ahugenerd

I think you misspelled “Russia”.

You mean like the previous popes, that have been pedophile apologists, rape victim blamers, and Nazi supporters? I think this pope is pretty much par for the course, unfortunately.

I don’t have a kbin account so that link is broken for me. Long live the fediverse. sigh Feel your feelings, whatever.

I’m not denying what you’re saying, I’m saying both are a problem and advocating for not throwing out the baby with the bath water. There must be a way to adjust our system to account for both cases, no? Or would that be objectionable to you somehow?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this has actually happened. The case I know of, personally, involved a bar owner. He was exonerated after a few years being dragged through the mud, but he ended up having to shut down his bar and move out of town to be left alone. This stuff happens.

Do I have a better alternative? No, it’s a complex issue and we definitely don’t want to victim blame, but we also don’t want to destroy people’s lives over just allegations. It’s a delicate balance. I think one thing we could do, at very least, is to actually stand by the innocent until proven guilty ideal and not publish the identity of the accused until a verdict comes out. This is the way it is in most of Europe and a “perp walk” happening like it does in the US would free highly illegal.

People, for a whole host of reasons, can be and very much are in different situations than you. Some have very little defense against such allegations, and so it should not be very difficult to understand that they could have their lives destroyed in an instant by false accusations.

For instance, if they engage in non-normalized sexual relations (for their area or country, obviously), be that interracial, same sex, BDSM, etc., particularly if they are not “out”. It’s very easy to go from “he tied me up and we had a great time”, to “that guy did me wrong somehow so now I’m going to press charges and claim he tied me up against my will and raped me”. If you don’t think this happens you’re living in a dream land.

To replay your own argument: something tells me you wouldn’t be so keen on that if you were the one being accused of a crime you had not committed.