Sun, 30 May 2010 19:40:01 GMT
Around the Web there is a lot of tattle now about the conviction of Jörg Tauss. From people talking about a pervert that hasnt got the punishment he would deserve to people ranting about it being a political judgement in the "unjust state germany".
I dont want to comment on this too much - shortly said, I dont think that Jörg Tauss is a pervert, but I also see the lose-lose-situation for the judge in this court because of the public attention to it.
According to the TAZ, the judges didnt convict him for being pedophile. Thus, he had child pornography, but not for the sake of his sexual excitement. Ok, one question: In what sense is this so relevant to the people? Of course, if he was a pedophile, then he would have been forced to get a treatment, but thats none of the public's business. I dont see any moralic point of view that would make the possession of child pornography worse when being a pedophile. Pedophily is a mental disease, a pedophile person collecting child pornography does this for a malfunction in his brain. A person illegally collecting child pornography without being pedophile may do this for curiosity (which is what - according to the article above - is what they impute Tauss) which is morally equal, if not even worse than doing this because of a disease.
So now a lot of newspapers expatiate on this topic since the conviction. I also wonder why. Its not that anything new is known which wasnt known months ago. Tauss never denied the possession of child pornography and justified it with the necessity to investigate on this topic as part of his work as a congressman. One may believe this or not, but I dont see a point in changing ones point of view just because a judge and two (?) jurymen decided not to believe his story. The role of a judge is to do adjudication as good as possible, not to be an omniscient oracle.
Actually, to me it seems like they believed his story, or at least they left it open, but convicted him anyway because being a congressman doesnt give the right to do such investigations anyway. The possession of child pornography is allowed if its necessary for the performance of ones duties, and - as far as I understand the above article (I havent read the actual verdict, since I am not a jurist anyway) - the court just decided that in this case it wasnt necessary.
Anyway, the court's decision may have a meaning for his treatment by the state, but not for my opinion on Tauss - as I said, I dont see any new facts which appeared during the court. In my opinion he is not a pervert, because if he was his primary intention would have been to get gratification and he certainly wouldnt have gotten involved in this political topic so much. In my opinion, he is also not just a curios person who just wanted to try out and see some pictures - no congressman would risk his political career doing a crime which is currently politically discussed just for curiosity. So yes, I believe that he tried to do investigations, but of course in a rather moronic way without any validation - which is why he got a slap in the face.
Even though he is traded as some sort of redeemer by many internet rights activists, especially members of the pirate party, I see that his eloquence was vital to some recent debates on this topic, but on other topics he is just like any other congressman. And of course, I think it was a good decision by him to resign from the pirate party. This makes me think of him as a much more honest person than some other politicians (I dont want to give names now), and in opposition to them, he really tried to understand what he is talking about instead of pushing doubtful and anticonstitutional laws.
The reason why this post is in english rather than in german is that I want to prevent it from being commented by the mob of worried housewifes and bar-room-intellectuals, which are currently invading the comment threads of several websites (while presumably drinking coffee harvested by children on insecticide-contaminated plantations, and typing into their laptops containing tantalum extracted by enslaved child-miners and mercury extracted from toxic waste, also by children ...).
I dont want to comment on this too much - shortly said, I dont think that Jörg Tauss is a pervert, but I also see the lose-lose-situation for the judge in this court because of the public attention to it.
According to the TAZ, the judges didnt convict him for being pedophile. Thus, he had child pornography, but not for the sake of his sexual excitement. Ok, one question: In what sense is this so relevant to the people? Of course, if he was a pedophile, then he would have been forced to get a treatment, but thats none of the public's business. I dont see any moralic point of view that would make the possession of child pornography worse when being a pedophile. Pedophily is a mental disease, a pedophile person collecting child pornography does this for a malfunction in his brain. A person illegally collecting child pornography without being pedophile may do this for curiosity (which is what - according to the article above - is what they impute Tauss) which is morally equal, if not even worse than doing this because of a disease.
So now a lot of newspapers expatiate on this topic since the conviction. I also wonder why. Its not that anything new is known which wasnt known months ago. Tauss never denied the possession of child pornography and justified it with the necessity to investigate on this topic as part of his work as a congressman. One may believe this or not, but I dont see a point in changing ones point of view just because a judge and two (?) jurymen decided not to believe his story. The role of a judge is to do adjudication as good as possible, not to be an omniscient oracle.
Actually, to me it seems like they believed his story, or at least they left it open, but convicted him anyway because being a congressman doesnt give the right to do such investigations anyway. The possession of child pornography is allowed if its necessary for the performance of ones duties, and - as far as I understand the above article (I havent read the actual verdict, since I am not a jurist anyway) - the court just decided that in this case it wasnt necessary.
Anyway, the court's decision may have a meaning for his treatment by the state, but not for my opinion on Tauss - as I said, I dont see any new facts which appeared during the court. In my opinion he is not a pervert, because if he was his primary intention would have been to get gratification and he certainly wouldnt have gotten involved in this political topic so much. In my opinion, he is also not just a curios person who just wanted to try out and see some pictures - no congressman would risk his political career doing a crime which is currently politically discussed just for curiosity. So yes, I believe that he tried to do investigations, but of course in a rather moronic way without any validation - which is why he got a slap in the face.
Even though he is traded as some sort of redeemer by many internet rights activists, especially members of the pirate party, I see that his eloquence was vital to some recent debates on this topic, but on other topics he is just like any other congressman. And of course, I think it was a good decision by him to resign from the pirate party. This makes me think of him as a much more honest person than some other politicians (I dont want to give names now), and in opposition to them, he really tried to understand what he is talking about instead of pushing doubtful and anticonstitutional laws.
The reason why this post is in english rather than in german is that I want to prevent it from being commented by the mob of worried housewifes and bar-room-intellectuals, which are currently invading the comment threads of several websites (while presumably drinking coffee harvested by children on insecticide-contaminated plantations, and typing into their laptops containing tantalum extracted by enslaved child-miners and mercury extracted from toxic waste, also by children ...).