Really?! Post the clip. I feel certain you're either talking about defense"experts" who made their biased and absolutely ridiculous determinations without seeing the body or doing a single test, or are misrepresenting the testimony. The paid defense "expert" witness testimony was less than worthless, it was an indicator of guilt to put that nonsense on as an "expert". Prove me wrong.

I like how she talks about TRYING to think about other people's feelings and thoughts, knowing that someone is trying to shame her into guilt--and she just...can't.

'What is empathy and maybe I don't have it"..

These folks make great lawyers.

Trump is, has, and will continue to betray you but you are blinded by guilt, anger and hate. You will welcome the punishment you believe you've earned for not seeing it coming. You are innocent and guilty at the same time. Luckily, that is what is known as growing pains. You can let it destroy you or make you a man. The choice is yours alone.

@newtboy,
Nazis and white power groups are bad enough that standing with them makes one my foe....like NAMBLA.

Do you apply that with equal opportunity?

The guilt of association for the gallery with Stevens and whatever his name was from Amerika.org, should be similar to association with say the Nation of Islam and Farakhan?

What about Canada’s branch of BLM in Toronto who blocked the Toronto Pride parade and one of whose founders(Yusra Khogali) have said things like “white people are recessive genetic defects, this is factual”

https://archive.is/7R2LV/c2fbdb212391ecd395c3c89372819e2bd8d772bc.png

And

“ Plz Allah give me strength to not cuss/kill these men and white folks out here today. Plz plz plz”

Thats as much ‘evidence’ as you’ve given for convicting Brett Stevens of white supremacy, and then to convict anyone associated with him there after.

I say we dont get so extreme as you and deny all those people and anyone associated a right to speak their piece on that basis alone. I say the stupid and wrong things being said need to be allowed to be spoken, and confront them with corrections and revelation rather than force and violence to quiet them.

Some was addressed.
Read the first link... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ld50-gallery-protest-lucia-diego-donald-trump-alt-right-hackney-dalston-a7596346.html
Stevens wasn't the only one.

If they claim they have them speak there to " provide a vehicle for the free exploration of ideas, even and perhaps especially where these are challenging, controversial or indeed distasteful for some individuals to contemplate." but hold the events in secret, only open to far right wingers and Nazis, that's pretty blatantly a lie. Don't you agree?

When they gave private information about the artists who outed their secret agenda to Amerika they became unambiguously guilty by their own actions, not just association....and guilt by association is still guilt. If I stand with, support, defend, and host NAMBLA, I fully expect to be lumped with them. They NEVER denounced the hate, racism, or fascism they supported, and they participated with them in attacks against those who oppose Nazis. Ergo-Nazi.

@newtboy,

EDIT: drafted this and sent while you were writing previous reply, so maybe some of this is addressed?

Alright, I've gone one step further and read through the shutdownld50 tumblr 'evidence' seeing as they of all places probably gather the most condemning evidence they could.

The evidence amounts to putting on 1 event/exhibit that included far right folks, and included "Brett Stevens", whom I'm not familiar with but the quote from him on Breivik certainly sounds bad. In addition to putting on this exhibit, the even worse accusation is that they didn't really advertise it much publicly. Now, call me skeptical, but I have to believe that if they HAD advertised it heavily that ALSO would have compounded their guilt.

To me it still looks like guilt be association. The gallery had the audacity to host speakers that people disliked, so ergo-nazi!

Please though, if there is more or better evidence then please do let me know, or point me to what I'm missing. Is the Stevens guy so vehemently pro-nazi and and pro-violence that the association really should be enough? I'm inclined to believe no else they'd have better and more extensive quotes to use against him.

Again, I'm coming from a place of not knowing any of these people's backgrounds or history, but if we are supposed to believe them to be villians of such a high degree, I want a stronger case than those people say so and if you spent a few weeks of research on it you'd agree, trust us.

I find the argument that a good apple shouldn't even be in the policing business (i.e. guilt by association) problematic. My argument would be: If I'm a good apple, I'd be all for reforming and fumigating out all the bad apples! Bad apples don't deserve to tarnish my good reputation nor my silence (i.e. as good as complicity), ESPECIALLY since there are -- ahem -- "only 0.01%" of them in the force! Isn't that the logical and moral sentiment?

My concern about focusing the debate on the ratio of "Good apples vs. bad apples" is that it's fraught with pitfalls. Without "big data" (because the System won't ever allows such transparency), that "ratio" is subjective. It's just an excuse for politicians and legislators to wiggle out doing anything.

The argument should be that a fair, just and functioning society should punish each and every bad apples to protect the good apples and its citizens. We shouldn't tolerate any bad apples, no matter the "ratio"... police depts & judges SHOULD be exemplary in their knowledge and adherent to the law, NOT the other way around. How else should a people trust its government?

Besides, if what they say is true -- that the "bad apples are few and far between" -- there shouldn't be much consequence to prosecute them all right? It must be worth reforming to salvage the far-to-damaged reputation right? It would be a moral booster for BOTH the police & community IMO.

Thank you....accepted.

The "no good cop" part is right...it's not guilt by association though, it's guilt by being complicit, not turning them in, turning a blind eye, lying to protect the "bad apples"...being accessories after the fact is criminal. Yes, failure to clean their own house makes them bad cops. That's fixable, but only if they clean house...the best, easiest, most thorough way would be fire them all and only reinstate those with clean records, those with complaints need retraining at the least before being police again, many need to be fired. Not perfect, but better than most suggestions imo.
Edit: I do like the suggestion to make it the law that they must intervene if another cop is out of control, and must report it. I also support body cams that can't be turned off, but I want covering them or taking them off to be a felony.

I did say fire them all....but also said to hire them back. That gives us an opportunity to say 'this guy has 27 complaints and 3 multi-million dollar settlements paid out, he's not cop material'. Union rules won't let cops be fired even for cause most times, and absolutely won't allow a national registry of criminal cops. Those facts need to change if the culture is to change.

I agree, there are those few out there advocating no police....I'm just not one of them.

I'm of the opinion that if we keep any of the bad apples, nothing else matters, they'll corrupt the rest. The best way to save the bunch is remove any apples that even LOOK bad....that may leave us with a massive shortage, but that's FAR better than the criminal force we have today, no? One bad apple spoils the bunch...I wish those crying about a just few bad apples understood the phrase they're parsing.

Nothing will satisfy EVERYONE, but it actually takes very little to placate most mobs, just the suggestion that they've been heard is often enough, and why things got so bad. Too often "we hear you" is the only reform, and even that is forgotten as soon as the streets are cleared. I hope this time is different, but I'm not holding my breath.

Apologies, didn't mean to misrepresent you. We've debated things before and you seemed to lean to no cop is a good cop because there are so many bad ones guilt be association and failure to clean things up makes them all bad. You'd also said up thread to fire all active officers.

I'll cease trying to word how you feel on it, I just wanted to demonstrate by counter example that not everybody means 'reform' when they say "defund". At a minimum , the degree of 'reform' varies from change some laws and regulations to fire them and start over from scratch.

My comment of being ruled by our 'betters' was meant as a sarcastic dig on them and their abject failure in letting things rot this far and doing nothing.

Finally, my comment on public opinion on solutions being non-uniform was mostly to emphasize that as just normal, and the current status quo is just so unacceptable that it is unifying people from varied points of view to stand up against it. The most important point being that declaring, see nothing will satisfy the mob because they can't agree what to do is a twisted deception and the truth is people want things to be better than they are, and there is as you pointed out tonnes of common sense ways to go about that,

O'Fortuna was the icing on the cake! The Cake of Guilt-Inducing Hysterical Laughter.

You are both saying the same thing.

The only difference is that the cynicism isn't consistently applied to everyone who warrants it.

(I heavily suspect that when the money doesn't add up - someone is making money on the side. And it just so happens that they are in the position to sell regulatory capture, so it is the most likely candidate.)




In this case AOC is on point (granted that Trump is wealthy prior to office).

If I were to criticize her, it would not be for this stuff.
(It would be for identitarianism [vs individualism])



The guilt so far is the sort of guilt everyone has. Not saying everything is kosher - just saying that everyone is guilty, malfeasance or not.

There is a saying, show me the man, I'll show you the crime.

I'm sure that the FBI can look closely enough to everyone related to trump and find something to convict everyone of. It may not be foreign influence related, but it will be something. They can even drag things out until the prez is out of office before going after the juicy targets.

-scheherazade

1) Yes they are...they are his and his group's interpretations of other people's studies (unsupported interpretations the studies authors almost always disagree with)...I just saw a video of him shouting it at people on the street. His, and his cohorts that also lie about health issues to convert the gullible to their cause.
You see, it's exactly as I warned long ago, when you use statements from known liars to back up proven lies, no one trusts what you claim or those you reference to corroborate you at all anymore.

2) If they aren't his claims, then why post a video of him with a crowd shouting them....why mention him and his dishonest groups at all? Edit: oops, forgot you didn't post this one, but you do post him all the time.

3) Nope. Not trolling. Contradicting knowingly false statements....with scientific evidence and math on my side. I understand you are trying to insult, guilt, and shame people away from examining and debunking your claims, for myself, that only makes me want to examine more closely to see how deep the misunderstanding and misstatement of facts goes, exposing it so it doesn't spread.

Have you dropped the insane claim that risk increases 18% for every single slice of bacon consumed? (Yes, that's what you claimed) You stopped defending it, so i think so, but you never admit your misstatements, so who knows?

Interesting you ignored the second paragraph completely, since it proves your miraculous cancer claims are fantasy.

You may have some valid academic point to be made about American problems.

That is however completely overwhelmed by your callous disregard for the suffering of people in actual slave labour camps, by likening them to American prisoners convicted by a jury of their peers to a standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt who are forced to work for their 3 square meals per day. Your not wrong to point out flaws in the American system, just incredible callous to the vastly worse suffering of others.

I would say you are morally wrong to exploit said people(and weakening concern for their suffering) to champion a separate cause that matters to you more.

Lots of good comments here... this might take a while so bear with me.

@Mordhaus, I haven't read that book but I'd be interested to see his sources. Everything I've googled suggests the rate is really low.

As for Ford, obviously, I can't say for certain whether she is telling the truth. She may even believe she is telling the truth and still be wrong. I think she was entitled to the benefit of the doubt in terms of an investigation. Of course, it's possible she was doing this for political reasons, but that feels like a stretch to me.

@bcglorf
In some ways, I can understand the desire to remove the vexatious complaints cause. Coming forward with a report of sexual assault is traumatic enough already.
A) you may not be believed
B) even if you are, you're in for an experience many assault survivors have described as "being raped a second time"
If you add the possibility that your complaint could potentially get you sanctioned if no one believes you, that's a pretty awful situation to be in.

Now, I don't necessarily agree with this stance, but I can understand it. I think you would need to clear a very high bar to prove a complaint is malicious. Presumption of innocence applies to the complainant also.

"The first 3 levels of sexual violence ALL involve no physical contact and are entirely verbal. "
100% fine with this. You can be a creepy sleazebag without touching someone and it's still not ok.

"lots of people are very much arguing that lives should be destroyed then and there"
Sorry, I just don't see it. That said, if there are people arguing for that... I'm against them.

"We'll even right songs to laugh at them when they complain."
This song was mocking the bullshit "it's a scary time to be a man" line, and deservedly so. I'm a man, and I'm not scared of being accused of sexual assault. None of my male friends are scared either. But it fucking crushes my soul to think of how many of the women in my life have ACTUALLY experienced some form of sexual assault (and that's just the ones I know of).

@scheherazade
Completely agree that eyewitness testimony is borderline useless in terms of evidence. Go back through my comment history... you'll see I even said I doubt you could prove Kavanaugh's guilt. All I've ever said is that it warrants an investigation. (sidenote: I totally agree with @vil and @Mordhaus on this... polygraphs are junk science, but Kavanaugh's boorish behaviour should have been grounds not to confirm him).

Regarding your friend that was raped by a girl: that's awful, and yes, we really have to stop this childish attitude of somehow thinking female on male rape is either funny or that the guy was lucky. But it is unrelated to this discussion.

@MilkmanDan, I pretty much agree with everything you've said.

Being falsely accused of rape would be terrible, even if you weren't convicted. No disagreement there at all.

@ChaosEngine

I fully agree with you that rape/sexual assault is a bigger problem (in magnitude and frequency) than false accusations. And that being an actual victim of sexual assault would be worse than being falsely accused of sexual assault, although it seems a bit pointless to debate the relative extent of how much these things could fuck up lives when they are both horrendous.

That being said, there's a reason that presumption of innocence and requiring proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are the law of the land. And assuming that we follow through on those things (which I think we largely do), that's all well and good. BUT, that's all pretty strictly just in the legal realm.

False accusations of sexual assault don't need to get as far as the actual legal system to seriously fuck up a person's life. Employers, partners, friends ... these connections might choose to sever ties without requiring the same rigorous proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that the legal system does.

As much as I personally tend to believe Ford as opposed to Kavanaugh, I think that given the span of time since the incident it is nigh on impossible to prove that her version of events is true beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the hearing put his current demeanor and partisan/biased attitude on blatant display in a way that seemed to me should be disqualifying with regards to the sort of standards we require for Supreme Court Justices. Apparently the GOP disagrees, and we can hold them to account for that at the ballot box.

That's rather cold comfort given that Justices serve for life. There'd be some constitutional crisis drama if Agent Orange gets removed from office as a result of some proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt of misdeeds. Robert Kennedy's quote about the ancient Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" seems apropos. Things have been entirely too "interesting" for my taste for the past 2 years...