Debate Guide: State hypocrisy

We have noticed a number of "tells" re. this policy outlook being a moral scheme completely unrelated to safeguarding.

• Common wisdom would tell us that a sexual offense has a victim and a perpetrator. Criminalisation of youth details examples where both minors were treated as perpetrators and victims at the same time. If this were not a moral scheme to appease prejudice, wouldn't our reaction to such events be fundamentally different?

• The very same governments who "protect" and "safeguard" minors by denying them a variety of civil liberties will allow foreign children to be abused in waged slavery for their own economies' benefit, and will punish children in much the same way as an adult when they see fit. All it requires is for a "child" to behave in an offensive, adult like manner, and we categorize them as delinquent at an early age - often an inescapable circle of criminality. In many western developed countries, a child is potentially responsible for his decision to commit crime from the age of ten or even earlier. If capable of choosing to commit burglary or murder at 10, why not a sexual relationship?

• Politicians and officials repeatedly talk up "evidence based" policies, but then go on to make ludicrous appeals to the "protective instincts" of parents. They can't have it both ways; either the measures are a reactionary moral scheme or have some grounding in an evidence based approach to child welfare.

• If governments were genuinely concerned about "protecting children", they would also be concerned about the results of cyclical paternalism and the associated phenomana. Only, these are adverse consequences of interventionism, so naturally they avoid addressing it.