…because that’s not how our justice system has worked at any point in our entire history? Are you serious? One needs actual physical evidence.
Also, why if you believe them, why did you…cut off all their faces? What the…
You can’t trust them.
They are the embodiment of pettiness, vanity, princess behavior and hate.
Just hack the servers instead of waiting for the list
the fuck is this cropping
It’s not like a list release it’s going to make anyone fall.
There have been other lists before.
Powerful people never suffer because their name are on a list.
But it’s good for business to keep people talking about it. It keeps them from taking direct actions which would have meaningful impact.
Conservatives can’t believe women because you can’t believe someone you hate and view as inferior.
Because there have been too many cases where women have been proven to have lied. (Which isn’t to imply that people are lying about Epstein. This is a general point.)
Let people have due process and release the Epstein files.
There’s a huge amount of women plus Trump’s comments about women. It makes sense to believe them
I like the version “Take all women seriously” over “Believe all women”.
It addresses both problems - some women false report, but if you take all of them seriously, nobody (theoretically) gets away with committing a crime.
I guess it’s not as catchy, though.
You can believe women and tend to their psychological trauma while also waiting to condemn the accused until they are convicted in court.
Now, the Epstein stuff is very different, there’s overwhelming evidence and it’s very obvious. But as a general rule otherwise, just ruining a life based on someone’s claim shouldn’t be okay.
i don’t think having evidence will change anything. there’s a lot of stuff with concrete proof that he got away with…
he has repeatedly violated the hatch act, commited multiple felonies, illegally fired several federal employees, bungled diplomatic relations publicly, funnelled billions of dollars to his family and friends etc .
he got away with it all 🙄
And he will probably die without receiving punishment for his crimes, and I think that pisses me off the most.
Makes me wish hell was real
Me too, but at least he will die
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Sadly I feel like even if the list was fully released and trump is 100% confirmed to have done everything he would still not face any consequences. He would just say it’s a lie or made up and his followers and the news media would agree with him. It’s a sad fucking state this country is in. With all that being said RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!
I was going to lead with a snide comment like “Amber Heard has entered the chat”, but here’s the thing… A close friend of mine got absolutely fucked over this way.
One day, out of the blue, his wife went psycho. Divorced him, accused him of abusing the kids, coached the kids to say they were abused, the works.
He lost custody, had court battle after court battle, dealt with the most evil, vile shit said about him, none of which was true.
When he attempted the court mandated visitation she would literally attack him and deny visitation. When he recorded her, she broke the video camera.
Then she up and died from a brain tumor.
He goes to court with the medical evidence for her bizarre behavior, and you’d think that would be it, right? Nope. Court tries to give custody of the kids to HER parents, who are of an age that they can’t care for teenagers.
So her parents have to travel from 4 states away to testify that there’s no evidence to support the accusations, that he should have custody of his kids.
Whole process took 7 or 8 years and he finally got custody just as one of his kids turned 18 and could do what they wanted anyway.
I dont know if its any solice to you, but the courts are changing. This story feels like its at least 20 years old, if not more so. My wife is a Family Law attorney, and shes shared story after story where the courts biased is slipping away. There are even entire national law firms dedicated to mens divorce/family law that thrived because they knew how to navigate the bias.
Id like to think your buddy’s story would have a different ending if it happened today
It definitely is.
I’m sorry to hear that happened to your friend. I had a family member who went through uncharacteristic and risk taking behavior before they ultimately passed from a brain tumor. It happens and it is very confusing for everyone involved. Especially since that person, a very accomplished (decorated officer) intelligent person (genius IQ) randomly started on hard drugs, which just confused the situation further. We got them away from that life just in time to get them a diagnosis. The strain and chaos with that type of illness can be devastating.
That being said, I think the number of women in this case, and the context clues, are sufficient that we can conclude that this guy isn’t innocent. We have multiple different testimonies and his own words about young girls and his own daughter to conclude he was involved in that lifestyle at a time when he was high on money, power and a circle that was judgment free. He ran pageants in the 90’s which just… ewww. Also, I mean who calls Epstein at 5am in the morning and leaves messages? Not exactly normal operating hours. If he wasn’t insulated with limousines and a real estate empire this guy would have been drug through the mud in any podunk town for being a total creep. No one would be questioning when word came out, they’d be saying, “oh yeah, that guy, I can see it”
“oh yeah, that guy, I can see it”
Definitely the vibe, for sure 🤮
Your friend has told you a very unusual set of circumstances that sounds awful. Has he had as many women accused him of abuse as Trump has?
Two separate things, if not even three.
The first point is rule of law, and that’s what the “believe women” statement generally refers to. “Believe women” is a nice and simple statement that completely ignores all complexity in a minefield of legal complexity. Relationships (especially ones that end bad) are incredibly complicated and there are ample cases where women lied for some benefit and ample cases where men actually did what they were accused of. Turning that into blank “believe women” or “disbelieve women” would be terrible either way. It would be just as smart as “believe employers” or “believe employees” in work-related lawsuits. So rule of law dictates that judgements need to be evidence-based.
The second point is Epstein. There’s ample evidence, ample victims and ample witnesses. If Epstein was still alive, there’s very little doubt that he’d be convicted. Sadly he is not and the USA doesn’t prosecute dead people, which in cases like this is a real issue since that also means there’s much less research into potential co-perpetrators.
Third, there’s Trump. In a somewhat decent time line any politician politician worthy of their position accused of a fraction of what Trump was accused (and convicted) of, Trump would have resigned years ago. Sadly Trump is not decent and the US has jack squat of safety mechanisms when it comes to top politicians that are grossly unfit for the office. That’s where the Epstein-files come in. They need to be released, but not to convict Trump for anything because it just won’t work. There’s no justice when it comes to high-ranking politicians in the USA. It’s too much of a legal backwater country to hold actually powerful people accountable.
But Trump’s followers were sworn in to the Epstein files for years now. That was one of the really big topics during Trump’s campaign and it has become much more than just a list of rapists/criminals. If the Epstein files are released and Trump is on them, that could actually turn his base against him, which would be much more valuable than getting him not convicted one more time.
In some ways, the point isn’t just convincing people on here that Trump Is a paedophile and rapist. Generally, anyone on Lemmy capable of exhaling and inhaling knows he is.
The point is also whether you can convince such a huge male population to alter their viewpoint by women’s testimony. Though it should make sense, men have had to build up an intense emotional reaction to the possibility of “women’s testimony” and how much more powerful it is societally than theirs.
I’d definitely agree that’s fucked up. And as someone in a more stable life situation, I’d say two or three is all it takes to answer your question. But for so many people who feel out of control of their lives, whether or not I agree with the silly idea “Men are under attack” I can actually understand the sentiment of “Oh, just their word against his? It’s a conspiracy.”
Abusers generally back up other abusers IME. And so they maintain the narrative of “the women made it up” cos it suits them
Nope, just the one. He since passed away himself. 😟
His kids ended up being pretty maladjusted for several years, but came out the other side OK. I did lose track of them after he died though, I would imagine that hit them hard. Like their mom it was equally sudden.
I have a friend with a very similar story, but he’s one of the kids.
It took him easily 10 years after he moved out to manage to trust any women at all. He was seriously scarred from that.
What a tragic childhood. I can’t imagine living with the mom would’ve been easy either. 😞 Rest in peace, both mom and dad. I hope the kids take solace in the (perhaps fact?) that it was the tumor that caused this mess, and that they don’t think it was in any way their own fault.
Can I ask what your friend/their dad died of?
Massive sudden anyurism. No suffering at least.
After all that fighting, to go so suddenly. I’m sorry to hear this, even if it might have been a long time ago.
He did end up having a good life. Re-married, a few more younger kids. The funeral was epic.
While I agree that your friend’s story sucks, custody cases are handled very differently from rape cases. The justice system is prejudiced against men in that case, whereas in rape cases it is prejudiced against women. In both cases it would be nice if the prejudice is somehow removed.
It’s less bias against women (demonstrated by male accusers of female perps having even worse odds), but rather that it’s an accusation of a serious crime and thus has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Which is complicated by very many cases having exactly 2 witnesses (accuser and accused) and often little or no other evidence.
The usual counter to this is to claim that accuser testimony should always be believed and should itself be proof beyond a reasonable doubt because no one would ever lie about this sort of thing, but that doesn’t jive with reality - for example, look at the Duke lacrosse case, or Brian Banks, or Tracy West accusing her ex (to use a few that got significant media attention), or those exonerated by the Innocence Project (a majority faced sex crime charges). For the first two of those, the accuser actually admitted to lying, (even if Crystal Mangum waited until 18 years later while in prison for an unrelated murder and Wanetta Gibson waited until the person she falsely accused had served 5 years in prison and was on the sex offender registry and partway through his 5 years of probation and then had to be secretly recorded because she didn’t want to reveal to truth publicly and risk losing the damages she was awarded from the school district).
Yeah, because the courts are clearly biased toward male rape victims. 🙄
Yeah, that’s anecdotal. And irrelevant.
Look, that sounds like a terrible situation. However, if you’re suggesting his experience is an acceptable excuse to assume women are lying if they accuse a man of sexual assault, then go fuck yourself. I’m not even kidding.
Criminal charges require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An accusation alone is not that. You paint it as assuming women are lying, but you instead want to treat their word as damning proof unto itself, while people like Crystal Mangum, Tracy West and Wanetta Gibson (to name some who got media attention) thoroughly leave the reasonable doubt in place.
An accusation alone is not that.
How about 30+? At some point, the “bias against men” thing goes out the window when you’re dealing with someone like Trump.
No, not at all my argument.
And if you think anyone, without even considering gender should just be believed without any evidence, then you too, should go fuck yourself.
A judicial system does not function on feelings or beliefs. It functions on science. You need evidence in order to consider a position fact. Potentially ruining people’s lives because of personal feelings, is fucking evil.
Edit. The person you replied to mentioned nothing about assuming women are lying, all they said was that they are capable of doing so.
Everyone in here pretending that “believe women” means “convict the accused without any evidence.” Straw man city.
Edit- to add: one of the few insightful things Reagan ever said: “Trust but verify”. We can generally believe women about this, while also caring about actual evidence
So what is the evidence that the justice system doesn’t already believe them?
For one, the inexcusable number of untested and/or lost rape kits
I didn’t say any of… whatever windmill you’re fucking tilting.
And they didn’t say any of what you said…
I’m just saying that false accusations happen, a lot, and yeah, my one friend is just a single data point, OTOH:
“The article begins by reviewing up-to-date research suggesting that the rate of false reporting for sexual assault is in the range of 2-8%.”
That’s not me saying this, that’s the National Sexual Violence Resource Center saying this.
So in a year with 734,630 rapes*:
https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics
Somewhere between 14,692 and 58,770 are going to be false accusations? That’s a lot. Like “a lot” a lot. Potentially 10K more than the annual number of gun deaths and 2x the number of gun suicides.
*Unclear if that’s an estimated number of rapes or the reported number of rapes. I’m assuming reported because it’s the only number we’ve got here and there’s no way to know the actual number with certainty.
A lot? No. I call bullshit
Between 14k and 50k lives potentially ruined [out of roughly ~700k already destroyed]? It takes a special kind of willful ignorance to say that isn’t a lot, and a certain kind of stupidity to deny the evidence supporting it.
Edit: Added some words since reading comprehension is difficult for some.
in a year with 734,630 rapes*:
That’s around 700000 lives definitely ruined mate, don’t know where you get 50k
Yes, we already knew this because of the data and the context of the thread. The other poster was not questioning that, which is why I only referenced the cases in which someone innocent could be falsely accused.
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There are many people who are too scared to come out
That’s why they made “laws” to protect themselves while they cover up the truth and bury the evidence and THEN come out and say that they have done “an investigation” and found no wrongdoing.
We do, until the legal system gets involved z and the entire point of that legal system is that it can’t care if you’re male, female, trans, or not.
If someone accuses you of rape, they have to be able to prove it. I known this sucks. I also know that this is a situation that many times is a “he said she said” situation that cannot be proven, so yes, I also know that there are many rapists out there, walking amongst us, possibly waiting to strike again
I also know that that is the price that we (most western European democracies, the US is already on the rdge) pay for a system of law that does not primarily focuses on jailing the guilty, it primarily focuses on keeping the innocent out of jail.
And yes, that is a system that you want. The second that we’d have a system where we would always automatically believe the word of any random person, just and only because she is a woman, you’d better be careful with who you decide will be your girlfriend. Same goes in reverse.
I wish that’s how the legal system works but it does not. The way the legal system works is the wealthier you are the more innocent you are. The wealthier you are the more advantages you have. The wealthier you are the easier it is to crush anyone trying to get Justice from you. That’s the way our Justice system works. That’s the way it’s designed to work.
While yes, that still doesn’t mean we just believe every accusation. It just means we fix the justice system first and then do it properly. All that really needs to happen is that tax money pays for lawyers, and the rich party could pay for extra legal help, but it will go equally to both sides.
Innocent till proven broke.
Kinda like a financial witch trial except that surviving it exhonerates you.
Well, unless you’re not white. Then the court will be very happy to sentence you based on the witness testimony alone. Self-admission of guilt taken after 14 straight hours of interrogation will also work.
Yep, all of which is wrong.
Let’s make this thought experiment. Is someone raped ALL the people beside the judge. But did this all 1-by-1 without witnesses. And they all coming forward. Should the judge sentence him on the “testimony alone”?
It really feels like saying “no” would mean that the system is not working in a big way. Saying “yes” on other means that there is a number of people cumming forward that should be considered a credible evidence., right?
I’m not sure if you’re trying to argue with me or not from the general tone there?
Regardless, as much as it sucks: innocent until proven guilty means proven guilty. Sentencing on accusations alone seems like a really dark path to walk, even when many people are accusing.
That said, the effort put into finding evidence should certainly increase with the number of accusations made, and it’s well established that circumstantial evidence is enough to convict in many cases. Many accusations should mean many data points to validate against looking for credible evidence right?
But I’m not arguing “innocent until” part. I’m arguing what constitute “proven guilty”. Is there a number of testimonies that should be counted as proof?
You dogged the theoretical question. Is testimony of 100% people enough? Does at ANY point testimonies become more than "accusation alone?
(btw it’s not “until proven guilty” it’s “until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt”.)
It’s a question that is easy to pose and incredibly difficult to solve (if not actually impossible to solve). Which is why the world’s collective judicial systems are struggling with it and have been struggling with it since the invention of judicial systems.
Ideally, courts should be able to convict every single guilty person while letting every single innocent person walk free. We also want all victims compensated fairly for the wrong that had been done unto them, while we want all scammers to get nothing.
The problem here is that we don’t know everything and that circumstances differ, so that a solid binary yes-or-no decision is hard to make.
More evidence (and victim testimonies are evidence) helps for sure, but then again context needs to be taken into consideration.
If everyone says he did it, that’s strong evidence. On the other hand there have been more than enough victims of wrongful mob “justice” as well (look up for example Drachenlord if you want a recent and really shocking one).
And of course, if money’s on the table and it’s a very famous person, the chances of someone just jumping on the bandwagon to score some easy money are not zero either.
On the other side, a large majority of legitimate rape cases have nothing but the testimony of a single victim.
All in all it would be disingenuous to put up a single number (even if this is 99%) of victim testimonies that should be enough for an automatic conviction or acquittal. And it’s also unrealistic to expect a flawless conviction/acquittal record.
It’s always a balance between convicting innocent people and acquitting dangerous criminals. And the balance needs to be somewhere and it’s always wrong for the individuals who didn’t get justice.
I didn’t dodge your question, I answered it directly in saying that convicting on accusations alone is a dark path.
There is no number of accusations made that should be considered “proof” of anything.
But, every accusation should be taken seriously and investigated objectively.
(Btw, the salient part of that in relation to this conversation is “proven” not “reasonable doubt”)
Then all you’d need is collusion between a sufficient number of people to get someone you don’t like convicted of any crime.
Well, isn’t this always true to the degree?
I think the problem you’re going to run into is most of the people who were against the metoo movement are the same people who we need to convince.
