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Debate What's the worst thing that should be illegal but isn't?

Maciamo

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That's the question asked in this video. The answers posted on Reddit came mainly from Americans. Do you have any good examples from your own country if you are not American — or other examples if you are American?


In the above video the most shocking example is the troubled teen industry. Teenagers can be legally kidnapped from their home by a specialised teen escort company to be sent to a far away "re-education" boarding school in another state. This industry targets especially LGBT teens with wealthy religious parents who will do anything to make their kids straight again. Maybe they call that sort of programs "Make Adolescents Great Again". :rolleyes: Obviously kids typically leave these places damaged and traumatised. Yet it's perfectly legal in the States.

I thought it would be hard to be that, but they are even worse things that are completely legal in some US states. I had never heard before I do gay panic defence, which Wikipedia defines as "a victim blaming strategy of legal defense, which refers to a situation in which a heterosexual individual charged with a violent crime against a homosexual (or bisexual) individual claims they lost control and reacted violently because of an unwanted sexual advance that was made upon them. A defendant will use available legal defenses against assault and murder, with the aim of seeking an acquittal, a mitigated sentence, or a conviction of a lesser offense. A defendant may allege to have found the same-sex sexual advances so offensive or frightening that they were provoked into reacting, were acting in self-defense, were of diminished capacity, or were temporarily insane, and that this circumstance is exculpatory or mitigating."

Many states have banned this practise but it is still legal in about half of the U.S. states! In those states in other words the murder of a gay person has been decriminalised by claiming that the murderer lost control and reacted violently because of an unwanted sexual advance!


I'm still looking for really objectionable things that are legal in Belgium. It's a pretty liberal country so it might be difficult to find.

However neighbouring France has a good one: the country bans all direct-to-consumer genetic testing, even for personal interest, under the 1994 Bioethics Law. It's the only country in the world to do so.
 
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This is probably up there. What this student did that deserved torture for 8 hours? He just didn't wanna take off his hoodie.
A content warning for the sensitive though, a lot of screaming.

I assume some of you have heard about this "school"? Basically (from what I remember, my memory isn't the best as I watched a video on it five years ago), they lied to the parents about what actually happened inside there. After the parents signed away the rights to their child, they would use literal torture to "fix" conditions like autism (among other conditions)
Torture methods used included electric shocks, starvation, sleep deprivation, humiliation, and restraints. They were condemned by the U.N. too. This "school" is still up, from what I understand
 
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