We don't need state apparatus to decide having intercourse with an 8 year old is wrong. Its in our nature to preserve others and ourselves.
Hogwash. What an utterly lazy and thoughtless way to try to dismiss the need for "someone to decide" what is appropriate. Even within our own Western European, Judeo-Christian dominated culture, age of consent has traditionally been much lower than any respectable person is going to suggest would be appropriate today. To whit:
Jewish law has held that a "woman" was eligible for marriage at 12 years and 6 months. To stave off the fully expected attempt to shift the discussion by demanding "cites",
this link indicates minimum marriage age for Jewish girls is simply 12 years.
A Hispanic girl was long considered eligible for marriage at 15 years of age, whence derives the name of quinceanera celebration. (You can google this one yourself.)
Outside of and predating this culture, things were even worse.
Pederasty among the Classics and Asians routinely included boys as young as 12. From
the Wiki page on the subject we can read the following description: "Some modern observers restrict the age of the younger partner to "generally between twelve and seventeen",
though historically the spread was somewhat greater. The younger partner must ... not be fully mature;...in Japan the younger member ranged in age from 11 to about 19..."
That "not fully mature" part is crucial to predators. Always has been. Always will be.
During the period when such was commonly practiced, some cities prohibited sexual intercourse between the boy and the man, others permitted it. So nobody gets to claim that somehow government was mandating this sick practice.
Today, in this nation, we have groups such as NAMBLA and others (google "sex before 8 or it's too late") who openly advocate for legalized pedophilia and pederasty.
You do NOT get to claim that somehow this isn't a result of a state of nature.
In a state of nature we take care of our ourselves, perhaps those we love or need. Everyone else may readily be viewed as entirely exploitable.
In the dark and dirty world of child exploitation, there is no shortage of "parents" (unworthy to be called such) who are more than happy to exploit their own children either for drug money, or for access to someone else's children. Indeed, there are those who make babies for the singular purpose of having the necessary currency to access other children.
Nor should you demean yourself by somehow claiming that there is any material difference between the "8 year old" I used as the example and the youngest age (11 years) I've documented here as being socially accepted. Not unless you want to try to defend that we should lift legal bans on 40 year olds having sexual relations with 8, 11, 12 or even 15 year olds.
Short of some individualized test that everyone has to take to be granted age-of-majority rights (and how does that concept gel with your other ideals), "someone gets to decide" what age of consent is going to be. At what age are we going to presume that a person is mature enough to freely consent to sexual activity with adults, rather than being too immature to make an informed decision on such matters? 17, or 18, or even 16 are entirely arbitrary ages in most respects. But practically, some age has to be set, a line has to be drawn.
Flippant and off handed claims about these things not being a problem in a state of nature are beyond laughable, the are downright disgusting and entirely indefensible. In a state of nature the weak fall prey to the strong, and children will always be weaker than adolescents and adults. Adolescents with budding physical desires outpacing their mental and emotional abilities will be easily exploited by the fully mature.
If you think pedophilia and pederasty are ok, make your case for that. But don't try to hide behind some joke of a claim about the virtues of state of nature.
Nature hasn't been the idyllic garden of eden for a very long time.
And just to bring this back on topic, in a "state of nature", some disaffected soul decides he'd like to take a few folks with him as he ends his own miserable life. As is, today, we have nut jobs taking guns into schools, churches, and military cafeterias. With a sidearm of our own, we have a reasonable chance at defense. What do we do when that same nutcase sits in his van with his perfectly legal nuke and pushes the button?
Stop being such a slave to your theories that you're forced to defend the indefensible.
Charles