The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it. We have heard from both conservative and liberal readers asking for new conservative voices. We believe Mr. Gerson’s addition to our op-ed page will be a refreshing and revitalizing change.Because what's more refreshing and revitalizing than caving to the demands of nonconservatives who posed as outraged over something they pretended to misunderstand?
ADDED: I've hardly noticed Michael Gerson over the years, though he's been a WaPo columnist since 2007. I've got 3 post tagged with his name (and 21 with George Will's). I tend to think that a liberal newspaper like The Washington Post will have relatively bland conservative columnists, and I'd always thought of Will as innocuous, but the standard of noxiousness is low/phony when liberals are judging conservatives.
Here's Gerson's first column as the Post-Dispatch's not-Will: "The reality conservatives must face." Uh oh. I think I know where that is going: Conservatives must be more like liberals or they won't win elections. Now, let me read it:
Let me stipulate that reform conservatism is the best hope of a Republican Party struggling to attract middle-class voters...Exactly what I expected.
Some conservatives are trying to make common cause with tea party populism, which may be open to pro-middle-class reforms, but certainly not on immigration...
... the face of America is changing...
The ideal [presidential] nominee, therefore, would have tea party populist roots, middle-class sensibilities, a policy interest in social mobility and a conspicuously welcoming approach to immigration.
Posts
88 comments:
Alleged college campus rape vitims DO ENJOY privileged status. That is a fact.
If that's offensive, I'm sorry that facts upset you so much. That's not my fault.
This rape hoax stuff will die down once the colleges have had their pants sued off them by guys whose civil rights were trampled by acedemic feminazis.
Well, it's good to see journalists don't read.
And they wonder why conservatives applaud the death of media.
Proving once again that you cannot spell Fascism without Liberals. :)
Hiring Gerson will certainly remove the risks of originality and political incorrectness. Nobody channels the elitist zeitgeist better than Gerson.
In the wake of the Cantor loss, he sees trouble for non-reform ("reform"="amnesty with unenforced conditions" in DC-speak) Republicans. You have to not only be in the tank for the Inside the Beltway CW but holding your breath on the floor in the deep end of the tank to reach that conclusion.
With so many old ideological and institutional structures collapsing around us and unknown political alignments ahead, hiring a guy who will be spectacularly wrong but invariably comforting to aging progressives is just what we should expect from the MSM.
This newspaper is dying, losing about 25 percent of its readers in about five years or less. Readership is in free-fall. It's afraid of offending existing readers, probably old and getting older. Doesn't want trouble on campuses where it probably distributes discounted subscriptions, maybe. And it can't win new readers. When the next recession hits, perhaps accompanied by an oil shock, boosting paper, printing, and distribution prices, it will vanish. Gone by 2020.
"The Post-Dispatch said March 12, 2007 it eliminated 31 jobs mostly in its circulation, classified phone rooms, production, purchasing, telephone operations and marketing departments.[8]
On March 23, 2009 the paper converted to a compact style every day from the previous broadsheet Sunday through Friday and tabloid on Saturday.
Circulation dropped for the daily paper from 213,472 to 191,631 to 178,801 for the two years after 2010, ending on September 30, 2011 and September 30, 2012. The Sunday paper also decreased from 401,427 to 332,825 to 299,227.[9]"
Wikipedia
Once a reliable presence on the list of largest U.S. newspapers, the Post-Dispatch’s circulation has shrunk over the decades. It’s now the 40th largest U.S. newspaper ranked by circulation. According to the latest figures by the Alliance for Audited Media, the Post-Dispatch had average weekday circulation of 167,199 for the six months ended March 31 [2013]. It had average Sunday circulation of 287,423.
Good post Althouse!
Shorter Gerson. Promise everything to everybody. Get elected. Blame conspiracies and your "enemies" when you don't deliver the impossible.
The Venezuela model. We've tried that here for the last several years.
Why is there a "censorship" tag on this? Who is being censored? The paper made an editorial decision on which columnist to carry. Where on earth is the claim that Will (or gerry for that matter) is not entitled to his abhorrent opinion or that he should not be free to publish it in any forum that is willing to accommodate him?
I know you hate when I say this: but for a constitutional law professor you sure have a crappy understanding of the meaning of censorship and freedom of speech.
The ideal candidate would be a TINO. Teapartier in name only
Look for the audience, not the editor.
There's money in it somehow.
Also, try typing "The reality progressives must face" without laughing.
"The ideal [presidential] nominee, therefore, would have tea party populist roots, middle-class sensibilities, a policy interest in social mobility and a conspicuously welcoming approach to immigration."
In short, Beltway gibberish.
And how many high-profile campus rape cases do we have to see blow up in the schools' faces before we admit there is a problem in how universities handle these accusations?
And can you explain exactly what about Will's obnoxious column "nonconservatives . . . pretended to misunderstand."
I think it's been at least 20 years since Will has written his own column. His staff lately has been extremely sloppy.
Well we don't call it 'The 12th Street Pravda' for nothing.
Here’s the George Will column that they’re referring to. Read and judge for yourself.
"And that the GOP needs to distance itself from an (often deserved) reputation for crony capitalism. But insofar as conservatives identify crony capitalism with comprehensive immigration reform, they undermine the future of the party they seek to help."
This from a supporter of the administration that is the closest to crony capitalism since the fascist Wilson administration.
Conservatives are absolutely correct about the nexus between crony capitalism and amnesty, often misidentified as "immigration reform."
Here’s the George Will column that they’re referring to. Read it and judge for yourself.
Which is probably more than his critics have done.
Many participants in this forum regularly read many news & opinion sources, both conservative & liberal.
Answer this question: do you ever see Michael Gerson quoted? By anybody? Left or Right?
If I read the Post-Dispatch, I'd cancel it, but since I long ago gave them up for just this kind of crap, this just confirms the wisdom of my decision.
Dear SL P-D Reader: We have known for a while now that our paper wasn't quite stupid enough for our target readership, and suspected that even Beltway parrot George Will was too deep a thinker for you. Your responses to his comments on campus rape issues confirmed this, and so, in order to better serve you, we have given our "conservative columnist" slot to moronic neo-con Michael Gerson. We apologize to any remaining readers with IQs above room temperature, but apparently there aren't enough of you around to sustain a newspaper business.
a conspicuously welcoming approach to immigration.
Conservatives do have a welcoming approach to immigration. It's illegal immigration we have a problem with. If they go through the legal process for immigrating to the United States, we welcome immigrants with open arms and a smile.
Where is the evidence that Tea Party supporters do not have a "conspicuously welcoming approach to [LEGAL] immigration."
Will did not "suggest[] that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status." He did say that Colleges “are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (‘micro-aggressions,’ often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate.” He then discussed what was clearly a false accusation of rape.
Thank goodness the readers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will no longer have to be offended by columns that challenge their prejudices (or at least the prejudices of the Post-Dispatch editors).
As Instapundit has said, if an enterprising lawyer wants to make a killing, recruit men to file suits against every college in the US for violation of Title IX.
If women aren't punished for rape in a situation of drunken sex but the man is, they are in clear violation of it.
What makes me more upset than the lack of personal responsibility of so called feminists is the fact that my Senator Gillibrand has decided to publically smear a college student to score political points. And she's a lawyer! It further upsets me because in this day and age the accusation (although never charged by law enforcement) never goes away. Employers will google his name and perhaps not hire him.
http://overlawyered.com/2014/06/presumption-guilt-sexual-assault-cases/comment-page-1/
A trip to the St. Louis airport will tell you all you need to know. The city, once great, is barely alive.
Is today Missouri or McCaskill day?
One wonders if the St Louis paper is liberal and supporting McCaskill in her tiff with Will over her poor use of statistics
Reform conservatism?
I very much hope that Fox News invites the Editorial Page Editor of the Post-Dispatch on national television to answer questions about this decision.
This is where conservatives need to fight back, hard and relentlessly.
This is essentially the quasi-criminalization of a viewpoint. To misunderstand and mischaracterize Will's column as being in any way "offensive" (except as to political opponents) is itself gravely offensive.
Hooray, for the fact that no only will George Will's national stature be raised among conservatives (the marketplace of conservative pundits is a crowded one, thankfully); this will help publicize the issue of the Obama Administration's relentless politicking of "sexual assault" claims on college campuses.
If Will was going to get fired over an issue, I couldn't be happier than it having been this one. And if any noted conservative was going to be martyred on this particular issue, I am so glad that it happened to someone as polished and as self-assuredly poised as George Will.
One distinction is becoming very clear for me:
I'm a Republican, more than a conservative, because conservatives tend to get weird.
Carry on,...
The St Louis post dispatch is the only major newspaper serving a greater metropolitan area of close to 2.5 million.
In fact it only actually "serves" the roughly 400,000 that live in the city proper. It's become pathetically thin in the last few years. We used to be a 2 paper town, We also had the Globe Democrat, which in a quirk of naming fate was actually the Republican paper.
Censorship? I wouldn't know. I stopped reading it years ago, and get all my news online.
What if George was right? Saying what's true will now get you fired? Women REALLY don't like to be questioned on the truth they are dishing out.
And I suppose if someone else suggests that there is no real glass ceiling for women it will lead to them being burned at the stake.
I would laugh so hard if Gerson first column was talking about George Wills last column and he said "basically, George will is right" oh crap! Have to fire another writer.conservative columnists should look at this paper and say "nah, not going to write for you" conservative readers I'm sure have already started leaving
Republican support for amnesty and guest workers, etc. is all about crony capitalism. Cheap labor for their buddies in the chamber of commerce. Illegal immigration mostly hurts blacks, who are not Republicans. Letting Silicon Valley use cheap foreign tech workers mostly hurts Asian and white Americans.
Another round of amnesty will just attract more unskilled labor to the US, increasing burden on state and local government.
Gerson is just a W. lackey. The compassionate conservative approach was a disaster. If that's what he thinks Republicans should be, then let that Party perish. I'm tired of their big deficit, nation building, big government protecting big business approach. Fuck them.
Ambrose, on the rare occasions I've seen media actually cover a Tea Party event, you can tell exactly where the black (yes) and Hispanic (hell yes) Tea Partiers are because the press will either stop filming 'til they're past or point up to the sky like an infant ignoring something they don't want to deal with.
He could have saved a lot of ink by saying "Eric Cantor for president."
"And can you explain exactly what about Will's obnoxious column 'nonconservatives . . . pretended to misun'erstand."" - Freder
Well maybe you could tell me whether you think that if a girl has sex under the influence of alcohol or pot, she has been raped, or sexually assaulted, whereas a boy in that same situation can be deemed a "rapist" or at least a sexual predator by an institution that has massive control over his future prospects, but these cases are not adjudicated in a court of law, but rather by ad hoc tribunals and such without the requisite legal training?
Or do you think the above is not true, and you have the links to prove that conservatives are wrong about this?
By the way, my expectation as to a response, I will give right now, a rejection of the premise without addressing any of the points, followed by a rhetorical flourish of some kind, often a rhetorical question, but many times a rhetorical statement that appeals only to the like-minded.
As for censorship, freedom of expression is an American value, a cultural value, pretending that as long as you don't have the force of government involved, shutting people out of the debate for whatever thought crime you have dreamed up this year is not censorship of a kind, then you are redefining the word in order to leave no word to describe your aggression on the culture.
How in good conscience could Michael Gerson accept syndication from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in these circumstances?
Gerson should immediately resign.
Let's see some testicles, Mr Gerson. For once.
The ideal 2016 presidential candidate would be any person who will start the first debate by looking at Hillary and stating, "You were fired from the Watergate committee for ethics violations. You used other people, who went to jail, to enrich yourself while first lady of Arkansas. Records that showed you lied about your participation in those crimes, which had been sought by criminal prosecutors for years, showed up in your White House closet two days after the statute of limitations expired. You defamed and lied to all of the citizens of the US to help cover up your husband's blowjobs from a White House intern and affairs and rapes of other women, calling all of us who told the truth a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. You lied about the deaths of our US ambassador in Benghazi and his brave defenders to the US people and at the graveside of one soldier to the mother of that soldier, and then declaimed about your lies before a House committee, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"
You are an amazingly horrible person who lies to cover up your own failures, the failures of policy, criminal acts, deaths of brave US personnel and even a cheating, lying spouse.
Any words coming out of your mouth should be expected to be lies and not just little ones about political issues but about whether the sky is blue and the water is wet. That is the difference it makes, at this point.
Yes, we should do as Gerson says because Compassionate Conservatism was such a smashing success the first time around.
Shaping the battlespace for 2016.
Don't know much about Gerson, but he sounds like he might be another "Uncle Dave" (after Brooks and Frum): the polite, deferential "house" conservative, no threat to the "liberal" plantation, and loving the very crease in Massa 'Bama's trousers.
It doesn't really matter if George Will was correct or not, the optics of what he said were horrific. Another Todd Akin moment.
Freder - what is abhorrent about Will's opinion?
I doubt Gerson knows that the Tea Party position on immigration is the mainstream position in America on immigration.
1) Secure the borders.
2) Keep families together.
3) Amnesty begins when you apply for it by moving to the back of the line.
My guess is this will cost the Post-Dispatch circulation. Not a single liberal will suddenly subscribe because of Gerson and more than a few Conservatives will cancel their subscriptions because the paper bowed down for the faux left outrage. But, the management just won't get it, once again.
"One wonders if the St Louis paper is liberal and supporting McCaskill in her tiff with Will over her poor use of statistics"
A good point I had forgotten. Here it is again .
“Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. ‘sexual assault,’” commentator George Will wrote in a June 6 Washington Post column. “The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported.
“Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous.”
What I see a lot more of is Democratic Senators who act like Conservatives to get elected in red states, viz Joe Manchin, then when they have six years in the clear, become minions of Harry "The Democratics have no Billionaires" Reid
Back in the day, when I was growing up in the St. Louis suburb of Jennings (1950 - 1970), there were two daily papers; The Post Dispatch (liberal) and the Globe Democrat (conservative). I forget which but one was published in the morning and the other was published as an evening paper. I think the Post Dispatch eventually absorbed the Globe Democrat.
"The ideal [presidential] nominee, therefore, would have tea party populist roots, middle-class sensibilities, a policy interest in social mobility and a conspicuously welcoming approach to immigration."
No no no. This will not do! What is this about immigration? Are there black people in the US asking for their families to immigrate?
NO!
Reparations damnit!! Talk about reparations!
Crack, crack, where for art thou? This is spinning off the rails. Even the non-conservative conservative acting journalists are going off the rails here.
Reparations. Say it with me. Reparations!!!
Talk about it. It's going to happen. Don't ignore it.
The causes of immigration, especially mass emigration, and certainly illegal immigration, need to be addressed at the source. It is peculiar, and suspicious, that neither foreign leaders, nor American advocates, nor the illegal aliens themselves, have demonstrated an interest in addressing the motivation for mass emigration, or its effects upon target communities.
"I'm a Republican," - Crack
Just like Clarence Thomas and Condaleeza Rice, Ha ha ha!
And you wonder why most everybody thinks you are just trolling.
The Crack Emcee said...
One distinction is becoming very clear for me:
I'm a Republican, more than a conservative, because conservatives tend to get weird.
Carry on,...
6/19/14, 10:24 AM
Please explain in what way are you a Republican? What Republican policies or positions do you prefer over Democrat policies and positions? I really want to know because you do not appear to be a Republican based on what you say and how you say it.
I am shocked, shocked Freder didn't respond to the answers to his question.
My bet is that he never responds, or chooses a beside the topic post like this one for a hit and run.
“I doubt Gerson knows that the Tea Party position on immigration is the mainstream position in America on immigration.
1) Secure the borders.
2) Keep families together.
3) Amnesty begins when you apply for it by moving to the back of the line.”
I can get behind that conceptually but given the cowardly way the pro-amnesty crowd has been using children, perhaps number 2 should read “Keep families together in the country where the parents legally live.
And the hit and run will call us all something like "Fucking stupid" or words to that effect, while dodging the points made.
Well maybe you could tell me whether you think that if a girl has sex under the influence of alcohol or pot, she has been raped, or sexually assaulted, whereas a boy in that same situation can be deemed a "rapist" or at least a sexual predator by an institution that has massive control over his future prospects, but these cases are not adjudicated in a court of law, but rather by ad hoc tribunals and such without the requisite legal training?
You can certainly be raped even if you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and being drunk or high is not a defense to a sexual assault charge.
As for non-judicial tribunals at colleges, they can certainly be problematic. But I bet the vast majority of those accused would rather stay out of the court system. A felony conviction and possible jail time is certainly going to screw up your life a lot worse than getting expelled from a university (which of course is the maximum sentence the university can mete out).
As for whether "conservatives are wrong about this", I can certainly provide plenty of links where that contend that the primary problem with the tribunals is that punishment is rarely adequate for the crimes alleged.
Blogger Alex said...
"It doesn't really matter if George Will was correct or not, the optics of what he said were horrific. Another Todd Akin moment."
I don't get your comment. What was horrific ?
"You can certainly be raped even if you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and being drunk or high is not a defense to a sexual assault charge. "
There you go refusing to understand the argument even well enough to attempt a refutation.
Will's point was that if a girl is high or drunk, and not to some blood alcohol definition either, that having sex with her is at a minimum sexual assault, and rape, if she so claims.
I don't know how old you are, but when I was in college, there were lots of girls who liked to get high to "enhance the experience," guys too.
So the statistics say that 1 in five women have been raped or sexually assaulted based on questions like "Have you ever had penetrative sex when drunk or high?" If the woman answers yes, she has been "sexually assaulted" whether she felt assaulted or not. By that standard, I am a serial rapist.
"As for non-judicial tribunals at colleges, they can certainly be problematic." - Abhorrent!
"But I bet the vast majority of those accused would rather stay out of the court system."
Really? This is just a way to avoid allowing due process to the accused.
"As for whether "conservatives are wrong about this", I can certainly provide plenty of links where that contend that the primary problem with the tribunals is that punishment is rarely adequate for the crimes alleged."
Then accuse them in a court of law.
"I can certainly provide plenty of links that contend"
I don't doubt it. Based on these contentions, you denounce Will's speech as "abhorrent" and advocate shutting his voice out of the national debate, and you wonder why people find you cuddly leftists scary.
Freder Frederson wrore -
"...I can certainly provide plenty of links where that contend that the primary problem with the tribunals is that punishment is rarely adequate for the crimes alleged."
Other than the phony statistics, that's the problem. A whole lot of alleging and not much proving.
But crimes have been alleged, punishment must follow in proportion to the enormity of the crime alleged.
What was horrific ?
The assertion that "victimhood is a coveted status that confers privileges". Even if the further assertion that the pendulum has swung in the direction of turning consensual, but regretted, sexual encounters into sexual assault, the contention that victims are somehow privileged is disgusting.
So, Freder, if BOTH parties are drunk ...who did the raping?
Colleges say the man every time which couldn't be less legal.
And few of the accused wouldn't prefer a day in court over the kangaroo court that is college.
"You can certainly be raped even if you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and being drunk or high is not a defense to a sexual assault charge."
Is this a case of being purposefully dense?
That's not what he asked you at all. Are you unaware of what is happening on college campuses and the rules they come up with?
He didn't say a woman was raped. He said a woman had sex under the influence, which on college campuses these days is rape.
And oh yeah, "reparations!!"
Crack: "I'm a Republican,.."
LOL
Yes.
Of course you are.
In precisely the same way that North Korea is a Democratic People's Republic.
Freder Frederson said...
...
As for non-judicial tribunals at colleges, they can certainly be problematic. But I bet the vast majority of those accused would rather stay out of the court system. A felony conviction and possible jail time is certainly going to screw up your life a lot worse than getting expelled from a university (which of course is the maximum sentence the university can mete out).
...
6/19/14, 1:36 PM
That right there is the problem. If it was rape it is a crime and belongs in the courts. The fact that it is kept "in house" is the problem. Higher Ed is not the courts. Every allocation of rape should result in the police being called and an investigation started. If the police don't proceed, the schools should not either. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
He didn't say a woman was raped. He said a woman had sex under the influence, which on college campuses these days is rape.
Maybe you can help me out. I spent quite some time trying to find hard statistical data on how many accusations of sexual assault are adjudicated through university tribunals, how many of those proceedings result in punishment of the alleged perpetrator, how many are severe (e.g., suspension for entire semesters or expulsion), etc.
You seem to know a lot about this, so some actual numbers would be very helpful. Anecdotes about miscarriages of justice just aren't that helpful.
Gerson is a compassionate conservative...who came up with that term by the way?
As opposed to hateful conservatives?
We need a "like" or an "agree" button. Sometimes I think you get it just as I do and I wish for a way to show you I agree without having to do a complete comment.
You don't see Crack's game here: he says he's a Republican, and then you're all like "no you couldn't be a Republican because you're a radical Black nationalist." Then he can come back with "look at whitey and how he says that Black people can't be Republicans!"
Then he can make a crack about how they're so racist they don't realize it until someone tries to join the club.
Then he can beg for money like a dirty bum in the street.
It's so much fun! And it happens in every thread on the site.
"Even if the further assertion that the pendulum has swung in the direction of turning consensual, but regretted, sexual encounters into sexual assault, the contention that victims are somehow privileged is disgusting."
(There's a Fox Butterfield in there somewhere, but whatever.)
If you read the actual column, you will nowhere find the words you describe above.
What will said, and you somewhat captured this, is that by by making people, well, women, delusional and hypersenstive to "sexual assault" where what we are really seeing is regretted sex, or even attitudes that have changed toward the "rapist" well after the act itself, you will of course get more victims.
It is like asking people if they have ever missed a meal, then declaring that everybody who answered yes is struggling with hunger, you create a lot more hungry.
Now to the "abhorrent" passage:
"and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate."
This can only be read honestly in the context of defining down the definition of "sexual assault" to meaninglessness, then, in the case of the example he gave, showing how women are encouraged to be "victims." Not get raped, mind you, but to be "victims of sexual assault" by the campus definition.
Nowhere does will even address actual victims of "rape rape" or "legitimate rape," now you see why those terms were needed, because those useful terms in the history of humanity have been defined away, like the definition of "torture."
Maybe you didn't "pretend to misunderstand," but you sure are doing a pretty good impersonation of one who does.
", how many of those proceedings result in punishment of the alleged perpetrator, how many are severe"
These are not legal proceedings and these standards are not arrived at through any democratic process, so what good are these statistics?
CDC
"Rape is defined as any completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal
penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the
use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk,
high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent."
"Sexual coercion is defined as unwanted sexual penetration that occurs after a person is
pressured in a nonphysical way. In NISVS, sexual coercion refers to unwanted vaginal, oral,
or anal sex after being pressured in ways that included being worn down by someone who
repeatedly asked for sex or showed they were unhappy; feeling pressured by being lied to,
being told promises that were untrue, having someone threaten to end a relationship or
spread rumors; and sexual pressure due to someone using their influence or authority"
BTW, Freder, where did I get a link to the stats and methods you were looking for?
The right-wing press
You know, were words and facts matter.
By this standard, lying about the size of your prick is sexual assault twice! Once for lying, and another for "making promises that weren't true."
These statistics are "abhorrent."
Do you want to talk about hunger statistics next?
Perhaps we can talk about climate models limiting all references to IPCC reports?
Titus,
That was George Bush, and I fell for it because he was popular among blacks and Hispanics in Texas.
Signed, -Older and Wiser.
Freder try:
Overlawyered has a ton of links http://overlawyered.com/2014/06/presumption-guilt-sexual-assault-cases/
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/2014/05/here_come_the_lawsuits_over_se/
Also the FIRE site
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/08/exclusive-brown-university-student-speaks-out-on-what-it-s-like-to-be-accused-of-rape.html
Duke LaCrosse Scandal?
Do you think young men should have their reputations ruined by witch hunts and not due process? That's what it's about.
What was horrific ?
The assertion that "victimhood is a coveted status that confers privileges".
WTF? That's not horrific...that is a simple statement of fact. It is the only underlying principle of Democratic politics today.
It is why every year there are a dozen or so cases of fake racism, sexism, homophobia...what have you, on college campuses. Victimhood provides both status and resources among the intellectual elite.
Maybe you can help me out. I spent quite some time trying to find hard statistical data on how many accusations of sexual assault are adjudicated through university tribunals, how many of those proceedings result in punishment of the alleged perpetrator, how many are severe (e.g., suspension for entire semesters or expulsion), etc.
You're kidding right?
Of course such data doesn't exist...and if it did the universities would be in court protecting their right not to release it.
It is actually part of the problem. The Right and conservatives would love for there to be accurate data in this area.
you denounce Will's speech as "abhorrent" and advocate shutting his voice out of the national debate
Where did I advocate shutting his voice out of the national debate?
Alex:
It doesn't really matter if George Will was correct or not,
Truthiness.
Here we have the libtard commitment to truth in a nutshell.
If you rob a fellow student with a gun will you be judged by a rinky dink tribunal or will the police be called?
It trivializes rape to be a matter handled outside the courts.
If you rob a fellow student with a gun will you be judged by a rinky dink tribunal or will the police be called?
It trivializes rape to be a matter handled outside the courts.
"being told promises that were untrue,"
The curse of the unpaid whore!
" Where on earth is the claim that Will (or gerry for that matter) is not entitled to his abhorrent opinion or that he should not be free to publish it in any forum that is willing to accommodate him?"
OK, it is more you are attempting to push him to the fringe of the national debate.
I notice you dodged the majority of the post to seize on that one item.
Are you still comfortable with the definitions of "rape" and "sexual coercion"?
What the left did here was to destroy an aspect of the culture that had been worked out. "Rape rape" and you go to "Prison prison," "He said She said," you keep yourself out of those kinds of situations using something called morals.
You guys "innovated" to remove the repressive moral strictures on "free sex" and you have created a problem which you can only solve by taking away the constitutional rights of the accused with the excuse that the accused would prefer it that way.
I think the accused would prefer not to be accused of rape if the victim is not willing to take it to court. This is not perfect. That is why it is also ... wait for it... incumbent upon the woman to avoid situations like Juanita Broadrick meeting Bill Clinton in a hotel room.
CatherineM (to Freder): "Do you think young men should have their reputations ruined by witch hunts and not due process?"
The sad and obvious answer to this question and all related questions pertaining to the exercise of power by leftists is.....yes.
Sometimes you simply have to break a few "male college student" eggs to make the perfect kangaroo court/star chamber feminist omelette.
Gahrie: "WTF? That's not horrific...that is a simple statement of fact."
The fact that is a simple statement of fact is precisely what makes it "horrific" to the left.
Facts are the first items sacrificed on the altar of leftism.
The P-D should have said "We will be replacing Will's column with a glass of warm milk," and had done with it.
"You can certainly be raped even if you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and being drunk or high is not a defense to a sexual assault charge. "
You forgot to add that being drunk or high is not a defense for false accusation.
Looks like Freddie is gone. That is what always happens with liberals when you lure them into a discussion of the facts behind there rhetoric, except in the rare occasions when they think they have the facts on their side, then they will discuss whatever until the cows come home.
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