Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 148.2: Still, Don't Sexually Assault People

(+) Yeah! (+)

Lopen posted...

I mean it's either that or he's an idiot who can't read I figured I'd take the more flattering position

i think that's kinda harsh. if people who misread posts are idiots 99.99% of the board consists of idiots >_>
---

I mean Rock reclarified himself like 30 times. Random outsiders reclarified as well.

There's a certain amount of basic reading comprehension you require to not be considered an idiot. I put the line at around 6 or 7 reps.
---

xp1337 posted...

Inviso posted...

Yet the line of argument he's creating is that BOTH should be forced out of the Senate. That is the BASELINE he is setting, that regardless of severity or nuance, you should suffer the maximum possible punishment the SENATE has to offer. Saying that Roy Moore should be tried in court after the fact does not change anything. It's just tacking on an extra punishment beyond the Senate itself.

First off, you're just flat-out wrong about resignation being the maximum possible punishment from the Senate. That would be expulsion.

Secondly, the calls for Moore to be expelled if elected are thus actually "harsher" than calling for Franken to resign. (Again, ignoring that it's literally voluntary. The other 99 Senators can all call for him to resign but only Franken can decide that, there is no element of force in play)

Thirdly, dismissing "tried in court" because it's outside the Senate is asinine and disingenuous. Let's frame this another way. On a scale of punishments that ranges from 0-10. Let's say Resignation from the Senate rates a 2. Expulsion is a 3. Because in both cases you're "just" losing a job when in most cases you're already very wealthy.

You can subsequently believe that Franken merits say a 2, and Moore warrants a 9 on that scale and you still lead to an outcome where they're both not in the Senate. Since the Senate doesn't have any recourse to handle anything above a 3 you have to turn to the courts or something for more.

The problem with this argument is that I personally do not think resignation OR expulsion are as low as a three. I think prison, regardless of the offense, is a nine across the board, with decimal points added for how long of a duration you're in for (ten would be the death penalty.) Losing one's job, whether you are kicked out, or merely pressured into quitting, is still pretty high on the list for me, in the seven/seven and a half range. For completion's sake, let's say the eight range is having your possessions, home, or family taken away. So for me, there ARE worse you can do to a person than force them from their job, but you're still starting from a VERY high point on the punishment scale.

So for me, if Roy Moore is at LEAST a seven, and I think most of us can agree he SHOULD be a seven according to my scale (at most...let's say 9.5), then it feels wrong to then say that Al Franken's crimes should ALSO be at least a seven (let's give him the bare minimum of seven, for the sake of argument). If at the widest range of 7 to 9.5, that's still uncomfortably close on the scale, and it's high enough that it makes Franken MUCH worse in comparison to the severity of his actions. Likewise, using your scale, a range of 2 to 3 is EXTREMELY small, and it makes Moore look MUCH better in comparison to the severity of HIS actions.

THAT is why the application of similar (not equal, but very similar) punishments to them for what APPEAR to be WILDLY different crimes (think two guys busted for buying a bag of weed and selling several bags of weed), gives off the APPEARANCE of an unfair equivalency between the two men. I'm aware that it's unintentional, and I've said that to Rock several times, but if you remove a lot of the nuance from this particular situation, you're going to have that problem.
---

Inviso posted...

Likewise, using your scale, a range of 2 to 3 is EXTREMELY small, and it makes Moore look MUCH better in comparison to the severity of HIS actions.

The reason that range is small is because the Senate is a not a body properly equipped to handle these issues. It's not their thing.

that's what the justice system is for

You are focusing in on the Senate with tunnel vision and can't get over the fact that if consequences within the Senate are similar well then that must mean you're saying the actions were similar.

But that isn't necessarily true.
---

Inviso posted...

If at the widest range of 7 to 9.5, that's still uncomfortably close on the scale,

The problem is that it's only that close on the scale because you have chosen to apply the scale in a way where it's physically impossible for it to not be that close. The Senate has essentially two options: Censure and expulsion (resignation is entirely his choice). Censure is practically meaningless. If the Senate wants to punish him in any way that actually affects him, expulsion is literally the only choice. And it's not *that* harsh a punishment, because Senator is a job that pays a fair bit, you're probably already fairly wealthy if you made it that far, and even expelled you probably have a better resume going forward than 95% of the population so it's not like they're destroying his livelihood. It makes little sense to not consider actual criminal convictions and their sentences to be a much harsher penalty.
---

Also you either didn't understand or are mischaracterizing what I said. In my hypothetical I said you could place Franken at 2 and Moore at 9, but because the Senate isn't equipped to distinguish anything beyond 3, it has no option but to give the same consequence to someone who scores a 3 and to someone who scores a 10, not because it deems them morally equivalent but because it doesn't have any other recourse to take.

It can't super expel you.
---

We expel you...TO THE SUN!
---

I think the issue I'm having is that despite resignation and expulsion being different on paper, the end result is exactly the same: you're out of a job. Yeah, resignation is kinder, I guess. But it's like if someone comes up to you and says "We want you gone, you can either resign with dignity, or we can fire you." Either way, you're gone, and the only real difference is the level of smudging your reputation takes on the way out the door. But like...if you're already getting expelled from the senate (theoretically) for sexual misconduct with minors...your reputation is pretty fucked as it is.

If the end result is the same, then it just doesn't feel like the two punishments are dissimilar enough to match the disparity between Al Franken's actions and Roy Moore's actions.

Also, I know the argument was just made that calls for resignation are non-binding and it's completely up to the individual as to whether or not they resign...but then why bother with it in the first place. You're basically telling the accused that their punishment is up to them.
---

kevwaffles posted...

We expel you...TO THE SUN!

Death.... or exile?

Please remind me what it means to apply the censure punishment.
---

xp1337 posted...

Also you either didn't understand or are mischaracterizing what I said. In my hypothetical I said you could place Franken at 2 and Moore at 9, but because the Senate isn't equipped to distinguish anything beyond 3, it has no option but to give the same consequence to someone who scores a 3 and to someone who scores a 10, not because it deems them morally equivalent but because it doesn't have any other recourse to take.

It can't super expel you.

Oh, no, I got that. That's part of why I had a problem with the scale in the first place. It's my thinking that if you have a scale of 0-10 and only 0-3 are available in the context of the Senate, that's inherently unfair to someone who does something that would only warrant a 2 by the overall law. In your example, Moore goes from a 90% to a 100%. Whereas Franken goes from a 20% to a 66.6666666%.

ETA: Those numbers just look clunky. I'm gonna flip it around. It's like if you're taking a test. A 9 for Roy Moore is a 10%, and a 3 in the Senate is a 0%. He fails either way, and it's honestly not that much worse in the Senate. Meanwhile, a 2 for Al Franken is an 80%, and a 2 in the Senate bumps him down to 33.3333333%. He goes from pass to fail pretty dramatically under that system.
---

Inviso posted...

If the end result is the same, then it just doesn't feel like the two punishments are dissimilar enough to match the disparity between Al Franken's actions and Roy Moore's actions.

That's because the Senate wasn't designed to have some comprehensive consequence system! If it did it'd be a court!

gah i'm running out of ways to try and frame this to get this point across

okay

let's say you're playing the home run derby in ssbm only the distance thing was poorly coded so it maxes out after sandbag goes 100 feet.

2 people then play it. the first hits sandbag 110 feet. but the score is messed up like i said so it just reads 100. the second guy plays it and hits sandbag 2500 feet. but again the score is glitched so it reads 100.

everyone can watch the videos and see that player 2 hit sandbag way further, but if you only focused on the score you'd say "wow they tied!"

that score is the senate
---

Inviso posted...

It's my thinking that if you have a scale of 0-10 and only 0-3 are available in the context of the Senate, that's inherently unfair to someone who does something that would only warrant a 2 by the overall law.

In theory it's because the Senate holds itself to a higher standard. Once you cross a certain threshold, you should be out.

I know in practice it doesn't quite work that way, but that's a human problem. The institution itself (and thus its set of consequences) was set up under that ideal.
---

Inviso posted...

If the end result is the same, then it just doesn't feel like the two punishments are dissimilar enough to match the disparity between Al Franken's actions and Roy Moore's actions.

You're ignoring what the Senate is actually judging. It's not judging criminal guilt, it's judging some nebulous ethical standard for being in the Senate. If Franken is across that line, it doesn't matter if other people are much farther across it, he should be expelled for being across the line. The courts judge guilt, and that's where Franken gets off way easier (read: nothing happens). The Senate isn't implying anything about severity, once again a serial killer would get the exact same punishment and no more from the Senate.
---

I GET what you're saying, xp. I do. I GET that the Senate is not a court and thus doesn't has limitations to the punishments it can dole out. MY thinking though is that, if half the options available to the Senate involve getting fired from your job (either with some dignity via resignation, or in a disgraceful expulsion), there should be some discussion of nuance with regards to which actions could be considered bad enough to warrant one of those two options.
---

Inviso posted...

MY thinking though is that, if half the options available to the Senate involve getting fired from your job (either with some dignity via resignation, or in a disgraceful expulsion), there should be some discussion of nuance with regards to which actions could be considered bad enough to warrant one of those two options.

So why have you been harping so much on the idea that saying something is worthy of expulsion is comparing to anything else worthy of expulsion instead of arguing that Franken doesn't deserve to actually be punished by the Senate beyond the borderline irrelevant censure? This doesn't add up with your constant claim that Rock was equating Franken and Moore just because he thinks their respective actions both make them unfit for office.
---

Inviso posted...

MY thinking though is that, if half the options available to the Senate involve getting fired from your job (either with some dignity via resignation, or in a disgraceful expulsion), there should be some discussion of nuance with regards to which actions could be considered bad enough to warrant one of those two options.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

If you'd like to argue that, then fine. No problems here. I was only taking issue with you pushing the idea that Rock was drawing an equivalence between Franken and Moore, to the degree that he abandoned ship.

If you'd like to argue that what Franken did should not warrant resignation/expulsion, fine. I'm just saying I felt it was wrong of you to say that anyone who felt it did was equating him with Moore. If you want to say the Senate's ability to distinguish them is broken, fine. But to say that one of us was saying that was uncalled for IMO.

Like I said, once the apology was accepted I became a lot less certain how I feel about the whole thing. If you asked me what I thought right now I couldn't give you a clear answer at the moment. I genuinely don't know, it's more complex now to me. I initially said he should resign but now I'm not entirely sure, though I haven't ruled that out either.
---

In a similar, but unrelated example:

...

Okay, seriously, I just Google searched Greg Gianforte to make sure I was thinking of the right guy, and apparently there's a new news story about him going around.

But before I delve into that, Greg Gianforte. He bodyslammed a reporter. Do I hate that he got elected after that? Yeah, I do. But do I think he should resign? No. I don't think a single incident like that is enough to warrant calls for his resignation. Censure? Sure. Maybe some form of senatorial probation where if you do something like that again, THEN there isn't as much leniency. But as it stands, I just think there should be more nuance in doling out punishments, and by putting a blanket punishment over all sexual assault allegations, regardless of severity, FEELS like there is an unfair equivalency between extremely harsh allegations, and something more minor.
---

Panthera posted...

Inviso posted...

MY thinking though is that, if half the options available to the Senate involve getting fired from your job (either with some dignity via resignation, or in a disgraceful expulsion), there should be some discussion of nuance with regards to which actions could be considered bad enough to warrant one of those two options.

So why have you been harping so much on the idea that saying something is worthy of expulsion is comparing to anything else worthy of expulsion instead of arguing that Franken doesn't deserve to actually be punished by the Senate beyond the borderline irrelevant censure? This doesn't add up with your constant claim that Rock was equating Franken and Moore just because he thinks their respective actions both make them unfit for office.

If he's saying both are unfit for office, then that is black and white. No nuance, no discussion. THAT is why his arguments felt like they were conflating the two men. IF the Senate has limited options for punishment and his argument was to expel (using it as a verb, not saying Rock was advocating expulsion for Franken) both men, then it is very easy to view that as creating an equivalency. We're talking about the Senate as though there are four options for punishment. Really, there are only two. No Action/Censure: you stay in the Senate. Resignation/Expulsion: you're out of the Senate.

Now, Censure is not the same as No Action, but as several people have said, it's the equivalent of getting scolded with no REAL punishment. And Resignation is not the same as Expulsion, but both wind up with the Senator out of a job and carrying a certain level of disgrace over his head. So if there are only two statuses you can have(in or out), going off the archaic system of punishments the Senate can dole out, if you say "both men should go out", it does not allow for ANY distinction, even if you personally believe their cases are completely different.

Maybe I'm extra sensitive because I'm already seeing signs of OTHER people (not on this board) making an equivalency, or excusing Moore's behavior because he didn't apologize or admit to it. Or hell, just look at SaHuckSand using Franken to deflect from Trump's multiple assault allegations. If you make an issue black or white ("if you are even remotely accused of sexual assault, no matter how small, you should be punished SIMILARLY, given the Senate's available punishments, to ANY other person accused of assault"), then it inadvertently creates an equivalency (there has gotta be another fucking word than that...I'm using it a lot.)
---

http://tinyurl.com/ycyfmzjg

Tinyurl because the WaPo link was a bit long.

I vouched for you Greg. I vouched for you, and you let me down, man.
---

---

CelesMyUserName posted...

No more chairs for this one.
---

Chairman of the board
---

Kinda hope the government takes him up on the offer.
---

http://abcnews.go.com/International/us-deploying-assets-rescue-missing-argentine-submarine/story?id=51248600
---

So apparently Trump is saying he should have let the UCLA players go to jail because LaVar Ball is "unappreciative"

so i guess that's a thing that happened
---

dat narcissism
---

I saw that and almost couldn't believe it until I remembered it was Trump saying it.
---

There is a second allegation against Al Franken.
---

Not the one of him following someone to a green room to keep arguing, I take it?
---

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/11/20/second-woman-alleges-al-franken-groped-her.html
---

Woman says Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010

Then, as her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken "pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear," Menz said. "It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek."

"It wasn't around my waist. It wasn't around my hip or side. It was definitely on my butt," she said, recalling that the brazen act lasted three or four seconds. "I was like, oh my God, what's happening."

"He reached around her and kind of pulled her into him," said her husband Jeremy Menz, who didn't see what happened behind his wife. "He pulled her in and pushed his head against her head. It was over pretty quick."

Lindsay Menz told CNN that she walked away as soon as the photo was taken, without saying anything to the then-first term senator. When she reconnected with her husband moments later, she told him: "He totally grabbed my butt." Jeremy Menz described that conversation the same way to CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/index.html
---

The kiss bothers me worse than the grope as an bad action, but doing it as a Senator and in front of her husband taking the picture is not okay.

Al should step down soon. I wonder if the parties can do some sort of agreement where Roy will step down if Al will and that way Congress can more confidently say they ain't having this anymore.
---

yeah, both are bad and wrong but the kiss is worse. when you go to a club or bar on a saturday night women being grabbed in their butts against their will happens all the time. women being kissed against their will not so much.
---

Even she thinks the kiss was worse, but definitely looks like a solid second allegation.
---

HaRRicH posted...

Woman says Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010

Then, as her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken "pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear," Menz said. "It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek."

"It wasn't around my waist. It wasn't around my hip or side. It was definitely on my butt," she said, recalling that the brazen act lasted three or four seconds. "I was like, oh my God, what's happening."

"He reached around her and kind of pulled her into him," said her husband Jeremy Menz, who didn't see what happened behind his wife. "He pulled her in and pushed his head against her head. It was over pretty quick."

Lindsay Menz told CNN that she walked away as soon as the photo was taken, without saying anything to the then-first term senator. When she reconnected with her husband moments later, she told him: "He totally grabbed my butt." Jeremy Menz described that conversation the same way to CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/index.html

Yeah, it seemed like only a matter of time before there were additional allegations. It was part of the reason I wanted him out of the Senate ASAP.

I can only assume there will be more of these to follow, but at this point it doesn't seem like Franken is going to do the right thing and step down.

"I take thousands of photos at the state fair surrounded by hundreds of people, and I certainly don't remember taking this picture," Franken reportedly said. "I feel badly that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected."

Yeah, getting fondled by a sitting senator might make you feel disrespected for some reason.
---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH-VSWSDfxY&feature=youtu.be

There's a very good chance that December 12 we will have a Senate that has both Roy Moore and Al Franken in it.

So that's cool.
---

Your reminder that Puerto Rico is still fucked up.
---

Suprak the Stud posted...

There's a very good chance that December 12 we will have a Senate that has both Roy Moore and Al Franken in it.

And Donald Trump as our President.
---

What a time to be alive.
---

Along with Donald as President, we've now got a bunch of allegations against George H.W. Bush (H.W., by the way, is an abbreviation for "David Cop A Feel") and a 2020 Democratic contender saying Bill Clinton should have stepped down after his scandal...so there goes some respect for our entire 1990s.
---

HaRRicH posted...

Woman says Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010

Then, as her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken "pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear," Menz said. "It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek."

"It wasn't around my waist. It wasn't around my hip or side. It was definitely on my butt," she said, recalling that the brazen act lasted three or four seconds. "I was like, oh my God, what's happening."

"He reached around her and kind of pulled her into him," said her husband Jeremy Menz, who didn't see what happened behind his wife. "He pulled her in and pushed his head against her head. It was over pretty quick."

Lindsay Menz told CNN that she walked away as soon as the photo was taken, without saying anything to the then-first term senator. When she reconnected with her husband moments later, she told him: "He totally grabbed my butt." Jeremy Menz described that conversation the same way to CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/index.html

That picture, though. Totally the face of a woman actively being groped and thinking "oh my god what's happening"

Reading through the story, this particular one strikes me as the lady trying to make something out of a questionable-looking (emphasis looking) incident to capitalize on the previous accusation between the picture itself and the facebook post, which reads very lighthearted/joking to me with the all-caps TOTALLY.

If I'm wrong in my reading there, gj me I'm bad at people, that's what the investigation Franken wants would be for.
---

What are the odds that Ulti comes into the topic soon, posting about the 2nd Franken accuser, taking it at as 100% legit?
---

HaRRicH posted...

Along with Donald as President, we've now got a bunch of allegations against George H.W. Bush (H.W., by the way, is an abbreviation for "David Cop A Feel") and a 2020 Democratic contender saying Bill Clinton should have stepped down after his scandal...so there goes some respect for our entire 1990s.

IMO, give H.W. a break and let him die without being tarnished. He's just a dirty old man going senile. His behavior is very common for other old men, and I doubt he was like this before he started to lose his mind.
---

EndOfDiscOne posted...

HaRRicH posted...

Along with Donald as President, we've now got a bunch of allegations against George H.W. Bush (H.W., by the way, is an abbreviation for "David Cop A Feel") and a 2020 Democratic contender saying Bill Clinton should have stepped down after his scandal...so there goes some respect for our entire 1990s.

IMO, give H.W. a break and let him die without being tarnished. He's just a dirty old man going senile. His behavior is very common for other old men, and I doubt he was like this before he started to lose his mind.

No. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, and assumed he could get away with it.

The new Franklin thing bothers me more, actually, because inappropriate joke, while bad, isn't really the same; and the kiss thing sounded like miscommunication gone horribly wrong coupled with memory being a fickle thing over 10 years (i.e., if her strongest memory of the kiss was that she didn't like it, her recollection of what Franklin did would get worse over time -- this is how memory works, and is one of the reasons why e.g. statute of limitation laws are a thing). This is just opportunistic groping.
---

dowolf posted...

EndOfDiscOne posted...

HaRRicH posted...

Along with Donald as President, we've now got a bunch of allegations against George H.W. Bush (H.W., by the way, is an abbreviation for "David Cop A Feel") and a 2020 Democratic contender saying Bill Clinton should have stepped down after his scandal...so there goes some respect for our entire 1990s.

IMO, give H.W. a break and let him die without being tarnished. He's just a dirty old man going senile. His behavior is very common for other old men, and I doubt he was like this before he started to lose his mind.

No. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, and assumed he could get away with it.

The new Franklin thing bothers me more, actually, because inappropriate joke, while bad, isn't really the same; and the kiss thing sounded like miscommunication gone horribly wrong coupled with memory being a fickle thing over 10 years (i.e., if her strongest memory of the kiss was that she didn't like it, her recollection of what Franklin did would get worse over time -- this is how memory works, and is one of the reasons why e.g. statute of limitation laws are a thing). This is just opportunistic groping.

Okay let's give Franken the benefit of the doubt but assume Bush was malicious.
---

EndOfDiscOne posted...

He's just a dirty old man going senile. His behavior is very common for other old men

This is more an indictment of old men than a defense of Bush tbh
---

HW literally has highly progressive parkinson's disease. I think his behavior deserves no more than an eyeroll.
---

I didn't take dowolf's post as being pro-Franken in comparison to Bush Sr. It sounds like he was saying what Franken did was worse with his second allegation than his first; there was no innocence presumed in his second one there, nor do I think there was a comparison dowolf intended toward Bush Sr.

Either way, if allegations are true, they were both grabbing ass as elected officials.
---

Oh I read dowolf's post as being pro-Franken. I thought the "worse" meant that he's more bothered by Franken's fall. I probably misread it.
---