First we had 'Legitimate Rape', now there's 'Rape creates Extraordinary People'

Fenian Army

B0jangles wrote: »

I have to point out, you did post this:



Which I took to mean that you think there is a meaningful distinction between the two, with date rape not being as bad.

You were wrong. I think all kinds of rape are bad, and I didn't read his comments as saying that other kinds of rape are not bad or as bad.

Logical Fallacy

Fenian Army wrote: »

I read it as meaning violent rape rather than say date rape.

Because date rape is never violent?

I think you need to learn from these Republican and think clearly about what you are saying, before you say something that appears to make you look stupid.

Fenian Army

Pitchforks are truly out it seems.

Slán.

lazygal

Fenian Army wrote: »

Pitchforks are truly out it seems.

Slán.

Don't let the door hit you forcibly on the way out.

tbh

g'em wrote: »

No, but he's encouraging people to look at a 'bright side' of rape. It's underhand emotional guilt-tripping. It's not reasonable in any way.

No - with respect, he's not. He's saying "two wrongs don't make a right".


What he's doing is expressing an opinion which is entirely consistent with his views on abortion. He considers abortion to be murder.
A lot of people who don't consider abortion to be murder generally counter this argument by saying "well what about the victims of rape or incest?" because that's a hard question. nobody wants to be seen to further "punish" victims of rape.
However, what huckabee was saying is that if a woman gets pregnant as a result of a rape and then has an abortion, it is the child that is punished.

Now, I don't necessarily agree with him, but I can definiately see (a) what he is saying and (b) why he was saying it.

Nobody would argue that it would be fair to punish a rapist by executing his six-year-old child. Huckabee would be of the opinion that abortion would be the same.

tbh

cristoir wrote: »

The stupidity from some members of the GOP is breathtaking. The economy appears fairly weak and there is a democratic incumbent in the white house. You'd think they would run on that. But no they want to fight a culture war they can't win instead.

I think you would be surprised at how much support Huckabee's viewpoint would have in middle america.

Diapason

tbh wrote: »

I think you would be surprised at how much support Huckabee's viewpoint would have in middle america.

Indeed, and I suspect it will ultimately be enough to hand the upcoming election to the Republicans.

I think we get a *slightly* jaundiced view of Republicanism in the media here, and while there's no doubt that the extreme edge is on the rise, when you're dealing with a 2-party system like the US, various aspects of Republicanism are going to appeal to a large proportion of the population.

[flame suit]You also have to bear in mind that if a party is going to prey on the fears of those with below-average intelligence, then they're already appealing to 50% of the electorate. The Republicans are better at that than the Democrats. (No, I'm not saying that if you vote GOP you're stupid by definition).[/flame suit]

My name is URL

g'em wrote: »

You're right, sorry. What I find inexcusable is that something as horrific a crime as rape is being turned on its head to find a positive.result of such a trauma and think "well maybe I'll be one of the lucky ones?"

Saying that good people have been conceived out of rape isn't putting a positive spin on rape. Would it be nicer or fairer to say or hold the view that the opposite is true? Loads of women have given birth to and raised children conceived out of rapes.. they've been victimised enough without wider society holding the belief that no good can come from them bringing a child into the world in such circumstances.

Fact is that many people have been conceived in such circumstances, and many have gone on to do great things. It doesn't mean that every woman should choose not to have an abortion, but they shouldn't all be expected to either just because that's what everyone else sees as being the best choice for them.

Many Democrats and Liberals hold similar views in that regard.. Martin Sheen and his wife for example; who was actually conceived when her mother was raped, have long been of the opinion that rape victims should not automatically be expected to abort just because others see it as the right thing to do.

Tombi!

My name is URL wrote: »

Saying that good people have been conceived out of rape isn't putting a positive spin on rape.

It is, in a way. I'd say it's more accurate to describe it as "well you got raped, get over it because the good news is your child could be someone amazing!".

Anyone's child can turn out to be the next genius/artist/whatever.

DrumSteve

The way I look at it is: Rape is Rape. It's not "forced" rape or "unforced" rape or any of your other garden variety rapes. It's not even "rape" in quotation marks.

When someone is raped, they are brutally violated. The only extra-ordinary thing about it is the fact these women (and men) who are subjected to this are able to continue on with their lives without breaking down. The fact that they get impregnated by this act is a moot point (and that these idiots believe that the womens bodies can resist this beggars belief). The child itself is innocent of the act, but will always act as a reminder.

It's a pretty horrible situation to be in without these assholes making political capital out of it.

sheesh

I suppose we can only hope they are doing it on purpose to prevent romney from becoming president.

Wibbs

DrumSteve wrote: »

The way I look at it is: Rape is Rape. It's not "forced" rape or "unforced" rape or any of your other garden variety rapes. It's not even "rape" in quotation marks.

While I agree with the rest of your post, especially your last line I'd disagree here, or at least consider degrees of rape. We consider degrees in assault and unlawful killing, but not rape. Rape is another crime against the person and as such those degrees must objectively exist. Yet to even suggest that, even in this thread garners responses like lazygal and Logical Fallacy's above. Hey I'm NOT singling them out as I'm part of that too and I was about to hit the thanks button on those posts myself. The word "Rape" almost invites a "!" after it. I'm in two minds as to whether this is always a good thing, particularly with tackling the subject in our society.

Look at G'em's opening post and the following WTF?!! posts who all got thanked including by me. Then came jhegarty's post which clarified what the man actually said. Even though it still has a serious case of WTF about it, it's not nearly as inflammatory as first impressions led us to believe. Even so the feelings agin him are more to do with those first impressions than what he actually said. The word rape is not unlike the Mohammad cartoons that caused controversy among Muslims, some level of reason tends to go out the window at times. At least debate over the finer points. IE the given that rape is rape and equal regardless of context. I'm sorry, IMHO anyway, a case of rape where say a woman feels pressured into and unhappy with sleeping with her boyfriend is a world away from say a war rape in Kosovo, or at least there are degrees separating them. Yes they are both rapes, but just like if I get my nose broken in an assault, compared to me ending up in hospital in a coma from an assault there are degrees involved.

Rape as a crime exists in an odd mind environment in our culture. On the one hand it's almost a sacred cow of a crime, considered the very worst thing that could happen to the person and beyond any grey area questioning of that or the circumstances of an individual case, on the other hand you have the undercurrent of "she was asking for it you know" and shíte like 6 month sentences for sexual assault and lines of mouthbreathers queuing up to shake the hand of a convicted rapist.

Diapason

Wibbs wrote: »

Look at G'em's opening post and the following WTF?!! posts who all got thanked including by me. Then came jhegarty's post which clarified what the man actually said. Even though it still has a serious case of WTF about it, it's not nearly as inflammatory as first impressions led us to believe. Even so the feelings agin him are more to do with those first impressions than what he actually said.

Completely agree, Wibbs, and I'm sorry I wasn't a bit more circumspect with my early response. On another day I'd be arguing that the basic idea is completely reasonable (that even children born of rape can be amazing people) and that within the viewpoint espoused, 100% logical (if you believe abortion = murder, then abortion = murder even in the case of rape).

Speaking personally, I'm "concerned" by the tone and thrust of some of the GOP positions in recent years, because I think society is moving backwards, and like it or not this has a knock-on effect on the rest of the world. Against that backdrop it's hard not to react to something that seems, on the face of it, to be yet another anti-woman screed.

DrumSteve

Wibbs wrote: »

While I agree with the rest of your post, especially your last line I'd disagree here, or at least consider degrees of rape. We consider degrees in assault and unlawful killing, but not rape. Rape is another crime against the person and as such those degrees must objectively exist. Yet to even suggest that, even in this thread garners responses like lazygal and Logical Fallacy's above. Hey I'm NOT singling them out as I'm part of that too and I was about to hit the thanks button on those posts myself. The word "Rape" almost invites a "!" after it. I'm in two minds as to whether this is always a good thing, particularly with tackling the subject in our society.

Look at G'em's opening post and the following WTF?!! posts who all got thanked including by me. Then came jhegarty's post which clarified what the man actually said. Even though it still has a serious case of WTF about it, it's not nearly as inflammatory as first impressions led us to believe. Even so the feelings agin him are more to do with those first impressions than what he actually said. The word rape is not unlike the Mohammad cartoons that caused controversy among Muslims, some level of reason tends to go out the window at times. At least debate over the finer points. IE the given that rape is rape and equal regardless of context. I'm sorry, IMHO anyway, a case of rape where say a woman feels pressured into and unhappy with sleeping with her boyfriend is a world away from say a war rape in Kosovo, or at least there are degrees separating them. Yes they are both rapes, but just like if I get my nose broken in an assault, compared to me ending up in hospital in a coma from an assault there are degrees involved.

Rape as a crime exists in an odd mind environment in our culture. On the one hand it's almost a sacred cow of a crime, considered the very worst thing that could happen to the person and beyond any grey area questioning of that or the circumstances of an individual case, on the other hand you have the undercurrent of "she was asking for it you know" and shíte like 6 month sentences for sexual assault and lines of mouthbreathers queuing up to shake the hand of a convicted rapist.

I get what your saying, though, to me it doesnt matter if someone is pressuring you or holding a gun to your head, if someone fúcks someone when they dont want to be fúcked, thats rape. There is no inbetween.

(on phone so will address your other points when I get to a PC)

Faolchu

B0jangles wrote: »

He also repeatedly uses the phrase "forcible rape", which to me suggests he believes that there is "non-forcible rape" which he thinks is less abhorrent.

See in the non forced rape they ask you nicely for permission to rape you

Min

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

What the **** is up with these guys and the trend of putting qualifiers before the word rape? Are they trying to say there is "fake rape" and "pretend rape" or something?

RTE did a thing on fake rape on Prime time investigates and it cost them a lot of money.

Chucky the tree

B0jangles wrote: »

He also repeatedly uses the phrase "forcible rape", which to me suggests he believes that there is "non-forcible rape" which he thinks is less abhorrent.

Consentual sex between someone over the age consent and someone under it would be considered "non-forcible rape".

Wibbs

DrumSteve wrote: »

I get what your saying, though, to me it doesnt matter if someone is pressuring you or holding a gun to your head, if someone fúcks someone when they dont want to be fúcked, thats rape. There is no inbetween.

Oh sure, but like I said, if you punch me in the face and crack my nose, that's assault, if you beat me into a hospital bed and a coma, that's also assault, yet the majority would agree that there is a quantitative difference between the two crimes. Take the analogy further. If you had the choice between those two assaults which would you choose? My point was rape is almost unique among crimes in that no such relativity of degree will be even countenanced. The very word itself is enough to knock that on the head and IMHO there are degrees of severity. This does not mean that the person who is raped is under some daft obligation to not feel as violated if their particular degree is "lesser". Not at all. Indeed the so called "date rape" may lead to even more feelings of "I should have done more compared to having an actual gun to my head"(very wrongly). I'm just interested in how rape is perceived in a particular way as a crime.

Scanlas The 2nd

B0jangles wrote: »

He also repeatedly uses the phrase "forcible rape", which to me suggests he believes that there is "non-forcible rape" which he thinks is less abhorrent.

Do you think every single act of rape is equally as bad?

Surely rape in conjunction with physical torture is worse all other things equal?

B0jangles

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Do you think every single act of rape is equally as bad?

Surely rape in conjunction with physical torture is worse all other things equal?

But that's not the intent of the implied comparison. By saying forcible rape, they bring to mind a "totally innocent" woman dragged into a dark alleyway. Ther obvious comparison is with acquaintance rape, which is in fact infinitely commoner. They appear to believe that the victims of acquaintence rape are less injured, less victimized, less innocent and somehow more responsible for what happened to them.

I belived it is important to establish firmly that most rapes are not the "alleyway" type - they are the acquaintance type; I've read several studies where a disturbing percentage of young college aged men admitted to raping women as long as the word rape was not used . As far as they were concerned "Jump out of alley and grab woman = rape" but "have sex with mostly comatose girl at a party = scoring. "

This perception needs to be changed.

B0jangles

Chucky the tree wrote: »

Consentual sex between someone over the age consent and someone under it would be considered "non-forcible rape".

Do you really believe that was the other type of rape they were thinking about?

oppenheimer1

tbh wrote: »

I think you would be surprised at how much support Huckabee's viewpoint would have in middle america.

Not really surprised. And I'm not surprised by the outrage here and the pulling of his comments totally out of context. It would seem that people want to be outraged and will twist and spin a statement until they are.

So Huckabee has said that the world would have been denied a a talented Jazz musician if her mother had aborted her because she was the result of a rape. In the eyes of people who oppose abortion, like Huckabee, they would see life starting at conception, and to abort a pregnancy that was the result of a rape is adding the aborted baby to the victim list of the rapist. The argument here really is when does a human life begin?

So really what he said wasn't that outrageous, was it? Even if you don't agree with it.

midlandsmissus

Indeed, what is truly sad, is that I read a girl's story of how she thought after it happened 'because it wasn't a stranger down a dark alleyway it couldn't have been rape'/ no-one will believe me.' What was so sad was I thought the exact same thing after it happened to me. A few years on I feel really sad looking back at that girl I was then, the confusion, the shock, the horror, the blaming yourself. I wish I could my arms around myself. No-one deserves it, it is still senseless to me, and on my worst nights I still torture myself wih the why's. I've definitely gone through periods of grief, anger, revenge fantasies, and am now am really trying to get to the stage of forgiveness. The peace of mind that I'm ultimately searching for still eludes me. What is going on with the Western world and rape these days, it feels like it's at crisis point. And I feel when things get this bad about something, the world is telling us we need to ultimately change. I really want to stand up and do something reaaly strong about rape/sexual assault because if people knew the true horror it causes they would never inflict it on another human being. But I am not strong enough yet. 5ont want to evoke pity, just the facts, I want to help but am not strong enough yet.

hmmm

Liberals have jumped all over that idiot Akin and now the same with Huckabee, but they're missing the point.

Huckabee isn't arguing about or "for" rape, all he cares about here is stopping abortions because he believes the child had no say in the matter. I mightn't necessarily agree with his position, but it's a reasonable argument.

Any other interpretation is twisting words.

The idiot Aikin was trying to say the same thing, but then came out with the crackpot stuff about the risk of becoming pregnant.

dr.bollocko

hmmm wrote: »

Liberals have jumped all over that idiot Akin and now the same with Huckabee, but they're missing the point.

Huckabee isn't arguing about or "for" rape, all he cares about here is stopping abortions because he believes the child had no say in the matter. I mightn't necessarily agree with his position, but it's a reasonable argument.

Any other interpretation is twisting words.

The idiot Aikin was trying to say the same thing, but then came out with the crackpot stuff about the risk of becoming pregnant..

Nobody said he was.

He said that legitimate rape victims don't get pregnant...

Also many Republicans have since asked for him to withdraw.

" If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down."

oppenheimer1

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Nobody said he was.

He said that legitimate rape victims don't get pregnant...

Also many Republicans have since asked for him to withdraw.

" If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down."

That was Akin not Huckabee.

Cookie_Monster

so two Christian nutjobs are the positive upside to rape...
I'm confused

philologos

g'em wrote: »

From Gawker:

For once I'm genuinely at a loss for words...

I don't see why. He's not saying rape is a good thing, but is acknowledging that children that are born through those means aren't bad.

Simple point. He's not applauding rape.

dr.bollocko

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

That was Akin not Huckabee.

Sorry. Took out some of the post I quoted.

Re-added.

Millicent

philologos wrote: »

I don't see why. He's not saying rape is a good thing, but is acknowledging that children that are born through those means aren't bad.

Simple point. He's not applauding rape.

They're not inherently good either, are they? It's a bit of a moot point to throw into the debate. I'm sure some children of rape are lovely people. I'm just as sure others are pure assholes. It's not really relevant to the debate.