Believing women or actually helping them? (democratic debate)

[Seanchaidh]

Got ANY evidence for that?

There is enough circumstantial evidence to constitute a preponderance.

In his endorsement of Jesse Jackson for President-- in 1988-- Sanders went out of his way to say that a woman could be president. He campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016. There is video of Sanders talking to classrooms full of children saying that a woman could be President. He asked Warren herself to run in 2015. Tulsi Gabbard reports that [https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/478230-gabbard-on-personal-meeting-with-sanders-he-showed-me-the-greatest-respect] Sanders "showed me the greatest respect and encouragement, just as he always has" when she told him she would be running for President. And Sanders has flatly denied the characterization of his comments that Warren (still pretty vaguely) alleged.

 

[SupahEwok]

Let's remember that it's only you and yours fighting to stop any more information coming to light: you're the ones scared about where that evidence might point to.

The last time you made this accusation, I welcomed any more information, as I have been doing the whole time, and pointed you directly at Democrats actively blocking the subject from reaching the courts. To date, you have not responded to that post. Until you do, I've won this argument.

I guess that's one way to make yourself a winner.

 

[CaitSeith]

You omitted something: Warren said it wasn't a big deal. Isn't that part worth believing too?

See, Warren doesn't need it to be a big deal to be an effective smear, she needs it to just have happened, as long as she keeps saying it did, how much significance she places on it is irrelevant because I'm sure she won't jump to defend Bernie every time a reporter who is against his politics claims it was a bigger deal than she feels it was.


So, sure, I believe it, I just don't see it as being actually significant one bit, and I'm sure the people who believe her will believe everything BUT that one part.

Then the problem would no longer come from believing women or not; it would come from cherry-pickers who ignore the women's full account of the fact.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

You don't get to make accusations that demean someone and then retreat unscathed yourself into the middle ground.

Ah... that's exactly what you are doing. (Let's put aside this potentially being used politically by Warren). You claim is that this accuser is lying, doing this to smear Bernie, that it's just 'political jiu jitsu' to trap Bernie. Got ANY evidence for that?

Literally none?

So, what should we do with this woman whose accused Bernie? Ban her from speaking? Stop her from making any accusation? How do we know which woman will accuse? Should we just ban everything? Oh wait... you made an accusation without proof that was meant to smear someone's reputation and take out a political opponent. So whatever you decide for her, NEEDS to be applied to you and your accusation. I await your decision.

I listed the evidence, there's a video of him from literally 30 years ago (back from the era where she was a republican, I might add) telling little girls they can grow up to be president just as much as boys can. He wasn't running for president back then, he didn't need to boost his image doing that stuff, he clearly genuinely believed it. Also, again, he asked Warren to run vs Hillary in 2015 in his place, which he wouldn't do if he thought she couldn't win. That's proof enough for most rational people.

As for what we should do, I think twitter has taken to calling her a snake (who knows, maybe it's her spirit animal) and people are requesting refunds of their donations, so I think that's fair enough. Political repercussions for a bungled attempt at smearing someone are pretty standard I think.

You omitted something: Warren said it wasn't a big deal. Isn't that part worth believing too?

See, Warren doesn't need it to be a big deal to be an effective smear, she needs it to just have happened, as long as she keeps saying it did, how much significance she places on it is irrelevant because I'm sure she won't jump to defend Bernie every time a reporter who is against his politics claims it was a bigger deal than she feels it was.


So, sure, I believe it, I just don't see it as being actually significant one bit, and I'm sure the people who believe her will believe everything BUT that one part.

Then the problem would no longer come from believing women or not; it would come from cherry-pickers who ignore the women's full account of the fact.

What I'm saying is that this cherry-picking is an inherent trait where once an accusation is leveled people cease listening to women and substitute their imagination or their personal past traumas for the facts they ought to be believing the woman about.

You also need to keep in mind that the way media is reporting it and the way the debate moderators treated him was as though what she claimed was actual fact and not a mere claim without proof, so there's already a lot of damage done that we need to undo through our rejection of this unsubstantiated claim. You can't ask people to believe both people when so many people have taken to believing the wrong person already. That'd leave a lopsided result.

With regards to this event, I agree, yes. There's no evidence Sanders said what is claimed, and there's quite a lot of evidence to indicate his attitude is quite the opposite.

However, the tone of this last post... well, it leads me to believe you didn't really post the OP in good faith. You're not really questioning or confused at all-- you're quite certain. Is this topic just a springboard from which to attack the Me Too movement (and connected shifts in attitude)?

Because I shouldn't need to point out how the "believe women" advice means a very specific thing regarding the context of sexual assault, and cannot be blithely applied or compared to petty arguments about other shit.

I don't think I was particularly coy about where I stand, though I fail to see how that removes the merit of my quandary here.


What I'm doing here is showing the reason why non-sexist left-wing-policy-supporters can still have valid concerns with a movement that allows for such injustices to occur in the name of correcting other ones. Basically, this is partially me screaming "this is what we told you would happen" into the ether, I don't think I was being particularly reserved about that fact lol. The bigger and more important part, however, is that indeed I do think Bernie's policies would be better for women too, yet people who claim to care about women's well-being seem to not care about that fact (or at least avoid debating this point like the plague), and the why behind this question is very genuine. I don't know if they are against policies that help women more than other policies if they happen to help everyone equally (and in so doing by definition help women, but not to the exclusion of men) or what the issue is, nobody has made an argument even, they just call someone a bad word and leave it to imply all the evils in the world, well, I reject that approach and in the absence of an actual argument I'll take it to show the lack of one.

To me it seems like a power-play where people just use women's issues for power and don't actually care about believing/helping/whatever since if they did then they'd be all for Bernie instead of trying to put these smears on him.

 

[tstorm823]

I guess that's one way to make yourself a winner.

I mean, when someone makes an accusatory argument multiple times, and I stuff that argument in a box and bury it, so the user just slides over into a new thread to make the same accusation as though nothing ever happened, I don't have much other recourse.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Okay so what do we mean by 'believing women'? Like should women be trusted to tell the truth, within reason, like men? Sure. Above men? I don't think so. Outside of reason, like rolling a 7 on a d6, absolutely not.
Nor do i feel either gender has a grasp on the 'issues' better than any other, outside of gender-based issues. For example I would take a woman's opinion about female birth control methods over a man's(within reason, nun doesn't beat obgyn), just the same I would take a man's opinion on testicular cancer over a woman's(within reason, Father doesn't beat oncologist)

So what do we mean?

 

[Avnger]

I guess that's one way to make yourself a winner.

I mean, when someone makes an accusatory argument multiple times, and I stuff that argument in a box and bury it, so the user just slides over into a new thread to make the same accusation as though nothing ever happened, I don't have much other recourse.

I guess that's one way to make yourself a winner.

 

[SupahEwok]

Okay so what do we mean by 'believing women'? Like should women be trusted to tell the truth, within reason, like men? Sure. Above men? I don't think so. Outside of reason, like rolling a 7 on a d6, absolutely not.
Nor do i feel either gender has a grasp on the 'issues' better than any other, outside of gender-based issues. For example I would take a woman's opinion about female birth control methods over a man's(within reason, nun doesn't beat obgyn), just the same I would take a man's opinion on testicular cancer over a woman's(within reason, Father doesn't beat oncologist)

So what do we mean?

I think what we mean is a woman politician said something mean to a male politician in the debates, which seems to be what you'd do in debates but apparently this is a Bad Thing, but instead of spelling it out simply the OP has tried to couch it in this side argument so they can give their opinion without being accused outright of misogyny, and everybody else seems to already know about the Bad Thing to the point of not spelling it out themselves so fuck context, amirite?

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Okay so what do we mean by 'believing women'? Like should women be trusted to tell the truth, within reason, like men? Sure. Above men? I don't think so. Outside of reason, like rolling a 7 on a d6, absolutely not.
Nor do i feel either gender has a grasp on the 'issues' better than any other, outside of gender-based issues. For example I would take a woman's opinion about female birth control methods over a man's(within reason, nun doesn't beat obgyn), just the same I would take a man's opinion on testicular cancer over a woman's(within reason, Father doesn't beat oncologist)

So what do we mean?

I think what we mean is a woman politician said something mean to a male politician in the debates, which seems to be what you'd do in debates but apparently this is a Bad Thing, but instead of spelling it out simply the OP has tried to couch it in this side argument so they can give their opinion without being accused outright of misogyny, and everybody else seems to already know about the Bad Thing to the point of not spelling it out themselves so fuck context, amirite?

It's more of a smear from her campaign that's the issue, the thing she said that was mean was so insofar as it didn't deny what third parties claimed through hearsay. Basically, this issue had been ongoing for 2 days before the debate, she had the opportunity to clear her name by making an appeasing gesture towards Bernie in that stage, and her campaign had literally put out that it "doesn't believe Bernie is a sexist" before the debate in an effort to calm things down. She chose not to do that though, so it morphed into something else.

So it's less saying something "mean" and more saying something "untruthful, dumb and silly, to the point where people on tv who normally hate or completely ignore Bernie are now defending him".

You have to try really really hard to be this level of unfair to someone.

 

[Silvanus]

I don't think I was particularly coy about where I stand, though I fail to see how that removes the merit of my quandary here.


What I'm doing here is showing the reason why non-sexist left-wing-policy-supporters can still have valid concerns with a movement that allows for such injustices to occur in the name of correcting other ones. Basically, this is partially me screaming "this is what we told you would happen" into the ether, I don't think I was being particularly reserved about that fact lol.

These injustices being represented by... a relatively petty political argument?

This has nothing to do with Me Too or the idea that we should trust those who say they have been the victims of sexual violence. Political arguments of this nature have always happened and would have happened regardless.

What this conflation of two very different issues glosses over is that the "believe" argument exists in a very specific context relating to sexual violence. That context is: 1) sexual violence was more common in the past than was widely believed or reported; 2) that disbelief, and a lack of support and prosecution, fuelled a reluctance to report it; and 3) false accusation is actually pretty rare (rarer than genuine sexual assault).

The phrase exists to change attitudes around this. It cannot just be divorced from this context and applied to anything. Nobody has ever argued that we must believe all women about every single topic, and to imagine that a "quandary" exists because you cannot apply the phrase to a petty political argument is at best a gross strawman.

 

[CaitSeith]

You omitted something: Warren said it wasn't a big deal. Isn't that part worth believing too?

See, Warren doesn't need it to be a big deal to be an effective smear, she needs it to just have happened, as long as she keeps saying it did, how much significance she places on it is irrelevant because I'm sure she won't jump to defend Bernie every time a reporter who is against his politics claims it was a bigger deal than she feels it was.


So, sure, I believe it, I just don't see it as being actually significant one bit, and I'm sure the people who believe her will believe everything BUT that one part.

Then the problem would no longer come from believing women or not; it would come from cherry-pickers who ignore the women's full account of the fact.

What I'm saying is that this cherry-picking is an inherent trait where once an accusation is leveled people cease listening to women and substitute their imagination or their personal past traumas for the facts they ought to be believing the woman about.

Or disbelieving.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I don't think I was particularly coy about where I stand, though I fail to see how that removes the merit of my quandary here.


What I'm doing here is showing the reason why non-sexist left-wing-policy-supporters can still have valid concerns with a movement that allows for such injustices to occur in the name of correcting other ones. Basically, this is partially me screaming "this is what we told you would happen" into the ether, I don't think I was being particularly reserved about that fact lol.

These injustices being represented by... a relatively petty political argument?

This has nothing to do with Me Too or the idea that we should trust those who say they have been the victims of sexual violence. Political arguments of this nature have always happened and would have happened regardless.

What this conflation of two very different issues glosses over is that the "believe" argument exists in a very specific context relating to sexual violence. That context is: 1) sexual violence was more common in the past than was widely believed or reported; 2) that disbelief, and a lack of support and prosecution, fuelled a reluctance to report it; and 3) false accusation is actually pretty rare (rarer than genuine sexual assault).

The phrase exists to change attitudes around this. It cannot just be divorced from this context and applied to anything. Nobody has ever argued that we must believe all women about every single topic, and to imagine that a "quandary" exists because you cannot apply the phrase to a petty political argument is at best a gross strawman.

The issue with that argument is that it's correct but not accurate in practice. People will smear you with being unsupportive of women who claim to have suffered sexual violence through backsided implications if you doubt them in any and all scenarios where two people disagree about an occurrence. Bernie got this a lot already just for running a normal campaign and arguing for his position because he was doing so against a woman in 2016, with a lot of implied and some less implied and more outright stated accusations flying at him all the while. This one is just too on-the-nose ridiculous.

People use this tactic as a disingenuous political weapon. "He didn't believe her when she said this, who is to say he would believe her if she claimed that." is how this scam goes.


Also notice I'm not actually talking about the pound me too movement, but specifically about the climate of believing women vs actually helping them and the difference in good that comes from the two. (and the apparent conflict between people's expressed desire for good and their actions working against the better option with regards to this good)

You omitted something: Warren said it wasn't a big deal. Isn't that part worth believing too?

See, Warren doesn't need it to be a big deal to be an effective smear, she needs it to just have happened, as long as she keeps saying it did, how much significance she places on it is irrelevant because I'm sure she won't jump to defend Bernie every time a reporter who is against his politics claims it was a bigger deal than she feels it was.


So, sure, I believe it, I just don't see it as being actually significant one bit, and I'm sure the people who believe her will believe everything BUT that one part.

Then the problem would no longer come from believing women or not; it would come from cherry-pickers who ignore the women's full account of the fact.

What I'm saying is that this cherry-picking is an inherent trait where once an accusation is leveled people cease listening to women and substitute their imagination or their personal past traumas for the facts they ought to be believing the woman about.

Or disbelieving.

Not disbelieving any more so than one disbelieves any claim of similar severity which lacks evidence to a similar degree. I think healthy skepticism in such a litigious society is a good thing. I mean, think about it, if someone tried to claim you stole something that if convicted stealing would send you to jail for multiple years and they had no evidence of the thing missing or it being in your possession or you even having been in the scene of the crime, do you really think people would jump to twitter and act as though you're a thief? Hell, if you happen to be black and such a thing happened to you you'll have a parade in your name within a week lol.

 

[Silvanus]

The issue with that argument is that it's correct but not accurate in practice. People will smear you with being unsupportive of women who claim to have suffered sexual violence through backsided implications if you doubt them in any and all scenarios where two people disagree about an occurrence.

Bernie got this a lot already just for running a normal campaign and arguing for his position because he was doing so against a woman in 2016, with a lot of implied and some less implied and more outright stated accusations flying at him all the while. This one is just too on-the-nose ridiculous.

Sanders was accused of being unsupportive of sexual assault victims as a result of disagreeing with Warren on unrelated issues, did he? That's actually what happened? To any significant degree?

I don't believe you.

Also notice I'm not actually talking about the pound me too movement, but specifically about the climate of believing women vs actually helping them and the difference in good that comes from the two. (and the apparent conflict between people's expressed desire for good and their actions working against the better option with regards to this good)

As I mentioned, the "believe" argument specifically relates to sexual assault. With that in mind, can you explain how it "helps women" to instead... disbelieve as the default when an accusation surfaces?

 

[Avnger]

Also notice I'm not actually talking about the pound me too movement,

I wonder why people aren't taking you at face value in this discussion...

It takes a special kind of person to take a movement about sexual harassment/assault, turn it into a joke about those sexual harassment/assault victims wanting sexual acts done to them, and then pretend as if you're trying to have an honest conversation on the topic.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The issue with that argument is that it's correct but not accurate in practice. People will smear you with being unsupportive of women who claim to have suffered sexual violence through backsided implications if you doubt them in any and all scenarios where two people disagree about an occurrence.

Bernie got this a lot already just for running a normal campaign and arguing for his position because he was doing so against a woman in 2016, with a lot of implied and some less implied and more outright stated accusations flying at him all the while. This one is just too on-the-nose ridiculous.

Sanders was accused of being unsupportive of sexual assault victims as a result of disagreeing with Warren on unrelated issues, did he? That's actually what happened? To any significant degree?

I don't believe you.

Also notice I'm not actually talking about the pound me too movement, but specifically about the climate of believing women vs actually helping them and the difference in good that comes from the two. (and the apparent conflict between people's expressed desire for good and their actions working against the better option with regards to this good)

As I mentioned, the "believe" argument specifically relates to sexual assault. With that in mind, can you explain how it "helps women" to instead... disbelieve as the default when an accusation surfaces?

Dunno if twitter and CNN is not sufficient, but it's out there and it is happening yes. You again are correct in your definition but not in the practice of it's application. Here's a very good video to illustrate what I'm describing:

https://youtu.be/_vrzgVczc1Y?t=606
https://youtu.be/_vrzgVczc1Y?t=184

Also notice I'm not actually talking about the pound me too movement,

I wonder why people aren't taking you at face value in this discussion...

It takes a special kind of person to take a movement about sexual harassment/assault, turn it into a joke about those sexual harassment/assault victims wanting sexual acts done to them, and then pretend as if you're trying to have an honest conversation on the topic.

Hey man, this # thing is called "pound" and it's been on old timey phones since before twitter was a twinkle in the eye of the devil (cause twitter is hell, geddit? ), being old enough to recall that and use the fact to point out an unfortunate naming for a movement against unwanted pounding is definitely hilarious to all kinds of persons.

 

[Trunkage]

You don't get to make accusations that demean someone and then retreat unscathed yourself into the middle ground.

Ah... that's exactly what you are doing. (Let's put aside this potentially being used politically by Warren). You claim is that this accuser is lying, doing this to smear Bernie, that it's just 'political jiu jitsu' to trap Bernie. Got ANY evidence for that?

Literally none?

So, what should we do with this woman whose accused Bernie? Ban her from speaking? Stop her from making any accusation? How do we know which woman will accuse? Should we just ban everything? Oh wait... you made an accusation without proof that was meant to smear someone's reputation and take out a political opponent. So whatever you decide for her, NEEDS to be applied to you and your accusation. I await your decision.

I listed the evidence, there's a video of him from literally 30 years ago (back from the era where she was a republican, I might add) telling little girls they can grow up to be president just as much as boys can. He wasn't running for president back then, he didn't need to boost his image doing that stuff, he clearly genuinely believed it. Also, again, he asked Warren to run vs Hillary in 2015 in his place, which he wouldn't do if he thought she couldn't win. That's proof enough for most rational people.

As for what we should do, I think twitter has taken to calling her a snake (who knows, maybe it's her spirit animal) and people are requesting refunds of their donations, so I think that's fair enough. Political repercussions for a bungled attempt at smearing someone are pretty standard I think.

Dreiko. Your evidence for Bernie side is logged. Fantastic. That in no way is any evidence of whether the accuser is telling the truth or not. 'Proving' someone thinks they are telling the truth doesn't make the other side automatically telling lies. I know this might be radical for you but: they literally could both be telling the truth AT THE SAME TIME.

And you still have dealt with my main issue with your claim. You blamed someone for lying with no evidence. You also claim that blaming someone with no evidence is terrible. You keep bringing up evidence of another person and not dealing with the fact that your providing no evidence.

 

[Trunkage]

It is even possible that she's lying.

It's probable that she's lying, but even if she's telling 100% truth, she's still being a tool supreme. This supposed conversation was a year+ ago, and then she ran a campaign systematically stealing Bernie's talking points and holding this in her back pocket until such a time as he was taking the lion's share of their combined base of support. And unlike the situations where "believe women" is typically used, there's not a good reason to withhold this one. If Warren believes Bernie is a sexist who thinks women aren't capable in politics, it'd be both a moral imperative to out him and a political gain in her competition for the same voters as Bernie. Instead, she was supposedly silent on it for many months and when it was reported in the press, she attempted not to burn the bridge publicly right away. That's some sleaze right there.

If the 'she' in the first line the first line you wrote is Warren, completely agree. If that 'she' is the accuser, disagree. She accused him long ago and felt like it wasn't dealt with. She is also being used by Warren to attack Bernie.

 

[tstorm823]

If the 'she' in the first line the first line you wrote is Warren, completely agree. If that 'she' is the accuser, disagree. She accused him long ago and felt like it wasn't dealt with. She is also being used by Warren to attack Bernie.

Yes, to clarify, I was referring to Warren.

 

[Agema]

The last time you made this accusation, I welcomed any more information, as I have been doing the whole time, and pointed you directly at Democrats actively blocking the subject from reaching the courts. To date, you have not responded to that post. Until you do, I've won this argument.

It's the executive blocking key personnel and documents from the impeachment probe. The White House is currently occupied by Republicans. The last I remember you saying anything about it, your justification for supporting them in that was that you just wanted to spite the Democrats.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

You don't get to make accusations that demean someone and then retreat unscathed yourself into the middle ground.

Ah... that's exactly what you are doing. (Let's put aside this potentially being used politically by Warren). You claim is that this accuser is lying, doing this to smear Bernie, that it's just 'political jiu jitsu' to trap Bernie. Got ANY evidence for that?

Literally none?

So, what should we do with this woman whose accused Bernie? Ban her from speaking? Stop her from making any accusation? How do we know which woman will accuse? Should we just ban everything? Oh wait... you made an accusation without proof that was meant to smear someone's reputation and take out a political opponent. So whatever you decide for her, NEEDS to be applied to you and your accusation. I await your decision.

I listed the evidence, there's a video of him from literally 30 years ago (back from the era where she was a republican, I might add) telling little girls they can grow up to be president just as much as boys can. He wasn't running for president back then, he didn't need to boost his image doing that stuff, he clearly genuinely believed it. Also, again, he asked Warren to run vs Hillary in 2015 in his place, which he wouldn't do if he thought she couldn't win. That's proof enough for most rational people.

As for what we should do, I think twitter has taken to calling her a snake (who knows, maybe it's her spirit animal) and people are requesting refunds of their donations, so I think that's fair enough. Political repercussions for a bungled attempt at smearing someone are pretty standard I think.

Dreiko. Your evidence for Bernie side is logged. Fantastic. That in no way is any evidence of whether the accuser is telling the truth or not. 'Proving' someone thinks they are telling the truth doesn't make the other side automatically telling lies. I know this might be radical for you but: they literally could both be telling the truth AT THE SAME TIME.

And you still have dealt with my main issue with your claim. You blamed someone for lying with no evidence. You also claim that blaming someone with no evidence is terrible. You keep bringing up evidence of another person and not dealing with the fact that your providing no evidence.

It's character evidence towards the credibility of Bernie's denial which is more credible than her assertion. That's the point. Both people just have a claim so the relevant evidence in the absence of a witness or a recording of the chat or something is comparing their credibility and ascertaining who is more believable.


When someone lies and you call them a liar you're not "accusing" them of anything, you're just saying that what they're claiming sounds unlikely or untruthful to you. The default state of an accusation isn't believing it, it's healthy but kind skepticism.


Finally, you may be confused about what the claim actually is, the claim isn't about what Bernie said in particular, since Warren herself has not even specified a particular quote, merely saying that he unspecifically disagreed. The claim is that whatever thing he said, it signifies his lack of belief that a woman can be president. That, that is what I'm calling a lie. He may have said whatever, nobody specified so you can't "disprove" what hasn't been specified. See, again this is a game of ambiguity aiming at tricking people into thinking the ability to disprove undisprovable things means anything.

No, the thing I'm showing you proof of here is about the core of the accusation, not the mechanics. The accusation is that he doesn't think a woman can win and the proof that he thinks they can is abundant and I've provided it.