Service Dog wrote:A week ago, after Sargon's livestream, I expressed my concern-- that only explicitly-SJW lefties would be held-accountable by pitizens participating, while the SJWs' more-moderate bedfellows (such as ordinary feminists) would get a pass.
It depends on what you call "ordinary feminist". Who are they, what are their aims, how do they act?
Kirbmarc responded, amply defending his comments made during the livestream, but also expanding on those comments: by invoking Paul Elam's infamous essay which argued that, as a juror, Elam would vote against convicting any man accused of raping a woman, regardless of the apparent merits of the case, due to the systemic anti-male bias built-in to the current US legal system in rape cases.
The question is about whether there is a systemic anti-male bias built-in to the current US legal system, and whether the extent of this bias justifies an extreme solution such as systemic jury nullification.
Invoking Elam was an irrelevant side-step, away from the point-in-question: whether moderate feminists and lefties are enablers of their SJW kin. But I willingly took the tangent-bait.
It wasn't an irrelevant side step. You argued that the only way for a feminist to be in favor of equal rights was to "literally be an MRA". I expressed my doubts about this, by pointing out what a prominent MRA believes to be a rational choice.
Kirbmarc's response wasn't entirely name-calling, but the alternatives Kirbmarc proposed-- such as reminding the jury that media could be biased against a man accused of rape-- or defense attorneys taking extra care to tell jurors about unreliable prosecution expert witnesses (assuming a judge would allow the trial to be put-on-trial in that manner) did not address the other anti-male biases which Elam mentioned, such as the application of Rape Shield Laws.
I contend that the solution to the "anti-male bias" (which I think is more likely to be an "anti-accused" bias) is too extreme, because if applied consistently it would end up making people who are guilty of rape impossible to convict. I don't think that the situation is so dire that it requires such an extreme solution.
I sought to address Kirbmarc's empty name-calling and show that Elam's position is not so patently-absurd as Kirbmarc contends. My longest post was in reply to welch, but as the person who changed-the-subject to Elam's essay-- in such dismissive terms-- the sceptic's burden is most on Kirbmarc to refute what I wrote. I haven't seen any-such reply.
Sorry, I hadn't seen your reply before.
Here in nyc, for over a decade, hundreds of thousands of men were stopped & searched by police without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. They were systematically arrested for minor offenses such as carrying marijuana, a pot pipe, or a boxcutter used at work. Any outstanding warrants were also cause for arrest-- at a time when the 'Broken Window Theory' was used to treat infractions such as pubic urination, open container, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, jumping the subway turnstyle, and literal jaywalking-- as worthy of high fines and jailtime. The Broken Window citations were overwhelmingly directed at males.
You seem to think that males were targeted as a gender, instead of this result being simply a side effect of focusing on crimes which are more likely to be committed by men.
Many who are capable of seeing the discrimination inherent in 90% of the "randomly" stopped citizens being non-white-- nonetheless seem incapable of concern that 100% of the citizens were explicitly profiled for being male. The NYPD policy was to only search males, for fear of sexual harassment and assault charges if random women were frisked.
There's also the issue that men are more likely to commit reckless behavior. One of the signs of male depression is reckless behavior, and men are in general more prone to explicitly violate laws and social norms, to engage in violent behavior, to drink in a social context (female alcoholism is generally associated with drinking alone, away from sources of danger or from the public).
The minor (and often victimless) crimes which were subject to draconian punishment are committed overwhelmingly by men. Public urination, for example, is (for a series of social and even physiological reasons) overwhelmingly more likely to be committed by men than by women.
In general evolutionary psychology and socio-biology have proposed many explanations for different rates of aggressiveness and anti-social behavior (which are likely to lead to crimes and misdemeanor) between men and women. Upper-body strength is lower in women than in men. Men have evolved to be more aggressive and competitive. The "Male Warrior" hypothesis suggests that human psychology has been shaped by conflicts between groups and by competition for resources.
There is evidence that in primates (chimpanzees, gorillas) males are more aggressive and reckless, as well.
Regardless of why it happens, men are more likely to engage in violent, anti-social, reckless behavior. This doesn't mean that women are more
ethical than men, but that they resolve conflicts and frustrations in ways (social ostracism, gossiping, stigmatization) that are less likely to lead to crime, or at least to the crimes targeted by "Broken Window" laws.
There is an anti-male disparity at every stage of the criminal justice system-- from who gets profiled, who gets searched, who gets a warning vs. a citation, who is arrested on-site, who is released from the precinct vs. 'put through the system' (fingerprinted, photographed, and jailed until put before an arraignment judge), who is released on their own recognizance vs. requiring bail or left waiting in jail without bail. There's a disparity in amount of bail demanded, the conditions in jail, the harshness of sentences, the size of plea bargain offered, whether the convicted person is offered alternatives such as public service hours, or treatment programs, in lieu of imprisonment. There are currently activist efforts to abolish prison altogether... for women. Because any woman convicted of drunk driving or drowning her baby... must be a victim, forced to do such a thing by the patriarchy. Only boys & men are to be held responsible for their own actions.
I'd like to see some evidence of this systemic disparity, compared to the size of the criminal population for the same crime. It's important to keep in mind that difference might arise from the different nature of the crimes themselves, and from the more pro-social tactics employed by women guilty of crime compared to men (less likely to be confrontational, less likely to resist arrest, etc.).
This discriminatory environment has a compound-interest effect, so that a male & female with identical criminal behaviors appear to be a criminal with a long rap sheet & an innocent citizen, respectively. Long before a man finds himself on trial for rape, he has already been sorted into a guilty category, to be used as evidence against his character at trial.
Again, it'd be interesting to see some evidence of this. There's also the issue that men, for a series of reasons, are overwhelmingly more likely to commit rape. Rape of adult men (and often of minors, too, especially if it's statutory rape) by women is often played for comedy and dismissed by society. This is because for a series of physiological reasons women are far less likely to commit rape.
Or threat of trial: the accused man will inevitably be offered a harsh plea-- perhaps 5 years in prison, if he agrees to spare the state the hassle of proving their case against him, vs. 25-to-life if he takes his chances on justice.
Is this a male problem or plea bargaining problem? Plea bargaining is essentially legalized blackmail. It's useful to save taxpayer money, but not so much for providing a fair trial, especially in the case of serious crimes.
Atop all this comes the gender-specific legislation... of the Duluth Model and the Violence Against Women Act; in which a woman reporting herself a victim is mandated to be assigned a specially-trained advocate social services worker, but a male can be discouraged from filing an official report-- and frequently treated as-if he is the perpetrator. The lists of phone numbers on police documents provide phone numbers for female victim's services-- and programs for male perpetrators. The social workers were trained in institutions which teach Patriarchy Theory and Privilege and 1in4 rape statistics, as scientific fact. Also 'Believe the Women' and 'All Men Are Rapists'. Shelters for male victims don't exist. A male who takes his children away from an abusive woman-- triggers an Amber Alert for abduction.
Yes, these are very important issues, which stem from social, biological and physiological factors. I think that activism to raise awareness on these issues is much more effective that systemic jury nullification (key word being "systemic").
New York recently passed a 'Rape Is Rape' law, which discarded the former hierarchy of sexual-assault offenses, greater & lesser, in favor of all such charges now being officially deemed forms of Rape.
This is also an issue which is best countered by activism, by making people realize that groping and rape aren't the same thing, then by systemic jury nullification in all cases.
Also of note are the Rape Shield Laws which sacrifice a defendant's right to face his accuser and gather a robust defense-- in favor of hiding the accusser's identity and relevant sexual history.
These laws were created because of history of promiscuous or simply non-monogamous sexual behavior had been used as evidence that the sexual encounter in question was consensual. This was due to the diffused prejudice that non-monogamous women were "asking for it" (while non-monogamous men were only expressing their nature). This stemmed from various reasons, including the issue of attributing paternity of children (which is now a moot point thanks to DNA tests).
While there is the potential for misuse of these laws, the intent behind their creation was to counter an irrational social bias. They should be amended, or corrected, but it's hard not to understand the reasons why the were created in first place.
The rape hysteria on college campuses is well-documented. Would you object to a student-juror in a college kangaroo court-- who refused to participate in the miscarriage of justice... such as the defendant not being allowed legal counsel, or a 51%/preponderance of evidence standard being applied (as mandated by the Obama Administration, rather than the 98%/beyond a reasonable doubt.
College campuses shouldn't deal with criminal matters, period. A better way to address this problem is to campaign for the end of campus courts in general. College professors aren't well equipped to decide on matters which are best left to the justice system.
The college campus lunacy is spreading. California and New York have made 'yes means yes' affirmative consent a state law, without a shred of concern that the standard is only applied to whether a female said yes, or had a beer, or 'felt' obligated to have sex. The same Mary Koss who spawned the 1-in-4 rape college rape stat in the 1980s now advises the FBI & CDC that males forced to penetrate females should not be counted as 'rape' victims, but should be categorized in a separate 'other' category. The number of males reporting having been forced to penetrate-- is higher than the number of females reporting being penetrated. No 'rape is rape', if you're male.
I find this rather hard to believe. Any evidence for this claim?
I
start this discussion knowing that males can't expect equal treatment under the law for littering or sitting on a park bench after dusk, so it's no great leap to extend that to rape charges. I discard much of Paul Elam's essay as irrelevant (rather than incorrect), but his central assertion still stands. I don't know how welch arrived at the notion that a juror must be 100% sure the specific case being tried has been tainted as illegitimate. The appearance of an unfair trial-- REASONABLE DOUBT-- is sufficient. Better 10 guilty men walk free, than one innocent suffer.
I actually agree that if a juror as a reasonable doubt that a trial is unfair they shouldn't convict. What you dismiss as "irrelevant" and I call "loony" is the idea that jury nullification should be used
systematically.
If, as a juror, someone has reasonable doubt that a
specific trial is unfair I can understand why they might not convict the defendant. I'm not against activism which raises awareness of certain issues. I'm strongly against the idea of a
systematic use of jury nullification in all cases of rape.
I also don't think that the discrimination is due to an anti-male bias built-in in the justice system as it is due to some social norms which ultimately stem from physiological and biological reasons.
Of course lunatic SJW activism must be countered. But doing it in an equally gender politics-based, extremist and frankly insane way is incredibly counterproductive.
