And in all seriousness: because if you aren't old yourself, you know people who are---your parents, your grandparents---or have friends and family who are in the risk groups---diabetic, asthma, smokers, cancer survivors or in treatment---or are just robust young people with immune systems that over-react and then trigger Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and death...

So I don't know you--but wash your hands, wear a mask outside, and isolate.
Whatever you have believed at one point or the other.

I like Bernie, but his answer to "how do we pay for your plans?" seems to always be "We tax the rich more." That seems naive imo.
I agree, the extremely rich should pay way more, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that higher tax rates for the top 5% can pay to revamp our entire society. We are too deep in debt, and too shallow in our commitments towards the public, whether those commitments come in the form of investments in education, health, infrastructure, the legal system, prison reforms, ecology, climate change, .....the list of things we put on the back burner and ignore is long and fraught with perils far more pressing than, let's say a fence, or golf outings, trade wars, or another aircraft carrier.

As to the Castro ridiculousness, get a grip people. I can give you an example of something Hitler did that everyone, including holocaust survivors, can agree was a great thing he did.....he killed Hitler. If your ideological blinders and hatred are so thick you can't admit bad people/systems might also do some good things sometimes, you have a serious problem accepting reality and you need therapy.

We do it for the families. The survivors.

*doublepromote *quality info, even if it barely scratches the surface of this food web destroyer.
This seems like our backup Armageddon. If the effects of climate change don't wipe us out, the survivors get to die slowly of petroleum poisoning.
I hope those disposable forks were worth it.

I was surprised he didn't mention all the plastics we eat intentionally, like any toothpaste with sparkles for instance....that's just bits of plastic we are fed on purpose.

probably the police-modified versions of this Ford don't even have that App available...
(though this is the least requires-suspension-of-disbelief moment of Designated Survivor)

Soooo,

we believe women, unless they are accusing another even 'weaker' minority...

Ultimately it is fair to make the point that 'believe survivors' isn't meant by many people as a blanket belief of any and all accusations, but rather by the subjective standard of 'credible'. That this is thus remaining a subjective stance rather than an absolute isn't unfair to point out.

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.

It isn't as rare as you think. There are numerous accounts of false accusations that don't make it as far as court or they do and the accused choose to take a plea versus chancing half their life.

Brent E. Turvey, a criminologist, wrote a 2017 book that dispels this notion. His research, and that of two co-authors, cited statistical studies and police crime reports. One academic study showed that as many as 40 percent of sexual assault charges are false. Mr. Turvey wrote that the FBI in the 1990s pegged the falsity rate at 8 percent for rape or attempted rape complaints.

“There is no shortage of politicians, victims’ advocates and news articles claiming that the nationwide false report for rape and sexual assault is almost nonexistent, presenting a figure of around 2 percent,” writes Mr. Turvey, who directs the Forensic Criminology Institute. “This figure is not only inaccurate, but also it has no basis in reality. Reporting it publicly as a valid frequency rate with any empirical basis is either scientifically negligent or fraudulent.”

A recent study supports this assessment. The Pentagon issues an annual report on sexual assaults in the military. Nearly one-quarter of all cases last year were thrown out for lack of evidence, according to a report released in May.

As far as the rape every 98 seconds, I am unsure where you found that number. There were 95,730 rapes under the revised FBI definitions (which include more categories that previously were not considered rape, like child molestion, under the legacy definitions) in the last year I could find which was 2016. These are the combined rapes of men, women, and children for that year. That means the actual rape of a 'person' is occurring somewhere around every 5-6 minutes. Now if you are going by a different statistic, like the CDC ones that include such a wide definition of what constitutes 'rape' that it isn't funny, you might get the result you quoted. I wouldn't go by those stats, even TIME magazine had to call out the CDC for overstating the numbers.

As far as Trump goes, he is a complete idiot dickhead. He shouldn't have insulted anyone, least of all Dr. Ford. I will point out one thing though, and this is subjective in that your viewpoint will differ from mine, Dr. Ford is an alleged rape survivor. She has made the claim and took a polygraph test, but other than that she can only claim that in her recollection she was at a party where Brett Kavanaugh was also at supposedly. She also claimed to be heavily intoxicated. If you want to believe her Ex, she has lied in her testimony. (https://heavy.com/news/2018/10/christine-ford-boyfriend-ex-letter-blasey/) Heavy leans left, so this isn't a bobknight cherry picking of information.

Now, why would she come forth and deal with all the negatives of making the claim? I guess that is the kicker, normally you would expect a person to really be telling the truth if they are going to be put through hell. I would put forward though that this was one of the most hotly contested confirmations for SCOTUS ever. Even more so than for Bork, and I remember that one clearly. In my opinion, far more than for Thomas. If you were adamantly opposed to a person sitting on the Supreme Court, had went to school with that person, and were willing to fall on your sword for your beliefs, you might do it.

In any case, that is just supposition on my part.

Regarding Perry and Counts: that was in 1991. Again it's terrible, but you can't really argue that we're suddenly "abandoning of proof and evidence".

Re Banks: That's undoubtedly terrible, but to me, that's far more of an indictment of the appalling state of the US justice system and the nightmare of the utterly broken plea bargain system (I think John Oliver did a report on it, and I'd also highly recommend listening to the current season of the Serial podcast). He chose to take the plea deal... he wasn't convicted.

I think it's also not a coincidence that all three victims are black. Juries are far more likely to convict black men... that's just a fact.

And again, these cases are notable because they're rare.

The point here is simple. Trump's "it's a scary time to be a man" line is complete and utter bullshit. There is no sudden epidemic of false rape allegations. Are people wrongly accused (and in some cases, even convicted) of rape? Undoubtedly.

But it's not a new problem and it's nowhere near as widespread as the right is making it out to be.

Meanwhile, in the USA someone is violated every 98 seconds, and the President mocked a sexual assault survivor.

One of these is a bigger problem than the other.

there were no survivors

I remember my "judgement day." Greif.

I discovered for myself that I, unknowingly, had written my own bible. I created all the rules that I thought I should hold dear. Little did I know that one day I would be judged by own bible.

Then I lost someone I loved. I became suicidal. I could not bear the loss and the pain.

My plan was to drive head on into a semi truck, thinking that hopefully the driver would survive somehow. I drove back and forth on the highway I picked to end my life.

I imagined what the crash would be like and who it would affect. Then I pictured something that stalled my plan.

Upon crashing into the truck I envisioned the people I love being crushed and dismembered in slow motion. My parents, siblings, friends, as though they were in the car with me.

In my death I would be the only survivor.

I had destroyed the world. With a single bullet, I could have destroyed the world. To me, that meant one thing. If I had the power to destroy the world, then I must have the power to save it. The only thing standing in my way was the bible I wrote for myself. Forgiving others was the easy part.

Forgiving myself was not so easy.

The very thing that almost killed me was now the thing I had to believe in.

Love.

Pure. Simple. Without demands or conditions.

Every human needs love. "There lies the rub."

I snatched the pebbles from the Master's hand. It was time for me to leave.

God was no different than great works of art, music, poetry.

If there is a God, it must be me because I now have the only power God ever had.

Love.

@MilkmanDan, excellent points all round.

I'm not a gun owner, and I have no interest in buying one for self-defence, but I have fired guns a few times (at shooting ranges or clay pigeon shoots) and it's an undeniably fun activity. I could also see myself going hunting for food at some point.

Jim Jeffries makes an excellent point in his gun control rant.
"fuck off, I like guns" is actually a reasonable argument. If you like something and you're not harming anyone with it, why should it be taken from you? After all, many "anti-gun" (or more accurately "pro-gun control") people will make the same argument FOR drugs. "I'm just smoking some weed/having a beer in my house. I'm not hurting anyone, just leave me alone".

But the thing is unless you're a hardcore libertarian, almost everyone agrees that there should be some sensible limits on drugs. Even for legal drugs like alcohol, we mandate that you must be a certain age (older than you have to be to buy a gun, which is lunacy to me) and that you can't drive drunk, etc.

The sad thing is, there's near universal agreement on this, even in the US. The vast majority of people are in favour of the kind of simple, common-sense regulations you mention.

It's just that the politicians are in the pocket of the NRA. As one of shooting survivors pointed out "We should change the names of AR-15s to “Marco Rubio” because they are so easy to buy", and I cannot say how much I want to stand up and applaud that epic burn.

Rationally, no, but my lizard brain sure does.

In reality, I don't want prison to be about revenge, I believe it works much better if it's about rehabilitation, no matter who the prisoner is. Also, I understand that prisoners lives and safety are the responsibility of the jailers (us) and I don't want to pay their survivors for their deaths or injuries.

That said, it is a satisfying fantasy to think about racist murderous cops at the mercy of a gang of pumped up vengeful Crips, but no, I don't really want that.

You're probably correct, they should expect exactly that mass attack. It would still be a great day if it happened, especially by an anonymous soldier of God that never is caught and hunts the survivors. I doubt too much effort would go into investigating it. ;-)

Until that day, I can only hope they are identified and given proper Christian treatment, meaning others treat them as they treat others, so their remaining time on earth is spent hiding with the family unable to spend any of that money without being exposed to rabid hatred screamed into their bleeding ears incessantly.

there were no survivors.