Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through February 27, 2002	45		02/27 11:26am
	Archive through March 01, 2002	45		03/01 07:36am

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"This story is certainly not "proof" that all gay men are out to rape little boys, any more than the thousands of male-female rapes each ear are "proof" that all straight men are out to rape women."

Where's this coming from? Never said anything like it.

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Yeah, that's my point. And there are "gay" and "straight" rapists. This denotes sexual preference, not whether any preference or acts are right or wrong, sick or healthy, etc.

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By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 12:48 pm: Edit

No problem Arj and yes my tone was probably a bit mean,

I too have no time for some militant feminists and the "all men are rapists" etc. claptrap espoused by such people. Using the actions of rapists to satisfy their own political agenda is disgusting.

Serial killers get turned on by killing and torturing their victims, soccer thugs get turned on by soccer violence, etc. Are these acts generally motivated primarily by sexual urges? No.

I put rapists in a similar category of persons to habitual wife-beaters. They are driven by their own feelings of inadaequacy and compensate this by carrying out acts that make then feel powerful, rape is such an act. There may be some sexual satisfaction for the rapist but this is not the prime motivation for the act. A desire for power and control is the prime motivation.

Hobgoblin

By Arj on Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 10:09 am: Edit

Good points Hobgoblin, although the tone was a bit mean. I'll try to address them briefly. First off, let me make clear (and I think I've already done so many times but will do so again) I'm all for condemning rapists. This debate is about psychological theory, and how politics affects that theory. We're not arguing about right and wrong. I think we are on the same page here.

Second, as for the theory, what I'm refering to is the theories espoused by some 1960s radical feminists who did have a blatantly anti-male agenda. Check out the writings of Andrea Dworkin sometime. There was no good science behind this, just anti-male politics dressed up with the proper lingo to fit academic journals. These are the scholars who said that all heterosexual sex is rape, and that basically only lesbianism was kosher. That is the broader theory that we are dealing with. This stuff is still taught in our finest universities.

Third, as for the science, I no longer work in the psychology field, but will read the occasional article when I see one. I saw recently (probably within the last 8 months?) a study that directly addressed this issue. It said that most rapists are genuinely turned on by the act. The researchers said that it was not all just about power, but there were sexual urges at work. This does not seem to be a very controversial conclusion to me. The study in no way validated those urges, (yes: they are perverted), it merely said that they exist, which was controverted by the radical feminist theories I mentioned.

So when you say: "Rape is . . . motivated primarily by violence and control, not by 'horniness'", the study I saw would say that you are missing the point that violence and control make some people horny. They aren't thinking "I want to go out and control someone", they are thinking that they want to go out and sexually gratify themselves, in whatever sick way they prefer.

Hey, take it or leave it. I'm just reporting on the study and have no vested interest in it. If you have any studies showing otherwise, great. But I think the theory you're espousing was based more on politics than science, and has been repeated so many times that educated people such as yourself reflexively believe it to be true. The one place I will take a stand is that the views espoused by politicos like Dworkin are wrong.

By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 08:37 am: Edit

Arj,

Rape is an act of violence and is motivated primarily by violence and control, not by 'horniness'. For God's sake it's not exactly difficult to go out and get laid, if someone's horny then why not just go to a night club and pick someone up. But this is not what rapists want, they want to dominate and control someone against that person's will. They want the power to do what they like with a person regardless of the other person's wishes. Sexual pleasure is a mutual thing it is about two people willingly giving and taking. How much sensual pleasure would there be from having sex with someone who lies there terrified for their life? How much will the victim contribute to the sensual experience of sex? It is power that motivates a rapist not horniness.

Rapists do not do it "because they're horny", next you'll be saying that a wife-beater beats up his wife because he likes a fight. It is about power and control. This is not a "1960's feminist theory" and it does not "vilify men as power-hungry brutes". It does however damn rapists as power-hungry brutes which is what they are. As rapists do not represent the male population then I fail to see why some men are reluctant to accept this fact. It's as if they think that condemning rapists means that they themselves are condemned. How does explaining the behaviour of rapists as power-hungry brutes mean a vilification of men as a whole?

Hobgoblin

By Arj on Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 04:54 am: Edit

Blackjack, You misrepresent a lot of what I said, so much for honest reporting, huh? This exchange practically proved my theory about the liberal media. Rather than accurately report and debate a non-P.C. view, the racist/homophobe implications come out from the liberal reporter.

"This story is certainly not "proof" that all gay men are out to rape little boys, any more than the thousands of male-female rapes each ear are "proof" that all straight men are out to rape women."

Where's this coming from? Never said anything like it.

"I just did a search on this case, and interestingly, almost every one of the sites which mentioned it were not only blatantly conservative, they were using the case as an illustration of liberal media bias AND of the evil devience of gays. Several of them were outright White Supremacist sites."

I certainly wouldn't condone the view that gays are evil, which I don't believe is held by most conservatives. The story was also picked up by U.S. News, Washington Post, and many other mainstream publications. There was a debate about it on TV, I believe on The News Hour (PBS). While some nuts may want to turn this into an anti-gay story, the real story, as picked up by the mainstream outlets, was about media bias.

"Well, then they were just plain rapists."

Yeah, that's my point. And there are "gay" and "straight" rapists. This denotes sexual preference, not whether any preference or acts are right or wrong, sick or healthy, etc.

"As for your contention that most educated people are liberal,"

Not what I said. I was making a point about "most educated people who would fall into the liberal camp."

And I've heard this 1960s feminist theory that rape is about power, not sex, which tries to vilify men as power-hungry brutes. But lets face it, it's about sex. Do I need to make this more clear so that you don't mischaracterize what I say again? It's WRONG and a sick expression of sexuality, but these people do it because they are horny, not because they have some need to dominate, as the theory goes. This theory is actually out of fashion now in the psychological field. Don't ask me to find an article on that, I've spent enough time on this, considering the only point I was trying to make was that Bush would have won Florida by a higher margin had many voters in west Florida not walked out of the polling lines following the liberal media's mis-calling of the state for Gore.

By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 03:06 am: Edit

As to homosexuals, heterosexuals, rape and paedophillia. Rape is not about sex it's about violence and power. It's about control and is motivated by the same drive as wife-beating or bullying. Heterosexual men have been found guilty of raping other men. It's not about sex.

Is an adult man who has sex with a 13 year old girl a paedophile? Yes he is.

The idea that homosexuals are more inclined to paedophilia is just wrong. This idea is put about by people who believe that consenting adult homosexual is wrong (particularly male homosexuality for some reason). They then use the homosexual paedophile propaganda idea as a means of turning the heterosexual majority (who basically couldn't care less what adult homosexuals do in private) against homosexuals.

Hobgoblin

By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 02:54 am: Edit

Mvario,

You are not outnumbered. There are a lot of lefties on this forum, several of whom I suspect are well to the left of yourself.

From my point of view as to Gore or Bush they're both right-wing corporate lackies with no real difference between them apart from a different label and a slight difference in emphasis on a small number of issues. Basically they're much the same.

As for a conspiracy against Gore? Bollocks, Bush won, Gore lost. There's nothing worse than being ungracious in defeat.

Hobgoblin

By Elbongo on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:48 pm: Edit

Link for thought:
http://www.ratherbiased.com/

By Pikkle on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:18 pm: Edit

Death and taxes baby...

By Scanion on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:08 pm: Edit

A quick comment on the counting of absentee votes in Florida. Florida statute has the valid postmark requirement, but there is a federal law that says a valid absentee vote does not require a valid postmark. Ultimately it was determined that for federal elections, the valid post mark was not required.

By Destiny on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 05:29 pm: Edit

>> "And 13 certainly falls into the range of pedophilia, inasmuch as the victim is not fully sexally mature and not capable of consent."

Unless she commits a crime, in which case she magically becomes an adult, fully aware of her actions and capable of consent.

By Mvario on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 03:36 pm: Edit

Don,

You're right, i'm a true believer
and probably as far to the left as you are to the right. kinda sux being totally outnumbered here, but I enjoy the debates as long as they stay civil.

Arj, I personally don't remember the details from election evening,, but everything I can find says that they made the first call for Gore in FL 8 to 10 minutes before the polls closed, not an hour.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2000/11/20/close.html

http://pw1.netcom.com/~mecowan/electionday_FAQ.htm

And I totally agree with everyone who says that the "liberal media" thing is a myth. I think there was a time when this was true, I think it part because reports and editors are just going for sensationalism (aka Yellow journalism) in search of ratings, advertising buck$, etc. But I think ultimately because most of the news outlets in this country are in the hands of a very few large corporations:

http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html

By _Blackjack on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 02:34 pm: Edit

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I recall that the victim was post-pubescent and doubt the perpetrators could be considered pedophiles.

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By Don_Walsh on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:43 pm: Edit

One Daniel Pearl is worth a thousand phonies faking stories like Dan "Look Mom! I'm Inside Afghanistan!") Rather and Peter "Tailwind" Arnett.

(Rather did that piece from inside Palistan and Arnett was sacked for the phony piece about supposed nerve gas use against fictitious US defectors in Vietnam.)

By Baz on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:42 pm: Edit

Good call, rabid.

btw, have you heard the latest reports on the radiation from the above ground nuclear tests in the fifties and sixties? The newest report is at CNN.com. Seems that it's a lot worse than they thought, and this was hidden from most of the public. They DID, however, inform photo labs, so that they could protect their film, so it isn't all bad.

I love watching film from those old nuclear tests, though. It's simply amazing.

By Thegreenimp on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:41 pm: Edit

Don,
I have a Boxer dog, that thinks he is "El Chupacabra"......till he sees a smaller dog, then he just runs and hides behind me.

By Mr_Rabid on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:16 pm: Edit

"his 'duty' was to his wife and family...
thrillseeker, pure and simple... "

Without such men, we would not know even what we do of what goes on.

And the same could be said of anyone who does a dangerous, but neccessary job. I think at thier best, reporters are like a civillian intelligence agency. They make sure we find out about shit like Love Canal, Watergate, and what cologne Tom Cruise is wearing this week.

By Don_Walsh on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:14 pm: Edit

Aw shucks. But have you heard a better EXTEMPORANEOUS one?

And Yes, Jay, the half goat-half whatever a chupa is. Mexican crossborder boogey man.

By Thegreenimp on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Don,
I believe "El Chupacabra" is the little beast you mentioned.
Jay

By Arj on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:11 pm: Edit

The victim mentioned below was Jesse Dirkhising. You can run that name through a search engine and find out the horrible facts of the case and the media reaction to it. Anyway, it was one example that came to mind, which got some recent attention in the conservative and later mainstream press as an example of liberal media bias.

By Baz on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 01:07 pm: Edit

That's a good conspiracy theory, but I've heard better...

By Don_Walsh on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 12:47 pm: Edit

The 'liberal media' thing has been overdone by the right. I'm a journalist (quite a ranking one in fact) and I'm somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun, with a degree from the Genghis Khan School of Foreign Service thrown in.

My pal Fred Reed is a syndicated columnist, and he makes me look like a namby pamby pinko.

Cord Meyer was a syndicayed columnist after a lifelong career at CIA, and is better known as Deep Throat. Cord was a One Worlder liberal after WWII (where he lost an eye on Guadlcanal or maybein New Guinea) and got to hate the Communists from watching them infiltrate and suborn every international labor organization. So he spent the rest of his days (as head of the Intl Orgs division of CIA) counteracting that, and was highly effective. Incidentally he was Ben Bradlee's brother in law.

His understudy at CIA was Tom Braden, who after he retired from the Agency also became a syndicated columnist, and a talking head on The John McLaughlin Show.

Robert Amory was a high Agency guy, you may have heard of his brother Cleveland? Stewart and Joe Alsop, heavy Agency access at the top rung.

Blackjack may be a liberal but he has a highly refined respect for fact and truth. THAT is more of a prerequisite for a succesful journalist than any personal political agenda.

Blackjack, I Don't think friend Mvario wants to be confused with the facts about the 2000 election. You are right, he is wrong, but he will never see it that way. Give it up. He's a true believer in the great Gore conspiracy theory.

Wait till the next X-files season. Chris Carter will conclusively demonstrate that Bush sent the cigarette smoking man to FL wo whisper in Jeb's ear, and he arranged for the alien colonists to abduct black voters from outside polling booths while causing memory loss among everyone else. The blacks were released only after being turned into Scotsmen so that the blancmanges from the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda could win at Wimbledon. DARPA was put in charge of tampering insome arcane high tech fashion with the low tech voting machines, there are vast subterranean storage facilities of chads in the tunnels under Washington and Arlington, cheek to jowl, so to speak, with the DNA samples, microchip implants, Sculley's babies, Mulder's sister, the leech man, and the Mexican vampire thing whose name I can't remember, "chaipetta" or something like that. Maybe "CheechnChonga". In which case, by God, the creature is part Chinese. And so we have come full circle to Terminus and the Yellow Peril! Arrrgggghhhhh....

By Arj on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 11:26 am: Edit

Blackjack, By "child" I meant "minor." I recall that the victim was post-pubescent and doubt the perpetrators could be considered pedophiles. And yes, they were very much gay with each other. That story got nowhere near the coverage that Shepard got, which fit in with the hate crimes legislation agenda being pushed by the far left, and its view that rural white men in places like Wyoming are all potential killers, backwards, and hopelessly prejudiced. It's a picture the media love to paint.

"Please, take it from an actual liberal: what shows up in the papers, and ESPECIALLY in TV, is pretty far from real liberal thinking."

I'd agree. The point I was making was not necessarily that the liberal political agenda was always being promoted, but the cultural views held by most educated people (including reporters and all those leftist professors) who would fall into the liberal camp. I think we both know well that liberal urban elite that consider rural conservatives to be backwards, and Christians to be caught back in the days of the Inquisition. This view makes its way into the newspapers and college classes. Maybe the "liberal" label is getting in the way here. These cultural views are akin to those of the Frankfurt School who hoped to bring down the capitalist, Christian West with constant criticism through the media and in the universities. The offspring of that School do now dominate those institutions, and although they are not Communists anymore, they share a similar hatred of traditional America and Europe. This is a bias that seeps into the media. Somehow the Critical Theory that was espoused by a few radical commies in the mid-20th Century has now become the norm amongst the "liberal" population in those institutions.

"There was also a cover piece in USAToday the other day on preists [sic] charged with molesting boys."

Yup, the media are all too happy to point out problems with the Church, while overlooking the problems with the communities that make up their constituency.

I'm familiar with those papers you mentioned. Check out the Washington Times some time. It doesn't try to hide its biases and is a great read.

By _Blackjack on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 10:18 am: Edit

For contrast, if you want to see some REAL media bias, read some British papers. I know the Independant and Guardian actually lean a little left of ME, and the Telegraph swings as far in the other direction, I'm told.

By Perruche_Verte on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 10:17 am: Edit

"i just don't like it when people do dangerous things and then the rest of us have to pay for it..."

I hear you. But that's life. Life is all about burying other people and cleaning up the mess they left you.

By _Blackjack on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 09:56 am: Edit

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I recall that in a poll of DC area media employees around the 2000 elections, about 90% of them said they would vote for Gore.

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But if a straight child is raped and killed around the same time by two gay men, that does not conform to their world view and political biases and is not reported.

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By Arj on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:22 am: Edit

Well, I wouldn't say it's usually a well-organized conspiracy so much as a pervasive bias. I recall that in a poll of DC area media employees around the 2000 elections, about 90% of them said they would vote for Gore. I'm sure most of them would consider themselves to be professional and try not to let their cultural biases or politics get in the way, but the goggles through which they view the world will inevitably affect their product. For example, they will choose (some for political reasons, some unconsciously) certain stories over others that conform with their world view. If they see a story in which a gay student is brutally killed (Matthew Shepard), that is worthy of national news coverage. But if a straight child is raped and killed around the same time by two gay men, that does not conform to their world view and political biases and is not reported. I can't even remember the name of that latter victim. Didn't get much press until the disparity was pointed out by an otherwise liberal media watcher. But clearly, the media was more eager to report the crime committed by some disgusting straight white men than the similar crime of some disgusting gay white men. There are lots of examples of this bias. For example, in introducing the members of one senate committee hearing ENRON-related testomony recently, the Republican members of the committee were described as conservative or very conservative to the audience. Then Barbara Boxer was just introduced as Barbara Boxer. How about arch-liberal Barbara Boxer? A conspiracy? Maybe not. But the bias affects the product.

By Petermarc on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:18 am: Edit

military is a different situation, you have committed yourself to a dangerous profession and your family has to deal with it, same with firemen, policemen, guards, etc...i completely understand that he may have really believed in what he was doing...that doesn't keep him from being a thrill seeker, just like firemen, policemen, professional soldiers...or me, if i decided to scuba dive with sharks or climb mount everest or go to libya...if you put yourself in a dangerous situation, without absolute necessity, you are a thrill seeker...sorry, i'm justing calling it what it is...he didn't have to go there, he didn't have try to meet these people...he did it because it was exciting, he might become famous, he could call it work, and he could justify his actions as a right cause...and now he his dead, he left a widow and a child that will never know him...and maybe the family will always look at him as a hero, and that is good, or maybe they will say, he didn't have to do that and now he is dead...game over...you make the calls in life...he chose that...but he wouldn't have gotten his head chopped off if he were interviewing 4-H members and their cows, but that wasn't his style (read his bio) i'm not trying to be an asshole...i'm just trying to look at this from another angle, the angle that makes it clear that you balance your actions and risks, and need to check your priorities, before jumping into a situation...i just don't like it when people do dangerous things and then the rest of us have to pay for it...(rescuing mountain climbers, surfers, deep-woods hikers, spelunkers, scuba divers
green peace activists, the list goes on and on and does not include all members of these groups, but i consider all members of these groups thrill seekers...and it's not like i haven't done anything like that either, so i'm not trying to preach, either)

By _Blackjack on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 07:36 am: Edit

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Don't forget that the liberal media called Florida for Gore immediately after the polls closed in the part of the state that is in the eastern time zone.

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By Baz on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 07:17 am: Edit

petermarc-
do you feel that anybody with a family should not be in the military? If having a wife and family means you should not do anything with a physical threat, we would have a country of mcdonalds drive thru managers and teachers.

Wait, they get shot at too.

And he wasn't there thrill seeking or fucking around. 1) It was his career. 2) He believed in what he was doing.

Anyway, wasn't his family living there with him?

By Arj on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 06:44 am: Edit

Don't forget that the liberal media called Florida for Gore immediately after the polls closed in the part of the state that is in the eastern time zone. However, there was still an hour left for the polls to be open in the part of the state that is in the central time zone. That central time zone area was Bush country, a very conservative area south of Alabama. Thousands of Bush supporters walked out of line thinking Gore had already won the state. By the time the networks came back and said Florida was too close to call, as Bush had insisted from the start of that mess, those Republicans were back home drowing their sorrows. Bush would have won Florida by a much higher margin but for that SNAFU, and he may have won additional western states as well which also reported Republicans walking out of line after Florida was mis-called.

Also note that the networks took a lot longer calling states for Bush overall than for Gore, even states Bush won by a landslide.

By Drbeer on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 02:45 am: Edit

heh I would give everything I have if the military would let me in. Alas, parents who smoke 4 packs of cigs a day each from the day I was born until I was 12 gave me asthma and the military doesn't want me even though I have no problems at all. Hell I can swim 700 meters non stop and I am totally out of shape right now.

By Mvario on Friday, March 01, 2002 - 02:17 am: Edit

I said they rigged it, I didn't say they did a good job rigging it.