Mayor blames 4 year old for her own molestation

[RavenSky]

It most definitely matters. In a context in which he is expected to give a detailed description of the situation you are asking him to lie.

No. The rapist pedophile can give an exacting description of what happened without ascribing motive to, or attempting to assess the state of mind of, his victim. Saying that the victim was willing is not a fact, it is his interpretation of her state of mind, and is mentioned solely to attempt to shift some blame to that victim. It doesn't matter if he is trying to do so to get out of a crime, or to elicit sympathy from his therapist, it is still victim blaming.

cr;jq - exactly. excellent post

 

[ronburgundy]

"She started it" cannot be a "fact" in this situation. It is a inference of causality, implicitly claiming that whatever she did or said was the necessary anbd sufficient cause his own actions of raping her. No causal assertion is an observed "fact" of any event. Causality is always inferred, and the number of and likely error in the non-factual assumptions required for causal inference is never greater than when concluding the cause of human action. And in this particular situation, every fact we do know and every well established theory of causes of human action tell us that there is no possible way that anything a 4 year old could say or do would ever be close to either a neccessary or sufficient cause of an adult to touch them sexually.

What could be a "fact" is if he merely stated actual empirical facts like what exactly she did and said, without any non-factual interpretation of what that meant about what "started" (aka caused the sex) or anything about her desires or psychological states that are not directly observable and thus not "facts" And even then, they would have to be factual responses to questions he was asked by the prosecution, otherwise the only plausible motive for him or his defense bringing them up would be to imply causality and blame.

Of course, causal inferences need not be (and often are not) moral blaming. That is a logical fact that the OP and its supporters regularly deny and ignore, ...

Full stop.

Your argument started off sounding rational and then went off the deep end.

IOW, my reasoned argument happened to start by pointing out facts you blindly and dogmatically accept, but since I adhere to logic and you do not that argument led to facts that you blindly and dogmatically reject.

He and his defense did not say this to the prosecution.

I didn't say he did. I said that even if he had stuck to empirical facts about her actions, they would almost certainly be attempts to shift blame, unless he stated them only as required answers to the prosecution in court.

He started saying it to people in small circles before it becoming public he would be/was arrested for raping the girl over a 2 year period, Your problem is that it's not factually a causal inference but instead he had a choice afterward and he made an immoral choice because he was attracted to her AND because he was in a situation where risk of getting caught in the act was low.

Correct, as I said, no causal implication is a fact, and with human action the only possible neccessary and sufficient cause of a person's conscious actions are the decision processes that occur in the person's brain.

I will add that he did this another 7 or more times so his excuse of her walking in on him in a bathroom is just that and that further, since he was finding himself around her alone all these times over a 2 year period that he was willingly doing so. He wasn't physically disabled!

Sure, that is perfectly compatible with what I said. My position is that not only is he 100% to blame, but that if his comments imply causality or the girls state of mind then he isn't sticking to the facts and going beyond them to try and reduce his blame/guilt.

Predictably you snipped off the remainder of my post where I point out the logical fact that the very same factors that make this an instance of victim blaming are the factors absent from and actually negated by facts in in the other situations where you and the OP have irrationally leapt to conclusions of victim blaming.

 

[Malintent]

No. The rapist pedophile can give an exacting description of what happened without ascribing motive to, or attempting to assess the state of mind of, his victim. Saying that the victim was willing is not a fact, it is his interpretation of her state of mind, and is mentioned solely to attempt to shift some blame to that victim. It doesn't matter if he is trying to do so to get out of a crime, or to elicit sympathy from his therapist, it is still victim blaming.

cr;jq - exactly. excellent post

You can't blame a victim for something for which there is no circumstance under which the incident would have been the victim's own doing.

You can't (successfully) blame a minor for CONSENTING to anything. It is the entire premise of "the age of consent".

The attempt to 'victim blame' is equivalent, in this case, as "blaming the evil spirits possessing the space alien that is posing as a young girl". a 4-year old initiating sex is less likely than possessed space aliens. It is just an inane attempt at a poor defense.

Arguments about consent and what constitutes consent (saying "yes" every 5 seconds is consent? Wearing a short skirt is consent?). Those are the issues that get labeled 'victim blaming'.

raping a baby is way outside of that. way.fucking.outside.

My point, though, if not clear, is that it dilutes the term "victim blaming" if it is used to describe every possible defense of every accusation that circumstantially involves interpreting the intent of any others.

 

[ronburgundy]

No, it just means you are being predictably irrational and engaging in passive aggressive false equivalency by implying this case has any similarity whatsoever to your many other fallacious accusations of "victim blaming".

The fact that you have no clue how this man's comment is fundamentally different than pointing out the objective scientific fact that intoxication makes people more vulnerable to be victims of violent crime is exactly the same kind of failure to understand the "is"/"ought" disctinction that underlies most "victim blaming" accusations.

The issue of consent in a sexual act is what determines criminal and moral blame, so this man's comments are about shifting moral blame for the act from himself to the girl.

Oh, here we go with the special pleading fallacy.

As usual, you are tossing out words that you have no clue what they mean.

So the other case wasn't victim-blaming, but this is?

Correct, because virtually none of the facts or properties of the two scenarios are the same, and the things that you, others, and myself have pointed to which makes this victim blaming are either absent from or directly the opposite of what is true in the other case. I explained in detail what those differences are in my other posts.

Pointing out that two things are completely different in their core defining properties is not "special pleading". It is called observing empirical reality. Ignoring those defining differences and pretending the two things are identical is called false equivalency, which is your forte.

IF you point to a ball of cotton and to an actual cat and you call them both cats, when I point out that you are incorrect in one instance but correct in the other, that is not a logical fallacy on my part.

I'm curious: when is it ok to blame the victim, and when isn't it ok to blame the victim? It's so hard to keep your different positions straight.

Bravo, two fallacies within a mere 50 words. Now you are question begging. No one is arguing about when its okay or not the blame the victim. The question is when is it in fact "blaming the victim" and when is it not, much like the question of when is a fuzzy thing a cat and when is it not. Keeping it straight isn't too tough if you just apply a millisecond of honest reasoned thought rather than trying to equate two obviously distinct scenarios precisely because you cannot make a rational argument for one being victim blaming so you use a different scenario where it is more reasonable and then imply the two scenarios are identical.

 

[KeepTalking]

cr;jq - exactly. excellent post

You can't blame a victim for something for which there is no circumstance under which the incident would have been the victim's own doing.

You certainly can. A rational person will not buy it, but we are not buying this guy's victim blaming defense either.

You can't (successfully) blame a minor for CONSENTING to anything. It is the entire premise of "the age of consent".

Correct. He wasn't successful, but that didn't stop this victim blaming rapist pedophile from trying. His actions alone show that he is not a rational person, so why would we expect his victim blaming to be rational?

The attempt to 'victim blame' is equivalent, in this case, as "blaming the evil spirits possessing the space alien that is posing as a young girl". a 4-year old initiating sex is less likely than possessed space aliens. It is just an inane attempt at a poor defense.

Yes, it is an inane attempt at a poor defense, victim blaming usually is.

Arguments about consent and what constitutes consent (saying "yes" every 5 seconds is consent? Wearing a short skirt is consent?). Those are the issues that get labeled 'victim blaming'.

They may or may not be victim blaming, we would need to examine a specific case to make that determination.

raping a baby is way outside of that. way.fucking.outside.

Yes, it is terrible. But this fact in no way prevents the rapist from making an attempt to deflect blame by assigning partial blame to the victim, like the rapist pedophile in this case tried to do.

My point, though, if not clear, is that it dilutes the term "victim blaming" if it is used to describe every possible defense of every accusation that circumstantially involves interpreting the intent of any others.

It certainly would dilute the meaning of victim blaming if it were "used to describe every possible defense of every accusation that circumstantially involves interpreting the intent of any others", but in this case it is describing an attempted defense that involves interpreting the intent of the victim. That is non-diluted case of victim blaming.

 

[ronburgundy]

No. The rapist pedophile can give an exacting description of what happened without ascribing motive to, or attempting to assess the state of mind of, his victim. Saying that the victim was willing is not a fact, it is his interpretation of her state of mind, and is mentioned solely to attempt to shift some blame to that victim. It doesn't matter if he is trying to do so to get out of a crime, or to elicit sympathy from his therapist, it is still victim blaming.

cr;jq - exactly. excellent post

Yes, it is an excellent post. And as I pointed out, these very same facts that post points out which make this victim blaming are the opposite of the fact in the other cases you have falsely labeled victim blaming. That judge is not trying to "get out of a crime" or get anyone else out of a crime or "elicit sympathy" for them (she convicted and sent the rapist to prison for 6 years). Nothing the judge said implied that they women were "willing" or consenting to the sex act she had just sentenced the rapist to prison for. Nothing implied it isn't rape or that the men are not fully morally responsible for choosing to rape or for choosing their victims. In fact, her words explicitly stated the exact opposite of any such fallacious inference. She implied only that when men are choosing their victims they will look for easy targets, and as the science (and common sense) clearly shows, being intoxicated makes one an easy and thus more likely target of violent crimes from robbery to rape.

 

[RavenSky]

When is it "in fact" victim blaming?

When someone tries to shift any portion of the blame/responsibility for a crime onto the victim of that crime.

Victim-blaming is not limited to a court room. It is not limited to the accused, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police or juries. Friends, families, and neighbors of the victim or the accused can engage in victim-blaming. People on message boards frequently victim-blame.

Victim-blaming is most often seen in rape cases, followed very closely by cases where people of color are the victims; but victim-blaming can happen in any discussion of any crime.

Examples:

- "Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera made a comment that the hoodie which Trayvon Martin was wearing was part of the reason he was shot."

- A judge in a rape trial repeatedly "referred to the 19-year-old complainant as the "accused" and said she "hasn't explained why she allowed the sex to happen if she didn't want it.""

- How a prosecutor managed to blame a 12-year-old for getting killed by a cop: By taking the time to mention Rice’s size and possibly unwise decision to carry a toy gun, McGinty both implied that Rice had it coming and reinforced a common perception that black boys seem older and more menacing.

- "I don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next ten[-plus] years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank."

- "a rape conviction was overturned because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans she must have helped her rapist remove her jeans, thereby implying consent."

- Back in 2006, a rapist in Manitoba, Canada, was given no jail time because, according to the judge, the 26-year-old woman, who was forced into intercourse in the woods along a highway, met the rapist under "inviting circumstances." He noted that she and her friend were wearing, per the Winnipeg Free Press, "tube tops with no bra, high heels and plenty of makeup."

- A police officer in 2011: "Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."

- In a case that became infamous in 2011, an 11-year-old female rape victim who suffered repeated gang rapes in Cleveland, Texas, was accused by a defense attorney of being a seductress who lured men to their doom. "Like the spider and the fly. Wasn't she saying, 'Come into my parlor', said the spider to the fly?", he asked a witness. The New York Times ran an article uncritically reporting on the way many in the community blamed the victim, for which the newspaper later apologized.

- In the Steubenville High School rape case where two high school boys raped a 16-year-old girl, "Yahoo News described the victim as "an intoxicated 16-year-old girl" who forced the town into an emotional situation"

These are just a very few examples

- - - Updated - - -

One-fourth of all online comments at the end of news articles about sexual assault and rape include victim-blaming statements, new research out of the University of Southern California shows.

The study examined 52 articles and found that only one did not contain comments offering support for the accused perpetrator, the study said. Victim-blaming statements appeared in 1,097 of the 4,239 comments ― or just over 25 percent of them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/comment-sections-rape-culture_us_57b606bfe4b00d9c3a1647c0

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A woman at a party has too many drinks too quickly and another partygoer sexually assaults her while she’s unconscious. A black man outside a convenience store has a gun in his pocket when police pin him down on the pavement and shoot him.

Who’s to blame?

The way you answer that question may depend on how heavily you weigh two types of moral values, a new study finds. In experiments, researchers found that people whose values focus on reducing harm and caring for everyone are likely to blame the perpetrators: the rapist or the police. In contrast, people who adhere more closely to values like loyalty, purity and obedience to authority are more likely to blame the victims.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ording-to-science_us_5784f3bce4b0ed2111d784ae

 

[ronburgundy]

Malintent, Loren, and Jolly:

You are playing right into the OP's rhetorical game of saying this and the other cases are the same, by making unreasonable arguments to find some very unlikely scenario in which the guy's comments might not victim blaming.
That's just it, the other scenarios (like the judge) do not require imagining a scenario where her words aren't trying to blame the victim. In fact, they require ignoring her explicit words and actions that fully blame and punish the rapists, and making illogical leaps light years beyond her pointing out simple scientific facts with an obvious motive of caring about the victims and trying to help women reduce their odds of victimization motive to some hidden agenda.

You can't blame a victim for something for which there is no circumstance under which the incident would have been the victim's own doing.

You certainly can. A rational person will not buy it, but we are not buying this guy's victim blaming defense either.

Keep Talking is right, your argument is bogus. It is true that the law does not recognize a child's ability to ever consent to sex, or that science refutes the idea that a 4 year old could do so because they aren't capable of comprehending what they are consenting to (and thus also incapable of being "willing" since that presumes knowledge of what one if said to be "willing" to do).
But it is equally true that people can and many do disregard the law and science, so these facts in no way preclude a person from attempting to claim a 4 year old was willing and imply that should reduce either the moral or legal blame put upon themselves.

Given that he is the one deserving of all the blame, if he implied she was willing or anything beyond the directly observable facts that would typically factor into any moral or legal judgment of wrongdoing, then the only plausible motive for saying those things was to imply partial blame on her.

Is there some possible very rare scenario where a person in that situation could say what he said without intending toMaybe, but the odds of that being true here are about 1 in a billion. It is far more probable that he was implying partial blame on her to reduce his guilt in his own and others eyes.

Maybe more importantly than whether he was consciously trying to deflect blame, any reasonable observer would conclude that he is likely trying to shift blame away from himself. No, we cannot be certain, but only because we can never be rationally certain of anything. This is in stark contrast to the other case about the judge (and other cases discussed on this board) where reasonable people would NOT conclude the speaker was victim blaming because they lack the motive and their words and actions either don't even suggest it or often directly falsify such a baseless inference.

 

[Malintent]

You can't blame a victim for something for which there is no circumstance under which the incident would have been the victim's own doing.

You certainly can. A rational person will not buy it, but we are not buying this guy's victim blaming defense either.

You can't (successfully) blame a minor for CONSENTING to anything. It is the entire premise of "the age of consent".

Correct. He wasn't successful, but that didn't stop this victim blaming rapist pedophile from trying. His actions alone show that he is not a rational person, so why would we expect his victim blaming to be rational?

The attempt to 'victim blame' is equivalent, in this case, as "blaming the evil spirits possessing the space alien that is posing as a young girl". a 4-year old initiating sex is less likely than possessed space aliens. It is just an inane attempt at a poor defense.

Yes, it is an inane attempt at a poor defense, victim blaming usually is.

Arguments about consent and what constitutes consent (saying "yes" every 5 seconds is consent? Wearing a short skirt is consent?). Those are the issues that get labeled 'victim blaming'.

They may or may not be victim blaming, we would need to examine a specific case to make that determination.

raping a baby is way outside of that. way.fucking.outside.

Yes, it is terrible. But this fact in no way prevents the rapist from making an attempt to deflect blame by assigning partial blame to the victim, like the rapist pedophile in this case tried to do.

My point, though, if not clear, is that it dilutes the term "victim blaming" if it is used to describe every possible defense of every accusation that circumstantially involves interpreting the intent of any others.

It certainly would dilute the meaning of victim blaming if it were "used to describe every possible defense of every accusation that circumstantially involves interpreting the intent of any others", but in this case it is describing an attempted defense that involves interpreting the intent of the victim. That is non-diluted case of victim blaming.

I was under the (mistaken) belief that those that use the term 'victim blaming' prefer using the term to successfully describe the words that individuals commenting on the reasonableness of an alleged assumption that there was consent.

If you want to use the term to also refer to one of the two possible defenses for any rape in any case (wasn't me, or it wasn't rape because there was consent).. which probably is the VAST majority of rape defenses (hard to prove not your DNA, except on a technicality).. .then fine, do that.

What you will get yourself is a fine case of "Fake News"... where the term had power, until everything that anyone disagrees with started getting called "Fake News", and now a term that implied a complex group of attributes of a story that insidiously manipulates people through propaganda and lies now just means, "Don't like it very much".

.. likewise, we can now just ignore cries of "Victim Blaming" (society giving a pass to men, or punishing women for being "slutty", or whatever) when it really matters and really describes an institutional problem, or noteworthy cultural phenomena .. because now we can understand that "Victim blaming" is just what everyone does when faced with a rape charge from someone you clearly had sex with, and just means, "nuh uh".

 

[ronburgundy]

When is it "in fact" victim blaming?

When someone tries to shift any portion of the blame/responsibility for a crime onto the victim of that crime.

Yes, and "blame" is a moral judgment that is in no way logically implied by any set of facts about causal factors that impact the probability of an event.
While facts can be used in a moral argument about blame, they are never sufficient to imply it. Thus, only if the speaker uses the facts to comment about moral or legal blame, or the context makes any other motive implausible, is it reasonable to view ideas about factors impacting the probability of an event as trying to imply anything about blame.

- "Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera made a comment that the hoodie which Trayvon Martin was wearing was part of the reason he was shot."

Most of the people on here pushing the victim blaming agenda have made the exact same comment about young black men being shot for wearing a hoodie. They use this assertion of fact to suggest that the shooting was therefore unjust and likely racially motivated. By your "logic" they are blaming the victim by pointing out any factors related to the victim that got them shot. In fact, claiming a person was shot for being black is a form of victim blaming according to your absurd use of the term.
It is very plausible that wearing a hoodie is a causal contributing factor that impacts the decision of others to shoot someone the suspect of a crime. Pointing out that possible fact doesn't imply that impact on such decisions is rational or unworthy of blame, only that it can impact the decision, possibly because such decisions are often irrational. So, that comment by Rivera does not by itself imply victim blaming.

- How a prosecutor managed to blame a 12-year-old for getting killed by a cop: By taking the time to mention Rice’s size and possibly unwise decision to carry a toy gun, McGinty both implied that Rice had it coming and reinforced a common perception that black boys seem older and more menacing.

Complete irrational bullshit. Rice's size was the sole piece of information the cop had that is relevant to his age, and everyone wanting the cop convicted of murder constantly brought up Rice's age as a core reason why the cop's actions were so unjustifed. That makes his size of direct logical relevance to the cop's decision making process and the reasonableness of his threat assessment including his inference that the gun was real or a toy. Rice was larger than the average adult male, and more than twice the weight and 9 inches taller than the average 12 year old male. Every human being uses body size to estimate age when little other info is available, and the idea that Rice was an adult rather than a 12 year old would occur to the vast majority of people in that situation. The reasonableness of Rice's perceived age and not his actual age is what matters to the legal or moral question of the reasonableness of the cop's threat assessment and resulting actions. These facts are specific solely to Rice as an individual and does not reinforce anything about black boys in general, except to racists who have no regard for individuals and view everything via a lens of racial categories.

As for the toy gun, the objective fact that Rice was holding (and pointing at people according to the 911 caller) an object made to look just like a real gun and not at all like most toy guns is also relevant to any rational assessment about whether the cops threat assessment was reasonable given the information available to him, and that question was the point of the trial. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that Rice having this type of toy gun was a major causal factor in the event (the cops would never have been called otherwise). So again, pointing out these logically relevant objective facts does not blame the victim without additional comments that suggest being abnormally large is some moral or legal failing on Rice's part.

Your other examples actually have the properties that make them victim blaming, namely someone actually placing moral and legal blame on the victim and reducing blame on the perp.

These are just a very few examples

They are examples of how absurd your definition is and how it leads to completely different scenarios with nothing in common all being categorized as victim blaming, when in fact that properties that make some of them victim blaming by any rational analysis are clearly absent from some of the other scenarios. The fact that you view these all as the same shows the absurdity of your concept of victim blaming and conflation of pointing out facts to understand what impacted the perps decisions and actions versus making moral judgments of particular facts in order to give a moral excuse to the perps actions.

- - - Updated - - -

A woman at a party has too many drinks too quickly and another partygoer sexually assaults her while she’s unconscious. A black man outside a convenience store has a gun in his pocket when police pin him down on the pavement and shoot him.

Who’s to blame?

The way you answer that question may depend on how heavily you weigh two types of moral values, a new study finds. In experiments, researchers found that people whose values focus on reducing harm and caring for everyone are likely to blame the perpetrators: the rapist or the police. In contrast, people who adhere more closely to values like loyalty, purity and obedience to authority are more likely to blame the victims.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ording-to-science_us_5784f3bce4b0ed2111d784ae

Yeah, you tried to abuse this poorly done "science" previously, and pointed out in great detail how it actually refutes your dogmatic position. Their data showed that pointing to various facts about the victims actions as having causal relevance to them being targeted had no relationship to actual victim blaming, willingness to convict the perp, harshness of punishment for the perp, etc..
IOW, it supports everything I have been saying that you and the OP are conflating the unrelated phenomena of people making efforts to understand and prevent events where people are victimized versus blaming the victim.

 

[KeepTalking]

You certainly can. A rational person will not buy it, but we are not buying this guy's victim blaming defense either.

You can't (successfully) blame a minor for CONSENTING to anything. It is the entire premise of "the age of consent".

Correct. He wasn't successful, but that didn't stop this victim blaming rapist pedophile from trying. His actions alone show that he is not a rational person, so why would we expect his victim blaming to be rational?

The attempt to 'victim blame' is equivalent, in this case, as "blaming the evil spirits possessing the space alien that is posing as a young girl". a 4-year old initiating sex is less likely than possessed space aliens. It is just an inane attempt at a poor defense.

Yes, it is an inane attempt at a poor defense, victim blaming usually is.

Arguments about consent and what constitutes consent (saying "yes" every 5 seconds is consent? Wearing a short skirt is consent?). Those are the issues that get labeled 'victim blaming'.

They may or may not be victim blaming, we would need to examine a specific case to make that determination.

raping a baby is way outside of that. way.fucking.outside.

Yes, it is terrible. But this fact in no way prevents the rapist from making an attempt to deflect blame by assigning partial blame to the victim, like the rapist pedophile in this case tried to do.

My point, though, if not clear, is that it dilutes the term "victim blaming" if it is used to describe every possible defense of every accusation that circumstantially involves interpreting the intent of any others.

It certainly would dilute the meaning of victim blaming if it were "used to describe every possible defense of every accusation that circumstantially involves interpreting the intent of any others", but in this case it is describing an attempted defense that involves interpreting the intent of the victim. That is non-diluted case of victim blaming.

I was under the (mistaken) belief that those that use the term 'victim blaming' prefer using the term to successfully describe the words that individuals commenting on the reasonableness of an alleged assumption that there was consent.

It does not matter if the blaming is successful, or not, it only matters that someone is attempting to shift blame onto the victim. Victim Blaming is going to fail to be successful nearly 100% of the time, or at least it should be, because it is usually a disingenuous tactic.

If you want to use the term to also refer to one of the two possible defenses for any rape in any case (wasn't me, or it wasn't rape because there was consent).. which probably is the VAST majority of rape defenses (hard to prove not your DNA, except on a technicality).. .then fine, do that.

What you will get yourself is a fine case of "Fake News"... where the term had power, until everything that anyone disagrees with started getting called "Fake News", and now a term that implied a complex group of attributes of a story that insidiously manipulates people through propaganda and lies now just means, "Don't like it very much".

Once again, even if it is a fact that 100% of rapists engage in victim blaming as a defense, that does not keep it from being victim blaming. All it needs to be for it to be victim blaming is an attempt to shift blame to the victim. It doesn't make anything fake news. If you are shifting blame to the victim, you are victim blaming, nothing fake about it.

.. likewise, we can now just ignore cries of "Victim Blaming" (society giving a pass to men, or punishing women for being "slutty", or whatever) when it really matters and really describes an institutional problem, or noteworthy cultural phenomena .. because now we can understand that "Victim blaming" is just what everyone does when faced with a rape charge from someone you clearly had sex with, and just means, "nuh uh".

No. Victim blaming means shifting blame to the victim. Saying "Nu uh, I didn't do it." does not shift the blame to the victim, it only denies any blame to the accused. In that case the accused may follow it up with, "Soandso did it", that does not blame the victim. It could be "I was 100 miles away at the time, and can prove it", that does not shift blame to the victim. It is when they say "It's not my fault because the 4 year old was a willing participant", then it is victim blaming, and it will be unsuccessful because anyone with a brain knows that the 4 year old shares no blame with the accused.

Let me bring up an example that is not rape. Say a person is accused of murder. That person admits that they had a gun pointed at the victim, and the victim was killed due to a shot fired from the gun held by the accused. The accused can say, "I am not to blame, because the car hit a bump in the road, and the gun went off, that's how Marvin got shot in the face", this is an attempt to shift blame from the accused without victim blaming. If the same accused person says "I am not to blame, because Marvin told me I was a pussy if I didn't shoot him in the face", that is victim blaming.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They certainly can be a willing participant.

I did not use the term consent, so your response is based on a straw man. Willingness implies some sort of agreement. At best, this 4 year old can be described as not resisting.

And, all of your responses ignore that this now convicted rapist also claimed this 4 year old initiated the sex. Not only is that a clear attempt to mitigate his responsibility to the 3rd parties, but it is an incredibly damning insight into this rapist's mind that he believes 4 year olds can initiate sex.

A 4 year old can be willing to play a game.

The adult is responsible for saying that game shouldn't be played.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, it is clear that you refuse to see reality

1) This arose in a therapy context, not a courtroom.

Immaterial, and you have been told this repeatedly by several people, which means that you are willfully ignoring anything that doesn't support your erroneous position

I have been told it by several people who aren't looking at it clearly. You're so fixated on blame-shifting that you don't see that that's not what's happening!

He had three possible courses of action at that point:

1) Describe the situation accurately, aka "Victim-blame"

2) Stay silent

3) Lie

Remember, this is in the context of therapy, #2 and #3 aren't good answers. He's basically left with #1.

Reminder: Nobody has adequately addressed this.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Malintent, Loren, and Jolly:

You are playing right into the OP's rhetorical game of saying this and the other cases are the same, by making unreasonable arguments to find some very unlikely scenario in which the guy's comments might not victim blaming.

In my case, no. I think this likely IS victim blaming in this case. My entire involvement in this thread is in reaction to the wide sweeping claim that any mention of how somebody behaves or what they are wearing must always be victim blaming. I gave numerous examples of that not being the case. The case in the other thread that you refer to is a other example.

I also leave the door slightly open for Loren's argument which may or may not be valid. Was the rapist saying the kid was willing in order to deflect blame, or is he just admitting to his psychological abuse of the child and to manipulating the child so the child would be willing? The child being willing in the latter case and somebody saying so, is not victim blaming, because no blame is being put on the kid. Quite the opposite in fact; the kid is being stated as doubly victimized.

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Keep Talking, I did not see or do not recall your question to me (you are welcome to repeat it) but perhaps the above clears it up?

You and Ravensky have made the broad sweeping claim that pointing to how somebody dressed or behaved must always equal a shifting of blame from the accused to the claimed victim. Each of my examples above are meant to show that this need not be so, and that the behaviour of the afflicted party may instead just be part of the context in which the person is operating, and context can excuse what would be blameworthy behaviour in a different context.

An accusation of "You were looking down my shirt!" can be explained by the context of her bending over in front of you. This is not blaming the woman.

An accusation of "You rammed my car from behind!" can be great explained by the context of the the driver having stopped suddenly (their action) You would still be to blame for following too closely and going too fast to be able to stop, but the level of blameworhiness is lower. That isn't blaming the motorist who was hit.

An accusation of "You stole my wallet! It's mine and you have it!" can be explained by noting that the person must have dropped their wallet (their action) or that it otherwise left their possession and you found it. That isn't blaming the guy whose wallet you found.

There are many other examples of this, both where the behaviour of the afflicted party fully excuses the accusation and where it only partially does.

And then you've got cases like ronburgundy refers to in the other thread, or what Loren is claiming here, where something is said not to remove or deflect or minimize blame at all.

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Another query: Is blaming the victim always wrong?

If I rear end your car with mine on the highway, either negligently or on purpose with intent to hurt you, you can sue me for damages (as well as me getting arrested in the latter case). I will then ask you if you had your seatbelt on, if you had airbags, and if your car was properly maintained, all with the aim of shifting blame from me to you. This victim blaming, called contributory negligence, will decrease how much of your damages I am forced to pay.

Also in a criminal case where I rammed you on purpose, you did something like stop suddenly and I was unable to avoid ramming into you without running into the ditch or some other hard object, and I chose to ram into you, that would be used to greatly lighten my punishment, whether or not you stopped for a good reason or I blame you for doing so (whether or not it is victim blaming).

 

[KeepTalking]

I did not use the term consent, so your response is based on a straw man. Willingness implies some sort of agreement. At best, this 4 year old can be described as not resisting.

And, all of your responses ignore that this now convicted rapist also claimed this 4 year old initiated the sex. Not only is that a clear attempt to mitigate his responsibility to the 3rd parties, but it is an incredibly damning insight into this rapist's mind that he believes 4 year olds can initiate sex.

A 4 year old can be willing to play a game.

The adult is responsible for saying that game shouldn't be played.

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Yes, it is clear that you refuse to see reality

1) This arose in a therapy context, not a courtroom.

Immaterial, and you have been told this repeatedly by several people, which means that you are willfully ignoring anything that doesn't support your erroneous position

I have been told it by several people who aren't looking at it clearly. You're so fixated on blame-shifting that you don't see that that's not what's happening!

He had three possible courses of action at that point:

1) Describe the situation accurately, aka "Victim-blame"

2) Stay silent

3) Lie

Remember, this is in the context of therapy, #2 and #3 aren't good answers. He's basically left with #1.

Reminder: Nobody has adequately addressed this.

I did. You can find my post here:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?10753-Mayor-blames-4-year-old-for-her-own-molestation&p=398789&viewfull=1#post398789

 

[KeepTalking]

Malintent, Loren, and Jolly:

You are playing right into the OP's rhetorical game of saying this and the other cases are the same, by making unreasonable arguments to find some very unlikely scenario in which the guy's comments might not victim blaming.

In my case, no. I think this likely IS victim blaming in this case. My entire involvement in this thread is in reaction to the wide sweeping claim that any mention of how somebody behaves or what they are wearing must always be victim blaming. I gave numerous examples of that not being the case. The case in the other thread that you refer to is a other example.

I also leave the door slightly open for Loren's argument which may or may not be valid. Was the rapist saying the kid was willing in order to deflect blame, or is he just admitting to his psychological abuse of the child and to manipulating the child so the child would be willing? The child being willing in the latter case and somebody saying so, is not victim blaming, because no blame is being put on the kid. Quite the opposite in fact; the kid is being stated as doubly victimized.

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Keep Talking, I did not see or do not recall your question to me (you are welcome to repeat it) but perhaps the above clears it up?

It only clears up your thoughts with regard to this particular case, as I previously thought you were taking the position that this was not a case of victim blaming. Otherwise, I am pretty sure that I still both apprehend your points, and disagree with them.

You and Ravensky have made the broad sweeping claim that pointing to how somebody dressed or behaved must always equal a shifting of blame from the accused to the claimed victim.

I have never made that claim. You would do better to quote what I am typing directly, and respond to that, so as not to confuse my claims with those of others.

Each of my examples above are meant to show that this need not be so, and that the behaviour of the afflicted party may instead just be part of the context in which the person is operating, and context can excuse what would be blameworthy behaviour in a different context.

Most of your examples were not relevant to the discussion at hand. I will respond to them once again as you raise them below.

An accusation of "You were looking down my shirt!" can be explained by the context of her bending over in front of you. This is not blaming the woman.

This does not constitute a crime, and I would not call this woman a victim. This describes the accidental viewing of the woman's anatomy, and there is no blame for either person in this example.

An accusation of "You rammed my car from behind!" can be great explained by the context of the the driver having stopped suddenly (their action) You would still be to blame for following too closely and going too fast to be able to stop, but the level of blameworhiness is lower. That isn't blaming the motorist who was hit.

Once again, this is an accident, and both people involved can be described as victims. Blame is not assigned, fault is.

An accusation of "You stole my wallet! It's mine and you have it!" can be explained by noting that the person must have dropped their wallet (their action) or that it otherwise left their possession and you found it. That isn't blaming the guy whose wallet you found.

In general, if this was a legitimate lost and found situation, there is no blame for either person. If the person finding the wallet knows whose wallet it is, and made a genuine effort to return it, an accusation of theft actually makes the person who found it the victim of libel or slander.

If, however, the person who has possession of the wallet knew who the wallet belonged to, and took action to avoid returning the wallet to that person, then if they person who was caught with the wallet says "But, he dropped it" in an effort to shift blame to the victim, then that is victim blaming, even though it is the truth.

There are many other examples of this, both where the behaviour of the afflicted party fully excuses the accusation and where it only partially does.

If the behavior of the afflicted party fully excuses the accusation, then that afflicted party is not a victim, and it is not a case of victim blaming. I would have to see an example of a partial excuse to provide my views on that situation.

And then you've got cases like ronburgundy refers to in the other thread, or what Loren is claiming here, where something is said not to remove or deflect or minimize blame at all.

I am not participating in the other thread, and as far as I can tell, ronburgundy and I are currently in agreement in this thread. I disagree with Loren, and I have already responded to his line of reasoning.

Another query: Is blaming the victim always wrong?

My first inclination is to say yes, but I suppose I could be presented with an example that might change my mind. I have yet to see that example. I will note that blaming the victim, however, is always victim blaming.

If I rear end your car with mine on the highway, either negligently or on purpose with intent to hurt you, you can sue me for damages (as well as me getting arrested in the latter case). I will then ask you if you had your seatbelt on, if you had airbags, and if your car was properly maintained, all with the aim of shifting blame from me to you. This victim blaming, called contributory negligence, will decrease how much of your damages I am forced to pay.

If you intentionally rear end my car, then yes, you would be engaging in victim blaming. If it really was accidental, then both persons are victims of the accident, and though you may be at fault, you are not to blame. I would not say that you are victim blaming in that situation.

Also in a criminal case where I rammed you on purpose, you did something like stop suddenly and I was unable to avoid ramming into you without running into the ditch or some other hard object, and I chose to ram into you, that would be used to greatly lighten my punishment, whether or not you stopped for a good reason or I blame you for doing so (whether or not it is victim blaming).

That would not be ramming someone on purpose, that would be making a split second decision in a situation where no decision would result in a good outcome, and would be described as an accident. You may be found to be at fault, but both you and the other person involved in the accident would be victims, so no victim blaming.

 

[RavenSky]

I did not use the term consent, so your response is based on a straw man. Willingness implies some sort of agreement. At best, this 4 year old can be described as not resisting.

And, all of your responses ignore that this now convicted rapist also claimed this 4 year old initiated the sex. Not only is that a clear attempt to mitigate his responsibility to the 3rd parties, but it is an incredibly damning insight into this rapist's mind that he believes 4 year olds can initiate sex.

A 4 year old can be willing to play a game.

The rapist did not say the 4-year-old child was "willing to play a game". The sick bastard said she "initiated it". He was clearly trying to shift responsibility/blame to her. That is victim-blaming, plain and simple.

Yes, it is clear that you refuse to see reality

1) This arose in a therapy context, not a courtroom.

Immaterial, and you have been told this repeatedly by several people, which means that you are willfully ignoring anything that doesn't support your erroneous position

I have been told it by several people who aren't looking at it clearly. You're so fixated on blame-shifting that you don't see that that's not what's happening!

He had three possible courses of action at that point:

1) Describe the situation accurately, aka "Victim-blame"

2) Stay silent

3) Lie

Remember, this is in the context of therapy, #2 and #3 aren't good answers. He's basically left with #1.

Reminder: Nobody has adequately addressed this.

Because it is a red-herring of your own design, and is completely meaningless.

One, his victim-blaming was NOT only in context of "therapy". He said that shit to anyone who would listen. That's why we know about it.

Two, he was not at all describing "the situation accurately".

There. More than adequately addressed and thoroughly debunked.

 

[RavenSky]

/mod

 

[laughing dog]

A 4 year old can be willing to play a game.
The adult is responsible for saying that game shouldn't be played.

And when the adult says "She was willing to play game and I said yes", in this context, it means he is attempting to mitigate his responsibility. Duh. Moreover, you continue to ignore that he also claimed she initiated the sex.

Reminder: Nobody has adequately addressed this.

It has been adequately addressed a number of times by numerous people. First, accurately describing the situation is not victim-blaming, because accurately describing the situation would not permit victim blaming when discussing the molestation and raping of a 4 year old. Second, the rapist cannot know whether the child is willing or not, he is simply describing what he believes are the motivations (assuming he is not lying).

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

So no, bringing up what somebody is wearing or how somebody is behaving CAN be brought up and can even be done so to take blame off of the accused, without it being victim blaming.

Wrong. Discussing the behavior of a victim to take the blame off of the accused is necessarily shifting some of that blame to the victim. It is victim blaming, plain and simple.

Hi KeepTalking, this is the quote I was referring to above.

Discussing the behavior of a victim to take the blame off of the accuse is NOT necessarily shifting any of that blame to the victim. See above for my thoughts and examples to the contrary.

There are many ways somebody may mention the behavior of the victim that do not blame the victim.

If you intentionally rear end my car, then yes, you would be engaging in victim blaming. If it really was accidental, then both persons are victims of the accident, and though you may be at fault, you are not to blame. I would not say that you are victim blaming in that situation.

There's the example of victim blaming then where you may agree it isn't always bad. If I intentionally ram your car from behind, with the intent of injuring you, I can be charged criminally, and you can also bring a civil suit against me for damages for the personal injury. I can then victim blame you, pointing out you weren't wearing your seatbelt and didn't have your car maintained so the airbag would protect you, and if I am right, your damages I have to pay will be reduced. That is the current state of the law. Is it wrong?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A 4 year old can be willing to play a game.

The adult is responsible for saying that game shouldn't be played.

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Yes, it is clear that you refuse to see reality

1) This arose in a therapy context, not a courtroom.

Immaterial, and you have been told this repeatedly by several people, which means that you are willfully ignoring anything that doesn't support your erroneous position

I have been told it by several people who aren't looking at it clearly. You're so fixated on blame-shifting that you don't see that that's not what's happening!

He had three possible courses of action at that point:

1) Describe the situation accurately, aka "Victim-blame"

2) Stay silent

3) Lie

Remember, this is in the context of therapy, #2 and #3 aren't good answers. He's basically left with #1.

Reminder: Nobody has adequately addressed this.

I did. You can find my post here:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?10753-Mayor-blames-4-year-old-for-her-own-molestation&p=398789&viewfull=1#post398789

That's not an adequate answer. You're asking him to jump through hoops to avoid the word "willing".