[ConservingFreedom]

Honest question --- no, really --- would this apply to banning sexual intercourse with an under-age partner? Could we say "It's against our moral code, but don't drag Caesar and 'law' into it: everybody should be free to follow their conscience"?

Government does a fair job of dealing with real crimes that have actual victims: almost two-thirds of murders get solved. It does a much poorer job with self-harming vices; the proportion of drug transactions that are even detected (by anyone other than the buyer and seller) is assuredly vastly lower than two-thirds.

Sex with a minor is a crime with a victim.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The pedo organizations don't say so. They say it's love, sex-positive, practically therapeutic, and with consent.

They're already working on the APA with those suppositions.

I of course say that's crap: a child can't give consent. They respond: the English common law traditionally set the age of consent within the range of 10 to 12, as it was in the United States until the 1880's. (In Delaware it was 7 as late as 1895).