Don't Shoot the Messenger: Confirming Robby Soave's Observation That it's Legal to Traffic Sixteen- and Seventeen-Year-Olds

     As comedian -turned- political commentator and podcast host Jimmy Dore has been remarking more and more often lately, "our country is full of the adult children of alcoholics, and the adult children of alcoholics tend to blame the person making them aware of a problem, instead of blaming the person who's the actual cause of the problem".

     Dore's comment seems to very accurately describe social media's reaction to Robby Soave's Twitter comments about the Matt Gaetz teenager-trafficking scandal.

     On April 1st, 2021, the New York Times and other sources reported that Matt Gaetz, a Republican U.S. congressman from Florida, is being investigated by the Justice Department for possibly trafficking a 17-year-old girl across state lines for the purposes of sex.

     Within a day or two of the Gaetz controversy breaking, Robby Soave, a writer and senior editor at the libertarian-leaning Reason magazine, tweeted in response to the scandal. His tweet read, "I really don't think Matt Gaetz committed [']sex trafficking['] even if he is guilty of exactly what the NYT describes. And in fact, the age of consent is 16 or 17 in the vast majority of states." A subsequent tweet of Soave's read, "Yes I am in fact a libertarian thank you for pointing that out".

     Soave's Twitter comments on the Gaetz scandal may seem insensitive, and it might seem like an obvious defense of trafficking teens for sex (and maybe even of pedophilia in general). Or maybe Soave is just "playing Devil's Advocate".

     But on the other hand, when Soave says "I really don't think Matt Gaetz committed [']sex trafficking['] even if he is guilty of exactly what the NYT describes", he might just mean that he personally thinks there is no merit to the reports about Gaetz.

     Still, it may seem insensitive that Soave would say that he doesn't think Gaetz is guilty "even if he is guilty of exactly what the NYT describes". It almost sounds like he's saying Gaetz is guilty and not guilty at the same time, which doesn't make sense.

     But in fact, what Robby Soave is saying about the law is 100% correct. Unfortunately, in the United States, it is currently legal to traffic teenagers across state lines, provided that they are sixteen years of age or older. This was the outcome of the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions.

     Thus, Robby Soave may appear to be defending pedophilia and child trafficking, but we cannot conclude, solely from these two tweets, whether he is doing so because of his own personal "ethics" (or lack thereof), or whether he is doing so in order to be on the correct side of the law.
     If it's the latter, then it is sad to consider what this means. In order to be on the correct side of the law, as it stands right now, we have to agree that trafficking sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds across state lines for the purposes of sex, is not a crime against anybody, in the eyes of federal law.
     The law is giving the American people (and especially the politicians and lawyers, and those who wish to become politically involved and taken seriously) no choice but to subjugate their own personal senses of morality regarding child protection, to that of the state. This will not do.

     I found Robby Soave's tweet in a Facebook group called "Communists v. Libertarians Debate Group". Soave's tweet was posted mockingly, by a member of that group.

     Shortly after the Matt Gaetz scandal broke, and Robby Soave made his comment on Twitter, I messaged the member who posted Soave's tweet, with the following message.

 

 

     Hey. Saw your post on Communists v. Libertarians about age of consent laws. Soave might have said what he said out of a desire to lower the age of consent, but he's factually correct.

     The case of Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions was a federal case that effectively lowered the age of consent in about 20 states, including Florida. This federal case effectively nullified the age of consent laws in those states.

     All federal sex trafficking is under federal jurisdiction, and therefore the states can't prosecute a guy who rapes a 17-year-old as long as he takes her out of state in the process. It's a fucked up situation.

     Unfortunately for some people's narrative, the Huffington Post and Jeff Sessions were on the right side of the issue. HuffPo for reporting the case ("Supreme Court unanimously overturns age of consent laws in 20 states") and Jeff Sessions for trying to prosecute Esquivel-Quintana, who traveled across state lines with a 17-year-old girl.

     I believe the girl was from California, it was some state where there was a 17 or 18 year age of consent. The Supreme Court found in Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions that the federal government's "generic federal age of consent" of 16, won out over the states' higher age of consent laws.

     I believe that we either need to let states prosecute traffickers who take minors from their states, or else we need a constitutional amendment setting the age of consent to 17 or 18 nationwide (because varying age of consent laws in each state will inevitably lead to movement of children for illicit purposes).

 

     Many critics of libertarians - and the critics of the Constitution - like to argue that the Constitution is a living document, and that therefore it should not be interpreted too rigidly or literally.

     But it's hard not to interpret the Constitution rigidly or literally, when the U.S. Code rigidly defines all of the legal terms used in constitutional and legal language.

     To say that we interpret the Constitution "too literally", is to admit that we are interpreting it accurately, without saying it out loud.

     The critics of those who interpret the Constitution accurately, and of those of us who read the law and accurately observe from it that teenagers may legally be trafficked across state lines in some circumstances, are thus in denial.

     I would advise that people on the left who want to protect children, should stop criticizing people for noticing the state of the law. Just like the first step of recovering from alcoholism is admitting that you have a problem - and just like Lao Tzu said you must understand your enemy in order to defeat him - it is impossible to change or improve the law, unless we first recognize and admit how bad it is.

     Libertarians do not consider it fun to have to point out hard truths about the sorry state of our government, like that trafficking teenagers is legal, and that it's legal to marry babies in ten states. But we still consider it our responsibility to inform the public about bad laws, despite the fact that, in payment for this, we have only been treated like the people who caused the problem, instead of being treated as the whistleblowers we are. [My video of Joe Biden pinching an 8-year-old girl's nipple live on C-SPAN, for instance, was removed from YouTube for "cyber-bullying and harassment".]
     To reiterate what C. Frederic Bastiat said about the critics of liberty: Our critics act as if our not wanting the state to raise grain, means that we don't want anyone to raise grain; that is hardly the case. What is good for the law is not always good for the people. Similarly, the set of behaviors that are criminally punishable don't always line up with what we morally believe should be the set of behaviors that are punishable. That is why we are having this conversation; because we want the law to line up with morality.

     So don't shoot the messenger. Blame the people who are actually responsible for twenty state age of consent laws going down in one fell swoop. Blame the attorneys who represented Mr. Esquivel-Quintana. If necessary, blame the political parties with whom those attorneys are associated. Hell, blame the people who wrote the federal age of consent law, and the definition of sex trafficking of a minor or ward.

     But don't blame Robby Soave; his comments were necessary.

     The acceptable legal defense for having sexual relations with a minor, is written into the law. Until we recognize that the age of consent is too low, and we raise it and make it uniform across the states, then the current federal law on trafficking minors will serve only as an instruction to traffickers about how to get away with their crimes.
     Until sex trafficking laws are reformed, the rights of children aged sixteen and seventeen, to be free from harm, will be at risk, and those who point out this problem will continue to be mocked into silence. And the federal law on trafficking a minor or ward will be right there, to make excuses for the situation.
     We have to make it illegal to traffic 17-year-olds across state lines, if we want sex traffickers - and people like Matt Gaetz (if he is guilty) - to be prosecuted. Expecting them to be prosecuted, when what they're doing is not yet illegal (and also no longer illegal, since 2017), is irrational.

     Noticing that sex-trafficking older teens is not illegal, is not necessarily a moral endorsement of the practice; it could also be a warning. Noticing that something is not illegal, is not necessarily the same thing as saying it's good that it's not illegal. You can't know for sure what a person means by something they said, unless you read their full statement, and understand the context in which it's being said.

Read more about this topic at the following links:

Matt Gaetz scandal:
http://www.cnn.com/2021/03/30/politics/matt-gaetz-justice-department/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation.html

Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions:
http://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-unanimously-overrules-statutory-rape_b_592edaede4b017b267edff12

My most recent article about the need to reform laws on age of consent, statutory rape, and sex trafficking:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/03/before-fully-legalizing-sex-work-stop.html

Written on April 1st and April 3rd, 2021

Published on April 3rd, 2021

Expanded on April 6th, 2021

Resource Map for the March 2010 Rainbow Gathering Near Apalachicola, Florida

     The map below is based on data I and a friend collected at the March 2010 Rainbow Gathering near Apalachicola, Florida.

     Rainbow Gatherings are events in which "hippies" and people of alternative lifestyles come together to camp in state and national parks, set up mobile "kitchens", trade arts and crafts and other things, and enjoy festivities and one another's company.

     I collected this information to assist another camper in a student project of his. His aim was to collect information about the camping, kitchen, and trading locations on the campsite.

     You can learn more about Rainbow Gatherings and the Rainbow Family of Living Light by visiting www.welcomehome.org and www.welcomehere.org.

     Note: "Yippie! Joe's Reaganville" refers to the tent which was set up by the author. The term "Reaganville" is a neologism combining "Reagan" with "Hooverville" (a kind of makeshift home which became popular during the Great Depression).

Map created in February 2010

Published on October 9th, 2019

Reaction to the Washington, D.C. Bomb Threats of Late October 2018

     On October 24th, 2018, someone mailed explosive devices to the F.B.I. and John Brennan. Two days later, a Florida man, Cesar Sayoc, was later arrested in connection with the mail bombs.
     On the day after the bombs arrived, I published my reaction to the incident on social media. What follows is the original text of my reaction.

BOMB THREATS BENEFIT BOTH MAJOR PARTIES, SCAPEGOAT THEIR MUTUAL ENEMIES, WILL BE USED TO EXCUSE TOTALITARIANISM

     These (failed, alleged, possibly staged) bomb threats will benefit Democrats by making them look like victims, and will benefit Republicans because they will lead for calls that more resources and funds and power be placed in the hands of police, military, Homeland Security, Secret Service, etc. (most of which are currently controlled by a Republican majority)

     These bomb threats will be used to justify attacks against the MUTUAL political opponents of BOTH the Democrats and Republicans, i.e., the American people who pay their salaries.

     To me, this - coupled with Trump's admission in January that it will take some sort of unifying event to bring the country together - seems like a False Flag. It could be used as the equivalent of 9/11 for George W. Bush, and the Reichstag Fire for Adolf Hitler. All lawbreakers, and critics of blind patriotism, will be denounced as disloyal, and even Democrats will stoop to chastizing citizens for failing to trust the government enough (even though the Democrats' supposed enemy is in charge of it).

     I interpret Trump's January statement as a veiled, general threat against all U.S. citizens; to obey him, re-elect him, and blindly believe whatever bullshit he's trying to sell them, OR ELSE he will STAGE an attack on some U.S. target (probably public infrastructure, which can be construed as a simultaneous attack on the government and the people) in order to SCARE people into rallying behind him. He is all but admitting that any and all politically motivated violence and threats benefit him and the political class.

     None of the worry about politically motivated violence is coming along with concerns that ALL law enforcement is based on the legitimization of violence. Statists and terrorists BOTH use violence and threats and coercion in order to achieve political goals. The only difference between them is that statists exert monopolistic, exclusive control over some well-defined contiguous territory, and terrorists don't.

     Except when they do.

Private Beachfront Property Takings

Florida beachfront property

It is possible for the U.S. Supreme Court to have jurisdiction over Florida’s private beachfront takings case because the issue under debate in this case is the consistency of state law with the provisions of the U.S. Federal Constitution, and also because the plaintiff contested the decision of a state supreme court, which means that the dispute may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. This case should be decided in favor of the plaintiff; the Florida property owners.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that private property “shall [not]… be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The Florida property has rightfully and legitimately been deemed necessary for the state to condemn, but as long as the decision of the state’s supreme court is permitted to stand by the U.S. Supreme Court, the plaintiffs will not have been justly compensated for the decline in the value of their homes that has resulted from their loss of control over the access to and use of that beachfront property.

In the 6-to-3 decision of Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, in the opinion of the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that, according to the majority’s interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, compensation is required in the event that the regulation “compel[s] the owner to suffer a physical ‘invasion’ of his property”. To convert the plaintiffs’ property into a public beach which could also be used by vendors to sell food amounts to a physical invasion because it would make it possible and likely that areas near the plaintiffs’ homes could frequently become mobbed with crowds of people, which would cause the disturbance of the local property owners.

Furthermore, the Fourteenth Amendment states that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In the 1897 decision of Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Company v. Chicago, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote the opinion of the 7-to-1 majority: “…since the adoption of the 14^th Amendment compensation for private property taken for public use constitutes an essential element in ‘due process of law,’ and that without such compensation the appropriation of private property to public uses, no matter under what form of procedure it is taken, would violate the provisions of the Federal Constitution.”

Justice Scalia also wrote in the Lucas decision that “land-use regulation does not effect a taking if it ‘substantially advance[s] legitimate state interests'”. Issues that will be at contention in this case include whether condemnation for the purposes of mitigating potential damage to property along the coastline constitutes a substantial advancement of legitimate state interest, and also whether the benefits of the protection against damage to property by hurricanes which has been conferred upon the owners by the state constitutes by its own merit a “just compensation” for the owners’ decline of property value resulting from loss of control over access to the newly-appropriated land.

Written in Summer 2008

Originally Published on October 24^th, 2010

For more entries on Fifth Amendment property takings, please visit:

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/slavery-civil-war-and-fifth-amendment.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/questions-about-roads-eminent-domain.html

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/municipal-services-fifth-amendment-and.html