GO TEAM RAPE
I have no idea what there is about any of this that could possibly seem like a good idea.
Though, I disagree with the writer’s assertion that there are only two explanations for this. (That is, that John McCain either hates children or loves pedophiles.) I think there’s a third that’s equally awful: This also makes sense if you’ve somehow convinced yourself that it’s preferable that you risk children not being able to recognize molestation or explain what happened to another adult than for children to know anything at all about the existence of sex. And that, my friends, is absolute fucking derangement.
Regardless of the motivation, his position on this issue is absolutely ludicrous, and is probably one of the first times in recorded history that a major political candidate made a big show of supporting a policy that benefits pederasts.
John McCain, ladies and gentlemen. Say what you will about Obama, at least he doesn’t want to obfuscate the actions of sexual predators from their potential victims. Politically advantageous or not, that’s just plain awful.
Edit: Actually, they really do make a great team, these two. McCain wants to aid pederasts and Sarah Palin wants to charge victims for rape kits. Is “pro-sexual assault” now a major plank in the Republican platform or something? GO TEAM RAPE
Edit 2: Some banner ads:
Feel free to put ‘em up on your site to show the world what the Republican party apparently stands for these days.
Jabberwock
September 12th, 2008 at 11:35 am
WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE [100-pt font]CHILDREN!?!?!?!?[/100-pt font]
September 12th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Well, you never know, it might be useful… for ensuring… that…
You know, I think they’re just arguing for the sake of it now.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I’m hoping that McCain and Palin are courting the far right base so aggressively that centrists feel that Obama is definitely the more reasonable choice.
September 13th, 2008 at 12:43 am
That woman is such an obvious sack of reeking excrement that I can hardly believe that anyone would find her a viable choice–or McCain either, by association. Sarah Palin is not only completely useless, unqualified, and batshit insane, but I now believe she is evil. And believe you me, that is not a word I throw around lightly, as so many do.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Honestly, it seems like this would be a huge hit with Palin’s fundamentalist fanbase. Isn’t it one of the laws in Deuteronomy that a woman who is raped has to marry the rapist? Deuteronomy 22:29, I believe?
September 13th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Darman – That only applies to women who aren’t betrothed. If she DOES have a fiancee, then both the rapist AND the victim are put to death. (Deut 22:23-24) ‘Cause that makes sense…somehow.
September 13th, 2008 at 10:14 am
And I think there’s something about being freed from obligation to marry the guy if she doesn’t cry out . . . and . . . look, the more I read, the more I want to go stabbity stabbity at everyone responsible.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Oh God…please tell me this all an urban legend gone horribly wrong. Please…
September 13th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Update: apparently what actually happened was that McCain attacked Obama for supporting “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners, insinuating that they “would be learning about sex before learning how to read,” but actually the bill requires that anything taught be “age-appropriate” and that a parent could at any time withdraw their student from the program, no questions asked.
So I was right. This is based on a grain of truth, but spun horribly out of reality. Still scary, though, if McCain is willing to attack that to become President.
September 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I hope it’s okay if I borrow that first banner, Jabberwock. It’s very striking.
Heaven forbid he does, but what if McCain actually wins, and these people are given another four-eight years to conservatize the country?
September 13th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
See, I figure he’s opposed to there being public schools, much less public funding for educating about what crime is. It’s a neocon thing.
September 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Jabberwock, I sent you an e-mail with an banner ad you may want to post here regarding this topic. It is very amusing!
September 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Linhasxoc: Well, that was exactly my point: McCain would effectively rather your child be molested and not really know or understand what happened than your child know anything at all about sex. Regardless how you cut it, he’s favoring pederasts over their victims by wanting to prevent their victims from understanding or being able to clearly recognize the crimes. I’m not entirely sure how that’s “spun out of reality”.
It’s great that they’re learning about the bad touch before they’re able to read, since, y’know, plenty of children are molested before they’re able to read.
And yeah, you could argue that it’s “up to the parents” to teach these things to their kids, but that only makes sense if parents and guardians never molested their children. I guess I can’t really see a person molesting their son or daughter and then giving them a rundown on the “bad touch”.
Alex: Go right ahead. I’m hoping it catches on, really.
September 13th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
… I meant on the topic in the more general sense of the McCain / Palin ticket. Anyway, I thought it was funny and you are free to use it if you would like. Yours is great!
September 14th, 2008 at 3:51 am
The paying for rape kits thing is complete bullshit. Or rather, it’s true, but it’s not something Palin is doing differently to anyone else. Strange as it may seem, it’s actually pretty common for the victim to have to pay for a rape kit.
And as Linhasxoc pointed out, the thing you’re criticising in this post is not actually what you seem to think it is either.
Also, pederast? Why single them out? Pederasts are a subset of paedophiles. The word means men who have sex with boys. When you mean paedophile, say paedophile.
Wallsy.
September 14th, 2008 at 6:37 am
I’m still not seeing how I’m spinning or twisting anything, here. The logic is really rather simple:
1. Obama supports education for kindergartners about things like “bad touch”, which for anyone sane is a perfectly reasonable position, because if children can recognize molestation or the types of lures usually used, and can understand that it’s okay to tell other adults about what happened, then the people who assaulted them can hopefully be brought to justice.
2. McCain launches an attack campaign against Obama, stating that “Barack Obama wants your children to learn about sex before they learn how to read.” The campaign is an obvious pull for religious/cultural conservatives, who seem to equate teaching children about sex with molestation. To them, apparently, it’s better that children be molested and not be able to recognize it than to teach them anything about sex.
3. In condemning this limited sexual education for children, McCain is effectively making the world a better place for pederasts. Children who don’t know what molestation is will have a difficult time recognizing it for what it is, especially when you take into account how manipulative child molesters can be. (e.g. “If you tell your mommy about this, she’s going to be very mad at you.” etc.) And there’s no way in hell they’d know how to reject the preludes to molestation in such a way as to potentially prevent it.
So there you have it. Am I missing a step somewhere, or…?
Anyway, charging for rape kits also helps sexual predators in that it makes rape kits virtually inaccessible to many who are raped, the absence of which effectively annihilates any case that could be made against an accused rapist. Palin might as well just give a speech saying “attention rapists — feel free to rape as many poor people as you want.”
When you combine these two, you get a ticket that seems to really favor sexual predators over their victims. For McCain, it’s putting children at risk in order to pander to religious wackos. For Palin, it’s, I dunno, at best some kind of neoliberal economic policy, and at worst she just thinks every woman who claims to have been raped is just a whore so she basically ensured most people wouldn’t be able to afford them.
Thus, GO TEAM RAPE.
Regarding pederasty vs pedophilia: A pedophile is someone attracted to children. Pederasts actually act on it. Unless they act on it, it’s really difficult to tell if someone’s a pedophile or not, and even if you knew without them doing anything, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it other than strongly urge them to stay away from children. The crucial difference here is that you can’t imprison someone just for being attracted to children, but you can if they act on it.
September 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am
No, they aren’t. Pederasty is engaging in an erotic relationship with an adolescent male. Pedophilia is having a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. They don’t overlap at all.
September 14th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
In other words, fuck off, Wallsy.
September 14th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
J Crowley: You’re misrepresenting McCain’s position in the same way he’s misrepresenting Obama’s. “He did it first” is not a valid defence.
Also, you’re missing the more important distinction between paedophiles and pederasts – that a paedophile is anyone who’s sexually attracted to children while pederasts are specifically men you are attracted to, (and have sex with) boys.
Oh, and you seem to have completely ignored the bit about how “Palin makes victims pay for rape-kits!” though true, is horribly biased because it’s actually common practice, not something she instituted. It was already policy before she had any power to influence it and it’s still policy in many places, most of which she’s had absolutely no influence on. She may not even have been aware of it until recently.
Djur: Technically speaking, the original meaning of pederast is “adult male has sex with pubescent boys”. But given that no distinction is drawn between paedophilia and ephebophilia in either common use (ephebophilia is really not even in common use as a term) or legal terms (sex between an adult and a minor is illegal, whether they’re 8 ar 14), and given that pederasty does, according to every definition I can find, refer only to sex between a man and a boy, you’re wrong, STFU.
Oh and Craig: You can STFU too, because you clearly have nothing of worth to contribute at this point.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
So everyone’s just going to conveniently deny the relatively large demographic of people who either a) don’t think children should know anything at all about sex before they reach a certain age, or b) don’t think the schools have any place to teach children anything about sex at any age? And then somehow claim that McCain is pandering to religious and cultural conservatives (who fall into this category) not by actually appealing to their interests (described in the previous sentence’s a and b) but by mischaracterizing Obama’s position on sex ed, which ultimately rears its head back around and makes McCain seem in favor of child molestation to anyone with a brain?
For your guys’ explanation to be true, McCain would have to be taking an ENORMOUS — absolutely fucking IMMENSE — leap of faith that nobody would actually figure out what the law in question was actually about, and that they’d all just dumbly accept without question that Obama thinks we should be showing five-year-olds how to put on condoms. Either McCain is the absolute biggest fucking moron to ever run for office in the history of the country, or he’s actually trying to appeal to one of his primary demographics in the fashion I’m describing.
So which is it?
September 15th, 2008 at 11:51 am
According to the Violence Against Women Act, states are required to pick up the total cost for rape kits if they want to remain eligible for federal grant money. According to this article, rape victims in several states are having to shoulder some or all of the costs for rape examinations, despite the VAW. The most egregious example came from North Carolina, which put a cap on the amount they would pay per kit, leaving about $600 as the victim’s responsibility. They have since ceased this practice after being skewered in the press.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-health-and-money/2008/02/21/rape-victims-can-be-hurt-financially-too.html
So no, Sarah Palin is not the only public official to have done this. Just the only one in line to potentially receive federal powers.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Go to hell 100 times, Wallsy.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
That too.
September 16th, 2008 at 3:32 am
False dichotomy, J Crowley. The truth is somewhere in between. McCain is mischaracterising Obama’s position, but not to the ludicrous extremes that you seem to think is the only option.
Craig: Isn’t that exactly what I said?
Djur: Thanks, I appreciate your insightful remarks and stand in awe of your ability to debate in a calm and rational manner. You’ve totally won me over to your point of view.
September 16th, 2008 at 5:08 am
So you’re still not going to say anything at all about the demographic that exists that’s composed of people who either don’t think children should know anything at all about sex, don’t think the schools have any business teaching children about sex at ANY age, or combinations of both of those sentiments?
Anyway, regardless of whatever McCain’s intentions may have been, by trying to paint Obama’s support for this as something terrible, John McCain is helping sexual predators, since the program he did, in fact, ultimately attack — regardless of how he painted it in the ad — is something that would help children identify molestation and unwanted sexual advances from adults, and either prevent or put a stop to sexual abuse. I can paint Milton Friedman’s face on a paper bag, put it over a puppy and shoot it — either way, I’m still shooting a puppy, even if I called it one of the most detrimental forces to the world economy in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Either way, I still think this was more about appealing to the aforementioned constituency, since I really don’t think McCain is stupid enough to run an ad that basically claims that Obama supports teaching kids comprehensive sex education at age five and only barely stops short of accusing him of getting off on doing so when an application of common sense can rule that out and a quick Google search can drive in the last nail.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Uh, Wallsy, you’re the one who randomly told me to STFU for the hideous crime of disagreeing with you. You’re apparently not interested in insightful remarks or rational debate, and I’m not interested in forcing it on you. And you are wrong. Neither “pederast” nor “pedophile” are legal terms; the former requires behavior which is indeed often illegal (an erotic relationship with a young male) while the latter requires only a desire (for sexual contact with and images of prepubescent children of either sex).
More importantly, pederasty has been a social norm in many cultures throughout history. Boylove is about as common as the historically deviant belief that men and women should copulate because they love each other. Pedophilia is almost universally considered deviant regardless of culture.
In no way is pederasty a subset of pedophilia. We do not call men who fuck 17-year-olds pedophiles, because that would be fucking stupid. The distinguishing line for pedophilia is puberty, not age of consent.
Finally, our own culture does distinguish between sexual attraction to/involvement with minors at different ages. I shouldn’t even have to explain this, but while a hypothetical 21-year-old having sex with a 14-year-old would be considered (legally and morally) worse than that same 21-year-old having sex with a 18-year-old, the increase in opprobrium between the two doesn’t even begin to rival the difference between sex with that 14-year-old and with a 10-year-old.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
> So you’re still not going to say anything at all about
> the demographic that exists that’s composed of people who
> either don’t think children should know anything at all
> about sex, don’t think the schools have any business
> teaching children about sex at ANY age, or combinations
> of both of those sentiments?
Nope.
> I can paint Milton Friedman’s face on a paper bag, put it
> over a puppy and shoot it — either way, I’m still
> shooting a puppy, even if I called it one of the most
> detrimental forces to the world economy in the 20th and
> 21st centuries.
Yes, but the thing is, one side thinks this puppy is dangerous and the other doesn’t. What this comes down to is not “McCain is in favour of something that we all think is bad” but “McCain is opposed to something that J Crowley thinks is good.” The paedophile angle is a side-effect and just one of many factors that are involved. To you, it may be the most important factor (or maybe it’s just a convenient one because it allows you to paint your opponent as some kind of horrible monster) but that doesn’t mean that it is to everyone. Good and bad are merely opinions and yours is no more valid than anyone else’s. And if a large number of people share McCain’s priorities then to them, he’s right. It’s not that he’s in favour of child abuse, it’s just that he sees something else as being worse.
> Uh, Wallsy, you’re the one who randomly told me to STFU
> for the hideous crime of disagreeing with you.
No, I told you to STFU because you were wrong and arguing about something completely irrelevant. I added the bit about pederasty to the end of my post because it annoyed me, not because I wanted to argue semantics.
> Neither “pederast” nor “pedophile” are legal terms
Didn’t say they were.
> the former requires behavior which is indeed often
> illegal (an erotic relationship with a young male) while
> the latter requires only a desire (for sexual contact
> with and images of prepubescent children of either sex).
Right, that would kind of be my point. Using the word “pederast” means you’re talking about only men who have sex with boys. If you’re talking about any adult who has sex with any child, that is not the correct word. I see the word “pederast” being used a lot where the author really intends to include all those who sexually abuse children, and it’s annoying, because that’s not what it means.
Wallsy.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
But not all pedophiles abuse children either, since pedophilia is simply the attraction to children, so your definition is wrong as well.
And EITHER FUCKING WAY, BECAUSE JOHN MCCAIN IS ATTACKING A PROGRAM THAT ATTEMPTS TO PREVENT MOLESTATION — REGARDLESS OF WHAT HE CALLS IT — JOHN MCCAIN IS BENEFITING SEXUAL ASSAULT. The puppy is still dead, no matter who thinks it’s good or bad. At this point, I’m beginning to think you’re being intentionally obtuse just for the hell of it.
September 17th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Can you diagnose someone else with “self-diagnosed Asperger’s?”
No reason.
September 18th, 2008 at 2:51 am
> But not all pedophiles abuse children either, since
> pedophilia is simply the attraction to children, so your
> definition is wrong as well.
I was just pointing out that you used the worng word. Either take it on board or don’t. If you think my suggested alternative was no better, carry on using the wrong word, or say it a differente way. Whatever.
> The puppy is still dead, no matter who thinks it’s good
> or bad.
But the point is that the way you’re attacking it isn’t going to convince anybody. To anyone who disagrees with you, it’s quite obvious that you’re making a completely biased analysis that utterly fails to take their perspective into consideration. See, what you don’t understand is that though they think dead puppies are bad, they think that letting that puppy live would have been worse.
You’re yelling “You killed the puppy!” while they stand there calmly saying “Yes, I know, and that’s terrible, but it had to be done.”
The point you should be making is not that the puppy’s dead; everyone knows that. You should be trying to convince them that it would have been better to leave the puppy alive.
Wallsy.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Wait, so now you’re abandoning your premise that McCain is intentionally mischaracterizing what Obama supported, and adopting my original point that McCain genuinely feels that teaching children about the “bad touch” is a bad thing? I mean, if they knew it was a puppy all along, and they still supported it being killed, then that means that they were fully aware of what the program actually was and they still supported destroying it. Which was kind of my original point.
And which, well, all still doesn’t eliminate the fact that McCain’s actions support sexual assault.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
No, McCain is definitely mischaracterising Obama’s position. That’s just what politicians do. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any politician speak of their opponent’s policies without mischaracterising them to some extent, because they want to make their opponent look worse than they actually are.
But yes, they actually are opposed to the real plan too. What I object to in your post is your conclusion that McCain is in favour of child molestation. Thnking that A is worse than B does not mean that you’re in favour of B, just that you dislike it less than A.
You are not taking your opponents perspective into consideration with your arguments which means you’re not going to convince anyone. From their perspective, there’s a good chance that the puppy is rabid. To them, they’ve just killed a rabid puppy and you’re saying that that means that they love killing puppies.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:36 am
So if I see a woman getting raped and I decide to tie her hands behind her back, are you going to argue that it has absolutely nothing to do with rape and doesn’t benefit it at all and that I simply have a love for tying women’s wrists regardless of the context?
I’m not saying that John McCain loves rape, and that the reason he’s doing this is that he wants people to fuck each other without consent as much as possible. What I’m saying is that these actions that he and Palin have been taking benefit sexual assault so much that they might as well actually come out in favor of it.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:20 am
But you only see it that way because you’re starting from different premises. You’re saying that their conclusion is invalid because it doesn’t follow from your premises. It’s a straw man argument because you’re not actually addressing what they’re saying, you’re addressing what they would be saying if they agreed with you about something else that they actually don’t agree with.
If you just want to rant on the internet about how people with different opinions to you are evil then you’re doing fine. If you actually want to make a convincing argument then you need to actually look at what your opponents are saying and why.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Attacking the act of informing victims about crimes that may be committed against them and how to avoid/detect/report them is objectively (at least, if you define molestation as harmful, which perhaps McCain does not) detrimental to victims and beneficial to perpetrators. This has nothing to do with my perspective on information about molestation being beneficial to victims — it’s a logical conclusion, and I’m willing to wager large that there are studies done that actually support my “if victims have information pertaining to crimes and know what to look out for, they’re more likely to be aware of and be able to avoid situations that place them in danger, and are more likely to report the crime when it is committed” hypothesis. It doesn’t MATTER what McCain or Palin thinks is a good or a bad idea or premise — what matters are the REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS.
I mean sure, yeah, I’ll concede that maybe you’re right and McCain is starting with the premise that “a good outcome” in this situation is “children deserve to get molested more often and shouldn’t report it as often” (a.k.a. The Puppy Is Rabid, So Shooting It Is Good), and that’s certainly a perspective that he’s welcome to have. But REGARDLESS WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT IT, THE REAL-WORLD CONSEQUENCES OF OPPOSING THIS KIND OF EDUCATION ARE OBJECTIVELY DETRIMENTAL TO THE VICTIMS OF MOLESTATION AND BENEFICIAL TO THEIR ASSAILANTS. Whether he thinks or is trying to depict that that’s a good thing or not, that’s the effect he’s having. It doesn’t matter whether we agree or disagree. Jesus, the argument is not an end in itself.
The issue, ultimately, is that the McCain campaign took the initiative in depicting a law (one whose purpose they were fully aware of — that is, that it taught children how to detect molestation and that it was okay to report it regardless of what the molester said) and tried to twist the narrative into ‘teaching sex in kindergarten’. It’s basically indefensible.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
What they’re saying is that Obama’s support for a bad-touch law (probably the least controversial thing you could possibly say about him – Romney proudly signed a similar bill into law) is ‘teaching sex in kindergarten’. This statement only makes logical sense if you’re a level of uninformed nobody running a national campaign for President possibly could be.
My own argument, incidentally, relates not to this incident in particular but a broader, much quieter campaign against effective prevention of child molestation and for loud, angry denunciations of Evil Men Preying On The Children. It’s a campaign that just happens to primarily involve the land-flipping exurban society, something McCain is a sort of avatar of.
Again: you’re presuming good faith on McCain’s part. This is ridiculous: what he said was either a sleazy lie or the stupidest statement any modern politician has ever made, made in a national campaign ad (which are ZEALOUSLY checked for this kind of shit, believe me).
There’s no sense simply refuting McCain on his own premise. It would be asinine; there is no possible way, even if by some surreal coincidence he believed what he signed off on then, that he believes in it. He just put it out there as random FUD.
At this point, nobody is attacking or refuting anything. The statement is self-consciously false, and such statements ask not for refutation but diagnosis. This is what Crowley is doing – mixed with a helping of fairly well-deserved abuse.
September 21st, 2008 at 5:52 am
Wallsy, I’m not sure if you’re sure whether McCain was against the law or for the law. The truth is, it’s clearly not important to him. This ad was meant as FUD to give McCain the vote of the same people that still believe that Obama is a Muslim raised in Africa who was taught in an Islamic terrorist school. If McCain cared about children and the dangers of exercised pedophile desires, he would unquestionably support this law.