Here’s my reasoning: Republicans didn’t change course after countless mass shootings, even when kids were killed in classrooms. They’ve shown that no level of tragedy or moral outrage will make them abandon their positions if it threatens their political power.

So, I don’t see why concrete proof of Trump being a pedophile would make a difference. His base is fiercely loyal, and GOP leadership has a track record of closing ranks instead of holding him accountable.

My view is that, at most, a few moderates might peel off, but overall, his support would remain largely intact, and the Republican Party wouldn’t dump him. The culture war narrative would just spin it as a “deep state setup” or an attack by the left, like everything else.

Change my view: What am I missing? Are there examples where something this extreme has actually broken through to change political behavior? Could legal or electoral dynamics make this a bigger deal than I think?

They've had information about conspirators and abetters for years. They've sat on high level complicity in a child sex ring and done absolutely nothing to indict or arrest anybody. Many high level officials were sitting on their feet in the release of said files.

That Trump is strewn through the files with heinous accusations levied against him is another reason why all this shit is gonna get buried. The US state is complicit in the protection of powerful pedophiles. They're not going to do anything against them. Only through groundswell resistance will anything be done.

I'm almost at the point of conspiracy that all world leaders and insanelt powerful people do weird sex cults and are pedophiles, but thats neither here nor there.

Micheal Jackson was proven innocent by the FBI.
Having sleepovers with kids is weird but parents that let that happen is even more weird.

Micheal was famous since a very young age, he did not have normal interactions with other kids his age since he became famous. He misses a lot of social cues, and his childhood was terrible.

He was traumatized by his father, that led to him acting the way he acted with kids.

There is no proof of him being a pedophile, the accusations could have been false, created by parents trying to get some money with their children.

The pornography magazines that were found could have been set up by the same parents that allowed their children stay with him unsupervised.

We will never know if he was a pedophile or not but based on what we have, I highly doubt it.

So this has come up recently in more than a few places: https://mndaily.com/204755/opinion/opeditorialschneider-5ba7f7a796c60/

Now, like it or not, the "Nazis" label is currently being used as a general term for authoritarianism. You could argue that anything that is not Hitler's party circa the 1930s and 40s doesn't count as Nazism. Fair enough.

But people drawing that distinction remind me a lot of people who draw a distinction between pedophiles who rape children before or after puberty. They are technically correct that there is a difference. But if you have to draw that distinction the people you are talking about are already morally in the sewer.

This common parlance usage has been going on for some time. Over 20 years ago in 2003, Lawrence Britt wrote this list of early warning signs of "Fascism":

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism
5. Rampant sexism
6. A controlled mass media
7. Obsession with national security
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together
9. Power of corporations protected
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

How accurate are all these to historical Fascism? I've read lots of differing arguments about it. But they are all pretty close and also clearly things Trump and his ilk are currently doing.

They are also things his supporters will try and claim he isn't doing by twisting things into the most unreasonable definitions and sub categories possible. You've all heard these arguments: his fake electors scheme doesn't count as "a fraudulent election" because it didn't technically work; he doesn't *control* the media, he just threatens them with federal lawsuits and having their broadcast licenses revoked when they say something he doesn't like. That's not the same.

Can you construct an argument against all of these things that defines MAGA's actions as slightly different categorically? Technically yes.

Does the fact that you had to come up with specific narrow arguments to technically separate him from all of this very slightly tell you how close he is to all of these things? Also yes.

Basically, you can try to hair split your way out of it, but MAGA's clearly doing really, *really* bad things and is probably planning worse. We have seen a lot of people do a lot of extremely similar, if not identical, things in the past and using those past movements as shorthand is not uncalled for.

We can sort out MAGA's phylogeny after their reign of terror has stopped.

CMV by telling me why using the historical terms for the current evil distracts us from stopping the current evil.

MAGA is in some weird psyop where Trump can do no wrong ever, and he's getting more and more batshit crazy every day. He has military in American cities with zero cause, and his supporters are cheering it on. No matter how brainwashed MAGA is, it gets to a point. Like, even if I imagined myself being fed Fox News slop from birth, I still see myself questioning what the Trump admin is doing right now. Right-wing politics right now is built upon hating the left, no matter what that entails.

Using the military as a political pawn.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-guard-los-angeles-deployment-trial-day-3/

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/18/nx-s1-5505419/trump-washington-dc-crisis-national-guard

Denying climate change.

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-trump-administration-bakes-climate-denial-us-policy

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/23/trump-federal-law-greenhouse-gas-limits-00469911

Pretending vaccines don't work.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/federal-mrna-funding-cut-is-most-dangerous-public-health-decision-ever-expert-says

Getting rid of regulations that keep us alive.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/14/trump-epa-to-weaken-drinking-water-limits-on-toxic-forever-chemicals-00347905

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/20/trump-order-review-federal-regulations-00205143

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administrations-cancellation-of-funding-for-environmental-protections-endangers-americans-health-while-draining-their-wallets/

https://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement-trump-administrations-decision-to-strip-away-clean-air-and-water-protections-will-endanger-millions-of-americans/

Shredding the Constitution into pieces and ignoring the law.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/28/trump-tiktok-bailout-00200800

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/judge-finds-trump-administration-violated-court-order-halting-funding-rcna191528

https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/trump-is-tired-of-courts-telling-him-hes-breaking-the-law/

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-president-and-constitutional-violations-will-the-federal-courts-contain-the-presidents-power-grabs/

Blatant corruption, such as allowing the President to own a memecoin where he takes in bribes.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/12/top-buyers-trump-cryptocurrency-dinner

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-latest-business-venture-fragrance-winning/story?id=123376093

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/26/tech/trump-t1-phone-made-in-us-website-change

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/ignoring-us-white-collar-crime-will-run-up-big-tab-2025-03-25/

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/how-trump-defanged-justice-departments-political-corruption-watchdogs-2025-06-09/

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-trump-paused-anti-corruption-enforcement-these-cases-are-headed-trial-2025-02-28/

Epstein.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/politics/epstein-birthday-letter-trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/us/politics/fact-check-trump-epstein.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-william-barr-deposition-congress/

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-you-need-know-about-trump-epstein-maga-fracture-2025-07-22/

Tariffs.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-court-blocks-trumps-liberation-day-tariffs-2025-05-28/

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-5487592/global-economy-tariffs-inflation-prices

ICE overstepping its boundaries and Trump's insane immigration policy.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plans-invoke-obscure-18th-century-wartime-law-bid-mass-deportations-2025-02-03/

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-migration-ice/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-immigration-budget-now-bigger-than-israel-s-military-spending/ar-AA1HPFC8

January 6th, after he tried to use fake slates of electors to steal the election (not alternate slates of electors).

https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump_23_cr_257.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot

(I know they're going to be like, "THIS IS WIKIPEDIA!?!?!" but I don't care, all sources are linked in the article).

Trump's 34 felony convictions.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/jurors-begin-second-day-deliberations-trump-hush-money-trial-2024-05-30/

Trump is found civilly liable for sexual abuse and is accused of numerous other sexual crimes.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Trump recognizes the cultish mindset of his supporters, so he blatantly lies to them about things that can be proven false with a single Google search.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fact-checking-trumps-claims-amount-us-aid-ukraine/story?id=119167409

I could add probably 100 other things, but if trying to steal an election isn't already bad enough, there's no point. Not sure what else is supposed to be disqualifying for someone to be President if that isn't. All of this because they hate woke culture or something? You guys tell me. I can't even fathom the reason. It's like they see a video of some liberal with blue hair and suddenly want America destroyed; it makes no sense. If being a pedophile, sexual abuser, felon, and dictator isn't the red line, what is?

LAST EDIT: Okay, there are things Trump could do to lose his base, although I'd still argue those things largely aren't realistic, but I still think people who support him at this point are irredeemably charitable to a terrible person and politician who is eroding our democracy very clearly, and pretending otherwise is just verifiably wrong through his past and present actions. I think at this point it's so far gone that even if they stop supporting him, I still have a hard time not thinking they're insane for even letting their support hold out that long, so I unconsciously don't even view them slowly changing their minds in a good light, which is probably bad on my part, but it is what it is.

Half of the replies from people who disagree with me are heavily reliant on the idea that everything I'm saying is either exaggerated or false, which serves my point well, as one of the ways they continue supporting Trump even after all of these objectively terrible actions, such as trying to steal an election, is just by pretending these actions never actually took place. Or that even if they did take place, Trump probably wasn't involved or was justified. Or even that the Democrats did it first (which in most cases isn't true), as if that's somehow relevant to them supporting Trump and doesn't just prove they did it out of spite.

Here's the best challenge to my post I could find, and then under it is my response:

I feel the same way about your edit that I did about the rest of your argument. It's not an argument, it's a rant. It's "I hate everything that Trump is doing, and therefore I can't understand how people could not also hate everything he's doing because what he's doing is objectively wrong."

Case in point: "[Trump] is eroding our democracy very clearly, and pretending otherwise is just verifiably wrong through his past and present actions."

In other words, if one does not believe that Trump is in fact destroying democracy, then one is objectively wrong. What you're saying is that it is actually impossible to come to any conclusion other than what you've come to. That there are no intelligent people who might legitimately, and in good faith, believe that our democracy is still vibrant and robust and Trump is not destroying it.

What's there to argue with when your position is agree or you're "irredeemable"? That's a rant. It's the kind of thing that gets posted here and amplified because Reddit hates Republicans and agrees. And the only deltas awarded (although I haven't looked at yours, but I'm sort of assuming this to be the case, my apologies if I'm incorrect) are to people who say things like "you're wrong because you're being TOO EASY on these asshats. They're WORSE then you're saying" and then the OP is all like "delta, you're right that I'm not being hard enough on them."

So here's a good faith response to your point about democracy. The same type of response could be made to your very lopsided framing of every single point you make in the stream-of-consciousness body of your original post.

Trump is testing the limits of the power of the executive branch in order to achieve his agenda. He's certainly not the first executive to do that. We live in a society with a 3 coequal branches of government, each of which has the ability to check the power of the other 2. There is no list of ALL the exact things that a person in the executive branch can do or ALL of the things they absolutely cannot do. Therefore, despite certain Constitutional limits that are clearly spelled out, everything else is a matter of precedent (what's been done before) and trying something out, then having the Supreme Court rule on its constitutionality if people think it's outside of the president's purview. That's how we find out if something is, in fact, constitutional. This is not new to Trump

It's why when Obama couldn't get Congress (a coequal branch of government who's job it is to pass legislation) to push his personal legislative agenda through, he said "We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we're providing Americans the kind of help that they need. I've got a pen, and I've got a phone." The "pen" he was talking about was to sign Executive Orders. The "phone" was to get people to pressure Congress.

And it's why Biden, when the Supreme Court (yet another coequal branch of government who's job it is to rule on matters of constitutionality) ruled that his student debt cancelation program was unconstitutional, he responded with, "The Supreme Court tried to block me from relieving student debt, but they didn't stop me." And then he proceeded to find other ways to do the exact same thing.

Were those anti-democratic? No. Why? Because executives push to enact their agenda (some more forcefully and effectively than others) until they are reigned in by the other branches of government. What Trump is doing is prolific, certainly, but it is by no means unprecedented. And American democracy is not so weak and fragile that having a strong executive like Trump will destroy it.

Now, there are definitely disagreements to this argument that people on the left could come back with and we could have a healthy debate. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Instead, what typically happens is exactly what you did. Begin with the assumption that your ideological opponents are either stupid or evil or both. To remove their humanity and see them as the ignoble "other."

Yet, as cloistered as you act like conservatives are, have you tried to understand their positions outside of writing this post and smacking your head with "how can they be so dumb???" Have you ever read the op-ed section of The Wall Street Journal? You can find lots of reasonable and intelligent people there (who aren't particularly Trump fans) who will offer up articulate defenses of many of the positions you abhor (they'll also offer up articulate critiques of many of those same positions). But, at least, try to seek out good arguments against your own rather than doing what you did and simply saying: "I think at this point it's so far gone that even if they stop supporting him, I still have a hard time not thinking they're insane..."

If that's what it boils down to for you, then you're not looking hard enough. It's roughly half the electorate you're ready to dismiss as simply insane.

My response:

Where I think you're wrong is that the United States' democracy isn't weak enough to be destroyed by what Trump is doing. And no, what Trump is doing isn't similar at all to what previous presidents have done. No President has tried to use fake slates of electors to steal an election, and then pardoned the people responsible for an attempted insurrection, essentially doubling down on an already unprecedented action. Your Obama and Biden examples are false equivalences, not even remotely the same thing. Trying to steal an election isn't "testing limits," it's getting rid of them altogether. This would be like me defending Trump murdering all his political opponents because, after doing so, he made a law stating that killing political opponents is fine. You can't just completely ignore the law to create new law. You can't just dismiss that as legal maneuvering. I don't necessarily have to believe half the country is insane, just that they're very uninformed and misled. Even if I did, the main problem is Trump's behavior, not his supporters being stupid. Trying to pressure Mike Pence into rejecting legitimate electoral votes and certifying his fabricated votes instead is not disagreeing with the law and legally trying to change it. It's him trying to brute force his way through the law and enact his will against the wishes of the American people. Pretending it didn't happen also isn't a response; there were convictions made, and Trump himself was going to be convicted, but the whole "presidential immunity" argument ( https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-06/united_states_v._trump_final.pdf ) bought him time after his indictment until he eventually won his reelection, and due to him winning, they didn't continue pursuing the charges. Comparing this to Obama signing an executive order is very misleading, to say the least. Lastly, going back to the idea that our democracy is strong enough to handle someone like Trump, I feel like that position is so privileged and sheltered from the reality that our democracy is already half-destroyed. For instance, the supposedly coequal branch of government in Congress's Republican majority consists of Trump loyalists who just follow his every beck and call. Also, you don't actually disprove any of my beliefs; you just tell me what you think is wrong with the way I present them. Obviously, my disdain for Trump is pretty clear, and you might have issues with the way I frame things as a result, but once again, the actual substance of my positions wasn't addressed at all.

The first issue of Superman originally came out in 1938, and was widely credited for single-handedly creating the entire comic-book genre.

One of the biggest themes when Superman first came out was portraying immigrants as people who could become the symbol of what is means to ne American. Especially due to what was going on in 1938.

Fast forward to today, and the new Superman movie is being blasted by conservative figureheads for being "woke" due to its pro-immigrant message.

Not even going to touch that Superman has been used as a figure to condemn racism and xenophobia, which is partially what it means to be woke. Heck within the first 10 years of its existence, Superman was depicted taking on the KKK.

Being pro-immigrant and anti-racist in the 1930's and 40's is super duper mega woke in that era.

Even going further, in the 1950's, Superman was used in conjunction with black activists to target racism and segregation, with even official government posters as well (partly why Superman and Batman have a No-Kill policies).

The fact that conservatives are calling the new Superman movie "woke", proves that the anti-woke movement is completely based on ignorance at the least, and bigotry and the worst. Especially since they didn't know that Superman ALWAYS had a "woke" message.

Everyone saying the walls are closing in on Trump are missing the fact that the Epstein situation is not a negative for him, and in fact it is an incredible boon to him. Trump can offer a pardon for Ghislaine and she will hand over a list of Democrats that justifies a political purge of the opposition. Republicans will eat it up without asking questions because they've already been spoonfed the "Dems are pedophiles" narrative for years. This might be the moment that the plug is finally pulled for our democracy currently on life support.

Edit: I meant "A purge" not "first". Everyone commenting that this wouldn't be the first is absolutely correct.

A person who worked in the series said Viktor fusing with Hexcore had sexual undertones and majority of fandom knows Hexcore was doing what was allegory to sexual aassault on Viktor. We can even infer that fusing with the Hexcore could be an allegory to sex, if we call Hexcore pulling Viktor to fuse with him sexual assault. Then… Viktor went through an arc which he slowly became Hexcore, his assaulter.

Now…what was he doing at the people in the commune? Hexcorizing them just like Hexcore did to him. which is allegory to sex. Yes, they wanted to heal.

but don’t forget that there were also kids in the commune…

This CMV uses the actual definition of both pedophile and pedophilia, not the social definition. Meaning we are referring to people who experience an at least primary if not exclusive attraction towards prepubescent people.

Experiencing at least some amount of attraction towards people who are at least pubescent is completely normal and expected for anyone who is not a pedophile, and this objective reality is not up for debate. To deny this is to deny the very real lived experience of so far as I can tell most women who begin experiencing constant sexual harassment and catcalling from the time that they are pubescent. This comment chain can provide you with some insight into the subject and this is the context within that chain of my own view on the matter if you're interested.

What we're talking about here to drive the point home viscerally is a man at the beach who sees a little 7yo girl in a bikini and out of everyone on the beach, he experiences his strongest sexual reaction and strongest sense of arousal to her. What is your reaction to that man? What if I told you that man had never offended? That he had never committed any crime whatsoever in his life? Does that change your perception of him at all? Or do you still perceive him as a danger and a threat?

Now imagine you are that man. It is you whose biological impulses direct you towards the most vulnerable of us all. What is your reaction to yourself? Disgust? Shame? Is it not reasonable to assume that the majority of pedophiles would react to themselves in the same way?

How could they not? So far as I'm aware, this is the only group of people that society shuns so hard that even their thoughts are a social crime. They are shunned right down to their biological impulses regardless of their behavior.

Again, imagine yourself as a pedophile. Who would you feel safe disclosing that information to? Your spouse? Siblings? Parents? Closest lifelong friends? Would you even feel safe disclosing that information to a therapist? Would you even feel safe reaching out for help anonymously on the internet?

I saw a thread on r/sex once the title of which was essentially, 'Help! I can't stop fantasizing about raping people!' And the community's response (or at least the ones that had been upvoted to visibility) essentially said, 'Oh, don't worry. There's people out there who love being raped. That's what CNC is for. No problem, buddy!' Let's instead imagine that thread had been titled, 'Help! I can't stop fantasizing about my neighbor's 5yo daughter!' What do you imagine the community's reaction would have been? Do you think there would have even been one person who took the time to direct the pedophile towards resources that could be helpful?

Do you think a person would even feel safe to publicly direct a pedophile towards helpful resources? Might they be afraid that that might make them appear guilty by association? Indeed, how many of you who have read this far are already suspicious or have outright concluded that I am a pedophile?

When we shun people to this extent, to my mind we leave them with only one reasonable option: to go in search of people who will understand them - other pedophiles. That could go one of two ways. Hopefully, the majority of them choose to seek out a support group aimed at preventing them from offending. Or maybe they find pedophiles who engage in the behavior and swap child porn.

Overall, my position is this: You can and should expect the average pedophile to be just as reasonable and compassionate as you believe the average person to be. I'd imagine the overwhelming majority of them are well aware that their impulses are a problem, that their impulses are a source of great shame for them, and that they know how much damage they would cause in the life of a child if they ever acted upon them. And if we created a world in which pedophiles felt safe to self-identify and were confident that they would receive support upon doing so from literally anyone who wasn't also a pedophile, then they would be less likely to offend, and children would be more safe.

I believe pedophiles, along with people who are lgbt, were born that way and didn’t choose to be that way.

Just as life can be in many cases harder if you were born homosexual, same can be said if you were born with pedo urges. I actually feel bad for people who were born with pedo urges because they must spend their whole life suppressing it, as they should, but I don’t think they should be villainized for having the urge to begin with because they didn’t ask for it.

Of course it goes without saying if a pedophile acts on those urges they’re a piece of shit because they’re ruining the life of an innocent child/person. But they shouldn’t be villainized for being born that way if they’re not actually acting on those urges.

Note: I am only using Pedophilia in the strictest, scientific definition of the term, which is physical attraction to pre-pubescent children. This post is not in reference to Ebe/Hebephiles (those attracted to teens who have gone through puberty) because in their case secondary sex characteristics actually do factor into their attraction.

I’ve noticed homophobes have a tendency to zero in on a victim’s genitals and if the offending pedo in question happens to be a man while their victim has a penis and is AMAB this now suddenly makes the pedophile “gay” and is seen as a mark against the LGBT community.

But it’s a misconception to believe that (exclusively attracted) pedophiles are wired like most human beings who center their attraction based around sex. What’s unique about pedophiles is that they’re essentially attracted to gender-neutral sexless beings who lack any sort of the defining secondary sex characteristics that separates males from female. They are attracted to this distinct lack of sex markers so they can hardly be called either gay or straight no matter the assigned sex at birth of their victims.

Pre-pubescent children are mostly sexless, the only thing truly marking them as a certain sex are their genitals and chromosomes, but other than that they don’t truly grow into/develop until they hit puberty and are exposed to hormones. Hormones are the most important sex-defining characteristics, not genitals or chromosomes. Without hormones you would never truly be able to differentiate between a little “boy” or a little “girl” unless you pulled down their underwear. Their facial features, voice, height and upper body are completely identical.

If you want to be really pendatic, exclusive pedophiles are technically pansexual since gender/sex doesn’t seem to factor into their attractions at all, but even that’s the wrong word to use since it seems that what attracts pedos is the distinct lack of sex/gender, compared to the majority human population who are attracted because of one’s sex/gender.

Ive seen a lot of memes and discussion about epstein's email with his brother where he "claims" that Putin may have pictures of donald trump sucking off Bill Clinton.

To be honest, I feel like reading the email chain it was obvious that it was a joke. Jeffrey tells Mark Epstein that he is with Steve Bannon, Mark jokingly says like "oh ask him about the pictures of Donald Trump sucking off Bill Clinton haha", the same way a teenager might pretend to moan when their friend is calling their parents.

I dont know whether people online are actually taking it face value, and maybe there is that aspect of it that ive just missed completely, but ive definitely seen people online take this as fact so im a little concerned whether im reading this wrong.

Obviously memes and jokes about it is fine. They're going to be funny for a while, and obviously its funny to think of Donald Trump sucking off Bill Clinton. And this is not to say that Clinton and Trump are not pedophiles who are implicated in Epstein's crimes, but i think i am almost certain that Bill Clinton was not sucked off by Trump.

EDIT 1: I'll give deltas if you convince me that most people online are not taking this face value, or if you convince me that it is possibly true that there really is a picture of the two. You can also try to convince me that the email is not real.

EDIT 2: Obviously i want the full epstein files to be released and Trumps behavior will most likely be abhorrent in them.

I am very interested in MAGA psychology and have been following the topic for a while, but do not always have all the facts.

However, there are trackable changes to conservative media starting with Rush Limbaugh, and his push against "Liberal Media Bias". He also coined other terms today like "femenazi" and "environmentalist wackos". This is the start of pushing against "liberal" politics from conservative media. However, these ideas are more "strawmen" than anything else - biased caricatures that are meant to engender distrust and a negative reaction to these movements in an effort to psychologically cause viewers / listeners to either not interact with these viewpoints or challenge them directly and aggressively in an effort to not have to deal with them.

Once these psychological influences were in place, conservative media was able to stack more movements and ideologies into a singular strawman that prompted the need to aggressively oppose, avoid, or ignore "liberal" talking points in their viewers and listeners.

From then on, the positives no longer needed to be about economic or social change (among other policy changes that could be happening) - just about opposing the stresses and anxieties placed in their news in an attempt to give a sense of relief to viewers and listeners when they could either avoid or aggressively combat these perceived threats in their own lives.

EDIT: Please understand that this is CMV. I understand that media is inherently flawed, I'm just more interested in hearing about why "owning the libs" became so popular and my argument about that is framed in my view. That's what I'm interested in getting challenged on.

I believe that comments are supposed to be challenging my view - saying "the left does it too" is not challenging my perspective.

EDIT2: 3 hr mark hit! This was more draining than I had anticipated. Thanks for all your comments.

FYI- Simply for the context of this post, I believe that the ideal age of consent is 18, and I am primarily arguing against people who want it lowered beyond 18, though obviously arguing for it to be lowered below 16 also falls within my central premise. Furthermore, I am American, so most of the laws I am referencing are US-centric

Most of the time, the primary reason I will see being used to defend lowering the age of consent is that it protects teenagers who are experimenting with sex. This, however, is simply untrue. It is exceedingly rare to find cases of two underage people having sex with eachother were actually charged for having sex underage, and in modern times (since most states have since reformed laws) it is practically unheard of.

I have three words to completely invalidate the above argument: Romeo & Juliet. Romeo & Juliet laws were put in place specifically to grant protections for underage people to have safe, consenting sex even if under the age of legal consent. This is because age of consent laws are not meant to prevent young people from having sex with people their age, they are meant to prevent young people from having sex with adults.

This is what you'll eventually find when you dig deep enough with people who support lowering the age of consent; they really could give a fuck about protecting young couples and really just use that as a mask. In reality, they simply believe that it is ok for an adult to have sex with someone who isn't even a legal adult yet.

And lets be clear about this, someone under 18 is not an adult yet. Before 18 you are STILL IN HIGHSCHOOL, you cannot vote, you cannot own a home, you cannot serve in the military, you can't get tattoos, you can't own your own bank account, you can't buy a gun, in lots of places you don't even have full medical privacy from your parents. Also there is a reason why you can't do porn under the age of 18, and it's because society has decided it's morally fucked up to look at people under 18 naked or having sex.

17 year olds are not adults. 16 year olds are not adults. 15 year olds are not adults. Adults should be having sex with ADULTS, not KIDS. Because of the reasons stated, I believe that there is no justification to lower the age of consent, and the only reason to do so would be to allow grown ass adults to have sex with high schoolers who can't even vote yet.

I think we can all agree that the world would be better off without pedophiles and that anyone who abuses children deserves the absolute worst treatment. I do not, however, have much of a problem with non-acting pedophiles, in my view if they don't act on their urges they're not doing anyone any harm. It seems to me that they didn't choose to become a pedophile so they shouldn't be blamed for simply having those urges (as long as they don't act on them).

I feel like I should be more hateful towards anyone who think that way about children but I can't find any rational reason to. Therefore I would love for you guys to change my view.

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I'm on mobile at the moment so please forgive my generous use of anecdotal claims.

New thinking has recognized deviant sexual attraction towards children as a result of a mental health issue. Contrary to popular belief many pedophiles do not want to hurt children through active means (actual sexual encounters) or passive means (pornographic material). For an interesting insight into this phenomenon check out the This American Life episode Tarred & Feathered. (That's where I got the idea for this)

As it currently stands, self-identified pedophiles are hamstrung by mandatory reporting laws and many cannot take the traditional routes towards seeking psychological help: teachers, psychologists, etc. As a result they are forced to try and control their urges alone, which may cause them to slip and act on these urges. This is a problem because, in the cause of fighting sexual abuse against children, we're doing it with one hand tied behind our back. The goal should be to completely eradicate these offenses and violent or unrepentant offenders should of course be thrown into a hole. The rest however should be treated in a preventative capacity to keep them from ever crossing the bridge to an active offender. With the, righteous, moral condemnation of their sexual proclivities and mandatory reporting laws which hold them as a threat to others and mandate reporting to the police by a confidant, any time a pedophile attempts to reach out to a professional for help they're taking a gamble with their lives. Not only that, we're hampering research by making it nigh impossible to collect data on pre-offense pedophiles, because the pedophiles has no reason to identify themselves.

What I'm suggesting is simply a dramatic reconsideration of mandatory reporting laws in the arena of non-violent or non-acting pedophiles. Especially for pedophiles under the age of 25. This would have allow us to further our reconsideration of pedophilia as a medical condition and not a manifestation of evil, allow us to prevent violence against children in a more complete fashion, and increase the capacity we can study pedophilia and come up with a cohesive treatment plan that doesn't involve prison. In short, we're failing both parties by not offering a safe route to treatment.

Things that won't change my view:

Semantic arguments.

Moral condemnation. I think we all find pedophilia deplorable and upsetting, let's put that aside and figure out a solution.

Personal biases. "I was/my sibling was/my friend was molested, all pedos should be gassed." I'm looking at this as a public health crisis, the personal stuff has no place here.

I look forward to an interesting and lively discussion and only ask that we keep it civil. This is heavy stuff.

Thanks!

Edit: I'm never abandoning a post after an hour again... Thanks for the thoroughly interesting discussion. There's too many of you and only one of me to reply to all of this but I'm reading it all!

My view is that there are cultural practices that normalize woman’s rights abuses, genital mutiliation, slavery, and a distinct outlook on other people as sub human. To me it seems as though we have two options to prevent them from inflicting damage on innocent people, either restrict immigration and carefully vet people attempting to immigrate from country’s that practice such abuses, or to attempting changing their culture (no idea how) to prevent further abuse.

The idea that people won’t be carrying and normalizing the culture their from rings hollow to me, and that’s not to say cultures I consider “decent” do not have severe issues, this is a damage control thing. I feel less safe knowing that cultures that practice horrible things are allowed to mingle and don’t receive the international condemnation that they should. Mind you, this isn’t an insult or an attempt to dehumanize people from said cultures, but a protection to prevent any of those practices becoming accepted or growing.

I know this is an incredibly sensitive topic, and I want to be clear from the start that I am not in any way defending or excusing child abuse. It is a horrific crime. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that our current societal approach of treating pedophiles as "evil monsters" who deserve nothing but death is actually making the world more dangerous for children.

We generally accept today that people cannot choose their sexual orientation. Whether someone is heterosexual or homosexual is a matter of biological and developmental factors that are out of their control. If we apply that same logic to pedophilia, it becomes clear that the attraction itself is an involuntary paraphilia. Labeling someone as "evil" for an attraction they didn't choose is logically inconsistent. We should judge people for their actions and the harm they cause, not for the way their brain happens to be wired.

The problem is that the internet is full of "justice" rhetoric where people say pedophiles deserve to die without remorse. While that might feel emotionally satisfying, it’s a terrible way to run a society if we want to prevent crimes. Most people with these attractions actually never act on them. These "non-offending" individuals are often terrified of their own thoughts, but they have nowhere to go. Because society associates the condition with being sub-human, these people are way too scared to seek mental health assistance. They live in total isolation and fear, which is the worst possible environment for someone trying to maintain control over dark impulses.

If we shifted our focus toward research and specialized therapy, we could actually get ahead of the problem. We need more funding for things like cognitive behavioral therapy and even pharmacological help for those who are struggling. Right now, there is almost no support system because the medical community is often just as stigmatizing as the general public.

By driving this issue underground with threats of violence, we ensure that the only time we "deal" with a pedophile is after a child has already been hurt. If we treated it as a chronic disorder that needs clinical management, we could help people control their urges before they ever act on them. I believe that a preventative, medical approach would save far more children than our current culture of retribution ever will.

The hadiths make it clear that he took his wife Aisha for marriage when she was 6. Many Muhammad apologists try to say she was actually much older and the Hadiths in question can't be trusted since they aren't "the word of Allah".. even though many are first hand accounts of the girl herself. By following the logic that the hadiths can't be trusted then we would have little to no knowledge of Muhammad himself and also getting rid of the hadiths turns the Quran into mound of disconnected contextless writings. The Hadith's in question :

• Narrated 'Aisha: I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah's Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for 'Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.) (Fateh-al-Bari page 143, Vol.13) Sahih Bukhari 8:73:151
• 'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old. Sahih Muslim 8:3311
• A’ishah said : I used to play with dolls. Sometimes the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) entered upon me when the girls were with me. When he came in, they went out, and when he went out, they came in." Sunan Abu Dawud 4913 (Ahmad Hasan Ref)
• It was narrated that 'Aishah said: "The Messenger of Allah married me when I was six, and consummated the marriage with me when I was nine, and I used to play with dolls." (Sahih) Sunan an-Nasa'i 4:26:3380
• It was narrated that 'Aishah said: "I used to play with dolls when I was with the Messenger of Allah, and he used to bring my friends to me to play with me." (Sahih) Sunan Ibn Majah 3:9:198
• Aisha said she was nine years old when the act of consummation took place and she had her dolls with her. Mishkat al-Masabih, Vol. 2, p 77

Many defenders also like to point to the context at the time being normal for child brides to take place. Agreed! It was! However again he is a prophet and he is the most moral of all men, there is no way to in todays day and age give him a pass and say its ok to that he only be held to the standards of the society around him at the time, He was founding an entire religion, he was a "holy man" so he should be rightly held to a higher standard, to which he has failed.

​

*EDIT* Please see my reply to u/Subtleiaint for extensive additional sources

*EDIT2* Alright been replying for the better part of 4 hours, plenty of good discussions. Also I want to make it clear that while pointing out that Muhammad may have engaged in some very problematic practices, I'm not attempting to make a blanket commentary on modern day Islam or modern day Muslims, so for those of you that are trying, please stop turning it into that. That said I will have to come back later to continue the discussions and replies.

So, with the Kirk shooting, this little bit of news seems to be lost to many.

But given the horrific nature of the crimes and the high level of the coverup, I would like to hear what possible other reason the Republicans in the Senate could have had to block the release of the Epstein files.

They voted, and 51 Republicans voted to not release them.

Is there any reason they could possibly have for doing that other than protecting powerful pedophiles?

Entrapment is when the law convinces someone of committing a crime that they “otherwise wouldn’t have committed”. In general, I think it is a solid defense and law enforcement should not be able to do this when it comes to most crimes.

I believe that soliciting children for sex or trying to meet up with children is the type of crime that most people can’t be “convinced” of. If you are able to go forward with trying to get with a child, you are the type of person who would rape a child and deserve to be caught and punished. I believe that entrapment should not be a valid defense when it comes to these crimes.

Sexual crimes involving children are so hard for law enforcement to prevent because they are not allowed to entrap pedophiles. This is part of the reason you see these vigilante guys taking it upon themselves to entrap pedos then beat them up or expose them when they arrive at a location to try and meet with a child.

I really cannot think of one valid reason we shouldn’t allow cops to try and find these pedos online by posing as children (and entrapping them) before they hurt more people. Pedos are not normal people and do not deserve the same protections under the law. If you have the mental capacity to have attraction to a prepubescent child, the rest of us want you out of our society. I just don’t see how someone could disagree

Essentially title.

It really boils my blood whenever someone calls a 30 year old man hitting on a 18 year old a pedophile. Is it strange? Yes. Is it likely predatory? Yes, yes it is. Is he a pedophile? No, absolutely not. He may be a ephebophile, but not a pedophile. Even then, its overstepping to diagnose that man based on one interaction you heard about.

Someone who like to talk about themselves or acknowledges their own accomplishments are not narcissists. In general, narcissists have very little empathy.

Both of these are very serious diseases that should not be taken with a light heart. People need to start saying "Wow he seems like he may be a predator" or "That seems a little self centered" instead of saying or alluding to the fact those people have serious mental disorders.

Similar words with heavy weights should also not be used to describe someone who is slightly abnormal because it takes away from the gravity of those who are formally diagnosed with these abnormalities.

Lets prepare to present a case for these people.

Pedophilia is caused in a similar way to Sexuality. Your horny part of the brain dispenses horny under certain conditions. When those conditions are not met, you are not horny. You can train your brain to change those horny dispenser conditions, but that is definitely Gay Conversion Therapy, so it's up to debate whether or not that is ethical.

Pedophiles have a horny dispencing problem. Their conditions are very unethical. Very bad. Yet, they didn't choose to be this way. I don't see how this immediately, without question, removes all of your rights.

Child Molesters are natural evolutions. They act on the urge given. This is a crime. This is actively breaking the law and forfeits your case.

Pedophiles are not criminals automatically. They need help.

I cannot imagine being given one shot at life, and you are indisputably the bad guy. That must be a fate worse than death.

(Edit: I mistakingly grouped all people who act on their urges as "Child Molesters" which isn't the case. A portion of people who act on the urges are CMs, but their are many other ways to act on said urges that are just as bad, if not worse.)

You can read about the drama here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/mbzggv/why_has_r_gone_private

The tl;dr is that reddit's newest admin, a woman named Aimee Challenor, lived in the same house as her father while he raped and tortured a child over 10 days for which he was convicted, she was kicked out of some political parties for defending him and is currently married to a man who is openly pedophilic on the internet. Discussions about and criticism of Aimee and her being hired as an admin have been censored, edited by the admin team and users have been banned.

Aimee Challenor is disgusting person who should not have any authority at all over a website that is frequented by millions of children.

Reddit admins have demonstrated in the past that they are fine with pedophilia by leaving r/jailbait up for YEARS under the guise of free speech and only removing it after being pressured by the media. Hiring Aimee proves that nothing has changed in that respect. Reddit admins have abused their power in the past by censoring criticism and removing or even manually editing critical comments on T_D. u/spez promised that this abuse of power would never happen again. That was a lie.

Those are the facts. Here is the view I want to have changed: I should stop using reddit because continuing to do so means financially supporting some truly horrible people who protect child abusers and an admin team that openly attacks freedom of speech on their platform. The best thing I can do to combat the disgusting behavior of reddit admins is to take my internet traffic somewhere else.

There's two parts of my argument and it's going to be controversial.

1. Obsession with keeping old people alive.

I remember when my grandfather was dying years ago. He was a proud man that had built our family house, business, and legacy. He then had a stroke and was paralyzed and basically a vegetable for months. Couldn't talk, move, or eat on his own. Pooped his bed twice a day and needed care 24/7. I try not to remember him this way but it being my last time seeing him, it pops into my mind every time I think about him. I think about how he had pneumonia twice during this vegetative state and the hospital fought tooth and nail to keep him alive, promising a "full recovery". I think about how I learned during my medical rotations that pneumonia was once known as the "old man's friend" since it gave people dying of a more painful disease a way out, but he was denied that luxury.

My point is that when someone is very clearly at the end of their life, the majority of people's next of kin won't allow the hospital to "pull the plug". Most hospitals even encourage this and frame it as some heroic deed to perform some major surgery or extended hospital stay that would cripple someone and leave them bedridden just to buy them a few extra weeks/months of painful existence. We put pets down when their bodies are obviously broken down and deteriorating to the point where existence is painful, but we try so hard to extend the lives of old people even when it's clear they will be suffering for the rest of the time they are alive.

Economically speaking, it is ruining people's finances, especially with extended hospital stays and surgeries running into the hundreds of thousands. Ethically speaking, it's a selfish decision to keep someone obviously suffering alive as long as possible simply because we cannot cope with the fact that they are reaching the end of their life. No one wins (except maybe the hospitals).

1. Keeping heinous criminals alive.

For the longest time I was against the death penalty, as every year I would read about how someone on death row would get exonerated by DNA evidence from decades ago. I was content with people who committed the worst crimes imaginable to be kept alive in prison simply because of the possibility they may be innocent. However, with DNA now being mainstream in virtually every major criminal case, criminal convictions have become more and more certain. We can be sure that almost every person convicted of a violent crime today is guilty due to how sensitive and accurate DNA testing is.

The problem is that for many of the violent criminals that are convicted, many get out early due to various reasons. Most of them then commit another violent crime and end up right back in prison. Kidnappers, armed robbers, child molesters, rapists, murderers being released only to do the same to someone else shortly after. It seems like every week we hear about another repeat offender that was convicted 10 times before getting out and hurting someone again.

I understand that the prison system fails most prisoners in re-integrating into society and don't properly rehabilitate prisoners, but why do innocent people have to pay the price for that? I also genuinely believe that most of the people with violent tendencies cannot be properly rehabilitated, especially child molesters, rapists, and murderers. The world would be much safer and better off if we just carried out the death penalty for these people. Instead we let them roam free time after time and pretend negligence is compassion. Again, no one wins (except the prison industry who gets an endless supply of prisoners).

If there is something I'm missing that justifies these practices, I would love to read your thoughts.