Classic.

...Knee jerk, Reflexively, with zero evidence to back it up. It smacks of crass opportunism, opportunism to push a wholly unrelated agenda using the murder of 20 little kids.

Someone wants to make an asinine assertion like that to me, they need to show me some fucking evidence that "prayer in school" had diddly shit to do with any of this.

It didnt.

"gun enthusiast", survivalist mom and shoots up an elementary school, obviously Atheism is somehow culpable.

I banned Ken Ham for Christmas
I sent him his MIRT PPR
I banned Ken Ham for Christmas
I banned him, he wont get too far

Our Christmas feast was lacking
Our Pizza was looking quite bare
It needed some old time troll whacking
Some christmas Ham for MIRT to share

He wanted to give us the good news
How dinos and man got along
But I banned Ken Ham for Christmas
I called his shit silly and wrong.

I like John Kerry- who, by the way, ALSO voted for the IWR- but I hate to see us lose a Senate seat.

And i don't buy for a Minute that this has been some 15 Dimensional GOP chess. They want Rice to go down so they can prove that they "took her out" because of the Bhengazi "scandal"....

There's no scandal, of course, but they've spent the past 2 months flogging it on FOX and they don't want to look stupid, sitting here with a case of scandalus interruptus and nothing to show for it. If they can remove Rice from SOS consideration, they can point to the "victory" and say "seee? There must have been something there, after all!!"

Account.

The question, though, is whether the person is also behind other accounts... or has been.

I dont understand the sock thing, either- but its an astoundingly common game.

There is another game where several people share the password to an account, which can lead to inconsistencies in the "person's" posting pattern or story. Dont really understand that game, either.

Likewise, I don't understand what would motivate someone to sit in a Library and troll DU for years and years under an endless series of names.. But, as MIRT and the old Mods know, somone does.

I'll also say that Ive been paying attention to certain phenomena for a while.... Way back into DU2. I generally don't make statements without a real good reason for making them.

Lets put it this way: I have a very good memory.

than we were today.


And very few- VERY few people can reasonably argue that they're close to the maximum on that trait. Maybe the Dalai Lama, although shit knows that dude has his detractors, too. As does just about everyone.

As has been noted in this thread and elsewhere on DU, there aren't "sides" on this topic; we're all against rape. Anyone who ISN'T against rape, get the fuck out now. I mean it.

I want to say something because I do feel the need to get it off my chest, and this thread is as good a place as any. I have read the threads, and I have listened- really listened to what has been said. I know there are some here who seem to be painting with some awfully broad brushes. But there are also people who are hurting- genuinely hurting over this. One thing that I have become increasingly aware of, and certainly the threads on the topic have been eye opening, is that there are many victims of rape on DU. That we talk with every day. That have been brave enough to come forward and talk about what they've been through. That calls for- it demands- empathy from all of us.

I understand about not liking the broad brush or over the top generalizations in some of the threads; that said, there is a place for remembering that this topic does deserve empathy from all of us. As men, and as human beings.

Let me cut right to the chase:

Rape is wrong. Rape apologia is wrong. No means no and frankly, any time anyone on this board has tried to argue, in this group at least, for an "extremely nuanced definition of consent" I have consistently said no, consent is and needs to be a bright, unequivocal, clear line.

Most men don't rape, and most men don't tolerate rapists. This imaginary cartoon dude in the locker room with the "bros before h**s"... I've never heard anyone talk like that, nor have I ever known anyone who THOUGHT like that.

And the "rape culture". Elsewhere in GD you hear rape blamed on Hollywood. On Culture. On all sorts of things, all sorts of nefarious programming and spooky cultural mojo, not to mention whatever it is about "masculinity-in-general" that is deeply in need of "change"..

So how about putting the blame for rape squarely where it belongs?

The Rapists?

Does me saying that mean my "feelings are hurt"? Do I have "sour grapes"? Do I not empathize with women who fear assault? No. No, and No. Although I realize that opening my yapper on this topic will, invariably, mean I will have that crap thrown at me. Predictably.


And what you don't hear, however, is word boo about why, in the context of these explanations, rape rates have declined significantly in the last 30 years, peaking in 1992 and now at about 75% of their 1980 level as reported per 100,000 of population.

Didn't take 1/3 of your GD thread before people started reflexively complaining about those numbers, because they screw with the preferred narrative of a culture in decline, of a media 'objectification' crisis, of porn causing rape.

Wait, I thought this was about rape, right? Not porn. Not about something else. Not about some other agenda. Right? Rape, which we all agree is wrong. Always.

Of course, that's what all the threads are about. That's why the topic was brought to GD in the first place, with fully predictable mass DU meltdown results.

Of course.

But I digress. See, these decline in rape rate numbers may be used by people who deflate the "porn causes rape" argument, but that doesn't mean there is no decline. So where do the actual numbers come from? The USDOJ, for one. They have a handy reporting tool. Here are the salient points for forcible rape rate numbers from 1980-2010, incidences per 100,000 persons.



The entire data table is in this post, I have not reproduced it because it takes up a lot of space.

and remdi95

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1114&pid=5578

However, anyone who doubts the validity of those numbers is welcome to check them themselves with the DOJ reporting tool. (Please note it is the rate, not the actual numbers of incidents, which are at near the same level as they were in 1980. However, the population of the US in general has, in that time, increased significantly.)

So I ask. Are men already 'repairing'? Is the "rape culture" getting better? You talk of a "dire need to come up with something, and soon" ... I agree that violence is unacceptable, and we all should do everything we can to end it, in all its forms- but given that most men aren't violent, most men don't rape... this 'dire need'- is it based upon actual trends in actual reality, like the trend of violent crime in the US-- which is, also, declining?

Like the trend of violence worldwide.. declining?

"Dire need" would seem, to me, to indicate a problem which is getting worse. Like the ice caps melting. Not one that is, at least by credible statistical measurements, getting BETTER. Now, saying it's getting better doesn't mean it's NOT a problem that needs fixing. Doesn't mean it's not an UNACCEPTABLE problem. One is too many. But it should make us skeptical of narratives which try to offer spurious cultural explanations which seem to have little to do with the actual crime as it occurs in reality.

Or is rape, as I suspect, a violent crime which is committed by violent criminals who belong in prison, and of which one is still far too many, and one of which we ALL have a duty to speak out and draw clear lines around concepts like consent--- but which doesn't have anything to do with Hollywood, or some hypothetical "rape culture", or some problem Germaine to all "us men", most of whom already know we shouldn't rape people...

it is a crime, an inexcusable crime which should be called out, and vilified, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law... but one for which the responsibility falls, and you're damn right I'm going to say it- on the perpetrators, not all men in general.

And to imply that somehow the vast majority of men are in dire need of 'repair' I think is a massive, and silly, generalization that might understandably be driven by other cultural ideas or agendas, but realisticaly has little to do with rape.