it is immoral. Period.
Further in post 122 you say that children will continue to be abused regardless of the law, ergo there should not be a law.........did it take a lot of practice to get this dumb, or is it just natural ability?
Laws don't prevent murder, fraud, rape, or theft; they PUNISH those crimes. That doesn't mean that we say hey let's go and get rid of these laws.
You can sit here with your thesaurus throwing around $5 words trying to impress people with your diction, but in the end your viewpoint is still rather disgusting.
Try to build as many strawman arguments as you wish; that dog won't hunt. And save the 'poor me, everyone is mean' response. Yes, I think pedophilia is disgusting. I think 38 year olds that have sexual relations with 12 year olds should be hung. I think people that defend those same 38 year old pedophiles should be kept away from children.
Well, I guess you can go back to your NAMBLA meeting and tell all of the other perverts the rise you got out of some FReepers.
Utilitarianism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Utilitarianism (also: utilism) is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its utility in providing happiness or pleasure as summed among all sentient beings. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. The most influential contributors to this ideology were Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
Utilitarianism is often described by the phrase “the greatest good for the greatest number of people”, and is also known as “the greatest happiness principle”. Utility, the good to be maximized, has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or pain), although preference utilitarians define it as the satisfaction of preferences. It may be described as a life stance, with happiness or pleasure being of ultimate importance.
Utilitarianism can be characterised as a quantitative and reductionist approach to ethics. It can be contrasted with deontological ethics (which do not regard the consequences of an act as being a determinant of its moral worth) and virtue ethics (which focuses on character), as well as with other varieties of consequentialism.
In general usage, the term utilitarian refers to a somewhat narrow economic or pragmatic viewpoint. Philosophical utilitarianism, however, is a much broader view that encompasses all aspects of people’s lives.
The origins of utilitarianism are often traced as far back as the Greek philosopher Epicurus, but, as a specific school of thought, it is generally credited to Jeremy Bentham. Bentham found pain and pleasure to be the only intrinsic values in the world: “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” From this, he derived the rule of utility: the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.
Bentham’s foremost proponent was James Mill, a significant philosopher in his day and the father of John Stuart Mill. The younger Mill was educated according to Bentham’s principles, including transcribing and summarizing much of his father’s work while still in his teens.
In his famous work, Utilitarianism, the younger Mill argues that cultural, intellectual and spiritual pleasures are of greater value than mere physical pleasure because the former would be valued higher than the latter by competent judges. A competent judge, according to Mill, is anyone who has experienced both the lower pleasures and the higher. His famous quote found in Utilitarianism (book) was, “it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” demonstrating Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures. He justified this distinction by the thought that “few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures.” In distinguishing between types of pleasure, Mill distanced himself from Bentham, who famously said that the child’s game of push-pin is as good as poetry (assuming that the two bring equal quantities of pleasure).
Like Bentham’s formulation, Mill’s utilitarianism deals with pleasure and happiness. However John Stuart Mill made a clear distinction between happiness and pleasure; and made it evident that Weak Rule Utilitarianism was focused on maximising happiness rather than pleasure; for the naturalistic fallacy made it clear that what one desires and what is good are not always the same thing. For example a pleasure/desire may be to bully a lonely child, which may produce pleasure, however happiness comes from following virtues rather than desires.”
It doesn’t appear that God has any place in Utilitarianism.
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