Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

This fight is for everything.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

You are here: Home / And the Onion Nails It In One

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  1. 1.

    Ted & Hellen

    Yes. Because this is exactly like the CNN report.

    I hate when you play dumb, Cole. But your bots love it, so troll away.

  2. 2.

    Schlemizel

    I want to find this funny but I have so much anger about this that I can’t even take it ironically.

  3. 3.

    Ted & Hellen

    John, what is most disappointing where you are concerned, and I’ve said this many times before; is that you have switched TRIBES and cheerleading uniforms, but your thinking is still black and white.

    You’ve really not changed anything about your style of thinking, just your allegiances.

    :P

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Is it any coincidence that the “brave kid” looks a lot like Paul Ryan?

    Oh, and the Crowley bint has long been an embarrassment to her alleged “profession” and employer. If only either had any shame at all.

  7. 7.

    Mark B.

    I’ll just leave this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Neal

    Similar to the Onion story, but without the snark. I think that whatever happened in Gary Neal’s case, he seems to have gotten past it now. No idea what happened to the woman involved. I happen to be a fan of Neal, but I think it’s impossible for anyone but those two to know what really happened.

  11. 11.

    Schlemizel

    @Djur:

    Yup, apparently super troll Douche & Bag thinks they have really hit the grand jackpot of trolling by insisting we all feel sympathy for a couple of rapists because . . . well, because by saying so they KNOW folks here will set fire to this tread and make grown up conversation impossible.

    Like a toddler scooping the contents of their diapers and smearing it all over the nice things

  13. 13.

    rikyrah

    wasn’t just CNN.

    ThinkProgress has a piece outlining the support of the RAPISTS all along the media.

    oh, the poor rapists, having their lives ruined by the rape they committed.

    I’ll be honest…when I first read about this story in December, I never thought the girl would get any semblance of justice…because the adults in that town, up and down, were involved in a conspiracy to protect the rapists.

  14. 14.

    El Cid

    I am totally outraged that The Onion failed so badly in displaying such a lack of journalistic objectivity in their coverage of this entirely fictional event for their humor-oriented web machine.

  15. 15.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Schlemizel:

    Yup, apparently super troll Douche & Bag thinks they have really hit the grand jackpot of trolling by insisting we all feel sympathy for a couple of rapists because

    Please link to where I wrote that. Thanks.

    Projection and fantasy is the core basis of the BJ commentariat’s reason for existing.

  16. 16.

    scav

    Boy’s got a mighty hard-on for self-publicity and isn’t afraid to use it on anyone, willing, receptive or not. Topic/stage is a natural for him. The little congratutory victory dance where he spikes his own balls is also a feature. Well into re-runs at this point though.

  17. 17.

    Eric U.

    It’s times like these that makes me question the whole notion of school affiliated sports.

    The thinkprogress article about the horrible press coverage of this story is pretty damning.

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: this Onion piece apparently is two years old, which just underscores how broad and long this story is

  20. 20.

    rikyrah

    here’s the ThinkProgress article:

    reminder – this girl was FIFTEEN years old, when they dragged her drunken body from place to place in order to RAPE HER.

    How The Media Took Sides In The Steubenville Rape Case

    By Annie-Rose Strasser and Tara Culp-Ressler on Mar 18, 2013 at 9:15 am

    The media’s coverage focused on the rapists’ emotions, instead of the the victim’s.
    When the guilty verdict was announced in the Steubenville rape case on Sunday, journalists had to figure out how they would frame the story. Perhaps because of the lack of details about the unnamed 16-year-old “Jane Doe” victim, the collective media narrative became centered on her assailants.

    Stories about the case relied far too heavily on the public details about the defendants, 17-year-old Trent Mays and 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond, to set up a sympathetic portrayal of two bright young football stars whose lives have been ruined by the criminal justice system. By emphasizing the boys’ good grades and bright futures, as well as by describing the victim as “drunk” without clarifying that the defendants were also drinking, many mainstream media outlets became active participants in furthering victim-blaming rape culture:

    we know about CNN, here are some others:

    2. ABC News makes excuses for the rapist. ABC ran a profile of Ma’lik Richmond, one of the two assailants, leading up to the trial. Its portrayal was quite positive; it began with an array of excuses for Richmond’s behavior, including that “he was in a celebratory mood” the night of the assault, and talks extensively about Richmond’s promising football career. Another article opened by describing the criminal proceedings as “every parent’s nightmare and a cautionary tale for teenagers living in today’s digital world” — though the actual problem was the crime of rape, not that it was caught on video.

    3. NBC News laments the boys’ “promising football careers.” Reporter Ron Allen opened up the NBC nightly news coverage of the Steubenville verdict by pointing out that the boys, “must now register as sex offenders.” It then went on to lament that “both boys had promising football careers, Mays a the quarterback, Richmond the receiver, on the beloved high school team and dreams of college. In court their lawyers and parents plead with the judge not to impose a harsh sentence.”

    http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/18/1732701/media-steubenville/

  22. 22.

    kindness

    It’s hard to make a funny where rape is the subject. Well, OK, Karl Rove stuck in a prison cell with several larger men could elicit a smile on my face. OK, Karl Rove who along with both the Koch brothers stuck in a ….well you see where this is going.

    So, rape is only funny….well almost never. Unless it is some Republican sociopath who is getting to ‘play catcher’ at that unfortunate moment. You see then it’s Karma as this is what they have been doing to the rest of us for far too long.

  24. 24.

    Mark B.

    I’m kind of at sea here, but I doubt asking for a brief recap would be a good idea. But I don’t know what Crowley said, nor who raped who. I just don’t watch CNN unless I can avoid it. And Crowley is a horrible reporter who typically kowtows to right wingers, except for that one time she called out Romney on an incorrect statement. I suspect i was better off missing the whole thing.

    Never mind, I see there’s a summary upstream. It wasn’t there when I started my comment.

  25. 25.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    It’s times like these that makes me question the whole notion of school affiliated sports.

    Nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure.

  26. 26.

    chopper

    @Djur:

    it’s not as much ‘making excuses’ as it is ‘loudly and repeatedly wondering just what the big deal is about all this’ and getting pissed that people are still talking about it.

  27. 27.

    rikyrah

    @Mark B.:

    from the ThinkProgress article:

    1. CNN discusses how the boys were “promising students.” The cable channel came under fire on Sunday after focusing their coverage on the two defendants as “young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students” and emphasizing the emotional atmosphere in the courtroom when the boys were convicted and felt “their lives fall apart.” Anchor Candy Crowley even interviewed a legal expert about the lasting ramifications that being convicted of rape will have on the young, vulnerable boys — noting that registering as sex offenders will “haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

  28. 28.

    Violet

    Weren’t the rape boys just sorry they took pictures? Next time they’ll be more careful.

  29. 29.

    hitchhiker

    @rikyrah:

    I never thought the girl would get any semblance of justice

    Me neither.

    Dudes, don’t rape anybody. Don’t insert your body parts into someone else unless they’ve clearly told you they want that to happen.

    Other people, don’t feel sorry for guys who do that and get punished for it. I was reading this rant the other day about how there’s no such thing as a rape culture & thinking the writer must live on the moon. His point was that EVERYBODY KNOWS rape is bad, evil, disgusting, etc. If that were true, there wouldn’t be all those texts and tweets about this rape.

    I think the salty tears over these two rapists’ punishment have to do with the fact that what EVERYBODY REALLY KNOWS is that they had every reason to think they could do what-the-hell-ever they wanted with a drunk girl and it would be forgiven. They got caught in a shifting set of norms, and it seems unfair.

    It’s not unfair. The old norm was unfair.

  30. 30.

    Mark B.

    @rikyrah: thanks for the summary. I was familiar with Steubenville, but I didn’t know the verdict just came out. This isn’t all that similar to the Neal case.

  31. 31.

    YellowJournalism

    @rikyrah: I have issues with the way Think Progress lumps Dan Wetzel’s coverage in as a negative narrative. In fact, I would say it was far from it. It’s obvious that Wetzel’s focus was on how various factors, including the irresponsible behaviour of many adults in the town, created a culture that allowed this to happen. He is highly critical on how the rape was investigated, and he points out that the town is torn apart but that there are people in the town that are ashamed of their town’s reaction and reverence for the sport over justice.

    I admit, though, that the constant use of “drunken” to describe the girl in headlines and screen crawls is concerning. There’s nothing wrong, though, with discussing in the context of an article the fact that the girl was intoxicated and unable to give consent because it was a major point to getting the rapists convicted.

  32. 32.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    Does anyone else notice a similarity between the post-atrocity media discussions for these jock rapes and mass shootings?

    Aside from the fact that they both happen far, far too often?

    “It’s too soon to have a discussion about penis control,” sort of thing.

  35. 35.

    Ash Can

    @Eric U.: School-affiliated sports are wonderful, except when they get out of hand, which is all the damned time and due almost exclusively to the adult hangers-on buzzing around the program like flies — parents, alumni, town officials, parents, school administrators, and did I mention parents? In the meantime, the kids who aren’t marquee athletes (beginning with all the girls) are given short shrift, and the ones who are develop delusions about themselves thanks to the fawning of the grownups. Sports in general are a terrific way to get kids involved and teach them such things as teamwork, commitment, and sportsmanship — but only if the grownups guiding them stay focused on the idea of “compete fairly and do your best” rather than “win, period.” I’m not sure what the solution is.

  36. 36.

    Scott S.

    One expects a Republican troll to troll on the topics that appeal to Republicans.

    And since liberals don’t approve of rape, the Republican troll is going to be in favor. Because it makes libruls mad!

  38. 38.

    Mark B.

    It’s unfair that committing a terrible crime and getting convicted at a young age has consequences? Wow, Crowley, you’re a fucking genius.

  39. 39.

    OldBean

    The Onion really is America’s finest institution. Ten years ago, I would say that as an exaggeration for effect. Now I’m just saying it.

  40. 40.

    Trollhattan

    @Violet:
    Certainly how it reads, and the in-court statement from the one boy’s father ONLY addressed his sorrow at the posting of photos and vids. Sorry, alright, sorry their sorry asses got caught. Bet they even took away their phones–that’ll learn ’em.

    Anyway, Penn State Football’s on line two, to reassure them the whole sex offender registry thing is a mere trifle.

  43. 43.

    Ash Can

    @Xecky Gilchrist: In all seriousness, I suspect the best solution is along the lines of limiting sports to intramurals only. That would at least make it harder for either the grownups or the kids to get carried away with the idea of beating neighboring rival tribes schools and force them to compete solely with people they know and have to face on a regular basis.

  45. 45.

    El Cid

    Yawn. When we finally have real scientific evidence that female ‘rape’ victims are sentient, intelligent creatures to whom the same laws which apply to actual, living, real (i.e., male) humans, let me know. Until then, just keep blathering on.

  46. 46.

    Chris

    Just posted something like what I’m about to but FYWP FYWP’d it –

    @Xecky Gilchrist:

    It’s similar to every time a tragedy occurs that inconveniently incriminates one of our cherished icons.

    Mass shootings courtesy of NRA gun policy.

    Child abuse courtesy of the RCC’s cover-ups.

    Economic disasters courtesy of our Galtian betters.

    Any abuse committed by the police or military.

    The media just coughs uncomfortably, delivers a few platitudes, exhorts us to remember that the guilty parties deserve our sympathy too, and just sort of wait until the next hippie-punching topic comes along.

  47. 47.

    ricky

    @rikyrah:

    I’ll be honest…when I first read about this story in December, I never thought the girl would get any semblance of justice…because the adults in that town, up and down, were involved in a conspiracy to protect the rapists.

    So you “thought” the girl would not get justice because “the adults…were involved in a conspiracy”

    I won’t be honest, I’ll be factual.

    1) You have no idea whether adults up and ddown were involved in anything.

    2) By the time you read about this in December, the two boys ultimately convicted had been charged back in August, had hearings in September and October, spent over a month in custody, and had had a court decide they should be prosecuted as juveniles, not as adults over the objection of the prosecutor. A trial date had been set.

    3) Because of personal family conflicts, the local adults who could have overseen the prosecution and trial recused themselves, allowing the case to move forward fairly quickly.

    There is nothing better that pinhead assessments from a distance of our criminal justice system at work. But thanks for telling us you were being honest. Without such disclaimners I guess we can assume you are not?

  48. 48.

    El Cid

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    When I was ten or twelve or fourteen I would have LOVED it if an older coach had fucked me in the shower, and I wouldn’t want anybody making a scene about it either.

    Bold, controversial, and certainly contrarian! This should be on the front page of Slate!

  49. 49.

    lojasmo

    These fucks got off easy. Furthermore, any “news organization” squalling about how the poor boys have “had their lives ruined” should lose their broadcasting license.

  50. 50.

    Djur

    @Chyron HR: I’m just waiting for him to start explaining the motivations and secret desires of unconscious 16-year-old girls.

    @hitchhiker:

    Dudes, don’t rape anybody. Don’t insert your body parts into someone else unless they’ve clearly told you they want that to happen.

    Is that really so difficult? I’m fat and socially awkward but I’ve gotten attention from extremely trashed women before, and the difference between “into it” and “out of it” is pretty obvious. And I’ve never found myself thinking “boy, I’d sure like to have sex on this insensate, unresponsive person”.

    The only pleasure I can imagine anyone taking from doing something like that is in violating and harming another person. These kids got off really, really easy considering what they did.

    And don’t even get me started on the people who saw it going on and didn’t say anything, or the ‘best friends’ of the girl that cut her off and testified against her character…

  52. 52.

    bago

    It’s a story about some dudes who play with their balls and rape people. What’s ambiguous about that?

  53. 53.

    chopper

    @ricky:

    There is nothing better that pinhead assessments from a distance of our criminal justice system at work.

    you honestly don’t think people have good reason to be cynical about the criminal justice system?

  54. 54.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @lojasmo:

    The entire “photographs never should have been taken or displayed” part reminds me of the “we never should have set up a taping system in the Oval Office because it might be used to as evidence against us at trial” thing.

  55. 55.

    I am not a kook

    @Ted & Hellen: OK, please explain the gray areas in the case in question. Just so we know. I think it’s pretty straight forward: rape = bad. What’s your take?

    And try to do it without using the word “projection” which you have been spraying in every thread.

  59. 59.

    rikyrah

    @ricky:

    without the work of the anonymous blogger, this case would have been buried. the blogger is the reason this case blew up so that all those adults HAD to recuse themselves.

    don’t bullshyt me.

    without that blogger, that girl would never have gotten her day in court against her RAPISTS.

    I’ve been Black in America longer than 3 days, so you can’t tell me shyt about the American “Justice” system.

  60. 60.

    Another Halocene Human

    PSA: Cleek’s pie filter is easy to install and easy to use. Install Greasemonkey and restart Firefox. It’s a neat little addin that doesn’t mess with your browsing experience at all. Then grab Cleek’s pie filter. Once it’s working, when you scroll to the bottom of any BJ comments thread you’ll see this:

    Pie Filter stuff [Add selected] [Remove selected]

    Just select the ‘nym and click on add selected. If you decide you really want to see what the person had to say later, select the ‘nym and hit remove selected. Very easy.

    It has done wonders for my blood pressure and the pie comments are fun and playful.

  61. 61.

    El Cid

    @rikyrah: If the males involved (and whoever else) had not posted or texted any information regarding this, perhaps there would have been no case at all, simply dismissed as unrealistic allegations by some underage teen who had drunk too much.

  62. 62.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ted & Hellen: I’ll tell you what, if you pony up some evidence that this trial was a sham or that the two defendants are innocent, I will start being in favor of sympathetic portrayals of them. Absent that, my sympathy in rape cases is directed at the victim.

  63. 63.

    Another Halocene Human

    @El Cid: Well, to be honest male rape victims are treated the same way. Why should we pay for the losers’ mortgages desire for justice and to not have been raped?

  64. 64.

    rikyrah

    @El Cid:

    If the males involved (and whoever else) had not posted or texted any information regarding this, perhaps there would have been no case at all, simply dismissed as unrealistic allegations by some underage teen who had drunk too much.

    that STILL boggles my mind.

    you’re going to RAPE someone, and then take picture and videos…

    and POST THEM?

    what kind of arrogance these rapists must have felt..that they could just do this and not think that anything would happen to them?

  66. 66.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @rikyrah: They didn’t think they had done anything wrong.

    You’ve seen pictures taken a lynchings, right? With happy people looking like a they are at a picnic? Same concept. Something went wrong with them at some point as they were growing up.

  67. 67.

    cckids

    @hitchhiker:

    Dudes, don’t rape anybody. Don’t insert your body parts into someone else unless they’ve clearly told you they want that to happen.

    This. There was a pic/doc floating around the Interwebs late last year, very likely in response to this; a list playing off the “how to not get raped” advice so many of us females have been given for years. I don’t have it now, but the gist was:

    1. Don’t rape people.
    2. If you see someone walking alone, don’t stop and rape them.
    3. If you are at a party and someone is drunk, high, or unconscious, remember not to rape them.

    and so on. It was funny and sad.

  68. 68.

    Bitter Scribe

    This reminds me of an old, I mean delivered by John Belushi-old, SNL skit about a hotline for rapists. “Police treatment of rapists can be very harsh. They arrest them….So if you’ve raped someone lately, why don’t you give us a call?”

    IIRC, that skit was written by future Sen. Al Franken.

  69. 69.

    hitchhiker

    @rikyrah:

    what kind of arrogance these rapists must have felt..that they could just do this and not think that anything would happen to them?

    Like I said: rape culture. The youtube is what rape culture looks like: guys crying with laughter over a girl “dead as a doornail” not responding to foreplay! Ha ha ha.

    It’s 12 and a half minutes long. Kind of like watching pigs roll in their own shyte.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @Eric U.:

    It’s times like these that makes me question the whole notion of school affiliated sports.

    Do you really think that removing the school affiliation would eliminate this kind of behavior? Sports stars are praised and idolized whether they’re in school or not.

  72. 72.

    ruviana

    @rikyrah: I can remember kids filming (filming!) stupid exploits and that was in the 90s. It’s easier now and young people seem to think memorializing everything they do on line is normal. So on one level it’s awful but on another, not surprising.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @OldBean:

    The Onion really is America’s finest institution.

    I think they genuinely earned their moniker as “America’s Finest News Source” with this gem. I would call it eerily prescient, except that it was something that every news source should have been able to predict given Bush’s stance on the issues. That only a satire paper was willing to stand up and say that kind of stuff should be a source of lasting shame for our news media.

  74. 74.

    ricky

    @rikyrah:

    Perhaps “pin” was a too generous assessment of the size of the body part you are putting to work here.

    An “anonymous blogger… is the reason this case blew up so all those adult had to recuse themselves.”

    http://www.heraldstaronline.com/page/content.detail/id/577202/Charges-filed-against-two-juveniles.html?nav=5010#.UDeikdQpMto.twitter

    The charges were filed, within ten days of the complaint, by
    the local prosecutor who then recused herself because her son was a football teammate of the accused. Hardly a conspiracy. She asked the state attorney general’s office to take over, which they did. The local juvenile judge also asked to be removed within a week after charges were filed.

    I am not bullshitting you. But you were flinging poo with your original comment and when called out your response was to fling even thinner piles of the same. You are misinforming people by making comments that reveal you have no idea what you are talking about.

  75. 75.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore:

    that kind of stuff should be a source of lasting shame for our news media.

    No time for shame. Interferes with sacred profit.

  76. 76.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    “It’s too soon to have a discussion about penis control,” sort of thing.

    A fleshlight costs what, $50-100? Less than half-an-hour of a defense lawyer’s time. If they’re too horny, they should beat off, rather than victimizing some poor girl.

  77. 77.

    ricky

    @chopper:

    Do I think people have no reason to be cynical about the criminal justice system? No, I don’t.

    But I wasn’t talking about faith in the system. Only folks who make pinheaded blog comments about it from afar.

  78. 78.

    Ted & Hellen

    Until this thread I had been unaware that the victim had been sexually assaulted by a person named Football.

    How much time did that dude get?

  79. 79.

    El Cid

    @rikyrah: Well, that, and also the type of stupid which has people preparing to rob a bank look busy in the minutes beforehand filling out a deposit slip with their real information, which they leave behind.

  81. 81.

    Ted & Hellen

    @El Cid:

    Wow.

    It is terribly revealing that you are attempting to shame me for being honest about my feelings as an underage teen, which I stand by, by the way.

    The over the top hysterical reaction of adults with sexual issues of their own, such as you, always makes these cases ten times worse than they have to be.

    Admit it: You would love for the Steubenville victim to feel that her life is over, or worse, because it would validate your own conviction that she now bears some sort of scarlet letter.

  82. 82.

    Ted & Hellen

    @I am not a kook:

    I’m old fashioned. I still believe in gradations of criminal acts. I believe it is less traumatic to be finger fucked than to be violently subjected to forced intercourse and beaten. I believe it forced intercourse is less horrendous than gang genital rape and murder.

    Our legal system is based on making these distinctions, but that’s just me.

    Making such distinctions is now out of style because everything falls under the broad term RAPE, at least in public discourse.

    I’d be willing to bet a huge percentage of the public thinks these guys had genital intercourse to completion with the victim. Primarily because the media sucks at doing its job.

  83. 83.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’ll tell you what, if you pony up some evidence that this trial was a sham or that the two defendants are innocent,

    I’ll tell you what, I’ll do the above after you present evidence backing either of your assertions.

    Again…projection. Most BJ commenters would have nothing to say if they responded to what was actually written instead of the voices in their heads.

  84. 84.

    jefft452

    @Djur: “Is that really so difficult?”

    This
    I was a teenager in the late 60s early 70s
    I was in a lot of situations where intoxicated young girls were in my proximity
    Yet somehow, I managed to avoid raping any of them
    No superhuman effort at all

  86. 86.

    Djur

    @Ted & Hellen: I think people are trying to shame you for making excuses for a rapist by suggesting that his underage victims might have secretly wanted to be raped. Something like that.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ted & Hellen:

    I believe it is less traumatic to be finger fucked than to be violently subjected to forced intercourse and beaten

    The Ohio Revised Code would define both as rape.

  88. 88.

    Ted & Hellen

    @lojasmo:

    Furthermore, any “news organization” squalling about how the poor boys have “had their lives ruined” should lose their broadcasting license.

    This is sort of masturbation that discredits your views.

  90. 90.

    Ted & Hellen

    @hitchhiker:

    It’s 12 and a half minutes long. Kind of like watching pigs roll in their own shyte.

    And yet you watched it. All the way thru?

    Did you enjoy your outrage and your intense feelings of offense?

  91. 91.

    Djur

    @Ted & Hellen: Yes, anyone who is outraged by rape is just some sort of puritan pervert. True progressives understand that sexual assault can only be committed by drones.

  92. 92.

    jefft452

    @Ted & Hellen: “I’m old fashioned. I still believe in gradations of criminal acts”

    Bullocks
    The were2 great “Miscarriages of Justice” in 18th century – Adm Byng and Antoine Lavoisier
    Voltaire decried Byng’s being shot and no less than Ben Franklin condemmed the great mind of Lavoisier ending up separated from the rest of his body

    But if you look at any of the apologists arguments, no one denied that they did exactly what they were accused of, no one denied that the penalty for doing what they were accused of was death…
    It all boiled down to the age old argument of “Punishment should not be applied to people that I perceive to be like the people in my social circle”

  93. 93.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Djur:

    The commenter to whom I was responding watched a video, by which he or she claims to have been deeply outraged, all the way through to the end. It was not a video of a rape, it was a video of people talking ABOUT a rape.

    See? More distinctions. More facts.

    Being justifiably outraged is one thing. Rolling around in one’s outrage for pleasure, like a pig in its shyte, is another.

  96. 96.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Dear god, what in the name of holy fuck are you babbling about?

    The ironing, it’s leaping off the screen at me, trying to get into my pants.

  97. 97.

    Schlemizel

    To all of you who attempted to engage Douche & Bag they want to send their thanks. They were able to shovel shit to no good end. It would be better to just ignore them so that they throw their temper tantrums to a vacuum. Its more than they deserve but it would give us peace

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ted & Hellen:

    I believe it is less traumatic to be finger fucked than to be violently subjected to forced intercourse and beaten.

    So you believe this as a matter of faith, but have never actually, you know, been subjected to it?

    Tell you what — we’ll send a couple of dudes over to break into your house tonight and you let us know if you still think that being penetrated against your will is still something so minor that it’s not worth getting law enforcement involved.

    ETA: Oh, wait, I forgot for a minute that you’re gay. We’ll send over a couple of women instead just to make sure you can’t pretend you would totally enjoy being violated against your will so therefore any woman who gets sexually assaulted would enjoy it.

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ted & Hellen:

    Hey for all you tender flowers, please install Cleek’s pie filter and quit bothering me.

    Never, Timmy. We’ll always be here to remind you that you’re a child molestation and rape apologist who keeps begging us to think about the real victims, like Jerry Sandusky and these two kids who are going to have to go to juvie for one whole year, which is the moral equivalent of executing them.

  104. 104.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Mnemosyne:

    Again, you couldn’t even get thru your little self righteous manifesto without a couple of fantasist misrepresentations.

    Please do continue your crusade, Phlegmnosyne. I enjoy putting your thru hoops.

    Your lack of self awareness just adds to the amusement.

  106. 106.

    Laur

    @Ted & Hellen: If another person forces something into your vagina or asshole against your will, it’s fucking rape. It doesn’t matter if it’s a penis or a dildo or a finger or a piece of dust you fucking piece of shit.

  107. 107.

    Another Halocene Human

    @rikyrah: I was watching one of those true crime stories. There was this Black dude who started killing Black prostitutes in East St. Louis. The cops hadn’t caught him because they were being lazy* and when the genetic profile didn’t show up in CODIS they kind of quit. A journalist wrote a story about one of the victims and her life, putting a human face on the crime other than “drug addict” “prostitute” “street person”.

    The rapist felt compelled to send an anonymous letter to the paper that started, “Nice sob story.”

    Later it turned out he had videoed himself torturing these women in his basement. He blamed them for their victimization because they chose to streetwalk and to get in the car with a strange man.

    Rape culture kills.

    *-the cops aren’t actually lazy, they’re under-resourced**, and working the murder of a street walker is difficult, and even harder after months have passed since they didn’t pursue it aggressively when the murders happened, because the media and higher-ups are going to push them harder on other crimes

    **there is lots of federal money out there for police to pursue “narcotics” cases, not so much for violent crime and property crime, which depends on property taxes that the local jerb cremators don’t want to pay

  108. 108.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Herbal Infusion Bagger: I wonder if some of them think they’re providing citizen’s justice (due to authoritarian and abusive upbringing) by raping, like in Clockwork Orange (the short story, not the movie) when the protagonist rapes two 13 year olds for being dumb enough to come up to his room.

    If you were abused and neglected as a child and were also subject to a ragey parent’s beatings for the slightest or imagined infractions, I could see how this kind of extreme bullying–beating, torturing, rape–could seem justifiable in a person’s mind.

    That’s why it’s important for schools to firmly teach that this kind of behavior is NOT okay. Because some people are learning the opposite at home.

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ted & Hellen:

    Again, you couldn’t even get thru your little self righteous manifesto without a couple of fantasist misrepresentations.

    Such as?

    Please do continue your crusade, Phlegmnosyne. I enjoy putting your thru hoops.

    Your lack of self awareness just adds to the amusement.

    Oh, I love it when you mirror back the things I say to you. It proves to me you have no clue what they actually mean.

  110. 110.

    El Cid

    @Ted & Hellen:

    It is terribly revealing that you are attempting to shame me for being honest about my feelings as an underage teen, which I stand by, by the way.

    First of all, no one knows what you felt as an underage teen, only that there’s some person typing on the internet who says at this time that he is older than a teen but that at the age of a teen [felt certain desires as quoted above].

    Second, please, understand, I’m not trying to shame you for being honest about your feelings, I’m mocking you for choosing to comment on a blog populated mainly by snark and ridicule that you strongly advocate that readers bear in mind that some ten to twelve year old children might desire the sexual violation crimes perpetrated upon them by the adult figures entrusted with positions of public authority over non-adults.

    It’s not your honesty I’d be ashamed of — it’s that you honestly advocate some terrible, terrible positions and arguments.

    I don’t know you, I don’t care about you, I don’t care about your feelings, I don’t care what you did or didn’t desire as a child or what you think ought be the role of children’s desires when it comes to sex crimes.

    If you don’t want people making fun of you, (a) don’t go to a website where people spend most of the time making fun of political idiots, and (b) don’t say ridiculous things deserving of perpetual, unending mockery.

  111. 111.

    El Cid

    @Ted & Hellen: I do have to give credit where it’s due, though: that comment of yours as linked to above and which I actually quoted a tiny portion of, it’s quite an accomplishment.

    It’s a legendary one.

    That sort of level of flat-out, ridiculous awfulness wrapped in semi-intellectual form doesn’t arrive all the time on these here internets.

    Hell, I just have to marvel at it again:

    Just specifically, in the case of the shower sex spotted by the asst. coach, WHAT IF, since we’re speculating all over hell anyway with no evidence one way or the other…WHAT IF the kid was ENJOYING what was going on? What if he consented, in that moment, regardless of age issues, what if he was into it? Nowhere in the GJ report does it say the kid was struggling or pinned, or screaming, or that there was blood or any other drama as stupidly implied upthread!

    What if the kid was mortified not that he was fucking, but that they had been CAUGHT? What if the coach saw there was no force being used? It says in the report that he made eye contact with fucker and fuckee. IF the kid was consenting, wouldn’t things have been made a hundred times more traumatic for him if this coach had come in screaming, punching, calling the cops, raising a ruckus? What if discreetly leaving, as the coach did, was the right moral thing to do under the exact circumstances of the incident, which none of you has a clue as to the reality of. A GJ report is NOT CONCLUSIVE PROOF OF GUILT. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of a trial?

    When I was ten or twelve or fourteen I would have LOVED it if an older coach had fucked me in the shower, and I wouldn’t want anybody making a scene about it either. When I played grammar school BB I was so in love with our coach I couldn’t stand it. IF ONLY he had made advances.

    See, that’s commitment. That’s not just some half-hearted attempt to throw out wha might sound like a defense of child molestation when the act seems desired in crude fragments in the comments section of a Youtube video.

    That’s work. Going to a liberal politics blog and leaping into the fray on the predations of a college football coach to make sure that those blog readers know that some middle-school boys might just be begging for their adult teachers to wantonly violate the law and that this point is a very important one to make in this debate.

    All sorts of creeps and ickoids vent their ids online; only a few put in the time and effort to make it memorable.

    And for that, sir, I thank you.

  112. 112.

    Starlit

    @lojasmo: Well, conservatives do think a LOT about rape. Witness GOP candidates for public office recently…and a number of them in public restrooms, post-election.

  113. 113.

    The Dude Abides

    The girl in Steubenville wasn’t even drunk. She was roofied within minutes of showing up at the first party. Of course, even if she had drunk herself into oblivion, that still does not give one the right to rape her.

  114. 114.

    Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)

    @ Ted & Hellen

    What’s hot, moist, and crusty around the edges? Pie!

    Damn straight it is, motherfucker.

  116. 116.

    ricky

    @The Dude Abides:

    Why spoil your closing statement of sound values and settled law by opening with two sentences asserting proven nonsense and unprovable fantasy?

  117. 117.

    chopper

    @ricky:

    oh, so it’s totes okay to be cynical about the criminal justice system and have no faith that a particular case will end up with justice being served, it’s just stupid to actually mention it. got it.

  118. 118.

    ricky

    @chopper:

    No, it is stupid to reveal you thought Justice would never come when you learn about a case in January when in fact them uneven wheels of old American Justice had been creaking along steadily for several months. It is stupid to suggest things about the entire adult population of a town which are not true. And that stupidity was compounded with a later comment indicating the individual commenter was wallowing in mistaken praise for a role the beloved blogosphere never played.

  119. 119.

    Harold Samson

    @Ted & Hellen:

    Ted, Hellen, whichever, you are truly one of the better trolls I’ve ever seen.

    Of course, these people are moralizing, sensitive rage-junkies, and just begging to be trolled, so it’s not hard. In fact, any insufficiently doctrinaire comment will garner a blast of anger. But most trolls just lazy-lob bombs, you’re more of an artist.

    Keep up the good work, and remember, these people need you; without you the echo-chamber gets tiresome.

  120. 120.

    Jado

    @jefft452:

    That…can’t be right.

    I mean, they were RIGHT THERE!!

    And you really didn’t do anything? Are you sure you’re American? Cause apparently this is the norm in this country nowadays – get someone blacked out, violate them, drag them around, and video the whole thing to upload to You tube. You really need to get with the program.

    You might need to be deported. What country would you like to have been from that we can send you back there?

  121. 121.

    bargal

    @ Harold Samson

    …and Lord knows we don’t want a chamber that echoes with the refrain, “rape is wrong and the rapists aren’t the victims”.

    Because that would be awful!

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