Comments

1

“the idea that we should unequivocally, no question, believe all women no matter their claims ”

Oh for fuck sake. That’s is an outrageous straw man, you lying asshole. Nobody says this. Jesus Christ. What the fuck is wrong with you?

While I have my problems with hashtag activism. You can’t exactly have a pithy viral hashtag with a dozen qualifiers.

2

Wait, what?

The people that told you to suspend your judgement and substitute in their judgement didn't have anyone else's best interests at heart?

The crazy thing is, all these #believewomen hashtaggers are the same people at the March for Science every year, and they don't even perceive the irony.

@1 bitch fuck you, you're a fucking loser.

3

Maybe we shouldn't take every claim at face value and be willing/able to show compassion to the individual making the accusations as the claims are investigated? It seems that we can do both of those: show compassion, make a judgement based on facts gathered during the investigation and then assume innocence of the accused until the investigation/trial are completed.

Really, this shouldn't be that hard.

4

If true, would that mean that she was grooming him for 10 years?

5

Yep, knew Herzog was going to write one if these.

6

@ Christ, dude. Your statement doesn't even make any sense. Nobody say to substitute your own judgement. Nobody. I mean, fuck, you're Ryder Truck filled with ill-conceived ignorant judgements. So who the fuck are you to be complaining?

Your understanding of what that hashtag means is so absurdly absolutist and literal how do you get through life? When a comedian describes a set as "killing it" do you scream and run from the room? Nobody serious has ever claimed you have to believe all women no matter what they say.

And the "every year" two year old March for Science is somehow dragged into this? How many grudges can one dumb fuck hold? Do you just sit in your basement all day and just teeth about Social Justice Warriors or something?

The only irony not being appreciated is this penchant of yours to jump on any and all alt-right bandwagons that tacitly, or directly, defend or apologize for racists, rapists, and scumbags. Or to immediately attack those people that confront these kinds of social problems.

And the irony is? You think of yourself as a good guy. Guess what you're not. You are not a good person. Or you wouldn't be straw-man-ing the fuck out of movement that is attempting, however imperfectly, to correct a millennia of women's oppression and abuse.

It's a consistent pattern with you. Take five minutes and reflect and show some sort of self awareness for fuck sake.

And dude, my life is sooo much better than yours in probably every conceivable way. And you KNOW it.

9

@7 No. Clearly if a woman said she was anally raped by a pink velociraptor the edict from the hashtags FORCES all supporters of Me Too to instantly and unwaveringly believe them!

The paper get dumber and dumber every day. Eventually Herzog will exhaust her good will with any slightly left leaning outlets and she will be poison. So. The question is how long do we have to endure Herzog's extended audition for Fox and Friends?

All her Alt Right fans wait all atremble for her Bold Truth Telling book on the "evils of liberals" (Tag line: "I know, I was one!") see it hit the banner ads on Brietbart available for purchase on Amazon Self Published!

10

Y'all dumb pieces of shit don't remember the UVA rape story?

Like, you don't remember that millions of people accepted as true that a fraternity routinely organized gang rapes with victims who knew who their attackers were? #BelieveWomen

Do you remember "Is UVA Rape Story a Giant Hoax, Asks Idiot" from Anna "I have a masters degree in journalism from Columbia" Merlan?

I mean, I guess people take #believewomen pretty literally, that was only a massive fucking story that you 100% fell for.

btw, nice touch on the illiteracy, it makes your sock puppet accounts very believable.

11

There's a difference between believing some second or third-hand account you hear in the media and demanding punishment be meted out on the basis of that belief. Our legal system is based on the idea that being pretty sure is not a sufficient standard for determining guilt.

12

@11

the legal system yes, but the court of social media can destroy someone just based on an accusation.

14

Oh Christ. Yes. We remember the UVA story. That was some shitty and radially unfair journalism.

But hey. Do you remember all of human history?

Over the 10,000 or so years of the history of human civilization how many times do you think women have been abused and raped? Billions? Hundreds of billions?

For how long have they had ANY sort of real justice for this? A couple of decades? In a handful of countries?

We're not even five years into this MeToo thing and suddenly it's already all about how men are going to be abused.

One false rape accusation and you piles of shit Alt righters are just immediately compelled to throw millions of women's loved experience under the bus.

PS. Sock puppets? Me. HAHAHA. I have no sock puppet accounts. Never have. Never will. It's against every principle I have. I don't have time for this one. My attention is divided and why I can hardly type. But you're seriously desperate for some kind reason that people are calling you on your bullshit. Which clearly even you are beginning to doubt your previously bold certainty. Keep nipping at my heels, though.

15

@13 so you're saying you were an exceptionally brilliant and astute 14 and 15 year old?

What happened?

17

How come there is always all this confusion over what is a legal court and what is just the internet being mad? Yes. Being social animals we can socially ostracize people unfairly. And that does happen. But he alternative here is that there is no chance of anyone going to court at all no matter what and so we just ignore rapists in our midsts.

Take Meinert for instance. He's not ever going to jail. There is no pending trial. But he IS a giant pile of of shit.

When that story broke and we'd listen to the same old assholes, apologists, and detractors here I guess we'd just ignore all that and all the women he assaulted just have no justice at all. And that guy would still be out and about big wig on the Hill sexually assaulting Stranger writers and hanging with Dan Savage.

How is that shit fair?

Anyway. I'm still trying to figure out which one of you is my sock puppet. Hmmmm. Or is it ALL of you (No wonder I can't get anything done). Or maybe I'm the "Tyler Durden!" One of you slumps into a fugue state and out I come! Man, I wish somebody would let me know.

Sigh. I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection.

18

@16 damn, I'm humbled. Your logic is so precise. See, it's simple: I think #believeWomen is stupid... and the only alternative is #AllWomenAreAlwaysLying.

I did not realize this before you pointed it out. Not believing someone based on the contents of their underwear is EXACTLY THE SAME as thinking that every claim ever is made up. I can see it now.

oh wait, sorry, no. You're a piece of shit who should have been been tossed off a bridge a long time ago. I would wish a lifetime of misery upon you, but you're already fucking miserable.

20

@17

Well if you were to get points for strawman and hyperbole, that post is 10/10

23

Hey Doc? What's your BP? 140/90?

24

"Taking #believewomen literally is a ridiculous strawman"

"What about the time when millions and millions of people took #believewomen literally and it was a worldwide scandal and several people lost their jobs and had their careers ruined and even the people who thought it might be false were ridiculed but then it turned out to be false anyhow?"

"That one doesn't count. I am very intelligent".

Listen - when you to bros are done Human Centipeding each other ... well that will never happen so never mind.

25

No. Women like Asia Argento are why so many women who are victims of sexual assault are not believed. Asia Argento is a lying sack of shit who was never a victim. Women like her make it nearly impossible for women who have been seriously harmed by men to ever be believed or obtain any kind of justice because people will always bring up the liars as proof that there is no problem.

30

"We don’t know what exactly happened between Asia Argento and James Bennett, just as we don’t know exactly what happened between Asia Argento and Harvey Weinstein or Avital Ronell and Nimrod Reitman."

But somehow we all knew exactly for certain what had happened between Murray and his felonious accusers, and Meinert and his anonymous accusers. We just knew they were rapists, without even a believable (Murray) or named (Meinert) accuser. Eventually we did get named, credible accusers for Meinert, but not until his Capitol Hill businesses had been impacted -- because economically harming employees of his firms for his own personal actions now constitutes "justice", apparently.

As pointed out above, this isn't hard. We can both have compassion for victims, proven or alleged, and still hold to a civilized standard of justice for the accused. Over a quarter century ago, right here in Washington state, we saw the end of Senator Brock Adams' career, both as an elected official and as a serial rapist. It provided an example we should have been following ever since:

Always at least one named accuser;
Who has no obvious reason to make false accusations;
Most accusers willing to take the stand in court.

That's still perilously close to the McCarthyist belief that accusations equal guilt, but at least it's a coherent set of standards which permit investigation by a court.

31

Argento does not have a history of accusations stretching back 35 years, including a big thumbs down from the State of Oregon.

just sayin….but I get your point.

32

"Asia Argento Demonstrates the Flaws of #BelieveWomen"

No, it represents the problem with any rush to judgment. For example, by not waiting for the results of an actual investigation:

'The letter writers did not have access to the finding of NYU’s investigation, but, they wrote, "We testify to the grace, the keen wit, and the intellectual commitment of Professor Ronell and ask that she be accorded the dignity rightly deserved by someone of her international standing and reputation," the letter said. "If she were to be terminated or relieved of her duties, the injustice would be widely recognized and opposed."'

Ah yes, the Old Girls' Club protects their own. At least they were honest enough to admit they were placing politics above justice. And the reason given for supporting her was not the presumption of innocence we should give to any accused person, but that she was just such a great person with a great reputation. You can find similar statements about Brock Adams, back when Kari Tupper was his only accuser.

@25: Argento could both be a victim of Weinstein, and a victimizer of others. It's not an either/or situation, especially since she learned from Weinstein that such predations were tolerated in their world.

@31: You're referring to the opinion of a single bureaucrat, from a heavily censored report, whose sole source had already been deemed an unreliable witness by the local prosecutor. (And the "thumbs down" wasn't even legally binding, because the certification it references wasn't granted by Oregon CPS, but by a judge.)

33

@24 My god. you're like chronical of logical fallacies.

You literally just made up quotes that nobody has said as an argument with your self, dude. I get the feeling you do that allot.

Jesus Christ. That there is the very definition of a straw man. Another irony you are incapable of appreciating. You reduced an incredibly complicated case and made it some sad MRA Reddit Meme out of it that you still didn't even get right.

Once again you have literally BILLIONS of cases of women getting raped and assaulted where no justice is done. BILLIONS. For centuries and centuries. To this day. You wanna take time and admit that reality, maybe.

Every day this happens. Every god damned day women are assaulted, groped, abused, and harassed. Every god damned day. Thousands if not millions of times a day.

And one case of a false accusation and really shitty reporting erases ALL that in your mind.

And, BTW, in that case an investigation was done, the truth was found, and justice was done again. For MOST women that NEVER happens, dude. Never.

You don't understand what "believe all women" means? You take it some kind of personal threat. Which is pathetic.

It means start from a place of taking a potential for harassment seriously. Look into it. Instead of the centuries of protecting abusers and ignoring abuse. That's what it means.

Sometimes in a few cases - a tiny minority of cases - it's going to be hard. There might be a woman who lies, is mentally ill, or is just wrong. Sure. We might get it wrong. But you start by believing and taking it seriously. The result of not believing women is going back to how things were before.

You and Katie have entirely made up this unquestioned edict and a movement some cartoonish mythical cabal out to just persecute innocent men.

What the fuck is wrong with you? You have ANY women in your life?

34

@32
Perhaps, but its just another brick in the wall, as they say.

35

"No, it represents the problem with any rush to judgment. For example, by not waiting for the results of an actual investigation"

Oh for fuck sake. WHAT investigation? By who? Most sexual harassment occurs at the the threshold below where it violates the law.

This mean ever single woman who gets harassed and abused in some way has to go through the criminal justice system? That costs time and money and is totally dehumanizing and the police will not investigate. Like. You know. There are hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits sitting and rotting in every major police lab in the country. What fucking investigation are you talking about. Do harassment victims have to hire some sort of PI?

This is real life not TV, you fucking idiot.

So when the women assaulted by Meinert I guess had to all report this incident to the police. All of them. Even the ones that were not technically illegal. And then wait ten years for some mythical investigation before, you know, telling the pubic at large about an abuser it it's midst?

Go fuck yourself.

36

@35: "Oh for fuck sake. WHAT investigation? By who?"

The one by NYU which I referenced in the quote, immediately following. Please learn to read.

"This mean ever single woman who gets harassed and abused in some way has to go through the criminal justice system?"

Brock Adams left elective office and public life without a conviction for any of the rapes he had committed, so no.

"What fucking investigation are you talking about."

The one by NYU which I referenced in the quote, immediately following. Please learn to read.

"So when the women assaulted by Meinert I guess had to all report this incident to the police."

Yes, that would have been a good idea. The named accusers told of the social pressure against them doing so. Hopefully we are on our way to removing that pressure, so that future assaults get reported immediately and in full.

"Even the ones that were not technically illegal."

Why should behavior which is not illegal get reported to the police? You're making even less sense than usual, which for you is quite the accomplishment (if not exactly a positive one).

37

So whats your point Doc? To hell with the court system? Just let social media run amok and destroy people's lives based on whatever gets "posted"?

just curious....because you realize that this line of mob-rules thinking does not/will not stop at rape/sexual harassment - as we are already seeing.

39

@38

because that is where the court of public opinion resides currently.

41

Herzog's take is actually pretty simplistic: If Argento did this to Bennett, then #Believewomen is bullshit and we should not believe her claims against Weinstein. But the two (alleged) crimes are unrelated. Argento assaulting Bennett does not mean that Weinstein didn't assault her.

What Herzog's doing is operating under the "perfect victim" paradigm. Here are a couple of takes on that are more thoughtful than Herzog's piece. Notably, one of them also sees the dismissal of Aziz Ansari's accuser as problematic--and you may recall that Herzog and her hero Bari Weiss were among the dismissers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/asia-argento-and-the-dangerous-fallacy-of-the-perfect-victim/2018/08/21/c749118e-a489-11e8-a656-943eefab5daf_story.html

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/21/17760222/asia-argento-jimmy-bennett-sexual-assault-allegations-me-too-movement-perfect-victim

43

@38: Locally, because Dr. Z’s raving, scattershot accusations are disrupting our dialog. It’s another example of how his comments here are, to put it mildly, not helpful.

Nationally, because The Old Girls’ Club simply treated documented, investigated accusations as if they were nothing more than social media postings. Hence Butler’s abjectly miserable walkback of her glibly-stated position.

46

@40

Ya, says the same guy who a while ago claimed he didn't think property taxes go up when property values go up....

48

@41

actually, that wasn't "her take", its just you twisting shit around.

cool and the gang

49

@37 sigh. This like telephone tag.

For the billionth time most abuse and harassment occurred interpersonally and at a threshold where technically no laws are broken.

If assault or rape occurres then the victim faces a humiliating gauntlet. That many women don’t want to face that is understandable. In those cases initiating a investigation through law enforcement may the right thing to do. But don’t delude yourself it’s the EASY thing to do or by doing so innocent rape victims don’t also have their lives ruined or more likely NEVER get justice. This is just a fact.

In most workplaces where abuse and harassment occurs it usually happens to a subordinate or in a power imbalance. Abusers become experts at navigating this line and exploiting the system.

This movement was initiated so men could try to understand this. And What do men do instead? Scream and wail that THEY are the real victims. For fuck sake. Women cannot win.

And for the trillionth time the scales are not remotely balanced here.

I want you to come up with a number.

Calculate the total number of women raped and abused by men over last century. Whose lives were ruined by men. Calculate that. Give me a rough number.

Now calculate the number of men over the last FIVE centuries whose lives were ruined by false rape accusations by men. Give me that fucking number, man.

Orders of magnitude more women are destroyed by abuse, rape and harrassment than there are men effected by false accusations.

(And. Btw. Most false accusations were also wrapped up in racism. White women accusing black men. So this shot is even more layered than the narrative of “poor, poor, men.”)

So what DO we do?

Well. Guess what? We have a backlash by angry aggrieved entitled men who think equality is oppression to them. That’s what “we” do.

What we should do is realize that people are fallible but exposing shittypeople is the right thing to. And we’ll get it wrong every once in a while because it takes practice. And because if you’ve had a boot on your face long enough once it lifts you’re going to lash out until you get your bearings. But we gotta lift that boot off, man. We got to.

No matter how women handle this. If they sit in silence. If the go to HR or the cops. Or if they get angry on social media. It all ends up with men whining about themselves and women getting abused. So you tell me? The genie is out of the bottle, here. What do expect people to do who can’t find justice. I mean, you have to first admit that’s true - that women have rarely found justice. Start there and then maybe you’ll see.

But I will tell you what’s going to happen. Women are getting more economic power. And they don’t have to take our shit anymore. So there is going to be more women calling out shitty men. And more and more men either facing the reality of an equal world or angry men on the fringes falling further down that social ladder until they wake the fuck up.

50

Since when did #believewomen mean #believeallwomenwithoutcondition? It was meant as a reminder not to take an accused man’s side by default. That’s still a good reminder: false claims that get accepted are still far fewer and farther between than the real ones that simmer for years before seeing the light of day.

Weinstein is case in point. There were how many women afraid to come forward for fear of being attacked before the story finally broke? Part of why they didn’t come forward was fear of having their credibility attacked. That was Weinstein’s first line of defense: put every aspect of an accuser’s past behavior in question. Follow them. Investigate them.

Did anyone base their conclusions about Weinstein on Asia Argento and Asia Argento alone? I didn’t.

And just because she did something awful doesn’t mean she wasn’t truthful about Weinstein. It makes her a f***in’ hypocrite of the first order for sure. It doesn’t necessarily make her a liar.

52

@49

ummm….ok. a whole lot of words and a whole lot of assumptions and a whole lot of generalizations and something something 500 years ago, as if that is relevant somehow.

I agree its a shitty situation and men can be slimeballs, but mob-rules based "justice" will only make things worse...and I guess that's been my point.

53

Notice how social justice movements have to be perfect. But the status quo and rightwing “movements” can just slither along mudering and raping people? Why. If that happens it’s just an aberration!

There is not one advancement in human rights, not one cause for justice, that was perfect or where occasionally innocent people were not hurt. Societies take a great amount of effort and pain to change direction.

Nobody is saying “fuck you innocent person accused of rape.” Not one. When it happens then we all need to make it right. But you don’t make it right by just crushing an entire movement when that movement is making most people’s lives better. MeToo has made millions of women’s lives better. And that would not have happened with out the social media components. As imperfect as the medium may be. It HAS made women’s everyday lives better.

54

@52 dude you didn’t even try. I can’t help it that you’re incapable of understanding context or have short attention span.

I fucked up and attempted to treat you like adult and to be thoughtful so maybe you could take time and think about this... you just ignore it. If made it a quicker summary you’d reply with some bullshit straw man. You’re just another stupid troll.

That’s not going stop what’s coming, man. You can pretend to be as clueless a troll as you want. But it’s not stopping how society is changing. So. Good luck dude.

You can be ignored now.

55

@49: “This movement was initiated so men could try to understand this.”

And the entire point of this headline post is that was a mistake. It should have been “persons in power” understand this.

“And What do men do instead? Scream and wail that THEY are the real victims.”

And this headline post refers to evidence showing men can be — and are — also victims of sexual coercion. (That you’ve blatantly ignored this in your unhinged rants makes that point more, not less, obvious.) Starting a movement where only women accuse only men wasn’t just contrary to reality, it was fundamentally unjust, and those of us who actually care about presumption of innocence, evidence, processes, and standards wind up on the same side with the malicious abusers. That’s because of where YOU decided to draw the line; it’s not a failure on the part of your targets.

(Also: good to see your blood-pressure meds are working. Up the dosage!)

56

I will just say that when I wrote a blog post saying, in essence, that you need to look at evidence before deciding that somebody accused of a sexual crime actually committed it, I was immediately accused of being a rape apologist.

My post had pointed out that there is one group of men who have always lived in a world where accusation of sexual crime = conviction and punishment regardless of whether they did it: African-American men. Back in the day, any white woman accusing any black man of doing anything remotely construed as sexual towards her would likely result in that black man being lynched regardless of whether he'd in fact done anything. Even today, black men are far more likely than white men of being convicted of rape, and receive harsher punishments for rape than white men do, again often regardless of whether he's actually committed the crime.

57

@56 - Comparing the (by and large rich, white) men who don’t get to be famous anymore to black men who didn’t get to breathe anymore. Huh. Wonder how someone could have read that as you being a rape apologist? I mean the two situations are clearly morally identical.

58

@56 - Also, black men convicted and hung by an unruly mob on the allegations of one woman versus men no longer marketable due to public opinion, but otherwise not deprived of life or liberty despite multiple allegations until eventually they face charges in a court of law. Hmm. Head-scratcher here, but I’m going to say: still a totally valid comparison.

59

What I find most perplexing about the whole situation is that all the actors and actresses who knew about the nonstop raping going on in Hollywood, but were not victims (people like Meryl Streep and Ron Perlman), can just wash their hands of the whole thing now that they are horrified that other people now know too.

All of them knew, and none of them said anything because it would damage their careers, and now after the fact they speak out about it. They happily cashed checks from known rapists, they happily took roles from known rapists, they happily smiled in photo ops with known rapists, and did nothing until everyone else knew too and there was nothing they could personally lose. Yet, no one cares, and these rich pricks protecting rapists for personal gain somehow became even more loved.

On another note, people lie constantly and for all kinds of reasons. Anyone who tells you to always believe people by default is an asshole or a salesman.

60

google Bobby Knight and Rape.

Far thinking.

61

Man. There is not one pile of shit that Tensor won’t rush to defend. I mean I don’t read his posts past the first two sentences. But I think the general thesis is there. It must be weird to live life being wrong about nearly everything.

The way he’s performing I fully expect him to post a long rambling defense of John Wayne Gacey next... “an unfairly maligned clown I tell you!”

62

BlackLivesMatter doesn't mean all lives don't. It's protesting the way wider society treats black lives as worth less or even worthless. #BelieveWomen is protesting the way society too often treats all accusers like hysterical liars or vicious slanderers (for example, the numerous women who reported on Larry Nasser over a period of 22 years) when the rational response is to proceed with an investigation assuming the accuser is telling the truth given how rarely people lie about it. It does not mean that women are literally incapable of lying about sexual assault. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I can't believe I'm having to explain this in response to a piece in a liberal paper, but there you go. The old ways don't go easily.

65

How in hell is a 17 yr old boy a victim when he got to yogurt stick this older chick. We need to start congratulating these young soldiers that bang there substitute teachers, etc... She taught that dude everything and now he can be the next Dirk Diggler. Seems like all of you complaining might need to get a little ding a ling or a little va jay jay!!!! Chyeah 206

67

On one hand, I have taken the concept as a just reminder to be open to accept stories as credible, particularly and not to play the, "what EYE would have done" card.

On the other, this reminds me of "toxic masculinity" and how some less-than-scrupulous pushers of the idea will not rush to correct anyone who misinterprets it in their favour.


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