Stop Reporting Facts, Dammit

I tend to think of a distaste for facts to be a conservative trait these days, so it kinda pisses me off when liberals get pissy about relevant news being released because it doesn't mesh with what they want to believe.

Jeff Fecke over at Alas! pulled one of these today, with this post in response to an article about an increase in drunk women being raped in San Diego. To be fair, he was echoing a post from Feministing, but the Feministing post made a more defensible argument about wording, while Fecke seems to just be railing against the journalists for reporting the story.

Could the article have been worded better? Absolutely, and the Feministing article gets it right. But to argue that simply running this story is somehow blaming victims is horseshit, and dangerous horseshit at that. Rapists are to blame for rape. They are criminals, and they are scum. But when women get shit-faced drunk in unsafe situations with men they don't or shouldn't trust, they are putting themselves at a higher risk. That should not be true, but it is. Drinking to excess in public is irresponsible behavior for anyone. Rape is not the only concern; both men and women put themselves at risk of theft, mugging, assault, and a bevy of other awful things. Unlike, say, wearing revealing clothing or talking suggestively, which I assume are the kind of things Fecke is equating the issue to, getting plastered is a voluntary act that leads to an inability to maintain control over one's self. A woman who chooses to wear a high-cut dress is taking control over her situation, but a woman who passes out drunk in a bar is voluntarily giving up control. She is at the mercy of those around her because she has chosen to do so, and while I would hope that those around her will take care of her instead of taking advantage of her, we all know that this will not always be the case. This is not an excuse for those who would commit rape, but a word of caution to those who might be raped. There is an important distinction here: the rape is completely the fault of the rapist, but in the case of giving up awareness and control to alcohol, a woman (or man, for that matter) can be at fault for putting themselves into a situation that left them unable to prevent a crime being committed against them.

It does not help anyone to pretend that drinking to excess is not irresponsible behavior. It is. It does not excuse a rapist. Nothing excuses a rapist. But if more young women are getting raped while drunk in my city, that's something I'd like to be aware of, and it's something I would like women I care about to be aware of. Blaming a news outlet for reporting the story is irresponsible, as is the assertion that "when we spend our time bemoaning how those girls today drink too much and put themselves in jeopardy, we ignore the fact that those women wouldn’t be in jeopardy if those boys today would take the extraordinarily easy step of not being rapists." Young people of both genders drink too much. I've seen the awful results first hand. Apologizing for the behavior does not help them. I assure Mr. Fecke that I am not ignoring the fact that rapists are responsible for rape, any more than I am ignoring the fact that thieves are responsible for theft when I lock my apartment when I leave it. I simply do not like seeing anyone put themselves at unnecessary risk because they're convinced the risk isn't real.

The Audacity of Doing One's Job

Sorry it's been slow here. Other projects going on, vacations, etc. So yeah. Kinda slow for a bit.

This cracked me up, though. Apparently, the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign thinks that some comments Barack Obama made to a meeting of Democratic congressional leaders was an obscene display of arrogance. Obama said that his campaign had "become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." The RNC circulated this comment under the heading "Barack Obama Audacity Watch."

So, according to the RNC and McCain campaigns, a politician actually trying to improve America and not being afraid to lay claim to that goal is just arrogant. Not, you know, doing what he was elected to do.

Barack Obama Will Surrender to Mexico!

Or so says the ever-growing anti-Obama lunatics. Apparently it's not enough anymore to claim that you disagree with someone. For instance, I am not showing proper involvement in the political process by saying something like, "I can not support John McCain for president. While there are many reasons for this, chief among them are his stated inclination to continue American aggression in the Middle East, his unwillingness to address serious economic concerns, and a belief that the Supreme Court should not be shifted any further to the right." Instead, I need to up the ante to be competitive. For instance, I could say, "John McCain is a secret bastard grandchild of Adolph Hitler, bent on carrying out his grandsire's plan for world domination. He drinks the blood of non-Christians to maintain his vigor, and plans to force all young Americans to spend two years as prisoners in a POW camp to 'build character'." Isn't that better? Isn't that good, rational politics?

Anyway, here's the video clip that came through my e-mail with a lot of bluster attached.



The general message attached to this video was, "See? Obama is a Muslim, because he wants your children to learn Spanish, and Spain was once a Muslim country! And it means he thinks all Americans should speak Spanish instead of English! English is the language of the World, but not once Obama becomes president!" There is no apparent recognition of the irony involved, as Obama's more general point about American education is underscored by the proud display, intentional or otherwise, of poor aural comprehension.

The worst part about this is that such bullshit is always perpetuated by exactly the people who stand to gain the most through educational improvement. There is no doubt that education is a mark of class in this country. The wealthiest send their children to private schools, where their children will learn Latin and at least one other language. The upper-middle class send their children to well-funded public schools where numerous language classes are available, some starting as early as third grade. Knowing a foreign language in America is a class marker; like foreign travel and an understanding of world history, the wealthiest Americans instill it in their children while underhanded nationalistic marketing targeted to the middle and lower classes convinces them that such endeavors are useless and unamerican. Anyone who thinks that America is a classless society has been fooled into thinking so by those who want to maintain their position.