Sure it does. A number of women (what are we up to now, 16?) have accused Cosby of either rape, sexual assault, or inappropriate sexual contact. No legal charges, to my knowledge, have been brought. How is this not an accurate reflection of the current state? What am I missing?
In my experience, people who hold views like this are not exactly misogynists - actually they are people who never receive any romantic attention themselves (let alone sexual harassment) and are petulantly jealous & hostile to those who do.
No one is arguing that there’s some number of accusation which adds up to certainty or even reasonable certainty. No one is treating it as a given fact just because someone said so. These are the two things DigitalC said about the state of play, and both are false.
I used to believe in the whole “guilty until proven innocent” thing when it came to sex crimes, until someone pointed out to me, “until someone does this to your husband, son, father, brother, etc.” I honestly hadn’t thought about that. And women are not exempt from sex crime allegations, either.
As for Cosby, I do wonder if there’s something to it, considering the sheer volume of accusers.
This is precisely the “I get to live in a fantasy world with my own definitions” bullshit I’m talking about. Statements are evidence in the real world. You can have your own opinion about what those statements mean, but you do not get to invent your own definitions of the English language to ignore the fact that those statements exist and that each of those statements tends to prove what is asserted in those those statements.
Nah, plenty of happily married people hold views like this. It’s just a really common (but nonetheless lazy and morally suspect) way to think.
Perhaps you are not doing this, but others certainly are. I would say that certainly our friend The Second Stone is. Heck, the media and most respondents to news sites’ comments sections certainly seem to believe that every new accusation means more certain guilt. There doesn’t seem to be much interest by these folks for due process. In their minds Cosby is guilty, damn the process for finding him so.
“Accusations add up to reasonable certainty” is utterly ridiculous and honestly sickening.
What are the rules in the Pit of making up accusations accusing other posters of felonies? Can someone enlighten me on that? A moderator would be nice. I am not reporting this post, I just want to know what I can do to other posters in the pit.
Who are you quoting?
I would put it to you that here on the dope, zero people are.
Can you quote what he said that you have in mind here?
But let’s not be distracted here: What Shagnasty is proposing does not constitute an accusation. (Same goes for KarlGauss in his post above). They are providing example sentences, but they are not offering accusations. This makes their point in providing these example sentences completely unclear.
From a different thread in the pit…
Certainly looks to me like the leveling of guilt by **The Second Stone **(someone on the Dope) based solely on the number of accusations. Or are you looking for something different?
:rolleyes:
You sure you can’t tell the difference between someone accusing you of a felony and someone pointing out how easy it would be to frame you for a felony based on your own BS standards of evidence? “I’m going to get people to claim you were at the scene of the crime” is not even close to the same statement as “you were at the scene of the crime”. It’s a hell of a step up from “I could probably hypoethetically get people to claim you were at the scene of the crime”, which is what he actually said. Moron.
I think it would help if you could list this information here, or at least link to where it is presented in a clear and concise manner.
Well, I don’t think that comment should be interpreted literally, since doing so would require ascribing to Second Stone a completely irrational idea. (Second Stone, would you actually agree that a certain number of accusations adds up, all by itself, to reasonable certainty? Or would you say that there are a lot of other factors that need to be in place for those accusations to have their evidentiary value?)
I took him to be using the number of accusations as, so to speak, part of the “clincher,” rather than being in itself the one thing necessary and sufficient to show that the accusations are true. I mean, who really could possibly think that?
Except, claiming you could do so is not in the same universe as it actually being easy for you to do so.
I don’t really understand how being accused of a crime (though in no way actually being held culpable for it) is somehow a Much Worse Thing than being a victim of the same crime. Bill Cosby isn’t going to jail, he’s apparently felt compelled to pay out some cash which wasn’t enough to put more than a tiny dent in his net worth, and as we’ve apparently seen, crowds still give him standing ovations. I think he’ll be just fine, and that will be the case whether he did this thing or not. We basically have a situation where he either did it and is getting off scot-free, or he didn’t do it and he has to be uncomfortable about the accusations for a while. It seems to me a criminal getting off scot-free has to be a worse thing than this guy getting accused, most people not believing it, and him going along his merry way.
Not to mention, there is absolutely no reason that the general public isn’t entitled to decide who they think is more credible in this story, and adjust their opinion of Bill Cosby accordingly. The only reason we all loved him in the first place was due to a public persona that may have zero to do with his actual character and personality. He made the most of that for years, and this is really no different.
People with (for the most part)* nothing to gain are telling stories about what he did that (often independently) resemble each other**. The stories have been surfacing for years. A pattern of behavior on his part known (independently of these stories) to have occurred matches known patterns of sexual grooming. Early comic routines he performed indicated attitudes suggestive of the very pattern of behavior contained in the stories that have been coming to light. No one who knows him is defending him.
Each individual statement can, by itself, be “explained away,” but taken as a whole, the body of information is most plausibly explained by Cosby being a rapist. Other explanations of the information taken as a whole require implausibly conspiratorial ways of thinking, or require people to have done things that human beings don’t generally do.
*The only one I know of, in fact, that has anything to gain is the one who says she’s going to file a civil suit against him. None of the other accusers, that I know of, have anything monetary or otherwise to gain from coming out.
**And importantly, share details which are not shared in common with accusations of sexual misconduct more generally.
I can only go by the words used: “I find myself full of condemnation for this man because there are 14 women who claim the same violent acts of drugging and raping.” The Second Stone clearly stated that he condemns Cosby “because” of the number of claims. That is not a clincher. In the way it was expressed, the number is the reason. Was there, perhaps, something else The Second Stone stated to cause you to believe otherwise?