Incest a 'fundamental right', German committee says

[Berkut]

If you take any two people anywhere, there is likely an imbalance of power between them of some kind or another. One will have more money, more charisma, be better looking, have more confidence, whatever.

So what? Why is there being an imbalance of power necessarily reason to suppose that the person on the short end of that measure suddenly doesn't have a right anymore to make their own choices? That just makes any theoretical imbalance that much worse - now we assume that people have even LESS power, because we take away their ability to exercise their own personal liberty by demanding that they now no longer even have the power to make choices themselves.

It is completely ridiculous. There are some power imbalances we recognize as being problematic and worthy of restriction to varying degrees because the exercise of that power can not only harm those involved, but it actually harms others as well. It isn't just about the power a boss has over a employee, it is also about how that destroys the work environment for others as well - there are other victims involved. But even at that we recognize that there are still situations where in fact it could be ok, and hence we demand that the particulars of each case be evaluated.

Not so in this case - we are going to ban it a priori, and the particulars do not matter. There are so many counter-examples that it is trivial to show that this is not about biology, or power, or anything other than people saying "Incest is yucky! It should be illegal because it is oh so very yucky!"

We tolerate all kinds of relationships between people who have varying levels of power over one another, and we routinely allow people to have children who will have radically increased chances of having a child with birth defects compared to the norm.

This is just standard societal immaturity slowly being weened away as humans slowly become more rational and less religious.

This is a true "conservative" issue.

What part of this rant would not apply to the laws against pedophilia? Yet you claim to support those.

I think I've made that very clear.

Pedophilia has a clear and obvious victim, and the definition of a child exists outside the crime in question, and the very nature of what we consider to be a "child" includes their inability to make adult decisions, hence this interference by society is of a completely different kind - indeed, as a actual libertarian I think protecting the freedom of children from being preyed upon by adults is an expression of liberal ideals.

Protecting adults from other adults when we cannot even define who the "victim" of the crime is does not even remotely compare.

Tell me Malthus, when two adult people have sex with one another, and they are cousins or something, who is the victim? Both of them? Who is the criminal? Both of them? Who is the aggrieved party?

The answer, of course, by the current law, is that they are BOTH criminals, and the "victim" is...nobody. It is the sense of moral outrage by society that defines the crime, there isn't any victim at all. They both should go to jail, or pay the fine, or whatever.

I submit that anytime you have a law that defines all parties to an act as criminal, and no party to the act (even indirectly) as the victim, it is probably not a very good law, and is likely a direct affront to personal liberty.

[Berkut]

Banning siblings from having sex, on that I agree with Berkut. Banning them from having children? That seems much more valid.

Only if you are also going to ban women over, say, 39 from having children as well.

[Zanza]

Banning them from having children? That seems much more valid.

Words written on paper don't actually work as a contraceptive.

And physically enforcing such a "ban" by coercive sterilizations or abortions is obviously illegal under our constitution and unethical under the values that are the foundation of our society.

[Zanza]

I find the argumentation of the ethics council compelling and think the law making incest illegal should be revoked.

[Tamas]

Banning them from having children? That seems much more valid.

Words written on paper don't actually work as a contraceptive.

True. Anyways, this is something that a lot of animals also instinctively despise and avoid. It may very well be needless to ban, as people wouldn't do it even if it was legal, but the same can be said of, say, hard drugs.

[Zanza]

True. Anyways, this is something that a lot of animals also instinctively despise and avoid. It may very well be needless to ban, as people wouldn't do it even if it was legal, but the same can be said of, say, hard drugs.

That's actually why the economic angle of "the state must support them" doesn't matter for the discussion as incest is extremely rare and even if it was allowed I wouldn't really expect it to become more common as very few humans are so inclined anyway.

[grumbler]

In addition to deliberately placing a burden on society in the form of retarded and deformed children virtually no incestuous relationships can in any way be considered healthy, not to mention truly consensual. Family relationships are pre-fucked up by their nature and will by their nature always be coercive abusive in some sense, even if that is just in the mind of one of the parties.

I'd estimate that a much higher proportion of drivers are capable of operating their vehicles safely above the speed limit or consume pot in a non-detrimental manner than incestuous couplings can be normal and healthy.

This is why adoptive incest and homosexual incest are bad in all the same ways with the exception of the reproductive defects.

You've convinced me....

that the other side is right.  Your arguments are purely argument by assertion.

[Berkut]

True. Anyways, this is something that a lot of animals also instinctively despise and avoid. It may very well be needless to ban, as people wouldn't do it even if it was legal, but the same can be said of, say, hard drugs.

That's actually why the economic angle of "the state must support them" doesn't matter for the discussion as incest is extremely rare and even if it was allowed I wouldn't really expect it to become more common as very few humans are so inclined anyway.

Indeed.

While I will argue vehemently that this should NOT be illegal, I will also argue rather vehemently that banging your siblings is fucking revolting, and in the vast majority of cases is probably indicative of something pretty fucked up going on.

[Tamas]

True. Anyways, this is something that a lot of animals also instinctively despise and avoid. It may very well be needless to ban, as people wouldn't do it even if it was legal, but the same can be said of, say, hard drugs.

That's actually why the economic angle of "the state must support them" doesn't matter for the discussion as incest is extremely rare and even if it was allowed I wouldn't really expect it to become more common as very few humans are so inclined anyway.

Yes, although I think if we decide to go full libertarian, there are several other less radical and controversial steps first (prostitution and drugs are good example), mostly because of what Viking said: it is extremely hard to judge if incest is coerced or not.

[Zanza]

This is the law in question.

Section 173
Incest

(1) Whosoever performs an act of sexual intercourse with a consanguine descendant shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.

(2) Whosoever performs an act of sexual intercourse with a consanguine relative in an ascending line shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine; this shall also apply if the relationship as a relative has ceased to exist. Consanguine siblings who perform an act of sexual intercourse with each other shall incur the same penalty.

(3) Descendants and siblings shall not be liable pursuant to this provision if they were not yet eighteen years of age at the time of the act.

[grumbler]

True. Anyways, this is something that a lot of animals also instinctively despise and avoid.

Animals don't "despise" anything - that is pure anthropomorphism.  Some animals do tend to choose to have offspring with the mate genetically furthest from them (and have mechanisms to determine that), but others have no such mechanism or process. 

It may very well be needless to ban, as people wouldn't do it even if it was legal, but the same can be said of, say, hard drugs.

The issue isn't one of whether it is worth the state's time to ban something.  The issue is whether the state's monopoly on banning things should be extended to things that the state wants to ban because some people think it is icky.  That nasty little concept called "freedom" says it should not.

[Zanza]

Yes, although I think if we decide to go full libertarian, there are several other less radical and controversial steps first (prostitution and drugs are good example)

Prostitution is already fully legal in Germany. I would agree to legalize some soft drugs, not sure about the hard ones. But I guess that's for another thread. 

mostly because of what Viking said: it is extremely hard to judge if incest is coerced or not.

How is it harder than other cases of sexual coercion?

[derspiess]

Animals don't "despise" anything - that is pure anthropomorphism. 

Next you'll probably tell us that nature doesn't abhor a vacuum

[Barrister]

You knoow I started a reply a couple of different times, but I simply don't have the energy today to argue with the internet libertarian brigade, nor do I want it explained to me that because I don't think blood relations should have sex means "I don't truly understand liberty".

[Martinus]

You knoow I started a reply a couple of different times, but I simply don't have the energy today to argue with the internet libertarian brigade, nor do I want it explained to me that because I don't think blood relations should have sex means "I don't truly understand liberty".

It could also mean that you have no sensible arguments other than your "yuk" factor.