From: maufd@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr J S Graley)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminist=Equality? Errrr.... Nope.
Date: 22 Jan 1993 18:11:20 -0000
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
NNTP-Posting-Host: lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk

In article <1993Jan20.191731.12560@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov> julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas) writes:
|In article <1jk3vrINNob7@lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk> maufd@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr J S Graley) writes:
|>In article <1993Jan19.211957.23038@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov> julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas) writes:
|>|In article <1jhp09INNnv9@lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk> maufd@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr J S Graley) writes:
|>|>
|>|>(1) Claim that cries of rape should always be believed, true or false.
|>|>
|>|>(2) Try to prevent false cries of rape, making true ones more believable. 
|>|
|>|How about
|>|(3) Treat all cases individually.  Follow 'innocent until proven
|>|guilty'.  Don't assume all rape accusations are all false or
|>|all true.  Prosecute *anyone* making false claims of any sort
|>|for personal gain.
|>
|>I have taken your (3) as a premise. Thus its introduction into the list
|>is pointless.
|
|Hardly.  I sure didn't see (3) in your words.

Look at your (3) again. Courts always treat all cases individually. This is
why we have juries. Innocent until proven guilty is also always the case, 
with the proviso that we cannot ever have an absoulte proof, mearly very
good evidence. The whole dint of my original article was that some rape
accusations are true, and others are false. And it is the law to prosocute
people making false accusations.

I feel you are trying to belittle my argument by adding a rather obvious 
contribution which I was never arguing with, and then trying to accuse me
of not agreeing with them. You have no right to put words ito other people's
mouths.

|
|I felt (1) was ridiculous and (2) too amorphous and vague to be
|of any use.
|

I'm glad you find (1) ridiculous. Now go tell that to all the feminists who 
are actively supporting it. Sure, you don't support it yourself, but by not
criticising it, you condone it.

As for (2), it is not amorphous or vague. If you insist that it is, I suggest
you devise your own, more precise definition along the same lines, and say
whether you support _that_.

|>
|>We can never 'Prove' a rape has occured. We can simply provide good evidence
|>that it has.
|
|You can never 'prove' *any* crime has occured. 

Will you _please_ stop trying to make it look like I don't believe these 
things. I have said this already. it is obvious. There is no capital for
you to throw them at me as if I did not understand them or subscribe to 
them.

|>
|>DO YOU OR DO YOU NOT agree that fewer false accusations of rape will make
|>the process of demonstrating a true one easier?
|
|How do you decide which accusations are false without a trial?  How
|do you cut out the false accusations a priori?  Do you 'pre-judge'
|rape accusations?  By whom?  Is there some list that you can 
|consult to say which are true allegations and which are false?

All this is moot.
Stop avoiding the question.

You are once again (for the third time) pretending I do not understand the
mechanisms by which justice operates.

This is very immature. Why can't you just give an answer? Either you do
believe this or you do not.

|In addition, there is the problem with people lying and with
|current laws.  There are cases when a women lies about being
|raped.  There are also cases, as I discussed with another poster,
|when a drunk woman seduces a man who is later called a rapist.

I think we'd better get the clear cut cases agreed upon before we go on to
more contreversial matters, don't you?

|Which case is "false?"  Currently, only the first case is
|"false" in the legal sense.  The second case, while you and
|I may consider it false, is not legally "false" under some state laws.
|Also, until recently, in Utah a man could have sex with his
|wife without her permission and it was not considered rape.
|What is now considered rape had previously been "false."
|So, how do you define "false?"  False according to legal 
|standards, or false according to yours?  Where in the spectrum
|of sober/drunk, seducer/seduced do you draw the line of "false?"

For the sake of argument, let's say false according to _your_ standards.

|>
|>This is a really important question, because the attitude you have shown in 
|>your posting does not seem to support this.
|
|Your post seems to indicate you feel it's possible to lower
|false accusations before trials take place, instead of lowering
|them by penalities for making false accusations and re-writing
|laws.

No. I think correct penalties for false accuations is part of the answer. I
am concerned by how lightly women take the subject of false rape accusations,
when they would obviously gain from there being fewer. So I wanted to see
if you would clearly and unambiguously say that there is a real need to
avoid false accusations. You have not done so. You have failed to break
my stereotypical view of women as people who simply want the license to lock
up men whenever it suits them.

Well done.

|Julie
|DISCLAIMER:  All opinions here belong to my cat and no one else

~THE GREAT NAME
-- 
    Don't worry,
     Its like in the comic books...
      ITS NOT REAL!
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women