November 15, 2006
"The bill will turn Pakistan into a free-sex zone."
Worried Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the leader of the alliance of Pakistan's religious political parties about the Women's Protection Bill, which will authorize the prosecution of rape outside of the Sharia courts (where four male witnesses are required). Surely, you understand Rahman's logic.
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32 comments:
Yes. It falls into the "Men are dogs and can't control themselves" category. (Now where have I heard that before?)
Internet Ronin wrote:
Yes. It falls into the "Men are dogs and can't control themselves" category. (Now where have I heard that before?)
As well as, every rape victim is a dirty slut who must have asked for it. And sane Muslims wonder why they have a credibility problem when they say (in perfect good faith, I'm sure) that Islam doesn't condone rape? Islam doesn't, but (once more) so-called 'moderate' Muslims need to ask themselves whether they are with their silence.
In some islamic nations, a man get a few months in the slammer for an honor killing. You've come a long ways, baby! After all, islam is a religion of peace. Who knows, one day they may even stop hanging and stoning people for being gay too. We are oppressing natural evolution by trying to impose the rule of civilized law in places like Iraq.
From the FIRST paragraph of the article: "Until now rape cases were dealt with in Sharia courts. Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery."
The guy is not pro-rape. He's anti-adultery. He thinks the change will license free sex, because it will be relatively easier for women to cheat and claim they were raped as a defense.
Actually, this is not so bonkers. The reason the threat of force or force requirement exists in our common-law of rape is in Victorian England, fornication and rape were illegal, but prior to the force requirement women would escape prosecution for fornication if the woman said it was rape and the man denied it (50/50 as to rape). The proof of force (a ripped dress, say) makes it 51% at least -- preponderance of the evidence. In other words, if the woman claims it is rape and there's no proof, they both go to jail for fornication, because they both admitted to the act taking place.
In other words, I'm saying this only seems strange to us because we don't prosecute or criminalize adultery any more.
this only seems strange to us because
Hm. What flavor of Koolaid is that, like Lime or maybe Strawberry?
I guess the old adage that is true, that if you get 10 people reading a blog entry, you can guarantee that at least one person will make the most ridiculous comment possible.
How you go from 4 male witnesses to rape to support for adultery is, well, just the Grand Canyon of lunacy. That would effectively make you the Evel Knievel of logic.
Paul, I think Mortimer was merely describing how similar the West approached this issue in the past, not agreeing.
Yes, thank you, Pogo. The scholar who I am badly paraphrasing is feminist law professor Ann Coughlin.
But...did you notice that without this law a woman who has been raped will be charged with adultery pretty much automatically? She is guilty either way.
Yes, because she had sex outside of marriage. So, either it was rape (she was forced) or adultery (she did it on purpose). The evidentiary burden is on her, because the empirical presumption is that rape is rarer than cheating. Though I'm not condoning the law, its empirical presumption is probably true (cheating is more common than rape).
So your real gripe is that the evidentiary burden is so high...but this isn't really a question about whether the deterrence is excessive (at least not to the supporters)...the supporters do care that lowering the evidentiary bar makes it that much easier to cheat but they care much more that lowering the bar sends a signal that adultery isn't as bad as it used to be.
That's the same reason people support the death penalty in the face of empirical evidence saying it doesn't work -- murder is wrong, thus there should be the highest peanlty for it. I mean, disagree all you want, but you're not just disagreeing with "backwards natives," you're disagreeing with Kant and Queen Victoria, too.
And, before Pogo needs to intervene, I'm not calling anyone a backwards native.
Everyone to Karachi for spring break!
This should be a relief to the Fort Lauderdale police department.
One of the wonders of the Internet, was the ability to find out one's geneaology. Luckily, I found distant cousins that had already done the work. Now, relating to this topic, I'm going to insert something about my relatives that will have some sense of relativity:
I'm adding the "*":
Note: [10]: who was brought into court 30 Sept. 1656 by Sgt. F****h to accuse Hackaliah B*****s of getting her pregnant, but he was discharged; then John F******n and Sarah, both of Ipswich, were sentenced to be whipped for "uncleanness together", he was also in trouble for stealing from his master and lying. He was probably one of the Scot prisoners of Dunbar or Worcester. Both then disappear from the record. She must have died before 1680 since she was not named in her father's will of that year, unless she had been disowned."
These people were Puritans from England that had arrived in 1630 with the Winthrop Fleet. Life was tough and strict back then. The difference is that Christianity has evolved, Islam hasn't, and never will.
CB - see the Recorded Attacks section in the back part of Max Brook's Zombie Survival Guide.
I forgot to add this:
Sgt. F****h, was Sarah's father.
What do you mean it doesn't work? I have yet to hear of any condemned men returning as zombies.
I've been agitating for a "cut off the head and destroy the brain" policy for years now, but the Pro-Undead-American lefties keeps playing the "cruel and unusual" card.
Oh yes he is too defending and promoting rape, Mortimer.
The Puritans were weird sexually -- you should look up what they did to immoral horses -- but what is the relevance of that to anything?
If you have a system that results in more than 12 rapes a day and zero convictions per year, and you defend that system, then you're promoting rape.
Sheesh.
Cripes Mortimer, your argument is so ridiculous and full of holes I find it impossible to rebut. There's no place to stand, I can't use a lever.
You should be a communist, lol.
First you let the meat walk around uncovered, then you start prosecuting the cats for "licking the meat" ... and before you know it, the whole place is one big orgy.
I don't understand how you can't see that logic? It's elucidated for you every day in virtually every Mosque. Oh, you don't speak Arabic? I see. Let me explain it to you.
First, cover up the meat. Second, let anyone rape the uncovered meat ... and voila, it's a Mohammadian paradise for Allah on Earth.
Simple. Muslim. Logic.
What's to understand?
The other weird thing about the 4 witness requirement:
It requires four guys to witness a rape and not stop it. And then they have to be shameless enough to admit they witnessed a rape and didn't do anything about it.
How can you expect anyone who is too cowardly to stop a rape to step up and testify against a rapist???
The four witness rule is nothing other than a way to imprison women. It makes prosecuting rape nigh impossible, which means there is zero punishment, which equals zero deterant. So the only way a woman can feel safe is if she covers herself up and/or never leaves her home and/or is accompanied by men at all times.
Any attempt to show there is some logical reason behind the law, other than imprisoning women, is crap.
Mort: I'd like to say I think the insight you provided here was well-grounded and valid.
Why some commenters seem eager to tag you with advocating systemic rape, well, . . ., well, I really don't know what to say about that.
Anyway, thank you for reminding me of some stuff from first year crim I should have remembered and for making a connection to current events I'd not likely have made, even if I'd remembered.
There's a lot to learn here at Althouse.
This should really be up to the people to decide. It's not fair for elitist politicians to force an unfavorable law onto the people.
If the majority of people think it's ok for a man to rape a woman as long as there are not four witnesses, then it should be allowed.
After all - it's in the Koran - so it must be so.
I don't think that mention this, but my understanding is that if it takes four men, it would take eight women, or some combination where the testimony of a woman is weighed at half that of a man. Thus, four women and two men would also probably work.
I do think that this hits at the heart of the Islamic sexual problem. Women have to be segregated and protected for just this reason - that if they are raped, there is effectively no legal recourse. And in a society where virginity at marriage is still of paramount concern, having a daughter raped makes her unmarriagable.
The other side though is that it assumes that men have no self control when tempted by any whif of female sexuality. And western society puts that belief in question. Women run around all the time here showing a lot of their sexuality, and we don't see males and females copulating in the streets. Indeed, I must admit, and I don't think that I am a rarity, that I have seen innumerable women over the years, dressed indecently according to conservative Moslems, and I haven't raped even one of them. And, it really doesn't take nearly as much self control as they seem to believe it would take.
But part of it is probably that what isn't shown is often what is sexiest. Thus, at one time, when our (western) women were swathed head to toe, a bare ankle would excite men. Now, of course, most women wearing skirts show their ankles, their knees..., and it mostly doesn't affect us much. Indeed, I can remember when a peak at cleavage was exciting. Now it is commonplace.
Well, Islam has to come into the 21st Century to survive. Moslems have a choice of remaining in the 7th century and living in dirt huts, or adjusting to the rest of the world, with a potential to live much better. The problem is that we had 375 years from the time of those Puritans cited above to adjust. The Moslems today don't, and that is why it is so tramatic for many of them.
Let me add the obvious to my previous post. The reason that virginity was of such a concern to humans in the past was that we, males, spend a lot of our resources raising our kids. It makes no evolutionary sense to spend those resources raising someone else's kids, if we can spend them raising our own. So, it was important to make sure that we had a genetic stake in the kids we were expending our resources raising (note that this is open enough to accept the situation where the kid might be your brother's instead - you still have a genetic stake in raising the kid).
Now days, proving paternity is easy. A simple genetic test can determine if a kid was fathered by you, or at worst, someone closely related to you, which is almost as good from an evolutionary point of view. But it is going to take generations for this technology to work its way through our societal and cultural norms.
That's the same reason people support the death penalty in the face of empirical evidence saying it doesn't work
What do you mean it doesn't work?
It was just a point about general deterrence, not specific deterrence. Obviously, dead men aren't alive to kill again.
Women have to be segregated and protected for just this reason - that if they are raped, there is effectively no legal recourse. And in a society where virginity at marriage is still of paramount concern, having a daughter raped makes her unmarriagable.
True, true. But that's just really a private/public distinction at work. If you're raped in public, then a whole lot of people should have seen it. If it happened in private, the implication is you snuck off to be away from friends and family to have sex somewhere others couldn't see it, which tends to sound like adultery or fornication. I'm not agreeing with the law, but it is true that if your spouse were gone for a week without explanation you might think s/he was off cheating before thinking s/he'd been kidnaped and raped.
Women run around all the time here showing a lot of their sexuality, and we don't see males and females copulating in the streets.
At least not all of the time, anyway. But I suspect if they read the post below about Swathmore, there'd be a lot of imams convinced that their worldview is correct.
Geeze Mortimer...
"If it happened in private, the implication is you snuck off to be away from friends and family to have sex somewhere others couldn't see it, which tends to sound like adultery or fornication."
Yeah, that's the implication if you're already in a society where women are segregated because of laws that legalize rape. In other societies, the not so ridiculously backwards ones, there is no such implication. It isn't a matter of public vs. private, it is a matter of making women prisoners.
Mortimer, if you don't agree with the law, why do you keep writing posts explaining how logical the law is?
"In other societies, the not so ridiculously backwards ones, there is no such implication. It isn't a matter of public vs. private, it is a matter of making women prisoners."
You can reject the public/private disctinction if you like, as many feminists do, but not everyone does. John Stuart Mill isn't somehow a woman-hater or promoter of domestic violence simply because be believes in a private/public distinction. Nor is someone a woman-hater because they reject VAWA because they believe in limited enumerated powers of government.
I guess your point is that this society was backwards until Lawrence v. Texas was handed down, because we criminalized sodomy until that point in time (sodomy being co-extensive with fornication).
Mortimer, if you don't agree with the law, why do you keep writing posts explaining how logical the law is?
The point is that you're making a mistake if your argument is "Muslims are primitive and backwards woman-haters, look how it's reflected in their legal system". The same empirical presumptions and so forth undergird most legal systems, including those out of which ours was formed (and ours recently). Your objection is not to the logic of the law, but some sort of moral sense you have. That's fine. But morality and legality, or morality and logical validity, are not necessarily the same thing.
I can say that Nuremberg laws were validly enacted in Germany without being a Nazi and supporting Nazism and supporting Nuremberg laws, and your failure to understand that is just sad.
Mortimer,
I don't reject the private/public distinction, I reject applying it to this subject.
I do so because applying it to this subject is friggin' retarded.
The fact that you can't figure that out is just sad.
My argument ends at 'primitive and backward.'
They should not be doing what they're doing, if they are human beings.
That they have dreamed up an internally consistent legal system, with a substructure of vile superstitions to justify it, means nothing to me and I cannot figure out why it seems to mean something to you.
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