http://www.republicfortheunitedstates.org/

Stop the ride, I want to get off.

Summary please?

Oh that. I still don't really understand unless it's just so crazy that I'm not meant to.

Digitalguardian said:

I'll leave it up to the discretion of my government to decide if they want to deal with him, but until then I don't believe he deserves my sympathy for breaking the law.

Well, if you have an unjust law that basically illustrates the fact that legislation is completely out of sync with the state of reality, isn't pointing out the elephant in the room the first step to acceptance? The state of immigration legislation is based on compromises relating to political football and polling, not what constitutes good policy. Take DADT, for instance. It was enacted as a compromise between open acceptance and not allowing gays in the military. The absurd part was that gays are already part of the military, and the law simply lets everyone pretend that isn't the case.

No one wants to talk about fixing the problem of illegal immigration because the solutions that make the most sense would be politically unpopular. So the current state of affairs is that no one talks about the elephant in the room. Individuals that stand up to stupid laws and accept potential personal repercussions absolutely get my respect. How many military service members publicly came out, knowing they'd be discharged had everything to lose, and nothing to gain but the hope that things might change for the better? There is merit in trying to show people how ludicrous and unfair the status quo that no one talks about really is. The way I see it, publicly saying you are an illegal immigrant serves the same purpose.

Someone who lives his/her life in a polite lie that most people would rather ignore than face gets my sympathy. Someone who tries to expose that lie at great personal cost earns my respect.

Re: the rape article:

The whole threshing machine analogy was piss poor. I love an analogy that paints all men as latent rapists. Pretty great. But mostly, this "rape culture" thing has to stop or I'm going to go completely insane. I now make at least six jokes a week--usually non sequiturs--about "promoting rape culture." My girlfriend is even making them! I need time away from the phrase "rape culture." It is absurdity approaching infinity.

One point of the article that's good, though, is the idea that yes, you can say whatever you want, and yes, people can react however they want. So talk, and react, and stop arguing about whether people are entitled to shit. The entitlement angle is pointless and stupid and infuriating.

"Rape culture" may come across as a kludgy buzz word, but the idea it represents is completely relevant. There are entire TV shows dedicated, basically exclusively, to female rape (Law and Order SVU), people on the internet use 'rape' to describe any minor inconvenience, you're told from a very young age to NEVER GO OUT ANYWHERE OR YOU WILL BE RAPED, and media dictates, time and again, that the most effective way to give women character development in stories, regardless of genre, is to rape them.

And then someone on the internet says "ah, shut up about rape culture, that's a really dumb phrase."

If that happened to me, I imagine I'd feel pretty shitty too.

Rape is a crime. Rape is punished by jail sentences. Rape can get you on sex offender lists. Rape convictions will keep you out of jobs and away from large swaths of the population. A convicted rapist is saddled with an incredible degree of opprobrium, and in most cases rightly so (I've got my own stance on some particular issues, but those'd be rather lengthy discussions that I'm probably not even capable of articulating clearly today--suffice to say, we've got problems aplenty in the criminal justice system, and rape cases are no exception). When someone is described as "rapey," is that a positive epithet? Do you want to snuggle up to this individual in a dim bar and listen to him talk damply about his childhood? No. I am flummoxed by the assertion that people don't really give a fuck that rape happens, or that people don't believe that convicted rapists are, barring very special exceptions, truly awful folks/folks who have committed a truly awful act (pick your phrasing). People on the internet using "rape" in a metaphorical way is like anyone anywhere using any substantive concept like that flippantly. I don't know that I'm prepared to issue a blanket statement that such matters must be considered only in the gravest of manners and that any diminution of their seriousness is a moral infraction.

I wonder about the media saturation re: rape as character development. Clearly, the Japanese media we've all encountered on both sides of this podcast demonstrate a wealth of problems in that area. Western media might be better, but I don't honestly know; still, the existence of SVU and other such things militates against a strong defense of the media as balanced purveyors of ideas. That's probably the single strongest part of the whole argument.

JonBrescia said:

I wonder about the media saturation re: rape as character development. Clearly, the Japanese media we've all encountered on both sides of this podcast demonstrate a wealth of problems in that area. Western media might be better, but I don't honestly know;

I'm sure there's a TVTropes page on this I can't be bothered to search for at the moment. SVU is certainly more balanced than a lot of portrayals. Comic books, as ever, are a pretty bad offender. Black Canary in the super grimdark Green Arrow of the 90s and Kevin Smith recently adding rape to Black Cat's origin story are maybe two of the most high profile examples. Male characters are motivated by witnessing injustice perpetrated against others, and disproportionately, female characters are motivated by past victimization against themselves.

This often comes to mind when I hear the phrase "rape culture".

Rapists Admit Repeated Crimes — As Long As You Don’t Call It “Rape”

The study had two important implications. One is that rapists aren't really all that secretive about their activities — as long as you don't come right out and call it "rape." The other is that one common assumption about date rape or "gray rape" — that it's usually the result of miscommunication and happens when good guys get the wrong idea — appears to be wrong. As Hess says, we hear a lot about "the acquaintance who 'misreads' the situation and 'goes too far'" and "the longtime friend who genuinely thought you had consented, and is shocked when you tell him that, no, it was rape."

Another aspect of rape culture is victim blaming. For example, there are some people who will justify rape by pointing to what the victim was wearing or how the victim acting or how even the victim's sexual history. Some people feel that they are entitled to sex if the target of their desire behaves in any way that arouses them. There are cases in which some people try to justify statutory rape by saying, "well, she dressed / acted older / sluttier than someone of that age should act" - essentially, "she was asking for it". We have all heard examples of this coming out of the mouths of both men and women.

I don't know if your second sentence is true.

Regardless, you are saying it from a position of privilege. As in, you have the privilege of being a male in our society, and you are not part of the half of our society that faces a 1 out of 5 chance of being raped at some point in your life.

IMHO, I think a status of privilege undermines one's opinions, but it does not as strongly undermine one's analyses. Your last sentence is not an argument, it's just an opinion.

JonBrescia said:

For what it's worth, this sort of argument can be made on non-rape fronts. The logic underpinning the problems we see in our society isn't exclusive to (or disproportionately associated with) rape.

I'm going to have to go with xenomouse on this second sentence in that the structural deficiencies in our society both in inspecting and remedying this particular crime are inadequate. The disproportionate level of victim-blaming and under-reporting that goes on is a pretty big indicator of this.

JonBrescia said:

I just don't see rape as being wildly out of line with any other part of our society.

Here's the thing - it isn't, and that fact is indicative of deeper and more pervasive cultural issues. That's exactly the notion that the term "rape culture" is meant to elicit.

Want to read what McCain thought about Romney in 2008? Well here you go. http://www.scribd.com/doc/78582788/McCain-2008-Oppo-File

I actually saw a book at my local library today all about Oppo politics, by two people who made a career of it. Dirty business, but worthwhile as a way of getting shit out to the public like this, I think.

You see, I hear things like that, and I stop and think to myself, "What kind of fucking reality am I living in that some ostensibly intelligent human being in a position of power would actually write such a thing with those kinds of parameters?"

They're hoping America gets invaded by foriegners so they can go all Red Dawn on them.

But isn't that every red blooded white American male power fantasy?

First it was to keep out the British, then the commies and now?!

Well played Creaty!

Codger said:

But isn't that every red blooded white American male power fantasy? First it was to keep out the British, then the commies and now?!

Your buddies: the Chinese of course. I would say a reconstituted Russia, but who can take them seriously militarily outside of eastern Europe, and no more ideological contrasts. Unless you guys wanna start something. In fact, I think we still owe you for Yahoo Serious.

Yahoo Serious isn't bad enough to erase the good that was Mad Max. So they're still in the black in my book.

Unless New Zealand snuck that one in then never mind, I'm not looking it up.

GROAN

This heat wave has been pretty weird as it's not really been that hot in Florida. I see today the average temperture across the state seems to be 85 or so. While the Ohio Valley Region are well into the mid 90s. I don't think most of the state has gone above 95 for any long stretch, but across the country most of the country seems to be dying.

Hopefully this heat wave will last into the Winter.

I'm so sorry.

The great thing about not watching tv is that I haven't seen a single political add this election season.

Meet my friend AdMuncher. Still haven't seen any political ads.