It took a whole fucking lot of dehumanization to defeat the actual historical Nazis.

Why did you respond with a sentence almost entirely in German?

I need to memorize some ancient Sumerian, and then prepare for one last great prank…

Would be funnier if they were in Esperanto for some reason. Because Esperanto makes anything funnier.

I actually do have that book! The username comes from the fact that I did enroll in a wood science PhD program for several years. I didn’t end up finishing, ADHD really did a number on my writing. But did learn quite a lot!

I believe it generally requires concrete actions. Think destroying incriminating evidence when you know you’re under investigation. Alternately, lying to police and especially federal investigators might get obstruction of justice charges. But unless you’re lying to the FBI during an interrogation, then just defending yourself in public is not obstruction of justice. After all, it’s generally perfectly legal to lie. Lies that produce certain material ends (such as fraud) can be crimes, but simply lying about something is not a crime. If I wanted to, it would be perfectly legal for me to go around lying to my friends, telling them I earn a massive salary at a high-status career. Lying itself isn’t illegal. However, if I lie to a bank, and use my fake job claim to secure a loan, then I’ve crossed the line into fraud.

Well simply denying a crime isn’t obstruction of justice.

I honestly don’t know what he should do. And frankly, I’m not willing to say he’s innocent. My thoughts through this whole thing have just been that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions without properly investigating things.

Yeah. I agree. If he does face trial for this, his press conference where he vehemently denies the rape will be played on repeat during the sentencing as evidence of a lack of remorse. Hell, lawyers would tell you not to publicly deny it, just in case some details of your public denial later serve as evidence to damn you.

However, I give this a 0.01% chance of actually going to trial. Inevitably the accusers will have a relapse of their PTSD and be unable to press charges.

What I never saw once during the discussion over the last 48 hours is, what exactly is someone supposed to do if they’re falsely accused of rape when running for office? Because the current standard seems to be that it’s a guaranteed way to tank any campaign. And all you have to do to tank any candidate you don’t like is find some old ex of theirs, and offer them money or threaten them into making a false accusation.

And what people really missed was that political ratfucking is ALWAYS designed to sound reasonable. Everyone already knew that Platner was/is a bit of a creep. So a rape allegation would seem in character. You craft an allegation that fits the person. If someone has complicated business dealings, you accuse them of fraud. If someone has a long military career they’re running on, you accuse them of cowardice or dereliction of duty. If someone has some misogyny in their past, you accuse them of rape. In no case will a false accusation ever make people go, “now that’s not likely, that doesn’t sound like something he would do.” If AOC runs for Senate, she won’t be targeted with rape allegations, it will be something more believable.

You’re overthinking this. It’s just a matter of having a proper bullshit detector. Historically, these kinds of October surprises often turn out false. Republicans have used false rape allegations against Democrats before. You’re portraying this as me thinking the victim is lying, but all I want is for this to be properly adjudicated. I don’t support crucifying people without trial.

You’re obsessing over a percentage because you’re playing a gotcha game, and honestly I just don’t have the patience for that nonsense.

You’re making the mistake of comparing general rape accusations to highly political ones. They are not equivalent in any way.

By far the vast majority of rape accusations are not fake. And if this accusation had come out in a way that didn’t make it highly likely to be politically motivated, then I would assume the same probability applies. But we’re not talking about a typical rape accusation here. False rape accusations due occur in politics. It’s a tool Republicans have used before.

The nature of elections make false rape accusations to be massively more likely than the usual case. In the case of elections, you’re not trying to create a case convincing enough to convince a jury; all you need to do is to dominate the headlines for a few days. Drop the accusation at the right time, and the candidate won’t have time to properly investigate or debunk it.

That was the same ex-girlfriend who supported Kavanaugh and is literally a Republican political organizer. And she also waited to make this accusation at the most opportune time.

We have cases of politicians being falsely accused of sexual assault, where they were conclusively proven innocent. It does happen. Politics is an area extremely vulnerable to it. If you time it right, the accusations don’t need to be good enough to hold up in court.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/pete-buttigieg-hit-fake-sexual-assault-allegations-can-he-sue-ncna1000501

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/alleged-victim-no-show-press-conference-claiming-mueller-sex-assaults-n929951

I agree that restorative justice models have merit, but I think this is a red herring to the discussion at hand. We’re not talking about some ideal perfect world. We’re talking about whether a Maine Senate candidate should resign in the next week.

The voters of the Democratic Party of Maine asked that he be their Senate candidate, representing their party in the November election. By definition, asking him to step down is asking to overrule the will of the voters. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

Why is it crazy?

Israel carried out an elaborately planned attack involving thousands of booby-trapped pagers that required setting up an entire secret production and logistic chain. Israel spycraft is so good that they literally stole the uranium they used to build their first nukes right out of US labs. They. Stole. Uranium. Weapons grade.

You’re talking about a country with the best spies on the planet, and one that openly spends millions of dollars influencing US elections.

You’re also talking about a country willing to accept massive collateral damage if it advances their interests. Those pagers for instance? They were smuggled in over years. Many ended up in pawn shops and later bought by random innocent people. Many innocent bystanders were harmed when Hezbollah members were blown up. You can’t set off thousands of explosions in a country at random locations without hurting a lot of innocent people.

My point is that Israel has the means, motive, and opportunity to do this. Framing an innocent man for rape is not even on their radar in terms of acceptable levels of collateral damage.

Do I actually think it’s an Israel conspiracy? I have no real evidence of that. But I also think it’s ridiculous to just dismiss the idea out of hand. You can find numerous incidents of blackmail committed by Israel against American victims.

According to his side, the damning messages don’t exist. Yes, he dated her, so he would have had some messages from her, but that isn’t in dispute. But if what he says is true, those messages won’t exist.

How would you feel if someone falsely accused you of a crime, claimed you have non-existant evidence that damns you, and then demanded you produce this nonexistent evidence?

Again, I am not accusing the accuser of lying. I am not however willing to join a witch hunt that crucifies a man based on suspiciously timed accusations. But if Platner is telling the truth, that is the situation you are placing him in. You are demanding he produce damning evidence, evidence that he’s claiming never existed.

So, if his victim doesn’t feel comfortable undergoing the emotional toil of a legal battle about rape, that means he’s good people?

If you really internalize the foundational values of our democracy, yes. You do understand that we’re not supposed to punish people without trial, right? If a victim doesn’t want to come forward, I can understand why. But protecting victims is no excuse to dismantle the very foundations of justice.

Have you also lobbied and argued for folks who stepped down etc after the Epstein files as almost none of that has gone to court yet?

To my knowledge, none of those accusations were made in an extremely opportune manner that demanded action be immediately taken without proper time to investigate them. And the people who were asked to step down are those who we have clear evidence of making damning emails with Epstein. That’s the key thing - we have the actual damning emails. We have very little contemporary evidence here.

Keep in mind, we don’t actually know she told him that. She is claiming NOW that she told him that then. But he’s claiming that the whole thing was invented recently. If that is the case, then this women never would have told him directly, that would just be part of the lie.

Also hypothetically. What if he doesn’t step down and he is proven to be a rapist. would you be willing to override the will of the people and throw him in jail? or are you just going to admit you’re part of the problem?

You’re projecting. You want to see Platner lose by any means necessary, so you assume I must want him to serve as Senator by any means necessary. I don’t want to see a rapist serve in the Senate. But I also don’t want to establish or reinforce the precedent that Republicans can derail any Democrat just by getting someone to make an accusation in conservative-owned media a week before a critical deadline. Is that the case here? I have no evidence she’s lying. But I also have no evidence that Platner is lying. One of these people is lying, and that’s why we have courts and trials. We try these things in court, not in the court of public opinion.

So yes, I certainly would be willing to overrule the will of the people. That’s why we have laws and trials, with rights and procedures. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here. Like, when did not punishing people without trial become a controversial opinion?

Senators aren’t exempt from state-level felony convictions. You can absolutely try them, convict them, and throw their ass in prison.

that alone should be disqualifying, nevermind the fact that there is good evidence (which you don’t like so wahhahaha crybaby cry!)

Well it’s clearly not very good, as you have little confidence it will succeed at trial.