Posted on 04/16/2006 12:41:53 PM PDT by ncountylee
'We don't know all the facts about the alleged Duke lacrosse rape, but . . ."
That's more or less how most commentators have introduced their remarks on the case that has reduced the Durham, N.C., community to prayers, tears and recriminations.
Let me interpret the code for you: Men are bad.
Even though we don't know what happened, we're not going to let the absence of facts interfere with our indictment of a team, a coach, a school, but more to the point -- of boys.
About the only thing to emerge with any clarity since a black exotic dancer claimed that three white lacrosse players raped her last month is our willingness to believe the worst about males.
That belief is all the more rewarding if the males happen to be white, as well as athletes, and especially if they're perceived to be privileged. If there's one thing we can't bear in this country, it's spoiled white boys who think the world owes them a good time.
snip
While we wait to hear what the grand jury decides, we might turn our harsh judgment inward and recognize that the anti-male groupthink that permitted a presumption of guilt in Durham is little different than the lynch-mob mentality that once channeled rage against blacks.
Obviously, no woman deserves to be raped for any reason, under any circumstances. But nor do men deserve to be presumed guilty just because they're men.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Brown was a black Orangeman!
IMO, Fox heard something wrong or just making stuff up again. It's inconceivable that the local police department is capable of rounding up a to-be-determined number of well-lawyered individuals from a group of 46 on a moment's notice.
Yes, that's exactly what happened, and he got the rape kit results back before he let on, too, because he was back-pedaling before the totality of the results were supposedly back. So, the DNA dragnet backfired on him Big Time, as Dick Cheney would say. He need never have done the DNA dragnet, and then he wouldn't have a situation of him sitting there with 46 negative DNA samples.
Exactly right.
This is a lynching.
I hope he loses. It would serve him right.
I don't think these women even appealed to the players, and that's what Kim was so pissed off about.
Where were you week before last? Nifong gave SEVENTY interviews. He spent FORTY HOURS giving interviews on this case.
For what it's worth, I'm with you.
Personally, I'm sick of the "no woman deserves to be raped for any reason, under any circumstances" preface that every columnist, including the above columnist, feels the need to begin their thoughts with.
It comes off sounding about as sincere as Seinfeld's "not that there's anything wrong with that...."
When some pig goes to a strange house full of drinking, partying men to strip for money (and whatever else) and something goes wrong (gee....who'd a thunk?), that's not the same thing as some innocent woman strolling down the street and getting jumped.
Seems like a few people are having some difficulty making that distinction.
You know.... rape is rape is rape....
Horse manure.
Laird Wilcox, a professor of political science, has written extensively on hate crime hoaxes.
According to him, many of these hoaxes are fabricated to score political points, for financial gain or for revenge.
The good professor has compiled quite a list of hoaxes.
yes i think the term would be WILLFULLY obtuse.
LOL
Absolutely.
However, an obvious increase of caution is required when one is asked to send young men to prison strictly on the word of a whore as to whether the sex was consensual or rape. Such a woman's testimony should be given less credibility than that of a woman of what used to be called "decent" behavior.
And some respectable number of those convictions based on nothing more than the woman's say-so, turned out to be false.
As the father of a teenage daughter, my rules for her include "Do NOT consume anything that would impair your faculties or judgement" and "Do NOT stay at a party where people are consuming things that may impair their judgement"
Having known a few women who were in the business, the credibility issue doesn't come from their being "bad", but because of their immersion in a life where truth is an illusion.
After years of instinctively telling people what you think they want to hear, and years hanging out with people who spin stories to make themselves look good (or to harm others who they don't like) the concept of "objective truth", or even "objective reality" tends to fade and fantasy becomes real.
It was just reported on Fox that the woman's dancing comapanion does not believe the accueser's story and that the woman was under the influence of drugs that night.
I think the case died last week but the DA is trying to save some face.
. . . and that is why in most jurisdictions there cannot be a conviction for rape merely on the woman's say-so. There must be some quantum of corroboration (how much and what kind varies from state to state.)
It does show that the problem of false accusations of rape has been recognized in the law for a long time.
I do wonder what sort of corroboration this DA plans to offer to the GJ, given that his much-touted DNA testing has come a cropper.
When I was young, the rule was that girls set the limits. Remember the old fashioned notion of "necking?"
Too bad she's going to NCCU. They have one of the lowest rates in the country of passing professional certifications.
In rape cases one is usually reduced to "he said, she said" as "evidence." It is obvious that both parties may have excellent reasons for lying.
When witness testimony is in direct conflict, the jury must decide which person is telling the truth. If the witnesses' character and history is not taken into account, only gender and skill at telling the story can be used to decide between alternate versions of what happened.
Some people are excellent liars. Often such a person can tell the story more believably than someone who is actually telling the truth.
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