No wonder that game feels so inspired.
Menzo
4472
I think this makes it clear that sexual assault isn’t about the sex. Ron Jeremy is a professional sex-haver.
It’s about domination and power.
Yes. In many ways, referring to these sorts of attacks and assaults with different terminology than we use for other types of attacks and assaults has allowed people to view them as somehow less severe. Sometimes I guess it gets complicated as when “rape” has a very specific legal meaning and “sexual assault” fills in the gap between that and indecent behavior or something, but in general, “sex” should definitely not be the thing we think of. “Assault” should be.
I don’t know, assault doesn’t mean much to me when you can be charged with assault for throwing a marshmallow at somebody.
Yeah, that’s another problem with the language, and how technical it gets. I’m open to suggestions, though the point remains for me at least that constantly referring to attacks on people as “sex crimes” or the like seems to be part of the perception problem.
I tend to rank sex crimes higher on the super no-no list, so seeing something categorized that way only multiplies the criminality in my mind. It never occurred to me that it was softening the blow for others. But I guess I will admit I do tend to think of someone charged with flat out “rape” as worse than “sexual assault,” which could be something on the level of slapping a butt after a win.
I guess we could remove all ambiguity and get more literal and direct with the reporting and charges of crimes committed, but god forbid people get ruffled about hearing the true nature of an offense.
I just don’t know if there’s a way to effectively or realistically manage how an observer mentally categorizes certain crimes, because for every person you manage to convey the true severity and gravity of a sexual assault, you’ll still have several others who scoff at the idea of a “statutory rape” being anywhere near the level of a “real rape.” And I don’t think simply labeling all crimes of these nature under the same nomenclature umbrella will help at all because every single charge filed will only leave more questions than answers.
Oh, I agree, and I have no solutions either. I just get frustrated watching truly harmful behavior hand-waved away, or focused on only for the voyeuristic titillation the coverage often tends towards.
rowe33
4478
Watching the show Psych the whole way through has led to a lot of uncomfortable moments in how the main duo talks about women but this one was especially on point for its time back in 2011!
Shawn: Jules has a problem, and me, as her man have to fix it
Gus: I don´t think that´s what it means
Shawn: Gus, there are three things in the world that no one understands except for me and NBC anchor Brian Williams: When a woman complains about a personal issue, she doesn´t want her man to just listen, she wants him to solve the problem
Gus: I don´t think that´s right Shawn
People are so stupid. You have a super-cushy job and are due ginormous money with your golden parachute, yet you choose to behave like a 14-year-old adolescent boy and share naughty pics.
Stop thinking with your dicks, privileged white males! (And really, all other males too.)
You have to understand how many rich folk see laws as suggestions at best, but mostly just as things to keep the unwashed masses on the right side of the gates.
Scuzz
4483
I don’t think it is this so much (but surely it does exist) as that wealth does not always equal intelligence or common sense. You would think someone managing a company would have those things but there are human emotions/feelings/urges that go beyond base intelligence.
Also true, but in general, I think @inactive_user nails it. This is less about individuals behaving badly (though it is indeed that as well) and more about the sense of entitlement and privilege elites have had since, well, since there were elites. There is precious little difference between the attitude of a noble at Versailles and one of these modern-day robber barons, except the French dudes had better taste in fashion.
You might as well say people abuse power. There will always be people who abuse what power they’re given. Power corrupts and all that.
Is it true that powerless people don’t abuse power? Uh, sure. What’s the solution? Give no one power? Seems like the right solution is to punish those in power who do abuse it, as giving power is a necessity and not all those in power abuse it.
Sure, we should punish abusers of power. Also, maybe limit how much power someone can accumulate or assume? Thereby avoiding the false dichotomy?
Do you think that this creep was only able to do what he did because he was the CEO of McDonald’s? Bosses of smaller companies can be creeps. Teachers can be creeps. Coaches. Politicians.
“Limit how much power someone can accumulate or assume”. Pray tell how you’d go about doing that in a meaningful way that addresses this issue and would get folks not to complain about the “power of elites”. Adam_B’s post is pretty much nothing more than a generic complaint about power and promotion of class warfare.
To the extent that he did it and got away it and got paid millions to leave when he was caught? Yes, I think it takes a job like that.
Regulate executive compensation? Regulate boards of directors? File criminal charges for sexual harassment / exploitation, including criminal charges for companies that seek to cover up such incidents?
There is already a class war happening. It’s just that only one side has been fighting it.
I’m not saying that we need to eat the rich. I’m saying we need to take most of their power and their stuff, and redistribute them for the common good, because nobody needs that much power and stuff concentrated to that extreme.
Jeff Bezos is rich because we all agree that he’s rich, not because he has bound the essence of the universe to his soul and it now dances to his whims.
tl;dr fuck yes class warfare, it’s well past time.
The problem with this line of reductionism–it’s all the fault of bad people–is that it ignores the reality that certain social structures and systems create, sustain, and support these actions, and other social structures do the opposite. No, we can not eliminate abuse of power, or abuse of wealth, or bad behavior in general. That’s a strawman argument; no on is claiming we can. What we can do is acknowledge that our society confers high status and near blanket immunity from consequences on people with extreme wealth, and does so because other people of extreme wealth find that it benefits them and those like them. Once we acknowledge that, we can start looking for ways to dismantle the framework that makes this sort of thing possible, starting with undercutting the narratives of Social Darwinism.
As an immigrant who’s family came here with nothing, here’s my thoughts on this: everyone who throws out vague arguments for equitable redistribution like this was never, ever really truly poor. If they were, they’d know there’s ALWAYS someone else who is poorer than you, who thinks that if we’re redistributing, you should give up what you have because you have more than you need. Perhaps the entire industrialized world needs to wake up and give half of what they have to the 3rd world countries? Our family left our poverty-stricken, war-ridden country because we (selfishly) decided we wanted more than what most of our countrymen had. Relatively speaking, we’re all mini Jeff Bezos, compared to the conditions of some. Glass houses and all that.
There are no viable solutions where someone gets to go around and decide what others should have, based on some internal sense of equity. It’s been tried: that someone inevitably decides they’re the one that should have it all.
We can look at social constructs, we can implement certain regulations that will steer the ship by degrees, as Wombat has thrown out, but your constant refrain of nothing more than guillotines and Robin Hood until the world is somehow an equitable utopia is nothing more than a rabble-rousing pipe dream. By all means, let’s raise the top tax rate and other measure to address wealth disparity. But if you think any of that, even if implemented, would have prevented Weinstein and the McDonald’s CEO from doing what they did, you’re mistaken.
