How is this relevant?
By telling everyone else to live in accord with the teachings of Christ, Christians are generally following those teachings as they understand them. Christianity is not known for “An ye harm none, do as thou wilt.” So those Christians are internally consistent.
He deserves to not only be branded with a capital “A” on his forehead, but six smaller case letters after it.
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“Vanna, could you turn over the letter “S” please…?”
What happens if she changes her mind about the consent after Donald Trump loses?
That I am unshocked you are selective about which parts of scripture to live by or, if you prefer, that the RCC has been selective on your behalf.
Truth be told, I’d be shocked at someone who did live their lives according to scripture in its totality, since it contains numerous contradictions and commands that are incompatible with modern civilization. But this isn’t about you, unless you’re making excuses for Trump. As I recall, you’ve already announced you won’t be voting for him, so that’s all that matter to me for the purposes of this thread.
If she were to say, “The truth is I never consented, and I only said I did because I feared angering the next President of the United States,” then I’d view the situation differently.
But I won’t write that dialog into her mouth on my own.
Correct – I will not be voting for Trump.
But that doesn’t mean I endorse every criticism of him. This one, for example, is not well grounded. A fact I find fascinating, given the rich vein of possible critiques to level at Trump.
IOW, who am I going to believe, her words or my lying eyes?
Her actions aren’t exactly a tough read, you know. And FWIW, throwing up a hand and turning your head away to block and avoid a kiss isn’t ‘body language’; it’s actions. It’s a big fucking STOP sign, an unambiguous NO.
Fuck that ‘body language’ shit, in this context. Body language is whether the other person’s leaning in towards you or away, whether they’ve got their arms crossed across their chest, stuff like that. We’re not talking about that, here.
If my son ever disregards an equally emphatic bit of ‘body language’ and I find out about it, his ass is gonna be toast. Hell, maybe I’ll use this video as instructional material in a few years.
She may have excellent reasons to say otherwise. I bet you could even figure out some possibilities. But it doesn’t matter. Her actions at the time were crystal-clear. And once again, agency doesn’t extend to being able to undo the past.
nm, dbl post
Oh, and on a certain long-ago Thursday night, Peter denied three times that he’d been with Jesus. Guess the people who claimed they saw him should have believed him, rather than their own eyes.
Inapt comparison: there, his claim was that he had not physically been with Jesus, and the observations to the contrary do in fact refute his claim.
Here, the claim is about what she was thinking and what she consented to, and her body language can only provide clues. When her verbal declarations are explicit and to the contrary, you have no right to inform her that you have decided how she must have felt, and aren’t moved by her mere words.
Adopting that view shows that you regard her as fundamentally lacking in agency; you, not she, gets to explain her feelings.
Her words, is the correct answer.
Yes, we are. And you do not get the right to decide for her how she felt.
Sorry, but wrong answer.
There was no ‘body language.’ There were visible actions. A hand raised to fend him off. A face turned away.
I have not suggested how she felt. You are confused.
Could you link to and quote “her verbal declarations” that “are explicit and to the contrary”? So far you’re making assertions, counselor, based on evidence that’s not in the record.
If one cannot obtain a conviction does that mean that no crime has occurred?
Everyone seems to agree that if Ms. Hawkins didn’t want to press charges, then no charges should have been brought. However, pointing out that Trump’s actions were assault does not imply that Ms. Hawkins “lacks the capacity to affirm consent.” It merely emphasizes that it is not worth her while, in her judgment, to make that accusation. I have a friend who has the distinction of having been goosed by Trump. She didn’t make an issue of it either, judging that it would cause an uproar that she didn’t need. My friend’s decision implies nothing about the rightness or legality of what Trump did to her.
It merely illustrates the difference between justice for the rich and justice for the rest of us, frankly.
Say there’s a woman in a bedroom and the man tells her they’re going to fuck. It’ll happen the easy way or the hard way.
Him: So, do you want to have sex?
Her: … yes…
Consent?
I trust our prerogative to decide how this event informs our feelings about Trump remains unmolested.
You know, at one time in my life I would have simply abandoned the point after reading this, because it would have been clear to me that the point was being deliberately misrepresented with questions like these.
Now, though, I am happier to assume that your question results from inexplicably-remaining genuine confusion, and clear it up for you.
Here, your question is not a useful analogy to the Trump event, because the woman’s still in the peril that was threatened, so we’re certainly entitled to regard her “Yes,” as lacking any indicia of genuine consent.
In the case of the Trump video being discussed in this thread, Hawkins is not asked about her consent while standing next to Trump. She’s asked about the event years later, while Trump is halfway around the world, and she’s surrounded by an audience eager to support her in agreeing that Trump acted poorly.
It’s curious to me that you did not see that essential difference between the Trump video with Hawkins’ five-years-later event and an attempted analogy in which the woman has been physically threatened and moments later, in the same room, is asked about her consent.
Why is that?
Why do you suppose that I disliked Ted Kennedy but was able to defend him on this board when posters suggested he was a murderer? Why do you suppose that I was able to defend Hillary Clinton when the e-mail server story broke, well before it became obvious I had no choice but to vote for her? Why is it, do you think, that I am able to take even a strongly disliked political figure and still accurately recognize when a given attack is ungrounded, but you cannot? Why, for you, does every attack become justified simply because the target is Trump?
You’re not the only one. You’re in good company here. But step outside yourself for a moment and ask yourself why you needed to misrepresent this argument so dramatically.
There are no “charges” to be pressed. Its doubtful the video depicts a crime, and even if it did, the statute of limitations is long past.
Your friend may not wish to make an issue of it, but does she say that Trump always treated her with respect, as Ms. Hawkins did? This is not merely declining to “press charges;” this is affirmatively stating that there was no assault.
I’m not misrepresenting the argument, I’m simply showing that a verbal consent isn’t the end of the conversation. I didn’t address the argument at all. I’m just wondering if a verbal consent is the only thing that’s needed or if there are be extenuating circumstances.
Clearly the answer is that there can be, dismissing them out of hand is inappropriate.
And those are actions included in the term “body language.”
Sure you have.
You cannot harmonize that statement with a claim of assault.
As an absolute matter, it’s true that verbal statements may not always be insufficient.
But this particular verbal statement, made five years after the event, safely separated from Trump by thousands of miles and a sovereign nation’s national borders, does not suffer from the infirmities that your example did.
So my question to you is: did you know that when you posted your question?