“No matter what Jackie said, we should generally believe rape claims” (Washington Post):
We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says. Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist.
is sometimes shortened to “believe all women.”
A portion of a friend’s recent Facebook post:
All women deserve respect, all of the time, regardless of where they are.
I couldn’t resist responding “What do you respect the most about Ann Coulter? And do you respect Jayda Fransen all the time?
This got me thinking… what if Ann Coulter were to say that Barack Obama had touched her inappropriately? Would she be believed by those who are currently passionate about helping survivors?
I expect she’d receive exactly the same support that those people who are passionate about helping survivors gave to Bill Clinton’s accusers.
This is complete and utter rubbish. We should NEVER BELIEVE ACCUSATIONS unless and until they can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And there should be consequences for making false or unprovable accusations publicly.
If the standard is that we are guilty unless proven innocent, let me accuse everyone I do not like today of rape. Oh, wait, I can’t do that? Didn’t you just say we should generally respect and believe rape claims? Oh, you don’t believe me because I am not a woman? How sexist of you!
I believe that if you have a been a victim, you should file a legal complaint ASAP. It should be upon YOU and the investigators to prove your claims. If you cannot, or if you waited too long such that it is no longer feasible to make the case, then it’s too bloody bad! You should also be required to shut the hell up about it outside of the criminal investigation. If you make public claims and you fail to make the criminal case you should be sued for defamation and slander. And, if the accused cannot afford an attorney one should be provided to him in such instances!
IMHO, we do not have a rape or sexual harassment epidemic in this country. We do have a slander and FAKE NEWS epidemic — especially on the political and media stages. Civil Society cannot function and representative government cannot exist under the constant threat of bullshit accusations which has to be believed unless proven as rubbish.
I think it was “Mike” from a few posts back that if he were dating, he would record a 10-second video that both participants agreed the coitus was consensual. Couldn’t we use blockchain technology for these transactions? Couldn’t Tindr/Bumble or whatever implement this feature since the participants need a smartphone anyway to find and meet each other? Just before and after sex the participants need to login with their passwords to sign off on the transaction then it gets recorded on an open ledger. One could take this further and log each dinner date and texts. If all interactions are recorded on an unalterable but open ledger maybe that would protect each other from false accusations?
The muzzies seem to have something of a point where in their sharia systems the testimony of a woman is worth less than that of a man.
The more I read about Sharia the more reasonable a lot of pieces of it seem to me.
@GermanL: BitBooty, you heard it here first.
GermanL,
your proposal gives new meaning to “web of trust”
bobbybobbob,
“The more I read about Sharia the more reasonable a lot of pieces of it seem to me.”
what state do you live in again?
@GermanL I’m not sure if that would actually help…
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/07/24/judges-decision-on-consent-and-rape-sends-a-strong-message-editorial.html
“Justice Zuker found Gray, a York University doctoral student, most definitely had not given consent, despite the fact she had been drinking before the rape with the perpetrator, had had sex with him on prior occasions, had willingly gone to his home, and had texted him about “hot sex” before the evening had begun.”
@Joecanuck
That was truly a horrifying read. Thankfully, that judgment (made by a retiring judge) was overturned on appeal. To no one’s surprise, the prosecution decided against a second trial. If not for this kind of self-correction — too little, too late thought it is — society will collapse.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/07/20/decision-expected-in-appeal-of-man-convicted-of-sexually-assaulting-mandi-gray.html
“Ururyar appealed his July 2016 conviction and sentence, alleging that now-retired Ontario Court Justice Marvin Zuker, who oversaw his trial, was biased against him and gave a rambling, confusing and “illogical” analysis of the evidence in a 179-page decision that quoted extensively from academic studies and literature about sexual assault including Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
In his appeal decision, released Thursday, Superior Court Justice Michael Dambrot called Zuker’s judgment and reasoning “incomprehensible,” and said Zuker had failed to provide an explanation for why he strongly denounced Ururyar’s evidence as feeble, unbelievable, incomprehensible and false. In an unusual and unexpected postscript to the appeal decision, Dambrot accused Zuker of reproducing or drawing on sources without attribution.
“This was a simple trial,” Dambrot wrote. “In order for the trial judge’s reasons to survive judicial scrutiny, they had only to explain to the appellant why he was convicted . . . . Unfortunately, despite the length of the judgment, it fails this test.””
The appeals court judgment is rather gripping reading: http://schliferclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Ururyar-Factum-FINAL_filed-version.pdf
For completeness, here’s the original conviction judgment: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/oncj/doc/2016/2016oncj448/2016oncj448.pdf
@Joecanuck & VV2
Wow.. just found the time to look through the judgement. Some golden nuggets of absurdity:
— When confronted with the text messages in cross-examination, it was clear that she
texted him: “I’m at Victory Café. Come drink and then we can have hot sex.” She claimed to be “surprised” that he attended the bar and stating: “I didn’t even expect him to show up…” — XD
— The complainant did not mention the “hot sex” text to the police in her statement and maintained that she deleted the entire conversation the morning after the incident. She also texted her friend the morning following and said: “it just happened we were at the same bar.” —
— Similarly, while judge’s are permitted to comment on public policy and the law needs
to evolve on a case-by-case basis, a reasonable observer would conclude that this case was more about commenting on social policy and the perceived inequities that face sexual assault complainants in the criminal justice system, as opposed to fairly reviewing the evidence. The trial judge has but a few brief references to the problems with the complainant’s evidence – even though parts of her narrative were completely contradicted by the text messages (the “hot sex” text and her surprise at seeing him at the Victory Café) and she initially told the police and her friend via text message, that she was not sure that she did not consent. —
No doubt the guy sounds like a jerk and the girl a bit desperate and spiteful.
Maybe the solution is to have two trials, one with a jury of all men and another with a jury of all women. Then if there is a tie, no one goes to jail but each jury can leave a strong public statement about the defendant and plaintiff, eg. “Mustafa was a jerk” and/or “Mandy deserved better treatment” and leave it at that. Maybe this is what is really sought from the women in such cases – a public shaming of the man so she recovers some of her lost dignity. If the law only gives the option of conviction and jail time as punishment, then such scenarios make you wonder if the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.
Last comment. As an alternative to the justice system, women could just use the SWAT prank to kill off the offending man. Apparently there is a high rate of success when using such methods:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/police-kill-shoot-and-man-after-apparent-swatting-prank?ref=home
— A Wichita, Kansas, man is dead after what police are investigating as a possible “swatting” incident. After two gamers had a falling out over a Call of Duty game Thursday night, one threatened to make a false police report to police so armed officers would respond. The other gamer reportedly taunted him, and listed another person’s Wichita address as own. The first gamer allegedly called police and when a SWAT team arrived at the home, an officer shot and killed a 28-year-old man who came to the door. Police are investigating the source of the prank call. —