Only “bad reasoning” could lead to a disagreement with Scylla!
EDIT: Silly sniping aside, we’re drilling down to the fundamental causes of our disagreement. On this issue, I think it’s vital to follow the lead of victims and survivors of rape and sexual assault, and you don’t believe that is a good idea.
Surely you meant to say something like “rose-colored” or “rose-tinted”.
Absolutely. 100%. The same standards would apply to Ghandi as would apply to Hitler.
If I was more willing to believe he was guilty because I am sure he is bad person who has mistreated women. That would be just as bad as if I were less willing to believe he was guilty because I liked his policies.
This that whole justice being blind, trying to be objective, trying to live in an ethical society that treats everyone the same without prejudice sort of thing. You might want to look into it sometime.
Actually shouldn’t the benefit of the doubt always go to the accused?
The burden of proof lies upon the accuser.
What changed?
Ms. Carroll is one of at least 22 women who’ve accused Trump of having sexually assaulted them.
I really think a House investigation is called for.
When you say vital to follow the lead of, what do you mean?
That they should be believed and an investigation done? If so, I am in complete agreement.
If you are saying, putting the burden of proof on the accused because we really need to believe the accuser. I’m jumping right off that train.
Have any of them filed a police report? It’s going to be hard to have a house investigation unless there is some sort of official investigation already happening or that has happened. This isn’t a snarky question…I really don’t know. I know the lady in the OP hasn’t and seemingly isn’t planning to file one, which kind of makes it hard to actually do anything with her accusation.
Almost true, mental illness, certain psychoactive drugs are also known causes.
There’s another Bingo!
I’m surprised to hear you say it, though. If I boiled it down like that I would be afraid of being accused of creating a straw man.
Someone who has suffered the trauma of being violently violated is probably going to have a tendency to be less than objective, and they may be prone to overzealosness. That’s hardly a criticism. It would be inhuman not to be.
That’s why we have things like recusals.
I dont see how you can hold your position if you place any value whatsoever on objectivity.
“Sorry, we only investigate consensual blow-jobs.”
Your friend, The Congress
CMC fnord!
I’ve read them all. It’s been a while, but I believe that only two of them had a possible ulterior motive related to material gain.
There is a whole bunch of them that we can take as a given, I think. “Trump walking into a dressing room and ogling,” for example.
There are a whole bunch of “Trump came on strong, and pinched my butt.” Or “Trump was inappropriately suggestive,” type accusations that I think we can similarly take as givens.
Those are not ok. They are also not on the same level as rape.
IIRC correctly two of them are rape accusations, I believe they also had the potential profit motives.
My points are
that 22 accusations of misconduct are not 22 accusations of rape.
The house is free to investigate whatever it wants. There is certainly a lot more meat on this bone, than whether Trump is a Russian agent who likes to get peed on by prostitutes.
So, absolutely. I agree.
I’m saying following the broad strokes of the #MeToo movement (as I understand them), which is largely lead by survivors: don’t denigrate those who have come forward to tell their story (barring proof they’re lying); treat all accusations with seriousness and compassion (again, unless proof of malicious intent comes to light); don’t denigrate or disbelieve women based on their clothing, appearance, or even their profession; rape and sexual assault are never invited, asked for, or otherwise defensible in any way at all; and rape/sexual assault are about power far more than about sexual desire. And probably more – that’s from memory.
Because historically, this is the only possible way in which progress is made in society at large. We achieved progress on Civil Rights because, finally, the country listened to some significant part of what black people had been saying for decades. We achieved progress on women’s rights and gay rights for the same reasons. We haven’t gone as far as we need to on any of these, but all the progress has been based on following the lead of black people (or women, or gay people, etc.).
So I see the alternative as no possibility of progress.
Then I think we are all in agreement. When there is no investigation though, and it’s just talk to talk, or denigrate on online persona people will pick and choose who/what to believe.
In an actual crime, it can (and should) be investigated and taken seriously.
The OP though doesn’t involve an investigation at all. It simply wants us to believe, which is in fact denigrating the accused.
Either stop the accusations, or file a police report is really the only “fair” way to go about handling crimes like this accusation.
This entire thread has been devoted to “Well, I believe her” and “Well, I think she might have an ulterior motive”
Both sides are in error, rushing to ANY judgement based upon bias of the individual is wrong and should be stomped out.
What does it say concerning the rights of the accused?
Nothing significant, in my understanding, because the movement believes that the rights of the accused are generally very well respected by society and institutions. And I think that’s generally accurate. Kavanaugh is at the peak of his profession. Trump is President. The accused are generally treated very well by society, barring undeniable and overwhelming evidence (i.e. Weinstein and Cosby).
Kavanaugh certainly appeared to go through some trauma which would be unfortunate should it be undeserved and he is innocent. If he is, it’s not like that’s ok.
I’m uncomfortable with the idea that it is ok to go after somebody and cause them trauma just because they are rich and famous and will probably be ok anyway.
But that is besides the point. Most people are not Trump or Kavanaugh, or Weinstein or Cosby, and lack their resources.
For most people the simple act of being accused can be devastating to them and their families. The accusation alone can wipe them out financially as legal defenses are costly. The reputational damage can cause them to lose their jobs business. They may no longer be able to show their face in public.
It is not surprising to me that a victim-oriented or victim directed system would take these things into account. As discussed one does not expect such a system to be objective, and one would expect it to be exceedingly zealous on the side of the accusers at the expense of the accused.
You seem to readily accept and understand and be ok with this.
When I point this out, apparently I am like your grandparents arguing for discrimination.
Are objectivity and justice and not destroying innocent people values that you hold with regards to me too?
How do you reconcile this?
I am not in favor of this either.
This is indeed possible, but I’m unaware of it occurring more often than extremely rarely. On the other hand, women being dismissed or denigrated for nothing more than telling their story is a thing that happens every single day, probably multiple times a day.
Hence my concern for how accusers are treated, since serious harm to those falsely accused is extremely rare. Serious harm to accusers is so common as to be expected. Women expect to be seriously harmed if they make an accusation – that’s why so few actual victims and survivors make accusations.
Our current system treats accusers like dog shit, in most cases. And in most cases, it treats the accused as if they’re victims. I’m in favor of a system that treats accusers with seriousness and compassion. That wouldn’t require anything “at the expense of the accused”. It would just require that we stop denigrating and dismissing women for nothing more than telling their stories.
Ok. Now we’re talking.
You said that you are not really aware of being damaged by false on other than a rare basis.
“Rare” is going to be a tough word for either of us to work or define. Numbers have been shown in this thread that peg false accusations at 5-8%. It’s been pointed out that only a fraction of rapes are reported so that even if this number is correct the actual rape to false accusation ratio is much lower. At the same time the number only accounts for formal accusations in the form of police reports. Lots of other allegations are made outside of that channel, through the media, threatened in a divorce, etc. etc. filing a false police report carries consequences, so those more casual accusations (nothing casual, just for lack of a better word) would also skew the # of false accusations as a percentage of all accusations higher. The long and short of this is that if we are trying to be objective we really can’t say what percentage of all accusations of rape are false. There is not enough good data for us to be intelligent about it. We do know that it happens. Maybe it’s rarer than even you think. Maybe it’s more common than I think, but it does happen.
I tried to be as fair as I could there and I brought this up for a reason.
You say it is wrong to denigrate a victim telling her story. Denigrate includes doubting it’s veracity. It’s wrong because we are doing harm to a victim, right?
You seem to agree and understand that the simple fact of making an accusation is immensely and incredibly damaging to the accused, potentially catastrophically so.
If the guy is guilty, good. Fuck him.
However, if the guy is not guilty, the greatest chance that he has of mitigating the damage, of demonstrating his innocence, is to doubt her story. His friends family advocates all need to examine the story, proclaim its falsehood, and rip it apart in order to do so. By placing the accuser in such a position where they cannot be denigrated by skepticism you are robbing the falsely accused of the opportunity to defend themselves and forcing them to suffer consequences they don’t deserve. By not doubting you are hurting an innocent person.
The biggest problem to what you have described, the killer to the whole deal is the following:
You have said that we can’t Denigrate an accuser and must believe them unless they have been proven to lie.
There is a HUGE problem with this.
How can you prove something is a lie unless you begin with the premise that is false? The very act of trying to show that something is false is to doubt it. If we are believing we are not going to ask the hard questions that might prove it false. That would be insulting. We would be causing pain to an innocent victim.
This is a classic catch 22.
We may not denigrate a victim by doubting and must believe her unless it has been proven false. You can’t prove something false without denigrating it by day doubting its facts.
If we follow your rules, all accusations are true and all accused are guilty.
Not only have you transferred the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused where they must prove they didn’t do it, you have also disallowed anyone from engaging in the process that could provide proof of innocence simply because engaging in that process intrinsically creates doubt and can’t exist without it, which is a denigration of the accused.
Checkmate.
Two things are inevitable when one plays games with oneself, and the first is that one tends to win no matter how the game is played.
To be clear that checkmate is directed at you, not the Me Too movement. I would guess that the Me Too movement would have seen that they were proposing something that made it impossible for a falsely accused person to prove their innocence, and realized the problem.
Your interpretation of Me Too neglects to do so.