# Hypocrite PC-zealots and their strawmen. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 27, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670 "2018-07-27T13:40:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/161 "2018-07-30T12:08:52Z")
Why is “Keep your goddamned hands to yourself” such a hard thing to comprehend? ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/162 "2018-07-30T12:20:27Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > And of course all the while siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side The \*\*lawful \*\*“side”. Sexual assault is criminal. That is a fact. There is no opposing “side”. Bleating on about how a person is dressed is irrational and irrelevant nonsense. Oh, how they were dressed must have had something to do with it, but I’m not blaming the victim. What on earth do you think you are doing? Oh, it had something to do with it, or it didn’t? If the latter, why are you mentioning it? Do you think that anyone raises such nonsense in court when the offender is sentenced? They don’t. It’s not relevant to an assailant assaulting somebody. At all. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/163 "2018-07-30T13:24:53Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side (because I believe that people with this “ideological conformism” mindset who, say, clamor their support for homosexual rights in the 2010s when it gets them brownie points wouldn’t have said a word about it in the 1980s when it was controversial and would have vehemently proclaimed their abhorence of it in the 1950s when supporting gays was about as popular as supporting pedophiles is now). You know, it’s bad enough that you have blatantly avoided responding to many of the points above\* about just why your position is weak as fuck, but to accuse those who disagree with you of just doing it to be trendy and safe, and moral cowards who would have been bigots and homophobes in another time is frankly pathetic. - Some of those outstanding queries: 1. Provide cites showing risk of sexual assault goes down with more modest clothing 2. Reconcile the high instances of sexual assault in “Modestly dressed” scenarios such as the Tokyo subway, or any of the instances given above of assault on hijab wearers 3. Explain how the cited cases where judges have reference the clothing of a victim in reducing charges against an assailant is not a clear case of victim blaming. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/164 "2018-07-30T13:42:41Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Really, what is a worse expectation: > > 1. That you enter this thread hoping its a Microsoft vs Apple vs Linux reboot from 2004, or > 2. That you open this thread worrying it’s yet more bullshit about a term coined… or put in the public vernacular… in 1987? I saw the thread title, opened it in a new tab, then went to make breakfast all the while wondering if people were going to be complaining about finding an Apple’s on button. I much prefer my expectations over the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/165 "2018-07-30T14:09:52Z")
At this point I almost think this is a threadshit but why the fuck were there spoilers in the OP? ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/166 "2018-07-30T14:36:13Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Then, again, the same reasoning applies to locking a door. Or being alone at midnight in a dark alley in the bad part of the town. Or driving a car instead of commuting by train. Or swimming instead of staying safely on the beach. The less you swim, the lesser the risk of drowing, right? > > Here, you have people reading “driving is more dangerous than riding a train” and answering : “Why do you want to ban cars?” and “Why are you supporting drunk driving?” And nobody is willing to aknowledge that themselves or others are using strawmen and putting words in the mouth of others in order to be able to demonize them. Once again, what fun is there in saying “you’re wrong about driving being more dangerous” when you can instead clamor “you’re an horrible person who wants people to be killed on the road”? > > I do believe this is ideological conformism, this one dressed in “progressive” clothes, but no different from any other social, political or religious ideological conformism. Touting the “party line” (“victim blaming”, “cultural appropriation”, “privileges”) whether it’s an appropriate, sensible or relevant answer or not, and demonizing the opposition, defined as anybody who depart from this official line of thought (“you’re blaming the victims and supporting rapists”, “people voted for Trump only because they’re racist”, or in a recent thread here, plainly : “they aren’t humans, they’re animals”) is pretty typical of it. And of course all the while siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side (because I believe that people with this “ideological conformism” mindset who, say, clamor their support for homosexual rights in the 2010s when it gets them brownie points wouldn’t have said a word about it in the 1980s when it was controversial and would have vehemently proclaimed their abhorence of it in the 1950s when supporting gays was about as popular as supporting pedophiles is now). If someone is the victim of a robbery, I don’t ask if they locked their doors, or if they advertised in any way that they have things a criminal might really want to steal. It doesn’t occur to me. If someone is sexually assaulted, it likewise doesn’t occur to me to ask what they were wearing, if the clothes they chose perhaps advertised that they had something the criminal really wanted (her body) . ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/167 "2018-07-30T15:48:44Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > You know, it’s bad enough that you have blatantly avoided responding to many of the points above\* about just why your position is weak as fuck, but to accuse those who disagree with you of just doing it to be trendy and safe, and moral cowards who would have been bigots and homophobes in another time is frankly pathetic. > > - Some of those outstanding queries: > > 1. Provide cites showing risk of sexual assault goes down with more modest clothing > 2. Reconcile the high instances of sexual assault in “Modestly dressed” scenarios such as the Tokyo subway, or any of the instances given above of assault on hijab wearers > 3. Explain how the cited cases where judges have reference the clothing of a victim in reducing charges against an assailant is not a clear case of victim blaming. Again, more evidence, of what the OP was saying you barely literate fool. There’s a reason why the word strawman was in the subject. It’s because strawman along with ad-hominem attack and delusional are accurate descriptors of how many on this site approach a debate. It wouldn’t even be that much of an issue if there wasn’t a cabal doing this in many threads to the point that it shapes board reality. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/168 "2018-07-30T16:20:54Z")
A _cabal_, you say? How intriguing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/169 "2018-07-30T17:50:52Z")
> [@saje](#): > > Why is “Keep your goddamned hands to yourself” such a hard thing to comprehend? Beats me. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/170 "2018-07-30T18:13:07Z")
The fact is that I’m not required to wear the equivalent of a heavy curtain with a hood just so a man won’t become sexually stimulated to the point that he assaults me. That’s the thinking of fanatics. A woman’s sexuality is evil because it arouses a man, so she must be smothered at all times and not even talk to a man who isn’t her husband lest SHE commit the horrible sin of MAKING HIM commit sexual assault. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/171 "2018-07-30T18:24:25Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > The fact is that I’m not required to wear the equivalent of a heavy curtain with a hood just so a man won’t become sexually stimulated to the point that he assaults me. That’s the thinking of fanatics. A woman’s sexuality is evil because it arouses a man, so she must be smothered at all times and not even talk to a man who isn’t her husband lest SHE commit the horrible sin of MAKING HIM commit sexual assault. And yet… The heavy curtains don’t even work! I can’t imagine why we are all sick of being told our clothing “triggers” sexual assault. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/172 "2018-07-30T18:54:55Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Then, again, the same reasoning applies to locking a door. No. I already explained, along with several other posters, why trying to equate an issue as complicated and ill-defined as the alleged (and unsupported by evidence) potential anti-groping protection of women’s clothing with a simple straightforward universal security precaution like a door lock is a false equivalence. If you haven’t grasped that point by now, you’re just being willfully obtuse. > [@clairobscur](#): > > Or being alone at midnight in a dark alley in the bad part of the town. Another false equivalence. This time, you’re trying to equate a woman’s wearing socially appropriate and generally accepted clothing, **at her own middle-class family-friendly workplace** , with a potential crime victim’s straying into **literally one of the most recklessly dangerous possible situations vis-a-vis urban crime**. If you actually intend this ill-constructed analogy to be taken seriously, you are arguing that the mere presence of pretty much any man, pretty much anywhere, is as dangerous in terms of sexual assault as being in a midnight scary-neighborhood dark alley is in terms of crime in general. If you really believed that, you would be advocating for **much** more draconian and routine restriction and surveillance of the everyday behavior of men as a group. But that’s not what you’re advocating, so your attempted analogy is invalid even by your own not-super-sharp reasoning. > [@clairobscur](#): > > Or driving a car instead of commuting by train. Trying to deflect responsibility for car accidents onto **the mere act of driving a car** —an act that is not only routine but a pragmatic necessity for hundreds of millions of people, especially in the US, and is what the vast majority of our transportation infrastructure and economic system is intrinsically designed to facilitate—is **also** a form of victim-blaming. > [@clairobscur](#): > > Or swimming instead of staying safely on the beach. The less you swim, the lesser the risk of drowing, right? Trying to deflect responsibility for beach drownings onto **the mere act of swimming in the ocean** —an act that beach recreation sites are intrinsically designed to facilitate, and that the vast majority of beach users come to the beach specifically to engage in—is **also** a form of victim-blaming. In short, all your scenarios that bear any kind of valid analogy to trying to deflect responsibility for groping onto women’s legal and socially accepted clothing choices turn out to involve victim-blaming. All your scenarios that **don’t** involve victim-blaming turn out to be false equivalences that aren’t actually analogous to trying to deflect responsibility for groping onto women’s legal and socially accepted clothing choices. You should have been able to figure out by now—certainly, everybody else has—that this is due to the fact that \*\* trying to deflect responsibility for groping onto women’s legal and socially accepted clothing choices is victim-blaming\*\*. ---
**Author:** ![fedman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/278dde/32.png) [@fedman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/173 "2018-07-30T19:24:52Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > I love that I’m enabling sexual assault by my foolish insistence that if some asshat gropes me, it isn’t because he was triggered by seeing some skin, it’s not because I’m bait in some trap, it’s not because of me at all- it’s all on him. > > And we all know that most groping takes place where the most skin is visible, right? So ladies, we should avoid beaches - triggering skin is visible! regardless of how you’re dressed, NOBODY has right to grope you! (And don’t go to Italy where men feel empowered to pinch CLOTHED women) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/174 "2018-07-30T21:00:43Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > I’m sorry you didn’t feel my point was adequately couched in “diplomacy, politeness, or general decency.” Crap, I can see how you read my comment that way, but that wasn’t my intent at all. Apologies. :smack: Put another way, I thought you were advocating that males like me and males not like me show more diplomacy etc. That was something I could get behind. Because implying that somebody’s outerwear makes them responsible for getting groped, while not uncommon, is an asshole move IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/175 "2018-07-30T22:35:23Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Again, more evidence, of what the OP was saying you barely literate fool. There’s a reason why the word strawman was in the subject. It’s because strawman along with ad-hominem attack and delusional are accurate descriptors of how many on this site approach a debate. It wouldn’t even be that much of an issue if there wasn’t a cabal doing this in many threads to the point that it shapes board reality. In your own time, perhaps using some of the new words in your spelling list for this week, try to point out a strawman. Clair’s statement: “siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side (because I believe that people with this “ideological conformism” mindset who, say, clamor their support for homosexual rights in the 2010s when it gets them brownie points wouldn’t have said a word about it in the 1980s when it was controversial and would have vehemently proclaimed their abhorence of it in the 1950s when supporting gays was about as popular as supporting pedophiles is now).” My summary: “just doing it to be trendy and safe, and moral cowards who would have been bigots and homophobes in another time” And then you get to have the fun of trying to point out the ad hominem. Off you pop, there’s a good mouth breather. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/176 "2018-07-31T00:41:57Z")
> [@saje](#): > > Why is “Keep your goddamned hands to yourself” such a hard thing to comprehend? That’s what I keep wondering. ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/177 "2018-07-31T01:03:01Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > That’s what I keep wondering. Because they can’t help themselves. See skin. Triggered. Out comes the hands. 😃 Sexual assault often has nothing to do with sex. It’s a demonstration of power and control. I can feel you up because I can, and you are just an object who has to let me because I am powerful and there’s nothing you can do. That CRIMINAL thinking is not what normal people think, hence why all men aren’t walking about feeling up women left, right and centre. Those with a functioning brain. There is a difference between thought and action. How somebody is dressed may influence thought, but it does NOT influence action. There is NOTHING that justifies an individual’s decision to lay hands on somebody else. It’s down to them and them alone. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/178 "2018-07-31T02:17:51Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > In your own time, perhaps using some of the new words in your spelling list for this week, try to point out a strawman. > > Clair’s statement: > > “siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side (because I believe that people with this “ideological conformism” mindset who, say, clamor their support for homosexual rights in the 2010s when it gets them brownie points wouldn’t have said a word about it in the 1980s when it was controversial and would have vehemently proclaimed their abhorence of it in the 1950s when supporting gays was about as popular as supporting pedophiles is now).” > > My summary: > “just doing it to be trendy and safe, and moral cowards who would have been bigots and homophobes in another time” > > And then you get to have the fun of trying to point out the ad hominem. Off you pop, there’s a good mouth breather. Your conveniently and misleadingly snipped out of context quote is sufficient to demonstrate your lack of honesty. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/179 "2018-07-31T02:52:29Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Then, again, the same reasoning applies to locking a door. Or being alone at midnight in a dark alley in the bad part of the town. Or driving a car instead of commuting by train. Or swimming instead of staying safely on the beach. The less you swim, the lesser the risk of drowing, right? > > Here, you have people reading “driving is more dangerous than riding a train” and answering : “Why do you want to ban cars?” and “Why are you supporting drunk driving?” And nobody is willing to aknowledge that themselves or others are using strawmen and putting words in the mouth of others in order to be able to demonize them. Once again, what fun is there in saying “you’re wrong about driving being more dangerous” when you can instead clamor “you’re an horrible person who wants people to be killed on the road”? > I do believe this is ideological conformism, this one dressed in “progressive” clothes, but no different from any other social, political or religious ideological conformism. Touting the “party line” (“victim blaming”, “cultural appropriation”, “privileges”) whether it’s an appropriate, sensible or relevant answer or not, and demonizing the opposition, defined as anybody who depart from this official line of thought (“you’re blaming the victims and supporting rapists”, “people voted for Trump only because they’re racist”, or in a recent thread here, plainly : “they aren’t humans, they’re animals”) is pretty typical of it. And of course all the while **siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side (because I believe that people with this “ideological conformism” mindset who, say, clamor their support for homosexual rights in the 2010s when it gets them brownie points wouldn’t have said a word about it in the 1980s when it was controversial and would have vehemently proclaimed their abhorence of it in the 1950s when supporting gays was about as popular as supporting pedophiles is now).** > [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > In your own time, perhaps using some of the new words in your spelling list for this week, try to point out a strawman. > > Clair’s statement: > > “siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side (because I believe that people with this “ideological conformism” mindset who, say, clamor their support for homosexual rights in the 2010s when it gets them brownie points wouldn’t have said a word about it in the 1980s when it was controversial and would have vehemently proclaimed their abhorence of it in the 1950s when supporting gays was about as popular as supporting pedophiles is now).” > > My summary: > “just doing it to be trendy and safe, and moral cowards who would have been bigots and homophobes in another time” > > And then you get to have the fun of trying to point out the ad hominem. Off you pop, there’s a good mouth breather. > [@octopus](#): > > Your conveniently and misleadingly snipped out of context quote is sufficient to demonstrate your lack of honesty. I’ve included **clairobscur** ’s entire quote and bolded the portion that **Gary Kumquat** was responding to. Including the entire post does not change the meaning of the bolded portion, so I’m not sure where you’re getting “misleading” or “lack of honesty”. On the other hand, you are sticking to your normal script, which is to fail to discuss the topic and accuse the rest of us of being dishonest. Points for consistency. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670/180 "2018-07-31T03:30:42Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I do believe this is ideological conformism, this one dressed in “progressive” clothes, but no different from any other social, political or religious ideological conformism. Touting the “party line” (“victim blaming”, “cultural appropriation”, “privileges”) whether it’s an appropriate, sensible or relevant answer or not, and demonizing the opposition, defined as anybody who depart from this official line of thought (“you’re blaming the victims and supporting rapists”, “people voted for Trump only because they’re racist”, or in a recent thread here, plainly : “they aren’t humans, they’re animals”) is pretty typical of it. And of course all the while siding confortably with the safe, trendy and popular side (because I believe that people with this “ideological conformism” mindset who, say, clamor their support for homosexual rights in the 2010s when it gets them brownie points wouldn’t have said a word about it in the 1980s when it was controversial and would have vehemently proclaimed their abhorence of it in the 1950s when supporting gays was about as popular as supporting pedophiles is now). I grew up in the '50s and '60s, and I can tell you that when the fact of gay people came up, it was mostly as a kind of freak show for the broader public, or at best considered “arty.” That’s from those progressive enough not to want to beat them up. Gay marriage rights increased in popularity as the masses actually met gay people now out of the closet. Perhaps that, not ideological conformism, is the reason for the change of mindset. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrite-pc-zealots-and-their-strawmen/818670.md?page=10)