Thoughts on the Christopher Handley case

ilmaestro said:
I'm also surprised that you think the point of the law is to punish people, rather than disuade people from doing things, and protect people who might have things done to them.
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In my eyes, the Law is there to protect people, not dissuade or punish. However, the Courtroom is inevitably for judging whether a Defendant is guilty or not of committing a crime.

ilmaestro said:
Do you think this man should be punished for owning comic books?
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No - it's an infringement on his liberties. No one else was viewing those books, and should they be depraved, he has the right to be depraved.

I have done a presentation on this topic, if you recall. I got you to translate the statistics for me. This man is innocent in my eyes. If this were the UK, i'm sure any right minded judge would declare the Act forbidding the possesion of this material incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights, and thus have the law changed.

The American legal system is very corrupt il. People think the UK is bad, but America is terrible.
 
Even in the UK if you show a jury a drawing of a pig having sex with a young girl they will still hang you out to dry.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/22 ... cond_clip/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/28 ... _simpsons/

6 months is getting off easy!

Its got nothing to do with intelligent people. The people who vote republican and watch CNN & Fox news think they are intelligent, educated and capable of independant thought. You could stick 12 CERN physicists on the jury but would it really change the outcome?

You'd all let him off because you are biased and you're all knee-jerking in the other direction.

If his lawyer thought he could get off then why did he advise the guilty plea?

The Stephen Owen case is very much in the realm of extenuating circumstances. Plus it seems it wasn't the first time someone had tried to kill Kevin Taylor. If the system had been any good in the first place Taylor would have been locked up for a very long time.

On a side not, Amazon are still selling the lost girls.
 
I can agree with you're theory 2501, that yes, it's likely that a Jury would be biased in a case like this.

What you have to remember is that if you can prove that these Acts are infringing on your Human Rights and Liberties, then you can appeal against conviction on the grounds your basic human rights have been infringed. This could lead the Act actually being declared incompatible, and having the Law changed. I can only hope this would happen in Britain.

However, what I say is all in theory... In practise things rarely go as planned, eh...?
 
I never said the jury would be biased. A jury of 12 anime and manga fans would be. A supposedly unbiased jury would IMO still convict him. But can you truly have a zero bias jury?

Human rights and other such is not a universal get out of gaol card. The ECHR is littered with get out clauses that allow laws to override it. You'd have to let EVERYONE off otherwise.

And I don't see his lawyer arguing that the USPS opening his package was in breach of the 4th amendment. Surely a plea of 'well it was illegal for you to open his mail in the first place' would have been a good idea. It could have been put to rest without the nature of the contents of the books even being called into question.

As I said earlier, its really nowt to do with laws, governments and the like. If the media discovered they'd let him off they would be all over it like a dog with a baby. "Paedo set free by courts" "Do you want YOUR children reading THIS?" "This man could be near your children!"

Obviously these 7 books are perfectly representative of ALL the manga in the world, just like Overfiend and La Blue girl are good examples of all the anime out there. If the media thought that claiming all anime was tenticle sex and rape would get them readers they'd go for it. And they have in the past.
 
In my view, if any media portrays children - animated or not - engaging in sexual acts for the purpose of titillating the audience, that material should be illegal. If it is clearly not an adult and it's meant to sexually arouse the audience, it shouldn't exist.

If the individual who holds that material doesn't own that material for that purpose or is just merely collecting it as part of a greater collection (as Handley asserts), then no problem. Just throw the stuff away or hand it to the police once you do realise or maybe you're doing research so you can get permission from proper authorities etc - problem solved. In principle, I just disagree with the existence of material like that.

However, there are questions I personally have about the case. Not burning questions - I don't think I give enough of a damn about this otaku with no goddamn sense.

Whether or not the characters are children is one thing that will need to be established. Anime/manga have a tendency to blur the lines between adults and children quite often. Think about the sheer number of moe characters that look like kids but are supposed to be 17 or whatever. Also, whether or not prison is the appropriate action for someone who has not yet harmed an actual person either directly or indirectly is another question that would need to be answered. Another interesting question thrown up by the attorney himself is whether the laws in place are actually adequate for dealing with a case like this in the first place.

What does annoy me and seriously makes me lose sympathy for the case is when people start throwing around words like 'freedom of speech' and 'oppressive majorities' and 'everyone who is against Handley is a Bible Bashing neo-con!' Our freedoms are important, but you know, so are our duties. It's about striking a balance. In the end, I'd just like to know why there are people in the world drawing such crap and why there are people in the world collecting them?
 
VivisQueen said:
In my view, if any media portrays children - animated or not - engaging in sexual acts for the purpose of titillating the audience, that material should be illegal. If it is clearly not an adult and it's meant to sexually arouse the audience, it shouldn't exist.
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But why? And duties to whom? The drawings?
 
VivisQueen said:
In the end, I'd just like to know why there are people in the world drawing such crap and why there are people in the world collecting them?
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Because like it or not there are, have always been and probably always will be paedophiles. And I think it's better if that stays in their own heads and fictional depictions than translates into real sex crimes.

What does annoy me and seriously makes me lose sympathy for the case is when people start throwing around words like 'freedom of speech' and 'oppressive majorities' and 'everyone who is against Handley is a Bible Bashing neo-con!' Our freedoms are important, but you know, so are our duties. It's about striking a balance.
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The freedoms / duties thing is an interesting one. What I consider freedom is being able to live your life however you want as long as you are not causing actual harm to other real people. Anything I am personally compelled to do for the good of others, I suppose you could call duty. Mainly this would be helping friends, relatives and even strangers if and when they require it. I don't consider myself duty bound to limit my own freedom for the benefit of 'other' people who think it's a good idea, whom I neither know nor like. The whole idea of duty to society means nothing to me. There are 'my' people who I have some concern for, feel some sense of attachment and obligation to, and who I am likely to listen to. Then there is everybody else, who can do what they like as long as they don't start telling me what to do.
 
ayase said:
The freedoms / duties thing is an interesting one. What I consider freedom is being able to live your life however you want as long as you are not causing actual harm to other real people.
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Out of interest, do you include Mental harm?

I mean, would you say, for example, it should be legal to have sex in public in the middle of the town/city? Or would you agree that the detrimental affect it would have on children, and the freedom of others not having to witness it are being breached in you doing so?
 
That's a tough one. I'd question why it should have a detrimental effect on others, though there's no question that it does. Personally, that's not something I would like to see it at the moment (though if I had a decent sex life, it's likely I wouldn't care) but if no-one's forcing me to watch then I could go somewhere else just as I can when they play **** music in shops - That has a detrimental effect on me but I don't demand that they stop for my benefit.

I don't think being aware of sex is bad for children though, quite the contrary. Prominent people in academic and medical fields have said for a while that teaching children about sex earlier would (amongst other positive outcomes) help protect them from child abuse as they would understand what was going on and be more likely to stop or report it.

But as for mental harm such as bullying, blackmail or stalking I'd definitely include that in any definition of what people shouldn't be free to do.
 
Godot said:
ayase said:
The freedoms / duties thing is an interesting one. What I consider freedom is being able to live your life however you want as long as you are not causing actual harm to other real people.
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Out of interest, do you include Mental harm?

I mean, would you say, for example, it should be legal to have sex in public in the middle of the town/city? Or would you agree that the detrimental affect it would have on children, and the freedom of others not having to witness it are being breached in you doing so?
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I don't think anyone is suggesting Handley should have free reign to project his loli manga on some publically visible billboard.
 
ayase said:
I don't think being aware of sex is bad for children though, quite the contrary.
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lol, I'm not saying them being aware of sex is bad, but seeing two people going at it in the middle of the street can't be good lol. When these people are talking about children being made aware of sex, i'm hoping they mean through the use of a diagram or something, lol.


ilmaestro said:
I don't think anyone is suggesting Handley should have free reign to project his loli manga on some publically visible billboard.
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Sorry brah, but I don't see where I said that? I asked ayase about public sex, he answered me.

See what happened was, ayase was talking about restrictions on freedom, and that if something doesn't cause "Actual harm" to other "real" people, it should be allowed. I was questioning to him whether that should include "Mental harm". So, to make that clearer for him, I gave a little example.

This was entirely me inquiring as to what ayase's beliefs are. Is something wrong with that?

But, lets say ayase said "If it causes mental harm, it isn't actual harm at all", it would be feasible to assume he would, as you said, suggest that "Handley should have free reign to project his loli manga onto a publically visible board". However, ayase didn't answer so, so you are correct, no one is assuming that. Yet...
 
ilmaestro said:
VivisQueen said:
In my view, if any media portrays children - animated or not - engaging in sexual acts for the purpose of titillating the audience, that material should be illegal. If it is clearly not an adult and it's meant to sexually arouse the audience, it shouldn't exist.
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But why? And duties to whom? The drawings?
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I will admit, my argument is not so much in strict adherence to human rights theory etc as it is just a personal ramble about my thoughts and views. However, I can clarify a couple of points.

When we talk about rights and corresponding duties, this is what is meant:

I have a right not to be tortured.

You therefore have a duty not to waterboard me, screw my thumbs, rip out my fingernails, lock me up in a dark room etc.

There is truth in the fact that in owning those mangas, Handley isn't directly harming an actual person. But I wonder about the general rights of children not to be depicted and legitimised as sexual objects. The depictions may not be of real children, but they are of children being sexually abused, raped, degraded, and tortured. This might not harm an actual child in the moment, but the creation and publication of such material will have knock-on effects e.g. it encourages a morally wrong attitude towards children and it may lead to people acting on it.

It's not absolutely true in every case (I don't adhere to the hypodermic syringe model of media influence). I mean, lots of people watch porn but don't then go and reenact those scenes. But pornography, real or animated, has been shown to lead to the debasement and objectification of women in the eyes of society in a general sense.

So, it does depend on what you consider real harm of actual people. I don't think media should always have artistic value but there still has to be an element of social responsibility. I can't say for certain where and when and how, but I know it has to be there.

I'll also reveal my bias. I'm in West Africa as I type this volunteering for a women and children's rights organisation. I'm going to sit in a case conference this afternoon. I don't know how many more stories about physical, sexual, and psychological abuse of women and children I'll be hearing. This organisation is constantly fighting for the rights and freedoms of children using domestic and international human rights law. For some pratt to get caught with virtual depictions of child abuse for entertainment and try to argue on the basis of those same laws for his 'freedom of speech' just makes me roll my eyes.

NB: The above doesn't touch on how such cases should be handled legally, but it explains why I couldn't give a flying f*** what happens to him.
 
VivisQueen said:
...lots of people watch porn but don't then go and reenact those scenes. But pornography, real or animated, has been shown to lead to the debasement and objectification of women in the eyes of society in a general sense.
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I've heard this before and to some extent I do agree with it. But (and this could get interesting) why do you, or anyone else for that matter, think pornography exists? Why is there demand for it? I have my own thoughts on this but I'd be interested to hear others' first.
 
I think that question probably needs a new thread. But I'll answer briefly because it is an interesting one.

The existence of erotic material has been around since time immemorial. Despite sex being as common an act as breathing, I think it remains more interesting because religion and social 'rules' give it an air of the 'forbidden'. And because it feels good. Pornography in videos and mags are just one cheap, quick-fix form of erotic material. However, it is not so incidental that pornography and erotic material is predominantly geared towards satisfying male sexual desire at the expense of women. And that's my main problem with it.
 
That last sentence is what I find the most interesting. Why should it be that a lot of pornography is misogynistic? I don't like that aspect of pornography at all, but I can't help but feel that it's prevalence has something to do with the predominant attitudes of each gender to sex. It seems to me that men gain enjoyment from it because they see themselves as victims of women in the first place, due to the fact that they are not having as much real sex as they would like. Let's face it; No-one would need pornography at all if everyone was sexually fulfilled.

I'm not saying that this is the fault of either sex, but the (usual) difference in sex drive between genders definitely plays a part in views of pornography. For many women pornography may seem misogynistic (and not without good reason) but for men I feel it's an outlet the modern, real world of sex and relationships is not allowing them. You'll get no argument from me that the content of much real and drawn pornography is anti-women and I'd rather it wasn't; But I think that the feelings which drive men to create and consume such material must come from rejection by, or negative experiences with, women in real life.

This is probably going way off topic and is a bit of a heavy discussion to drag a new member into (sorry) but sex and gender based questions fascinate me. The thread may be split, but we're pioneers of the epic thread here ;)

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