Puff-Pastry Intellectuals

 False Rape Stories

In his book, Intellectuals Paul Johnson indicts successive, famous modern intellectuals for lying.  Not just an occasional porky, but a life-long dedication to fabrication.  Apparently, their “higher truth” and status as superior beings justified lying and living lives of systemic deceit.

This is not to say that all intellectuals are liars.  But the incidence is sufficiently common that anyone with the slightest dose of cynicism would at the very least suspend belief when prominent, celebrated intellectuals are involved.  Indeed, the more celebrity attached to an intellectual, the more likely professional deceit is at the core of their public (and private) personae.  Johnson does the numbers on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, poet Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Brecht, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Victor Gollanz and Lillian Hellman.  All were deceitful liars.  All built and cultivated a public image and a personal narrative that was untrue.

In recent weeks we have seen two incidences of what appear to be fabricated claims about rape.
  In the first, a starlet and self-appointed and self-promoted intellectual, Lena Dunham claimed to have been raped whilst a student at Oberlin College.  The claim was made in a book authored by Dunham.  It certainly helped turn her intellectualising into a rampant best seller.  But a few serious and professionally cynical journalists started to research her rape account.  It has quickly unravelled. Dunham has not co-operated in the least to assist corroboration of her claims. Lena Dunham appears to have joined a long, illustrious line of mendacious intellectuals.  What is common to them all is the telling of lies to augment and buttress the particular opinions and philosophies they wanted to peddle. 

This apparent disgrace has been fast-followed by a gang rape account alleged to have taken place in a  University of Virginia frat house.  Rolling Stone ran the story, only to issue an embarrassing partial retraction a short time later, acknowledging “inconsistencies” in the story.  Apparently the account of the complainant, “Jackie” was never cross checked.  As one commentator put it: “Erdely and her editors were so determined to find exactly what they were looking for, they took the word of one young woman and the say-so of a handful of activists as a substitute for proof.”

Jonah Goldberg, writing in the LA Times, had publicly questioned the story’s veracity.

Rolling Stone has published an incredible story about a rape at the University of Virginia. The story has sent shock waves around the country. But when I say the story is incredible, I mean that in the literal, largely abandoned sense of the word. It is not credible — I don’t believe it. 

He then goes on to pick the Rolling Stone piece apart. For his trouble, he received a barrage of criticism.

Goldberg further shows his lack of familiarity with the problem of college rape when he calls the victim’s friends the “worst … imaginable” for not immediately reporting her brutal assault. Here, Goldberg fails to appreciate the very real fear of being chastised for reporting a rape. I’m not saying that the friends were right in not reporting it, and I’m not making a judgment on whether or not the assault happened. But it’s clear that Goldberg’s cultural distance from modern campus life and disregard of the social consequences of reporting an assault render him inadequate to judge the veracity of a rape allegation.  Sadly, Goldberg’s piece is the type of ill-informed berating that makes victims of sexual assault afraid to come forward in the first place.

No, to the contrary, stories like Lena Dunham’s and “Jackie”, the alleged rape victim at the University of Virginia,–which at best are unsubstantiated, and at worst, downright fabrications for the “greater good”, actually have done terrible harm.  Rape is an awful crime.  But lying about it, or, at the very least, appearing to lie about it,  for purposes of propagandising against it makes dealing with rape ten times harder.  If there is shame about reporting rapes (and there surely is) Dunham and Rolling Stone have just made it much, much worse.  At the very least, Dunham and Rolling Stone thus far have indirectly facilitated and encouraged rape and rapists.

It is some–albeit small–comfort that Rolling Stone has partially retracted its piece.  But where was the necessary “willing suspension of belief” which is supposed to be the hallmark of Journalism 101 in the first place?  Oh, that’s right, Rolling Stone editors and journalists wanted the story to be true in the interests of  a particular propagandising position.

And that, dear friends, is the classic dissembling mode of puff-pastry, wannabe intellectuals.  On the other hand, those seriously committed to detecting and prosecuting rape will be gnashing their teeth in righteous anger and frustration at the harm these idiots and flakes have done. 
 

Multi-Culturalism has Limits

14 Somali Men Convicted of Running Prostitute Ring

[Thankfully there are limits still in place against the claims and prerogatives of multi-culturalism.  Thankfully the police in the south of  England appear to be more vigilant and effective and less of the “see no evil, hear no evil” policing that had operated in places in the north of England.  Ed.]

by A.B. Sanderson  

27 Nov 2014

BreitbartLondon

A court in Bristol has heard about a sickening gang of Somali men who groomed underage girls and forced them into a life of rape and sexual abuse. The thirteen men abused girls as young as 13 and tricked them into thinking they were their girlfriends.

In total, the men have been convicted of 31 sex crimes against seven vulnerable girls and have been handed prison sentences totalling more than 75 years, the Bristol Post reports. Some of the men told the girls that it was a Somali cultural practice for girlfriends to sleep with their boyfriend’s friends.

There were two trials, the last of which finished yesterday when a jury deliberated for 32 hours, which were brought as a result if a two year investigation by Avon and Somerset Police called ‘Operation Brooke’. Prosecutor Anna Vigars told the jury during the case: “It is about the defendants simply using the girls to satisfy them whenever they felt like it, doing it so often that, no doubt, it began to feel normal so far as these girls were concerned.  “There are elements of exhibitionism, with sex taking place in front of other people in the group. Much of it sordid, none of it is romantic.”

The jury heard how one girl was trafficked across the city to a Premier Inn hotel where she was raped four times, by three different men.  Speaking about the event, Ms Vigars said: “Sadly, by that point in her young life, it was simply one of the things that happened to her from time to time. She got raped, she moved on.”
After she was raped and abused the girl told the police she felt “nasty” and “just wanted to disappear”.

The girl considered one of the men, Deeq, to be her boyfriend. He told her that she needed to have sex with his brother or he would go to hell, because he “wanted to turn gay”. She was persuaded to go ahead with the abuse under a bridge near a DIY store.  Deeq – who was also abusing another teenager – first claimed he had never met the girl. Later he admitted knowing her, but claimed they had never done anything more than kissing and cuddling.

The same girl was incited into prostitution by another of the gang, Kamal aged 22, at his flat in Easton, Bristol.  One victim was raped by another man in the same block of flats after he blocked a bedroom door so there was no escape while another resorted to raping a girl in a bathroom. She told police that because she was trapped by the man she “just did it” even though she did not want to take part in any sexual activity.
The men from the second trial are expected to be sentenced tomorrow by a judge and experts say their convictions are likely to be of some duration.

Bold Witness to the Truth

Muhammad and Islam’s Sex Slaves

by Raymond Ibrahim
FrontPage Magazine
October 16, 2014

Once again, Islamic State Muslims are pointing to Islam in order to justify what the civilized world counts as atrocities.

According to an October 13 report in the Telegraph,

Islamic State jihadists have given detailed theological reasons justifying why they have taken thousands of women from the Iraqi Yazidi minority and sold them into sex slavery. A new article in the Islamic State English-language online magazine Dabiq not only admits the practice but justifies it according to the theological rulings of early Islam. “After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated,” the article says.

As for “theological reasons” for sex slavery “according to the Sharia,” these are legion—from male Muslim clerics, to female Muslim activists. Generally they need do no more than cite the clear words of Koran 4:3, which permit Muslims to copulate with female captives of war, or ma malakat aymanukum, “what”—not whom—”your right hands possess.”

The article continues:

But most of it [Islamic State “article” or fatwa] is devoted to theological justifications for Islamic State behaviour, citing early clerics and the practices of the Prophet Mohammed and his Companions during the early years of Islamic expansion.

Indeed, while many are now aware of the Koran’s and by extension Sharia’s justification for slaves, sexual or otherwise, fewer are willing to embrace the fact that the prophet of Islam himself kept and copulated with concubines conquered during the jihad.

Muhammad seized for himself as rightfully earned booty (or ghanima) a young woman, after killing everyone dear to her. According to authoritative Islamic sources, she hated him for it. If that is not rape, what is?

One little-known story is especially eye-opening:
During Muhammad’s jihad on the Jews of Khaybar, he took for himself from among the spoils of war one young woman, a teenager, Safiya bint Huyay, after hearing of her beauty. (Earlier the prophet had bestowed her on another Muslim jihadi, but when rumor of her beauty reached him, the prophet reneged and took her for himself.)

Muhammad “married” Safiya hours after he had her husband, Kinana, tortured to death in order to reveal hidden treasure. And before this, the prophet’s jihadis slaughtered Safiya’s father and brothers.

While Islamic apologists have long tried to justify this account—often by saying that Muhammad gave her the honor of “marriage” as opposed to being a concubine and that she opted to convert to Islam—they habitually fail to cite what Islamic sources record, namely Baladhuri’s ninth century Kitab Futuh al-Buldan (“Book of Conquests”).

According to this narrative, after the death of Muhammad, Safiya confessed that “Of all men, I hated the prophet the most—for he killed my husband, my brother, and my father,” before “marrying” (or, less euphemistically, raping) her.

So there it is. Muhammad seized for himself as rightfully earned booty (or ghanima) a young woman; he took her after killing everyone dear to her—husband, father, brothers, etc.  And, according to authoritative Islamic sources, she hated him for it.  If that is not rape, what is?  In fact, this incident is regularly cited by former Muslims as one of the greatest anecdotes that convinced them that Islam and Muhammad are not of God.

Nor, as expected, was Muhammad alone in this sort of rape. For example, Khalid bin Walid—the “Sword of Allah” and hero for aspiring jihadis around the world—raped another woman renowned for her beauty, Layla, right on the battlefield—but only after he severed her “apostate” husband’s head, lit it on fire, and cooked his dinner on it.

If this is how Muhammad—whom Koran 33:21 exhorts Muslims to emulate in all ways—behaved towards conquered female “infidels,” should there be any more surprise concerning the Islamic State’s behavior?

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).

Letter From the UK (About Consequences of Perverse Multi-cultualism)

Islamic Rape Gangs

Rotherham is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

James Delingpole

Breitbart London

7th September 2014

If you haven’t yet listened to the latest Radio Free Delingpole podcast I urge you to do so: but first you’ll need a strong stomach.

In it, I talk to George Igler of the Discourse Institute who has been following the Rotherham child rape gang story closely for the last three years. The full story is more shocking than you can possibly imagine, not just because of the ugliness of the abuse itself (redolent of that horrible scene from the movie Taken where smack-addled girls are serially abused in a filthy dive by countless grubby men) but also because of the extent of the cover-up by the left-liberal establishment of social workers, local government officers, child welfare charities, diversity co-ordinators, not to mention the regional police forces and even imams.

Truly this is one of the biggest scandals of our time. And it’s going to get bigger.  Here are some of the disturbing revelations in the podcast.

• The rape gang phenomenon has existed in the UK for at least 25 years, the first recorded instance being of a trial in Birmingham in 1989. But – typical, this, of what was to come – the defendants were not Muslim rapists. They were the Sikh fathers of abused daughters who had tried to attack the perpetrators of the crime only to end up being arrested themselves while the police turned a blind eye to the sex crime.
• It exists not just in impoverished, racially-divided, working class Northern towns by also in places as white and genteel as Henley-on-Thames
The rape gang phenomenon has existed in the UK for at least 25 years, the first recorded instance being of a trial in Birmingham in 1989.
• It begins like this: a “Romeo” targets the girls, wins their affections, pretends to be in love with them, makes them feel grown-up with presents, treats, drink, drugs. Then the trapdoor shuts. Next thing they know these girls are being plied with booze and heroin, shut in a room with strangers – often related: cousins; brothers; etc – who serially rape them, with the whole business being filmed. The video footage is used to blackmail the girls, who in any case, generally feel too ashamed to report the crime to the authorities. Most of them become addicted to the heroin whose purpose is first to make them resist less and secondly to make them keep coming back for more, despite their better judgement.
• These practices have long been widely known to the police, to social workers, to child-care charities and local councils. All found an excuse to absolve the rape gangs of criminal behaviour by claiming that these sexual activities were consensual – ie that these girls, some as young as 11, were sluts who had it coming to them.
• Each child is worth about £200,000 (around $300,000) a year to the gangs – which makes them even more lucrative than the drugs trade.
• Money is also one of the reasons for the complicity of so many local councils. At a time of general spending cutbacks, money can always be found for jobs in the all-important “Diversity” industry. On salaries as high as £100,000 a year, senior council workers have a vested interest in not rocking the boat. Better to cover up these scandals and preserve the illusion of community cohesion then to have unwelcome public attention drawn to these unsavoury goings-on.
Rotherham – with 1400 girls abused – is just the tip of the iceberg. This has been going on, largely unchecked, all over Britain for a period of 25 years.
• Does the broader local Muslim community know what’s going on? Of course. Remember, the 200 prosecutions so far have been brought mainly against the gang organizers – not against the many thousands of men who have participated in these rape parties.
• Also, the Muslim community has deliberately exploited white liberal squeamishness by threatening race riots and by warning off police that if they try to take the matter further they will report them for “racism.”
• Why haven’t more people in authority lost their jobs? Because time and again they deploy a formulaic excuse which they may well have learned at diversity workshops organised by groups like Common Purpose: yes there has been a scandal; it may be worse than we think; but only we have the training and experience to deal with it, which is why it is vital that we keep our jobs.
• Why wasn’t this reported earlier? It was. But often the people protesting were members of the BNP or the EDL whose “far-right” taint meant that their complaints could safely be dismissed by the left-liberal Establishment as racially motivated and dishonest. The same “racism” accusation was levelled against anyone brave enough to speak out such as Labour MP Ann Cryer. Most people therefore found it more convenient to look the other way.
• Rotherham – with 1400 girls abused – is just the tip of the iceberg. This has been going on, largely unchecked, all over Britain for a period of 25 years. And, if people take apologists like this woman seriously, it may well go on largely unchecked for some time to come….

Destructive Hyperbole

Groping in the Fog

The office of ContraCelsum has been shaking over the past few days with bouts of belly laughter–which is, as we know, the best medicine.  We have been told in harridan-esque tones that we in New Zealand have a “rape culture”.  Well knock us down with a feather duster.  We didn’t see that one coming.

A rape culture.  What on earth is that?  Whence its origins?  Where is it to be found?  Does it come from from a particular ethnic group or immigrant ethnicity that just happens to sanction rape as part of their legal tradition?  Apparently not, because no particular ethnic, nor cultural group has been identified by the protagonist as having a culture of rape.  It’s not a valued or traditional practice in British culture, Irish culture, Australian culture, or Chinese culture as far as we are aware.  Some may have said Indian culture celebrated rape in some circumstances, but recent legal cases against rapists in that country weaken that argument.  We are also aware that honour rapes take place in Islamic societies with the objective of removing shame from a family or village or town.  We grant that comes pretty close to an actual culture of rape. 

But in New Zealand?  So far, no evidence exists of such cultural practices here.  Thus we have no idea what is meant, or being referred to.
  Clearly, rape occurs.  But last time we checked it was a crime and people are still getting arrested, charged, convicted, and imprisoned for rape.  So, hardly a culture of rape, then. 

What then can be meant by the allegation that a culture of rape exists in New Zealand?  Take a parallel.  Theft occurs in New Zealand.  Does that entitle us to conclude that there is a culture of theft in this country?  Are there ethnic and cultural groups which value the purloining of other people’s property (presumably those outside the cultural group)?  Not to our knowledge.

But maybe there are groups which in their cultural practices and engagements encourage rape and prize it as an achievement?  Yes, there are.  We call them gangs, criminal gangs.  But what is all the fuss about?  We have known that for decades.  The criminal gangs also have a culture of violence in general, and of theft, drug production and distribution, and so forth.  Thus far, the protagonist is stating the mundane, if she is referring to the Mongrel Mob and Black Power when she asserts that there is a culture of rape in New Zealand. 

What then is meant with this denunciation of New Zealand having a culture of rape?  Granted there is a criminal element which has, and will, commit rapes.  But to decry a “culture of rape” is as empty and void of significance as to allege that we in New Zealand have a culture of theft, or brawling, or drunkenness–which is to say that some people steal, brawl, or get drunk.  But we somehow get the impression that our protagonist does not have criminal gangs or criminals in general in mind when she speaks of a “culture of rape” in New Zealand. 

No, that’s clearly not what is being meant, at all.  What then?  How about a definition:

Violence does not occur in a vacuum. There are very real reasons why sexual assault is happening in our country every day.  This is because our society normalises, trivialises and in both obvious and subtle ways condones rape. This is called rape culture.

So, the culture of rape refers firstly to society normalising rape.  “Normalising” means making something the ordinary, everyday experience of life.  Like breathing or shopping at the local food store.  Do we really regard rape as common and plain and everyday-ordinary as breathing and shopping?  Really?  What planet is this person from?  Last time we checked, the police do not arrest people for breathing or shopping at the supermarket.  Rape is a criminal offence precisely because we do not normalise rape.

As for trivialising rape, as is alleged, this too is a nonsensical claim.  Society would be guilty of trivialising rape if it regarded it as no more significant than playing a game of marbles on the sidewalk.  Similar observations could be made about the claim that New Zealand society condones rape.  Which society?  What people?  We have lived in New Zealand for a long time and have never, ever found that to be true.  Name one civic leader, one academic, one church leader, one politician, one magistrate, anyone who has stood up to claim that rape is OK, it’s holy, just, and good.  We cannot think of one, past or present.

But the allegation is that New Zealand society condones rape in obvious ways–that is, right-in-your-face ways.  This is such a bizarre claim that hilarity is the only appropriate response, once the amazement ebbs.  It’s like asserting that the moon is obviously made of green cheese.  Only a wag or a comedian would make such a statement–and of course the audience would know it was being conned or set up.   

But, says the protagonist, we also condone rape not just in obvious ways, but in subtle ways.  What ways might they be?  Who knows.  They are apparently so subtle that only the cognoscenti can detect them.  In which case, they can be ignored.  We believe that such outlandish, extreme, emotive, and meaningless allegations about rape actually achieve what what they portend to protest against.  Such nonsense trivialises  and makes ridiculous what is a capital crime.  If everybody does it, who cares at the end of the day.  It’s of no import nor significance.  That’s the inevitably destructive and damaging outcome of such extremist, nonsensical, inflated, exaggerated claims. 

The protagonist has “proved” too much.  Mockery awaits all who weave and traffic in such miasmal foggings. 

The Lust for Power

A Pox on Both Their Houses

We commented recently upon a bizarre proposal by the Labour Party that cases of rape must take away the burden of proof from the accuser, and place it upon the shoulders of the defendant.  Innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of judicature which the Labour Party is willing to toss aside whimsically in order to win a few votes from the radical feminists.  The NZ Herald continues the debate over this antediluvian proposal. 

Labour’s justice spokesman Andrew Little did not think the party’s proposal would lead to more innocent people being convicted.  “I don’t see why. You’re assuming that there is a propensity to lay false complaints. There is no evidence pointing to that.”

There is no evidence of a propensity to lay false complaints. What planet is Little from?  This statement beggars belief and one wonders whether Little is just fundamentally ignorant of the real world, or whether he is being deliberately obtuse for political reasons.  OK, so let’s put this claim to the test: if Little were to be taken seriously and in good faith, he would be claiming that in the past fifty years there has been no evidence of any person laying false complaints of rape. 

In August 8, 2005, the NZ Herald ran the following story:

NZ Herald
August 8 2005

False rape complaints annoy police
by Nicola Boyes

Hamilton police will decide this week whether to charge two women who made separate false rape complaints at the weekend.  Detective Sergeant Nigel Keall said police spent time and resources investigating the women’s complaints.  “It’s just a waste of resources that could have been used elsewhere.”

Both complaints were lodged on Friday. One was made by an 18-year-old and the other by a 19-year-old

Then comes the kicker:

Senior investigators estimate that between 60 and 80 per cent of rape complaints made by women are false.  Mr Keall said false complaints tainted the community’s perception of sexual offending and the genuine victims who needed support.

He said there was also a difference between people making complaints of stranger rapes and making allegations against a specific person, which could sometimes be malicious.

According to Andrew Little this never happens.  There is no evidence for it.  Here is a file summarising repeated false complaints of rape.  Never happens, according to Little.  Just search under “NZ false rape complaints” to get a long list of instances of false rape complaints.

Understand this: under Little’s proposals, the majority of cases such as these would have likely resulted in an erroneous conviction of rape because the defendant could not prove his or her innocence. 

But, idiotic and extreme and dangerous as Labour’s proposals are, the current Government is only slightly better.  National proposes to weaken another foundation stone of our justice system–the right to silence–in cases of rape.

Fundamental pillars of the criminal justice system may be eroded whichever party wins the election this year, as both National’s and Labour’s proposals would look into changing the right to silence or the presumption of innocence in rape cases.  Both major parties claim the current system is not upholding justice for victims, and are looking at changes that would effectively make it easier for prosecutors to obtain convictions.

National wants to explore allowing a judge or jury to see an accused’s refusal to give evidence in a negative light, while Labour wants to shift the burden of proof of consent from the alleged victim to the accused.  Auckland University law professor Warren Brookbanks said both policies challenged two fundamental principles: the right to silence, and the presumption of innocence, which are both protected in the Bill of Rights Act.

The drive to get more convictions is motivating politicians to toss fundamental protections aside. 

Of National’s plan, he said: “It’s an intrusion into the right to silence.  In the trial process, offenders are in any event always at a serious disadvantage relative to the prosecution, and there are some important protections in the trial process, and the right to silence is a fundamental right. These are part of our democratic rights that apply to all citizens.”

The fundamental “right to silence” is to be tossed aside in the drive to get more convictions.  But why just rape?  If this new principle is fair and just, it must surely be applied to all criminal charges, not just rape.  Why put rape in a special category?   Are we to conclude that if the right to silence is tossed for allegations of rape, all other not-guilty verdicts are thereby implicitly unjust because the defendant was allowed to remain silent? 

This principle holds true: never, ever trust a politician with the responsibility faithfully to protect the liberties of citizens.  Populism will win out every time, such is the prevailing venality amongst them all. 

The Syrian Solution

Showing True Colours

A Saudi Arabian imam, who is a very influential cleric in jihadist circles, has issued a fatwa (religious edict) that essentially allows all jihadists fighting in Syria to rape women.

Muhammed al-Arifi, a Wahhabi religious cleric,  officially calls this act an “intercourse marriage” that can last only a few hours – “in order to give each fighter a turn” — and restricts the men to Syrian females at least 14 years old, widowed or divorced.

Al-Arifi, expressed his annoyance at the “warriors of Islam” being denied sexual pleasures while fighting in Syria “alongside the armed opposition forces” for the past two years.  He said this fatwa “solves [their] sexual problems” and “boosts the determination of the mujahideen in Syria and is considered a duty to enter paradise for those females who enter such marriages.”

The Arabic language news site Tayyar.org reports that critics of Al-Arifi have expressed anger about the fatwa, saying that it permits the exploitation of Syrian women through rape.

No kidding.  

Mixed Messages

 Inebriation and Rape

The New Zealand police are saying that far too many young women are being raped whilst so intoxicated that they cannot recall who, what, when, or how.  These cases, whilst on the balance of probabilities  genuine, are very difficult to prosecute successfully.  This, from the NZ Herald:

Police are having to shelve sexual assault complaints because witnesses are too drunk to remember the details.  In Waikato alone, up to five complaints of sexual assaults are recorded each week, usually from women aged between 16 and 30, but many can not be acted on because of the high intoxication of people involved.

The problem also exists at another of the country’s busiest police stations, Auckland Central.
Police cannot take a case to court without clear evidence.  But some complainants were so drunk that officers’ investigations – costly in police time and resources – were left in in limbo.  “Sometimes it is so bad that they can’t remember anything, nothing at all about the sexual assault,” Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Greene of Hamilton told the Weekend Herald.  “But they know they have been assaulted. It’s also rare that someone walks in here and it’s not genuine.”

What are the lessons?  The first is to recognise the limitations of police, state, and judicial powers.
  The brute reality is that there are always crimes which escape detection and conviction.  The state is not god; it is not omniscient.  Human powers are limited, finite, imperfect.   The world and human society, prior to the Final Advent of our Lord, can never be completely, perfectly safe or protected from criminal malediction. 

The second lesson is derived: everyone is responsible to ensure that they do not expose themselves to needless danger.  Every adult person is responsible to those that depend upon them that they take reasonable care of themselves. 

Intoxication is a self-inflicted vulnerability.  We are not talking now about spiked drinks or unknowingly drugged food.  We are addressing the situation where people make themselves grossly intoxicated.  For that they are ultimately responsible.  No-one else.  Sure, no doubt there may be social conditioning (everyone else was getting slammed; my friends kept buying me drinks, etc.) but if one is an adult, the final responsibility rests with one’s own self-governance, not with inebriated, irresponsible friends. 

Our culture is riddled with blame shifting.  If bad things happen it is always someone else’s fault to some degree.  Society is always seen as complicit if something bad happens. So, a badly intoxicated young woman leaves a bar, trips over the kerb and breaks bones.  Who is responsible?  Part of the blame will be sheeted home to the bar which served her the drink.  The lack of warning road signs or the designers of the kerb or the local roading authority might also come in for a share of blame.  Maybe there is some merit in the blame-shifting.  Maybe there is some due complicity that needs addressing.  Society in general will certainly be held accountable insofar as it will pay for the medical treatment and physical rehabilitation of the “victim” without qualification.  But all too often the last person to be blamed or held responsible was the inebriate herself.  We have lost the moral and ethical clarity to say to the “victim” that she has been stupid, foolish and irresponsible. 

Ironically, most people instinctively know that this is the case, but it is impolite, politically incorrect to say so.  The games we play! 

In the case of the rape of an inebriate there can be no exculpation for the perpetrator.  None whatsoever.  The parallel situation in the example of the inebriate who tripped would be a situation where the kerb was manifestly and clearly unsafe.  The kerb constructor, the road administration, the civil authorities would all potentially be held accountable.  But it also remains true that it would likely never have happened if the woman in question had been sober.  Thousands would have stepped down from that particular kerb without breaking bones.  And for that the inebriate must bear responsibility. 

Until inebriates face up and hold themselves accountable for their actions and the consequences that may well result, we fear that little progress can be made.  This happens in some areas.  If a drunken person gets into a car and drives and kills someone, the inebriate is held responsible.  The driver never intended it to happen, but it did.  Accountability is sheeted home.  And if you were driving under the influence and another drunk driver hits your car, you will both be charged.  That is as it should be.  Driving under the influence in any circumstances is a breach of the law.

But society fails to apply the same principle when it comes to the rape of an inebriate.  Granted intoxication by itself is not a crime.  But, the concept of reckless endangerment is well established in Western legal traditions.  There are times when people, particularly intoxicated people, recklessly endanger themselves.  Any education programme to attempt to reduce the binge drinking culture that is now emerging amongst young women must focus upon the responsibility of the women in question to self-accountability.  Don’t get drunk! must be the blunt message.

A Massey University survey released this week showed 28 per cent of 16 and 17 year old girls were binge-drinking, downing at least eight standard drinks in a typical drinking session.  The proportion of binge-drinking young women had doubled in less than a decade.  And emergency departments throughout the country were treating more women for intoxication than ever before.

Mr Greene (Detective Senior Sergeant, Hamilton) said binge-drinking played a big part in the problems police faced with sexual assault complaints.  “It’s definitely part of the fabric of it.”  In Auckland, Hamilton and other centres, police and other agencies are out in the streets at night, pushing campaigns designed to prevent sexual assault.

We have organizations devoted to educating people about what constitutes rape and ways of prevention.  Unfortunately, it would appear that the education leaves out one of the fundamentals.  It focuses upon educating the predator, not the inebriation of women.

Rape Prevention Education director Dr Kim McGregor believed much of the solution lay in prevention.  She said victims were too often blamed because they had been drinking or wearing revealing clothing.  “Nobody goes out thinking they better not wear a short skirt because they might be raped – so let’s start focussing on the offender and how we can intervene in their behaviour, rather than blaming victims.”

No.  Dr McGregor is operating within a false dichotomy driven by political correctness.  There is clearly a message to be given to potential perpetrators.  There is another message to be given to the potential victims.  It is the same kind of message that is being conveyed to people who are irresponsible enough to drink and drive. 

Full of Sound and Fury

Protesting Too Much

We are amused whenever Unbelievers try to make out they are theologians or they have something beyond the comical or the trite to contribute to a religious debate.  They tend, as a herd, to pontificate with loud declamations about what they do not know. 

A Republican candidate for the US Senate has had the temerity to suggest that one should treat with great care and respect the life of an unborn child, even when that child has been conceived as a result of rape.  He has argued that even that conception is of God. 

At this point all Christians who understand the Bible’s revelation of the all controlling power of Almighty God will know immediately what is being referred to and meant.  This is Christian faith 101.
  Christians know the Psalms.  They know the Book of Job.  They know that suffering and calamity comes from evil and wicked agencies–even as it did to Job.  Yet they also know that behind the wickedness of the Accuser is the permissive will of God, the Almighty. 

Moreover, Christians know that the only comfort in life and death, particularly amidst suffering, is to believe that hard and difficult providences also come from God’s hand and are meant for the ultimate good of His people.  When Christians stand in grief around a coffin of a man murdered by contumely thugs the only final comfort is to know and believe that even this, too, has come from God’s hand and by His will.  It is not some random act beyond the control and will of God.  It is not meaningless.  As the old catechism so powerfully puts it:

What is your only comfort in life and death? 
That I am not my own, but belong–body and soul, in life and death–to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.  He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.  He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. . . .

Rape must always remain a capital crime.  It is a grossly evil act–whether committed by men or women.  However, as a result of rape sometimes a human being in the image of God is conceived.  That human being is innocent of all sin, except that of our first father, Adam.  That human being is not guilty of rape.  Therefore, that unborn child must be treated with the utmost care and respect–otherwise society would be arguing that the sins of one of the parents must be visited upon the child and that child must die, be executed, for the sins of the father or mother, sins of which they are not guilty, but completely innocent. 

What mad and utterly immoral society would punish the child for the gross sins of the rapist parent? 

It goes without saying that victims of rape, having now a child conceived and growing within one’s womb, would always be suffering deeply.  But the only comfort is to believe that out of this terrible affliction, God will bring good.  He will bring comfort, ensuring that this thing, too, is in His hand and will work together for my salvation.  And exactly the same realities apply to the innocent, defenceless human now quickened within the womb.  Do not do evil, that good may come, we are told.  We must take up all such children, conceived through rape, and ensure that the sins of a rapist are not visited upon the innocent child as if he or she were guilty.

>A Curious Case of Theft

>Discombobulations And Sub-Texts

A huge debate has broken out in South Auckland.  A woman has habitually left her house unlocked as a matter of principle.  She claims that she determined years ago she would never be dictated to by the career criminals, gangs, drug dependant and other social detritus in her neighbourhood.  Her parents never had to lock their houses and protect their possessions so why should she, was her argument.  Apparently it was a kind of “human rights” thing she was running.

Predictably last week, whilst absent, her house was completely ransacked.  Everything the thieves regarded as valuable (computer, wide-screen TV, stereo system, kitchen appliances) was taken.  Her teenage son’s car, left unlocked in the driveway, was also taken.  The rest of the house was trashed in what appears to be a malicious melee of wanton destruction.

The police are investigating and reportedly have some good leads.  The detective in charge of the case sympathized with the victim and her family, but said it reinforced how people needed to take reasonable precautions with their property.  The rules were pretty simple: adequate professionally installed dead-locks, activated burglar alarms, automatic sensor lighting, and vigilant neighbours.  The detective claimed that these things are shown over and over to prevent neighbourhood and residential theft.

When questioned the neighbours showed little sympathy for the victim.

>Fair Question

>Statutory Rape an Exclusively Male Crime?

In New Zealand we have a 28 year old Facebook predator who has reportedly serially groomed teenagers for sex. So far the perp is free as a bird and the authorities appear to be turning a blind eye. Keeping Stock has a question:

This is one disturbed woman, in our always-humble opinion. But what disturbs us even more is the seeming lack of action by the Police so far.

Imagine this scenario: a 28-year-old MAN grooms teenage GIRLS via Facebook, and initiates sexual relationships. We have every expectation that the Police would act quick-smart to stop the behaviour, and if laws have been broken, to make an arrest. So what is the difference here?

Fair question. Are the NZ Police sexist in their application of statutory rape law in this country? Is there one law for males, and another for females?

There have been hints that the woman in question is mentally disturbed. The implication is that her alleged offending is therefore not to be taken seriously. One has hitherto held the opinion that it is the courts which make such determinations, not the police. But maybe times are changing.

Even worse, it appears a national women’s magazine (Woman’s Day) has done a celeb-adoration style story on this perp. Maybe they want to portray her as an archetypical twenty-first century feminist who has successfully mastered electronic social-networking. You know–serious socio-political analysis. The kind of pablum that has made Woman’s Day a “must read” for every non-thinking woman.

>Doug Wilson’s Letter From America

>Just Plain Greasy

Douglas Wilson

There is something different about these latest examples of sexual hypocrisy. We are used to sexual shenanigans, and we are used to people lying to cover them up. We are also used to the double standard — if a Republican congressman were to do to a fetching staffer what a Democratic congressman does to a fetching staffer, as he routinely does, the sky falls in — abuse of power, sexual harassment, and all the rest of it. But if the Democratic congressman does to an alluring staffer what the Republican congressman does to an alluring staffer, then it is an office romance, America needs to get over its puritanical past, and, haven’t we grown up yet?

But the latest go-rounds on this particular piece of playground equipment are just creepy. Letterman has announced that he had a series of sexual relationships with staffers, folks whose jobs were dependent on his continued good graces. Okay, that kind of thing is as old as dirt. But he announced it as though he expected the sympathies of the public, using the old brazen it out move. And he has gotten at least some of that sympathy.

And the Roman Polanski affair is beyond creepy. All of Hollywood — including Woody Allen, who should have thought about it some more before lending his support — has come out in support of the talented perv.

The problem in these situations is not the individual hypocrisy or the individual capacity for sin and deception. I mean, as far as that is concerned, welcome to earth. The problem is the full-throated and open support for these men from a sub-culture that had previously raised moralistic posturing and ethical preening in front of the mirror to an art form.

In short, our entertainment culture is openly and unabashedly . . . greasy.

First posted in Blog and Mablog, 4th October, 2009

>More Evidence of Prison Corruption

>Judicial Hypocrisy

New South Wales has just completed what is claimed to be the most comprehensive survey in history of prisoners within that state’s prison system.

It reports: “One in six inmates was aware of a sexual assault in jail in the past year, one in three had used drugs on the inside and half of inmates considered it ‘easy’ to get them.”

If we were to ask how many prosecutions have taken place for sexual assaults or drug use in prisons, we would doubtless find the number to be cuddling zero. Once again this highlights the bankruptcy of the prison institution and of the state in its approach to it. (We believe that it is safe to assume that prison life in NSW is roughly equal to reality in New Zealand.)

So, in this most vicious and degrading manifestation of modern slavery, which is the prison system, we are apparently justified in concluding:

1. That sexual assault and prison rape is OK. It’s a crime outside, but inside it’s tolerable and tolerated.

2. That drug use in prison is OK. It’s a criminal activity outside, but inside, it’s OK.

If we are not entitled to draw these conclusions, then why aren’t the police and corrections staff investigating and prosecuting crime within the prison system? Clearly they are not, or they must be the most inept and ineffectual policing ministries imaginable. Here is a captive population; accessible at all times to police detectives and investigators; susceptible to infiltration by undercover officers–the list goes on. Surely it’s not that hard.

So, since the police are clearly neither inept nor ineffectual in their professional duties, the only other possible alternative is that the government is willing to tolerate crime in prison.

We call for a zero tolerance policy toward all crime committed within prisons. If society and the government and the electorate is going to continue with the modern prison system, it has to front up and do it properly, justly, ethically, and fairly. Winking the eye at prison crime is none of these. It remains an enduring shame and blight upon the community. The government is being derelict in one of its fundamental and most basic duties.

>Mid-Week Miscellany

>New Zealand, China, Peru, and the United States . . .

Some recent interesting material on blogs and the web includes:

1. Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right

Madeleine at MandM arguing that the Foreshore and Seabed imbroglio is shaping up to be a case of two wrongs. She makes a case for the essential priority being given to due legal process rights and suspects that the current Government is about to commit an equally big injustice as did the bankrupt Labour administration.

She writes:

Basically the government is going to settle a case out of court; on our behalf when it is not clear that the government are guilty and not that long ago they denied a case existed on the part of Ngati Apa. Historical Maori land ownership claims are very difficult to prove. There were no deeds or titles issued and records consist of tribal stories, songs, carvings and so on. In addition, the land in question has to have been in continual use by the tribe making the claim from at least 1840 through to the present day (unless unjustly dispossessed). Not only is it very possible Ngati Apa may not have suceeded, there would not be a huge risk of floodgates because each tribe would need to be able to establish this long chain of use and ownership.

The government seems to be happy to have the land of its citizens taken without due process as long as it furthers their political popularity. The former government was willing to suspend due process of one group of citizens and unilaterally declare that the land in question belonged to a second group of citizens. The current government is willing to unilaterally declare that the land in question belongs to the first group of citizens and not the second group and again is not going to allow a court to hear the evidence.

The whole post is worth reading.

2. The Chinese Economic “Miracle” Looks Suspect

John Lee, in an article published in Policy Magazine, entitled Is China Really an ‘East Asian success story’? compares the development paths of Korea and Taiwan to China. In the cases of Korea and Taiwan, economic development took place under the direction and at the instigation of centralist and authoritarian regimes. However, the influence, relative size, and controls of the respective governments reduced over time.

China, however, has done the opposite. The control and power of the government has increased under the Chinese economic development path. He writes:

The explosion in the number of officials is further indication of the rise of the Chinese ‘corporate state.’ In the 1980s, China had fewer than 20 million officials on the payroll. In the early 1990s, the number grew to more than 20 million, and by 2004 there were more than 46 million. This equates to around one official for every 28 people.(16) This is backed up in a further report that indicated the doubling of officials during the 1990s. In the 1980s, a small township had around 10 to 20 officials and a large one had around 20 to 30 officials. By 2004, an average township had more than 100 officials.(17)

Another case in point is that more than 30 of the largest 35 listed companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange are majority owned by the state and state-controlled entities. Between 1990 and 2003, less than 7% of the initial public offerings on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges were from private-sector companies.(18) The Chinese state owns about 50% of all the shares of listed companies.(19) When state-controlled entities are included in the calculation, it is likely to be around 70–80% of all listed shares. In terms of assets, employment, national output, and control of the most important sectors, the state’s role in the Chinese economy is far more profound, extensive, and entrenched than at any time in East Asian countries such as Taiwan and South Korea.

The political motivations behind these developments are clear. The Tiananmen protests brought the Party to its knees. Authoritarian regimes become irrelevant at their peril. To preserve its relevance, the Party has gone to extensive lengths to retake control of the major levers of economic power. This control is at the heart of an economic structure that entrenches, for the moment, the role and status of Party officials and members in the Chinese economy and society.

We would expect that one of the consequences would be an enormous waste of resources and capital. Lee argues that this is exactly what is happening in China.

To put the situation in perspective, China’s overall use of capital is twice as inefficient as India’s when measured in terms of capital inputs used to produce additional output. In fact, World Bank findings indicated that about one-third of recent investments made generated zero or negative returns.(23) Given the regime’s need to continually stimulate the economy for political ends, it is no wonder loans keep on increasing at an incredible pace despite economic rationality demanding that it should not. This might further the end of maintaining loyalty to the ruling Party and entrenching its power, but it is at enormous cost to the country.

His conclusion: China will continue to be influential by virtue of its size alone. But it will not become the economic powerhouse that most expect. It will rather end up like Brazil–a country and economy that is distorted, inefficient, wasteful–and, therefore, vulnerable and weak.

3. Zero Tolerance for Prison Rape

Eli Lehrer argues in National Review Online that the US must strive for the elimination of prison rape. He writes:

Anyone who looks at the problem can’t react with anything other than horror. According to the Bureau of Justice Statics, over 60,000 prisoners — the great bulk of them male — fall victim to sexual abuse in prison each year. A fair number of these men are “punks” who are subject to frequent, even daily, male-on-male rape for years on end. . . .

But the nation’s prison-rape problems can’t go away overnight for at least two major reasons. To begin with, the racial supremacist gangs that control many prisons use rape as a tool for keeping other prisoners in line and, in some cases, prison officials may turn a blind eye towards sexual abuse when it keeps prison populations more orderly. Second, the understandable widespread social distaste for people in prison has lead to a widespread attitude that’s frankly inhumane. It is one thing to say that prison shouldn’t be fun and quite another to say that detainees “deserve” rape. Nobody does. But, somehow, prison rape remains a perfectly acceptable topic for sitcoms, widely trafficked websites, and late-night comedians.

Government runs the prisons and, in the end, government policy will have to play the dominant role in eliminating prison rape. But, to facilitate that, society also has to change and acknowledge that, even though most people in prison have done awful things, they’re still human beings and still have rights.

Amen!

4. Those Climate Change Killjoys

Anyone who has done even a modicum of research into the global warming debate knows that the earth has successively warmed and cooled over long periods of time well before our current generation. This indisputable fact is an embarrassment to the global warming alarmists because it calls in to question the human causation of current global warming–that is, society’s release of carbon into the atmosphere.

One earlier warm period occurred in the medieval period, and it was a time of great bounty and prosperity–at least for the Incas of Peru. An archaeological investigation in Peru has been written up on the web.

Apparently, the Incas flourished under the globally warmer conditions.

The last time global warming came to the Andes it produced the Inca Empire. A team of English and U.S. scientists has analyzed pollen, seeds and isotopes in core samples taken from the deep mud of a small lake not far from Machu Picchu and their report says that “the success of the Inca was underpinned by a period of warming that lasted more than four centuries.”

The four centuries coincided directly with the rise of this startling, hyper-productive culture that at its zenith was bigger than the Ming Dynasty China and the Ottoman Empire, the two most powerful contemporaries of the Inca.

“This period of increased temperatures,” the scientists say, “allowed the Inca and their predecessors to expand, from AD 1150 onwards, their agricultural zones by moving up the mountains to build a massive system of terraces fed frequently by glacial water, as well as planting trees to reduce erosion and increase soil fertility.

“They re-created the landscape and produced the huge surpluses of maize, potatoes, quinua and other crops that freed a rapidly growing population to build roads, scores of palaces like Machu Picchu and in particular the development of a large standing army.”

http://www.fxware.com/forex-currency/add-on/?a=3&up_l=en

>The State’s Tolerance of Rape

>An Open Letter to Ministers of the Crown

This post is addressed as an open letter to the following Ministers of the Crown: the Honourable Judith Collins, Minister of Police; the Honourable Simon Power, Minister of Justice; and the Honourable John Key, Prime Minister.

Dear Honourable Sirs and Madam

We are told by the Ministry of Justice that in 2006 there were 1638 convictions for violent sexual offences in New Zealand. To our knowledge, however, not one of these convictions was for prison rape. Yet it is common knowledge that rapes in prison occur daily.

Now, it is possible that the existence of prison rape is an urban legend. It is possible, though highly improbable, that the New Zealand prison system is unlike other the prison systems of other nations. For example, the US Bureau of Justice reports that over 60,000 prisoners are subject to sexual abuse in prisons in that country every year. In that country also, the Federal Prison Rape Elimination Commission has just released a report calling for zero tolerance of the crime.

We are aware of prosecutions in New Zealand for prison assaults and prison murders. But none for prison rape.

In view of there being no known arrests or prosecutions for prison rape in New Zealand within living memory, what are we to conclude:

1. That the Ministers of Police, Justice, and Corrections consider that prison rape is not a crime?

2. That the Government believes that there is no evidence of prison rape and that it does not occur in New Zealand?

3. That it is the view of the Government that prisoners deserve all they get; that victims of prison rape should accept that being raped is part of the penalty of being imprisoned?

4. That the Government has other priorities and is willing, therefore, to turn a permissive “blind eye” to prison rape?

5. That prison rape is being efficiently prosecuted and perpetrators convicted, but in secret courts?

We look forward to your response with great interest.

Yours,

John Tertullian and the Contra Celsum team.