[Stillness]

In my world you'd go free.

No URLs, plz sir.

I know the rules, I think. It automatically inserted when I copied. I caught it and did a second edit, unless I'm misunderstanding you. You didn't have to edit did you?

[Little]

That must be why I had so much trouble with my browser editing it. No big deal.

[a_dub]

[QUOTE=Stillness;330041]a_dub,

I, for one, am happy to have you join the conversation. I think this it's one we need to have. A lot of people feel the way you do, at least to some extent. Some of them just won't admit to it. Even I will say that getting drunk is like playing with fire. Getting "burned" is not unexpected in one way or another.

I want to throw a couple of scenarios at you. You say:

1. A man gets drunk. He catches a cab home. He doesn't realize the cab driver has been drinking too. The cab driver wraps the cab around a pole. Is the drunk man to blame?

If his intoxication prevented him from realizing the cabbie was drunk or caused him to think "eh, so what, i'm drunk too", and if he was sober he would have done his best to make sure he had a sober cabbie, then yes, the man is equally to blame because he failed to protect himself. If you don't give a **** about your well being, who else will besides your mother?

2. A man goes out and has a drink with his buddies. He enjoys drinking once in a while and knows he can maintain control. But one of those "buddies" slips a roofie in his drink. He takes him to an abandoned building, rapes him, and leaves there him naked. Is the victim to blame? What if he was drinking Pepsi and got a roofie slipped in?

Pepsi, not his fault. He was drugged. Alcohol, partly his fault. He was drugged after he drugged himself. He knows this is a possibility...its his fault just as much as the rapists.

You wouldn't walk through East Harlem at 1 am advertising that you have a lot of cash and jewelry and that you hate Hispanic people, would you? But lets say you did that and ended up getting beaten to a pulp and robbed of everything except your undies. Sure the low-lifes are to blame and should be punished, no you wouldn't deserve it, but you are the epitomy of foolish if you believe that you can't be blamed for being stupid. Please note, I'm not blaming women (and men) who drink for getting raped, I'm blaming them for being idiots.

3. Your mother and your father take a trip with two other couples they trust. They all have a bit to drink. Your mother, feeling safe among friends and with your father there, has a bit more than she should and gets quite tipsy. One of her "friends" sees this as an opportunity to do things to your mother the second that she's alone. Is it your mother's fault? Instead of drinking, your mother hurt herself and took some strong medication to make her rest. Is it her fault if someone she trusts takes advantage of her then?

Again drinking yes, she and my father would have to bear some of blame for getting into harms way. Medication, no blame, because medication is a necessity...alcohol is not...doesn't matter that the medicine might contain alcohol.

[a_dub]

And you honestly wonder why you have not found the right girl yet or cannot find a way to find the hottest girl in the world to like you? Go up to one of those girls next time who you see with a drink in her hand as you walk by the bar and tell her you see her as a prostitute, deserving of getting raped for drinking, and overall disgusting to you for drinking. See how that one goes.

I think you've mistunderstood me. Even a hooker doesn't deserve to get raped. Blaming someone for putting themself into harm's way is not the same as blaming them for the harm that happened to them. Its all about risk assessment.

Unfortunately, today, in the name of fun or liberty or gender equality or whatever, people are more liberal with their risk assessments. As a result, more people are getting raped, more people are getting killed, and more people are going missing than they did say 50 years ago. Everything has a price. You may not be paying it, but someone is. Society as a whole will always pay a price for the decisions they make.

Just a couple weeks ago, you may have heard on the news if you're from the US, a 18 year old kid disappeared at Northwestern Univ in Chicago. A few days later they found his body. The last time anyone saw him he was leaving a party. Police don't suspect foul play, but 18 year olds don't just die. If he was at home, or chilling with a couple of friends, or reading, or playing video games, its true he could have died from a bolt of lightening...but lets check the relative risks here.

[rcoreyus]

While I understand the temptation for revenge (justice) in the case of rape, I think its important that we not get into the mode of reducing the rights of the accused just because the accusation is so terrible. Not here, but I've had people who upon hearing about a violent murder / rape want the accused to be "executed without even a trial". The problem of course is that until someone is convicted, we really don't know if they are guilty and they should keep their full rights. After they are convicted of course, i'm OK with any reasonable and constitutional punishment.

Rape is a particularly unfortunate crime: It has a very bad effect on its victim, but relative to other crimes of similar seriousness it is very difficult to prove. If someone is murdered, or beaten, it is clear that a crime has taken place - if you can place the accused at the scene of the crime you are very close to a conviction. With rape, while you can often prove that the people had sex, it can be difficult (if there are no serious injuries) to prove that it was rape. Then to make things worse we (quite reasonably) keep the victim's history silent, so the jury has even less information to use in reaching a decision.

BTW- child rape isn't always as clear as it seems either. I know of a case where an overzealous social worker with a grudge claimed a family member molested their 5 year old girl. For a variety of reasons I was convinced that this never actually happened, but the family still lost their child for over a year, and I don't know if the family member was convicted. The problem here is that children are not reliable witnesses - they can be pressured into saying and even believing things that aren't true, and don't recognize the importance of some statements that they make.

[jns]

If a man got drunk and ends up wrapping his car around a telephone pole, its tragic, its not a laughing matter, but where would you place the blame if not on the victim?

The man is not the victim in this case. He is the perpetrator. If you insist on having a victim, maybe it is the owner of the telephone pole whether it be an individual or a company. People love claiming that they are the victim. The manufacturer of the car is the bad party, or the liquor store, or the grocery store or the bartender, or the paving crew or whoever put a telephone pole there or the pole itself. Anything to deflect responsibility. That goes for rapists, too.

[jns]

Bottom line is, yes there are creeps who take advantage of drunk college girls...my buddies have done it...my cousin does it...I would be extremely surprised if any man had never done something like that. Almost everyone has woken up next to someone they would never have slept with were they sober.

Never have done either of these things. I suspect I am no where unique. These sound like poll questions.

[jns]

I have equal disgust for men who drink. Men who drink have killed many people in car accidents, drunken rages, etc. Alcohol is a cancer for society, IMO, and it should be treated as such. Just as a tumor might be benign but creates fear and is only just a mutation away from malignancy, so too is the distinction almost non-existant between alcohol use and abuse.

I drink one beer when I go to clubs to see bands due to not wanting to overdo it for my diabetes. Many if not most others drink responsibly.

It is is illogical to spread the sins of some onto all. [sarcasm] People who are angry get into fights more often than those not angry. I suppose they are a cancer on society, also. To keep those fights from happening, we should treat them as we would do cancer? Such as cut them out and kill them off. Try to kill everyone hoping that they will die first (chemotherapy). Since everyone can get angry, they are just a mutation away from being angry. [/sarcasm]

[a_dub]

The man is not the victim in this case. He is the perpetrator. If you insist on having a victim, maybe it is the owner of the telephone pole whether it be an individual or a company. People love claiming that they are the victim. The manufacturer of the car is the bad party, or the liquor store, or the grocery store or the bartender, or the paving crew or whoever put a telephone pole there or the pole itself. Anything to deflect responsibility. That goes for rapists, too.

Right, he made a foolish decision and compromised his well-being.

[Stillness]

Please note, I'm not blaming women (and men) who drink for getting raped, I'm blaming them for being idiots.

If you had said women and men who get drunk are idiots, I'd have a hard time disagreeing. But you seem to think that even having one sip of a drink makes you blameworthy if someone victimizes you, even if it wasn't the alcohol that was largely responsible for dulling your senses, but some drug they slipped you. That reflects a certain cold-heartedness and predatory thinking. I'm not saying you're a predator, but you do share their mentality. They look for any vulnerability, no matter how small and use anything they can to justify their actions and blame the victim.