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kuangning- Support and actively work towards providing universal health care in this country.
If you want these children born, no matter what disabilities they may have, and you are willing to dictate that no-one else should have another option, then be prepared to put your money where your mouth is for the duration of those children's lives, to provide them with all the care they need to give them as much of a life as they can have. Yes, that does mean multiple heart surgeries and implants and life support and round-the-clock care, and all those other expensive procedures won't come out of the parents' pockets alone. Why? Because it is morally repugnant to force someone to do something against their wishes and then turn around and charge them for the "privilege" on top of it. Because if you try it, you will wind up with women dying after trying to self-abort to prevent having to beggar themselves to pay for the medical care of children they would not have chosen to give birth to, who may accomplish nothing in their brief and pain-ridden lives *except* bankrupting their parents. - Support and actively work toward providing everyone with the ability to earn a living wage.
Yes, that means more of your money towards the education of children that aren't yours, including poor ones and non-white ones. It means you can't just pull money out for a voucher to send your child to a private school while the public schools where the other children go gets poorer and less adequate to educate them. It means a higher minimum wage. It means providing paid time off for people with families to go tend to emergencies with the children. It means providing good childcare options, both for the children whose families kept them and the un-aborted whose families will give them up to foster care. Our foster care system, especially for the broken children, is horrible. You want more children born? Then you get to stop whining and pitch in to help support them. As opposed to protesting at the clinic before they're born and then complaining about welfare and socialism afterward. - Support comprehensive sex education and to make sure contraception is available, taught about, provided.
Don't like that? Too bad. People have sex. They've had sex for as long as there've been two sexes, and they're going to continue to have sex. - Support tougher sentences and more diligent prosecution for the perpetrators of sexual crimes.
If murder nets you a death sentence, rape of a person over the age of consent should get you a choice between castration and life without possibility of parole. Rape of a child under the age of consent should get you straight castration, no choice in the matter. Why? Because not all sex is consensual. Not all conceptions can be prevented by just telling women to keep their legs together. Teach your boys that no always, always means no unless you've agreed on a different safeword beforehand. Stop giving the wink wink nudge and the sly chatter about conquests and how this woman or that is "hot for it." Make rape as repugnant to them as murder. And less of the anti-female bullshit about "she was asking for it, wearing that" and "but she slept with ___ other people." Sleeping with a hundred other people doesn't mean she is obligated to sleep with you. If you want women to not conceive unless they're ready to raise a child, control the behaviour of the men who impregnate women. Decent men will use contraception if she's not ready to conceive, and they won't force her to have sex. For the rest, treat them like the criminals they are, because their offspring, if she doesn't want it, becomes another un-aborted child for you to help support.
Funny, how I haven't yet heard any vehement pro-lifers espousing all of these. Can it be that all the loudest of them want is all of the power to make all women do what the pro-lifers want, and none of the burden of responsibility for what happens after?
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 07:33 pm (UTC)Do I not count as vehement?
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Date: 2009-06-02 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 07:47 pm (UTC)Pro-lifers: Get born, then pull yourself up by your bootstraps. :|
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Date: 2009-06-02 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 10:19 pm (UTC)I know of rather a lot of others like me. We just need to keep working to support all people and to make our voices heard.
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Date: 2009-06-03 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:40 am (UTC)Because rape only ever goes one way.
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Date: 2009-06-03 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 04:39 am (UTC)For the purposes of what you actually said, the abortion issue is wholly irrelevant: "Rape of a person over the age of consent should get you a choice between castration and life without possibility of parole" is, as a suggestion, solely concerned with the legal system. What you're actually proposing that rather than aim for a legal framework that deals an even hand we should instead favour of one that is entirely grounded in a gender bias. Gender bias, I'm sure there's a catchier word for that that I can't put my finger on it right now...
Talking of which, that whole "Rape of a child under the age of consent should get you straight castration, no choice in the matter" malarkey? Yeah, maybe in a world where consensual sex between minors does notm perforce, define the female as the victim and the male as a rapist. This? This is a world in which courts determine that the female is less able to consent to sex than a male peer. This is a world in which the definition of consent, or minor for that matter, can and is determined by an arbitrary number chosen pretty much at random by someone with the circumstance of power to be able to enforce it. This is not the world you're talking about.
See, right until the last bit, your post was full of common sense. I agree with the crux of what you're getting at. But if you're genuinely loopy enough to take issue with being called on the apparently serious suggestion that the law should engage in bodily mutilation as a punishment for one gender only, to satisfy the need for vengeance - not justice, vengeance - and even to suggest that such a quaint objection might, on another day, amuse you, then I think you should probably look to your own demons first before heckling the idiosyncracies of others.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 05:04 am (UTC)What I actually believe is that a woman should be allowed to make her own choices about what she does or does not do with her body, pregnant or not. But if that's not going to happen, and if conception is automatically a have-the-kid-even-if-you-die-doing-it proposal, then these things should take place first, and that includes making the act of possibly impregnating a woman against her will carry a severe enough punishment that no sane man will take the risk. After all, you're making her take nine months' worth of discomfort, fear, anger, nightmares, risk of death in childbirth, what have you, carrying the unwanted product of a rape, so the other side of the equation should be equally horrifying, right? It's only fair.
Now, you can't make the penalty for rape more severe than the penalty for murder, or rapists will simply kill their victims and take the lesser punishment, so no death penalty for rape. But if you lose the offending body part as punishment for raping someone, well, you still get to live, but you'll almost certainly never rape again. I've got complete confidence that if the actual penalty for rape were that graphic, there would suddenly be a flurry of activity to clear up some of the other idiocy that surrounds the issue, like statutory rape where both kids are minors, aka consensual sex, and suddenly every good father would be telling his son to double and triple check for consent before taking it out of his pants..
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Date: 2009-06-03 06:23 am (UTC)Yes, the rest of the post is, directly or tangentially, all about abortion. Your last point has nothing to do with abortion apart from the fact that you tacked it on to the end of a post about abortion. I'm not taking it out of context, I'm pointing out that it doesn't belong in the context you tried to frame it in to begin with.
What I actually believe is that a woman should be allowed to make her own choices about what she does or does not do with her body, pregnant or not ... and that includes making the act of possibly impregnating a woman against her will carry a severe enough punishment that no sane man will take the risk.
Because the death penalty has been such an effective deterrent. The same counterarguments apply: while some jurisdictions in the US may still be in denial, but it's patently clear that "justice" is not guaranteed to be just, and punishing someone in a way that is irreversible, especially when its main purpose is to satisfy a vindictive need for retribution, is reprehensible. That is arguably more so the case when the subject has to live with it than if they don't.
if you lose the offending body part as punishment for raping someone, well, you still get to live, but you'll almost certainly never rape again.
Mmm, it's not at all likely to instil rage and resentment in the castratee, who is not at all liable to then avail himself of one of the many other methods of rape as defined by the law that don't need an organ, not to mention the other potential related hate crimes.
Can I take it, incidentally, that you're wholly okay with chopping someone's hand off for theft? I mean, they won't do it again, will they?
I've got complete confidence that if the actual penalty for rape were that graphic, there would suddenly be a flurry of activity to clear up some of the other idiocy that surrounds the issue
I think you need to spend more time in the legal profession.
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Date: 2009-06-03 08:54 am (UTC)I think, if this proposed punishment that stands not a chance in hell of ever being law (it'll never make it past the predominantly-male lawmakers. Many of them, like you, don't see rape as part of this issue or even very important in the scheme of things, I'm sure!) brings this much squirming and outraged protest, it'd do just fine as a deterrent for the majority. It wouldn't stop all, because there are always some sick individuals who wouldn't be stopped by any deterrent. But it would make the majority far more careful to avoid even the possibility of being accused, and that would be an improvement.
And by the way? Theft of property is not even remotely close to violation of someone else's body. If you actually think the two are so equivalent that my supporting graphic punishment for one means I should certainly support it for the other, then I wish that you had been born female, so that you could have the chance to learn better.
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Date: 2009-06-03 04:38 pm (UTC)Maybe if I'd actually said that you'd have a point, but I didn't. Rape clearly does have something to do with abortion, particularly as it pertains to the stance of the pro-lifers. How the crime should subsequently be dealt with by the legislature absolutely does not have anything to do with abortion, unless you actually thing lex talionis should form the basis for a system of law. Frankly that would worry me, but purely in terms of the abortion aspect of a rape crime, sterilization would be a more fitting punishment (along with a lengthy jail sentence for the assault part). Obviously there are issues with that in terms of not sufficiently meeting the prevention criterion, but in terms of criminal justice, it is not a logical leap from that to a Bobbitt chop.
it'll never make it past the predominantly-male lawmakers. Many of them, like you, don't see rape as part of this issue
Yeah, I think you pretty much confirmed what your real issue is right there.
it'd do just fine as a deterrent for the majority
The majority, contrary to popular opinion, don't need a deterrent, nor should any law be drawn up on the presumption that someone is likely to be guilty purely because of their gender. The fact the law works like that now not because of a purported male bias, it's because it is just (just as in justice, see? Don't worry, you'll work it out). It's never going to be perfect, but making it less perfect is not the solution. Nor, incidentally, is lowering the burden of proof to achieve higher prosecution statistics, which is what the Met was suggesting in the not too distant past...
Of the minority who do need deterring, it is never going to be effective as a deterrent for the same reason that rehabilitation will never work - the overwhelming proportion of that group are people who have underlying issues which are never going to be resolved this way. Ditto for the other two goals of the penal system, prevention and protection. If the punishment does not achieve any of the four targets, and it won't, then it's ineffective.
Theft of property is not even remotely close to violation of someone else's body.
Since I Know you're not a moron like the other person who responded to my comment, I'll assume you've deliberately chosen to ignore the point I was clearly getting at. Irrespective of the crime, that sort of punishment is unjustifiable on every level. How about we take a serious crime that is not gender-specific - say, knowingly infecting someone with HIV, whose potential impact on the victim's life are immeasurable. Why not make the punishment for men castration or FGM for women? Hmmm, yeah, somehow I don't think that'd garner quite the same support when there's suddenly consequences for females as well.
I wish that you had been born female, so that you could have the chance to learn better.
Don't be so bloody patronising. You are suggesting that lopping someone's body parts off is a punishment that is fit for any crime. The whole lot of wrong that comes along with that has fuck all to do with whether I'm male or female and everything to do with the fact that it's morally and ethically contemptible.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 05:32 pm (UTC)We don't have a version of castration that would work the same way on women. Removing the clitoris would remove that portion of her sexual pleasure from regular intercourse the comes from clitoral stimulation, but does nothing to prevent her pleasure in using an object to violate someone else, or any pleasure she gets from vaginal penetration. When you figure out a way around that, let me know; until then, it'll have to be a life sentence for her. If you want to castrate as *well* as keep her in prison, be my guest, but the part that'll do the actual work will be the life sentence, not the castration. The man who gets castration gets to avoid a life behind bars with it.
Likewise, when you find a way to prove that rapists are not predominantly male, and victims predominantly female (and the majority of male-victim rape likewise happens at the hands of other males, for the record) we can talk about whether it's just that the law assumes a rapist is likely to be male simply because right now, and for a very long time, roughly 90% of them are.
They are, by the way, because we raise them that way. Because we insist on putting ever-greater restrictions on our girls instead of "pussifying" our boys by telling them clearly and soberly that they're not entitled to sex from any woman they happen to fancy whenever they happen to fancy it, and not implying that if she says no then she's only being modest and they should keep trying. I think you can rail about the law targeting males all you want, but if you don't acknowledge that the law suspects males because we know very well that we raise males who feel entitled to do these things, then you're being dishonest. Only about 2% of female-victim rape is the stranger in the dark scenario; the rest is largely-normal guys with an entitlement issue who haven't been taught that a woman's "no" means anything important. Imposing the punishment doesn't change the 2%, but I bet it drastically changes what we tell our boys (and the tone in which we tell them, which is just as important) about the consequences of ignoring that "no."
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 04:28 pm (UTC)Once a man (and again, yes, women rape too, less than 10% of the time, and life in prison should be their lot because we can't effectively castrate a woman in a way that would prevent her from raping again) proves that he cannot or does not feel the need to control his own impulses such that he violates someone else's body, then accepting that he lacks that self-restraint and castrating him the same way we would castrate an animal is not the worst thing that can happen to him by a long shot. Again, the only reason I don't advocate the death penalty for rape is because the penalty for rape has to be less than the penalty for murder in order to give rapists an incentive to leave their victims alive. But for that, I'd be just as happy with the death penalty; rape is just as bad as murder, with the addition of indefinite amounts of mental anguish for the victim.
Releasing him into society but tracking his movements for the rest of his life such that he never again has a moment's peace -- that's what we currently do. How civilised is that? At least castration is a single decisive punishment with no implicit lie built in -- "we trust you to go free, but oh, by the way, you're going to sign up for this and we'll tell your neighbours what you did and good luck finding a job or an apartment anywhere."
It is a basic tenet of our entire legal system that a person *can* behave so badly that they forfeit rights they would otherwise have kept -- like the right to freedom; the right to go where they wish and do what they wish. The right to not be bound against their will. A large part of your argument can pretty much be summed up as: "but rape's not so serious that you can punish him like that, just for sticking his dick in someone who didn't want it there. His victim(s)' right to not be violated doesn't trump his right to walk around with his penis intact." (After all, I wouldn't do that to him if he stole a car or a stereo, right, so how could rape be any different?) I'm telling you again that I wish you were female, so that you'd have a roughly one-in-four chance of finding out firsthand whether it really is that bad or not.
Grr... third time.
Date: 2009-06-03 09:54 pm (UTC)Releasing him into society but tracking his movements for the rest of his life such that he never again has a moment's peace -- that's what we currently do. How civilised is that?
I rather doubt I'm alone in thinking that it's more civilized than removing body parts. Besides, it achieves the intended goal: the perp has to live with a constant reminder of his crime and it forces them to think about the consequences their actions. On the other hand, I'm far from happy about the other aspect you mention: I don't really see how public vilification of the sort that arises from offender registers is that far removed from trial by media in terms of its actual impact on the offender. I can understand the reasoning behind it, I just don't think they're handled particularly well, at least as it stands currently.
We don't have a version of castration that would work the same way on women. Removing the clitoris would remove that portion of her sexual
pleasure from regular intercourse the comes from clitoral stimulation, but does nothing to prevent her pleasure in using an object to violate someone else, or any pleasure she gets from vaginal penetration.
While the net effect is not the same, the stated aim of your proposed sentence is to act as a deterrent; in that respect it would serve perfectly well. And the one area where I come down harder than you is in thinking that a prison sentence should be served regardless. Not life sentences, mind - in the UK there's something called a SOPO, which is a court order to detain a sexual offender indefinitely until such time as it can be shown that the risk is reduced to such an extent that they can no longer be considered a threat. That may well be never.
A large part of your argument can pretty much be summed up as: "but rape's not so serious that you can punish him like that
No, a large part of my argument can be summed up as "any punishment that involves removal of any part of the body is batshit crazy".
I'll come back to the rest later, I've already spent far too much time writing this.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 09:55 pm (UTC)Society, even the most civilised, already sanctions mutilation. We mutilate ourselves
Yes, yes we do mutilate ourselves. That is our choice. What we don't do is mutilate others, because oh yes, that's a crime.
We mutilate the majority of our boy children at birth anyway in the name of Judeo-Christian norms.
For values of "we" that equal "America", maybe: outside of the US (and maybe Canada?) circumcision is not performed as a matter of course in the Western world other than within Judaism, nor do I think it should be. As for the suggestion that castrating people is a-ok because we're down with doing it to our pets... yeah. No. And it's not the type of castration that you perform (I chose that particular phrase solely for brevity and impact, incidentally), nor in fact even that it's the genitalia - as I noted, the hand, for the sake of a real-world example, should be no less subject to such treatment than any other body part (no doubt there's a joke of some sort in there somewhere) - but that violating someone's body in any way is no less right when a court orders it than when it's perpetrated as a crime.
See, I think that's where the real disconnect lies between us. You've pretty much stated that you're okay with the death penalty, going so far as to use it as a yardstick by which other punishments should be measured. Again, the US is now unique in the Western world in persisting with the death penalty, so it's entirely possible that there's a cultural clash at play, but when our base standards are fundamentally different you and I are never going to see eye to eye on what is a just punishment. That's not to say that I necessarily think that the framework I'm used to is necessarily better - there is no reason why sexual assault should not be prosecuted at the same level as the most serious aggravated assaults, and yet sentencing frequently seems to be rather more lenient, at the same time as people are being locked up for significantly longer or more for white collar crime - but I'm not unhappy with the fact that
Once a man ... proves that he cannot or does not feel the need to control his own impulses
A finding of rape does not establish that the perpetrator "cannot or does not feel the need to control his own impulses", it establishes whether or not he carried out that crime (or crimes). Now it may be that the circumstances of that finding suggests that there is a need for proactive steps, in which case it should be considered further see what should and what can be done in that regard, but really that assessment is the remit of the penal system, not the courts. A blanket ruling of the sort you suggest is inherently dangerous and misguided. That is not, in my view, the sort of ruling that belongs in the law court; but as I've said, I don't think the death penalty should be either.