@CJ Morgan: Of course, you'd have to identify yourselves and wear the public opprobrium that such a campaign would attract. Somehow I think that it's not going to happen.

Like you CJ, my nick is based on my real name. The only difference is I don't include the middle initial. Unlike you, I feely name my profession, and I name the city I live in (Brisbane).

If you think I would shy away from something like this, you are mistaken.

@CJ Morgan: Should the law and the community have to have waited until he raped yet another child, or should the precursor behaviour have been investigated?

Nope. The law in this case should have done exactly what it did do. The man is a convicted child rapist. So the law insisted he place space between himself and potential future victims. He didn't; he is back in jail - justice served. There is no need for a ban on taking pictures in public places to facilitate this.

It looks to me like yourself and others would like societies to protect you from your (entirely justifiable) phobias by placing a ban on anything that might remind you of them. You do this without any thought of what the consequences might be. So you happily rage on when a lobby group manages to get a few stories lopped off a high rise because paedophiles might peer down from the upper floors on the school ground below. You seem oblivious to fact the lobby group is a fruit of the very tree you so vigorously nourish here. It is eminently reasonable to get rid of all high rises around schools if you consider what might be running through the minds of the perverts in the upper floors a genuine concern that society should try to address.

I don't. I absolutely draw the line at making particular thoughts illegal - even thoughts that might be generated by looking at pictures. And for that, I make no apology.

rstuart - I'm glad you have the courage of your convictions. I'll watch your campaign with interest. However, you'll need to be a little less obtuse when you go public.

<< The law in this case should have done exactly what it did do. The man is a convicted child rapist. So the law insisted he place space between himself and potential future victims. He didn't; he is back in jail - justice served. There is no need for a ban on taking pictures in public places to facilitate this. >>

There isn't a ban on taking pictures in public places and nobody's proposing one. However, there is a law against indecently dealing with children under 12, and covertly taking pictures of naked children for sexual gratification is regarded by the law as a form of indecent dealing.

The pervert in question only came to attention because he was doing just that, and his conviction and custodial sentence for that charge were additional to his parole violations. If he hadn't been noticed taking pictures of naked kids it's unlikely his parole violations would have come to light.

You have every right to advocate for the rights of consumers and producers of child pornography, but if you're going to go public I suggest you sharpen your arguments.

Antiseptic - it's hardly wowserism to object to child pornography. I have no problems with the legality and availability of any pornography that only involves consenting adults, nor with artistic images of nude children. My objection is to the sexual exploitation of children.

I'm quite confident that most people in our society agree. You are quite free to campaign for child pornography to be legalised, but surely you aren't stupid enough to think that you wouldn't be reviled by most people if you do. I note that you don't display the same courage of your convictions as rstuart does.

Here's a test for you: go down to your local pub and announce that you think that people should be allowed to take pictures of naked children so they can get their rocks off.

@CJ Morgan: covertly taking pictures of naked children for sexual gratification is regarded by the law as a form of indecent dealing.

Is it? You might like to quote the statute that says it is because right now I think you are pulling that out of your bum.

You can read what makes taking pictures illegal in laymans terms here:

http://www.4020.net/words/photorights.php

In the actual Queensland statute here (it isn't big):

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/qld/consol_act/cc189994/s227a.html

In either case, I can see no reference to taking a photo being illegal because of how the contents might make you think or feel, even if that thought is sexual. In fact it isn't based on the feelings of person being photographed, or of the person taking the photograph. It is based on the privacy expectations of a "reasonable adult", obscenity, property and other laws unrelated to this discussion. These laws apply to you in exactly the same way they apply to paedophiles, even though the paedophile might be able to get off on a fairly innocuous child photograph. Thus a paedophile can take the same pictures of children you can, and get off on them later with impunity.

That is a pretty unpleasant thought. But most people realise it is better than the alternative - punishing thought crimes. You can only punish concrete actions. So you can't be put in jail for thinking you might kill someone, even if you bought the knife and wrote out a long plan on how you intended to go about it, and that was discovered. Equally, we can't punish someone for getting off on a picture of a child or taking a picture for that purpose. There has to be something else wrong with the picture, or the situation.

This idea of "you can't go to jail for just thinking something" is a pretty simple principle, really. It doesn't matter if it is really, really obvious you are thinking it, and it is really, really gross. We don't do it; the reason is obvious; and I am surprised anybody claiming to be a reasonable person would endorse it.

CJMorgan:"go down to your local pub and announce that you think that people should be allowed to take pictures of naked children so they can get their rocks off."

Why on earth would I do that? You're the poor chap who thinks that because he finds pictures of naked children titillating then no pictures of naked children should exist anywhere, even though most of the rest of society doesn't share his affliction. Give it up, little fella, most of us don't find naked children remotely exciting.

As rstuart has argued very convincingly and as you continue to exemplify, allowing the worst of human behaviour to determine the ways in which the rest of us may behave is nothing more than totalitarianism.

rstuart: << right now I think you are pulling that out of your bum. >>

Did you miss the bit in the report to which I linked about the paedophile being convicted of indecent dealing of a child under 12? The "indecent dealing" in this case is the covert photography of the little girl for the purposes of sexual gratification. He didn't do anything else to her.

You're so desperate to defend the indefensible that you're starting to appear thick, which isn't like you.

On the other hand,

Antiseptic: << Why on earth would I do that? >>

I thought you wanted to join rstuart's campaign to legalise child pornography.

<< You're the poor chap who thinks that because he finds pictures of naked children titillating then no pictures of naked children should exist anywhere >>

No need to tell porkies. I explicitly stated that I don't think that artistic images of naked children are necessarily pornographic. I'm talking about images where children are sexually exploited, as you well know.

CJ
Valiant efforts but you are flogging a dead horse.

Some quite startling views and misrepresentations. Such as the use of the high rise building scenario reveals a scraping of the bottom of the barrell to find the most ridiculous example of paranoia to use as the benchmark means you have already lost your case.