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Saturday, July 23, 2016

This will be an episode of Law & Order: SVU.


I say Brock Turner is a rapist because he has been convicted of rape. There has been a rape trial, and the judge or jury came away with the conclusion that the accused committed rape. I'm not repeating the accusation of rape or saying Brock Turner is a rapist because I have a political agenda. (Brock Turner probably didn't perform genital-on-genital contact, so he's not a rapist in the traditional sense. Still "rapist," I agree.)

Blood has been spilled. However the character of the man who spilled it is relevant. The probation officer (a woman) suggested a light sentence. Judge Aaron Persky gave Turner six months (also he will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, meaning his traumas will also last for the rest of his life). The affluenza judge, Jean Hudson Boyd, was far worse. Whereas the male judge acknowledged that serious crime occurred, the female judge implied that it wasn't that bad. Addiction is a disease, and the accused was still a young man. Boyd left the judiciary; Persky might be forced. I might not agree with the leniency of Turner's sentence, but I understand why Persky made his decision.

What happened happen. The rapist's father can't change what happened. He was never in any position to help that woman--because he was not there, for one thing. All that is left for him to do is to protect his own kid. That's not misogyny. That's love.

We all have blindspots for the people we love. You can't control what other adults do. If any parent could control their kid's sex life, every father would superglue his daughter's legs together freshman year. If he were your son, you would rip that lying bitch a new one. You would claim she led your kid on. Maybe she's going it for money, or to get attention. And if her son did rape a woman, a caring mother would say, it probably wasn't that bad. Despite Brock Turner basically being the villain of a Law & Order: SVU episode, his father did something similar, and he became the worst man in the world.

Meanwhile, the victim--who still refuses to come forward and publically air her grievances--wrote an eloquent letter (she goes to Stanford, too) that went viral that apparently encapsulated a lot of rape victims' sentiments on their experiences. Rape shield laws are important part of sex crimes investigations and trials, but now the Internet allows people to call other people "rapist" without specifying which adults whom they allegedly raped. The victim became the best person in the world. We don't know anything about her--but she's the best person in the world. Because she was raped, and she gone through a trial, and she wrote a letter. She's now a hero.

I actually disagree that this about race so much as class. (OJ got away with it because he was rich and likable. He played the sports well.) Would a black star athlete at an elite university have been treated any differently? I will not say he would have. Liberals compare this rapist to older black men with lengthy criminal records and say this is proof of a racial disparity in our justice system. Well...no.

If a Stanford janitor had raped this woman, we wouldn't be hearing about it from the media or feminists. The woman would not have been given this level of exposure. She would be more anonymous, and he would spend years in jails.

Fact of the matter is this was his first rape. (I had my first beer in college.) He otherwise didn't have a criminal record. He was not much of a "threat to the community." The system offered him mercy, and the feminists were outraged. Liberals must choose between mandatory minimums and mercy. Welcome to Republicanism, feminists. Or we can accept that some people deserve the opportunity to do better tomorrow more than others. Some people you can finally give up on. Too much blood has been spilled.

(Edit: Apparently, Turner was a teenage boy who molested an inebriated woman near a dumpster; he didn't rape a girl after dragging her to the dumpster. Morally, we can refer to Turner as a rapist. As a practical matter, Turner didn't rape anyone.)

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