Saturday, June 03, 2006
Charity, Freedom and Diversity Party (NVD) .
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity Party in Holland has caused quite a stir this week in the media ...
The group, which is due to be registered this week, said it wants the consent age dropped from 16 to 12, before having it scrapped completely. It also proposes to make child pornography and sex with animals legal.
The move to set up the NVD Party (which says it stands for love of one's fellow man, freedom and diversity) has provoked condemnation from politicians, demands for a government ban and protests from the public on websites.
On its website, the party says children should legally be able to have sex from the age of 12 as long as they provide consent. The NVD says it also wants to introduce a quality mark for child pornography. An independent committee should judge if the children had been coerced.
The party also wants to abolish the Dutch Senate, introduce a chosen prime minister, legalise soft and hard drugs, as well as indecent exposure, and have two-time murderers automatically jailed for life.
... So what can I say about this new political party?
Well, the Dutch have always been viewed as liberal and pushing the boundaries within society. There are a lot of new political parties pushing popularist ideas today, playing on ignorance, hatred and the fear of terrorism. This is something different, not obsessed with fear of strangers but with the joy of life. It asks why our society should be constrained in ways that restrict our freedoms with no benefit to anyone. The website is no use to you unless you can read Dutch, so we can only debate what has been written in the English language newspapers.
The age of consent for sex is arbitrary. When is a person old enough to consent to sex? The age of consent varies around the world, what is illegal in one country is OK in another. If a country was to raise it's age of consent then some people could become criminals overnight. It would not make those people paedophiles or evil, just criminals because of a change in the details of the law. What right has Dutch society to stop their 15 year old citizens from consenting to sex? Would it be against their human rights?
Pornography is widely available on the internet. Providing the images were not made under coercion what harm does it do? Why should a computer user become a criminal just for viewing images in the privacy of his own home?
I know nothing about the Dutch political system to question the role of the Dutch Senate but I believe that legalising soft and hard drugs would be a way forward. People are going to use drugs, the drugs war has been lost. Criminal gangs should not be allowed to profit by fulfilling a market demand for drugs. The street price of drugs would then fall resulting in a drop of users committing crimes to fund their habit. Legalising drugs would free up Police resources to tackle real crime that affects people.
What is so indecent about the human body? It is no big deal to witness someone naked. It has never offended me to see someone naked and to treat men different to women is unjust. I have never complained whenever I have seen a naked women in any circumstance.
To have two-time murderers automatically jailed for life is right in my opinion.
This party has certainly woken up the Dutch to other issues and I wish them well.
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity Party in Holland has caused quite a stir this week in the media ...
The group, which is due to be registered this week, said it wants the consent age dropped from 16 to 12, before having it scrapped completely. It also proposes to make child pornography and sex with animals legal.
The move to set up the NVD Party (which says it stands for love of one's fellow man, freedom and diversity) has provoked condemnation from politicians, demands for a government ban and protests from the public on websites.
On its website, the party says children should legally be able to have sex from the age of 12 as long as they provide consent. The NVD says it also wants to introduce a quality mark for child pornography. An independent committee should judge if the children had been coerced.
The party also wants to abolish the Dutch Senate, introduce a chosen prime minister, legalise soft and hard drugs, as well as indecent exposure, and have two-time murderers automatically jailed for life.
... So what can I say about this new political party?
Well, the Dutch have always been viewed as liberal and pushing the boundaries within society. There are a lot of new political parties pushing popularist ideas today, playing on ignorance, hatred and the fear of terrorism. This is something different, not obsessed with fear of strangers but with the joy of life. It asks why our society should be constrained in ways that restrict our freedoms with no benefit to anyone. The website is no use to you unless you can read Dutch, so we can only debate what has been written in the English language newspapers.
The age of consent for sex is arbitrary. When is a person old enough to consent to sex? The age of consent varies around the world, what is illegal in one country is OK in another. If a country was to raise it's age of consent then some people could become criminals overnight. It would not make those people paedophiles or evil, just criminals because of a change in the details of the law. What right has Dutch society to stop their 15 year old citizens from consenting to sex? Would it be against their human rights?
Pornography is widely available on the internet. Providing the images were not made under coercion what harm does it do? Why should a computer user become a criminal just for viewing images in the privacy of his own home?
I know nothing about the Dutch political system to question the role of the Dutch Senate but I believe that legalising soft and hard drugs would be a way forward. People are going to use drugs, the drugs war has been lost. Criminal gangs should not be allowed to profit by fulfilling a market demand for drugs. The street price of drugs would then fall resulting in a drop of users committing crimes to fund their habit. Legalising drugs would free up Police resources to tackle real crime that affects people.
What is so indecent about the human body? It is no big deal to witness someone naked. It has never offended me to see someone naked and to treat men different to women is unjust. I have never complained whenever I have seen a naked women in any circumstance.
To have two-time murderers automatically jailed for life is right in my opinion.
This party has certainly woken up the Dutch to other issues and I wish them well.
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