Because I strive to approach most situations from a purely logical and by extension, scientific and legal, view, I make these assertions:
When a crime is to be judged, it must be stated that each of the actors somehow played a role that lead to the final conclusionary act that would be judged on. Playing a role, however, does not distribute blame, unless shown beyond the shadow of doubt that one
did contribute significantly to the act in question.
In these following examples, the involved parties share no or some measure of blame, with the lions share accorded to the transgressor.
Donard (the unknown cousin) of Donald Trump is a well known individual who is mentally deficient. He decides to take a walk in downtown New York with money hanging from his pockets. A mugger sees this opportunity and takes it, but in the whole course of actions, is caught and put on trial.
The mugger is clearly in the wrong with a clear history of such and is jailed for it. However, in an analysis of the event, I will point out that while Donard can fully expect to walk down downtown NY safely, he cannot expect that displaying currency in a loose fashion such that it could be conceivably lost on its own will not attract attention of others, most notably the mugger.
All things considered, Donard unequivocally contributed the crime by setting up the situation to begin with, regardless of the legality of such an action. But that is not the end of it.
While most people comfortably have the cloudy idea that this is the end of the case and so forget it, they forget that the real legal system has a defined process to examine, distribute and accord blame and harm to any actor involved. Now, in the course of the trial, we discover that the mugger was John Q. Public who had a little too much to drink and stole from Donard - now what? Most people were willing to convict a faceless mugger, but when I added in a personality, I assure you that the opinions people have on this will be different, for the most part.
...skip to the point, you gasbag!
My point is, that nothing is black/white when it comes to law and crime. Looking for mitigating factors on part of the defendant and blame factors for both is an integral component. If a victim does contribute to the crime done to them, then it is inherently different from the case involving a crime done to a victim whom is entirely innocent and unconnected (A fully random attack) and should be judged accordingly, with damage done and blame metered out to the correct parties.
We have this because not all crimes hold the same motive - crimes of passion, of forgetfulness or of inebriation, to name a few, merit different considerations of blame and damaged done and merit different mitigating circumstances.
While it is conceivable to get off from a crime "scot-free", the majority are prosecuted and decided upon accurately enough.
In my mind, beauty pageants and their actors share similar degrees of blame. If you try to pull out the "harm it does to X" argument, then it is to be noted that unless invidious intent is recognized, all actors involved are treated to a lesser degree of blame.
And finally, wearing clothes or lack thereof and anything else contributes to the act in history we call a "crime". It just happens to be that we know there are somethings that one does with the popular expectation of not being harmed - like walking down East San Jose in business attire, while walking down East San Jose with the knowledge of gang activity and wearing Red and blue has the popular expectation of getting you harmed, and thusly, a court will note (note the note) that you willingly walked into a zone with notable crime with the action of drawing attention to yourself by attire alone.
Before any of you jump on me for usage of a civilian scenario, please just imagine the differences between getting caught in a bona-fide modern war zone of today and being caught in a police-gang war. Note that there are very few differences, with the key difference merely being sizability of the gang as opposed to a nation. Then again, modern war today is most like state-gang warfare due to the guerilla warfare. Except that in a local situation, the police are expected to be familiar with the community enough not to shoot a friendly or noncombatant, while we accord lesser expectations with our soldiers in foreign lands with almost no relationship with the locals at hand.
I find that a great many things share a high degree of similarity with other things.
Addendum:
(May 19, 2010 at 3:32 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: You could argue that the women were forced into the beauty pageants because they're manipulated by societal pressures. The way you talk Dotard, is exactly the reasoning Muslims cite for wanting censorship. The two positions aren't very different. Women are beautiful to men, yes. We don't need shit like this cheapening it. Nor dick led jocks perpetuating it.
Correct, but only to a certain degree, as it is not illegal to be acted upon by "societal pressures" which is just the attitudes of a mass of people. It is not illegal for them to do it, nor is it illegal for you to disparage it. Certainly the attitudes of a mass of people may be composed to views that lead or justify criminality and thus any crime to be done by a member of the previously mentioned mass (or society) will incur a differing sentence, either more extreme on the perpetrator to send a message to that community if sentenced by an rejector of that attitude or a lesser sentence from someone who subscribes to it.
What we really need is to strive for more objective courts everywhere!
But then you may have to deal with the tasteless assertion that a woman wearing revealing clothing in a muslim country had some small part of blame in getting raped, with the rapists holding the obvious lion share of blame.
Then again, with the example of fully clothed women who do pretty much every reasonable thing to avoid rape in muslim countries getting raped anyways and their respective legal systems letting off the rapists (the less-est or smallest a punishment can be - "no" punishment) while blaming the victims happens to validate my system - as in this case, the judges subscribe to what we consider a criminally minded community, at least in some aspects and prove it by considering the crime differently.
How now - do you desire a court that is as objective as possible, but may layer some blame on you or note such
if you significantly contributed to the crime done to you, or do you desire a court that blames only one side, defendant or prosecuting.
I warn you, though, that one perpetuates a societal mindset and is merely a polar opposite in mindset from another country (like Saudi Arabia) with the same logical underpinnings.