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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Rape and incest are the hand of the Almighty
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by art dunce:
I don't quite get the lack of generosity in your response though. I will bow out.
I think they focused on the first part, and thought you were essentially echoing the politician in the OP. Rather than the reverse, which seems to be how you meant it (focus on the latter half).
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
There is a vocal minority in the US political debate over health care who say that people should not be taxed at any amount over what they want, and in particular that the hoi polloi should not be able to tell the superrich what they should pay. These people say that our Lord's command was to help the poor with our own money, not with somebody else's, and that taxing the superrich to help the poor is against the Biblical command to not steal.
In such a context, saying we're not to go around foisting crosses on others looks very much like a complaint about the first-world health care delivery system the US lacks and that the Health Care Affordability Act was a first step in moving towards. Now maybe art dunce is unaware of the parameters of the debate about public health care funding in US Christian circles. But I think for that reason a little sensitivity needs to go both ways. AD's post is exceedingly ambiguous, but once it is sorted out which way he meant it, there's no reason the conversation can't continue on without smooshed toes or "bowing out" on either side.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
I thought Art Dunce was perfectly clear -- we are not meant to place burdens on other people. And in the context of the OP, not to call on other people to suffer for our principles and beliefs.
I'm honestly amazed that anyone could have interpreted his/her initial post in any other way.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
I thought Art Dunce was perfectly clear -- we are not meant to place burdens on other people. And in the context of the OP, not to call on other people to suffer for our principles and beliefs.
I'm honestly amazed that anyone could have interpreted his/her initial post in any other way.
Yes but I for one can see how it can be interpreted in more than one way.
From the context of the OP, it looks like it's Brent Crane who's foisting his cross on others, by insisting that tragic and horrifying rapes and incest are the Hand of the Almighty, and that rape and incest victims should therefore carry their child to full term.
But from the context provided by LutheranChik two posts up, it looks like it's LutheranChik's co-workers who are foisting their cross on others - by apparently putting themselves into deliberate poverty so as to qualify for Medicaid.
How could it possibly be that both of these things can be thought of as foisting your cross on others? Hmm, I don't know. Bit of a conundrum, that. Surely it's got to be one or the other, no?
Personally, I'm of the opinion that the extent to which it's really fair to stitch people up for foisting their crosses on others, does depend on their circumstances at the time they do said foisting. I dare say that the Medicaid claimants probably had less alternative options to their "foisting" than the elected representative had to his.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
I thought Art Dunce was perfectly clear -- we are not meant to place burdens on other people. And in the context of the OP, not to call on other people to suffer for our principles and beliefs.
I'm honestly amazed that anyone could have interpreted his/her initial post in any other way.
John
Ditto. It made perfect sense to me as well.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
To go back to an issue raised earlier, how does a doctor determine whether or not a rape has occurred? Last I checked, rape was not a medical condition, but a legal one.
As to Lutheranchik's post, I work with people with significant disabilities, some of whom live with their families.
In my state, the "model" *cough, cough* for care for people with disabilities is the family unit. While folks are young and still in school, this may work out reasonably well, although no one should dismiss the extraordinary strains that disability in a family member can place on a marriage, on income and earnings, and on siblings.
Once disabled kids "age out" of school, however, there's no guarantee that person will receive any services; state funding in my state has never risen to the need. Many disabled people adults end up on wait lists, living at home.
This often means that one parent can no longer work; someone has to be in constant care and supervision over the disabled person. It can also split marriages up, with the custodial parent forced onto welfare, as (usually she) must care for the now-adult child who's on a years-long waitlist for services or placement.
And ultimately it leads to the situation which crossed my desk last week: a 78-year-old widow caring for a 52-year-old nonverbal son in diapers. She is no longer able to lift and turn him. She has been caring for him full-time for more than half-a-century. Yet I never hear anyone asking about her right to some sort of life.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
To go back to an issue raised earlier, how does a doctor determine whether or not a rape has occurred? Last I checked, rape was not a medical condition, but a legal one.
That'll be the elephant in the room. The only solution to that problem, in my opinion, is to admit that there should be more than one standard by which a woman can be deemed as having been raped.
If the decision that a woman has been raped may result in a potentially innocent person being imprisoned for a long time, or punished some other way, then the standard of evidence to prove that she has been raped should rightfully be quite high.
But on the other hand, if the decision that a woman has not been raped may result in a woman not being able to get a termination for a pregnancy when she really has been raped, then the standard should rightfully be quite low.
So you may have a situation in which the evidence that a woman has been raped is strong enough to allow her to get a termination - but it's not strong enough to result in a criminal conviction.
I suspect that hard-line feminists won't like that, because they won't like the idea that the question of whether someone has been raped or not might sometimes be blurry. But I don't see why it should pose a problem for the rest of us.
Then again, hard-line feminists are likely to use the fact that huge numbers of women qualify as "rape victims" under the lower standard, to argue that the number of rape convictions is pitifully small, and - cue the cliché - "something should be done about it". And it can be very hard to put the counter-argument that there may in fact be very good reasons for having two or more standards for judging whether someone has been raped or not, and that the system should therefore be kept as it is. And that the system really isn't misogynistic, and that something really should not be done about it.
This means that such a system is inherently unstable, and is unlikely to stick for a particularly long time without politicians meddling with it. Then again, perhaps I underestimate the electorate's ability to cope with finely reasoned arguments, or the ability of politicians to delivery such arguments.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
I suspect that hard-line feminists won't like that, because they won't like the idea that the question of whether someone has been raped or not might sometimes be blurry. But I don't see why it should pose a problem for the rest of us.
I suspect they wouldn't like it because such a system makes the same assumption rapists do, namely that someone else gets to decide for women what they do with their bodies regardless of their own preferences.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I suspect they wouldn't like it because such a system makes the same assumption rapists do, namely that someone else gets to decide for women what they do with their bodies regardless of their own preferences.
<tangent>
The thing that I find most intriguing about the fact that feminists make such a big song and dance about whether rapists respect the decisions of women or not, is that it presupposes that women are somehow less capable than men of getting the martial arts self-defence training they need to be able to fight the rapists off for themselves. The assumption is that the law should be providing that protection for them.
Snag is, as it stands, most of the front line operatives of that law, in most jurisdictions, are men. This is particularly true of the operatives that are chosen to deal with sex offenders. Police and probation services routinely exclude their own female staff from working with sex offenders, for the simple reason that women are not thought to be up to it. Why? Because feminist rhetoric tells them so!
Feminist rhetoric teaches that women deserve to be protected against the risk of rape. You therefore can't put a woman in a position where she is responsible for protecting people against sex offenders - because that would mean that if she failed in that responsibility, then any resulting rape might be considered to be at least indirectly the fault of that woman. And rape must never ever be thought of as a woman's fault in any way whatsoever.
As a result, feminist rhetoric has the side-effect of casting men in the role of the chivalrous protectors of women against the threat of rape. This results in the perpetuation of male dominance of women.
</end of tangent>
Getting back to the topic, it's clear to me that having two separate standards of evidence would open a big can of worms. People really do seem to struggle to think about rape in anything other than stark black-and-white terms; either a rape has happened, or it hasn't. People just can't cope with uncertainty, it seems.
Perhaps the idea that they might be able to cope with that uncertainty is a lost cause.
That's why I'm inclined to the idea that the standard of evidence required to convict someone of rape should remain high - but that availability of abortion should continue to be a free-for-all.
However, if it's necessary to charge fees for those abortions, then perhaps it's not a bad idea to give discounts to those who have attended martial arts classes.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
However, if it's necessary to charge fees for those abortions, then perhaps it's not a bad idea to give discounts to those who have attended martial arts classes.
Hmm. On second thoughts, perhaps abortion fee discounts for martial arts students is not such a good idea, because it might mean that competent fighters are ever so slightly less likely to breed than unfit people.
Whilst I believe that it's never a woman's fault if she is raped, on the other hand, I believe that a competent fighter is far more likely to be able to defend herself successfully than a lazy slob.
For that reason, I think it's right to bring economic incentives to bear, to get women to toughen up a bit, so that women might be able to fight the rapists off for themselves, rather than rely on men to do that fighting for them. A truly self-respecting woman wouldn't want it any other way, in my opinion.
But perhaps there are better ways of doing that than abortion fee discounts.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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AmyBo
Shipmate
# 15040
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Posted
So if a woman is raped, and she didn't take adequate martial arts classes, or maybe dithered her time away in Yoga, it's her fault that she didn't defend herself sufficiently?
What if she was manipulated emotionally- should she have been taking classes on self-esteem?
Does this support the argument in Italy years ago that a woman wearing jeans cannot be raped as they're too hard to get off?
What about those rape survivors that are men- were they automatically able to defend themselves as men but failed their manliness testing by allowing the rape?
I'm having a hard time understanding the premise that it is a woman's duty to defend herself rather than the attacker's duty to knock it off.
[ 29. April 2011, 07:08: Message edited by: AmyBo ]
Posts: 122 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Aug 2009
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Orlly posted by Jessie Phillips:
quote:
women are somehow less capable than men of getting the martial arts self-defence training they need to be able to fight the rapists off for themselves. The assumption is that the law should be providing that protection for them.
Ignoring the "rape" aspect for a moment; most victims of violence are young men in their late teens/ early twenties, on a Friday / Saturday night when either they've been drinking, or they're having a night out which brings them into contact with others who have ben drinking.
Should we just say that young men are, somehow, less capable of walking away from trouble, or less capable of spotting it and avoiding it than women and that the onus should be on them to go to classes in how not to be young, male and a bit reckless?
No, we assume that the law should be providing protection for them, we assume that there will be police out and about on Friday and Saturday nights.
How far should be go with "blame the victim?" What about the elderly person who keeps large sums of cash on them or in their house because they don't have a computer and can't do online banking? There are classes for computer literacy, granny! If you don't want to be mugged collecting your pension, wise up and take the classes!!
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
<tangent>
The thing that I find most intriguing about the fact that feminists make such a big song and dance about whether rapists respect the decisions of women or not, is that it presupposes that women are somehow less capable than men of getting the martial arts self-defence training they need to be able to fight the rapists off for themselves. The assumption is that the law should be providing that protection for them.
Wow. Just, wow. In all the debates like this I don't think I ever remember anyone suggesting that women shouldn't be protected by the law, so that's a first. Of course, this kind of victim blaming is common among rape apologists. "She should have fought harder" is right up there with "look how she was dressed", but the main purpose of these kind of arguments is not to build a case but rather to shift focus to the victim so that the rapist(s) vanish from the picture entirely.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Isn't the whole effing POINT of criminal law to protect us from each other?
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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earrings
Shipmate
# 13306
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Posted
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips
quote:
<tangent>The thing that I find most intriguing about the fact that feminists make such a big song and dance about whether rapists respect the decisions of women or not, is that it presupposes that women are somehow less capable than men of getting the martial arts self-defence training they need to be able to fight the rapists off for themselves. The assumption is that the law should be providing that protection for them.
Snag is, as it stands, most of the front line operatives of that law, in most jurisdictions, are men. This is particularly true of the operatives that are chosen to deal with sex offenders. Police and probation services routinely exclude their own female staff from working with sex offenders, for the simple reason that women are not thought to be up to it. Why? Because feminist rhetoric tells them so!
Feminist rhetoric teaches that women deserve to be protected against the risk of rape. You therefore can't put a woman in a position where she is responsible for protecting people against sex offenders - because that would mean that if she failed in that responsibility, then any resulting rape might be considered to be at least indirectly the fault of that woman. And rape must never ever be thought of as a woman's fault in any way whatsoever.
As a result, feminist rhetoric has the side-effect of casting men in the role of the chivalrous protectors of women against the threat of rape. This results in the perpetuation of male dominance of women.
</end of tangent>
Surely any decent person would feel that women deserve to be protected against the risk of rape. Although there are feminist arguments around rape and its perpetration and the reasons why some men feel it approprriate to seek sexual gratification in that way that is surely not the point. Rape is a vile thing to do to anyone. All women should be able to feel safe from it. It is not placing ourselves under the "protection of chivalrous men" to ask of society that it condemns rape and takes it seriously.
Women can work in ways to protect other women against rape and in fact do so. If protection measures fail, whether protection is done by men or women it is not the fault of the protectors but the perpetrator.
To blame "feminist rhetoric" for society's failure fully to accept the horror of rape is frankly laughable.
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My blog musings on all sorts of stuff https://priscillavicar.wordpress.com/
Posts: 135 | From: West Midlands | Registered: Jan 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by earrings:
To blame "feminist rhetoric" for society's failure fully to accept the horror of rape is frankly laughable.
I find it far more angering than funny, but I take your point.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Also, out of curiosity, does anyone have stats on how effectively martial arts training protects women from gang-rape? Or from single rapists armed with a gun?
And of course, only young, fit women without significant handicaps & therefore able to do martial arts training are at risk of rape.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
Also, out of curiosity, does anyone have stats on how effectively martial arts training protects women from gang-rape? Or from single rapists armed with a gun?
And of course, only young, fit women without significant handicaps & therefore able to do martial arts training are at risk of rape.
Well that entire post was an evidence-free zone, full of unsupported assertions, so I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the poster to back it up.
L.
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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Going back to the OP, it appears the U.S. Congress agrees with Jessie that some rapes are rape-ier than others.
quote:
In February, Republicans drew widespread condemnation for their "forcible rape" proposal, which legal experts said would have excluded statutory rape victims and others from obtaining abortions through Medicaid. Amidst public outcry and a protest campaign by left-leaning groups, Republicans abandoned the language, which had been included in the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill the GOP leadership numbered H.R. 3 to signify its high priority to the party. But while they've amended their legislation, which faces a floor vote in the House on Wednesday, Republicans haven't stopped trying to narrow the already small exception under which federal funding for abortions is permissible. They've used a sly legislative maneuver to make sure that even though the language of the bill is different, the effect remains the same.
The backdoor reintroduction of the statutory rape change relies on the use of a committee report, a document that congressional committees produce outlining what they intend a piece of legislation to do. If there's ever a court fight about the interpretation of a law—and when it comes to a subject as contentious as abortion rights, there almost always is—judges will look to the committee report as evidence of congressional intent, and use it to decide what the law actually means.
In this case, the committee report for H.R. 3 says that the bill will "not allow the Federal Government to subsidize abortions in cases of statutory rape." The bill itself doesn't say anything like that, but if a court decides that legislators intended to exclude statutory rape-related abortions from eligibility for Medicaid funding, then that will be the effect.
Given the flexibility with which the current U.S. Supreme court goes up and down originalism's ladder I think we can take it for granted that they would consider the committee report evidence of "original intent" in this matter, despite the stripping of similar language from the bill itself earlier.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
According to the BBC, Jessie is not the only one who blames rape victims.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Niteowl
Hopeless Insomniac
# 15841
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Posted
It worries me that we appear to be going backwards, rather than forwards socially. It amazes me that such neanderthal attitudes can still exist in civilized nations in the 21st century.
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Wm. Shakespeare
Posts: 2437 | From: U.S. | Registered: Aug 2010
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
When I was at college, I took self-defence lessons. My conclusion was that what we learned was not particularly helpful - throwing someone who expects to be thrown does not build confidence. We were expected to apply holds when we had the guy on the ground when my instinct would have been to clear off sharpish.
We were not taught, and certainly had no opportunity to practice the stuff my Dad learned in the Army. i.e. kneeing in the groin, scraping the foot down the shin, and stamping on the instep. With the possible addition of a rabbit punch as he bends over. (Only useful if approached from the front.) And without practice, time is lost in thinking, instead of trained reflex.
But does any of this work, as said above, with a gang, or a gun, or a knife involved?
I'm not convinced that learning defence skills is of major use. And should certainly not be used as a reason for denying abortion.
Penny
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
If you're not female, I don't think you should have a say. Period. And I don't believe in any laws about abortion. None.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
... I don't believe in any laws about abortion. None.
*psst* Step back into this alley. I've got a rusty coathanger ready for ya.
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Belatedly returning to DH after a holiday sojourn in Hell
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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