Those are arguments for not listening to someone, or at least not listening without skepticism. They aren’t arguments for people being silent.
Let’s say a guy at work grabs my tits. I have no evidence. I can’t tell anyone?
Let’s say five women all report the same story. Not enough evidence to convict him, but you’re saying it’s wrong to even consider that they might be telling the truth?
My case is typical of sexual abuse victims, so I didn’t see that as applying to me.
[QUOTE=SlackerInc]
I’m asking society to have standards that don’t depend on taking every single person’s word for everything.
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Good news everyone! Society has standards that don’t depend on taking every single person’s word for everything.
[QUOTE=SlackerInc]
So what you want in a he-said/she-said situation is a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.
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Of course I want a presumption of guilt for the person who molested me. Yes, how very unfair I’m being to that poor, put-upon child-molesting sociopath. You’re still making the mistake of thinking we’re talking about innocent people being harmed. No innocent people are being harmed in this case. None. We’re not on the outside looking in, which is where your philosophy comes from, we’re on the inside looking out. I don’t have to guess who’s innocent or guilty, I know. And based on that knowledge I am entitled to act in any way I see fit (within the constraints of the law, obviously) to make the world safer and help others.
You people, on the outside, having to make decisions about who to believe, that’s your own problem. Feel free to consider things like a) overall credibility of person making the claim, or b) corroborating evidence. I don’t care. If you were my mother and you knew, and you looked the other way, and then you punished me for it, you can go straight to hell. If you were my grandmother and you didn’t take me at my word, you can go straight to hell. My abuser’s business associate? Stranger off the street? Person who doesn’t know either of us? I don’t give a fuck, though I’m definitely not inviting anyone over to Sunday dinner who can’t take me at my word. I have already accepted that injustice is a permanent part of this experience.
[QUOTE=SlackerInc]
I understand why it seems scary or objectionable to let 9 torturers/murderers of children out on the streets to keep an innocent man out of prison. Would you also feel then that it’s okay to put 9 innocent men in prison to keep one child torturer/murderer off the streets? Or is it at 5 of each that the threshold is reached?
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You’re undermining your own argument by pointing out how arbitrary your own standard is. And again, this side conversation, while interesting, has nothing to do with talking openly about your own rape experience.
Five women reporting it is far different. The police and prosecutors will (or should) think so too. This was a key part of my point earlier on why you should report things to the police even if your one report will not result in a successful prosecution. Either it will add to the total mass of evidence later, or will dissuade the attacker from doing it again, knowing that the protestations of innocence ring much more hollow the second or especially the fifth time.
Okay, so just so I have this straight… if someone at work grabs my tits, I’m obligated to report it to the police but I’m obligated not to tell my employer?
They should do so, of course, but they should do so in a way that doesn’t harm either the accused or the accuser. Ensuring that they do not work in close proximity, ensuring there’s always more than two people about, and so on.
But if, after a thorough investigation, there truly is no evidence beyond someone’s word that something happened, then in any professional situation people should act as though the accused is innocent.
A policy that no worker should have to be alone with someone they don’t wish to be with would be one response to this, as it doesn’t require anyone being accused of anything.
Why? Because you could be falsely accused of a crime one day, that’s why. It’s understandable that you don’t care about that particular individual, but you should care about the principle of not condemning people without proof, if not for ethical reasons then for selfish ones.
No, “What?” to that example.
The maxim about “better ten criminals go free than one innocent be condemned”, is NOT about when we know it for an absolute fact, about trading ten known monsters for one innocent as if it were a hostage swap. It’s about needing to meet burdens of proof and standards of evidence before the Law and not railroading people.
Wait, she should protect HIS reputation, even though his guilt is indisputable, because someone else might be falsely accused somewhere?
Dude, I was falsely accused by the woman who was fucking assaulting me in my sleep, actively planning to kill me and telling everyone else that I was beating her. I don’t give a flying fuck about her “reputation” other than to sincerely hope that people who have come to know her since we were married come to know the truth of what an evil piece of shit she is.
I’m not interested in keeping MY silence just because I was falsely accused. Nor am I interested in giving people like the subject of this OP the “benefit of the doubt”. He fucking did it, and he deserved far worse than he got.
[QUOTE=Steophan]
Why? Because you could be falsely accused of a crime one day, that’s why. It’s understandable that you don’t care about that particular individual, but you should care about the principle of not condemning people without proof, if not for ethical reasons then for selfish ones.
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If I am falsely accused of committing a crime that would be terrible, but it has no ethical relationship to accurately accusing someone of committing a crime.
As Manda Jo pointed out, your argument is an argument for being skeptical of an accusation, it is not an argument for being silent if you are a victim.
This. /thread
Well, yeah, it is worse, assuming the 9 children aren’t being tortured and murdered by the state.
Yeah, not hardly. The two have no relationship to one another. You only think they do because in your mind you’re the one doing the assessing and having to judge who is telling the truth. Being the actual victim of the crime, I have no such assessing or judgment to do. There is no moral burden on me. That’s your societal burden to bear, but I promise, it’s not nearly as painful as being sexually abused and having nobody believe you.
And hey, let’s not confuse the law with everyday life. i wouldn’t want my abuser to go to prison without the evidence to convict him. That’s a legal standard I respect.
Am I going to post flyers all over his neighborhood about what he did to me? You can bet I’ve fantasized about it, but no. I’m not that vindictive.
Am I going to bend over backward to protect his reputation? Hell no.
Exactly. If you want to argue about the ethics of accepting someone’s word without proof, fine. But that’s for other people to decide – if I know the absolute truth about someone’s guilt of rape then I’m under no obligation to keep it secret.
Also, Slacker, you didn’t answer my question:
I’m curious if the fact that I work for a sexual assault and domestic violence center changes your view of my obligation to my coworkers and our clients.
But by your logic we can never get to five, because no one is allowed to speak to anyone except the cops.
It’s not condemning. I don’t have the power to put people in jail, or to compel others to believe me. I am in individual relating my experiences. How is that wrong?
Like, seriously, your neighbor gets drunk and punches you in the face. You can’t prove it. Do you really think it’s immoral to tell people at work how you got a black eye?
Sounds good to me. It’s up to the rest of us in society to weigh the credence we give you (and him) and it’s on us, not on you, what WE do (or fail to) about it. You should not be compelled to protect him when you are certain of your claim.
But we are being told in this thread that victims are obligated to keep quiet, and if they don’t keep quiet, the people they tell who have power over their environments are obligated not to act, unless there’s a criminal conviction.
I say again that this is not the purpose of the justice system. It is not there to preempt all social actions against someone violating social norms. It’s not there to replace our individual judgments about people in our social groups.
I’ve spent most of my life in big corporations - even with hundreds of positions, it isn’t easy to separate two people without career consequences for one of them. Say I’m a project manager on a high profile project. My lead developer makes a bunch of very inappropriate comments. To separate us, one of us will have to take a less prestigious assignment - one of us will take a career hit. And the project - either way - will take a hit on delivery. Who takes the career hit?