In today's episode of "The Rich Get Off."

[Red Mage Black]

Yeah, I did kinda make that assumption, but it's generally in my view anyway that if someone gets off or gets a meager sentencing like that, that some type of dealing was involved in the background.

But I do suppose the question is for any rape case is, "What do the victim's medical records have anything to do with it?" On top of that, "Even if she did share a bed with multiple people, considering the events weren't reported as rape, what does it have to do with the one that did end up like this?" Honestly, any statements about promiscuity should be firmly stricken from court record because they have nothing to do with the case. (For the reason I already stated above.)

I really can't argue much further into this without going off topic and it'd be much easier to exchange my viewpoints in the Chat than it is on the board. (Since it involves missing arguments if it takes a while to type... that and allows me to review what came up when I walk away from the keyboard for a few minutes after a while of typing.)

[RawBot]

Way to copy and paste a fragment of a single sentence

Quoting this was a good sum up that show you weren't, all things considered, being aggressive towards me. Noticing this served as an intro to the rest of the post, essentially backing out from the problematic topic which was used as a means and not an end; the end being the 3 points mentioned in my last post.

refuse an "apology" that was never offered

There's no shit like that in my words, I was telling you it's okay and we are through whatever you said that was displeasing with no rancor. i.e. so there's nothing to apologize for.

and endorse rape culture by refusing to accept any issue with your previous statements!

I do not endorse rape culture and have very strong reasons not to.

I'm genuinely curious as to why, with all your commentary about "mob mentality," you've refused to acknowledge that you yourself made assumptions about the judge's competency and her legitimacy in deciding this case when evidence directly refuting your hypothesis was available in the very article I first linked.

Keep in mind that I departed from this specific rape case to keep my earlier promise, so this is general: Short press articles are not proof of anything; you know how they are often biased, incomplete and partial no matter the topic. We can't use a short press article as evidence, this is like blindly believing the guy who heard that some guy talked to someone who've seen a bear. On the other hand, the people who work on a case (that includes the Judge, but not only obviously) have as close to first hand information as anyone can get. They also spent a long time studying everything that was found. Therefore, while they may still be wrong and biased, their opinion weights more than ours, especially more than this majority that (unlike you as a lawyer) doesn't know anything about Justice. While it is important not to be gullible and take for truth whatever an expert is saying on his own topic, it would be disingenuous not to weight it appropriately - especially in the case of Justice where decisions theoretically have an objective basis (law). This of course must not mean that decisions should go unchecked. (As I said, questioning authority is crucial)

You are saying that this particular case is condemned heavily among lawyers: If correct then *this* should be given weight indeed, and especially so if they have access to unknown information on the case. But short press articles are not enough. By now you probably dug the case quite a lot, so you have more weight to express a judgement on the Judge's decision.

Again, my stance is and has always been to refuse uneducated condemning no matter the horrors committed, while taking into account the impact of press and public opinion in changing society through challenging established order. (e.g. it has been awesome at helping homosexuals so far)

Worth noting that Justice works differently where I live, Judges are seen as more respectable people than say politicians, and the system is different. Doesn't prevent them to be wrong and questioned, cf. paragraphs above.

...oh no, wait, that'd require you to actually read what someone else wrote

I did read your post. I skipped parts of it temporarily though, and since I decided on page 3 to zap discussing the rape case itself out of consideration for others that I offended, I went on to write a post diverging the topic instead of waiting until I could read yours entirely.
Upon reading it was not that bad, I expected it to be filled with inflammatory speech from which I would have had to sort actual arguments. I knew I wouldn't back down from replying on an equally aggressive tone, which I find never ever helps even a little, except on situations where pride and social status are in line. Not the case here.

and then go off on your own self-righteous tangent as a wronged victim of "mob mentality" and "crowd judgment"

Nu-uh. I don't feel victimized at all, it's not that. Additionally, I said there are elements of these, not that it was actually occurring. I found it genuinely interesting.



The misunderstanding possibly comes from the fact that we aren't talking about the same things. You wanted to talk about the rape case, I was using it to go elsewhere. And then the fact that I skipped the most sensible parts of your last post added to the confusion. It does goes to show again that when we want to be heard we mustn't start with inflammatory speech.

To quickly reply to what I skipped: I see no disagreement on everything that is general. On the specifics I notice a couple shortcuts and generalisations about the Judge that I couldn't adhere to without first digging (guilty until proven otherwise), but know of no reliable means to since normal media is not enough. Also not the topic I was interested in talking about when I first replied

[Solid Snake]

All right, all right. You're clearly not trolling to the extent I thought you were trolling earlier so maybe I just misread elements of your argument.

That being said I will say one last thing: I understand there are these "other elements" like:

- The rather common dislike for humanity. I wish I could express powerfully enough and with just a few words how humanity is lovable despite its flaws...

- Mob reaction, crowd judgement, mass shunning and alienating, etc. I already said why, I think.

- The weight of press and public opinion on society, in a global perspective, for both the better and the worse.

That you might want to talk about but in the context of someone expressing that an objectively awful (lack of) sentencing of a rapist is objectively awful, trying to make those kinds of arguments plays very much into a rape culture kind of vibe, for lack of a better way to put it.

It feels like in attempting to shift the conversation away from the actual injustice that's taken place and onto ancillary and unrelated arguments, as if you're doing a fundamental disservice to what's actually happened. When you attempt to argue that "humanity is lovable" in the wake of hyperbole expressed in the aftermath of a shitty judicial outcome, it sounds tone-deaf, as if you're deliberately minimizing or just plain ignorant of what's happened to the victim and how what's happened is reflective of larger societal trends of how victims have perpetually been abused by our judicial system.

When you attempt to express that we should "trust the judge's informed opinion," when a lawyer is telling you that most other lawyers find the light sentencing abnormal and abhorrent, you sound like you're deliberately buying into the very rape culture you claim to despise, and you sound like you're making excuses to justify something awful happening to both the rape victim herself and to scores of other rape victims who will voluntarily withhold information from authorities under the assumption that this is how their own cases will turn out.

The last people who need to be shamed, alongside the victim herself, are those in the media who are brave enough to recognize what's happening and report it, or those in society at large who are fed up with this bullshit and who dare bombastically declare that humanity doesn't deserve to be loved if this is the way we'd treat rape victims. The judge deserves to be condemned based on publicly available information that makes it clear that her decision was based in large part upon the victim's promiscuity and a reputation for sexual activity and other 'bad behavior.'

It's crucial for this particular victim and for other rape victims throughout our world to know that voices will stand up for them and vehemently defend their right to seek justice after their freedom to control their own bodies is violated, to be protected from individuals who'd maliciously deprive them of that freedom, to be as sexually active as they desire without risking being shamed for said activity in a theoretical sexual assault case, to be human. And it's a sad fact about modern society generally that, when those voices speak up and are loud, they're often the ones who are criticized for refusing to accept the status quo.

The rapists aren't condemned, their enablers aren't condemned, institutional privilege isn't condemned, media representations of non-consensual sexual acts as 'occasionally permissible' aren't condemned, but the vocal feminists who dare raise their voices are condemned.
And when you even indirectly or inadvertently perpetuate that kind of atmosphere by illogically arguing semantics in the aftermath of something like this, you're really not accomplishing anything more than just making this a hostile atmosphere for rape victims specifically and women more generally.

TLDR: Maybe just try not to make the "humanity's still lovable!" or the "we should defer to the opinions of our superiors" or the "mob mentality, the press and the public are just out for blood" arguments in cases like these?

[Krylo]

RawBot:

Speaking in the propensity of my official title as voice of the NPF administration I'd just like to back Snake up on this:

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

TLDR: Maybe just try not to make the "humanity's still lovable!" or the "we should defer to the opinions of our superiors" or the "mob mentality, the press and the public are just out for blood" arguments in cases like these?

We prefer NPF to feel a safe place for all members, including members who might have personal reasons to be sensitive about sexual assault.

The problem being that, as Snake said, the way you segued into this argument made you seem sympathetic to, well, rape, which can, understandably, upset victims, friends of victims, or just any woman aware of her terrible odds in that regard.

Please attempt to be more aware of this kind of thing in the future.

Thank you.

[RawBot]

The way you segued into this argument made you seem sympathetic to, well, rape

Sorry, I have to disagree after I re-read my first post on page 2. I find it in line with what I had in mind, slightly more oriented towards saying that "humanity isn't that bad, look at how press can bias reality, and if there is a real issue with that first judgement, the new Judge should deal with it". I even take precautions to tell explicitly what I think about rape.

At that point, no more than a short press article was known on the topic. The only mistake I see is that I mistook probation for judgement, thinking the case would be introduced to the new Judge through an appeal process.

Additionally, political correctness has its uses but there is a fine line where it becomes obstructive to discussing touchy subjects. That said, not everything can be discussed in front of everyone and that is perfectly natural.

For some reason I thought NPF was populated by an hardened bunch able to talk about anything, a little on the hardcore side actually. xD
Perhaps that explains why I "only" took one verbal precaution instead of several.



@Snake: Uh uh, it's fun how this always happens. All conversations that turn bad end up, at some point, bickering about who said what at which point and how it was bad and how responsibility is mostly on the other's shoulders. I am glad that at least this one got back to friendly attitude.

But ultimately nobody here cares about the friendly bickering part, not even you and me: we're just trapping ourselves in that web. I hope you'll understand that for this reason, I take it upon myself to cut it now instead of replying point by point to defend whatever I feel should be defended. Hopefully my reply to Krylo is enough to satisfy you.

[Edit]
Alright, you probably hope for a word on your feminism paragraph. I'm a humanist which implies I am also a firm feminist so long as equity between genders hasn't become a reality. But from reading your post it is clear that we live in different contexts, and while I know fairly well American cultures, I wasn't raised there and they do not hold the frame of my perceptions and consciousness. So based on what you said, I don't expect you to easily understand when I say that Justice is supposed to be topic-independent. We must question decisions the same way regardless of topic, i.e. heavy research is always needed no matter what. The press article you linked to is not made of such wood.
Regarding press, you possibly won't understand easily when I say that, the same way you're weary of what politicians say, you should be weary of what press says. But I wrote more on that down the post.
[/Edit]


So now we're onto cultural differences and differences in the inner workings of nations. Here we have different Press, different Justice and a different balance between the four powers. The educated portion of my people has a way more serious distrust towards small journalism, rather than Judges. Where I live, Judges try to take down main political figures for real. We have great respect for those guys who never ever talk to the press to defend themselves, yet have politicians discharge truckloads of insanities through low calibre media. The same politicians then try to tie the Judges hands and control their decisions by embedding their ideology or their interests into law, using one-time anecdotes that will foster the people's willingness to let happen what they otherwise wouldn't.

I think you have some of this too, although your Judges don't have the same standing in your eyes.

The medias on the other hand are a really really strong power and therefore need a really really strong independent check - but they have none. They never criticize themselves. Yet they move society far more than Justice is able to. Justice is arguably the weakling among the four powers over here, and the most reasonable.

This, coupled with the fact that our Judges are historically seen to be of high morality and highly neutral, and do not defend themselves against hearsay, makes us very prudent when we see small press articles being all over them. It has empirically proven to be a correct stance so far.

There is higher calibre journalism fortunately, able to shame Judges that make really bad mistakes, and helping trigger the appropriate System safeties to correct such injustices. That journalism, *real* journalism, is admirable and precious, but even it suffers from the fact that press is a mouth forced to always stay open and talk always, hereby expressing way more than it has to say, and often twisting reality.

Actually, the whole "I hate humanity" current is very much fuelled by press bias, and although that's another story, it doesn't help alleviating the prudent distrust and distance taken from whatever the mass media are up to.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by RawBot

Sorry, I have to disagree after I re-read my first post on page 2.

It is unfortunate, then, that we can not always control the way in which we come off to others.

You are free to disagree but multiple people, both staff members and otherwise, have seen it.

If a bunch of people misconstrue your point, it is advisable that you take into consideration that your wording may not have been as clear as you had thought, or that, perhaps, this is simply a topic where trying to segue into other things is not the most diplomatic approach.

All we're asking is you be more mindful of how you may come off around sensitive topics in the future.

If you want to talk about press bias I invite you to do so in a new thread, preferably in a couple of days with your points thought out in such a way as to not relate to this case or thread.

The same goes for how humanity is great, or any other topic you have tried to cover here.

If you are to continue posting in this thread, I further request, on behalf of the administration, that it be on topic of one of the articles already posted, or to be posting your own news stories that are in line with the opening post.

This thread has been derailed quite enough already, and action may need to be taken (moving or deleting posts) to keep it from being derailed further.

[RawBot]

If a bunch of people misconstrue your point, it is advisable that you take into consideration that your wording may not have been as clear as you had thought, or that, perhaps, this is simply a topic where trying to segue into other things is not the most diplomatic approach.

If you want to talk about press bias I invite you to do so in a new thread, preferably in a couple of days

Damn spider web of bickering. That's exactly what I have been saying for several posts; especially since the rape case was already off the thread's topic. I am unlikely to post anymore threads, don't worry.

As for the rich getting off, let's mark the return on topic with an old image