US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9293

On November 22 2017 05:02 Sadist wrote:



This is important because the legal system has the presumptiom of innocence. If its he says she says its harder to prove. This is typically a good thing to avoid convicting innocent people.

The problem with what I am seeing regarding sexual assault and more severly rape cases is that victims arent happy with the justice system(and fairly so for a number of reasons) so they take accusations public. This however is potentially worse as the accused doesnt even have the chance to defend themselves and the well has been poisoned.

This isnt good for anyone. We now are trying things in the court of public opinion which leads to more confusion and miscommunication.

Plansix says consent is obvious. I disagree case in point the past few pages of the thread. Trialing things in public opinion in my opinion makes things worse.

On November 22 2017 04:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

No, state of mind is a factor but not the only factor.

People have drunk sex all the time with neither party claiming rape afterward.

On November 22 2017 05:04 a_flayer wrote:
Have you ever been a long term relationship where you know each others sexual boundaries DarkPlasmaBall? It's not "socially wrong" to have sex with your wife if she's begging for it and you know she's not going to regret having your dick thrust up her sopping wet pussy. Regardless of whether or not she's going to remember it because of intoxication (and said intoxication is making you less eager to consent because its kinda gross to have a drunk bitch like that riding your dick).



Yep, and thus pointing this out in a forum where you have more text shouldn't cause the kind of backlash that it appears to do. But that's exactly what we witnessed just now because people buy into the meme and take it absolutely literally.

On November 22 2017 05:24 KwarK wrote:
If in doubt, play it safe. If you take risks, don't complain too much when the risks backfire.

Al Franken thought he could get away with risking it, despite having plenty of reason to think that she didn't want his tongue in her mouth. And for years he did get away with it. Now he's paying the price. I'm not especially sympathetic.

Federal regulators unveiled a plan Tuesday that would give Internet providers broad powers to determine what websites and online services their customers can see and use, and at what cost.

The move sets the stage for a crucial vote next month at the Federal Communications Commission that could reshape the entire digital ecosystem. The FCC’s Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, has made undoing the government's net neutrality rules one of his top priorities, and Tuesday's move hands a win to broadband companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

Pai is taking aim at regulations that were approved two years ago under a Democratic presidency and that sought to make sure all Internet content, whether from big or small companies, would be treated equally by Internet providers.

In a news release, Pai said his proposal would prevent the government from "micromanaging the Internet." Under the new rules, he said, the FCC would "simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices."

The proposal would also shift some enforcement responsibility to the Federal Trade Commission, which can sue companies for violating the commitments or statements they have made to the public.

Relying more heavily on Internet providers' own promises on net neutrality is a departure from the current rules, which lay out clear, federal bans against selectively blocking or slowing websites, as well as speeding up websites that agree to pay the providers a fee.

Lifting the rules will allow Internet providers to experiment with new ways of making money. In recent years, some broadband companies such as AT&T have tried offering discounts on Internet service to Americans so long as they agree to let the company monitor their Web browsing history, for example. Other companies such Verizon have exempted their own proprietary apps from mobile data caps, in a bid to drive user engagement. The practice, known as zero-rating, was criticized by the prior FCC as a potential violation of net neutrality principles, but Pai rescinded his predecessor's findings upon taking office.

Internet providers welcomed Tuesday's FCC announcement. "We’re very encouraged by Chairman Pai’s announcement today that the FCC will move forward next month to restore the successful light-touch regulatory framework for Internet services," Verizon said in a statement.

Some analysts said that the FCC proposal was appropriate and that there is no economic evidence for regulatory intervention.

"In the absence of a market failure, the constitution doesn’t permit the FCC to treat the information superhighway … like a public utility," said Fred Campbell, director of the think tank Tech Knowledge.

The FCC's proposal is largely opposed by Internet companies such as Google, which said Tuesday that the net neutrality rules help protect an open Internet.

"The FCC’s net neutrality rules are working well for consumers, and we’re disappointed in the proposal released today," Google said in a statement.

Former Democratic FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who drafted the 2015 net neutrality rules and rammed them through despite Republican opposition, called Tuesday's move "tragic."

"The job of the FCC is to represent the consumer," he said in an interview. "Tragically, this decision is only for the benefit of the largely monopoly services that deliver the Internet to the consumer."

Allowing the FTC to police broadband providers’ own promises is tantamount to providing “toothless protections,” according to consumer advocates.

Matt Wood, policy director for the advocacy group Free Press, likened the proposed system to the way that many companies design their privacy policies.

“You need only look to how privacy policies from websites allow essentially any and all bad behavior,” Wood said, “so long as it is disclosed to users.”

Maureen Ohlhausen, the acting chairman of the FTC, has said that the agency's expertise in data security and privacy issues will make it a powerful defender of U.S. consumers.

"The FTC stands ready to protect broadband subscribers from anticompetitive, unfair, or deceptive acts and practices just as we protect consumers in the rest of the Internet ecosystem,” Ohlhausen said in a statement Tuesday.

The FCC's proposal brings additional pressure on Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers have called for federal legislation that would supersede any FCC rules. On Tuesday, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) praised Pai's effort but renewed his call for a bipartisan compromise on net neutrality, saying it was the only way to "create long-term certainty for the Internet ecosystem."

Congressional Democrats have resisted working with Republicans on a net neutrality bill, believing that Pai's proposal is unlikely to survive an expected court challenge from supporters of the 2015 rules. A Democratic aide said Tuesday that "there might be room for [a] conversation" if Republicans were willing to enshrine the current rules into legislation, but that position is likely to be a nonstarter for GOP critics, who argued that the rules imposed unreasonable costs on businesses.

On November 22 2017 05:28 Sadist wrote:



So he frenched a woman he should lose the senate seat? After she consented to a kiss? It should be frowned upon definitely but this is way overblown if we just go by her account. This is nothing like the other cases out there.

On November 22 2017 05:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Sure, but not reporting something doesn't make it right or consensual.

On November 22 2017 05:21 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

The point was, there may be nothing to report... 'dear police I had sex last night :D just wanted to share!!'

The standard of drunk = rape, no exceptions, doesn't fit reality.

On November 22 2017 04:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:


You pull out one sentence of three posts I make and disregard every qualifier I made in that post and the other posts to justify calling me a rapist. I most certainly specified that being sober and looking for drunk girls is really scummy behavior. I am not morally absolving guys who do this. I am totally morally absolving guys who themselves are drunk, just 'slightly less drunk than the girl was', because I don't see how they deserve more blame for getting drunk than the girl did, when both of them wanted to have sex at the time. I also specified, at least twice, that I talk about active consent, not 'is obviously blackout drunk' - but being someone who has been really really drunk on many occasions (this is not a source of pride, but important for the discussion) I know that the line between 'I fully remember everything and feel amazingly in control of the situation' and 'I don't remember anything I did at all' is really easy to pass and often impossible for other people to understand whether you've crossed or not.

On November 22 2017 04:48 KwarK wrote:

Okay, I'll try and explain this in simple terms.

Let's say you're a recovering meth addict. We're out together and you're pretty fucking drunk and I offer you meth, which you happily accept stating that you fucking love meth.

Sure, you consented. And sure, although you were drunk at the time you ought to have been aware that relapsing was a risk before you got drunk. Plenty of ways that we can pin this on the meth addict and say that they're not a victim and that really it's their fault.

That doesn't in any way change the fact that you only relapsed because I made a deliberate choice to cause it. That doesn't in any way reduce the moral accountability I have for the subsequent fallout. I might have an excuse that I can tell people for how it's totally not my fault, but it wouldn't have happened without me.

One person having a share of responsibility does not absolve all others. The victim having partial responsibility does not make them no longer a victim. Which is exactly what you argued it did when you said "This also isn't victim blaming - I don't acknowledge the victimhood. ;p"
If the girl wakes up feeling like she got raped and deals with all the same trauma that other rape victims do then you denying her victim status is just a way of getting what you did to be okay with Jesus. It doesn't change shit about the impact your choice had on her. You've still made her a victim, all you're doing is pinning it on her to make yourself feel better.

Furthermore, it's totally victim blaming. You're shifting the burden of your own participation onto the other party, insisting that you couldn't possibly have known better than to participate if they drunkenly asked you to. The smiley was a particularly tasteless touch too.

Honestly, if you really believe with the argument you made about drunk girls not being victims you should feel pretty bad about the person you choose to be.

On November 22 2017 05:50 doomdonker wrote:
lol Trump essentially saying that Moore's accusers are shit right now. I mean, the Republican Party pretty much believes Moore's accusers because you don't get banned from a mall for being a creep if you aren't a creep.

On November 22 2017 05:35 KwarK wrote:

You're saying that like the senate seat is some kind of trophy we're taking away from him that he earned. It's not, it's a job representing people. He shouldn't lose his senate seat as a punishment, he should lose it because we can find someone better than the man he has shown himself to be.

On November 22 2017 05:51 Liquid`Drone wrote:


How is sex the same as meth, dude. Guys don't fucking go around thinking 'oh man, she'll totally regret having sex with me when she wakes up', they go 'oh man, awesome'. I'm not talking about girls who wake up being semi-raped, I'm saying that if a girl had drunken sex, this does not mean she was raped, even if she later on regrets it.

You seem to think that I'm talking about sober guys picking up blackout drunk guys and having sex with them despite me explicitly stating that this is not what I mean and that at least is kind of rape, and then you present me with your regular counter-that argument. I'm talking about the 'both guy and girl are drunk, club is closing, they both want to go home with someone because being drunk makes them both horny.' Sure the girl is slightly more drunk than the guy is, and she might not normally want to have sex with that particular guy, but you can't expect the drunk guy to go like 'hm, wait, this girl is somewhat out of my league of what I can ordinary get laid from, she must be too drunk to consent otherwise she wouldn't go home with me'. I don't think the girl is a victim in this case, even if she regrets it, just like I don't think the guy who dropped his cellphone in the toilet or told his boss that he's an idiot is a victim. I mean technically you can say they're all victims of alcohol abuse, but not sexual.

On November 22 2017 05:56 WolfintheSheep wrote:

This is a problem of social attitudes toward men being taking advantage of, more than anything else.

Like, if you were drunk and a woman took advantage of you, and you woke up next morning to find that you cheated on your wife, I'm sure you would want to claim the legitimate position of "it's not my fault, someone took advantage of me while I was drunk off my ass".