However, I am going to shift from having doubts about Julian Assange to the formal announcement that Assange is definitely kind of a douchebag. I'm not going to say whether he's a rapist or not (that's for the courts to decide, if at all possible), but I will state that he has shown himself to be fundamentally identical in his views to any other possible rapist.
Believe it or not, there are classy ways to deal with rape accusations. Treat them as serious allegations, make it clear that it was never your intent to rape anybody, and then turn yourself in. Assange has done one of the three. For a while, he was remaining silent, and running. I'm going to be a little generous, and state that he has legitimate extenuating circumstances for the whole fleeing-the-law thing. And silence, well, not talking about the pending rape allegations is pretty classy, too.
Recently, Assange spoke to The Australian, and discussed his rape charges in a way that was decidedly Not Classy. As follows:
Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism, I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism.
He further offers that the woman allowed him to stay at her flat for a week, and that she the other woman, as he described: "arrived at a lunch in a revealing pink cashmere sweater, flirted with him, and took him home."
This is the exact same trite, rape-apologist bullshit that gets toted outed in every god-damned rape case. It doesn't matter if she showed up naked, game him a lapdance, and dragged him to the nearest motel. If she didn't consent to the sex, it's still rape, Mr. Assange.
And blaming the feminists? Real classy. Here's something revolutionary to consider: the feminists didn't turn anybody into a rapist. Trust me, they manage to do that all by themselves. What feminists do is try to improve the lives of women everywhere, part of which is stopping rape. Interestingly, you can't stop rape in any sort of manner that improves lives by redefining it to exclude certain forms of non-consensual sexual activity. Because it's not improving lives.
And until Julian Assange recognizes this, he will remain a complete douchebag. Sorry, fanboys.
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Now, I'm not going to argue that Julian Assange is kind of a douche. He is. He's about the least charismatic leader a cause could possibly suffer, and his ego and dramatic flair turn him into a figurehead, when what Wikileaks needs is a journalist. Plus, by most accounts, he's not all that nice a guy. However, blaming feminists, at least in part, for his situation entirely fair. You see, he never raped anybody. At very worst, I think, he engaged in some dubious sexual practices. He was almost definitely sleeping with both women at the same time, was probably not being entirely honest about everything with these women, maybe isn't a terribly pleasant man to have a relationship, or even a one night stand, with. However, I see no evidence that he forced himself on either of these women, or that he had sex with them that they didn't, at least conditionally, consent to. It is possible that they consented conditionally, and he violated that condition, and that is, I think, the worst possible thing he did. And that's not rape. It isn't right, to be sure, but it isn't rape. It's almost definitely a crime, and if it isn't it should be, but it isn't rape. It's deception, but that's not rape. Rape is a violent crime, forced noncensual sex. This is not a crime Julian Assange has committed, and no-one informed thinks he has. He may, possibly, have done something.
Swedish law treats whatever it is he may or may not have done as rape. That's a fucked up law. What he did (worst case still) is to rape what fraud is to armed robbery. A law that punishes fraud as heavily as armed robbery would be draconian. The sort of thing theocracies do. Like, I dunno, Saudi Arabia. Not that fraud is a good thing by any standard, but armed robbery gets people killed, and fraud does not.
The reason a law like this is on the books is because of the Swedish feminist movement. Whatever good they have done, this is bad, and it's their fault. Blaming them for this is entirely above board. I personally don't, because I think that it's much more productive to blame the nebulous conspiracy behind these charges, but if Julian Assange wants to make this about how messed up Swedish rape law is, rather than about international diplomacy and espionage, then he's an idiot, but sure, whatever. He's not wrong. Calling Sweden "the Saudi Arabia of feminism" is not only not unfair, I don't even think it's inaccurate. And drawing attention to this law is a good thing.
It is entirely possible that this law is on the books as rape because, for whatever reason, that was the only way to get it passed, and feminists thought it needed to be a law at any cost to society. It is also entirely possible it was put on the books as a socio-cultural weapon that only women could use. One reason feminists fight so hard for sexual assault laws is that they are one of women's only 'edges' in society. Most laws treat both genders equally, and a lot of extralegal cultural phenomena favor men. Rape laws are something women can take advantage of and men basically cannot, and that is why feminists fight for them. And that's fair, they're a special interest group, trying to get laws passed that benefit them and not their competition. They play the same game that everybody else plays. But, like all other special interest lobbying, it produces unjust laws.
Continued.
Furthermore, if Assange is going to politcally align himself against the feminist movement, well, they started it. Feminists, presented with this series of events, could have taken two paths. They could have looked at the evidence, realized that it was the word of a few women that we have no reason not to trust against the word of Julian Assange who we have no reason not to trust (he's basically committed his entire life to the concept of honesty...) under highly political circumstances, and that while there is next to no evidence they will avoid comment on Assange as a person. They could even have done what a lot of other political groups have done, and said that no matter what Julian Assange has done, and no matter how much damage and chaos Wikileaks causes, no matter how much they disagree with what they are doing or have done, Free Speech is bigger than their cause, or any cause. Wikileaks is the most important thing in the world right now. And, for the Feminist movement, this would mean supporting Wikileaks through this debacle, then dealing with Assange when he was less of a political figure. They didn't do this. The feminist movement took it's usual knee-jerk misandric every-man-accused-of-rape-is-definitely-guilty-and-should-be-socially-shunned-then-imprisoned-then-if-at-all-possible-shot angle.
And this makes puts them in opposition to Julian Assange. He's entirely at his liberty to oppose them back. They started this. And you know what? It puts them at opposition to free speech, and freedom in general. The feminists who are assuming Assange's guilt and calling for his imprisonment, when he has had nothing even beginning to resemble a trial, are little better than Sarah Palin calling for his assassination without trial. Because Assange is Wikileaks, and Wikileaks is Free Speech and Government Accountability. Not because this is actually the case (Julian Assange is a figurehead for Wikileaks, Wikileaks is one of many organizations supporting government whistleblowers) but because people who don't know all of the facts in this case believe this to be the case, and this is a social issue. The public's perceptions of this, in the end, define its place in history, and its place in history is all that will end up mattering. I've never been a huge fan of feminism, but the disaster that is the way they handled this is, in my mind, the last nail in their coffin. This is shaping up to be the most important event in our lives to date. How any group reacts to this is a good portion of how they are defined for, well, forever. Until the next time something this big and clear-cut comes along. (And yeah, I just described this as clear-cut. It is. Wikileaks stands for free speech and government accountability, those standing against for it are standing against those principles. Every issue of risk of free information pales in comparison to the overarching free speech issue presented by attempts to censor wikileaks, and that makes it clear-cut.) The feminist movement just picked the wrong side.
Continued Again.
Oh yeah, and a technicality.
"Interestingly, you can't stop rape in any sort of manner that improves lives by redefining it to exclude certain forms of non-consensual sexual activity. Because it's not improving lives."
noun, verb, raped, rap·ing.
–noun
1.
the unlawful compelling of a woman through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.
2.
any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.
3.
statutory rape.
4.
an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside.
5.
Archaic . the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
-dictionary.com
Rape isn't defined to include all non-consensual sex. Forced sex is a far cry from non-consensual sex. Coerced is a bit harder, but rape is not non-consensual sex. Rape is rape. And, predictably, you don't care slightly about the lives of the accused. Harsh laws cut both ways in terms of quality of life. Having non-consensual sex in all of it's forms illegal is a good thing, I suppose, in a perfect world, where all violations of law are caught, prosecuted fairly, equally, and successfully, and truth and justice always prevail, and where all punishments are proportional to the crime, creating a peaceful, pleasant society where everyone is treated equally and fairly. In a society that isn't this society, any law creates justices and injustices, where wronged victims successfully prosecute their victimizer, and where where innocent people are wrongly prosecuted, or the guilty are punished in excess of their crime. The harsher a law is, the greater potential for injustice there is. Harsh laws definitely do not de facto improve lives. In fact, nations with extremely harsh legal codes are, in general, not nice places. Look at China. Or Medieval Britain. Or Soviet Russia.
And if you ever call me a fanboy again there's gonna be blood.
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