What can you do when you realize that you’re losing the war of ideas? You can rethink some or all of your ideas, seriously considering the unnerving possibility that you might be, well, wrong. You can reconsider how you present your ideas.
Or you can give up on ideas entirely, and attempt to pressure or harass or even terrorize others into some form of surrender. That’s what the the uber-radical Weathermen did in the 1960s and 70s, turning first to violent direct action in the aptly named “days of rage” and then to bombs when the revolution that many in the New Left had been prophesying failed to materialize. That’s what the anti-abortion movement has been doing for decades now, with some in the movement harassing women trying to get abortions while more radical antis bomb clinics and kill doctors. .
And now we’re seeing rhetoric from Men’s Rights Activists that suggests some in that movement may also be giving up on talk. Consider A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam, who declared in a fundraising letter a couple of months back that:
Progress for men will not be gained by debate, reason or typical channels of grievance available to segments of the population that the world actually gives a damn about. The progress we need will only be realized by inflicting enough pain on the agents of hate, in public view, that it literally shocks society out of its current coma.
Elam is – presumably deliberately — vague about what exactly he means when he talks about “inflicting … pain,” and as far as I know he has never explicitly endorsed violence. But he has spoken openly about “stalking” individual feminists and otherwise “fucking their shit up” by, among other things, posting personal information about them on the AVfM-sponsored site Register-Her.com for all would be vigilantes to see. And in the “activism” section of his website he has reprinted a manifesto explicitly calling for the firebombing of courthouses and police stations.
Elam isn’t the only MRA who has officially given up on “debate and reason” in favor of “inflicting … pain” on feminists. The “counter-feminist” wannabe philosopher who calls himself Fidelbogen makes a similar argument in a recent post on his blog:
Feminism is your enemy, and the obligation to treat feminists as fellow human beings is officially waived. They are not fellow human beings, they are ALIENS.
Dehumanizing the enemy always a good start.
[L]et’s not hear any crap about so-called “hate speech”. You see, there is simply no way that you can resist evil, denounce tyranny, or call pernicious things by their right names, without crossing a fine line into “hate speech” or something very like it. Extremism against a bully is no vice, and since bullies have their own moral economy, you are entitled to pay them in their own coin.
It’s not hate speech if you really do hate them?
The important thing to understand about the feminists is, that they will not change their outward behavior unless social heat and pressure are inflicted upon them.
Fidelbogen, a sometime contributor to A Voice for Men, is also vague about what exactly he means by this “social heat and pressure.” He continues:
What, do you think they will stop what they are doing just because somebody intellectually convinces them they are mistaken? They will do no such thing, because they are people with an agenda who know they are “right”, and they lack the gift to see themselves as the rest of the world sees them.
IRONY ALERT. IRONY ALERT.
Over on Reddit, meanwhile, the charming JeremiahMRA – who used to post comments here as Things Are Bad – thinks the “inflict pain” policy should be extended to all women, any time they engage in “bad behavior.” Responding to a poster asking how to handle a disagreement with his mother, he explained his theory in (sometimes redundant) detail, receiving several dozen net upvotes for his post:
The ONLY way you change women’s bad behavior is by punishing them if they won’t start acting like adults. …
The only way you change a woman’s bad behavior is by making sure they know it hurts them. …
Reasoning with her will not work. The only answer is to use the power he has as her SON to threaten to hurt her emotionally. Women are emotional creatures. Nothing else will work. This is what it means to be a man: you do what you have to do so that things will be better in the end, even if you don’t like it. …
It isn’t about convincing her what’s right, it’s about showing her she will suffer if she doesn’t do what’s right. That is the only thing that will work.
The Men’s Rights Movement likes to pretend that is it a civil rights movement. But threats, harassment, hate speech, and emotional blackmail aren’t the tactics of a legitimate civil rights movement. These are the tactics of angry narcissists clinging to retrograde prejudices, who have given up on the war of ideas because on some level they know that history is against them, and that they will never win.
Just look at the data within the source that Rutee linked.
Apparently Rutee doesn’t understand the concept of a plea bargain.
Roberta, so what you are saying is-if a victim lies once, they lie always? Outside of the mother claiming her daughter is a liar, there needs to be more than “My daughter lies a lot.”
Also, you made the claim, back it up. Rutee did zir’s job in backing up zir’s claim so either admit you are wrong or provide the cite.
Plus, you did not say “rape charges end result” you said, and I quote:
Emphasis mine.
You also still need to back it up.
ROBERTA IN A COURT OF LAW
by Katz
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, as confirmed by the lab tests, it was the victim’s blood that was on the knife found in the defendant’s pocket!
ROBERTA: I don’t even need to respond. I’ll just tell you to check your sources again.
—-
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, four different witnesses saw the defendant drag the victim’s body to the car.
ROBERTA: I don’t even need to respond. I’ll just tell you to check your sources again.
—-
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, the defendant is currently gnawing on the victim’s thigh bone!
ROBERTA: I don’t even need to respond. I’ll just tell you to check your sources again.
FINIS
I was specifically talking of cases that went to trial. As I thought was fairly obvious. Considering that something like 85% of felony convictions result from a plea bargain and most of these don’t result in any jail time.
I was specifically said “serious crimes.” Crimes that will result in years behind bars, not a fine.
Rape trials have a conviction rate of 67% in the United States. Murder trials, by comparison, have a conviction rate in the high 30’s.
If a ‘victim’ lies once, that doesn’t mean they’re always lying, obviously. But if someone has a reputation and history of lying about sexual assaults, then that doesn’t exactly make them a credible witness in court. It’s hard to send someone to prison for years on nothing more than the word of a known liar.
That wasn’t the only evidence of innocence in that case, either. There were also email records where the accuser basically admitted that the sex was consensual.
I am aware of the case Roberta, I have read it before.
And you need to back up your claim that rape trials result in conviction in 67% of cases.
@poster
Correct. Which is why Rutee’s response is so mind blowing. I specifically said trials and I specifically said serious crimes. I’m not discussing plea bargains for vandalism that result in a fine and no jail time.
@darksidecat :
I have Avoidant personality disorder (AvPD) and I have several schizoids traits. I’m reading forums about personality disorders (mainly AvPD and SPD) since a few years and I have a few books about it so I know a lot more about it than you. You are the ableist.
@LBT
If you want to be in a relationship with a person, and have sex with them because they have made it clear that that is the requirement for being in a relationship with that person, can you really claim to have been compelled against your will?
If “Have sex with me or I’m leaving” is rape, then:
Is “Buy me a Ferarri or I’m leaving” theft?
Is “Take me out to dinner or I’m leaving” kidnapping and unlawful detention?
Is “Clean out the garage or I’m leaving” slavery?
If those are the requirements for being in a relationship with your partner, then you can either accept or refuse those terms. No one is required to be in a relationship, and you can still freely choose what you’re willing to do to sustain it.
If you want to be in a relationship, and have sex you aren’t interested in to maintain that relationship, then that is the free choice that you have made. If you want money, and work a job you don’t like in order to make that money, then that is the free choice you have made.
In this case sex is the means rather than the end. You want something that sex will give you (a relationship), but you don’t want the sex itself. So you willingly have sex in order to get/keep a relationship.
Where do you “practice” where it is a habitual matter to miscite cases? Especially as having the name of the state in the case is more common in federal cases than in state cases, and this was the latter. Also, your fake citation is doubly misleading due to the fact that the dismissed civil case is Jovanovic v City of New York. Also, you might want to try to spell the defendant’s name correctly even once before calling others misinformed.
One person saying the victim has been known to be a liar is not anything near “ample evidence”. It wasn’t even enough to survive a dismissal in a civil case, after it had been made clear the emails were allowable in court (also, the case opinion contains text and descriptions of the emails, their contents do not at all present “ample evidence” that the victim was lying). My suspicion is that your mention of the emails is for the exact purpose the court in this case says that rape shield laws are positive and should be allowed-that you think kinky women are unrapeable.
It’s not “probable” that she made a false accusation. It wasn’t probable enough to even get past dismissal in a case with a preponderance standard. You don’t have shit. Also, I welcome everyone who has access to go read the case, as I have fucking properly cited it so that they can do so.
I think your opinion is unique, as even most bigoted right wing douches in the legal profession have a better understanding of the legal system than you demonstrate.
You still have not backed up your claim Roberta. You are disputing what Rutee stated-fine-however disputing what someone else posted is not citing the source you got the 67% conviction rate from.
@darksidecat
Are you seriously denying that rape shield laws are controversial within the legal profession?
http://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=scholarlyworks
@Boggi
like this but minus the spaces
Roberta said
This makes me want to puke, by the way. Way to be an apologist for our legal system’s broken ass, ineffective, rapist-friendly biases when it comes to all manner of sexual assault. And to do it with such narrow-minded binary thinking. If you’re a lawyer, you could make an AWESOME esquire scumbag. Keep it up!
So, pressure to get consent is ok – cause as you seem to have a grasp on, is once consent is “obtained”, no manner under what absurd pretenses, it’s game over for the victim. “She said yes” – case over.
“Unintentional environmental pressures”? Opps I forgot you’re a human and not a fuck toilet, sorry! It was just a confluence of unintentional environmental pressures, sorry they forced their way into your body like that! Let’s chalk this up to a failed attempt to negotiate sex, babe! If you just consent that won’t happen!”
Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuke.
@Boggi
Wtf it works when you space it too? huh. Anyway just go to the section on blockquoting:
http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/formatting-text-pt-2/
no more mr nice guy, I found a few old random quotes of yours:*
August 25, 2011 at 6:48 am
December 9, 2011 at 9:30 am
When you were called on the ableism in the previous comment, you had this to say (partial quote):
December 9, 2011 at 7:53 pm
But, you know, DSC is ableist. Because you have AvPD and read stuff on the internet.
In other news, women shouldn’t be able to vote! But that’s not sexist of me, because I am a ladygirl, and furthermore I read feminist blogs.
*I think you’ve been called on this stuff on a number of other occasions, but my googlefu is lacking, so we’ll say this is all there is. It’s still plenty.
IANAL, so I have to wonder… I’ve seen ‘alleged burglar’, ‘alleged murderer’, etc… often, because there is this thing called presumption of innocence. However, that’s the first I hear of the usage of ‘alleged victim’. Is there also a similar legal concept that people haven’t been victims of a crime until proven otherwise? Because it’s funny how that only ever comes up in cases of rape (when’s the last time you heard someone say ‘the alleged burglary victim’ or ‘the alleged murdered individual’?)
Is it just me, or do these metaphors make no sense? I mean, I see where they came from, but they’re clearly the product of someone who either seriously doesn’t understand what rape is and why it’s wrong, or understands and is deliberately obfuscating. Oh, wait: Lawyer!
PS for Boggi: The closing tag needs to be /blockquote.
Roberta, how do you go from “I consent to be in a committed relationship with you” to “I rescind all rights to my personal autonomy, and therefore my partner no longer needs my consent”? I don’t recall that being in the usual matrimonial vows…I don’t recall it being THE only model of relationships, though many do go that route. Also, you seem to be basing your framework of retionships as transactional. They don’t actually function that way. Its not ” I give you sex so you give me a pairbond”. Do you really think that’s all a long term relationship boils down to?
@katz
So my points make sense but they are still wrong for reasons you don’t care to elaborate on? Gotcha.
@pillow
Of course not, but that doesn’t mean some relationships don’t function that way. Who’s giving up their right to personal autonomy?
You can still refuse sex in a relationship. I’m not arguing that you consent by default because you are in a relationship with someone. I’m simply arguing that someone has the right to end a relationship if their sexual needs aren’t being met.
And threatening to end a relationship if you don’t get more sex does not create duress on your partner. No one has an unconditional right to be a relationship with their SO. You or your partner can end the relationship for any reason you like, and that can include being sexually unsatisfied.
I will never understand why some people are so keen to find the boundary between actually illegal and merely shitty human behavior. It’s like B__Don or whoever going off on how long he’s allowed to keep going after his girlfriend says “stop”: Why are you so keen to find out exactly how much of a douche you can be with legal impunity?
I know helping rapists walk free is your job, but does it have to be your hobby too?
Roberta: I don’t even need to respond. I’ll just tell you to check your sources again.