Exactly! And are we in such desperate straits that we can’t take time to do an investigation into the allegations before a vote? I seem to recall a 8 member Supreme Court running just fine for about a year or so in the recent past. And the candidate doesn’t have to be perfect, but if they’ve done bad things they owned up to them, made amends where possible, and made changes afterwards. I’m not holding my breath that this administration feels the same way I do, but it seems a pretty common sentiment on the street.
I think that the lack of moderation in the elections forum speaks to the bigger problem of the rape culture on this board. We have been very accepting of rape jokes and rape hypotheticals around here. People who have pointed out this fact are shouted down. This culture is why the board is dying. It speaks to an aging male population that is often not just clueless about other views, but hostile to them so people who aren’t happy to participate within the SDMB rape culture are leaving.
No, legal penalties fall only on who committed the crime. Blame for having foolishly (or stubbornly) put themselves in harm’s way falls, as it should, upon the person who did so.
This is how people learn to avoid dangerous situations. It has served humankind well to this point, and it continues to do so in every other area of human existence except, apparently, women and sex, where the expectation is being promoted that they should be able to blithely wander through life totally unconcerned about the consequences of their actions and if anything bad happens it’s all on the other guy.
Even if we are to accept that this point of view is right and correct, has it not occurred to you that it will result in a great many more instances of rape and sexual abuse than would occur otherwise?
For example, a person might have the right of way in an automobile accident, but they still get just as much banged up as if they didn’t.
It seems to me that it profits women little to be able to afix the blame elsewhere if they wind up getting raped and abused even more as a result.
This is not an excuse or an apology. It’s a simple statement of fact intended to keep things in perspective in an atmosphere where people were attempting to portray the incident as equivalent to factual rape.
I would think any victim of actual rape would quite clearly (absent political motive otherwise) tell you that what is alleged to have happened to her was nowhere near as bad as what they experienced.
Is this to say that what is alleged to have happened to Ford was not bad at all? Clearly not (and I find it ridiculous to feel I have to point that out). But there are degrees of sexual offense, and compared to other types of sexual abuse what she’s claiming to have happened was relatively…and I repeat, relatively…not that bad, and certainly not rape.
As far as the comment about it being politically motivated, I refer once again to the liberal response to Bill Clinton, whose behavior on the same level of evidence was orders of magnitude worse than what Ford is alleging, in which it was largely the case that public outrage was nonexistent. Further, I have no doubt that were, say, Obama, to have been accused of this behavior rather than Kavanaugh, most of the posters so outraged now would be posting in a manner very similar to mine.
Why should it be? It relates to the way the Kavanaugh thread is moderated. I’ve been accused of claiming that what allegedly happened to Ford is no big deal, and this has led to demands that I should be moderated accordingly. I believe I am allowed to present a defense to such allegations, and that is what I did.
I just made the following comment in the Pit thread. I believe it may spell out my position a little more clearly than my explanation above, and it also calls for intellectual honesty on the part of my opponents, something badly needed in all these Kavanaugh-related threads:
This is a discussion of the posting rules and how a particular topic is moderated on the SDMB. Starving Artist’s opinions factor into how he thinks this topic should be moderated, and therefore his opinions, no matter how offensive they may be to others, are appropriate in this ATMB thread.
That doesn’t mean that similar posts would be acceptable elsewhere on the SDMB. In fact, that’s kinda the point of this thread, to discuss exactly where the line should be drawn on these types of posts and on this topic.
(emphasis added)
You wanna spin that as not an attempt to normalize and minimize sexual assault?
I mean, sure, of course you’re gonna want to spin these things. The real question, I guess, is whether mods should buy your spin, or should ban you for your behavior, or at least mod the hell out of you for it.
I’ll be happy to answer this post later but I have to leave for work now. My absence should not be taken as acknowledgment that LHoD’s interpretation is correct and/or indefensible.