General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 351

Bernie Sanders's post-campaign political revolution is off to a rocky start

Ugh. Love when people don't even bother to vote at the local level.

 

Drawing a line between his Republican Party—that of Reagan, Bush, and McCain—and that of Trump is functionally a way of congratulating it for having had the courtesy to speak about its xenophobic ethno-nationalism in code, reducing the question of whether a party should appeal to racial hatred to one of manners.

Hillary Clinton was right when she called the “alt-right” a hateful and aggressively racist group that festers online. Where she went wrong was in claiming that “all of this adds up to something we’ve never seen before” when it’s been the backbone of Republican electoral strategy for 50 years now. Whether you call it the Southern strategy, as Richard Nixon did, or the alt-right, it’s an appeal to revanchism and naked racial grievance.

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/hillary-clinton-speaks-truth-to-pepe-1785799018

 

Yep. And the Clean Power Plan is really designed to push for natural gas fired power plants. And yes, they burn cleaner but the extraction process creates such immense greenhouse gas emissions that it probably offsets any perceived increments. And then you have Hillary (and other Dems, some of which she's already appointed to high level positions) pushing for fracking globally, in deregulated countries. Its insulting to those of us actually concerned about this issue to claim the democrats are actually battling climate change.

 

I agree Assange seems to be a pos, but just curious if you're voting for Hillary and her rapist husband even though she actively sought to silence his accusers.

 

Yeah Im not surprised at all, I get the feeling a lot of Bernie voters were into Ron Paul in the last election

 

YES, THIS

Just to be clear (I haven't reviewed the case against him), false sexual assault allegations do happen. It's unfortunate and a delicate subject to broach, but it's certainly true. The FBI has estimated that 8% are proven false accusations. For as understanding as the left can be about many of the injustices and uncertainties within the criminal justice system, it is rabidly intolerant of entertaining the possibility that an accused rapist is innocent.

 

can anyone who knows about internet security discuss the viability of online voting in political elections?

 

You do realize that the reason we entertain victims before accusers is because 92% of women are treated as though they're part of that eight percent, which, by the way, would likely be diminished if we factored in the number of rapes that go unreported. Plus, the implicit idea within your post is that Assange may belong to the group that is being falsely accused. Statistically speaking, he is likely not and he is probably guilty of rape.

 

I don't think the current system is very great to begin with, security wise, but online voting is technically "viable" - but it would need a lot of oversight and regulation that I wouldn't really trust the government with, heh, but outside audits, and things like that I could see it happening even if it just means as the backbone to how someone votes, because even something like voting by an app would prolly be using the internet protocols to do it.

It's also not really true:

Why Did Sweden Drop Some Charges Against Julian Assange?

Julian Assange sex assault allegations: Timeline - BBC News

 

I was gonna say this as a poli sci minor... absolutely brilliant speech. Someone in her camp needed to cut through the clutter of all of Trump's controversies and lay them into a compelling narrative, and god damn she did that and then some.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-islam.html

Is the world today a more divided, dangerous and violent place because of the cumulative effect of five decades of oil-financed proselytizing from the historical heart of the Muslim world? Or is Saudi Arabia, which has often supported Western-friendly autocrats over Islamists, merely a convenient scapegoat for extremism and terrorism with many complex causes — the United States’s own actions among them?

Those questions are deeply contentious, partly because of the contradictory impulses of the Saudi state.

In the realm of extremist Islam, the Saudis are “both the arsonists and the firefighters,” said William McCants, a Brookings Institution scholar. “They promote a very toxic form of Islam that draws sharp lines between a small number of true believers and everyone else, Muslim and non-Muslim,” he said, providing ideological fodder for violent jihadists.

Yet at the same time, “they’re our partners in counterterrorism,” said Mr. McCants, one of three dozen academics, government officials and experts on Islam from multiple countries interviewed for this article.

 

The number (which is on the low end, as it is those that are proven to be falsifiable) is theorized as markedly higher for public figures, for which such allegations may have actual incentive. The real rate of false allegation cannot possibly be known. In 2012, the FBI had estimated it at at least 20% if I remember correctly.

Also, there's a difference between "entertaining" victims and summarily convicting an accused person in the court of public opinion and taking part in a reactionary frenzy that ruins the lives of innocent people. Assuming that every single rape victim is violently disbelieved as validation for ignorantly believing another person guilty of a heinous crime is fucking stupid.

When I was 21, I was told by friends of a girl who had become obsessed with me and very seriously stalked me that she had been telling people that i had sexually assaulted her (they were close to the situation and knew that the girl was infatuated with me and that I had done no such thing). She thankfully wasn't quite unstable enough to actually try to get me charged criminally, but it still undoubtedly destroyed my reputation with a number of people (how many she told this lie to, I don't know). Also, in working in criminal law, I've personally defended men who were falsely accused. In fact, just last week, I was working on the case of a 17 year old kid who was accused of raping a 16 year old girl. He would have likely been plead out on the charge and became a sex offender if not for finding the girl's diary which expounded on their ongoing sexual relationship and its implications within her ultra-religious family.

The fact that someone saying "he's not necessarily guilty" absent evidence otherwise could get so much reactionary hate speaks volumes of the annoying impulse for moral high ground on the left. Summarily calling someone "a rapist" as you have done, or attacking someone for acknowledging the reality of the subject instead of speaking absolutely is ridiculous. The fact that your post got 5 fucking likes really chafes me if I'm being honest. It doesn't make you a white knight: it makes you an irresponsible citizen. In my opinion of course.

EDIT: Also, considering black men have been historically the most affected population for false allegations and unfair prosecution thereafter, I'd think you'd be a little more open-minded on the impropriety of what you do.

 

This election is going to kill me.

 

Been a really interesting twitter feed the last few days, lots of good stuff:

 

This entire account is basically a play ...

 

I am fully aware of how black men have been accused of rape in order to send them to their deaths. There is, however, specificity that must be taken into consideration. Assange is not a black man and even if he was, I'd believe the women in question, not because I am ignorant of the dynamics, but because some black men do rape women and black women in particular, who are then guilted into supporting them because of that history.

As for your personal anecdote, I do not care. It gives me insight into your perspective only insofar as it demonstrates why you say the things you say.


To be more blunt, I am not interested in this idea that I am convicting them by referring to them as rapists. I am not interested in what seems to be your enlightenment era thinking, wherein "rationality" and men dominate. It is precisely this framework that has continually lead women to be disbelieved because it gets linked up with the irrationality stereotype used against women; simply look at the DOJ report on Baltimore and look at how they handled rapes, then presume to tell me that it is merely a matter of taking into consideration the opposing view. The odds, in actuality, are stacked against women who report rape.

Also, I don't give a shit about being a white knight or the moral high ground. I advocate killing cops and I'm a man. There is no moral high ground. There is a morality that is embraced by those who prefer systemic oppression and there is a position that seeks to destroy that morality, because in itself, it is oppressive. That is the bottom line to me. If anyone is engaging in moralism, it is you, who trots out references to an ideal judicial and categorical process as a standard by which we must assess anything.


Ps. I also don't give a shit about the likes I get. But, that it annoys you: priceless.

 

The American support and really dependence on Saudi oil interests is at the root of almost all Islamist extremism and the subsequent problems like islamophobia and the Syrian refugee crisis. This is probably the only issue that really pushes me towards the far left.

Fucking Trump god dammit.

 

Yeah I would like to say I could do without the pseudo MRA stuff about false accusations.

 

Let's be clear, the view you have on false accusations is, at its core, problematic. However, it's shaped entirely on your personal experiences as well as understanding of the law in that the most grave error we can commit is to put an innocent man in jail. I get that, but in regards to the big picture of sexual assault it is not applicable simply because the rate of unreported and permissible sexual assault is so much higher than the falsified cases.

Let's put this in the scope of assange. He's a celebrity, he can be a lucrative target of a false accuser. However, given that so few cases are even brought against male celebrities, it's our responsibility to err on the side of caution and statistics and agree with the accuser.

Chances are he didn't do it, but that it has come up should make you wary of him first and foremost, not the accuser.

 

As always, I appreciate your cordiality on the matter.

With regard to the apparent disparity in false accusation/unreported assaults, that facet of the discussion is not new and is certainly "applicable" to the big picture, as critics of the criminal justice system should know. Most men sentenced to death are guilty of the crime for which they were sentenced. Most men who are killed by agents of the state (in the US at least) acted in a way that legally justified the agent's actions under the letter of the law. Most poor people convicted of felonies after being railroaded by the system that didn't have the resources to provide them an adequate defense did in fact commit the crime anyways. However, for that minority, whether it be 5%, 10%, 20%, or more, indulging the impulse to assume their guilt absent any critical review of the case against them or due consideration of their innocence is fucked up beyond reason. To not care at all for the details of the charges against them and to assume their guilt absent evidentiary justification is to empower a system of ignorance.

Err on the side of the accuser? Absolutely. Speak decidedly that the guy did it as a way to political posture oneself as a person of principle (while simultaneously claiming to be an impartial advocate)? That's fucked up.

lol

I love it when ideologues can't reconcile their own reactionary contradictions. And, for the record, I would like to think that, regardless of my personal experiences or anecdotes, that I would be able to be impartial and objective regardless. But, even removing my experiences as a private citizen and as a legal advocate, I think there's enough hard (and soft) data out there to justify being nuanced and denounce being conclusory.

What irks me as well is that persons like you knowingly leverage these absolutist positions to substitute for substantive input on a subject and for political posturing. i.e. the many times when, there are specific and complex dialogues on Bill Clinton or Julian Assange, you can pop up and say, "Well Bill Clinton/Assange is a rapist, so...." and wait for the pats on the back that would otherwise require a nuanced position that regards actual insights.

The fact that you assume this position to be credible in its defense of otherwise oppressed victims of sexual assault is also silly, as is the other's insinuation that mentioning factual data would make me a "pseudo-Men's Rights Activist," despite my own involvement in the feminist movement, my academic work on intersectionality, etc.. I see having a nuanced and balanced opinion on this topic (as opposed to a position-based, superficial opinion) the same for the feminist movement as I see having important insights into capitalist justifications and criticisms , et al as an economic leftist and being critical of those on the economic left who do not-- so that the substantive may marginalize and cleanse themselves of the doofuses (doofi?) who are only in it for extremist cred, and therefore move forward with realistic discourses. You do not fit into this category for the latter topic, and I am not necessarily saying that you do on the former (nah, you probably do), but it's certainly an important critique of probably the most infuriating philosophical flaw in the far left right now. Ideologues are bad. Reactionaries are worse. Reactionary ideologues are a fucking cancer.

 

I'm not, nor have I ever, claimed to be objective or impartial.

Your position is neither nuanced, nor complex, nor balanced. It is tantamount to the sort of arguments one notices on Reddit. Is it he case that a minority women falsify rape accounts? Yes. Is it relevant to this particular situation? No, unless one presupposes that there is some dishonesty from the beginning. This is precisely the sort of "balanced" and "nuanced account" one notices from the misogynistic aspects of our culture. One brings up this sort of thing in every case of sexual assault, crowding out a victim's discourse with this phony objective perspective that says each side has equal standing. This is a logic representative of the right, not some liberal, liberatory logic; one almost expects you to go off on a tangent about free speech. The rest of your post isn't worth addressing.

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/us/politics/alt-right-reaction.html

Richard B. Spencer, the president of the white-nationalist National Policy Institute, who is credited with coming up with the name “alt-right,” pushed back against claims that the group promotes violence and said in a statement that there was a double standard at play.

“While Hillary & Co. condemn the alt-right — nonviolent activists seeking social change, largely through a vibrant internet presence — she allows noted supporters of terror to attend her rallies and has never once disavowed the actions of domestic terrorists associated with Black Lives Matter,” Mr. Spencer said.

 

If the argument is that celebrity increases the rate at which one will be accused of rape, one can also argue that it increases the rate at which one will rape, given the sort of class and gender dynamics that are in play.


Males Are More Likely To Suffer Sexual Assault Than To Be Falsely Accused Of It

 

Ya, erring on the side of the accuser is a lot different that delcaritive statements like "he's a rapist."

That being said....Assange is a complete scumbag, and would not be surprised at all if he was, in fact, a rapist. Lol at Jill stein "the charges were dropped!"