CEOP, Educational Policy and ‘Protection of Children’
One of the great problems of modern society is that people lack the ability for independent thought. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the post-War generations. Raised on a diet of materialism, television advertising and the spoon-fed government-enforced propaganda of compulsory education, they grow into adults who have no thoughts that have not been buffed, coiffed and cleanly presented to them on a plate. Naturally, they have no greater desire than to pass on this intellectually-unburdened existence to their offspring. This state of affairs is not only disastrous for the future of the human species, but causes untold daily damage to millions of young minds, indoctrinated with the scriptures of a decaying species in the midst of evolutionary freefall.
This damage is perpetrated with increasing frequency in the guise of “protecting the children” from “sexual predators”. Translated, this means: ‘increasing authoritarian control over young people, and lessening their ability to make independent judgments of their own’. One of the chief architects of such an incredibly harmful approach is Jim Gamble, head of the ‘Child Exploitation [sic] and Online Protection Centre’ (CEOP). CEOP works to “catch pedophiles”. (Note: its goal is not to ‘catch people who use violence against others’, which might be a rational aim, but to ‘catch pedophiles’, period – the intellectual equivalent of persecuting everyone with red hair, simply because someone with red hair once robbed a bank).
As head of this inauspicious body, Gamble has carved a name for himself after a career involving military police work in West Berlin and Northern Ireland. The helplessness he felt working the beat of the centuries-old conflict in Northern Ireland has clearly undergone sublimation into the hatred which he employs in his Crusade-like witchhunt against minor-attracted adults. Gamble regards pedophiles as ‘evil’ and advocates chemical castration: “There is no halfway house. I hate them.” His view of young people is equally simplistic, perceiving them as ‘naturally innocent and naive’. In short, he is a perfect illustration of the problem referred to in the opening paragraph: the inability to adopt an objective perspective or to hold original, rational thoughts. His judgment is clouded by internalized hatred manifesting itself as a fixation with MAAs. Much like the McCarthyism of 1950s America, his sole goal is to root out and destroy. Despite his claims to the contrary – “As a father…there’s nothing that’s more important to me in the world [than love for my children]” – his approach evinces no genuine consideration for the well-being of young people.
In twin stories this week (from an education reporter and a technology correspondent), the BBC reported that Gamble’s CEOP has designed a new program for teachers and parents, ‘targeted at children aged from eight to eleven’ intended to influence their Internet use, and that they are asking social networking sites to install CEOP’s “report abuse” button that connects people to police, enabling individuals to inform on one another, Gestapo-fashion, with greater ease. Gamble, under the impression that ‘his Unit’s technological expertise is overtaking that of the pedophiles’, says: “in the longer run, we are going to make children safer, as we develop a much stronger understanding of the environment, as we are more aggressive in our pursuit”. CEOP seek to ’empower’ children by giving them ‘safe surfing’ guidelines and by instructing them on how to report ‘online abuse’.
If CEOP genuinely wanted to ’empower’ young people, they would start by ceasing to propagate the myths of the ‘pedophile monster’ and the ‘innocent child’. Young people have sought out older people for physical intimacy since time immemorial, and will continue to do so. As and when young people discover that they are being lied to by the authorities, what little trust they had in the adults who seek to dominate them will be further weakened. The law, in all its majesty, will continue to subordinate young people, pumping them full of propaganda, and – should they have the misfortune to be entrapped by the authorities – subjecting them to vicious pressure and emotional mind-games in an attempt to extort statements against their adult friend. The law and educational systems achieve nothing but to inculcate young people with the feelings of shame and repression – which are still at the root of the woefully high level of youthful suicide attempts in contemporary Western society.
CEOP apparently believe that by educating young people to ‘surf safely’, they are ‘protecting’ them. If the typical websites are anything to go by, the patronizing language used (e.g. “I have a right not to feel guilty if icky stuff shows up on my computer screen”) will be sufficient to deter most young people from paying much attention to them. Nevertheless, much still needs to be done to counteract the damage caused by CEOP and their ilk. The indoctrination that ‘sex’ is something sacred, a mysterious activity known and knowable only to humans who have passed a socially-constructed age barrier must be countermanded at every opportunity. Young people must be allowed to follow their natural instinct: that physical intimacy is simply a pleasurable form of human interaction. As Van Dijk has so eloquently said:
“Every child is given at birth the capacity to enjoy his body. Sexuality is something granted to everyone, and to teach a child to abstain from this evident intimacy is perhaps the first form of sexual violence to which it is subjected”.
Empowerment of young people involves respect for their autonomy, and the encouragement to become free-thinkers, capable of freshly conceiving the world that they inhabit. Until their ability to say ‘yes’ is decriminalized, ’empowering’ young people to say ‘no’ is ill-conceived, and ultimately harmful. An effective ability to say ‘no’ – in other words, the capacity to exercise independent and informed judgment, the zenith of human existence – can inherently never exist without recognition of a young person’s human right to say ‘yes’. Regrettably however, for contemporary young people in the UK at least, their educational policy is being influenced by a man who is drowning in his own ignorance and is fueled by blind hatred.
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Failure to discriminate…9 comments on "CEOP, Educational Policy and ‘Protection of Children’"
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Firstly, that is a wonderful quote…
Secondly, I don’t want to come off as one of the old, disgruntled pioneers of the internet (I probably don’t quite qualify, anyway)…but, I’ve been around for a good, long time.
One of the issues which has been bothering me most pressingly, as of late, is something that one BoyChat poster has been mentioning over the years.
…all these damned, “Johny come lately” groups and people, who continue to arrive on the internet amidst it’s commercial explosion, who have some concept of a self righteous entitlement to an internet which includes nothing that they don’t approve of…anywhere…
All these yahoos, who want to come strutting onto the scene and yelling, “There’s a new sheriff in town!”…and they have this grand idea, of running everyone they don’t like off of the internet.
Now, yes…I know there was still substantial discrimination and maltreatment of MAAs on the internet, even before my arrival…but it just did not seem anywhere near as outrageous as it is today.
Maybe my perception is more colored by my recent experiences…after all, my first openly BL website remained on a free server, for several years (at least three) without a problem (and it went down only because the server died and they never brought it back).
Today, any psychological cripple can open up a free or paid web site, or blog…proclaim themselves “tracking down, fighting, taking down, running off pedophiles”…and they can say any damn thing they please about anybody while spending their time harassing, threatening and stalking other people…and most hosts/ISPs wont do a damn thing about it to put a stop to it.
To make matters worse, bigots abound everywhere, including on administrations for free (and many paid) online services, and many will roll over upon demand for any one of these psychological cripples, who demand that everything they don’t like be removed from the internet.
The public explosion has been terribly brutal on the freedom of the internet. You get all these people (like the ones you mention) coming along, and deciding they have an entitlement to an internet free of everything they dislike.
That “entitlement” does not exist, has never existed…and never should exist.
The only entitlement these sorts have, is to direct their web browsers elsewhere…Interestingly, they don’t seem intelligent enough to wrap their minds around such a concept.
I am just sick of all this contempt for other peoples speech…association…existence…
Good post, Strato.
The law, in all its majesty, will continue to subordinate young people, pumping them full of propaganda, and – should they have the misfortune to be entrapped by the authorities – subjecting them to vicious pressure and emotional mind-games in an attempt to extort statements against their adult friend.
It would be foolish to think that this is something that died off in the mid 90s. Although you get some rather crazy anecdotes on the web (I recall one about a boy being hung by his feet from the second floor of a police station), I actually know people who can confirm this.
Empowerment of young people involves respect for their autonomy, and the encouragement to become free-thinkers, capable of freshly conceiving the world that they inhabit. Until their ability to say ‘yes’ is decriminalized, ‘empowering’ young people to say ‘no’ is ill-conceived, and ultimately harmful. An effective ability to say ‘no’ – in other words, the capacity to exercise independent and informed judgment, the zenith of human existence – can inherently never exist without recognition of a young person’s human right to say ‘yes’.
…but someone under the age of sixteen would never say “yes”! They’d jump up and shout “HEY, leave my PRIVATE PARTS alone”, because that’s what kids are like. And because they would never say “yes”, that is why we should stop them all from doing it. Of course, that’s why we make it illegal for geriatrics to windsurf and fundamentalist christians to work in the porn industry, isn’t it?
Did someone say “living in a box”, or was it the voices? 😛
Steve –
All these yahoos, who want to come strutting onto the scene and yelling, “There’s a new sheriff in town!”…and they have this grand idea, of running everyone they don’t like off of the internet.
Also note the assumption of the “victim” role (VioletLeaves, Daydreamer of Oz etc) to veil and legitimise their censorious tyranny.
To make matters worse, bigots abound everywhere, including on administrations for free (and many paid) online services, and many will roll over upon demand for any one of these psychological cripples, who demand that everything they don’t like be removed from the internet.
Bigots and hypocrites.
“There is no halfway house. I hate them.”
Where did Gamble (simply a figurehead) say this?
On a single line, about two-thirds down this page:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1975227.ece
Thanks for the comments guys.
And thanks to Dan for providing the link to the Times article. Disturbing that someone in charge of a law enforcement agency is able to pronounce such clearly personal views of hatred, apparently without comment. Still, as Steve D notes in his comment above, such Anti-CL bigots seemingly possess a right to freedom of speech, whereas those simply putting forward alternative philosophical/political arguments like ours are demonized and persecuted.
Clearly ‘freedom of speech’ is as selective as every other apparent human right.
The reason I think the hatred is excused, is because any opposition to pedophiles is seen as in favour of children. It is not so much that the hate is seen as virtuous, but given that he has an anti-pedophile agenda, it may be “understandable”. One must also note that to his supporters, the welfare of pedophiles doesn’t matter anyway. What can fix a pedophile?
This is an excellent article and I agree with Steve that it is not uncommon now to see more negative propaganda about MAA’s and a desire to censor the internet. I never will understand why people do not view sex as a harmless act. It is this burden of guilt and fear being instilled to youth – the future leaders – that must be stopped. The truth about the harmless nature of sexuality and consent must be championed. Those who are anti-humanist try to create this belief.
Thankfully, the tide of religious zealotry is receeding, but cultural dogmatism is totally possible without that, as my adventures into secular websites have revealed.
Would you mind sending me a working e-mail address, Viamund?