[kbenson]

> Which, at the time, I thought was a bit odd bringing up in casual conversation with someone he didn't know.

I'm not sure that being crass is necessarily an indicator that he's more likely to be a rapist. That's the problem with all this, there's a lot of substantiated stories about him being an asshole, an actual refutation by the party involved of one of the stories that was originally conveyed by a third party, and a bunch of unsubstantiated stories about him being as asshole and a rapist. I don't think the correct thing to do in this case is to assume his guilt. The right may not include assuming his innocence either, until more information is presented.

There's a lot of "you should believe the victim" stuff going around, but at this point are we sure there even is a victim (in the rape accusation)? Is it all third party accusations about anonymous victims, or do we actually have a victim that has come forward? I think that's an important distinction. I put a lot less trust in anonymous sources.

[syngrog66]

it almost makes me wish we had some kind of... I dunno... "system" by which we as a society can be very specific about what is allowed and not. and a system for determining whether the disallowed things happened or not. and a system also for then punishing people who have been found guilty of those disallowed things.

I'm just brainstorming. Perhaps in a hundred years we'll create a way to do that. Until then, let's all just whisper and rumor and accuse and retweet and go with how we "feel" at any particular moment. /s :-)