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Showerthoughts @lemmy.world
Rooskie91 @discuss.online

We wouldn’t need the Epstein files to prove DJT’s guilt if society just trusted women in the first place.

Even if we take into consideration that 90% (out of 25) could be lying (they aren't), that's still ~3 women he assaulted.

Edit: Damn y'all, thanks for that old internet feeling I keep coming back to Lemmy for. Not a girl in sight in these comments.

Is testifying under oath not considered evidence? There have been so many credible lawsuits against this guy for sexual assault. Honestly what are these files going to prove that we don't already have plenty of evidence for?

And lastly, do you have any idea what going after a rich powerful man for sexually assaulting you does to your life? Why the fuck would anybody put themselves through that if they weren't absolutely sure they had a credible case? Some of the plaintiffs in these cases had their lives and their family's lives threatened and disrupted.

Welp, to the bottom with me I suppose.

304 comments

  • One thing is certain: someone who has been declared a rapist by a court of law and has been convicted of many serious crimes should never be president of a country — especially not if he is also doing everything in his power to withhold incriminating material relating to the investigation of a pedophile ring.

    • […] someone who has been declared a rapist by a court of law and has been convicted of many serious crimes should never be president of a country […]

      IMO, I don't think this is a good idea. My concern is that it may give one's opposition an incentive to find a way to falsely convict them of a crime (or maybe create a new criminal offense) in order to remove them from the running for office.

      • I don't mean legal regulations, but rather a minimum level of common sense: I cannot imagine a more unsuitable candidate as the incumbent US president - who he is was widely known. Now organized crime is in power - that was completely predictable, because that is what he has always stood for.

  • Trial by socia media? Fuck outta here.

    All these scummy shitbags are certainly guilty, but this needs to be proven.

    The motto I get behind is "trust, but verify".

    • That is what 'believe women' means, because women's claims of sexual violence are frequently not believed to the point that the police come up with excuses to not even look into the claims. Then if they do, the prosecutors come up with reasons why they shouldn't 'waste time' prosecuting when there is as much evidence in a rape case as there is in a murder case.

  • I’m old, so I’m more familiar with before me too than after. I believe a piece of what she is trying to say is the doubt that permeates any initial accusation. Doubt was the standard approach to any mention of rape or assault for decades.

    Back in college, in the 90s, a good friend was followed home from a party. She made it home, thought she was safe. While she was showering in her basement (house) apartment, she looked up to see hands and a nose pressed to the frosted glass of the window, trying to see in. She called the police. A pair of cops showed up and the first thing they asked wasn’t: are you ok. Or. Did you get a good look at the guy. No. They asked her if she’d been drinking tonight. Then: Well, what were you wearing when you walked home from this party?

    Footprints and knee prints in the dirt consistent with someone tramping into the flower bed to kneel down by her bathroom window. Hand prints and a nose grease smear on the glass. No attempt to investigate further. Chastised to drink less. She was not drunk, yet this was the takeaway message of that encounter instead of her safety. Encounters like these regarding the sexual safety of women were so common in the 90s.

    The salient point here is this post likely is not about flipping the innocent until proven guilty narrative. This is about the preliminary circumstances that would lead into a case and taking the woman’s safety seriously instead of ignoring perpetrators who leave evidence behind.

    If no one listens to you or takes you seriously, or avoids asking the relevant questions, that is a problem. Worse it’s a problem that was the status quo for decades.

    So, when OP says maybe we should listen to trumps accusers that’s what it likely means. To listen. Not to flip the innocent until proven guilty narrative.

  • Accusations aren't evidence. It would break the way we prosecute. 25 different testimonies does give more credibility to the claim than 1, but is still isn't proof sadly.

    Proof is required if you want someone to be convicted of a crime

    Edit: I agree that rape should be punished properly. There isn't a way to prove an accusation without evidence that proves something past a reasonable doubt.

    Giving automatic wins to rape accusers sacrifices the rights of the accused.

    Fucking with human rights is wrong, and everyone here knows that accused people are innocent until PROVEN guilty.

    All that being said, there's dozens of provable crimes Trump has committed that would justify executing the fucker.

  • Lemmy is mostly men, it is hard to share any other perspective. SA is hard to get a conviction in. If there isn't physical evidence like semen, then the victim is called a liar. If there is semen evidence, then the victim is called someone who regretted their choice and is now getting back at the person. (And this is assuming the perpetrator was male, there can be female perpetrators too). A lot of victims do not come forward about what happened because they don't want to be called a liar and labeled a pariah publicly. The absolute shame and rejection when someone doesn't believe you. This subject is pretty sensitive to me and lemmy just really, really disappoints sometimes.

    • If there isn’t physical evidence like semen, then the victim is called a liar.

      They are called liars when there is physical evidence. Not to mention the massive backlog of processing rape kits.

      Yeah, this comment section is a dumpster fire of people spouting the same shit the police do when they dismiss rape accusations and the fact that they are upvoted is even more depressing.

      • I absolutely agree. If rape kits are made, they can be backlogged and then degrade, which is extremely depressing to think about.

        Threads like this need to be followed up with eyebleach (a community full of cute animals and such).

    • SA is hard to get a conviction in.

      Yeah. It turns out that something that usually has no witnesses beyond the accused and accuser, often has little or no evidence other than the accusation itself and the sole difference between it and an otherwise common and legal act exists solely in the mind of the accuser is difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

    • Questions:

      1. Would you be ok with you or someone you love more than yourself being sent to prison on a false accusation as long as a larger number of guilty people also get imprisoned?
      2. Do you think false accusations don't happen?

      I generally take people at their word in my day to day interactions. I'd believe you if you told me something. But I wouldn't enforce laws on people with only eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony has been proven unreliable.

      • I get that men are terrified about false rape accusations, even though there is an extremely low chance of it happening, they are afraid. When someone talks about sexual assault, in their mind they feel they need to defend themselves by bringing up false accusations because in their mind it will discourage this crime, bring light to real victims, and thus protect themselves. I'm not a man but this is what I've been told. Then you have victims, who simply want their rapist and other rapists to face justice. They often know others around them who have also been sexually assaulted. When they talk about sexual assault and someone else brings up false accusations, it feels like they don't actually care about the victims and just want to soapbox about false accusations, stealing the spotlight. They might even be a toxic part of the manosphere.

        The nature of the crime means it is usually the victim and the perpetrator alone and not in public, and the victim is more likely to know who the assaulter is. It can be a family member, friend, partner, etc. There usually isn't much evidence to prove sexual assault. So we have a problem. As you said, you don't believe a hefty amount of these sexual assaults should have laws enforced on them. I don't have a solution, other than a suggestion that people should be more empathetic towards victims. And not ask questions like yours to victims.

    • I identify as a woman and the "The internet is literally all men anyone who says they're a woman is a liar" thing is really demoralizing.

      • My first experiences on the internet were riddled with misogyny. As a child, I was told I am lying about being a girl and didn't sound like one. I had many guys tell me "tits or gtfo" when learning I'm a girl, usually after they asked me if I was a girl. I tried playing some multiplayer team games online and was hazed once they found out I was a girl, multiple times. I refuse to play those games now. Even as an adult, I've had gamer guys think I'm great until they learn I'm a feminist, then the hate comes back. I've dated an adult man who belittled me for playing Sims because people with real lives play games like Overwatch. At least mainstream media felt like there were more women around, lemmy just feels more centered for men :/

    • Lemmy is mostly men […]

      Has there been a recent survey?

  • that’s why i don’t think anything’s gonna change for powerful men on the epstein list if it gets released. many of these men already have allegations of sexual abuse against them and they still live their life just fine

    (also, holy shit those comments???? that post about how lemmy is worse for women than reddit was wasn’t lying, jesus)

    • If I call you a terrorist I guess I can expect you to be picked up tomorrow morning? You people just have an utterly deranged sense of logic. You cannot convict someone without proof, regardless of the alleged crime and how strong your personal feelings on the matter are.

      • If I call you a terrorist I guess I can expect you to be picked up tomorrow morning?

        i mean isn’t that exactly what’s happening in the US right now

        in a world that’s as hostile to survivors of SA as ours, yea i believe them when they make accusations. does this hold up in court? no of course not, of course you need proof, but it’s worth mentioning that many times accusations can’t even make it to court because police doesn’t believe survivors either!

        well except if you’re white and the person you’re accusing isn’t. there "justice" is waaaay more lenient about what proof is, and the police has a much easier time believing you too. but that’s more telling of the racism of the justice system than of how SA survivors just always get what they want

  • There's all this talk about "evidence" but what exactly would make those files more credible evidence than testimonies of multiple women? A list of names is just a list of names. It doesn't prove shit. Having been on Epstein's island doesn't prove anything, either. Private conversations or a diary containing a detailed description of every incident could also just be people joking around or having fucked up fantasies. The only legitimate "proof" I could think of would be photo and video evidence (other than medical records, which don't even exist in a lot of SA cases), but why the fuck would they ever release that unless it's with the victims' consent, which I doubt they'll ever (care to) acquire? Never mind that even that won't convince his most die-hard supporters because they (and Trump himself) will just resort to the claim that it's all deepfakes. Even if you just hand out a list of the photo/video evidence that exists, how do you know those photos and videos actually do exist?

    If multiple women accuse a single guy who has said multiple highly questionable things in the past and was friends with/has had connections to a sex offender, then that's pretty fucking damning, but I don't remember the public caring much about it or heavily pushing for an investigation or a trial to look into it further (but I do remember that at least one woman dropped the case because she was receiving death threats), which is one of the reasons why people like him keep getting away it, and really just comes down to the public not believing women or taking them seriously enough, even if there's multiple of them accusing the same man.

    It also makes you wonder what that means for cases where there's no "concrete" evidence like medical records or photos/videos in the first place, which will be the majority of cases.

    • Rape kits, pictures, video, written testimonies not from right now but in the past.

      That's evidence that proves things beyond reasonable doubt

304 comments