Here’s the entirety of a recent post by an MRA who calls himself Snark:
Uh, dude, I think you’ve confused “feminists” with “Daleks.”
Our new friend Fidelbogen thought this was such a brilliant idea he devoted a post to it himself, declaring:
Such economy, such concision. …
Really now, we wouldn’t go far wrong to make our rhetoric revolve around this above all, and very little more. The saying is deceptively simple, for it goes deep and reaches into many corners.
It puts them on the spot, and nails them there.
I knew Fidelbogen was a bit of a pompous doofus, but this is a whole new level of stupidity for him. I don’t even know what to say about something this idiotic.
Also, check out the comments to Snark’s piece. There’s something about potatoes you kind of have to see to believe.
Hengist: It says she has abused her office, violated the canon of ethics for the bar, broken federal law on Brady (that would be withholding exculpatory evidence), engaged in witness tampering…
Those are accusations of lawbreaking.
The point is that feminists automatically assume a man accused of rape is guilty and treat him as such, sometimes even after he’s exonerated, while false rape accusers are always given the benefit of the doubt. Do you deny this?
I do. In part because what you call, “false rape accuser” is often merely, “he wasn’t convicted”. Which is a very different thing.
As to the first part, there is nothing which requires anyone to think someone didn’t do it, just because no charges were filed, or because they were acquitted, by way of example I offer O.J. Simpson (whom, let it be said; for the record, I think did not kill his ex-wife, or, if he did, he cannot have acted alone; even in the latter condition is true, there is no way a jury of honest people could have convicted him, based on the evidence presented).
It seems to be coming up over and over, but shit, I will never understand the logic that goes:
“Feminists do X, which is disgusting. Therefore, I fully support MRAs who do X!”
Even if feminists actually did X, which 90% of the time isn’t true anyway, it’s still so broken.
True story: I had a 14 year old girl tell people I was stalking her.
Mind you, I didn’t know who she was. She said that, in a public event we both worked, where there were thousands of people, and a dozen or so in the group she performed with, I spent weeks showing up to pressure her,and steal kisses; all when no one else was around.
There were people who believed it. There was one I thought was going to physically attack me (this was how I found out about it). It cost me friends (or perhaps people I thought were my friends, or perhaps some of both). I spent a few years wondering who, among my acquaintance might have heard of it, who might believe it.
I heard stories of things I was supposed to have done. I was asked, for a number of years, to not work the event.
Guess what, I still believe what I said above.
Obviously I’d like everyone to be a feminist, same as I’d like everyone to be anti-racist, gay-friendly, tolerant of other religious beliefs, cool to handicapped people, etc.
If you aren’t a feminist are you against feminism? I don’t think so. It could be the case that you just don’t care. What about those people?
But I’m aware that bigots exist, they have the right to believe whatever they want as long as they don’t physically attack the objects of their hate, and my opinion of them has zero bearing on their lives. So, yeah, I guess I recognize the right to existence of people who are not feminists.
Just not to “physically attack” but everything else is ok?
“there is nothing wrong with “some people” believing that you are a rapist.”
If that’s what you really think, I don’t see any point to continuing this.
At least he was magnanimous enough to boil the potatoes first? Or does part of his nefarious plan include making the woman in question peel and boil the potatoes herself first? What if there’s a potato famine? Would yams be substituted? Or apples? Or, in the case where food in general is scarce, tennis balls? Can one submit suggestions for the projectiles? Like, if I put in a petition and get enough support, can it be lightly steamed broccoli? Or gelatin-free jello? Does she get a turn pelting him afterwards?
That is an example. One. Can you prove this is a widespread thing in the movement?
We can wait.
So I looked up this Vladek Fuller case that Kellett prosecuted because after a Google search of her name this appears to be the main case that MRAs are angry about, and I’m confused about how this constitutes flagrant harassment of this man and suppression of evidence:
You got that? The prosecutor moved to have the custody dispute barred from the case, and the JUDGE ruled on it. Furthermore, it was the defense attorney who again brought up the custody dispute during his closing arguments, which left the door open for Kellett in her rebuttal to say that there was no evidence of a custody dispute. So again, how is it prejudicial for a prosecutor to rebut something that the DEFENSE brought up??? That’s kind of how court works, folks.
http://bangordailynews.com/2010/10/04/news/high-court-grants-retrial-in-gouldsboro-rape-case/
Hengist:
Among feminists, rape accusers are generally given the benefit of the doubt, if you want to phrase it that way. I’ve never seen any protection or encouragement specifically given to false accusers. If anything, feminists come down quite harshly on women who falsely claim to have been raped. Your confusion stems, I think, from the definition of “false accusation” many feminists use. It’s narrower than the one MRAs often use, in that it excludes simple acquittals.
Blitzgal: Don’t bother. None of them read any court decisions in this case, despite their availability online for free. They prefer to just read each other’s blogs on it. Next thing you know, it’s a “fact” that Kellet’s favorite dish is roast baby.
@Holly
Nah, he gave that up after we kept poking him with sticks.
And by “poking him with sticks” I mean “requesting he back up his arguments with facts, studies or even some sort of coherant logic that isn’t ‘wymym iz ebil!'”
He also made a challenge here, to me, and then ignored it, for about two hours, while he was vigorously defending other points in the cosmetics thread. It seems that women letting men harass them is more important than stopping false rape/malicious prosecution of men.
Perhaps that’s because he know the one happens more than the other.
@Shaenon
As an atheist, do I haaaaave tooo?
I’m confused about the whole concept of “right to existance.” (Existence? Spell check does not object to either spelling.) I don’t think anybody has a “right” to existance. They just… exist. Or they don’t, in which case it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Rabbit – I think it’s supposed to mean “right to not have their existence terminated.”
Which I believe murderers have, so fuck, non-feminists? Ask me a tricky one, like people who fart in elevators on purpose.
I know, and I’m sure the facts are just going to be ignored anyway, but it’s frustrating to see such blatant lying without responding to it.
““Feminists do X, which is disgusting. Therefore, I fully support MRAs who do X!””
Really, this makes sense if one recognizes the core of MRA philosophy: “Man = Good, Woman = Eeeeeeeeeeeevil and lazy yet somehow in control of everything.”
What can I say? Hang out around crazy enough, and you start to get it. Not “get it” as in, “I agree with them!”, more like, “Ok, this is nuts…but it’s not longer confusing.”
As an atheist, do I haaaaave tooo?
As an atheist myself, I count non-belief in there.
“Ask me a tricky one, like people who fart in elevators on purpose.”
They shouldn’t exist, right up there with people who don’t signal when changing lanes.
And you know what? Amanda Marcotte’s response to the Duke Lacrosse thing is perfectly okay. She thought they did it. As far as I know, she still thinks they might have done it and is sorry that the awful mishandling of the case ensured that we’ll never find out what really happened. She was and is entitled to an opinion.
It cracks me up that the Duke Lacrosse case is held up by MRAs as an example of the intolerable suffering that men can go through if falsely accused of rape. So the worst-case scenario is that you get off before the case even goes to trial, your accuser is tarred as a liar, you go back to your comfortable life, but there might be one hardcore feminist out on the Internet who doesn’t feel bad about suspecting you? Yeah, I can see where that’s so horrible we might as well just legalize rape–but not other crimes, because there’s no stigma attached to being falsely accused of theft or battery or murder.
Seriously, it sucks to be accused of a crime you didn’t commit. But to jump from that to “…so people should be discouraged from reporting crimes!” is effed up.
Yeah, I never understood why the Duke LaCrosse case is trumpeted as The Worst Injustice Ever. As you said, Shaenon, the accused were exonerated, the accuser was branded a liar, and the prosecutor was fucking disbarred! Seriously, how often does that happen when some poor African American is railroaded on to death row (not that that ever happens…)?
As you said, it sucks to be falsely accused, and I wouldn’t want to minimize their suffering. But for the falsely accused, it doesn’t get much better than the outcome of the Duke LaCrosse case.
Wouldn’t the UN get on your case if you fired hot potatoes at someone?
“Seriously, it sucks to be accused of a crime you didn’t commit. But to jump from that to “…so people should be discouraged from reporting crimes!” is effed up.”
Haven’t you heard, Shaenon? Jumping to conclusions is a manly thing to do!
Now if you excuse me, I will crack open a Budweiser and watch Spike Channel.
Not only would the tennis-ball gun almost certainly jam or throw wobblers if it was loaded with potatoes, I’m not convinced hot potatoes would even hurt that much. A potato is a pretty poor conductor of heat. Leaving hot potatoes on a person might hurt them, but if the potatoes are just bouncing off, I doubt it would burn you. (Hey… come to think of it, this is another thing I learned in kindergarten; remember playing “hot potato?”) Even mushy boiled potatoes would probably slide down your body and lose their heat fast enough to not seriously hurt you. You might end up with bruises if the potatoes are thrown hard enough, but there’s really no reason for them to be hot potatoes.
…I’d like to say that this proves the MRA’s intent was harmless after all, but I just think it proves I thought about this a lot harder than he did.
You know, weapons of mash destruction.