Ask500

Oh god. Please. No. Asking this question on the internet is like covering yourself in meat and rolling around in a fire ant nest.

As an aside, the term 'pro-life' is almost insulting in the way it implies everyone else must be 'anti-life' or 'pro-death'. As soon as such stupid binary propaganda is used any chance of actual debate disappears.

Looking at the ranges for response that are offered is a very telling indictment on the state of reading in society. If only people would read more the world would be a much better place...

I hope you can see, however, society's problem with asinine questions like this.

I can't see what this question is really trying to answer; is it trying to assess support of a general philosophical point, or is it actually trying to explore a real legal issue.

This thread makes me glad for the fact that, by and large, the law is protected from the foolishness of the masses; how can a child pass the mens rea requirement?

While I cannot speak for the US model, the Australian model balances the need to redress crime with the youth of the offender. Roughly speaking, doli incapax absolves all criminal responsibility for people under 10; from 14 there exists a rebuttable presumption of no responsibility, and generally until the age of 18 offenders are tried as juveniles, with different punishments, etc, available to the courts.

Chipmonk, I must address your uncharacteristically illogical statement; a child may read 'adult' literature, watch an 'adult' movie (I do not mean pornography, but rather anything not explicitly targeted at children), eat adult food, but does that mean the child somehow should be classified as an adult? The biological and psychological fact is that children are distinctly different from adults, and to treat them as similar would be to severely impinge upon discretion, one of the core elements of criminal law.

The thoughts of the catholic church, or any other religious body, are entirely irrelevant to law.

It's about as useful as snake oil is at curing cancer.

I jump in them, both feet first.

No. Violent entertainment predates history. It's silly to think just because it's interactive it somehow encourages violence. If people are presupposed to mentally instability and violence they will do so regardless of how they amused themselves.

One mans kinky is another mans bread and butter.

Try running Kites.

A weak attempt at sophistry.