Lodwig,

My position has always been that Harris was treated fairly in this matter. There is no evidence that those critical to the final outcome were in anyway prejudiced against him. Much of your argument in support of Harris is to read into, or speculate, that what is, is other than so. If you interfere with child, and in Harris's case it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt, you can question the verdict if you wish, then you suffer the consequences, end of story. You are yet to provide anything regarding the conduct of the trial or anything in the judges finding that is contradictory to the actual final outcome, Harris getting a sentence of 5 years and 9 months. If the judge had ordered Harris be taken out and hung, I would think that would be an extreme sentence and something not deserving, but the judge did not do that.
You said, in reference to the judge saying I AM SURE, he could have meant I am NOT sure, really typified your line of argument, it become nonsensical in the extreme. If an adult molests a child, then they are guilty of a crime in our society. It is immaterial as to what the child said or did at the time of molestation. The actions of the adult is criminal, nothing less. To give an analogy a bank robbery, if the teller hands the money over at the point of a gun, does it lessen the crime than if the robber had forceably took the money? No it does not.

Poirot, I've just read Ludwig's last post, and it dawned on me that he possesses an EXTREMELY manipulative, obsessive nature.

The result is that Ludwig obsessively manipulates every little twist and turn and spins it in a way that, in his mind, enables him to feign a high moral ground.

Imagine what it would be like to live with a man like that. We are lucky that we know him only through the anonymous internet. Manipulative men like that usually leave a trail of destruction in their personal lives.

Fortunately that is unlikely to be a problem, Jay123.

>>Imagine what it would be like to live with a man like that.<<

Here's Ludwig's opinion on the "horizontal tango", in his own words.

>>I’d rather be a single, free, non-HTist, nomadic beachbum who’s right into jogging, bushwalking and other good exercise... Nah… that old horizontal tango is very easy to beat in terms of adrenalin rush, endorphin-generation, health and wellbeing.<<

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6382#189223

I suspect you would not be trampled in the rush to live with someone with that attitude to one of life's most delightful activities.

Ludwig "Poirot, there is such an enormous difference between you, R0bert and Paul."

Don't back me into a corner on that one, the differences may not be all that great. I hope my success in trying to keep my part of this discussion relatively civil has not been misconstrued as any kind of support for views you have posted here.

I generally try pretty hard to keep dialog civil (with occasional exceptions), this topic is not one that I have any great personal stake so perhaps its been somewhat easier for me than for Poirot to treat this all a little more casually. I've never to my knowledge been close to any child sexual abuse so there are no significant emotional triggers for me in this.

To be clear, I think you have done something quite different in this thread to exploring some what if's. Apart from all the what if's being in Harris's favor your repeated attempts to claim some mitigation by way of "consent" demonstates a massive lack of understanding of why we have laws about age of consent and the treatment of Harris groping even younger children as minor breaches disgusts me.

I don't know if its the life choices quoted earlier by Pericles that makes you so oblivious to the great harm done by vermin such as Harris and why your idea of consent in relation to some of those actions is so utterly flawed but suspect it could be significant. Maybe you just have not had enough closeness to childhood development as an adult responsible for the child to understand.

R0bert

Ludwig, I concur with what R0bert has said. I agree with Poirot, that you have not been a neutral thinker on this subject at all. I will freely admit I can not find any mitigating circumstances for good old Rolf. I could not find any common ground with what you had to say.
I will say once more, Harris is not the worse pedophile ever discovered, that is obvious, but by saying that I cannot support Harris in anyway. He has been treated accordingly, got his 5 years and 9 months. end of story.

Well that’s a very useful and and relevant contribution to this debate Pericles…. NOT!

That’s tangential in the extreme to the subject at hand. Talk about being desperate to find something to use as a put-down.

And, what on earth is wrong with this if I choose to live in this way? …

>> I’d rather be a single, free, non-HTist, nomadic beachbum who’s right into jogging, bushwalking and other good exercise... Nah… that old horizontal tango is very easy to beat in terms of adrenalin rush, endorphin-generation, health and wellbeing. <<

What a silly post, from one who is clearly not interested in the subject at hand enough to actually be involved in the debate.