Same for me. This whole experience of “fighting ignorance”----where eight years later, rape victims are STILL being called liars, and the same suspects just repeat the same lies-----reminds me of school. Nothing’s changed, the pretense is just better hidden.
Kid behind me was an asshole—grabbing and touching, and us girls weren’t allowed to wear pants, even in winter. (And want ads were separated by gender, sexual harassment didn’t exist, wife-beating was called “maybe you shouldn’t piss him off”, and women couldn’t serve on juries.) Whenever this little asshole pulled my hair or pinched me, the teacher suddenly developed glaucoma or something. I got told to ignore it. That NEVER works. It just works for people who are uncomfortable hearing about how the boy scouts might as well just give out a damned badge for junior sexual predator because that kid must have grabbed the butt of every girl in the sixth grade, not to mention “the titty twister” at recess.
When I hauled off, wound up, and bitchslapped him like I was Babe Ruth at home plate, then that damned teacher developed eyesight. Into Catholic school I went. That little shit went on to have quite the career in junior high and high school, but nobody ever did shit. All the men looked away. The girls who fought back got snickered at and harassed and God knows what else.
My mom just didn’t know what to do, but then again, she didn’t know my older brother occasionally punched or hit me when I “pissed him off”-----once by asking for the funny pages. He was 13 years older than me, and he was very very careful to make sure our Dad wasn’t around. One time he choked me till I passed out. I don’t see much difference between the kid who touched girls, the teacher who pretended he didn’t see, all the people who said, “Ignore it,” because it was so icky for them, my brother, and the guys today who are calling rape victims liars and sluts and the other people who say the real problen is us hysterical women, who then deny that they know what “hysteria” means.
Eventually this board is going to be nothing but assholes and the mods who just don’t see the problem—but damn, aren’t the women SO rude?
That is all admittedly problematic and people still need to come a long way in terms of treating each other with mutual respect. But what does that have to do with behavior in the pit? Arguing in the pit and then complaining, and I should know, is like boxing and then crying to the ref about a punch in the beak.
That said, you volunteering and participating in combat while in service to your country makes you a braver person than me. The fact you are probably going to suffer the consequences of that combat for the rest of your life is regrettable and deserves sympathy and not mockery. Just mho.
[Moderating]
While I had been giving you some benefit of the doubt that this was unintentional, your lack of any sort of contrition suggests that was a mistake. Attacking someone in this fashion is unacceptable, even in the Pit.
This is a formal warning for being a jerk.
[/Moderating]
These are not separate things. The behavior I’m talking about in the past is impelled by the same attitudes that let posters here make up lies about an assault victim while whining that said victim falsely accused a man. Other men either profess ignorance or avoidance or attack the victim *yet again. * A few actually help. Posters in ATMB tried to shape it as equal fighting, but it’s not, not when one person chooses to troll the same lies repeatedly, and the other person is being attacked for things over which they have no control.
Ford did falsely accuse Kavanaugh. The evidence is clear on that. Refusing to accept the evidence is your problem, but it puts you in the same category as anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists.
As a victim yourself, I would have thought you would be incensed by people lying about having been assaulted.
Ford did not falsely accuse Kavanaugh. You are viciously, deceitfully, maliciously falsely accusing an honest woman on behalf of a sleazy, lying drunk who still has not explained how his huge debts were anonymously paid off.
When a guy is THIS obsessed with attacking a woman against whom there is no credible proof of lying and on behalf of an slobby sleaze like Kavanaugh I have to wonder why that person appears to identify with that attempted rapist so strongly.
Numerous people have corrected you here but you cling to logical fallacies—“he hasn’t been convicted!” plus outright lies.
Christ almighty, every two comments out of three are you, lying about the facts of this case.
The accusation has been proven to be false. No one can confirm that she ever met Kavanaugh, nor that the party Ford claims to have been assaulted at actually happened - and that includes all the people Ford claimed would back her up. Literally all the evidence apart from her claim shows that it didn’t happen.
Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if Kavanaugh is a sleazy lying drunk, Ford still should not falsely accuse him. Just as it doesn’t matter if George Zimmerman is a lying racist, he is still entitled to defend himself.
You accuse others of misogyny and bias, and yet you are the one displaying them. You think women are so fucking weak that they can’t stand up to the same sort of questioning that you expect men to face, and you have no interest in the evidence, just in putting forward the narrative you’ve already chosen to believe.
But, if I’m wrong, show the evidence that supports Ford’s claim that she was assaulted by Kavanaugh. Prove me wrong.
It’s really funny to see Steophan complaining about supposedly false accusations (just as a reminder, no one has come close to proving that Ford made a false accusation) in the same thread that he called me a pedophile.
“I don’t have any confidence in the story,” Leland Keyser — who Ford has said was at the party where the alleged assault occurred — told two New York Times reporters in their book “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.”
“It would be impossible for me to be the only girl at a get-together with three guys, have her leave and then not figure out how she’s getting home,” Keyser told the authors. “I just really didn’t have confidence in the story.”
There is as much support for the claim that you’re a paedophile as there is for Kavanaugh committing sexual assault. There’s also a fuckload of evidence that he’s not, and that (at best) Ford was hugely mistaken - and unwilling to apologise when it’s shown she was wrong.
As yet, however, no-one’s come forward with any evidence to show my claim is false, but still no-one is taking it seriously. Which, of course, is how it should be when someone makes an unsupported claim in an inappropriate venue, and continues not to back it up.
And just in case anyone still fails to understand rhetoric, I would like to make it absolutely clear that my accusation was false. Hey, iiandyiiii, for the first time you could somewhat accurately accuse me of lying if you want!
Aside from the time that you made up something about me and refused to back it up, I suppose? And the time you pretended you hadn’t praised a convicted child murderer who shot at fleeing children as the type of person normal people want to be around?
But no, I’m not surprised that you lied about me – that’s par for the course for you. You’re a serial liar. Kind of like Trump. And apparently, you have about the same level of self-awareness of your own flaws and foibles as Trump.
Wait, that’s your idea of a reputable source? The New York Post is notoriously right wing. She says she doesn’t remember the party, that she couldn’t have blah-blah-blah? I could not find anything but only by rightwing sources. And you consider her to be more trustworthy than Ford? That’s it? That’s all?
That does not say what you think it does. She doesn’t remember something. So?
It amazes me that people will go to such great lengths to deny a simple story. Kavanaugh was a drunken sleaze who tried to attack Ford, then lied about it repeatedly before Congress. His finances are shifty----who paid off his hundreds of thousands of dollars of debts?----and his views privilege power over justice.
He is a proven liar, but let’s desperately try and smear a woman because lying about women is way easier than telling the truth about men who sleaze their way through life.
Wow! Leland Keyser is a life long friend of Ms. Ford and has nothing to gain by not telling the truth. She was married to Democrat operative Bob Beckel. Ms. Keyser had no desire to be part of this story, and it has only brought her pain. You are literally the only person to attack the integrity of this woman.
It should also be noted that not a single person from Ms. Ford’s teenage years has come forward to publicly back her story or support her. It’s is especially odd that Ms. Ford’s parents and her brothers have said nothing.
One question I would like to have answered would be the whereabouts of Ms. Ford in the summer 1982. Did she remain in the area or did she go visit relatives or go on any vacations? It was summer and they were not in school. It seems likely she would haves spent at least part of the summer elsewhere. I would like the answers for Leland Keyser, PJ Smythe, and Mark Judge as well. Theses answers along with Kavanaugh’s calendar could prove his innocence.
…Ford’s statement was that Keyser was at the party, but not in the room. It isn’t unreasonable that Keyser didn’t remember going to this particular party (if she did go), especially if nothing particularly memorable happened to her. Ford also wasn’t claiming (as Keyser states in your cite) that Keyser was “the only girl”. The people that Ford listed were “three other people she says were at the party”, but they weren’t the only people at the party. Nuance matters.
That’s exactly what I was going to say. Also, again, a false accusation and an unproven one are not the same thing.
Again, to those who want to rake Blasey-Ford over the coals, what do you think is going to happen if every time a woman accuses a man of sexual assault and they can’t convict, she becomes a villain? Women will clam up and suffer in silence. Is that what you want?
It would be different if it was shown she was being malicious. The Duke lacrosse case was one where the accuser was clearly making things up. Blasey-Ford is not in that category.
This has nothing to do with being unable to convict, as to date Ms Ford has not reported this to the police. However, this isn’t just that she has no evidence to back up the accusation - although that would be bad enough. It’s that every single piece of evidence apart from her claim shows her to be wrong.
It’s telling that, still, in this discussion no-one has provided any evidence to support Ms Ford’s claim.
She may not be being malicious, but the fact that she’s still not withdrawn the accusation despite it being shown to be false makes that hard to believe.
As for what I want, I want rape and sexual abuse to be treated the same way as other serious crimes. I want the perpetrators to be seen as reprehensible, and I require a high level of proof before deciding someone is guilty - because I am fine with the life of someone who’s guilty of rape being ruined. I would also like to see some real punishment for those who attempt to abuse the system to ruin the lives of innocent men.