Todd Akin

And clearly every website you read and news you see is right Wong. They don't even come close to hiding it.

The headlines I see on fox news are so heavily tilted to the right I feel like I have the Onion news network on.

Everything is about liberal conspiracy with you, isn't it?

stratoaxe wrote:  Those are the he said / she said cases where the possibility of wrongful accusation becomes much broader than the "woman abducted by homeless person, raped, and nearly beaten to death" story that's going to make the news.

I can certainly see both sides of the debate here, but let me throw something out there that I find significant.

To Linus' point, while I agree that showing only the accused could possibly ruin an innocent person, I would argue that the news only shows stories that create a buzz and the simple (pardon my downplaying of severity for the sake of discussion) "girl gets violated by ex-boyfriend / crazy uncle" story that accounts for a large portion of rapes isn't going to be newsworthy. Those are the he said / she said cases where the possibility of wrongful accusation becomes much broader than the "woman abducted by homeless person, raped, and nearly beaten to death" story that's going to make the news.

agentwhale007 wrote: It's an interesting debate, for sure. And it's one I'm not sure I honestly have a solid opinion on. I can for sure see the side of releasing the name of the victim, but I can also see the potential harm in it.

I see no harm in it unless you argue "Respecting privacy" and "avoiding embarrassment", but why should the accused be any less privy to those themselves than the accuser? Infact, I'd argue the accused is MORE deserving to it due to the idea of due process (innocent until proven guilty) that Americans hold dear and the stigma attached to such accusations against the accused.

agentwhale007 wrote: of course one answer you've gotten at is a good one: Do a better job with follow-up stories.

I don't see that happening, it won't sell ad spots and produce revenue for the news agency.

Edited by Linus - 24 August 2012 at 1:40am

agentwhale007 wrote: I'm sure that can happen, but what exactly is the news media supposed to do? Not state the available facts? Where does that end, exactly?

If you're going to state the available facts, then state ALL the availble facts instead of cherrypicking. How about releasing both names instead? If you release the accused name and they're later acquitted or it's found out it was falsified, you can't undo the damage that was done by putting that name out in public. If you're acquitted and records are expunged, the court documents will be unavailable, but a prospective employer doing Google search will see you were accused, charged for rape.   You hardly ever see the news articals about acquittals, pretty much only if it's high-profile or special interest.


And yes, you can argue that it's public record which is why you can do the accused name and that the public can look up the accusers name if they want, but you know people won't do that.


I hate when the media uses "We want to respect the privacy of the accuser" but don't give a damn about the accused when they can be just as innocent, if not more so.

agentwhale007 wrote: Even so, even if the 8 percent are indeed false, despite that number most likely being incorrect, we're talking about studies and polls that consistently show that at least half of all rapes are underreported, with that number growing exponentially on college campuses.

I really don't want to go back several years of forum posts, but aren't you of the mind that it's better to have 10 criminals go free than 1 innocent go to jail?

stratoaxe wrote: So while you may be 100% correct that a woman has a harder time conceiving under stress, the way this man used that fact was to cast doubt on a majority of cases.

Not may be, AM


And that's why I'm not standing up to the national and going "Nuh-uh, he's right!" He worded it wrong, didn't use science, and just relied on paraphrasing what others told him.

Edited by Linus - 24 August 2012 at 1:29am

For sure false accusations happen, and I do believe that penalties should be crazy severe for doing so. I think the lines of rape become especially blurry with statutory rape. But that's a well discussed topic with a fairly common consensus.

But my issue with this guy lies strictly in his delivery. It's like people who quite crime statistics all among minorities in conversations about race relations. Are they there? Yup. But when used the wrong way in a conversation it's like portraying then as lesser forms of humanity instead of examine the socioeconomic factors behind the statistics.

So while you may be 100% correct that a woman has a harder time conceiving under stress, the way this man used that fact was to cast doubt on a majority of cases.

agentwhale007 wrote: While reporting on an arrest, the story does almost always include the name of the person charged - because that's the actual fact of what happened. It's not a judgement as to the person actually committing the crime, but simply a statement of fact

When people see "The rape victim, who we will not name, stated Mr Peterson raped her"... the average person will view the anonymous accuser as the victim and the named person as the one who did it, without any further proof. You may write the name due to the arrest, but the average person views the arrest as "Well, they must have done it or they wouldn't have been arrested"

The number of rapes that are never reported because of threat of violence, or because the victim doesn't know what rape is defined as, or for myriad other reasons, is astonishingly high. [/URL]

I'd say the rate of false allegations and convictions based off those is horrendous. Depending on the study, it usually averages in the teens, with the FBIs official number at 8%. That's 4 times the national average of unfounded accusations in all other crimes (at 2%). That's just the number that is found out, some experts believe a much higher number.

Edited by Linus - 24 August 2012 at 12:54am

To be fair, he wasn't THAT far off base, medically speaking, but he definitely worded it wrong. The vagina is a hostile space for sperm and already makes it pretty damn hard for conception. On top of that, if a female is under a lot of stress (such as marital issues, job issues, and yes, rape among other things) it manifests itself physiologically and can in turn make the body less receptive to conception, let alone carrying to term. Of course not impossible.






And to comment on whales post about news refusing to release supposed victims names... the news is also quick to jump on releasing the accused name and address, quickly making it a "She said it happened, so he HAD to have done it" situation, despite the decent percentage of accusations that turn out to be false. It's not an equal playing ground and makes it that much harder for the falsely accused. Just like the general idea that people don't view acquaintance rape as 'real rape', they also view "Well no one would lie about that" and label the accused as guilty.

Edited by Linus - 24 August 2012 at 12:23am

mikesuf wrote: guys...my name is mike..i like to know where i can get a part of tippmann pro/carbine, is there any company in my malaysia or nearest to malaysia..please let me know if have..course i need to buy a spare part for my tippmann pro/carbine..thank you