Is innocent sacrifice acceptable for 'greater good'?

That has left me appalled. There is no reason should an innocent person be accused of anything and that be okay. A few points.

1.“false allegations VERY rarely happen, so even bringing it up borders on a derailment tactic. It’s a microscopic risk in comparison to the issue at hand (worldwide, systemic oppression of half the population).” No on so may levels. firstly, whether or not they are frequent does not make them unimportant. These are claims that can and do ruin people's lives. They should be taken as seriously as any other false claims. If a man were to falsely accuse a woman of sexual assault, he would castrated from society, mocked and very likely physically and emotionally attacked(which shouldn't be the case, he should be dealt with in the court of law.) However, there is now this belief by some people that because of a "patriarchy/white supremacy" that exists, women/minorities in general are allowed to violate basic human rights or constitutional rights(depending where you live). Secondly, accusing people of bring up false allegations as a derailment tactic is horrible. If people are bringing it up it is because it is important. No way should someone's suffering be reduced to unimportant or just an excuse someone came up with against a particular stance. Finally, NO WAY is someone's suffering a microscopic risk/issue compared to other's regardless of race/gender/expression/sexuality etc. There are problems with society's treatment of women/LGBTQ+/racial minorities, but there is very much a problem with treating men. Men's rights groups are now publicly mocked, such is the case with A Voice For Men(http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/warren-farrell-mens-rights-movement-feminism-misogyny-trolls/#) being sent death treats and forced to move the event somewhere else because of the vitriol. I would think that an organization dealing with men's problems would be something a feminist would be all over, with the ideology that all genders are equal. More to that, every year, I donate to various charitable such as breast cancer, homelessness, bullying but one of my biggest donations every year is to Movember, because I quite frankly haven't found such a well respected and far reaching organization that is there to deal with a men's health(Any other recommendations would be appreciated)

2. “The benefit of all of us getting to finally tell the truth + the impact on victims FAR outweigh the loss of any one man’s reputation,” and “If some innocent men’s reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay.” One, wouldn't a man falsely accused of sexual misconduct and have his life ruined be considered a victim. And isn't it our job as fellow human beings to help victims. Secondly, in no way, shape or form is it a price that Emily Linden has to pay.

3. I never thought I would agree with a Trump, but Trump Jr. is right, with the caveat that he is generalizing everyone who politically identifies as left. Just because someone is a man, does not mean that they can be treated horribly and made to suffer because of how they identify.

4.Finally, a more optimistic ending. I don't think that we give enough credit where it is due. There are so many people in this world who are loving, caring and selfless. I see men helping women. Women helping men, straight people helping gay people and vice versa etc. and unfortunately it becomes drowned out by all the bad. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was working my theatre group and someone ended up telling everyone that men were better than women and that women do not deserve equal rights. This was immediately stopped by the group which included people of all identities, including every single man there. And while what was said was not at all good, the response was something that was truly amazing.

A quick response to points 3 and 4:

3. A stopped clock is right twice a day

4. There's a problem with the 24-hour news cycle that perpetuates a lot of the negativity as it sells better than the good stories.  That's why it's so drowned out.

And a point on my own as you mentioned the Men's Rights movement for anyone who thinks they are (generally) a sexist joke: Look up the documentary The Red Pill.  It's something you may not agree with, but watch it with an open mind.

When I first read the title, I thought the thread must be about collateral damage in military operations (or maybe the massive oxymoron, "friendly fire"?) so I guess this got somewhat ironic for me before I even opened the thread since I'm probably tempted to give her a pardon just for not wanting to send us off to be canon fodder, before I even find out what she actually said.

I agree with most of the sentiments expressed in this thread, although I'm not entirely sure Ferrell is quite the right fellow to serve my male representation needs, and especially not some of his former understudies (who seem to be sources of what strike me as possibly some even more unfortunate remarks than Linden's).

I suspect Linden might have been waxing heavily rhetorical or even purely wishful with those remarks - if her idea were that a few men being falsely accused were somehow going to result in the emancipation of women worldwide, I might even sympathize somewhat (I might even volunteer to be one of the falsely accused) but I doubt very much that things would work out that way in real life. (I'm also skeptical that any new opportunities are genuinely reflected by recent developments either, being that sex scandals or harassment scandals are not exactly a new thing).

I also think her remarks almost strike me as a tiny bit surrealistic in both that I think the criminal justice system may presumably have some sort of role to play in these matters in real life even though they seem absent in her comments, but also in that just insisting that false accusations rarely happen, one might unwittingly further promote certain stereotypes or even contribute to a climate of cover where false accusations can better flourish or become more commonplace. I'm sure (or so I have often heard) that people have made all kinds of false criminal claims or accusations historically, that there can be blatantly obvious incentives for making them, and that no gender has any virtual monopoly on doing so (or on many other kinds of misbehavior).

Perhaps it's naive of me, but I'm still sort of under the impression that people abide in the criminal justice system with the expectation that even if false accusations occur, they will try to sort things out and generally protect the innocent and punish the guilty, even if they're not infallible - although there may also be cases where the fight to set the record straight might be daunting for the accused and perhaps even a guilty plea has been entered by an innocent person or two somewhere along the line before. Maybe there are more concerns that should at least be a small part of the discussion?

Maybe all Linden's really gained for what could have been better considered remarks are making herself sound much more insensitive than she probably really is, and laying a bit of a feast for the ravenous trolls, providing an opportunity for some conservative to leap in and try to paint the entire collective left as fascists* on her account. (I wonder if Godwin has just witnessed some speed record broken? I'm not quite sure who I have to thank for making that one such an easy point to make here, Jr. or dad tweeting from Jr.'s account, but there must be some game afoot if ever I'm tempted to agree with either such prestigious and rapid respondent, given all past commentaries from the elder). Is the right's idea of equality straw women? Hmmm...

I do very much agree, if I've understood correctly, that the subject becoming a debacle almost risks very unfortunate distraction from the more important matter of countless unnamed but highly commendable and perfectly exemplary people who somehow manage to refrain from abuses of authority or advantage, actual or imagined. Thankfully decent people are more memorable, if for some strange reason not also more newsworthy.

(*Of course we're not fascists, that's just plain silly. We on the left are quite the opposite, being virtually infamous for our fiendish plans to shamelessly let everyone do whatever the hell they please, the natural result of which being of course anarchy, chaos, and debauchery on a vast scale).

I'm going to go into this almost completely blind: conflation of terms tends to lead to quite a lot of trouble when talking about issues such as "the greater good". You can see it particularly often when an expression of understanding in a particular subject is treated as a pardon for or acceptance of it. There are many who understand the principles of eugenics, but do not condone it as any sort of worthwhile philosophy. Another problem is defining what exactly is the greater good. In this case, I think we can say that it means "to the benefit of the greater public consciousness". However, what this view ignores the consent of those to be sacrificed. Treating them both as being in the minority and less important than those they are attempting to persecute. What ends up happening in this sort of case is that they destroy the people they were trying to protect. It's all to do with parallax and points of perspective.

Let's say in a hypothetical scenario on August 6, 1945, the Soviet Union dropped Malen'kiy Mal'chik on Boston. The sky is alight with fire, the clouds rupture, the ground roars in agony and the world is forever changed. 77,000 are extinguished with a further 100,000 savaged by the radiation cloud that drifts through Massachusetts. They become known as the Blues Boys, those whose families even today are affected by the hideous degenerations of the fallout. The damage is irreparable, their lives altered beyond their worst fears. The States surrender to the Soviets, their military forcibly disbanded. Their government allows a small contingent of their forces to occupy their country for some time while the victorious party studies the data from the explosions. It's kept as privileged information despite the potential benefits it could have to mankind. Slowly, the city of Boston is transformed into the City of Peace, a monument to antinuclear proliferation and one of the strongest proponents of unilateral disarmament during the Cold War. In the eyes of wider history, it's taught as an entirely justifiable act. One which definitively ended the war, although there are disputes here and there about its efficacy. All in all, it changes the American consciousness in ways that were never dreamed of and perhaps it was an act for the better. The world can rest safe in that knowledge. It was for the greater good, a good thing.

Now... Replace every mention of the Soviet Union with the United States, and the Americans with the Japanese. It's an identical history, and you can see the little preconceptions that have been pushed through. And an important question is raised that needs to be answered honestly: is that sacrifice for the greater good suddenly less "worth it", when it is your own group who are on the "losing" side?

And that's not an accusation, that's meant to provoke thought. It's why I don't like the concept of "winning wars", human beings seem a bit too defined by point scoring. To the extent that we measure history by periods of conflict rather than periods of peace. No one actually wins, they simply survive. It's that scene from Memphis Belle when they're looking for where they're supposed to drop the bomb. Instead of finding the assembly plant, a military target, they see a school and the pilot's off-sider shouts: "Who cares? They're all Nazis." Innocence seems to be way too easily devalued by the guilt of others.

Prevaricate

verb (used without object), prevaricated, prevaricating.
1. to speak falsely or misleadingly; deliberately misstate or create an incorrect impression; lie.

www.dictionary.com/browse/prevaricate?s=t



Prevaricate

verb

speak or act in an evasive way.

"he seemed to prevaricate when journalists asked pointed questions"



Examples of prevaricate in a Sentence

Government officials prevaricated about the real costs of the project.

during the hearings the witness was willing to prevaricate in order to protect his friend

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prevaricate



How polite of you. Wow. Not only do you assume your opinion is true, you're going to accuse me of being deceitful? I'm having a hard time thinking of a word that sounds like "prevaricate" that you might have been thinking of.

If you want to debate something, debate someone's points. You're simply calling it a "conflation" and a "fallacy." Fine. That's an opinion. The fact that I don't share it doesn't mean I'm prevaricating when I say why.






I think I'm starting to understand that other thread that was started on the subject of people choosing to leave the forum.

Whatever.

/out

Well, apologies too, I suppose.  It just really seemed to be pointlessly aggressive. I was aggressive in response.

I didn't mean to say I was leaving the forum, though I see how it looks that way. It was more, "OK, screw this thread, I'm taking a walk." But, it sounds like neither of us are interested in grudges, so I'm happy to forget and move on.





As for the point. It's just the way I'm trying to rationalize the doing of an act one might consider unacceptable as against the simple fact that something had to be done, and that that particular act was done; therefore, as I see it, at least whomever did the act can be said to have "accepted" its consequences.

I don't intend to soapbox, though. The point was simply that, at least to the person who acts, it seems there must be some kind of de facto acceptance of whatever they do. They might still think it awful and evil, but they did it, so by definition, they accepted the consequences of their act no matter how terrible they are and no matter how they wound the actor.

I could keep going, but maybe it's pointless. Maybe I'll do it anyway. So there's this U.S. movie about a hiker who falls down a cleft of some sort. Gets trapped. After days of no water, no food, of hallucination and pain, he cuts his own arm off to escape. To me, it wouldn't make any logical sense to call it un-acceptable, un-bearable, or any other "un" modifier + verb. He did the thing, so he did bear it and he did accept it.

So too with the decision to murder hundreds of thousands of innocents with the bomb. Maybe I say that's unacceptable, he should have tried a demonstration. But, at least to Truman, it was acceptable - he did it. That, or we need a new agreed definition of "acceptable." It seems strange to me to say that someone did a terrible thing but that they considered it unacceptable. Rather, it seems to me, they did the thing because it was less unacceptable (or "more acceptable") than the other options. What else can the term mean?


Granted, what I was talking about was a far way off from the OP's scenario. But that was the point....I wanted to test the extreme ends of the term so as to define the debate.

y'know...I'm really wrestling with whether or not to let that go unanswered.

1. As to the one accuser RW media has made noise about in recent days:

"Fake news" charge: She forged the entire thing in this HS yearbook she had.

Objective charge: She failed to correct the media/public's assumption that the entire writing in the yearbook was Roy Moore's own, when in fact, she added the date as a "note".


2. There are other accusers.

3. There are police officers who have reported that he was banned from a mall over his focus on underage girls, and another, that he was to be watched - I think at HS sports events.

4. He was a small town prosecutor. That = power, and power=protection, and protection = a reason not to report.

5. General reputation of character from those in the relevant time period.




Now I mainly argue about politics in another board, and a thing I've noticed there is a curious situation. Here is a general comment not specifically on you, archer, but on the general harassment topic:

Those making the most noise about Franken and Conyers are making the least noise about Trump and Moore. (One can also lump in the so-called "Hollywood Liberals" who went down). If they want to ignore something about any one of those four, they latch onto one little factoid as an excuse to ignore everything else. Ditto if one intends to condemn everything.

Now, I am very wary of believing the worse carelessly, but a few points:

A. It's a he-said/she-said. Yup. Just like the vast majority of sexual assault cases even rape. Most of this is either a question of whether it happened or whether it was consensual, and most of the time there is no physical evidence.

B. Why would all these people subject themselves to public scrutiny and humiliation? Even if one supposes that one accuser is just - inexplicably - an "attention seeker", why would so many come out? It's not just accusers. It's also people who were police officers at the time. Meanwhile, the signature in the yearbook is real. We've got a postcard yet to be tested. And there's his general reputation in town: Moore likes young girls.

C. He can counter-sue for slander/libel. In civil court, he must prove it is more likely than not that their accusations were untrue. That's >50%, which isn't so tough.

D. There are a good number of Alabama voters who said they'd vote for him even if everything was 100%. If 100%, we're talking about statutory rape, stalking, etc. I need to go re-find the poll, but that is scary. Better a sexual predator than a Democrat - is that really where we are now in the states?

E. They waited. Again, yeah, see the bit about how he was The small down prosecutor. But now he's running for a seat when he has power over everyone. How is that not a reasonable time to come forward? If you're going to do it, you do it then, no?





 

I have to wonder....I really have to wonder.

Why so quick to suppose that so many people would publicly lie just to *get* Roy Moore? Why? What logical sense does it make? Alabama is one of the safest GOP states. They could have done this at any time if it wasn't true, just to take out a GOP candidate.

Have you ever hated someone so much that you contemplated lying about them in public to destroy them? Have you? I'm guessing no. If no, then why would you assume that about another human being that you don't know?

So why now - logically?




In terms of this thread, no I would not think it acceptable to sacrifice him if he's innocent, for a cause. But all reason suggests he is not innocent. Not any more than any other of these sick abusive powerful men.

Burn the witch sexual deviant!

Trump's problem is that he has an inability to turn up actually evidence. Obama presented his birth certificate to end the birther movement, but naturally Trump had to try keep it going.