re: Open Letter to Andrew Sullivan, 2001/10/10:08:50
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respond responses (thread index) next in thread: mindgrope2001_10_10:09:54 |
(previous in thread, mindgrope) : ~ ~ ~ Think of an analogy. If a young women goes to a frat party drunk ~ and wearing next to nothing and gets raped, then the rapist, of ~ course, is ultimately to blame. However, she would be seriously ~ irresponsible if she refused to consider the role of her ~ provocation. She surely wasn't "asking for it," but neither was she ~ doing enough to avoid foreseeable consequences. There are multiple ~ layers of different kinds and degrees of responsibility here, and ~ it does no good to reduce the complexity to the point where one ~ party is entirely on the hook and the other entirely off. In a short word: Bullshit. A woman should be able to walk down the street at 2 am naked and not be touched. How can I say this? Because I wouldn't touch her, and I'm damned if I'll fail to take credit for that. Anyone who would touch her is a degenerate loser with no right to the name of human. To do anything less than condemn such animals would be to piss on my own virtue, and anyone who says, "she should have known better" is saying that my virtue counts for nothing, that I have no reason to be virtuous, because I should be treated as a moral degenerate "just in case." They are saying that character is not real--that all men are at all times to be treated as rapists, and no matter how decently and respectfully a man behaves, he is to be considered a monster underneath. Well I am not a monster, and I'll not be lumped with monsters for the sake of anyone's argument. What Will is saying is that we should acquiesce to evil. Women should modify their self-expression (perhaps they should go veiled?) so young men won't have to do anything unreasonable, like respect the rights of another human being. I do not think it is too much to ask of men to respect the rights of others. True, this would be easier to do if we respected the rights of men--the rapidity with which conscription has become a question in the current conflict is a measure of how little we respect the rights of men. Both men and women have rights. I respect them. I expect others to do so as well, regardless of race, gender or religion. If they don't, then in a free society they have to take sole and entire responsibility for not doing so. The United States is a free society. There are endless ways of modifying U.S. foreign policy that don't involve killing thousands of innocent people. The assholes who were responsible for 9/11 did not choose any of those endless ways. To carry Will's analogy through: if you meet a drunk, scantily clad woman at a frat party, there are endless things you might do toward the end of having sex with her. If you choose rape, you are a monster and deserve to be subject to behavior modification. Osama bin Laden chose rape, and the Taleban stood around cheering him on, and now their apologists are saying, "She should have known better--this was a foreseeable consequence of her actions." One might argue, rather, that it was a foreseeable consequence of letting Osama bin Laden, and those who have given him material support, live and go free. That is an oversight that will be remedied soon enough. |