Category: Best

Posted on

The New McCarthyism

There are two kinds of news sources prominent today. One, the older institutional part, identifies a story, sends a reporter, interviews people, acquires documents, submits to an editor, contacts the parties for possible confirmation or not, and then publishes. The other one goes to air to millions of listeners immediately with, for example, provocative claims that there is no 10-year-old girl in Ohio who was raped at 9 and was pregnant and had to go out of state to get an abortion, claiming this was all a plot by the Democrats to steal more votes. When it emerges that the story was true, they don’t apologize because … well, why don’t they? Because their listeners don’t really care about facts and information? I don’t know. It’s not just this one story: there are dozens of examples, maybe hundreds. They rarely publicly admit they got it wrong, or lied, and even more rarely apologize. They have discovered that most of their listeners don’t seem to mind; they aren’t about to change the channel.

Their listeners aren’t watching the January 6 Congressional Committee hearings, even if almost every witness has been a staunch Republican, and Trump’s own appointees to the judiciary have consistently rejected claims of a stolen election. The “Deep State” is so deep that even Trump, apparently, was fooled at times.

I don’t know how we get past polarization if people don’t listen even when their own side is telling them they are wrong. People like Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio are complicit: they don’t like Trump but are frightened of standing up to him.

In the 1950’s, McCarthyism had the same dynamic. Respectable conservatives didn’t like him but were scared to call him out. Eventually, he was found to be ridiculous and people moved on. (He once accused Santa Claus of being a communist infiltrator.)

One can only hope.

Posted on

The Myth of Sybil

The story of “Sybil”, the woman with 16 different “personalities”,  is a myth, pure and simple.

(NPR on one of the books that has debunked it.)

One website, defending Sybil, refers to “Michelle Remembers”–without comment–as a reference to the influence of “Sybil”.  That is astonishing.  “Michelle Remembers” is one of the most discredited books of the 1980’s.

First of all, you do need to know what in no other developed country is the concept of a “multiple-personality” widely accepted.    Only in America, and only in a certain part of America.

As is well known, Sybil herself acknowledge the hoax in a letter to Schreiber:

She got the very, very strong impression when she went in and brought this letter of recantation to Dr. Wilbur that if she didn’t go with the program she was not going to have Dr. Wilbur anymore,” Nathan says. “Dr. Wilbur was giving her 14 to 18 hours of therapy a week. Dr. Wilbur was coming to her house and eating with her, giving her clothes, paying her rent … so, how could you give up Dr. Wilbur?

Sybil Exposed

Is this really difficult to see?  Look at the culture around MPD?  Look at who revels in it, thrives in the lurid stories attached to it?

Or look at hypnotism:

HS: Yes. She was very hypnotizable, what I call a “grade five.” On a zero to five scale we can classify most levels of hypnotizability. The top group—the hypnotic virtuosos—are about 5 percent of the population and they show extra phenomena that we don’t ordinarily see even in good hypnotic subjects. For example, they have the ability to regress in time and they will report past experiences in the present tense. It is as if they “ablate,” or remove from memory, the period of time from, say, their fourth birthday to the present time, and you have an expression of what was there up until the age of four. For most people, to get them to a fixed point in time, we use something that has an affect potential. You can’t just say, “I want you to go back to January 14, 1916″—that doesn’t mean anything. You will say to the subject: “You are getting younger and younger. You are now nineteen, eighteen, seventeen years old, twelve years old, seven years old,” and then: “This is your fourth birthday.”  NY Review of Books

If this impresses you, I have some bitcoin I want to sell.

Let’s put it this way: if you want to accept what Dr. Spiegel says about hypnotism at face value, it would be possible, for example, to go back in time to when you lost your keys and discover where you lost them.  In fairness, I believe Dr. Spiegel implies that this is not possible.

It is not possible, unfortunately, and neither is it possible to go back in memory to “a fixed point of time” (see Dr. Spiegel covering his tracks?).  You are always only going back to a memory you already have, or one that you have constructed, if you are suggestible, and I would suggest that the best patients for hypnosis– or any kind of psychiatry– are very suggestible.

That said, even Dr. Spiegel didn’t buy Sybil’s multiple personalities and he made clear why Dr. Wilbur and Schreiber did (and why they stopped speaking to him):

Schreiber then got in a huff. She was sitting right in that chair there, and she said, “But if we don’t call it a multiple personality, we don’t have a book! The publishers want it to be that, otherwise it won’t sell!”

Exactly.  The publishers knew what gets you on Phil Donahue and 20/20 and maybe even 60 Minutes, and they knew that that is what sells books and makes movies.

Posted on

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

I have heard this figure quoted numerous times in the past six months, usually in connection with another suspected campus rape: according to psychologist David Lisak’s 2010 study, only 2% to 10% of sexual-assault reports are false.

I didn’t dig into it at the time I first heard it– I just assumed that it belonged in the category of “30% of women in the military report being sexually assaulted”, which is based on a definition of sexual assault that includes inappropriate comments and “leering” behavior or standing too close.

In any case, the Wall Street Journal dug into it a little more deeply and reports that Lizak’s statistic is based on the assumption that all reports of sexual assault that are not categorically proven to be false are therefore true.

Think about it. There is a percentage of cases which are clearly proven to be true, as when there are witnesses and physical evidence or a confession. There is a percentage which are definitively proven to be false, as in the now notorious case at the University of Virginia reported in Rolling Stone Magazine by Sabrina Erdely in an article which has since been retracted and discredited. And then there are all the cases for which there is no proof either way. Mr. Lizak seems to assume that proof is only required to demonstrate that an allegation is false. Otherwise, it is assumed to be true.

One of the lame arguments presented in defense of Sabrina Erdely’s work for Rolling Stone was the usual “re-victimization” trope: that the idea of actually needing to confirm a victim’s story is itself a form of “re-victimization”.

Incidentally, you may have been left with the impression– as I was, for a time– that the victim in the University of Virginia case, “Jackie”, might have really been a victim, but of somebody else, somewhere else, on a different day. She was traumatized and confused so she conflated different fragments of experience into the one damning narrative and accused the wrong person.

Okay– that sounds a bit absurd now, but I was trying to be fair. The trouble is that Jackie actually went though some effort to deceive her friends about the issue: she actually made up a fake former boyfriend (whom she claimed set up and encouraged the gang rape) using the picture of a former classmate and created an anonymous SMS account from which “he” sent texts to her friends. She wrote fake love letters to the fake former boyfriend that she showed to her friends, which appear to have been copied from “Dawson’s Creek” episodes.

Lizak assumes that all of the other cases, which have not been proven either way, are actual sexual assaults. This is a scurrilous assumption.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some earlier studies have placed the percentage of false reports at 40-50%. You might say that those are just some studies. So is Lizak’s.

You might also say– as I have heard frequently– that women just “don’t make those things up”. I don’t know why anyone would believe that, given the overwhelming evidence that, in fact, women do sometimes make it up, as in the two thirteen-year-olds who destroyed their Grade 8 teacher’s life successfully even though it was later shown that they were lying. (Among other things, they claimed it happened in a room that had not been built at the time they said it happened. They later confessed they had made it up.)

By that time, the teacher’s career and marriage had been destroyed.  And it must be noted that even when the accusations are proven to be false, people still tend to believe them.

If you like think that we live in a world in which school boards and ex-spouses then say, “oh, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you”, you are delusional.

The two girls? They were not punished. We don’t punish people for the real harm that they do (or half of the Wall Street brokers would be in prison) but on the basis of what is required politically. That is why the Wall Street Journal is more sympathetic to the victims of false accusations than the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal is more conservative. It’s an issue I think they might be right about.

Why did those two thirteen-year-old girls make it up? It’s not congenial to anybody, it seems, to inquire into that.

Some people cite the number of women claiming to have been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby as proof that he’s guilty. On the other hand, the similarity of the stories might also suggest that the alleged victims are cribbing from each other.

I am skeptical of the “drugged” angle: there is a widespread belief out there that there are drugs– Rhoponal and GHB– that turn women into compliant zombies who will forget that they were raped. The reality is that these drugs are no more or less effective than alcohol at achieving the results claimed. Read their stories: the use of these drugs is almost always within the context of the victim drinking a lot. Some studies suggest that the symptoms the women describe, of having been drugged, are more indicative of a simple hangover.

I have no problem believing that vulnerable and impressionable young women, believing that Bill Cosby could give them a big break, an acting role in his tv series or movies, or whatever, might end up willingly going to his apartment or hotel room and drinking with him and drinking too much and perhaps even (willingly) ingesting some of drugs he offered them. Perhaps he forced himself on them.

Perhaps they were willing and then disappointed that he didn’t promote their careers as they hoped he would.

You want real political correctness?  Try discussing that angle with anybody.

 

Let’s stay balanced:

In More Detail, a Review of Jon Krakauer’s book “Missoula”.

Posted on

Real Character

David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, has written a book about character. He essentially defines character as a strong connection to something outside of yourself. He means “character” in a positive sense– not in the sense of “what a character!”. And not in the sense of “he is a deeply flawed character”. He means, “this man has character”. He has principles. He has strength and conviction. His life means something.

It really is an odd criteria, but it plays well with conservative tropes about duty and respect for authority and service. It honors soldiers who come back from war, having done their “duty”, and having killed for the state, or the state’s vested interests, without ever questioning the justice or rationality of its cause. It plays well with religion: character is obedience, to that something outside of yourself, God, or the church itself.

And so, among the failures of Bill Clinton, we often hear conservatives insist that his was a failure of “character”. He was dishonest as a politician. He cheated on his wife.

He was such a character!

But what if character is the opposite? What if it is precisely the man who refuses to obey authority unquestioningly, because he doesn’t have that connection with that outside thing that he thinks is smarter or more respectable or more honorable than his own conscience? What if a man with character is more like Thomas More, not because he believed in something outside of himself– the Roman Catholic Church and it’s corrupt hierarchy– but that he might be right and everyone else, who had all sworn allegiance to King Henry VIII as the new head of the church, was wrong?

Brooks’ mistake is that he assumes that the thing “outside of oneself” is transcendent.  It isn’t potentially just as flawed as the values of a person who, in his view, isn’t loyal to those principles “outside” of his own needs and wants.  But it is obvious that the values that exist “outside” of yourself are someone else’s values: patriotism, religious belief, prurience.  Brooks wants you to believe that those values aren’t the product of some other person’s wants and needs– like a king or corporate executive or general.

That’s why it’s a pity to see Rand Paul trying to go mainstream. I thought he had character, with his odd positions on the drug laws, the invasion of Iraq, and tax breaks for corporations.

Posted on

The Grass Grows Under My Feet

They said the psychiatrist told them he didn’t believe their son had a substance abuse problem. But by then, the boy had other problems. After the disciplinary hearing, “he just broke down and said his life was over. He would never be able to get into college; he would never be able to get a job,” Linda Bays said.   Roanoke Times, 2015-03-15

On March 14th, the Roanoke Times posted a story–a true story– about a school district which suspended an 11-year-old boy for possession of marijuana.

The “marijuana” was not marijuana, but here’s what happened– and it’s a profound story that authorities far and wide should study carefully, because it’s the story of the most wicked and stupid actions of authorities everywhere.

A snitch told the principal at Bedford Middle School that a boy– known as R. M. B.– had some marijuana in his possession that he was showing around, on the bus, or maybe it was in the bathroom, or, wait a minute, I think it was in the classroom.

The boy was apprehended and searched and a leaf of something was found. The expert pedagogue consulted google and concluded that it was a marijuana leaf and summoned the police and suspended the boy from the school for 364 days.

First detail of note: it was a leaf, not a bud. It does not appear to have occurred to the authorities that this detail mattered in the least.

Second detail of note: the boy was 11 and both of his parents were, or had been, teachers in the public schools in this area. No matter: zero tolerance. Authority must be respected.

The leaf was sent away to be tested.  Take note: the authorities did not wait to see if it really was marijuana– they acted before any real evidence existed.   They acted based on disinformation.  Do I need to say something like “lord help us if authorities can punish us for something someone said that might or might not be true before doing the due diligence to determine if it is or is not true”?

Months went by. The suspension had a profound effect on the boy’s self-esteem, feeling of community, trust in authority figures, and happiness. The leaf was tested: it was not marijuana. But authorities must be respected and respected authorities do not make mistakes that have unpleasant, destructive consequences on innocent people. Test again! Still not marijuana. Test again!!

I’ll bet that the authorities were “disappointed”.

Think about that.

Do you think they were elated to discover that the young lad was not a hardened criminal drug addict?  I have no doubt that they were disappointed. At this stage, the story is about authority that refuses to admit that it makes consequential mistakes. No: that refuses to admit that it is stupid.

That is what they know, and we know, they must admit to, if they are to honor the truth: we were stupid. We were not worthy of your trust and respect. We are more concerned with our personal status and comfort and authority than we are with the welfare of a young, innocent if slightly mischievous 11-year-old boy. Screw the boy: authority must be respected.

The parents rightly– well, too late, for my taste, but eventually– launched a lawsuit. Here we see how far the authorities will go: they announced that it wouldn’t have mattered if it was real marijuana or not because the school system’s policy states that possession of anything that is an “imitation” of a prohibited substance can have the same consequences as possession of the real thing.

Are there any criminal laws that state that a person can be convicted for doing something that looks illegal to an idiot regardless of whether or not they actually did something illegal? Maybe there is– but it still seems stupid. It is stupid.  I refuse to sound moderate and temperate and diplomatic about this:  the school board, and their lawyer Jim Guynn, are stupid: they didn’t care if he really had marijuana; they wanted to punish him for having something that  morons in the administration of a school might mistake for marijuana.

What they are obviously, manifestly angry about is having been made fools of.  And only a genuine fool would be this spiteful about that.

The truly moronic thing about it, though, is that anyone ever thought it was a good idea to have a one-year suspension for possession of real marijuana. This is a policy that only a psychotic person could believe in. But we are, unfortunately, a psychotic society. We approve. We elected the fools that appointed the fools who implemented this idiotic policy.

What happened is that the authorities become vested in their own actions and judgments. They have to continue the charade because the moment they drop it, it they confess that they are inadequate human beings without common sense or decency.

The drug war is the most obvious misguided policy of the United States government, but listen and learn: there are a host of other candidates. Homeland Security, the War in Iraq, the War in Viet Nam, oil subsidies, sports stadium subsidies, non-negotiable pharmaceutical rates, and countless others that are clung to because the authorities have become invested in them and can’t bear to admit they were stupid to implement them.

What could President Johnson do in 1968? Admit that he made a mistake that cost thousands of American lives or continue the war until something could be tarted up to look like victory “with honor” and then walk away and hope it all doesn’t collapse until the helicopters have been dumped into the ocean?

What could Bush do once he — perhaps– realized what an egregious error the war on Iraq was?

What can Obama do now that he has doubled down in Afghanistan?

Posted on

The CBC’s Tunnel Hysteria

CBC Hysteria: tunnel vision
Why does the CBC do this? A CBC reporter happened upon the story of a tunnel found in a wooded area near the University of Toronto and, for the next week, never failed to use the word “terror” in every report connected to it. Ooooo— it is near a venu that will be used during the PanAm games! We know that they are probably a top target of Isis!

It was, perhaps, the most narcissistic news story of the year, so far: the CBC reporting on itself being absolutely, hysterically, almost sexually obsessed with what an amazing story this was.

It was a nothing story. It was trivial. It was not newsworthy in any respect whatsoever, except, perhaps, as a minor, one-off triviality.

But without a current contagion story in it’s dossier, the CBC had to do something to keep listeners riveted.

The most offensive part of it all was the way they kept insisting that the entire world was now enthralled with this ridiculous story and was waiting with baited breath for every new installment from the CBC, and couldn’t wait to hear Gill Deacon speculate as to what the purpose of this tunnel was.

It was nauseating and utterly unworthy of the CBC.

 

Posted on

Oily Bears

I have no doubt that if the oil industry succeeds in wheedling another chunk of Alaskan wilderness from the government to drill and develop and exploit, that they will solemnly insist to everyone that they, more than we could ever imagine, are passionate about preserving some other part of Alaska’s remaining pristine wilderness for generations to come. And then, once they have sucked up all the oil they can, their pimps in the Alaskan state government will once again whine and whimper that it is so unreasonable to insist that this other pristine wilderness area be preserved.

There is no end of parts of the world that have been despoiled by the energy or lumber or mining industry, but there are precious few parts that remain pristine wilderness. And they will come after those parts, relentlessly, hurling millions dollars at politicians, begging and pleading, and lying through their teeth: we care about the environment.

If conservatives think liberals are fools for thinking that poor people can be improved with education or opportunities, or that negotiations can lead to peace, or that some black youths are not out to kill police officers, then liberals have a right to think conservatives are absolutely idiotic to think any energy company has the slightest interest in preserving the environment. Industries are driven by profit: they have no conscience. Their PR flacks will say and promise anything to increase profits. Money doesn’t weep: actors do, and the top executives of these corporations are primarily actors.

If you believe them, you seriously have to answer the question, why, do you think, they would keep those promises? What possible incentive do they have? Once they have fully exploited the mineral or energy resources of a given area, they can retire with untold riches. There are no real consequences for a corporation: they can pay any modest fines out of future profits– someone else’s problem.

It’s not like perjury. Standing in front of a TV camera and mellifluously praising the mountains and meadows and creatures of some distant land promising that never, in a million years, would you do anything to harm them, cost nothing. There are no consequences for lying.

In 1994 Verizon promised to lay fibre optic cable to every house in Pennsylvania in exchange for over $2 billion in tax breaks.

Were they laughing even then? 20 years later, they have done nothing to deliver on that promise. Refund the taxpayer’s money? Are you mad? Recall the politicians who made that deal? Can you even remember that they made that deal? Do you care that they sold you down the river? Not enough, apparently, to not re-elect them.

Verizon learned what the oil companies already know: they have immunity. They all know whose side the politicians are really on.

 

Posted on

The Unjust and Jian Ghomeshi (I)

The first lie is that anyone who dares to question the almost hysterical rush to pile on Jian Ghomeshi, is therefore defending Jian Ghomeshi, even when what is being criticized is the distasteful spectacle of the media hyping a particular issue beyond all reason and rationality. But hey, Ebola might be over soon: we need to whip up something to keep the public reading.

On Ghomeshi’s Actual Trial

I have now read and heard three specific commentators who insist that what this means for our justice system is that women are always telling the truth in these matters and must always be believed. This very morning on the CBC, one of their panelists in a discussion of why women are so reluctant to bring charges against a man who assaults her, asserted that the justice system must be changed so that the victim does not have any burden of proof.

The accused is guilty until proven innocent.

This is a repulsive, stupid, deeply offensive idea.

Joel Rubinoff in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record raised the issue of why, to his credulous incredulity, would anyone make up something so humiliating? So they must be telling the truth. I can’t believe that anyone, in 2014, still believes this. In first place, why would the woman be humiliated? Some guy was a jerk and you don’t want to say anything because it makes you feel humiliated? Is it awful to humiliate someone? It is awful to engage in the public shaming of someone? Is it different?

He couldn’t have invested the slightest effort in checking into his theory: has any woman ever lied about being sexually assaulted?

How wickedly casual this upending of the foundations of our justice system slips into the conversation. It should not be countenanced. It is outrageously, fundamentally, horribly wrong.

Oh, they say, but it makes it so difficult to punish people. It should be difficult. History is loaded to the brim with governments and authorities and mobs who made it easier to arrest and imprison people. It has taken hundreds of years and millions of lives to establish the principle that no one may be imprisoned unless it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he or she has committed a crime.  Be it noted that the U.S., in the case of black suspects and white juries, regularly dispenses with this rule.

The last reason anyone should contemplate sacrificing that principle is this media frenzy piling on one particularly distasteful individual. The second last reason might be because of one shooting in Ottawa.

It’s also something of amusing paradox that, while insisting that women are never believed, virtually everyone in the media believes them. They all go on and on about how Jian Ghomeshi is a monster who needs to be locked up because, as Elizabeth May says, you should “always believe the women” (unless you’re a 15-year-old pimp from Ottawa). Is there even a single pundit out there who does not believe the women? (Haven’t you even read “To Kill a Mockingbird”?) Yet, the blather from the CBC and Toronto Star and even the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, goes on and on about how our society constantly excuses male aggression and abuse and ridicules the victim. Who? Who is excusing it? I’m sure there are some marginal tabloids and perhaps Fox News, but nobody serious is defending Ghomeshi.

A national radio program is raising the allegations against Ghomeshi and treating all of them as fact and simultaneously complaining bitterly that nobody ever believes the women and that that should be fixed by simply ordaining that the women who charge men with bad behaviour should always automatically be believed, as if there is not the slightest evidence that any woman ever lied about what a man did to her.

It even made it’s way to the Ontario Legislature where, long, long before any trial or investigation, the NDP asserts that this proves that the government needs to do more to prevent workplace sexual harassment.

Like what? Make it “more illegal”?

Posted on

Rohypnol

I am a bit surprised the poll did not ask students if they had ever had a drink spiked with the date-rape drug, Rohypnol (also known as flunitrazepam). If you are interested in facts, a study in the UK examined 120 claimed cases of use of “date-rape” drugs: not a single instance survived scrutiny.

I repeat: not one survived scrutiny.

The San Diego Medical Examiner’s office also looked into the issue– again, using real science– and found some evidence of possible flunitrazepam in about 1% of the alleged incidents. (Keep in mind that Rohypnol is sometimes– often– used intentionally, recreationally by people.)

Obviously, the investigators never watched Oprah or 20/20, or any of the other numerous programs on their mission of frightening the uninformed.

The University of Illinois, incidentally, casually asserts that date rape drugs are being used “at an increasing rate”. Really? And how do they know this? What previous studies are they comparing current studies to? What was the rate ten years ago, or fifteen years ago? They further assert that it is “often” brought back from Europe (where it can be prescribed as a sleep aid) by students.

I think I know where they got these conclusions from. They asked people their impressions. Do you think the use of date-rape drugs is going up or down? What do you think? Give us your honest opinion.

Do a search on the question of “does Rohypnol leave any traces” and you will find that a lot of websites use exactly the same text to say it does not. Look for the phrase:  “is colorless, odorless, and tasteless and dissolves without leaving any traces”.  They are all republishing information from same misinformed source.

It is not truthful. First of all, since about 10 years ago, the manufacturer, Roche, has made the tablets “less dispersible”. It doesn’t dissolve cleanly quickly, and colors the liquid in which it is mixed.

More importantly, Rohypnol can be detected in the urine of a person who ingested it for up to 60 hours afterwards. In the situation in which a woman suspects she has been secretly drugged and raped, she has at least two days to report it and have her urine tested for the unlikely possibility she really has been drugged.

But then, Rohypnol is supposed to cause amnesia: the victim is supposed to lose her memory of the assault, and even time before the assault. Then how would she know? That’s problematic, especially since alcohol has a similar effect. And that’s why when you do see cases of suspicion of the date-rape drug, victims report that they were bruised or sore in the groin area, and that’s what made them suspicious. They understand the problem: how did they know?

Even more problematic: many of the alleged symptoms of the drug are very, very similar to symptoms of excessive alcohol consumption. Would there be a temptation for a woman in this situation to under-state the amount of alcohol she has consumed?

Have you ever understated the amount of alcohol you have consumed?

The disturbing part of this– something which should be very disturbing to women who are genuinely concerned about sexual assault– is the number of women who have claimed to have been drugged and then raped. A charge of rape can often boil down to he said/she said arguments, and feminists urge us to always believe the woman, but if a woman is tested within 60 hours, it is possible to prove, scientifically, whether or not she was drugged. But if it can be proven that most of the claims of having been drugged and raped are false– at least, insofar as the drug part goes– a rational person might consider whether there’s something going on here that needs to be acknowledged by the legal system, by society, and by feminists.

Posted on

Campus Duplicity

Dr. Foubert said he considered many of those responses a form of “excusing the perpetrator and blaming the victim,” and was very concerned about it. NY Times, 2014-10-28

MIT’s Study of Sexual Assault

The Real Rohypnol

I could not imagine a more emblematic example of how duplicitous this issue has become than the quote above: Dr. Foubert, responding to details in the MIT study that show that “large numbers” of undergraduates agreed with statements suggesting that the blame for sexual assault “did not always rest exclusively with the aggressor”, says, oh, we can ignore that data. Just pay attention to the results I like.

The results seem to imply that this university campus is just rife with monstrous men committing sexual assault everywhere with near impunity (only 5% of the victims ever report it).

Let’s start with the fact that only 35% of the student body completed the questionnaire. We don’t need to assume that a higher majority of victims than non-victims might be willing to take the time to complete the questionnaire, skewering the results, because it is obvious that that possibility exists. Dr. Foubert trusts this minority when they assert that they have been victims of unwanted sexual conduct, and then heaps contempt on the same minority when “two-thirds agreed that ‘rape and sexual assault can happen unintentionally, especially if alcohol is involved'”.

This is called “cherry-picking” your data. You take the results that support your ideological commitment, attribute fabulous reliability to this data, and then ignore the same “reliable” results that don’t.

Foubert is “concerned” about the fact that many of the supposed victims feel they might be co-responsible for the sexual activity that took place. As, perhaps, in “I guess I shouldn’t have gone to the bedroom with him while I was drunk and my friends were urging me not to”. No no– women must not even be permitted to think that that would be unwise.

In other words, we need to train these women to see things the way we want them to see them, instead of how they actually see them, without having been programmed.

Foubert wants everyone to report every unwanted sexual advance to the campus police and the authorities. He asks the students who did not report these assaults, why they didn’t: “more than half” didn’t think it was serious enough. Perhaps some did not think it worth the trouble (heresy!). Some, possibly, didn’t want to ruin somebody’s life over an incident they feel they can handle.

A few years ago, two children were killed in a car accident on the 401 highway. The driver of a transport truck was clearly at fault. Yet the parents of the children refused to demand “justice”, or severe punishment. They felt that the driver would benefit more from their compassion and forgiveness than from a stern prison sentence. Dr. Foubert would undoubtedly feel a need to insist that these parents demand a pound of flesh. He would be “concerned” that they don’t understand what needs to be done in that situation. He would argue that other parents of children killed in at-fault accidents have been undermined.

Perhaps some of the girls filling out his survey just don’t believe there is a lot to be gained by getting back at someone. Is it really all that satisfying? Yes, yes, we will conduct the charade of “trying to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else”, and we know the necessity of that cover, because otherwise, you know, it looks like revenge.

Oh my, no, — that cannot be permitted. Dr. Foubert will undoubtedly embark on a vigorous program of re-education to correct this deficiency. Everything is serious. Everything is assault, if you don’t have an explicit “affirmative consent” (which is “consent consent”, and will shortly be replaced with something like “affirmative positive consent”, or “consent consent consent”, until the authorities realize that even more gravity is required.