Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to SteveH,
That is true, but in isolation, the outcome of a 16 year old getting jail for having consenting sex with a 15 year old is probably not the one they want at all. Now we know that there was rape of a 13 year old who did want to press charges and got talked out of it, the above arguments are all pretty much finished. This is a scandal.
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Latest revelations make me eat my words - a 13 year old victim made a complaint and then got talked out of pressing charges by police. Something is very wrong with that. It doesn't matter what she's wearing if when it comes to underage sex. Not that it should matter in rape either, but there was at least one straightforward crime to deal with there.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Lilith __,
Ben, at least some of the girls concerned were semi-conscious. At any age, this is a condition in which it’s not possible to consent.
I fully understand and agree with that, have not denied it, and have thought right from the start that these guys are rapists.
Of course, if you believe, as I do, that this “their hands were tied” line is utter CYA tosh, then the point is moot.
I don't know what to believe on that. There are a massive number of failed police prosecutions of rapists. It happens that way more often than not. I guess that even if failure is highly likely, just taking people to court makes it very hard for them to do anything more. This isn't something restricted to NZ. It happens everywhere. It's also happening in huge volume. It's possible the police are lazy or turning a blind eye, but it's possible they really are telling the truth that they just don't have enough resources not to have the policy of only prosecuting when there is a complainant to actually work with. I just don't know.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Rageaholic,
Even just letting the group know that the police are aware of what they are doing may have made them stop.
They did do that. The boys concerned were interviewed by the police and given warnings. They continued anyway. They're basically thumbing noses at the whole system. I'm not sure how much more power the police really have - Russell suggested that they could at least have had their phones and cameras searched for actual evidence, and if that is possible on the known evidence, then I'd agree it should have been done. It might have netted nothing, but then again, it might have led to a prosecution for sex with a person under 16, and maybe other charges relating to the taking of non-consenting explicit photos.
The problem is really that these would be charges brought out of frustration about the inability to bring the more serious charges about which everyone really is very outraged. OK, sex with underage persons is illegal, but if they're willing, consenting, and the perpetrators were barely adults themselves, it's not going to be punishment fitting the crime. OTOH, the underage sex punishment does seem really harsh to me, were a 10 year sentence handed to a 16 year old having consenting sex with a 15 year old, so perhaps outside of the intention of the judicial system an appropriate punishment could be levied. And there would be a good chance of further rapes being hindered by all this. I just don't know if judges are allowed to think that way, though.
So we come to the question of the witnesses then having to be compelled to testify. This can be a serious harm in itself, something the police have to consider.
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Speaker: Gender quotas (and helping…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
please show me an organisation that claims to select on merit and actually does
It seems to me that the selection process in jobs is rather like democracy generally, in that one of the principle aims is to actually keep out the really bad candidates, rather than to ensure the best ones. So I tend to agree - selection into a political role amongst a couple of people whose talent is similar is not going to be critical in terms of the quality of their work. But in terms of the other main function of democratic leadership, representation, quotas do actually ensure fairness in one dimension.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Which just shows how offensive the comments they weren’t letting through must have been!
It was a blanket block. I made one that must have come in only a minute after they stopped it, which was much less offensive than some of the comments. I’d say they saw that it could go on all day (they were coming thick and fast), and it would be shocking for their reputation if 37 comments turned into 2000, all expressing outrage at the hosts.
ETA: In the time it took me to write my two sentences (about a minute), then post and refresh the screen, another 20 comments had come in.
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Speaker: Gender quotas (and helping…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Hunger Games whatever.
Write me a one-pager and I’ll get it into NZOn Air. I think we’re onto a winner.
Surely we want THUNDERDOME. Two men enter - one man leave.
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Speaker: Gender quotas (and helping…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Don Brash achieved a monumental turn-around for National in 2005 (an ~87% increase in vote share).
Yes, off the back of the worst election result for National, ever. Which is where Labour is right now. Well, worst result for Labour since National was created, anyway, so it's the same time period. Stephen's done his predictions off polling. That's a reasonably sound way to do it.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Lisa_J,
No one hailed me as a hero.
You are, though. That's a terrible ordeal.
I would never do that to any victim of a sexual crime.
A defense lawyer might, though. I don't know if it's likely, though. If there isn't other compelling evidence, the defense would probably prefer the witness not to say their bit. The cross-examination is horrible, but I would imagine that unless some really clear lie is told, then the judge or jury will have a lot of sympathy for the victim, might excuse honest mistakes to get to the main point. It's safer to simply not have any of that evidence on record. Were you called for by the defense or did the prosecution ask you to testify?
I only said it's intimidating that witnesses can be compelled to testify to explain why a witness might refuse to even be interviewed by the police, if they are so afraid of the cross examination, in the case that police press the charges without a complaint. Which they probably wouldn't anyway.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Seems unlikely it would happen, but it could.
Presumably that fact can be highly intimidating in this kind of case. Just the thought that you could be cross-examined by a lawyer about your sex life as a teenager, without any ability to refuse to answer any question that the judge thinks is relevant.
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