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I guess I reacted in a manner very similar to you in your previous post. That is, when you feel people aren't really listening, you tend to get frustrated.
you are right. I was posting frustrated. which is bad. I apologize.
As I've said, time and again, you don't introduce laws with loopholes where possible.
yes. you have. time and time again. and I and others have agreed with you. vagueness in the law is bad. yes. time and time again. so stop bringing it up then?
we all know that no woman would want to bring a vexatious rape claim against someone. But this is only in light of current law. So who's to say that if it wasn't made easier, more people (and they wouldn't only be women) wouldn't be encouraged to bring a frivolous case to bear?
why, oh why, can't you try to make your other points without bringing this back up? it's very troubling.
we are not engaging with your other points because you can't seem to not say this. you can't stop bringing it up. and we keep saying "gee, it'd be really fun to have a debate over legal whatsis, but maybe first we should get this guy to see that what he is saying is problematic?"
it seems to me that when we point out some problem or two with something you've written, you complain that we haven't addressed your entire post, or that we're "taking you out of context". when we then go back and address the other points, despite not feeling that it's all that appropriate or even if it's not something we give a shit about, you then revert to the offensive point we had a problem with, claiming that no one ever proved you said it and we are all bad for calling you x-ist and there was never any evidence for what we were saying. so then we say, yes, there was, here it is, and you say we're only focusing on that one thing and taking you out of context...
basically, it's getting very hard to believe you're not doing this on purpose to piss us off.
So clearly, if the defence establishes that the only point of contention was the intoxication of the victim, if reasonable doubt can be cast over the status of the victims intoxication, then there is reasonable doubt over the while case.
I am not a lawyer, and I'm sure you're not either, but this sounds totally fucking stupid to me. the law is (would be, I guess) saying that consent cannot be given while intoxicated. the law was not, as I understand it, redefining consent to be something that can only NOT be given if you are intoxicated. I cannot imagine anyone saying "well, she was sober so she couldn't have been raped." I see no way this follows from such a law. it seems like a dumb and unlikely thing to bring up and I don't know why you imagine that it should somehow make up 50% of the conversation.
This is the 50% of my argument that has received less than 1% of the discussion. Maybe because it is less "sensational". I don't know. But is the opposite side of the same coin, so surely it deserves roughly 50% of discussion? But I guess it's kind of hard to cast me in a negative light on this point.....
yes, you got us. you clever guy you! we here at Barbelith formed this board many, many years ago just so that when you showed up we could cast you in a negative light. it's our only actual goal. we couldn't possibly be trying to convince you to examine your behavior and beliefs because we genuinely believe it to be dangerous and misguided.
in the original days, in fact, this was the "Peter Sucks" board, but we thought that was too blatant and changed it to the random name Barbelith as a cover.
I think we have to take grasp of the concept of a happy medium here. Which might be difficult for many I understand.
every time you make a statement about how obviously stupid we are, it really does you much, much more harm than good. it's unbelievable how clever and well-educated some of the other posters here are. I think it could easily be argued that Barbelith is often pretentious, or argumentative, or pedantic. or liberally biased, if that's a bad thing. but saying or implying that our problem with your posts is our own stupidity is just...wow, it's just funny, really.
So my point is not that being convicted for rape shouldn't be easier, it just should be better than to throw a blanket over the problem and say there is NO lawfull consent while intoxicated. Furthermore, you don't knowingly introduce laws that allow prosecution of people on extremely serious charges who would otherwise not be considered an offender by the community at large.
as far as this goes - and as far as I can tell, this is what you believe to be the main point of all this posting - I don't really disagree with you. I'm not arguing that laws about sex and consent are tricky. I just feel that some points of your argument are, whether you know it or not, informed by sexist views in the culture around us, and that their effect is, whether you intend it or not, to reinforce a culture where rape happens too often. |
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