The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Fair treatment for Republican

    By Flavius on Fri, 10/12/2018 - 11:45pm |

    women who are raped, Also.

    Imagine , something  that united us all. Because we all want to deal with rape.And the current system doesn't. Because in the vast majority of cases  punishing  a perpetrator needs  "corroboration". To avoid the "he said, she said" dead end.

    And in that vast majority  needing  corroboration,  means "yawn"..Doesn't happen.

    By definition rape   involves   two people. Among the multiple errors  prosecuting the Central Park Five, high in the list was believing  five people cooperated. Which  was perpetuated until there was an actual  confession. To his single unwitnessed act.

    After the end last Thursday the prosecutor -as rehearsed- gravely intoned the wisdom that Christine's assault could not be prosecuted anywhere (:say after me) "It was uncorroborated" . Oh thanks!

    Let's talk about some of the stuff we know.about most of rapes. . larger than his victim. By 40 or  50 lbs. Weaponized: Gun or knife.

    Does he need an assistant? No

    Is there a down  side of having one? You bet your grannies' sewing basket. Of course. Someone who could testify him? Oh , thanks. I'll let you know when I need your next assistance.

    So there's never  going to be corroboration .

    So nothing can be done.? Nonsense. A  rapists charter.

    .Until  we decide to do something that hasn't been done. Everything's done for the first time is something that previously couldn't be done before,.The past crimes  in South Africa  couldn't be dealt with .Until the Truth and Reconciliation Committees did.

    In OCS one officer commanded the Student Commander to do whatever. While a second gave him a conflicting  instruction. And yet a third one shouted in my ear

     

    " do something, even if it's wrong."

    Sound advice. 

    Let's do something about uncorroborated assaults. Even if its wrong.

    Here's something.. Any accused but" uncorroborated" rapist must be made to testify to the accuser.  The details must be created but that's not beyond the wit of ma....woman.

    I could conitribute scenarios: the first interview should be via closerd circuit with no witnesses..If that confirms the victim , she tells the cops and the next interview could the standard court room procedure,defense attorneys and all those good things.\Whatever, let's do something. And not something that's  wrong.

    As has been done for 800 years.

    Instead of dealing wth rape,

     

    Added later. Once we accept that accused rapists  can be investigated at any time even when  "punishment" is no longer permitted we'll be liberated to require them as the Brits say to "help the police with their inquires" . Forever.   ..

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    Didn't elicit the  thundering response one complacently awaits.  Not even from Peter.

    Reminded of a  Post  (Boston one )editorial cartoon in late June 1940.  Churchill  standing on the White Cliffs shaking his fist at the sky (maybe the vanishing trail of a Hurricane ) captioned "Well then alone"..

    A  couple of hundred yards from Westminster.  De Gualle  was shaking a fist at the sky. Days before as newly appointed Minister of State for Defense, dining of course at the  Hotel Splendide he went in silence  "to present my respects " to Marshall Petain  who "shook me by the hand  without a word". 

    "Under the outer shell the years had gnawed at his character......Old age is a shipwreck. That we might be spared nothing, the old  age of Marshall Petain was to identify itself with the shipwreck of France."

    Rather joining the wreck De Gaulle put his wife and children on the last boat and caught a British plane..His official position was gone. He left the hotel  he sat in a park. " I seemed to myself,alone as I was, and deprived of everything  like a man on the shore of an ocean proposing to swim across."

    Then he did.Also.

    The scourge of Rape would take the combined efforts of Winston and Charles in their prime.But even with that commitment it will never be done by just tweaking the laws which not only are ineffective but are designed to be so.

    End of sermon.

     

     


    by Flavius on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 8:09am

    There's a harsh reality about rape. Good men can't change bad men. Good men can't stop bad men from raping women. Women have to report rape to the police every time it happens. They have to bear the burden of leading the fight against rape. It will mean not just fighting back against the rapists but against a criminal justice system that doesn't support them. Then good men can stand with them in that fight. It will be a long hard fight but that's the only way to change the criminal justice system and change society. The criminal justice system must be confronted to change and that can only happen if women confront it by reporting rapes.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 2:56am

    I doubt that - any system that requires men to consistently break the male wall of silence simply won't work. It will be through deterrance and evidence and technology that there's some chance, but even that's aa hard row to hoe.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 3:26am

    Perhaps before technology, research

    Artappraiser ,  remarked that expensive private boys -St. Grarklesex-   had some 'splaining to do .Segregation of boys  brimming with testosterone may be for different reasons as counter productive as segregation by race,

    And the particular fallacy  had me grinding my teeth re Kavanaugh blithely  insisting  on  corroboration for the uniquely uncorroborateable .


    by Flavius on Mon, 10/15/2018 - 8:51am