Thursday, August 23, 2012

Legitimate rape?

Roman Polanski
Cover of Roman Polanski
A US legislator is in deep doo-doo because of uttering the phrase "legitimate rape". Anyone with half a brain would know what he meant -- an actual sexual assault vs. technical rape where a consenting partner or semi-consenting partner withdraws her/his consent and claims sexual assault or where two consenting persons have sex but one turns out to be underage. The left's Whoopie Goldberg made exactly this distinction when she contrasted Polanski's charge of having sex with a minor vs. actual or "legitimate" rape which she referred to as "rape-rape".

Whoopi got an entirely free pass on the matter. Not so the hapless US legislator, who is Republican.

Seems like a double standard to me. Perhaps if the legislator had been less articulate and referred to cases of "rape-rape" he would have got a pass -- but I doubt it.

PS -- I notice from the suggested links below that I'm not the first to note this.
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14 comments:

Anon1152 said...

"Whoopi got an entirely free pass on the matter."

Whoopi wasn't (and isn't) trying to become a legislator.

BallBounces said...

She's certainly a public figure and opinion-setter. And we are not talking about votes -- we are talking about media reactions.

Anon1152 said...

I think that the fact that she's not a legislator, and not trying to be a legislator, justifies a different reaction. She's not making laws that affect rape victims. Aikin, on the other hand, is in such a position.

And are you sure the media gave her a free pass? I remember there being some controversy over the issue...

BallBounces said...

Fair enough.

Anonymous said...

You're also ignoring the main point that this troglodyte was trying to claim, that "the female body has ways of shutting that sort of thing down". If that were actually the case, there would never actually be a case of unintended or unwanted pregnancy, and, given that this clown was on the "science" committee, he ought to have known better.
SDC

Dollops said...

Um, Anon, troglodyte? You have drunk the koolaid. Read Mona Charen and Pat Buchanan in Townhall this morning.

BallBounces said...

Dollops: Thank you for the Townhall link.

BallBounces said...

Mona Charen quote:

So Akin's views are scandalous and can be used to discredit (however implausibly) other Republicans. But the views of the leaders of the Democratic Party --favoring abortion for any (including sex selection) or no reason throughout the nine months of pregnancy -- are not controversial. The Democratic Party's support for partial-birth abortion is not worthy of skepticism. The views of the president of the United States -- opposing a law providing that a baby accidentally born alive after a botched abortion be protected from the abortionist's knife -- is not shocking. No Democrat has ever, so far as I know, been challenged by a member of the mainstream press to distance himself from the president's extreme abortion position.

Akin is guilty of having his facts wrong. Many of his critics are guilty of worse.

Well said, Mona.

Ted Betts said...

Two total inaccuracies in your post kind of undermine it.

First, the Aiken controversy is not over some kind of classification of rape, but the Medieval belief that a woman's body won't get pregnant if she is raped such that anti-abortion laws don't need to make an exception for rape.

Second, Whoopi Goldberg was raked over the coals by left and right and Hollywood and friends alike for her stupid comments. There were some idiots who defended her, just like there are many idiots defending Aiken, or making moral equivalencies and excuses for him.

There were ultimately no consequences to Whoopi because she is, in the end, just a private citizen entitled to her own idiocy. Aiken on the other hand wants to be put in a position of power and law-making authority on the public dime, so not only do his comments show him to be too stupid on science but they are also much more consequential.

BallBounces said...

Raked over the coals, huh? Funny, I must have missed the furor.

As for "Medieval", in fact this opinion was rooted in 20th cc. views rooted in science -- perhaps mistaken science. And the role of stress on pregnancy is still a factor under discussion.

The point was and is not that laws don't need to take into account rape, the point was that the child should not be the one punished.

Perhaps you view the notion that an unborn child has the presumptive right to be life as medieval; I disagree -- I view it as human and civilized.

And please note Charen's commentary quoted above. This guy's views are controversial, but supporting partial birth abortion and post-birth infanticide in the case of intended abortion are not?

BallBounces said...

"First, the Aiken controversy is not over some kind of classification of rape,"

and

"Second, Whoopi Goldberg was raked over the coals by left and right and Hollywood and friends alike for her stupid comments."

It is/she was, huh?

Google "legitimate rape" and "rape-rape".

The score is 5 million to 1 million -- evidence that you are, relatively speaking, wrong on both counts.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Dollops, TROGLODYTE; if this moron had any idea about how human reproduction worked, he wouldn't have made such astupid comment in the first place, no matter how much he wanted to whip up the theocratic hordes filling his campaign coffers. As it is, he's simply demonstrated to the entire world that he is a first-class lying scumbag who has as much idea about science as a 12th-century alchemist. At one time, I would have gladly voted for the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but since it has been hijacked by religious nutcases, they are driving voters away in busloads, leaving a clear field for the tax-and-spenders.
SDC

Anon1152 said...

"The score is 5 million to 1 million -- evidence that you are, relatively speaking, wrong on both counts."

How much attention a comment received doesn't indicate how much of that attention was good or bad.

BallBounces said...

1152: We know that the feedback on the "legitimate rape" comment has been overwhelmingly negative; even if the feedback on Whoopi's comment was 100% negative, it would still mean an effective ratio of 5:1.

PS -- the number of hits on "rape-rape" is climbing; it means this kind of comparative analysis can only be done in the very early days of a controversy.

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"