Amazon Defends Pedophile Book

[Donnageddon]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Morons who don't learn from the Streisand effect are doomed to fall victim to it.

All I got to say is Wholly Krap! Barbara had better build one big sea wall!

What was it the rest of you were discussing? Something about Harry Potter and Mark Twain yelling fire in a theater?

I am against it!

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by rogue_red

The argument isn't that this guy should not be allowed to have a penis. I think every man should be allowed a penis but that doesn't mean I advocate its misuse.

I have never met a penis that hasn't been misused, or at the least a tad abused.

[rogue_red]

Originally Posted by abookreader

okay - I see here in post #25 where you speak of Amazon's responsibility to help parent the internet



I see here in post #51, where you want Amazon to share the responsibility in keeping objectionable material out of the hands of kids by making sure they aren't able to download free samples.



and I see here in post #201 where you ask for a safe environment for children


So I again have to ask - who is going to dictate the confines of your safe environment that Amazon needs to apply to help co-parent our children.

Will your proposed ratings system be like our current Movie ratings system, where a human body can be mutilated and murdered 6 ways from Sunday and still earn nothing more than a PG 13..... but show a man's you know what and its an automatic NC-17?

As a parent, I find it a totally un-tenable proposition and rather unreasonable to expect Amazon to implement. Because again - they are not just selling to me with my white bread middle America Protestant values. They're selling to Japan for goodness sake! Have you ever seen the types of things Japanese men carry onto mass transit to read during their commute? I can pretty well guarantee that if Amazon were to try and impose my values on that they'd be laughed away.

..a man's you know what? It's a penis.

I don't care what Japanese men read on mass transit and it isn't even relevant.
I never suggested that Amazon should impose my values globally. I said they need to be a responsible retailer. And before you ask, no I will not outline how they ought to be responsible, whose definition of responsible will be used or any other silly questions.
How are such things normally decided? Voting? Polls? Why do you expect that this would be any different and why do I feel like I'm chasing my tail.
You don't have to agree with my views, I don't need the validation.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

i am all for free speech and i defend the right to freely talk without fearing puynishment for insulting someone. I do feel that political correctness thwarts much of the discussion and debate we should have as a free society.

But this book.... i can't stop feeling sick just by knowing there was or is someone with the perverse audacity to write and publish such a thing. It revolts me and makes me disbelieve a bit in some of my fellow citizens... you tell me it is just a book, but what a punch in my stomach.

I do feel that the limit of my tolerance has been tested with this thing.

And that is a good sign that it is time to fight for the authors write to write what he wants. When what someone else is saying or writing is so abhorrent to you and others are talking about taking away that persons voice, that is when you have to be able to stand and say no.

Today we are discussing a book that is clearly vile and disgusting. Tomorrow it could be a group of people wanting to ban Harry Potter from the local library or Huck Finn from the school library. It is not always clear that the material is vile and offensive.

I believe Amazon made a good business decision. The author is free to look for another venue to sell his book and people are free to boycott that vendor. The system worked just the way that it should.

[Worldwalker]

I'm seeing two positions here:

1) Books should not be interfered with unless they're really disgusting.

2) Books should not be interfered with, because rights are more important than disgust.

Strip away all the emotional baggage, and that's really what the positions come down to. The fact that children are involved increases the disgust level; it doesn't move it from non-disgusting to disgusting).

There is the fundamental problem: how disgusting does a book have to be before people move from category 2 (not for me) to category 1 (not for anyone)?

Some people have tried to load the people advocating category 2 with highly negative images: those people (me included) favor pedophilia, don't care if children are raped, have no empathy, etc. I believe that's highly untrue. I don't think the people who think that are any less disgusted by the book. From where I sit, it seems some people are thinking that the book is so awful that it fits into a special category, and even free-speech advocates should understand that.

The problem is, from our point of view, it doesn't. It's on a continuum of undesirable things. I haven't seen anyone here deny that it's a horrible book. What concerns the free-speech advocates is who gets to choose what is too horrible. It doesn't help, I suppose, that the emotional "this is awful" arguments are all on the other side. Freedom of speech isn't a position that can easily be expressed with emotion, and that is even more the case when the work testing that freedom is something we wouldn't touch with a barge pole. Again, despite the more fervent attacks, remember please that this is not a book that anyone here thinks is a good thing, or would want to read. It's not a good book, and the author is not a good person. But the advocates of free speech agree with John Stuart Mill: "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

It's not a comfortable position. I realize that a large percentage of the readers of this thread now believe that I personally advocate, or at least have no problems with, men raping babies. That could not be further from the truth. The book disgusts me. Its author disgusts me. The concepts discussed disgust me. The whole concept disgusts me. I wish the book had never been written. But it was written, and thereby hangs a problem.

The problem with "we decided the book is bad" is defining the we. The people who wrote the most letters? The people who shouted the loudest? The people who expressed the most emotion? People making their feelings heard have also opposed rights for gay people. Before that, rights for black people. Before that, rights for women. Before that, rights for certain sects of their own religion. There was a lot of emotion there. There was a lot of public outcry. There might, even, have been a solid majority believing believing that things should be that way; that views they disagreed with were just too horrible to permit. The problem is not that pedophilia will ever, even in some future world, be permitted, but that allowing the voice of the mob to say that writing on some subject should be prohibited allows that voice to say that writing on any subject they find revolting should be prohibited, and history has shown us that many subjects have been found revolting. That's where my comment about "the authority that can prohibit other people from reading things you find disgusting can prohibit you from reading things other people find disgusting" comes from.

Most of the people in MobileRead, being a self-selecting group, and certainly most of the people in this discussion, are very reasonable people. While it's not true elsewhere, it's true here that people who favor gay rights, for instance, don't wish to have the opposition silenced, and likewise those who oppose gay rights don't think the supporters should be unable to present their opinions. That isn't true everywhere, however. Elsewhere in the world, there are some people strongly holding one position or the other who want their voice to be the only one. On one side we have the religious fundamentalists, and on the other side the politically correct. I fear them both, and equally. Either one, if given control over the Amazon catalog, would leave it full of holes. They'd be different holes, but they'd be holes just the same. That's true of any contentious position.

It is not, in other words, that I give a tinker's damn about that book or its author. But it's not that simple, and it's not limited to that book. Look up a list of banned books sometime. Aside from the teacher who teaches her students to docilely obey the authorities and not read banned books, most of us would be shocked at some of what that list contains. If it's one that goes into the past, with dates, look at how many of the classics you were taught in school were at some point in their history banned because they outraged public morals. Had there been an Amazon in their day, there very well may have been an outcry against it selling their books.

I think we all believe that this book is horrible. The problem, however, is that there are people who believe other books are horrible, too -- books like Harry Potter, for instance. It's very, very hard to draw a line between "Amazon should react to an outcry over this book" and "Amazon shouldn't react to an outcry over that book." And it's not likely that we, the rational ones (and I mean nearly everyone in this discussion, not just those who agree with me), are going to be the ones to draw that line. Rationality whispers and emotionality screams, and the "Harry Potter teaches witchcraft!!!!" people have a lot more emotions, and a lot more drive.

In short, I think we, the population of MobileRead, could probably decide very well which books are too horrible to sell. But if we agree that it should be decided by public outrage, we won't be the ones doing the deciding. And the people who would be doing that deciding scare the living crap out of me.

[kennyc]

From 9News this morning:

http://www.9news.com/news/article.as...3034&catid=339

[pwalker8]

There are actually a number of issues here. First I agree that it's not the government's job to ban disgusting books and that the situation (consumers threatening a boycott and Amazon pulling the book) eventually worked out correctly. As a personal observation, only an absolute idiot would write or buy such a book. One may safely assume that various law enforcement officials will be quite interesting in who is actually buying that book. This particular subject matter is one of the more universal taboos in modern society and few people are particularly sympathetic towards anyone who would make use of such a book.

This particular book also brings up one of my pet peeves about Amazon, which is they do not exercise enough quality control over their ebook store. I generally only use Amazon when I'm looking for a specific book mostly because I hate wading through the mass of self published books and repackaged PD books trying to find ebooks that I am actually interested in. I would be much happier with the Amazon experience if they would either have two separate ebooks stores, one for regular publishers and the other for self publishers, or if they would at least allow you to filter that stuff out.

[Pookeysgirl]

Please excuse me. I'm not as eloquent as most posters here, but I have to put my 2 cents in.

This author should be shot. It absolutely disgusts me that there are so many people here that think that releasing a book like this is ok. I hope that the authorities are looking into this bastards background to find all the innocent children that he's abused.

To all of you that think this is an unimportant issue, you make me sick. And whoever it was that mentioned the genitalia of women in other countries being mutilated, do you think that doesn't happen here? What do you think happens to these poor little girls that raped by grown f***ing men?! Do you think we all came out of it unscathed? I still bear the scars of the abuse I suffered as a child and it's been over 20 years. They will NEVER go away. I was lucky to have been able to have children after the reconstructive surgery I had to have to put my uterus back where it was supposed to be. To where it was before my waking nightmare found me. And I know the kind of abuse I suffered goes on EVERY single day, to thousands of children.

As for anyone who thinks that this book won't cause one of these bastards to start raping children because they're going to do it anyway, how do you know what these monsters are thinking? What if this book IS the tipping point for him? And why should we sit idly by while this "author" promotes raping children and voices his opinion that there should be lighter sentences for these monsters?

I can be sued for calling a person a name because it "defames his character" but this guy can go on about raping a child and he should get away with that because he's supposed to have a right to say whatever the hell he wants?

Again, sorry, I'm not great at expressing my feelings, I can't always find the words I need, but I had to get that off my chest. I'm going to go throw up now.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

Please excuse me. I'm not as eloquent as most posters here, but I have to put my 2 cents in.

This author should be shot. It absolutely disgusts me that there are so many people here that think that releasing a book like this is ok. I hope that the authorities are looking into this bastards background to find all the innocent children that he's abused.

....

It is against forum rules to post calling for the killing of someone.

see my link above for information on the author and how he is having to be protected by the police.

[Pookeysgirl]

I apologize, I didn't realize it was against the rules. I was upset. Won't happen again.

[NetCat99]

Who the f*&# first claimed




censorship save children?

If censorship does it, sure we can start burning books.

But, it never saved anyone and never will.
Do you guys honestly believe sex offenders stop raping just because there are less porn and less how-to books on the matter?


You are raving mad to think banning books stop any crime!!
Some people would still do terrible things without books and video games!!
Try living a life as a jobless poor man with no pride, no dignity, no love, no prospect but enough brain to understand that things won't change for the rest of the life.
Just think!! would there be any reason not to rape in such case?
When dying or living doe not make any difference?
If you want to stop people committing crimes, then just either kill off all the wretched people or give them a life worth living...

And as to the fools who does what they read, well, if they didn't rape, they would do something as terrible anyways, so fix them up somehow...taking books away can't do any good.

Censoringbooks stops crimes IS A PURE FANTASY
If you never knew the above, you need to be fixed up somehow for having no imagination and brain.

Amazon's role is to protect the freedom of thought and publishing rights.
They provide the space where we all can sell and buy books and nothing else.
They are not the police.
They are not god.
They are not your nanny.

How on earth you want them to play the god that decides right and wrong?

[recluse]

It's not a smeone, kenny.
It's a something.

Less than rabid rats.

This is where you're losing the point.
To have rights, something must meet minimal humanity requirements.
Child molestors and their advocates do not.

[JLeighs]

Originally Posted by recluse

It's not a smeone, kenny.
It's a something.

Less than rabid rats.

This is where you're losing the point.
To have rights, something must meet minimal humanity requirements.
Child molestors and their advocates do not.

Yes. I'm not really sure why a self-described pedophile who writes a book teaching other pedophiles how to "properly" assault children should have any rights at all in our society.

[NetCat99]

Originally Posted by recluse

It's not a smeone, kenny.
It's a something.

Less than rabid rats.

This is where you're losing the point.
To have rights, something must meet minimal humanity requirements.
Child molestors and their advocates do not.

Hypocrisy
All men are pedophiles at the level of our instincts.
You believe our ancestors actually waited until they turn 20 before they start procrastinating?

We only pretend that we don't like girls younger than 20 because our society's ethical standards require us to behave that way.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by recluse

It's not a smeone, kenny.
It's a something.

Less than rabid rats.

This is where you're losing the point.
To have rights, something must meet minimal humanity requirements.
Child molestors and their advocates do not.

You are simply wrong this Recluse this is a person we are talking about. One who is currently under police protection because of threats from people like you.

I know exactly where your perspective on this is as you've attacked me over and over about it.

You are welcome to express your opinion, but you must also respect other people and their opinions.