I watched one of your videos about children homesteading their bodies as they grow up so a parent doesn’t need the consent of their baby to kiss him/her. I also heard you say that pedophilia should be/stay illegal because the child cannot consent to the activity. I was wondering why sex should be treated any differently than kissing or hugging when it comes to babies, the baby wouldn’t object, and if he/she did you could stop. You also have stated in the past that parental guardians have a responsibility to care for their child, if that is so and a family is poor wouldn’t it be fine for them to prostitute their baby as long as the baby doesn’t feel any pain or discomfort?
Thanks for your important questions. For my response, see below.
In my view, kissing a baby, cuddling a baby, holding a baby, is good for the baby. Having sex with the baby is child abuse, a criminal activity. It matters not one iota whether the baby objects to this evil act. The only exception I make is that if it is absolutely necessary to save the baby’s life, then it would be permissible to have sex with a baby. Better a harmed but alive baby then a dead one. I think this is a crucial element of good guardianship of the baby: keep him alive at all costs. “Death before dishonor” might work for adults (even there I prefer life) but for children, no.
I don’t think the libertarian legal code requires the parent to take care of their child. If they do not wish to care for him, they may bring him to the orphanage, the church, the temple, the hospital, etc. However, they do have a legal obligation to do that, and not merely to leave their baby alone and let him starve. That would be murder in my view. How do I reconcile this responsibility to bring the baby to others who will care for him (orphanage, etc.)? I do so with a highly convoluted analysis involving the “Blockian proviso” as Stephan Kinsella characterized it (while rejecting it). On this proviso, a critique of John Locke, see below. But my bottom line is that libertarian law must be able to have its cake and eat it to. We must insist that the parent who no longer wishes to be the guardian has one last obligation to the baby: to bring it to someone else who will care for him. And, also, we must maintain that this does not violate one of libertarian’s most basic premises: there are no positive obligations, none whatsoever. Otherwise, we are put in the horrid position of defending positive rights.
Block, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2010A, 2010B, 2011; Block and Whitehead, 2005; Epstein vs Block, 2005
Block, Walter E. 2001. “Stem Cell Research: The Libertarian Compromise.” September 3; https://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block5.html
Block, Walter E. 2003. “Libertarianism vs. Objectivism; A Response to Peter Schwartz,” Reason Papers, Vol. 26, Summer, pp. 39-62; http://www.reasonpapers.com/pdf/26/rp_26_4.pdf Nambla, child sexuality, child abuse
Block, Walter E. 2004. “Libertarianism, Positive Obligations and Property Abandonment: Children’s Rights,” International Journal of Social Economics; Vol. 31, No. 3, pp 275-286; http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContainer.do?containerType=Issue&containerId=18709; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-children.pdf
Block, Walter E. 2008. “Homesteading, ad coelum, owning views and forestalling.” The Social Sciences. Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 96-103; http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1890872
Block, Walter E. 2010A. “A libertarian perspective on the stem cell debate: compromising the uncompromisible,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Vol. 2
http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/jhq033?
ijkey=oczT7ytzmoAD1cz&keytype=ref; http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jhq033?ijkey=oczT7ytzmoAD1cz&keytype=ref
Block, Walter E. 2010B. “Van Dun on Freedom and Property: A Critique” Libertarian Papers; Vol. 2, No. 4; http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/4-block-van-dun-on-freedom-and-property/
Block, Walter E. 2011. “Terri Schiavo: A Libertarian Analysis” Journal of Libertarian Studies; Vol. 22, pp. 527–536; http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_26.pdf; http://libertycrier.com/walter-block-terri-schiavo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LibertyCrier+%28Liberty+Crier%29
Block, Walter E. and Roy Whitehead. 2005. “Compromising the Uncompromisable: A Private Property Rights Approach to Resolving the Abortion Controversy,” Appalachian Law Review, 4 (2) 1-45; http://www.walterblock.com/publications/block-whitehead_abortion-2005.pdf; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-whitehead_abortion-2005.pdf; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228125532_Compromising_the_Uncompromisable_A_Private_Property_Rights_Approach_to_Resolving_the_Abortion_Controversy?ev=prf_pub
Epstein, Richard vs. Walter E. Block, 2005. “Debate on Eminent Domain.” NYU Journal of Law & Liberty, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 1144-1169
http://www.nyujll.org/articles/Vol.%201%20No.%203/Vol.%201%20No.%203%20-%20Block%20and%20Epstein.pdf
