Topic: John Grisham's controversial views...

[Pugnate]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/16/showbiz/celebrity-news-gossip/john-grisham-child-pornography/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

What do you guys think? Is he right?

[Cobra951]

I think there's a world of difference between 10 years old and 16 years old.  10 is objectively childhood, 16 only arbitrarily labeled as such, in some countries.  I also think that putting people in jail who have never harmed anyone, and would have never harmed anyone, is a crime in itself, let alone stamping them with something akin to a yellow Star of David.  Downloading stuff is as casual and as easy as walking down the street and seeing what's happening through open windows, without taking a step off the sidewalk.  It should never deprive someone of their liberty.

While real pedophilia is a horrendous crime, the hysteria surrounding it has led to a huge authoritarian overreach.  We live in a country now where some innocuous acts can get you thrown in a dungeon, and stripped of your dignity.  This is one of them (particularly if the "victims" in question are 16 years old).  Casual drug use is another.  Hell, just carrying some money across state lines can totally deprive you of the due process of law, and your property.  I mean, really, are you fellow Americans happy living in this neofascist police state?  Because I am getting quite sick of it.

"The day that you came out in an interview and said that watchers of child porn get too stiff of a penalty for it (you said 10 years was too much) makes you someone that I cannot support nor no longer want to read," a reader named Kendra Benefield Lausman shared on Grisham's Facebook page; another posted that she's taken her entire Grisham library to her "burn barrel" with the intent to set the books on fire.

I don't need to elaborate on that, do I?

[Xessive]

Child porn is fucked up and anyone involved needs to be punished, undoubtedly. However, think about how easy it is to use that as a flimsy excuse to frame just about anyone. Log some bad URLs on someone's network and before you know they're facing charges.

[Quemaqua]

While real pedophilia is a horrendous crime, the hysteria surrounding it has led to a huge authoritarian overreach.

Agreed. I think a lot of things could be stuck into that same sentence and work just fine. I absolutely do not condone many horrible acts, and in some cases feel stiffer punishments are in order; but this always has to be balanced with reason and, in particular, with a truly objective look at the severity of any act. For instance, if someone is writing an article about something and does research, should they be punished in the same way as someone who has hoarded hard drives full of stuff? Not just in terms of this subject, but other stuff. I know several writers who haven't used any sort of privacy screening in their research at home and have had FBI agents show up at the door (always under flimsy pretenses of being somebody else or wanting information about something else) not long after. They were researching stuff for books, but at what point does that fact get buried and they get into big trouble over an act that has zero criminal intention?

[Cobra951]

Criminal intent--exactly.  This has to be present to send someone "up the river" to do hard time.  The laws give authorities too much leeway to infer intent.  And there needs to be some age-based gradient on culpability.  Sex with a 9-year-old should get the perp executed.  Sex with a 16-year-old doesn't even begin to compare to that.

It gets even more troubling.  I think the law doesn't say "photographs", but "depictions".  So, can a cartoon make someone into a felon?  Is Japanese hentai a depiction of children that could be considered pedophilia?  Don't assume it's too ridiculous to be the case.  Watch the John Oliver clip I linked above to see how shady legal sleights-of-hand can get.

[Xessive]

Minority Report!

Dun dun duuuun!

[gpw11]

One of my best friends growing up is now a very prestigious criminal defense lawyer. He's with a very good firm, but only actually been practicing for a couple years...so he gets the shit cases (guess what?  they're all shit cases).  He defends a lot of drunk drivers, sex offenders, but more than anything, kiddie porn purveyors - as his firm somehow has a very good record in getting them off (haha). Now, this might be different in Candada, but he's convinced that each and every one is guilty by the time they walk into his office.  Maybe we're more liberal, but a judge would never convict (according to him) here on someone casually sauntering into a kiddy porn site on the internet, so they they focus on guys who send files out. Everyone in the community is scared of tube sites, etc (no idea on deep web shit) so they all go DC++ etc, and when the cops take a guy down they'll assume his online identity in exchange for a plea bargain and try to go from there. He's never defended a case where the guy hasn't actively transferred a file for trade or whatever. 

Seems like the right way to go. Especially when they're making cases and they need you to pretty much admit what you're looking for.   But man, he is not happy with his career path right now.   Wanted to be an international human rights lawyer.  "SURPRISE
!  STUDENT LOANS!   YOU ARE THE WORST NOW!"