THE AGE OF THE NOVEL: Profile of a drunken brawl!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2019

Who enables this culture?:
When we read Concepcion de Leon's profile of Chanel Miller's new book, we were immediately struck by the highlighted statement:
DE LEON (9/23/19): On Jan. 17, 2015, Chanel Miller was seven months out of college and working at an educational technology start-up when she decided to accompany her younger sister to a Stanford fraternity party. She remembers going, having some drinks and, hours later, regaining consciousness in the hospital.

What happened in between she pieced together primarily from news reports...
According to de Leon's profile, Miller "remembers having some drinks" at the Stanford frat party in question. Assuming basic competence on the part of de Leon and her unnamed New York Times editor, that anodyne statement strikes us as an act of journalistic deception.

We say that because Miller actually had a very large number of "drinks" on the evening in question. She had so many "drinks" that her blood alcohol content was estimated to be 0.25—more than three times the so-called "legal limit"—by the time of the behavior which a jury unanimously ruled to have been an act of criminal assault.

According to her own sworn account, Miller had been "blackout drunk" for roughly an hour by the time of the assault. That it, she'd been up and about, walking around, saying and doing things, but without the ability to form memories of the things she had said and done.

By 1 A.M. or thereabouts, Miller was unconscious, though no one says that she'd been drugged and no one says that she'd been mugged. She had "had [so many] drinks" that she first went blackout drunk, then later passed out.

In our view, de Leon and her unnamed editor made the journalistic decision to withhold these facts. Even worse, they decided to insert an anodyne account designed to deceive their Times readers.

Let's be clear! De Leon didn't have to mention the "drinks" at all. In all likelihood, Miller may also have "eaten some pretzels" at this gruesome Stanford bacchanal, but any such consumption would be completely irrelevant to the criminal assault which occurred later that evening.

De Leon skips the pretzels, but she does mention the drinks. And sure enough! When she does, she massively understates what actually happened. Presumably, she and her editor chose to do this for a pair of reasons:

They mentioned the drinks because the "drinks" almost surely were relevant to the horrible events which happened later that night. At the same time, they downplayed Miller's state of drunkenness because we liberals know that current tribal dogmas require us to mislead others, and ourselves, in this ridiculous fashion.

Early in her well-received book, Miller makes a fascinating declaration. The statement defines the approach she takes all through her well-written but highly evasive book.

The statement appears in Chapter 1, right there on page 4. It isn't completely obvious what the statement means, but the statement goes like this:
"I, to this day, believe none of what I did that evening is important..."
In context, that seems to mean that Miller's state of drunkenness wasn't "important" that night. This claim is mandated by tribal dogma, but on balance the claim seems absurd.

Question:

Does anybody actually think that the sexual assault in question would have occurred if Miller's hadn't been "extremely drunk" that night? If she hadn't been blackout drunk by roughly midnight, unconscious by roughly 1 A.M.?

We find it very hard to believe that her interaction with Turner would have occurred at all, absent the massive amount of drinking. In our view, this makes the massive drunkenness extremely important.

Though everyone knows to avoid this question, no one has ever claimed that Miller was forced to leave this drunken frat party with Turner. Presumably, she did so of her own volition, to the extent that a person can be said to have volition when her blood alcohol content is 0.25—when she's blackout drunk.

Asked at trial to testify about her departure from the party; asked to testify about what occurred once she and Turner were outside; Miller testified that she doesn't remember. The court was left with Turner's account of those events, but with no account from Miller.

Miller acknowledged that she can't say what happened as she and Turner left the party. But just to be clear, that doesn't mean that Miller was unconscious when at that time.

Beyond that, it doesn't mean that she was dragged from the fraternity house—that she was physically forced to go outside with Turner. Everything is always possible, but no one has ever said that that's what happened that night.

Miller's inability to testify about events from midnight on means that she was "blackout drunk" that night. She was up and about and walking around, but unable to form memories of the things she was saying and doing.

Before the week is done, we'll link you to further information about the widely-chronicled dangers of this undesirable state. But we know of no reason to believe that Miller would have left the party with Turner at all had she not been "extremely drunk."

Given the awful events which ensued, we would therefore have to say that her unfortunate state of drunkenness was indeed very important.

Let's be clear. There's nothing about Miller's degree of drinking that night which is necessarily "immoral" (as opposed to perhaps unwise).

There's nothing about her drinking that night which meant that, on a moral basis or in a perfect world, she should have been subjected to a criminal act of assault, or to any other sort of misconduct.

Her degree of drunkenness wasn't immoral that night. It certainly doesn't mean that she committed some sort of crime, as Turner was judged to have done.

That said, Miller's degree of drunkenness was dangerous that night. Before we ask you to wonder about who enabled this state of affairs, it might be worth pausing for a brief moment approaching comic relief.

As we noted yesterday, Miller and Turner were both very drunk on the evening in question. In the Stanford Daily, Hannah Knowles reported the data presented at trial, with Miller referred to as "Doe:"
KNOWLES (3/21/16): Alice King—a supervising criminalist for Santa Clara County—also testified. Given nominally hypothetical situations corresponding to Doe and Turner on Jan. 18, King estimated that the Doe and Turner’s blood alcohol content (BAC) levels at 1 a.m. would have been .242 to .249 and .171, respectively.
According to the prosecution, Turner's blood alcohol content was more than two times the legal limit. Miller's BAC was more than three times the level at which a person can legally drive.

These young people were both very drunk. Who had enabled this dangerous state of affairs? First, consider a further report from Knowles about the frat party in question.

As we noted yesterday, Miller had gone to the party with her younger sister, a college student, and with a friend of the sister. The sister's friend was a Stanford student.

Why wasn't Miller's sister on hand to keep her from leaving the party with Turner? In her report about the trial, Knowles reported the relevant testimony. Who enables such nonsense as this?
KNOWLES: At some point, Doe’s sister left the party to get a highly intoxicated friend into bed on campus. That was the last time the sister saw Doe that night, though she searched for her later.

“When you left...you weren’t worried about her?” [the defense attorney] asked.

He noted that in a police interview, she said Doe seemed “fine” at the time.

“She was standing; her eyes were open,” Doe’s sister told him.
The sister's friend, or perhaps some other friend of her sister, had been so drunk that she needed help to get back to her dorm room! This left Miller, who was blackout drunk, alone at the party with Turner, who was 19 years old and apparently would have blown a 0.17 himself.

By the way, please note what Miller's sister testified at trial. She testified that she couldn't tell that Miller was impaired when she left this drunken brawl to help her drunken friend find her way to her dorm room.

That's the nature of the state of being "blackout drunk." This plays a role in the peculiar logic of the Turner trial, which we'll describe before the week is done.

At any rate, behold the state of play! The sister's friend was so drunk that she couldn't make it to her dorm room by herself. Miller herself was blackout drunk, at three times the legal limit. Turner was more than two times the legal limit. According to a unanimous jury, a criminal assault then occurred.

The events we're describing didn't happen inside a dorm room, or in someone's apartment. They didn't happen inside some biker bar, where laws about underage drinking, and strictures concerning dangerous over-serving, were perhaps being ignored.

Where did these brain-dead events occur? Who enabled the obvious danger involved in such absurd levels of drunkenness?

We'll answer your question as the week proceeds. But in our view, the journalistic lesson here is clear:

De Leon and her unnamed editor understand the childish tribal logic which now controls large amounts of pseudo-liberal discussion. For that reason, Times readers were told that Miller "had some drinks" that night, with all that that phrase concealed.

More accurately, Miller was blackout drunk that night. In all fairness, is our routinely ridiculous, self-impressed tribe really much more lucid?

Tomorrow: A slightly peculiar logic

82 comments:

  1. "De Leon and her unnamed editor understand the childish tribal logic which now controls large amounts of pseudo-liberal discussion."

    Meh. This "logic" controls all of your zombie "discussions": zombie-cult appointed villains ("whites", "males", "the Russians", "conservatives", "racists", "cops", whatever) do outrageous things to the innocents ("blacks", "immigrants", etc.). Righteous indignation follows. Rinse, repeat.

    ReplyDelete
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  2. In California they have highways signs reading "Buzzed driving is drunk driving." That is because the amount of alcohol needed to be over the legal limit doesn't feel like being drunk to many people. The legal limit is the amount of alcohol that will impair reaction times and decision making while driving, not the amount that makes most people feel drunk.

    Somerby makes a big issue of the legal limit, but it doesn't correspond to anything meaningful in the story he wishes to tell. Further, he doesn't tell you that the issue of alcoholic blackout is controversial too, that memory can be affected without alcohol (people can forget things they don't wish to remember). Memory can be affected by a blow to the head or a sudden shock or trauma (such as being sexually assaulted).

    Heads up to men reading this -- leaving a party with a man is not consent to sex of any kind with him. It is certainly not consent to being sexually assault later while asleep or passed out.

    Somerby says that if she hadn't drunk alcohol at the party, she wouldn't have been assaulted. We don't know that. Further, it is also possible that if Turner hadn't been a sex criminal at heart, she could have passed out on the grass and been unmolested by anyone, woken up later and gone home without incident.

    Or she could have had an adventure while drunk, as in the movies "Dude, Where's My Car?" or "The Hangover." As young men are apparently allowed to do in our culture, but women have to never drink in case their drinks are spiked and some young man attacks them. Because once you take that drink, everything that happens afterward would surely never have happened and thus what happens is all your fault.

    Somerby wants to make alcohol the culprit. The problem with that is that even with alcohol, nothing would have happened to Miller in the absence of a young man with criminal sexual behavior. That is why there was a trial and a conviction. Turner did something wrong. Why Somerby wants to deflect from that fact is obvious, but Turner is the criminal in this scenario. Not the fraternity, not the alcohol manufacturer, not Miller, and not the university or even our society. Turner.

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    1. "Heads up to men reading this -- leaving a party with a man is not consent to sex of any kind with him. It is certainly not consent to being sexually assault later while asleep or passed out. "

      Then what is it? It's obviously consent to something.

      Sorry, but I have less concern about this woman than Bob does. There wasn't even enough evidence presented that an assault had happened in the first place.

      I despise drunks. They get no sympathy from me. I also question how "fine" this writer is. She's full of cant and self-seriousness and she strains the facts to an incredible degree.

      Caught up in the Santa Barbara shooting? How bogus.

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    2. Since you ask, it is consent to go outdoors. Nothing more.

      You are trolling, of course. There was both physical evidence and two witnesses to the sexual assault.

      Are you claiming the Santa Barbara shooting never happened? It was random. Anyone nearby at the time could have been a victim, although the shooter targeted women. He left a manifesto called "My Twisted World."

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    3. I'm claiming that she never had a close call with the SB shooter, that it wasn't a previous incident like she's trying to make it out to be. It's bogus--she merely lived in SB, which is also Bob's point.

      I followed the trial closely. The witnesses were unreliable. All they saw was him on top of her -- no evidence of rape -- and they both sobbed on the stand repeatedly. How reassuring. The physical evidence was also not conclusive, and couldn't even be traced back to Turner.

      Trolling? Is that the new word for questioning and disagreeing?

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    4. Every woman on that campus had a close call because his actions were random. Any one of them could have been shot because he used no selective criterion for selecting his victims other than that they were female.

      The point of a terrorist act is to create terror. When one woman is shot doing nothing except going about her business, it instills fear in all women similarly going about their business in that place and time. She didn't just live in SB, she attended UCSB, which is where the victims were targeted and where the shooter attended school.

      You are working way overtime to exonerate Turner. The jury saw the evidence you did, talked it over and heard the judge's instructions. They convicted him. I will believe them over you, any day of the week.

      You are trolling because you are visiting a blog you do not usually post at, expressing provocative views about a loaded subject without plausible argument, pretty much going through the motions in order to evoke a response.

      We don't need any more trolls here. There are lots of incel blogs where Rodgers is idolized and you will find lots of support for your supposed views there.

      Turner cried on the stand? Oh, well, that must make him innocent. Miller was drunk, well then anything that happens to her is deserved. She should never have taken that first drink, at a party, with her sister and her friends, at a fraternity party on an upscale campus, where she should have known she would be attacked the moment she let her guard down.

      You forgot to mention what Turner was doing on top of her while she was passed out.

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    5. The SB hooter was nowhere near UCSB. He was way down on State Street. Do you even know where UC is? Over 15 miles away. In GOLETA!

      Sorry, she's a fraud, no matter her "feelings." And "great writers" aren't full of cant. It's a big disqualifyer.

      Delete
    6. 1:53,
      Wear the red MAGA hat, if you're looking for a reaction. Then whine that people are so mean to you just for wearing a hat, so we know you're a bona fide Right-winger.

      Delete
    7. Anon 11:28 - a lot of red herrings from you - e.g.,TDH nowhere even hints that leaving a party with a man is the equivalent of consent to sex, though I suppose it sometimes leads to consensual sex (or non-consensual). No one is saying that the victim's intoxication is a valid defense to a sexual assault charge. That that is the case is not inconsistent with the simple fact that if a women gets very drunk, she might be exposing herself to that happening. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who gets real drunk may have bad things happen to them. Is it possible that if Miller was sober, Turner would have assaulted her any way, as you postulate? - that's pretty far-fetched. Turner was convicted - and while the case against him wasn't the world's strongest, personally I don't think an injustice was done. If Turner's story was believed - he would probably have gotten off. Maybe he was telling the truth, but there were weaknesses in his account. There's almost always ambiguity - maybe you should recognize that more. I'm wondering - what if a young man got super drunk, and a young woman that he meets at a party has sex with him? - is she guilty of sexual assault? (and I'm in no way implying that anything of the kind happened in the Turner case - just wondering what your response would be to this hypothetical.)

      Delete
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  3. "The events we're describing didn't happen inside a dorm room, or in someone's apartment. They didn't happen inside some biker bar, where laws about underage drinking, and strictures concerning dangerous over-serving, were perhaps being ignored."

    Why on earth does it matter where something happened? Does Somerby not realize that sex is portable?

    Women are attacked in all sorts of unlikely places. Waiting for an elevator in a Trump office building. Inside a dressing room at a department store. In a car on the way home from work. On a picnic blanket in the park on a sunny afternoon. While conducting an interview of a famous man for a well-known magazine. All sorts of unlikely places. A man gets a whim and the woman better watch out because he moves on her like a bitch.

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    1. Yeah, those awful men. They get a whim and there they go.

      You totally believe all these stories to the max, don't you?

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    2. When they are told against Trump, I believe them because he is the one who said that's what he did. Didn't you see the pussy tape? He is the one who said he got a whim and just had to "move on her like a bitch". Don't you recognize the words of your own fearless leader?

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    3. I saw the pussy tape. I lived right down the street from where it was shot.

      Nowhere in that tape does Trump say he grabs pussies. He says facetiously that when you're a big celebrity they let you do anything, "grab 'em by the pussy," anything.

      Did anyone ever LISTEN to it? And I hate the guy.

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    4. Another Trump defender pretending to hate him.

      "They let you do anything" pretty much includes pussy grabbing, one of the things he has been accused of doing to real life women (not just by his own admission). Among a variety of other forms of assault.

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    5. 11:34am, I think TDH is suggesting that Stanford and the fraternity have some accountability.

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    6. @cecelia:
      You “think”? Will he say it plainly? Fraternities and universities are constantly in this sort of mess. Bottom line, though: that is not really germane to the overall question of intoxication/sexual assault. If drinking were banned on campus, or at fraternities, do you really think no drinking would occur elsewhere? These are college kids, for crying out loud.

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    7. I'm not aware of Trump being accused of "grabbing a pussy." Other things, sure.

      Whatever, he never "admitted" to doing so in that tape. He was talking about the alleged power of fame and celebrity.

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    8. 'I think TDH is suggesting that Stanford and the fraternity have some accountability. '

      I think TDH is using this incident to attack liberals because he is a Trumptard, after all.

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    9. 1:57
      You’re “not aware.” Enough said. Stay in your fact-free bubble, and you’ll be much happier. I guarantee it.

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    10. Centrist, to perhaps belabor the obvious, TDH isn't a "Trumptard;" you are being stupid, and quite tiresome with this.

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    11. When TDH spends 95 % of his time attacking liberals (sometimes nitpicking, sometimes displaying egregious bad faith, sometimes making mistakes that a sixth grader wouldn't), concern trolling liberals and defending the likes of Roy Moore, DJT, Ron Johnson, then he is indistinguishable from a Trumptard, so that's what I call him.

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  4. "Who enabled the obvious danger involved in such absurd levels of drunkenness?"

    For men, binge drinking is defined as 5 drinks in 2 hours. For a woman, it is 4 drinks in 2 hours. A drink is one ounce of alcohol, regardless of whether it is beer, wine or shots, not counting the water content. The effect of that alcohol depends on how the person metabolizes it, not their size or age. There are differences across people in how they are affected by alcohol.

    How much is four ozs of alcohol? Are you talking about four beers or spiked punch? Is it being served in those large red party cups or shot glasses? It could take as few as two cups of spiked punch to reach that four drink level. Are four beers that much? Don't either of those fall into "a few drinks" as described by DeLeon?

    Somerby's attempt to make it seem like Miller was on a bender and deliberately lied about it, is clearly motivated by his own agenda to excuse Turner and place more blame on Miller.

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    1. No one's excusing anyone.

      The big question I have these days is why everyone wants to believe the absolute worst in others. No one thinks that some or many of these assault stories are highly embroidered?

      The woman was drunk. They both were. But instead of dealing with that as a factor, it's always the male's fault. Maybe she did consent earlier, drunk or not. This idea too that alcohol immediately gets one party off the hook is ridiculous.

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    2. It pretty much is the man's fault when he sexually assaults an unconscious person.

      If Miller had assaulted Turner, I would say the same thing. She was drunk, yes, but she didn't assault herself or Turner or anyone else.

      This is like suggesting that if she was mugged while being drunk, she might have given away all of her money to a stranger out of generosity.

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  5. Somerby once again refers to these events as a "drunken brawl". That isn't what happened. A woman got drunk and passed out and a man took advantage of her unconsciousness to assault her while she was passed out. There can be no consent in such a situation. There was no "brawl." There was a sex crime committed by a man against a woman.

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    1. We don't know that's what happened. And if she was passed out, how did she get outside?

      Why was she such a known alcoholic in the first place? Her friends said she was, and so this puts her on some kind of moral high ground?

      They were both at fault. And the evidence wasn't there that he even did too much in the first place. It was all third person, and with an admission that tissue damage could have occurred earlier.

      The judge was a former sex crimes prosecutor, and he knew through experience that this case was slight.

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    2. Drinking doesn't constitute consent to sexual activity.

      There are actual consent laws in California. If you ever come West, I strongly suggest you review them. Wouldn't want you to think some woman wanted you when she was just going outside to puke.

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    3. Those consent laws btw were changed after and because of this case.

      How do I know? I'm a Californian. That's also why I know that UCSB is 15 miles away from the State Street shooter.

      Nice try though.

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    4. From Wikipedia:

      "On the evening of May 23, 2014, in Isla Vista, California, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara, before killing himself inside his vehicle.
      The attack began when Rodger stabbed three men to death in his apartment, apparently one by one on their arrival. Approximately three hours later, he drove to a sorority house, but failed to gain access. He then shot three women outside; two of them died. He next drove past a nearby deli and shot to death a male student who was inside. He then began to speed through Isla Vista, shooting and wounding several pedestrians and striking several others with his car. Rodger exchanged gunfire with police twice during the attack, receiving a non-fatal gunshot to the hip. The rampage ended when his car crashed into a parked vehicle and came to a stop. Police found him dead in the car with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. "

      So, the sorority house was 15 miles away from campus? And that makes Miller a fraud?

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    5. She wasn't part of the action, and that's the deceptive part. It wasn't a previous male-violence "incident" in her life as she's trying to claim.

      I also don't understand her "traumatizing" claim. She wasn't even aware of what happened until told about it later.

      Upset? Sure. But traumatized? Come on. She's more than a bit of a fraud.

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    6. 2:32,
      You'll have to wait for an opening before putting her on the Supreme Court.

      Delete
  6. "If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone..."

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  7. I wonder why Somerby hasn't talked about where Miller's sister and her friend was during this time. Were they drunk too? Do they not remember anything? If Miller had consent, why didn't any witness corroborate their interactions at the party?

    Somerby omits the fact of Miller's boyfriend. She says she was in a committed relationship. It works against his narrative that she says she never would have agreed to sex with someone else, drunk or not. So he conveniently leaves the fact of her boyfriend out of his story. She, on the other hand, admits to her drinking, characterized by DeLeon as "a few drinks" which is a pretty non-specific number, and then Somerby calls all female reviewers liars.

    Miller doesn't think she would cheat on her boyfriend. Turner can't tell a coherent story from telling to telling. Who is the liar? The jury decided it was Turner who was lying. But Somerby wishes to set that aside, on no greater evidence than that Miller was drunk.

    Somerby thinks liberals are fabricating pleasing narratives. I think it is men, liberal and conservative, who want to advance pleasing narratives of women's malfeasance. Women lie, they give consent then retract it when convenient, they try to entrap men and con them, they are grifters and can't be trusted near alcohol (but it is OK to leave the kids with them), and they should live their lives indoors, away from biker bars that overserve young men, because you know, women.

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    1. Sometimes people do lie. Sometimes women DO go after men, especially men in power. Some find them attractive. Some later deceive.

      No?

      Now who's spinning myths.

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    2. All of those women accusing Trump are lying and only Trump, who has told 16,000 demonstrable lies during his time in office, is telling the truth?

      I don't think so.

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    3. I think many of them are exaggerating their stories. That does happen.

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    4. Not as often as you think. More often, women say nothing and don't report what happens to them to anyone.

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  8. "Somerby omits the fact of Miller's boyfriend. She says she was in a committed relationship. It works against his narrative that she says she never would have agreed to sex with someone else, drunk or not."

    What planet are you living on? She was in her early 20s.

    I don't think btw that Bob is trying to explain away anything. He's just asking questions and scrutinying the evidence.

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    1. ScrutiNIZIng. It's still early!

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    2. It’s hard to say he’s just asking questions, when he keeps accusing liberals of inventing or disappearing facts in order to promote some sort of “tribal dogma” as he calls it. That is what is called “putting your thumb on the scales”. It also called prejudice, ie a pre-judging of the case. It smacks of an agenda.

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    3. 'It smacks of an agenda'

      Somerby's agenda is attacking liberals. But then he is a Trumptard.

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    4. I think that by exaggerating claims or conveniently leaving out possibly exculpatory or explanatory facts people are INDEED cultivating a narrative. Everything turns into a burlesque, a parody of the real story.

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  9. “Does anybody actually think that the sexual assault in question would have occurred if Miller's hadn't been "extremely drunk" that night? If she hadn't been blackout drunk by roughly midnight, unconscious by roughly 1 A.M.?”

    It’s a good thing Miller wasn’t wearing a low-cut blouse and hot pants. The combination of that and the alcohol would’ve practically mandated she be sexually assaulted.

    The previous statement was only slightly snarky, since complaints about women’s immodest clothing creating some sort of irresistible impulse in men have been made forever, mostly by conservatives.

    And is Somerby seriously suggesting that, if only *Miller* hadn’t been drunk, the assault wouldn’t have happened? Turner was also highly intoxicated. Who’s to say that he still might have done it, even if Miller hadn’t been drunk? He was physically strong, a swimmer, and could easily have overpowered Miller.

    Ultimately, though, Somerby is *still* omitting something from his musings here. Does he think Miller actually gave her consent, as Turner testified, and that Turner thought it was legitimate? Is that why he keeps saying “she was sexually assaulted *because a jury says so*”, rather than simply saying “she was sexually assaulted?”

    It seems that Somerby joins the ranks of those who believe that women must alter their behavior in order to prevent themselves from being raped or sexually assaulted. This stance of course acknowledges that men have a tendency to sexual violence, but it seldom urges men to change *their* behavior, because, you know, boys will be boys. And when men are explicitly asked to confront this problem, conservatives and Somerby scream about “man-hating liberals” and “stale tribal liberal dogma.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can’t follow the logic of arguing that it’s blaming the victim and enabling the assailant to mention the role that alcohol played in this awful thing.

      I think the people who demand that we do would never live this out. No one says to their kids, “Drink all you want at the party, honey, because being able to function shouldn’t have to be your issue or concern.”

      It’s not blaming Chanel Miller for her own assault to find yourself dismayed at hearing that she thinks being utterly incapacitated at a party isn’t anything that played a role in what happened to her.

      If the men where so many of you live are just itching for the chance to rape a woman, how much more important is it to stress that women stay on their toes? Telling them the opposite is a pernicious novelization that isn’t in the interest of either sex.

      Delete
    2. “If the men where so many of you live are just itching for the chance to rape a woman, how much more important is it to stress that women stay on their toes?”

      Two things: “if”? Are you saying the problem is made up? In other words, sexual assault is really not a thing. “If” so, you might need to read up on this.

      Second, women should stay on their toes...sure, good advice. But you just did what I called conservatives out for. You acknowledge, in giving women this advice, that men have a tendency to be sexual predators. It’s fine to urge women to be careful, but it’s also at least as important, if not more so, to confront the problem that is being acknowledged, that *men* have a responsibility to be “careful” or to restrain their urges. In other words, it isn’t all up to the women. Wouldn’t you say?

      By the way, nice straw man there. No one is telling women not to be careful.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete

    4. 1:43pm. There’s a difference between the idea that men are more likely than women to be predatory, from your formulation that men in general tend to be predators.

      I certainly do say that you can both demand that men not be predictors AND tell women to take full responsibility for their safety as much as any human is able.

      Say it to men too since they are more often the victims of violence.

      Your question to me on this would be more aptly put to the people who are arguing that its blaming women for violence against women to address their side of this equation.

      Delete
    5. They're saying "if" you feel this way, then... Not admitting that men are natural predators.

      I'll go beyond Bob here. I think her drunkeness clearly led to a notion of consent on his part. The kid was just 19, the laws weren't as clear back then about alcohol and sex (they were later changed), and she was partying with him.

      As to this claim that he "could" have dragged her out there if she was sober, he didn't even do that when she was drunk! So it's a dumb point to make in this particular case.

      Delete
    6. "women must alter their behavior in order to prevent themselves from being raped or sexually assaulted."

      Duh. Yes, unless you want to take away their liberty and rights and have a state authority do the protecting for them.


      "Men have a tendency to be sexual predators."

      Duh.

      "it isn’t all up to the women. Wouldn’t you say?"

      No one said that. But men are predators and women need to be on their toes. Welcome to the real world.

      Delete
    7. ". But men are predators and women need to be on their toes. Welcome to the real world."

      I've known quite a few female sexual predators in my time.

      I'm curious too about the kind of bigoted mentality that makes such sweeping "men are" statements.

      Delete
    8. 2:33
      Why don’t you ask 2:15 about his/her/its “bigoted mentality”, since it was 2:15 who morphed “men have a tendency” into “men are.” That is, assuming you aren’t 2:15 yourself, which is likely.

      Have you checked the statistics about sexual harassment, assault, rape? No? Do you think it tends to be men who commit these acts, or is it proportional between men and women?

      Delete
    9. I don't know if it's bigoted or whatever but men are predators.

      You children are so coddled and dumb you don't even know these basic facts of life. Men are predators. Read your history books instead of doing Instagram at Starbucks. Men are predators. Always have been always will be.

      Delete
    10. Men also conceived and built everything you are looking at right now. They created a world where women could have Independence and liberty from man, who are also predators. It's one of those life paradoxes.

      Delete
    11. We don't live in a world where a 110 lb woman can go blackout blotto on a dozen martinis and assume she will wake up safe. It's a jungle out there.

      You coddled, white suburban kids though really never left your house, did you? You're not even aware of that reality. To you the hard realities of the world are derived from TV shows and sociology textbooks. And when the unsolvable volcano of violence smacks you upside the head, your jaw drops and you are shocked, shocked that the world is mad and violent and crushing and cruel. Why?, You cry. Why is this? WHy can'T and men change? Why can't the world change and become less violent and morbid and mysterious and hard?

      it's because you have no experience and have not read history books that you ask such naive and quixotic questions as this.

      You're milk fed half humans, raised in a petri dish.

      Delete
  10. To all the incels, mansplainers, bros, and misogynists out there:

    Take a good hard look at the 2018 midterms and Trump’s approval numbers by gender. Women are breaking quite hard against Trump and the GOP.

    So, to sum up: Please proceed, GOP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm a liberal Democrat, and I too have a problem with the legitimacy of this particular Stanford case.

      Delete
    2. Good to know that you’re a liberal Democrat. You must therefore acknowledge the truth of my comment, which had nothing to do with the Stanford case.

      Delete
    3. Perhaps you could womansplain to me your seeming disdain for incels.

      Delete
    4. clueless for fifty AlexOctober 29, 2019 at 5:53 PM

      Google "incel mass murderer" and then mansplain what a great movement it is.

      Delete
  11. 'In all fairness, is our routinely ridiculous, self-impressed tribe really much more lucid?'

    You mean the tribe of Trumptards, Roy Moore defenders and useless idiots for Trump ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. About Roy Moore--

      You do know that most of those women had nothing bad to say about him back then, and that of the two that did allege misconduct, one was completely discredited? She had forged part of her yearbook entry to make him look more culpable.

      Moore's a jerk, sure, in general. But the sexual accusations against him were strained at best. And as Bob pointed out -- to general wailing and lamentation -- lots of teenage girls went out with guys in their mid and late 20s back then.

      Almost always too by preference. Theirs!

      Delete
    2. Yup, Roy Moore was a true gentleman, TDH did well to defend his honor.

      Delete
    3. It would be nice if we could defeat total a-holes like Moore on the issues rather than having to rely on his being a sexual predator - which claim was based on thin evidence.

      Delete
    4. AC/MA,
      Agreed. But throwing away your gun before a gun dual isn't a way to survive.

      Delete
  12. This is Somerby’s excerpt from Miller’s book:

    ‘"I, to this day, believe none of what I did that evening is important..."

    This is the entire sentence from which he lifted it:

    “I, to this day, believe none of what I did that evening is important, a handful of disposable memories.”

    Somerby judges this passage:

    “In context, that seems to mean that Miller's state of drunkenness wasn't "important" that night.’”

    A sympathetic, shall we say careful, reader, would understand that Miller is stressing the banality of the events that night prior to the party. They were just random, more or less typical, unimportant events in the life of an average, unimportant person.

    She does not downplay her drinking, or her inebriation. It is there in plain view, fully open to scrutiny. She says this about what she did at her parents’ house prior to the party:

    “ I drink the whiskey straight, unapologetically, freely, the same way you might say ‘Sure I’ll attend your cousin’s bar mitzvah, on the one condition that I’m hammered.’”

    She remembers drinking at the party, standing on a chair waving her arms, and various other behaviors that suggest inebriation. She does not suggest she is an angel.

    She did *not* write “if I just hadn’t drunk so much, maybe nothing would have happened to me.” And that is apparently Somerby’s basis for criticizing her and her reviewers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'Where did these brain-dead events occur? '

      When self proclaimed liberals act like 'useless idiots' for Trump, Ron Johnson and the like, naturally.

      Delete
  13. If Somerby wants to suggest banning fraternities in order to reduce both underage binge drinking and sexual assault, many liberals would agree, but this is just the kind of "out of touch" policy idea he typically criticizes liberal's for offering.

    "Banning fraternities?!" the analysts laughed. "No wonder they keep losing to Trump."

    ReplyDelete
  14. I wasn't at said party so I have no idea how many drinks she had or what she drank. But if it was an everclear punch she was drinking one or two might well have gotten her that drunk.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dave: If that was the case, she would have had Everclear on top of four shots of whiskey that she reported drinking before leaving home for the party.

      https://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/03/21/brock-turner-trial-continues-in-second-week-of-testimony/


      Delete
    2. We just put a blackout drunk on the Supreme Court for life. Those four whiskey shots were padding her resume.

      Delete
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