Catsix beat me to it, but yeah. If word gets out that the cops are going to be called, people tend to leave with alacrity:
The cabbie, Moez Mostafa, also said he saw a woman leaving the party in anger, and overheard someone say, “She just a stripper. She’s going to call the police.”
From here
The woman mentioned above is Kim Robers, the second dancer; it’s pretty clear that she had threatened to call the cops, and that the players there knew it.
I just don’t know what the fucking problem is here, and why this trainwreck is pushing 20 pages.
A silly drunken bitch, who happens to be black, made false charges of rape against a bunch of white asshole fratboy lacrosse dudes. They will be proven innocent, and not because of some racist rich white thing, but because that stupid woman lied out her drunk ass, period.
Nifong has his head up his ass, and is such a fucking idiot he will take this all the way. I will bet anybody on this board a case of their favorite beer that the dumbass white boys will win.
Because they aren’t guilty, as much as some of you people want them to be.
Find a post where ANYONE says the guys are guilty.
I don’t think you were following the thread from beginning to end if this is all you can say on the subject.
Monstro, you with the face, I beg of you…bail from this thread. I gave up on this thread pages ago and just popped in to wish you well if you want to continue, but to suggest that you give up–sometimes you just can’t convince someone that they are wrong. You points have been made well, and those disposed to learning something should have been able to separate your wheat from Huerta’s chaff long ago.
Let the guys* have their thread where white boys don’t rape black girls so therefore these good upstanding white boys** couldn’t have raped this bad black girl***.
Huerta has a thing about rape allegations**** and you aren’t going to get through to him. The signal-to-noise ratio is horrible in this thread and the possibility of fighting any ignorance is long gone.
Let the losers have their thread. I’m out of here.
*used colloquially–I’m sure not all Huerta’s stat supporters present as male.
**many of whom are in trouble outside of the rape allegations for bad behaviour.
***cuz she’s a stripper! and she’s been an escort!
****IMHO–from reading his other postings on the subject.
AFAICT you with the face has gone back to admitting that she was accusing Huerta88 of being a racist. I know it’s difficult to keep track of the various lies, misrepresentations, strawmen, ad hominems, and assorted bullshit she has been pitching, but if you want at all to avoid looking as stupid as others do in this thread, you might want to make a better effort to keep up.
Regards,
Shodan
Here is every question asked of me in this thread, red questions are by YWTF, Blue questions by Monstro:
What is well argued? I’m raking my brain here, thinking of what you could possibly be talking about, and I have no idea. Articulate his position, whatever it is, please.
Answered by me in post 795.
And do you understand my refutation to his argument? Do you understand what an epidemiologist does for a living and why I might know a little bit about why his approach is flawed?
Yes, your entire “refutation” has been “It’s not relevent because I say so, and I’m an epidemiologist so I know. Nya”. You have also employed the old trick of turning the question around “Why should it be relevent”, without demonstrating why it shouldn’t, as if that proves anything, all the while ignoring the many answers to this question given, like, oh, post 795 that I linked above.
In this Duke case, Huerta and friends have made prima facie determinations of unlikeliness based on the race of the players involved. But why should race matter? Why would race be any more relevant than looking at music preference, religion, or favorite holiday foods?
See above. Saying “why should it?” doesn’t prove anything. Stats have been presented indicating that white on black rape is rare. That is a data point. Repeating a retorical question over and over does not invalidate data you don’t like.
Why would a bunch of white guys go out of their way to hire not one but two black women to perform for them, if race mattered so much to them in a sexually repellent way?
You have no way of knowing that the Duke Lax team went out of their way to hire “black” strippers. They could have been the only strippers available, they could have been cheeper, they might not have been given a racial choice at all. Now who is assuming race is a factor without any evidence that it was?
Can you step up and explain how then? I’ve been begging for a cogent argument in defense of the DoJ stats, and all I’ve gotten are a bunch of poor analogies involving ice cream thieves, Russian gangs, and middle-aged speeders. None of which are comparable to using racial stats in assessing this case’s likelihood.
OK, why are they not comparable? In the case of my little boy with the ice cream analogy, the reason you dismissed it out of hand is because I presented no documented proof as to what percentage of little boys liked ice cream. Which is a decidedly odd (and weak!) argument to make when you are trying to discredit an point made backed up by actual, real stats.
You maintain that I’ve refuted nothing and that makes my eyes boggle. I don’t want to write you off as a moron, really I don’t, but you are looking like one.
I really don’t think that I am the one looking like a moron here, but that’s not important right now. I think I’ve answered this particular non argument several times. You’ve offered nothing but your opinion.
But there’s a contigent of posters who say they don’t think it’s likely she did anything. Their reason? Well, they have bunch of DoJ stats on white-collar crime and it shows that women very rarely perpetrate those types of crimes. Therefore, in the absence of evidence, these posters don’t think its likely that this woman–regardless of her CEO status–would have commited the crimes she’s been accused of.
Questions (my answers in parathesis):
What would you say in response to the posters who think her gender lends anything significant to this case? (I would ask them why.)
Would you think their interpretation of the stats is beyond reproach? (Hell no.)
Do you agree with their conclusion that the CEO deserved the benefit of the doubt on the basis of those stats? (Hell no.)
Would you suspect they had sexist motivations for thinking gender should factor into the equation? (I would!)
I would take it as a data point. If crime statistics indicate one thing, then the correct response is not to discount the stats because you don’t like them, it’s to factor that particular data point in with all the other evidence.
Again, (and I’d think you’d know this, since you’re a scientist and all) statistics are useless to prove anything in a specific case, but they are useful to indicate exactly how likely that particular case is to have occured. A data point, nothing more.
The CEO deserves the benefit of the doubt based upon the evidence and nothing else, but when discussing the case with other people (say on a message board), the statistical likelyhood of her having comitted the crime is a valid point for discussion.
Of course you would. You jumped upon Huerta because you believe he is a racist, and you’ve kept it up in the face of all logic and fact. Huerta has said again and again in exactly what context he was using the DoJ statistics. I have said what context I see them as relevent in. Other posters have done the same. Instead of honestly dealing with what has been posted, you discount it in persuit of your grand crusade:
Since you have no answer for the facts posted, your tactics have been to attack the poster himself instead. It’s even your cornerstone argument, the one you and your sister return to again and again:
Quick question: What would prompt someone to go searching for racial crime data if not the pre-conceived belief that race determines behavior? That particular assumption is the given that I’m talking about.
Bricker answered that quite nicely in post 828. I answered it in post 871. You’ve had absolutely no answer to those posts, except the astonishingly weak:
The data does not support what he is saying (for the 10^100 time), so there’s no need for me to challenge the data. I have no reason to question the data because it is irrelevant.
Not wrong.
Irrelevant.
Wrong =! irrelevant
Fine. we get it, broken record and all that. Except that it’s not enough to simply state that something is irrelevant, you have to show WHY it’s irrelevant, something that you have spectacularly failed to do. I think Shodan summed up your performance in this thread quite well when he observed:
Perhaps the best repetion of the obvious was made by DragonAsh:
Would you care to address the very specific statement that DragonAsk is making there? Because that’s it in a nutshell, and you have confligrated this entire firestorm over a strawman of your own creation while ignoring the only germain fact: “Huerta88 took one factoid that, for him, made him X% more or less likely to believe the accuser. That’s it. He’s not juding the merits of the entire case solely on that one point. Huerta88 has only said this about fifteen million times, in about as many ways.” You don’t like him. Fine, noone says you have to, but stop pretending it’s anything more than that.
Now for Monstro. I don’t know weather YWTF found herself on the ropes and called for backup, or if the experience of seeing her sister bitch slapped all around this thread was so unplesant that she felt compelled to leap in (I know I’d feel bad if my sister was beeing as big a wanker as YWTF has been in this thread, but I also hope that I’d be objective enough to go to her and tell her with love that she was flat out wrong), but I do know that what we’ve gotten from monstro has been nothing more than a more virulent parroting of what YWTF has been saying all along. First of all, she sets out in post # 874 to selectively highlight some of Huerta’s posts and destroys her own credibility in the process. Lets look at what she posted, her highlights are in green and what she failed to highlight is in orange:
Man, I’ve seen selective quoting before, but rarely such an example of selective quoting that also manages to demonstrate so conclusively the bias that the poster doing the quoting is bringing to the table in the first place!
Next, she introduces her big strawman, and like a chump I took the bait and answered:
If they are so relevant, Weirddave, do you expect the defense attorney will present them in court?
If so, what crime stats do you think will be presented? The ones that show that white guys are more likely to be involved with gang rape? The ones that show that intoxicated parties are more likely to be involved with rape? Will the prosecution use these stats?
I responded with an anecdote from my own life where such stats, not even stats mind you, but just personal experience of one detective, were introduced in a court of law. I could easily see a defense expert referencing the DoJ stats WRT white on black rape if he were testifying on the likleyhood of such a crime occuring in some context or other at a trial, but THAT’S BESIDE THE POINT. We have been discussing how applicable the DoJ’s stats are in evaluating the accuser’s story, either in light of or absent of actual evidence in this specific case, and I’m monumentally disgusted with myself for falling for the trial strawman. BEGONE STRAWMAN OF TRIAL, WE SHALL HAVE NO MORE OF YOU IN THIS THREAD!
The “absent other the evidence” is bullshit. Huerta conveniently used that line as a disclaimer, but even after the flimisness of the case revealed itself, he kept hammering on about the crime stats, as if they solidified his case. The crime stats biased him to begin with.
Again, parroting what YWTF already said. Unfortunately it’s no more applicable now then it was when she said it. You are ignoring what a poster actually said in favor of your preconceived notions (read back up for orange text to see more of this). Sorry monstro, that won’t fly here. If you don’t want to address what is actually posted, don’t bother replying.
If you find race-based stats unpleasant, which ones do you choose to evaluate the merits of this case? This alleged crime took place in the South. Do we use crime stats drawn across southern states? Well-to-do people are accused in this crime…do we use crime data for rich folk? Do we use crime stats for college atheletes? Do we use crime stats for intoxicated frat guys? Will these crime stats tell us the exact same thing? I doubt it. So which do we use to evaluate the merits of this case? This is an honest question.
Honest answer: If you have any other stats that yopu think are relevant in this case, present them and we’ll judge them on their merits. Explain how and why you think they are more relevant, and why you think they trup Huerta’s DoJ stats and we’ll have something to discuss. Hypothysithing phantom stats does nothing for your case Just like your sister’s fantasy of vast numbers of unreported rapes was greeted with scorn, so too are your claims of imaginary statistics unless you present those statistics and their source for evaluation.
Why don’t you explain how they are relevant, then? Because neither Huerta or you have laid out a cogent, reasonable, or intelligent argument for why it makes sense to draw conclusions about plausibility from historical data drawn from general populations. Especially when multiple data sets can tell you widely different things.
All you keep is saying is that the DOJ stats relevant. How?
Jesus, whe will you learn that repeating something over and over does not make it true? Read the quote from DragonAsh above, or check out the first link in this reply for my reply. I laid out a fairly narrow set of circumstances detailing how the DoJ stats were relevant and what the limitations of that relevance are, something that you and your sister have repeatedly ignored. Instead you attempt to change the argument and then attack the changes you’ve made. That’s called a S-T-R-A-W-M-A-N.
Finally, there are these two nuggets of I don’t know what. Gall, certainly, and delusion too I think:
My questions to you were posed with calm prose and respect. You don’t know how to answer them without conceding your point, and instead of saying, “I don’t agree with all you’ve said, but at least you’ve given me something to chew over”, you get whiny and claim I’ve misconstrued your argument . You haven’t even made an argument, Weirddave. And I’ve quoted you directly, so how can I misconstrue what you’ve said?
From this thread, I’ve learned the modus operandi of weak debaters:
Make a bullshit argument.
When the bullshit is pointed out, stamp your feet and claim that you’re the victim of misunderstanding.
Don’t provide cites or answer thought-provoking questions, even when posed politely and calmly.
Misconstrue your opponents arguments, while still claiming that you’re not being interpreted correctly. Engaging in semantic nitpicking and moving of goal posts is required here.
Pretend you didn’t even make the bullshit argument in the first place once you realize the tide is turning against you. It’s an attempt to make your opponents look crazy, but it rarely works because people have memories.
When all else fails, paint the opponent as being shrill, hysterical, or irritating, even though your use of exclamation marks and profanity exceeds theirs.
Every single thing you are accusing other people of doing is the EXACT tactics you’ve been following in this thread. Jusus, hubris doesn’t even come close, I think insanity is more accurate!
Wow. That took some work, Weirddave.
Although I don’t always agree with you, this time I have to say “Well done!” Your highlighting of Monstro’s practice of selective quoting was particularly damning.
Unfortunately, it’ll have no effect on ywtf, Monstro and those few cheerleaders that they have. Others have cogently responded to them before, and they just repeat at higher volume.
Their preconceptions can’t be challenged, you see. It’s akin to a religious faith, and those who point out flaws are heretics. Heretics that, as such, are evil.
The only difference between their beliefs and a fundamentalist member of a religion, is that the religious person (if she is at all intelligent and thoughtful) will acknowledge that her beliefs arise from faith, not logic. Any inconsistencies between the religion and objective perception are attributed to an unexplainable supernatural force. And that’s okay. That’s what religion is all about. Occam’s Razor doesn’t apply. Thoughtful religious people are comfortable with that
But Monstro and YWTF and similar people don’t realize that their beliefs derive from the social equivalent of a religion. They believe that they derive from fact, reason and logic. When inconsistencies arise, or preconceptions prove false, those who point them out are met with repetition, anger and attacks.
Eventually, you and the other rational debaters will give up, and the Dynamic Duo will declare victory. The superficial crew will give them a group hug, and SDMB life will continue as before.
Slightly more back on topic:
According to this, the bunch of white guys requested exactly -zero- black women to perform:
Kim Roberts is of course the second dancer; she is actually part Korean and part black; why the guys would assume she’s Hispanic is beyond me; she only looks black to me in her picture.
+++++++
Random beat me to it, but well done indeed, Weirddave
Maybe you’re new to this messageboard, despite your high post count, which in that case I can understand your confusion.
When someone says or suggests that something is relevant, honey, the onus is on them to explain why. The onus is not on other people to say why something is irrelevant. In certain circles, that is considered “proving a negative”, which is quite difficult if not impossible to do.
Actually, that’s being contested right now. I haven’t looked at the data so I can’t say this for sure, but you may have been hoodwinked if you believe the data bears this out.
So in your view, it is more reasonable to think that the guys were willing to pay almost a thousand dollars for something that they either didn’t really want or didn’t know they were going to get beforehand. Would you believe the same thing had the women been white?
In what world do you live in where this is a reasonable assumption?
It’s easy to invent a hypothetical where stats can be conveniently fabricated and whipped out one’s pocket at short notice, but that defies reality. I can’t imagine anyone assessing the plausibility of a boy stealing ice cream based on stats! That is simply asinine. A more realistic hypothetical is like the one I crafted, because its structured like the Duke case and is based on real world events, not any fantasy land imaginings.
To the audience: See how constant this refrain is? Not once have I expressed a problem with the data, yet the Idiot Squad never fail to suggest that everything that I’m writing comes from me taking issue with the idea that whites aren’t raping blacks at epidemic proportions. It’s not enough that they can’t stop crowing about the “vanishingly rareness” of white-on-black rape, as if this reflects well on them somehow No, they have to also accuse people about being “disappointed” by the data.
Keep it coming, Dave. Air out this dirty linen of yours.
Didn’t Ellis Dee try mighty hard to convince us that no one was applying the stats as you suggest they can be? He’s probably fuming right now, wishing you would stop posting, because he wants us all to think that this whole argument was a product of my “hysterical” imagination. Thanks for proving him wrong for me.
But would you accept the reasoning that leads people to believe the charges against the CEO are implausible given her gender status? Be honest now. We all know that you would object to that bullshit. Just admit it already.
Yeah, that’s it. And that’s wrong. What part of wrong do you not understand?
You call my position a strawman, but then you go on to state the very thing that been I’ve arguing against. You’re going to give me a hernia from laughing if you keep this up.
Your “entire” qualification is cute. It put a smile on my face.
All you’re doing is showing the world that you are easily bamboozled by disclaimers of excess verbiage and meaningless pontification. This is obvious to anyone with a discerning eye. There was nothing biased at all about montro’s quoting, as it is the very same shit you have just gone on to post. You just changed what is highlighted. Whoopee!
With all due respect, you’re coming across as more and more hysterical with every post. It’s as if you’ve thrown logic out the window. I’ve reviewed the statistics and they say what they say and that is white-on-black rape is rather rare. Does that have anything do with the case at hand? Not at all. but to dismiss the statistics (which comport with similar DOJ statistics published in 1987) out of hand is simply ignorant.
Jesus, Random, you nailed it in one. I’ll leave it to the audience to judge the relative merits of our two positions, because YWTF is obviously not going to respond with anything other than the same tired shit she’s been parroting over and over. This one piece of illogic just bowled me over though:
So, I have to show why stats regarding white on black rape just might be relevent to the case of a white man (supposedly) raping a black woman. Wow. The mind boggles.
Yeah, you do. Welcome to the Straight Dope, where we greet each other by saying “Cite, please?”.
If the answer is so obvious, so elementary, than you should have no problem explaining what race has to do with rape and why racial stats lend anything of value to the question of likelihood. So go for it.
And this makes no sense. On one hand, you stress how you believe the stats are irrelevant. But then you fault me for “dismissing the statistics out of hand”.
What would you like me to do with them? I’m asking this sincerely.
According to this site (see references within), 99% of accused rapists are men. Ninety-one percent of the victims of women. Fifty percent of rapists are intoxicated. Twenty-five percent of female college students have been raped or sexually assaulted.
If we accept your claim that crime stats are relevant, then we must accept that these stats support the allegation. These stats are no less relevant than race-based ones, and they implicate the lacrosse players even more heavily than the ones bandied about in this thread. I’m guessing the prosecution is going to go to trial with these figures and blow the minds of the jury. With all the stats being volleyed around from both sides, those poor people won 't know what to think!
The next time a white guy is accused of embezzlement, serial killing, or child pedophilia, I’m going to whip out the stats and cite them as proof of his guilt. I will make a huge deal out of his race, and then whine real big and loud when people call me a racist. Will you join my side of the argument, Weirddave? Can I count on you to defend me against the you with the face’s of the board?
A resonable question. The first thing you could do is to recognize that no-one is suggesting that these statistics are dispositive of anything in the case at hand.
Secondly, you could accept the validity of the statistics themselves. That is, black-on-white rape is rare.
Thirdly, the statistics may have some value on whether or not the prosecutor in the case at hand, taken in totality with all of the other evidence, decides to proceed. That is, can they be used as a secondary source when the prosecutor weighs up whether or no he wants to pursue a case? I would be interested to hear from any state’s attorneys whether or not such secondary sources are ever considered when making a decision to prosecute. Secondary sources are, however, used at the appellate level.
Fourthly, they are relevant to refute some of the accusations made by various demagogues regarding the racial motivation behind the alleged rape.
Lastly, that’s all they are good for. They have no dispositive bearing on the guilt or innocent of the three accussed men.
Preview is your friend :smack:
Meant to say, white-on-black rape is rare.
Can you please stop saying this, Lochdale? This isn’t true because Weirddave has repeatedly expressed his belief that they are relevant in evaluating legal cases. Intentionally or not, you’re distorting our position by keeping up this refrain. We aren’t arguing a strawman; we’ve got posters on this page making the very claim you deny is happening.
Rare in comparison to what? We can state that all rape is rare if we don’t care compare it to something meaningful.
What if we evaluate the crime stats for NC and see that white-on-black rape stats are higher than they are on a national level? Will this be meaningful in any way? Why or why not?
How in one breath can you say no one is claiming that stats are relevant to this case, and then in the next say that they can be used to judge the worthiness of an allegation? Aren’t you contradicting yourself?
I’d like to hear from a lawyer too. I’m not a lawyer and have never served on a jury, but I’m really having a hard time believing that a prosecuter would look at crime stats and think to himself, “Hmmm, the stats show this allegation isn’t very plausible. I’m not going to push this case.” If they have evidence, they don’t need stats, right? Without evidence, they have no case in the first place, so stats would be moot.
It seems like you’re not even sure what your point is.
Part of the accusation was that the assailants had hurled racial slurs at the alleged victim. This alone makes the case racially charged…not merely the fact that the accused are white.
(Are stats showing white-on-black hate crimes relevant to this case? What about stats showing incidents of anti-black bias by whites?)
But you apparently think they have applications in other cases. Why are they not appropriate in this case, but somehow useful in others? What’s so different about this case?
Then how can you explain these views?
(bolding all mine)
You know, I’m getting tired of accusations that I’m arguing against a strawman. If that was the case, then how am I able to pull up the above quotes so easily? You are coming off like Ellis Dee 2.0 with the whole revisionist act. Unbecoming.
If I’ve never contested this idea, so what is it that you want me to say? The data itself doesn’t pertain to anything that I’ve been arguing. You might as well me be asking me to accept that the temperature of Pluto is -1099484.3 C degrees. It’s like, okay, so what?
See, this is where you start to look silly. If the stats are irrelevant, as you maintained earlier, then the above is certainly not true.
I fear we’ve lost another Doper to the Dark Side of Irrationality.
So what? These “demagogues” haven’t figured anywhere in my arguments.
I’m going to address only this one point because I can hardly believe that I’m reading it correctly. Are you seriously contending that we should institutionalize the use of racial criteria in deciding whether or not a case should be pursued? Am I missing some subtle point or something, because that sounds absurd on the face of it? I can’t believe anyone would even pose that question in this day and age. I would expect our law enforcement officials to take great pains not to judge a case based on the racial categorization of either the alleged victim or the alleged perpetrator.