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If you are pissed and you want to rant, do so in the Pit.
Moving thread from IMHO to the Pit.
Some people advocating the Me Too movement insist “always believe the accuser” which is batshit insane. It’s also antithetical to a free society based on the legal premise that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.
On the other hand, idiots aside what the Me Too movement is really trying to accomplish is to not automatically believe the accuser but at least give the accusation enough respect to check out its veracity and not stigmatize accusers, which has been the historical norm. Women who’ve been abused should not worry about the accusation ruining their lives and so keep silent while predators go on and do their thing. Men who are very powerful sometimes act like their status makes them invulnerable to such things, and in some cases they practically are. The Me Too movement seeks to end that.
And for the OP, magic knockout drugs are fictional yes. Hollywood has greatly exaggerated the effects of things like chloroform and sodium pentathol. You also can’t bonk someone on the head or karate chop their neck and have them safely fall asleep. Anything that can instantly cause unconsciousness is life threatening and almost always causes serious medical problems alongside being knocked out.
But sedatives are real. Dosing someone is dangerous but saying “someone had to have died” is inaccurate. There are many real cases of people being drugged and taken advantage of. Denying the possibility of that is fucking delusional. I’m sorry but Cosby is guilty as hell, hate to burst your bubble.
Not sure if this is a joke or not, but Amber Heard was married to Johnny Depp. She claimed he abused her but after her claims I remember reading several posts by people who survived abusive relationships claiming she seemed very happy and carefree for someone escaping abuse.
Then it turns out that there were serious complains of her abusing her husband.
Domestic violence and sexual assault claims can and are weaponized, which is why you need thorough investigations rather than just believing or denying every claim. With the Duke Lacrosse case, after they investigated they found the rape accusations were false.
Again, like the WaPo issue where a conservative activist made a fake accusation against Roy Moore to make the WaPo look bad. The WaPo researched it and found the claim was false since her story didn’t add up.
Just because it wasn’t criminalized doesn’t mean it wasn’t a crime. Just not a prosecuted one. Raping your wife wasn’t a crime at all until very recently either. Suss out for yourself what that proves.
Clearly. OP, the correct form is “I, too, am BS.”
(Split pea & jambalaya? Split peanut & jelly? Split pants & jacket?)
Split pea and jambalaya sounds delicious.
The OP is a conspiracy theorist thus unqualified to determine what is and is not BS.
When was drugging and raping people not a crime?
And even many of the behaviors that are not criminal actions under law—such as pressuring an employee to submit to sex in exchange for a deserved promotion or just to avoid being discipline or fired—is ethically wrong, generally in contravention to (rarely enforced) corporate policies, and in many states an explicit violation of employment law. Just because someone cannot be convicted of a crime does not mean that their actions should not be subjected to criticism.
As for those who think these claims are “all BS”, please explain the reason why there is a cottage industry of wealthy, powerful men employing law firms to impose and enforce non-disclosure agreements on former employees or contacts which prevent them from even acknowledging accusations of wrongdoing by others or in some cases even confirming employment or contact; in essence, forcing them to not only be silent about their own experience but complicit in covering up the reputation of the alleged abuser. Why are people like Bill Cosby (who, by they way, acknowledged under oath to giving acquiring and giving sedatives to multiple women) or Harvey Weinstein willing to may multimillion dollar settlements to obtain these NDAs rather than using their experienced legal team and the private investigators they employ to disprove these allegations?
No, we shouldn’t just assume all allegations are accurate and truthful by default; of course they should be investigated and weight given to corresponding evidence and credibility of accusers. Sometimes accusations can be false or exaggerated; the anonymous claim against Aziz Ansari published on the click-bait babe.net website is a prime example of a claim that on its face wasn’t much more than poor communication and shattered expectations (and possibly an intentional smear) by a fan. But while that claim wasn’t followed up with a series of other similar accusations and experiences by other women, as far as I have been able to find every serious #MeToo accusation has been substantiated by multiple—often dozens—of similar accusations and complaints that were often registered with authorities or made to other independent sources far in advance of the public airing of the original grievance. The relatively few cases of manufactured or bogus claims—such as the fake Roy Moore accusation made to The Washington Post—have fallen apart under cursory examination.
And yes, women can be abusers, too, and should be held to the same standard because of course they should and no one is arguing differently. But if you take any random collection of five women, I can virtually guarantee that four of them will have stories of being pressured by superiors, threatened or assaulted by male acquaintances or family members, harassed by strangers, anonymously groped in public spaces, and all of this without any motive for profit or revenge because this is just the common experience of being a woman in a society where this is just considered impolite at worst. (And Western society are scarcely the worst in this regard.)
I once witnessed some jackass grope my then-girlfriend right in front of me, and when I accused him of it, and he denied what I saw with my eyes and then threatened to fight over it, she pulled me away, telling me, “It’s not worth a fight; it happens, okay?” But it’s not okay, and frankly I regret letting that shitbag get away with it because I’m morally certain that was neither the first or last time he did that. As a society, we need to stop letting people—and particularly well-heeled people in power—buy their way out of accusations and not holding them accountable for shitty behavior. If you don’t think so, that is your right, but then maybe you would be more comfortable in one of those societies where women are officially second class (or third, or non-) citizens to whom you can do as you please with legal approval.
Stranger
All sorts of places and times, when the laws are written to carefully define certain types of rape not rape. Marital rape wasn’t criminalized in the US until the 1970s.
And of course there are far more cases when rape is technically illegal but it doesn’t matter since the authorities will never prosecute.
It mostly does, however. The American Right is fundamentally a pro-rape political movement.
Richard Hauptmann was innocent too… and that Charles Lindbergh was a monster!
(HBO is my cite)
I know what you mean. Remember when people could get away with lynchings?
:rolleyes:
To be clear: I don’t find your argument to have any merit whatsoever.
Define monster - Mine is that Lindbergh was anti-semitic, isolationist, pro-Nazi, and a polygamist. Polygamy is not an issue if all parties are informed and consent. This was not the case. He had “secret” families. Perhaps not a monster, but definitely not a decent human being.
Regarding the OP - He’s a shit-stirring bastard who should find a new bridge to dwell under. Death Valley might have a few. Maybe he’ll come back to the thread so we can discuss it.
#MeToo has been tremendously helpful to people (women and men) who have been sexually harassed, assaulted, and attacked. Just bringing those issues to the forefront of public discussion has been important. I don’t think that men (for the most part) truly understand how limited and threatening was, and still is, for women. In the same vein, to draw a parallel, I don’t think that white people truly understand the racism inherent in society.
No one is arguing that everyone who alleges harassment/assault/rape is telling the truth, but the vast majority are. Claims need to be investigated and should not be dismissed as the default position.
Amber Heard would appear to be a garbage person. This was revealed through… investigation.
Cosby is a garbage person, revealed through claims, then investigation. Knock out drugs may be a fallacy, but mixing alcohol and sedatives/sleeping pills will make you pliable or put you straight to sleep.
Weinstein - garbage person. Etc.
Split P&J - fuck the fuck right off.
Yeah, and Casey Anthony did nothing wrong!
Sorry to say that drugging and raping women has actually been illegal for quite some time, now…
Well said.
Pretty sure people from all sides are shitty-ass human beings. :rolleyes:
That’s just the standard “bothsides” right wing apologia.
No, they are* not* remotely equivalent. The Right is systematically pro-rape and always has been, all the way back to the beginning when “right wing” meant supporting the French aristocracy. Their opponents are not.
The Right is and always has been monstrous.
It being batshit insane is why I’ve never heard anyone actually advocate this who isn’t already insane. The vast majority of such claims come from the opposition, claiming that’s what #MeToo “really means.”
The most I’ve seen is that you should believe an accusation of rape provisionally, until there is evidence that it is not true. More often, I just see people who think that the system gave too much leniency to the accused, even outside a court of law.
The idea is that people reflexively disbelieve accusations of rape in a way they don’t with most other accusations of crimes. People are more suspicious of rape accusations than they are of someone stealing, despite lying about not being at all uncommon.
The idea is just that the balance is out of whack and that we need to counterbalance it.
One of the most common forms of illegitimate opposition is to make up something someone didn’t say to make them look stupid, or to pick out the
They’re all still variations on the classic strawman fallacy.
I know “bothsideism” is frowned upon on these boards, but I believe the majority of people on both the right and the left poop out of their butts.
(Colostomy bags are a real thing but not that common to people of either political philosophy.)