A Plea For Help...

[Deleted]

I don't normally make posts like this, but I'm here asking everyone on this forum for their help and support... A short while ago, my wife and I set up a group on Facebook entitled "FORCE PAEDOPHILE'S TO GIVE UP PARENTAL RIGHTS TO THEIR OWN CHILDREN" and we are desperately trying to encourage more people to join our cause.

This group was set up by us in the hope that maybe one day the British Goverment will listen to people who have been in the situation we have recently found ourselves in. For legal reasons we can't go into details but we believe if a woman or man has been convicted of being a paedophile then they should automatically relinquish any parental right's to their own children. Time the goverment realised this and kept innocent children safe from these animals. If you share our views or have found yourselves in this situation then please join the group or even better, join in the discussions on there share your anger, your tears, your thoughts...

You can find the group on Facebook here - www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=114826752584

To link in with the group, we have also started a petition through the government's Number 10 website to try to have a new law introduced so that the Government changes the law to force convicted paedophiles - male or female - to automatically relinquish any parental rights to their own children for that childs safety. We feel that it is time that Government realised that innocent children need protection from the actions of their parents. YOu can go online and sign this petition electronically here -
petitions.number10.gov.uk/pedchldaccess

If you do decide to sign the petition, one thing I will say is that it will ask you for your name, address and email address. This is standard practice for all petitions on the Number 10 website. Your details won't be passed onto anyone and they won't be used for anything - it is just to confirm that you are a valid UK resident. With your email address, this is just needed so you can be sent a confirmation email that you will need to click on to validate your signature on the petition.

Please do spare a few minutes to sign it though - every signature counts and if we can reach just 500 then the petition will be taken forward and will be considered by 10 Downing Street and will be one step closer to becoming a reality and helping us to protect innocent children everywhere.

Please spare a few minutes and think about joining the group and signing the petition and spreading the word about both of these to your friends. Every voice counts and please help us to try to protect innocent children everywhere.

Thankyou.

Simon Plumbe
Auto Assembly

[dyrl]

Hm.

I have a couple of objections to this policy proposal - if I may.

First of all, I am strongly opposed to "pre-emptive" punishment - that is punishment for crimes that have not been commited.

This proposal concerns convicted pedophiles - but in theory - why stop there? Should we therefore say that anyone who has been convicted of shoplifting be banned from ever shopping? Should people who have been convicted of drunk driving be banned from ever driving again?

I do not think it would be right to punish people for crimes they have not commited. At the very least, the notion of gradation in punishment exists. That is to say - if you are pulled over for drunk driving once - you get a hefty fine and perhaps your license is suspended for a while. A second time and you also go to jail - a third time and your license is revoked etc.

Now, of course people could argue that this type of system is too leniant, and that it is cruel to "wait" for someone to die or suffer and only later punish the criminal who was the cause of it - but I ask - what then is the point of criminal law?

Is the point of criminal law to "stop" crime? No. That is a ridiculous proposition. Criminal law and legal punishments MIGHT serve as a deterent to crime, but that is only their secondary function. The primary function of criminal law is to punish crimes in a fair and just manner.

This proposal about pedophiles has two underlying presumptions - both of them dubious:

1) That all pedophiles are the same.

2) That pedophiles don't work for the government

To be precise:

1) A blanket law that would take children away from all pedophiles assumes that all pedophiles are the same - that they are all mindless slaves to their sexual passions and that they are life-time child-predators. There is no study that shows this to be the case, and indeed the idea itself is pretty far fetched. Isn't it more fair and more just for the legal system to judge the potential future culpability of pedophiles on an individual case-by-case basis? Remember - the presumption of innocent until proven guilty applies to pedophiles as well. Each person's case should be weighed on its' own merits. Sometimes, perhaps taking children away from pedophiles is justified - but only sometimes - not necessarily all the time.

2) This proposal lazily accepts the universal proposition that as soon as government steps in, heaven on Earth is created. Just have the government take the children away from the evil pedophiles, and all will be well with the universe. But I ask: what about the pedophiles who doubtless also work in government? And even abstracting from the risk of these children falling into the clutches of strangers will malicious sexual intent - what about the general risk of these children falling pray to foster families with other vices or generally ending up in a government care center - as wards of the state effectively jailed and cut off from the world and forced to live like refugees in communal settings where no one is given individual love and attention? People who support this proposition don't consider that the fate they are compelling upon these children - that of orphaned ward of the state - is no less psychologically damaging than the fate of living with a convicted pedophile.

I think this proposal would be more fair if it called for taking children away from pedophiles who had multiple convictions or who were shown in court to have already harmed their children OR who were shown to have an inclination to bring real harm to their children.

Finally - I am always wary of giving government blanket power to simply take children away from parents (or do anything for that matter) without some controling mechanism - aka in violation of the idea of seperation of powers (which is something key to democracy).

What's to stop government from using this power you propose for taking children away from political discidents, anti-regime writers, artists, political party activists, journalists who write unfavorably about the government and so forth and so on?

It is no secret that the term "pedophilia" is often synonymous in some quarters with "homosexual" and that there is, amongst some people, a conviction that homosexuals are somehow ipso facto pedophiles. That men will like boys, so to speak, rather than prefering men. I can easily see such a blanket law being used to harrass homosexuals and other minority groups who have different sexual preferences. At the least, such a law would only add fuel to the general tendency to harrass these people.

Again - I'm NOT against the idea that convicted pedophiles might well have to be barred from exercising their rights as parents.

I just think that this decision is better made on a case-by-case basis, where the accused has the right to defense attornies and to make a defense - to plead his case. And the government must show due cause in the form of convicting proof, testimony of psychologists, witnesses etc etc.

Universal blanket pre-emptive punishment laws like the one proposed grow out of righteous indignation and moral passion - both of which are not good sources for law because in the heated pursuit of "saving the children" you will end up making "children" of us all - that is to say, you will end up with a society where government is so omnipotent and unlimited that it behaves like a omnipotent parent towards its' subjects - its' "children."

Them's my two cents.

Pete

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Without coming down either for or against Simon's specific proposal, or for or against what Pete said, I will make the following point (which may be taken either as being against the proposal, or in favour of widening it far beyond its current scope):

There are a vast number of bad parents in this world, who do long-term harm to their children. Most of these child-damaging parents are not paedophiles, and the harm is not through sexual abuse, but just as serious. Some parents teach their children by example to grow up with racist or bigoted views, or as bullies. Some allow their children to grow up in a culture of violence. Some instill in them a contempt for learning, and lead to them ruining their chances for education. Some cause them damage by smoking in their presence, and perhaps causing them to take up smoking. Or drinking to excess. Some parents feed their children unhealthily and neglect their exercise so that they become clinically obese, and they are stuck in that pattern for life. Some parents argue with each other incessantly and split up, and ugly divorce can also traumatise children for life. Non-sexual abuse, from physical violence to indoctrination to simple neglect can all cause permanent, sometimes life-shortening damage to a child's future.

All these things lead to children being damaged for life. They are all serious problems for society.

I don't know what should be done about them. In an ideal world no-one would conceive a child unless they were prepared to bring them up in a safe and loving environment. I suppose in an ideal world there would always be close extended families - grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, supporting and guiding new parents and vigilant for problems. But our society has drifted away from that model, and families are much more dispersed and remote now. So... I dunno.

But specifically denying convicted paedophiles their rights as parents would only prevent a tiny, tiny fraction of the acts of harm done by parents to their children. It seems like they are a big part of the overall problem because they are the ones in the media spotlight. I'm sure there are many people out there baying for the blood of paedophiles who are causing as serious damage to their own children as if they sexually abused them, but in ways that don't attract headlines, and which they consider quite normal and acceptable.

I'm not saying your proposal is correct or incorrect, just that it doesn't address the vast majority of instances of harm to children.

I think that raising children is a privilege/responsibility for those who have them, not a right, and the good of the child should always come first. But if society considers that legislative intervention is required to protect its children (because the extended-family model as a support structure is too often failing), then laws should be formulated taking the big picture into account, to bring the maximum benefit and least harm. They should be based on expert analysis and statistics, not on anecdotes or heightened media interest in one particular form of child harm that grown-ups consider sicker than others such as raising a child as a racist or alcoholic.

(Does a 19-year-old man who has been convicted of having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend, or a man who has been found looking at pictures of underaged teenaged girls on the Internet - both cases which may count as being a convicted paedophile - need to be denied all access to his little baby boy than a man with a history of general violence or drug abuse?)

Martin

[grahamthomson]

The proposal would only punish _convicted_ paedophines, surely?

Government resources would be better spent education everyone and encouraging children to come forward and tell someone what's been happening. It's a horrifying subject, but one that needs addressing as widely as possible.

(Side note: I am sure on the back of one of the Marvel USA TF comics there's a public service announcement type advert featuring Spider-Man and others explaining to a child about sexual abuse.)

[Kingoji]

It's a tricky, touchy subject to be sure. It's not one that I have an instant opinion about. After all, just because a paedophile has been convicted does not mean that they will act the same way to their own flesh and blood, surely?
I don't see paedophilia as the monstrous and Evil entity the mass media paints it as. Everybody on this planet has a different sexual preference. Some people are simply gay, or maybe some people are more attracted to members of a different ethnicity than their own. Some people are even aroused by animals, or even more mind bogglingly, the dead. I don't believe that being that way makes someone a terrible person; I believe that comes from the minority who willfully and wantonly act on those desires (and only in the cases where there is no question that to do so is simply wrong).
I'd go as far as to compare paedophilia to homosexuality (no offense intened, this is just for the comparison) when it comes to blood relatives. What makes a paedophile parent more likely to engage in a sexual act with their child than a homosexual with their brother/sister? it strikes me a little as scare-mongering.

I mean no offense to Mr Plumbe in what I say. He has stated that his life has been affected by such a situation, but not how or why and I respect his privacy. But based on what I do know, this is what I think. Because one thing I do believe is that when a parent has a truely loving relationship with their child, then no-one should be given the power to separate them. Not even the other parent.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Simon, I'm sure the responses in this thread come across as terribly cold and unsympathetic to someone whose life has actually been affected in this way. However, if your intention really is to get the law changed in a way that is just and practicable and protects children - rather than simply make a protest with a large petition that leads to nothing - it is essential to have such points raised at an early stage of your campaign, and for you to take them on board, so that you can consider them and address them before you push on further into government. If you don't, it won't be taken seriously by law-makers, because they won't be people with a personal emotional stake in the issue either, and the same coldly rational objections will occur to them too.

Lukewarm and critical feedback at this stage of your campaign is more valuable to you than votes of support from people with similar passionate views to yourself - that is, if you want concrete results at the end of it. You need to make a proposal that won't go straight into the bin because it's based on emotion rather than reasoned analysis.

Edit: For example, you might want to amend the campaign to specify paedophiles whose crimes involve pre-adolescent children rather than post-pubescent teenagers, to avoid inadvertently capturing all that sexual activity that takes place across the borderline of the (internationally and historically variable) age of consent. Such a clarification would also make the "unnatural perversion of nature" case a lot more clear-cut. If you treat them the same, I can't see your law ever being passed. You would be proposing a situation where a 19-year-old of whichever sex who has slept with a 15-year-old and they have then gone on and got married and had a baby, would have that baby taken away from them - because they slept together when one was above and the other below the age of consent. Is that really what you're campaigning for? For a petition to succeed, it must be clear exactly what it is and isn't a petition for.

As I said before, in my view the good of the child should always come first. From the law-maker's perspective, their responsibility is to focus on making appropriate laws that maximise the protection of the greatest number of children - which, I fear, means tackling climate change (which will destroy the lives of generations of children), war, famine, disease, education, our roads (a child dies on Great Britain's roads every three days, but parents generally don't see that as a reason to stop driving, and the media don't see fit to get outraged about it and demand action) and child abuse, including predatory paedophiles. The level of emotional reaction triggered by these different problems in British adults is not always in proportion to their scale and seriousness and the effect they have on the world's children - particularly, and understandably, when personal experience has a role to play. But the world's children deserve that grown-ups treat them all with extreme gravity and recognise that 'normal' parents are responsible for some of the really big problems.

Martin

[dyrl]

Yeah - what Martin said. The proposal needs to be more specific and worded in a way the pre-empts some common sense, basic objections.

CLEARLY nobody in their right mind would support pedophiles who were intent on inflicting physical or psychological harm on their children the "right" to keep those children - who after all are human beings with inherent rights of their own that need protecting.

The thing is - like Martin said, broad, over-generalized and excessively emotional proposals risk running afoul of people who have equally good intentions as yours - only with regard to a different issue or outlook.

Pete

[Deleted]

also what if the person was falsely convicted? like a teacher whose student lies about him, he would still go on a register, would he be alllowed his kid just because he says he didn't actually do it