[Grieving]

There's a libertarian-socialist horseshoe on age of consent laws. The more ideological one becomes, the more passionate they are about lowering the age and distinguishing between the different paraphilias relating to sex with minors. At this point I assume that all political theories are invented to justify their proponents' sexual desires.

[dragonwriter]

> There's a libertarian-socialist horseshoe on age of consent laws.

Not really.

First, because “libertarian” and “socialist” aren't opposing poles (libertarian socialism is a thing), and, second, because non-libertarian socialists aren't particularly against (or for reducing the age set in) age of consent laws. And, third, even anarchists, who are the polar extreme of libertarian socialist tend to support age of consent laws, there only consistent opposition to current ones is, as with other laws of current societies, objection to the structural basis on which they are made and enforced, content of the laws aside.

EDIT: Similar things may also be true of libertarians not being as anti-age-of-consent as portrayed as I have noted about socialists; I have had somewhat more contact with broad leftist communities than broad libertarian ones outside of their overlap, so I may be more susceptible to misestimating the prevalence of certain views in the libertarian community because they are highly visible when espoused because of how transgressive they are.

[Grieving]

My comment was tongue in cheek, but is based on my experience with both groups, especially as they exist online.

Part of what's strange is how often age of consent comes up in these circles. It's not something most people think too much about. Last time I was worried about age of consent laws was when I turned 18 a few months before my girlfriend.

> tend to support age of consent laws > objection to the structural basis on which they are made and enforced

You'll get a laundry list of reasons why our existing laws are oppressive, passionate assertions that adults and minors can have positive sexual relationships with each other, delineations of pedophilia, ephebophilia, etc. All followed up with a vague caveat that age of consent laws might not be inherently bad, but usually with no attempt whatsoever at suggesting what they should be. Seems a strange place to just stop your little thought experiment.

Then you have people like Vaush who just can't stop saying things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Cjw7Fq6VA

[beepbooptheory]

You seem to be implying that this is secondary effect of being "more ideological," and not following from the ideology itself. The point is rather that libertarians say that the state should not have a right to define such limits at all on people. Not sure where the parallel would be for leftists/socialists?

Also small nitpick but one cannot be "more" or "less" ideological, we all are whether we like it or not, it's just the question of which ideology you are. You might say, "well I am not one of those fanatics on either side of the horseshoe," but that doesn't make you "less" ideological, it just defines your ideology.

Ideology =/= belief system. It is rather the implicit, subconscious framing you have to the world that informs the belief system you arrive at ("rationally" or otherwise). So, in fact, denying you have ideology, or having "less" ideology than the radicals, shows that the influence of ideology on you is stronger than otherwise :).

[Grieving]

It's just an idiom. But to clarify I'm not on this particular horseshoe at all.