That was the point to me. That, absent video evidence or a rape kit, only a clear unambiguous confession meets the burden of proof, and she didn’t get it despite the dangerous position she put herself in to get a confession.
I doubt a DA would prosecute on this irl.
In a jury trial it might be enough for conviction, they’re notoriously difficult to predict, but not a non-jury trial.

I think maybe a temporary restraining order could be acquired in America with this evidence, but not permanent….just my opinion though.

Yeah, it’s a tricky problem.

I while there are certainly cases where an employee can impact their employers business through their beliefs, statements or actions, in general I think the burden of proof should be on the employer.

And there’s certainly no way an employee should ever be made to sign something like this.

And for the record, it goes the other way too. If a “liberal” company fired someone for refusing to sign an anti trump thing, they’d be wrong too.

Of course rape can occur at any point leading up to and even during the act. If you have penetrated your partner and they say stop, you stop.

However, I would ask what other evidence could there possibly be? Obviously we can't know, but one would assume that a motivated prosecutor would have gathered all possible evidence. We know from the victim's statements that she can't recall much of the night, is unsure she said yay or nay during the sex, but that she didn't think he should have been prosecuted. Her roommates are the ones that reported the 'rape', but they clearly didn't give any evidence the court saw as worth convicting on. If their statements were what USC went by to expel him, that would be available via the court and I'm sure someone would have posted them.

We simply do not know and can only go by the video and the statement of the 'victim'. She seemed to be walking fine and signed her name correctly, so either she is an extremely functional drunk or she was sober enough to make those choices. She said she didn't think he should have been charged with rape. To me, that should exonerate the defendant. It did in a court of law, but not in a closed off Title IX hearing.

I suspect that what happened is what happens in other colleges. The college determines what is going to look worse publicity wise and litigation wise, then expels based on that. The problem is that in the Title IX process, there is no real fairness. You can have an advisor present, but not a lawyer if the school objects. One person decides your fate. There is no appeal process. The burden of proof is not defined as to who it is upon. I am sure that the lady in charge went by some procedure and not merely off personal opinion/belief, but we can't investigate to find that out.

To sum up, are we at the point where we should not have intimate relations if either person has imbibed any type of substance? Should we request that a video camera or audio recorder be present at any sexual liaison? Do we need witnesses like they used to have at the consummation of royal weddings? Perhaps a written contract? It just seems pretty ludicrous to me to have a video and the statement of the person that was supposed to have been raped, yet somehow we still had a punishment given to the individual accused of the raping.

@ChaosEngine:
"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.

Perhaps you misunderstand. I also oppose verbal harassment and discrimination. I disagree with calling sexist and racist comments acts of violence. I agree with condemning them and acting to stop them.

Real world example, a Canadian student TA at Wilfred Laurier University played a short clip of a publicly broadcast debate over trans pronoun usage between 2 U of T professors in a class. She was brought into a meeting with 3 WLU staff who told her she was horribly wrong for doing so because playing that clip was "an act of violence" against any trans students in the room.

This abuse of language is manipulative and wrong.

I'm a man, and I'm not scared of being accused of sexual assault. None of my male friends are scared either.

With burden of proof I'm thinking beyond merely sexual assault. This already practice in forms in Canada. Ontario has an entire system of Social Justice Tribunals that run parallel to the criminal court system. It's been a gradual transformation of the civil court system, so civil and family courts are lumped in as tribunals now there. The specific one relevant in this case is the human rights tribunal. If the WLU faculty, or a student from the classroom, wanted to file a human rights complaint for the 'violence' they faced, the burden of proof would be a preponderance of the evidence rather than innocent until proven guilty. Which I can even understand in some cases, but lets not say that doesn't make people nervous about being falsely accused. That is not what scares people the most though in Ontario. The social justice tribunals have paid for legal representation for the accusers, and so the government foots the financial costs for the accuser. The accused however is on their own. The erosion of burden of proof and fear of financial damages from malicious or vengeful complaints is a very, very real thing in Canada. Accusations of sexual harassment being just one of many kinds of accusations that you can be damaged by while entirely innocent.

Logical fallacies, reversed burden of proof, this is just hilarious all round. The comments are even funnier.

Take a look in the mirror, shiny.

My position is backed up by mountains (both methaphorically and literally) of evidence. You have nothing. I've looked at the so-called evidence for a young earth or creationism and I dismissed it almost instantly.

It fails almost every conceivable test of reliable evidence almost instantly. I am not obliged to consider nonsense. The burden of proof is not on me, it is on you.

If I tell you the sky is pink and green with a giant picture of Steve Carell on it, I'd want some pretty decent evidence to back that up.

I don't have to "seek out someone who agreed" with me, that is the default position. It is the accepted scientific reality.

Part of the reason, I don't have to continually reassess my acceptance of it is because it makes sense. I don't go around thinking "man, evolution is a cool idea, but I wonder why it doesn't explain X", because it does explain X (where X is any silly creationist nonsense like irreduceable complexity, etc).

So, on one hand we have evolution, which has:
- an elegant, sensible theory
- millions and millions of man hours of study
- ginormous swathes of evidence

and on the other we have creationism, which has:
- some old book said it's true and the same book said the book is true (despite the fact that said book has been wrong time and time again)

Anyway, I'm done here.
Have fun on the wrong side of history; you can take a seat over there beside the flat earthers, the slave-owners and the people that thought non-whites were genetically inferior.

I think the first 5 minutes was the most important part of the conversation. It's bigger than both men and he's got a point. The burden of proof in "journalism" has been on a downward trend for the last 10-20 years and sites like Salon have decided to just throw it out the window outright.

What they've discovered is that spreading "based on a true story" style journalism is much more profitable than traditional journalism and their (relatively) new and growing religion allows them to do it without sin.

This religion is much more damaging than any popular, established religion in practice today. This religion doesn't need buildings or ordained practitioners. This religion creates its own propaganda as a side effect of its practice. Its worshipers can often hide in plain sight and subvert civilization for years without direct personal repercussions; in fact they are often rewarded for their behavior.

The religion is Objectivism, and its deity is "the invisible hand". When your morality is judged by your profit than you've undone a core pillar of civilization. The damage of all other practiced religions in the modern era pale in comparison.

The first five minutes of this video were the only part of this conversation that were relevant to the real challenges of our times.

I had to laugh at the "news" of a friend of the officer that called into a radio station to corroborate the officer's story.

Oh well obviously if a friend backs up your story, it MUST be true!

Again, the real criminal here is the news. They just continue to report so little of substance. It's precisely why ChaosEngine is right that we know so little.

The problem is of course, the burden of proof. It will be the same as it was for Trayvon. The only other reliable witness is dead. so when it comes to charging the officer, it's going to be very difficult to prove.

But "not guilty" is not the same thing as innocent and no matter what happens, the officer's life is ruined anyway. He'll be a pariah in the public's eye

Which is why it's so much better to err on the side of not killing in the first place.

You had a somewhat decent argument @LiquidDrift ...until you said the words "Alex Jones"

It's pretty easy to cherry pick instances of cops behaving badly and ignore instances of cops doing good. This sift alone has a wide variety of videos of both types of cops. So you (not implying you personally) have a rather large burden of proof to meet to make a valid claim of "fascist police state" you need to prove calculated intent. Until then, you've just got a significant number of individual cases of people who are simply unable to use the power they are given wisely and ignore the responsibility they have. Something all of us humans have been guilty of at some point in our lives.

The internet is a great tool for communication to bring stuff like this to light, but it also breeds a massive amount of armchair quarterbacking.

Without a doubt, I would agree that the police are in need of some fundamental reforms to address these issues, which is a far more rational argument than the delusions of Alex Jones

You're hilarious @bobknight33...and a hypocrite. You claim that I'm not worth answering to, yet you still @ my name so you know I would see it...thus..answering me. I see you still haven't backed up your claim, coward

@newtboy Don't let him change the subject. He claims biblical morality is superior to secular morality. Then he changes the subject to evolution, which has nothing to do with his claim. Once again, a creationist is trying to shift the burden of proof. He somehow doesn't have to back up his claims, but we have to somehow disprove god...which science doesn't care about. Science only cares about claims you can back up, which the coward bob will never do.

Bob's got the five D's of Dodgeball down pat.

you know how creationists like to shift the burden of proof. It's somehow not on them to prove their claims. somehow atheists are supposed to disprove god.

so obviously posting a video of a charlatan "converting" proves creationism.

its so obvious now.

I, however, have no problems making waves with shiny. *lies I'm just not privileged enough

here's the thing that convinced me that I wasn't an agnostic anymore.

I am not opposed to the idea of a creator.

I *am* opposed to every single depiction of a creator that humanity has come up with so far. petty, fear-based, eternal punishment for finite crimes, constant inconsistencies in their rules, ok with slavery, and absolutely shitty morals.

Sure..individual people have a personal vision of a much more...humane and moral creator that represents a much better view of a creator. But those ideas don't get any real traction in the public scene. It's always the hateful creator, the vengeful creator, The creator that somehow plays favorites and cures cancer and other diseases but only for certain people, but has never once given an amputee their limb back. the creator that picks the winners of football teams, the creator that somehow hates how you think and behave even though he created you that way. The creator that somehow sides with one political party and not the other.

I don't know if there is a creator, and when it comes right down to it, no one does either. But what I do know is that there is absolutely no evidence of ANY religions' creator(s) And even if there were, many, if not all of these creators have created rules systems that are just demonstrably...bad or so full of holes.

So you could say I am agnostic, but that, at least to me, implies that both views have an equal footing...that somehow there is evidence for both, but you just haven't decided which is stronger.

Theists have made claims but have not provided any good evidence to support those claims. Atheism is not declaring that there is no creator, just that the theists haven't made their case. So it's pretty clear that even if you don't know if there is a creator, if you call bullshit on religion, you're an atheist, not an agnostic. Religion and whether or not a creator exists are TWO SEPARATE THINGS.

It just comes down to burden of proof and the common misconception that atheism is the declaration that there is no creator. You can't prove a negative on this scale Believing that there is absolutely no creator is anti-theism, not atheism.

Hi voodooV..sorry it took me so long to reply.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

The fallacy you mentioned doesn't apply. The argument isn't for Gods existence, the argument is that atheism is incoherent because it has no foundation for morality, among other reasons. Ravi asked the question, without God what are the Ontic referrants for reality?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontic

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.

What you're talking about is pragmatism, which is to say that if it works then it is the best way to do things. Yet plenty of people have led long, prosperous and happy lives by exploiting other people for their gain. That's what works for them, so why shouldn't I emulate that standard of behavior instead of being self-sacrificing? Some of the most successful people who have ever lived got there by being terrible human beings. Basically, your standard of survival isn't about what is right, but what is right for me and that is entirely arbitrary. It also is an incoherent standard for morality.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.

What's really interesting about that is that Moses was educated as an Egyptian prince, which was the most advanced country in the world at the time. He would have certainly been exposed to their medical knowledge, but you won't find a shred of that in the bible. The Egyptians were doing things like applying dung to peoples wounds, whereas the Laws of Moses detailed procedures for disease control, like hand washing and quarantine procedures, as well as public sanitation, and dietary laws which prevented the spread of parasites. They were thousands of years ahead of their time; we only started washing our hands to control disease in the past 200 years.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

You're talking to a former agnostic who once approved of homosexuality and abortion. I am not afraid of it, and I don't hate the people doing it. This is a clash of presuppositions; if there isn't a God then I couldn't give you an absolute reason why people cannot have homosexual relationships or murder their unborn children. If we're all just glorified apes contending for limited resources, then in that paradigm it may be necessary to cull the herd. I think the appropriate response though to someone contending we should eliminate vast swaths of the human populace to save the planet is, "you first".

But God is in control and this is His planet, and since He is still creating human beings, He will provide the resources to take care of them. It's the iniquity of mankind which is limiting the resources when the truth is that we have way more than enough to take care of everyone. Take for example the fact that over 30 thousand people starve to death every day. Is that because we don't have enough food? Actually, we have more than enough food yet we waste about 1/3 of the world food supply every year. The gross world product in 2012 was over 84 trillion dollars, more than enough to feed, clothe, house and vaccinate every single person on the planet. Those people die not because there isn't enough, but because the wickedness of man.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?

God has three kinds of laws, moral civil and cermonial. The rules you're referring to were civil and ceremonial laws for Israel and not for the rest of the world. They have no application today because they were connected to the Old Covenant God had with Israel. God has a New Covenant with the whole world that doesn't include those laws. The moral laws of God do not change with time, or ever. And although we fancy ourselves as more enlightened today, the reality of the world we live in tells us that human nature hasn't changed one bit. Human nature is every bit as ugly and self serving as it always has been. If you peel back the thin veneer of civility you will find a boiling pot of iniquity.

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

It's easy to speak in generalities; if I have committed a logical fallacy, then specifically point it out. The one that you detailed earlier did not apply.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

I've watched the show, and again, I was a lifelong agnostic before becoming a Christian. I was pretty far left and would have probably fit in well with the lot of you not too many years ago. So, this is all to say that I understand where you're coming from and why you think and believe the way you do, because I used to think and believe in the same ways. Your mindset isn't a mystery to me. What I've learned about it is that God has to reveal Himself to a person before they will know anything about Him. Everyone gets some revelation and it is up to them to follow it. I received the revelation that there is a God and I pursued that for many years until He revealed Himself to me through His Son Jesus Christ. He has revealed Himself to you and everyone else on this website in some form or fashion. You would be shocked to hear some of the revelation people have received and turned away from, or rationalized away later. Statistics show that 10 percent of self professing atheists pray, and that is because they are unable to within themselves completely deny the revelation that they have received. I guarantee you there are atheists on this board who wrestle with all of this but since it isn't something atheists talk about (or would admit to publicly) you would never know it, that you're all keeping a lid on the truth.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

Off the start, there's a good chance I'm older than you .

My real problem isn't the moral relativism angle. It is the mindset of holding America to a higher standard not only when placing expectations on it, but when analyzing a situation and the expected results. The situation with the recent chemical weapons attack isn't at all special. War crimes are almost always committed within the fog of war. The trouble I have is people that are completely willing to accepted circumstantial evidence or even simply motive for accusations against America or an ally, but if it's the other side suddenly the burden of proof becomes much, much higher. List a heading that American forces were involved in a massacre of dozens in Iraq or Afghanistan and people just say yep, must be true. List the same heading that Assad has done the same and the response is show us the proof! That attitude and mindset is what I mean to oppose.

You asked who is 'more' evil, or which actions are more evil. Arming and training Syrian rebels, or Assad waging his campaign against them. Assad rules Syria because his father ruled Syria. His father held onto his control by massacring an entire town when the brotherhood spoke up. In the current conflict, the uprising started up as peaceful protests. Assad broke that peace by shooting the protesters when it became clear they weren't stopping.

When it comes to concern for international law, I don't understand if you've been paying attention to it for the last couple decades. When push comes to shove, NOBODY cares about international laws. Well, at least nobody making decisions on the international playing field. International laws did a great job protecting people in Darfur. International laws did a great job protecting Rwandans. International laws did a great job in Chechnya, Serbia, Somalia and on and on and on. Russia, China and Iran will respond to the situation in Syria based on the perceived benefit to them, just the same as America, Israel and everyone else, and not a one of them will waste a thought for international law at the end of the day. The only thing they will consider is what impact they expect their actions to have and they will choose the one they perceive to have the greatest benefit to them. Syria is long on it's way into a quagmire, and not a place of great value to Russia or China for long if the status quo continues. That is why you see their rhetoric softening, because they just have less to gain by maintaining their relationship with a regime that holds less and less control over it's resources.

What I would like to see if I got to play quarterback is the imposition of a no fly zone over regions of Syria, much like in Libya and northern Iraq after the first Gulf war. That alone could force enough of a line where neither Assad nor the rebels could hope to make serious in grounds upon each other. You might even persuade people to talk then but the 'cease fire', even then, would make the Israel/Palestine borders look pristine. I don't see Obama or Putin being dumb enough to each put their own boots on the ground to start anything over Syria. Neither one of them has reason to care enough. Putin, through Iran has strategic access to all of Iran and most of Iraq as it is, and solidifying relationships through Iraq is more than enough to keep Iran occupied.

i guess in the end I do not choose the non-intervention route because if you allow dictators to use chemical weapons to hold onto power, what exactly IS worth intervening for? During the Darfur genocide all the same arguments kept everyone out because you don't want to worsen a civil war. In Rwanda, same story. In Iraq it took 3 campaigns of murdering 100s of thousands before anyone finally took sides against Saddam, and even then his removal is held up as on of the worst violations of international laws and norms ever. It'd be nice for a change to at least find someone that figures starting the Iran-Iraq war and the Al-Anfal campaign against the Kurds where even worse. Far more people died, and the sole end game of them was to enhance the prestige and power of a mad man.