Melania Trump says Sexual Assault victims shouldn't report unless they have evidence

[Neo-Scholastic]

That you think a human being capable of such callous disregard for the suffering of another at his hands should ever hold a position of power in this country indicates that you are part of the problem.

From a purely political perspective, there is no correlation between the personal virtue and effective governance. This has been proven time and time again throughout history and around the world. It does not figure into my calculus of who should hold political power.

From a purely moral perspective, truly wicked people are sometimes capable of reformation and even who have depraved histories can potentially be forgiven and trusted again by showing contrition and seeking restoration. Again, this has been proven time and time again throughout history and around the world.

That said, IF it could be shown that Kavaugh had indeed sexually assaulted Ford, then his denial would indeed be disqualifying, not because of what he did 40 years ago; but rather, because of a current lack of contriteness. As it stands however his guilt has not even been remotely demonstrated. We have only competing claims.

[Amarok]

IMO the malevolent presence of a rape culture is not as obvious to me as it is to you.

Well, it wasn't that obvious to me until fairly recently. It took quite a bit of reflection and awareness (prompted by insights and experiences shared by many women) to really see how widespread rape is, and how much as a society we tend to trivialize the extent of rape in our culture.

It shares an insidious vagueness with another noxious phrase, “black attitudes.” It’s an ill-defined box into which people can put pretty much anything they want to vilify or bend to promote political aims. As such, I am very skeptical of attributing criminal sexual assault to other broad ambiguous concepts such as so-called toxic masculinity. Is the thug role glorified by hip-hop music responsible for gang-violence? I don’t think that likely. Even if artistic presentations of thuggishness were a contributing factor, I would be inclined to assign it a minor role.

You can't compare the two. The evidence is clear in our society that rape is widespread, that we have the tendency to blame the victim of rape rather than fully blame the rapist, that we expect rape victims to behave in certain ways without understanding what they're feeling and going through because we're under this delusion that the world is just and supportive when it's not always so.

Your denial of rape culture further propagates it.

At the same time I do not deny the possibility that certain cultural attitude can indeed dramatically encourage rape. Having opportunities to rape the wives and daughters of ancient Rome’s enemies was used as an incentive to encourage voluntary conscription. But his is several orders of magnitude above using innocuous proverbs like “boys will be boys” to justify young male penchants for getting, dirty, rough-housing, and aggressive role-play, i.e. cops & robbers, king of he hill, etc.

Innocuous? Phrases like "boys will be boys" have been used to excuse rape. And you call this innocuous?

And why would you even bring up the ancient Romans in this case just to say they did worse than modern people do? I don't get it.

I see more harm in going against 300,000 years of evolutionary programming than recognizing broad generalizations, positive and negative, about masculinity and femininity.

Programming? You do realize evolution doesn't set things in stone, right? That you can adapt flexibly to the changes of this world because you are rationally capable of doing so? Because the human brain has evolved to allow for such flexibility?

And what exactly is harmful about going against the grain of evolution?

I do not know if being a “woman of easy virtue” actually carries an increased risk of victimization. Similarly, I do not know if social acceptance of male promiscuity allows some men to justify violence towards women. Maybe, maybe not. There seem to be good arguments for the opposite. Naïve and prudish girls could be inclined to misinterpret the advances of players as harassment – the same advances that would get them slapped by more sexually confident women. Socially awkward boys might use violence to overcome their fears, whereas men who are secure in their masculinity can slough-off rejections.

So perhaps these boys and men should learn to interact with women like human beings instead of as means to some end.

In a less sexually promiscuous culture wedding rings would serve as more reliable indicators of consent than tentative grasps and inviting whispers during casual encounters. Men’s crude boasting would be met with peer contempt while restraint during temptation would be esteemed. I think it is clear that claims of not having given consent would be more readily accepted if outward signs of consent were expected before engaging in sexual activity.

Nice lovely chauvinist fantasy you have there, but it has no basis in reality. That which you describe never happened so purely or innocently ever in the past, and the present is not worse than the past. If anything, while there is clearly a long way to go before sexism is eradicated for good, women (despite the current shitty hurdles that they still have to face) fare slightly better now than in the chauvinistic past of the 60s and earlier.

I also think that if secular culture treated sexuality with more respect; Trump’s vulgar locker room talk would not have been so easily dismissed.

Thank the Republican politics for that, and institutional sexism/misogyny in general.

These are very unpopular positions today and conservatives are ridiculed for these supposed old-fashioned virtues ...

You poor thing.

We can still learn from the so-called sexual revolution (like demystifying female orgasm or dispelling unrealistic expectations about male libido) without succumbing to its excesses.

There's nothing excessive about acknowledging that rape culture is a thing. If anything, we still don't seem to understand just how bad it is, despite the many scandals of the last couple years.

Holy shit what century is Wooter from this nonsense is absurd

[Jehanne]

No, Dr. Ford did not hallucinate; as for the "disciples," difficult to say what was going on there.  Maybe mushrooms?

So, that comment was completely irrelevant then. Or are you saying maybe Ford was doing Shrooms?

Being a medical doctor, no, I do not believe that Dr. Ford was into eating wild mushrooms.  As for the disciples, who knows?

[Amarok]

So, that comment was completely irrelevant then. Or are you saying maybe Ford was doing Shrooms?

Being a medical doctor, no, I do not believe that Dr. Ford was into eating wild mushrooms.  As for the disciples, who knows?

Stop Jeh your making to much sense for Road

[Jehanne]

Being a medical doctor, no, I do not believe that Dr. Ford was into eating wild mushrooms.  As for the disciples, who knows?

Stop Jeh your making to much sense for Road

Yeah, considering that there are dozens to hundreds of human beings who end-up in emergency rooms every year because they ate a wild mushroom, very few, if any of which, are medical doctors...

[RoadRunner79]

So, that comment was completely irrelevant then. Or are you saying maybe Ford was doing Shrooms?

Being a medical doctor, no, I do not believe that Dr. Ford was into eating wild mushrooms.  As for the disciples, who knows?

I’m curious how you can tell that?

[Jehanne]

Being a medical doctor, no, I do not believe that Dr. Ford was into eating wild mushrooms.  As for the disciples, who knows?

I’m curious how you can tell that?

There are wild mushrooms that are hallucinogenic:

Wikipedia -- Psilocybin mushroom

This is a "plausible, naturalistic explanation" (to paraphrase WLC) that explains the disciples "visions" and the subsequent embellishment of the Easter narratives.

[CapnAwesome]

I'm late to the thread, but I don't really see what's controversial about what she said. I mean, are we to start throwing people in jail without evidence? Since when did Atheists become so anti-evidence.

[Joods]

I'm late to the thread, but I don't really see what's controversial about what she said. I mean, are we to start throwing people in jail without evidence? Since when did Atheists become so anti-evidence.

I think it's the connotation, or the take away that is the issue. I believe people are taking what she said to mean that if you don't report, then it didn't happen.

If that was her intent, then she's wrong on so many levels.

[CapnAwesome]

That you think a human being capable of such callous disregard for the suffering of another at his hands should ever hold a position of power in this country indicates that you are part of the problem.

From a purely political perspective, there is no correlation between the personal virtue and effective governance. This has been proven time and time again throughout history and around the world. It does not figure into my calculus of who should hold political power.

From a purely moral perspective, truly wicked people are sometimes capable of reformation and even who have depraved histories can potentially be forgiven and trusted again by showing contrition and seeking restoration. Again, this has been proven time and time again throughout history and around the world.

That said, IF it could be shown that Kavaugh had indeed sexually assaulted Ford, then his denial would indeed be disqualifying, not because of what he did 40 years ago; but rather, because of a current lack of contriteness. As it stands however his guilt has not even been remotely demonstrated. We have only competing claims.

Lol, it's funny how the left and right Willy nilly switch positions on this depending on circumstances. When Clinton was being impeached morality was super important to the right and the left made your exact same argument. Now it's switched and whenever the next Democrat in power has imperft morality it switches back.

---

I'm late to the thread, but I don't really see what's controversial about what she said. I mean, are we to start throwing people in jail without evidence? Since when did Atheists become so anti-evidence.

I think it's the connotation, or the take away that is the issue. I believe people are taking what she said to mean that if you don't report, then it didn't happen.

If that was her intent, then she's wrong on so many levels.

Right. But I don't know what she means really. Her English isn't that good. You could read into it lots of things. Personally I'd be surprised if that was her intent. Unsurprisingly divinity read into it the most negative way possible.