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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Or... we could accept that Masterson RAPED people, and maybe don't give him any support, regardless of his past actions. We don't need to hold out a hand for the fallen rapist. There are too many people in the world that genuinely need help that wasting even an iota of effort on a rapist is a slap in the face to them, not to mention the people the rapist has harmed. There is no nuance.
Thank you for making my point.
Masterson did RAPE people. Now, do we want to punish him and rehabilitate him, or get our vengeance boner on and beat on him because that hilariously makes our society feel virtuous?
So much for society demonstrating being better than than those that violate its laws. Blood! Blood! More blood! Give us bloooood!
Don't be glib. If it came out that my oldest friend wqs not only a rapist, but also used his fame and religion to silence the victims and avoid prosecution... AND I was involved with an organization with the express purpose of stopping sex abuse... I'd absolutely tell that friend to pound sand.
There were multiple times when I learned that friends of mine were sexually assaulted, some of those times were by people I considered friends. There's zero chance that I'd do anything to "put in a good word" for the rapists I once called friends, because their actions in my company have ZERO baring on how they acted in private.
Tl;Dr: If you're vouching for the upstanding nature of a convicted rapist based on your interactions when he wasn't being a duplicitous rapist... that says more about your ignorance to how terrible that person can be as opposed to the good works you saw from the rapist when they weren't raping. You're also a victim.
Masterson demonstrated no mercy in raping his victims.
Our society demonstrating no mercy to those our society failed, and we did at some point for most felons if not Masterson, just makes us another link in the chain of cruelty. Mercy should always be considered, at every step, especially if we as a society espouse to be better than those we prosecute.
Justice isn't for pleasure, vengeance is. If you're feeling good about anyone's suffering, Masterson or his victims, that isn't a sense of justice you're feeling.
Not writing a letter to the judge isn't vengeance.
No, its compassionate, whether you agree its deserved or not.
Once again, a harsher punishment for the victimizer doesn't equate to more compassion for the victim.
You can't demonstrate compassion through cruelty. Reasonable punishment is justice, getting off on maximizing punishment is vengeance. Getting angry at a friend of the victimizer asking the judge to consider LESS THAN THE MAXIMUMUM CONCEIVABLE PUNISHMENT is literally getting mad at calls for mercy because it might have diminished your desire for maximum vengeance.
No-one was asking for a harsher punishment, plus prison in this case is taking a dangerous person off the streets, it doesn't need to be punishment.
No-one talked about maximum punishment for vengeance.
You're making all this up to justify someone asking for leniency for a convicted multiple rapist.
This is some I’m 16 and this is deep bullshit. The point is we have a process in place to convict and sentence people charged with crimes. Once he was found guilty do his friends need to abandon him? No. But do they need to actually have him show a change BEFORE they show “leniency”. Yes. Your whole argument is so dumb it borders if not crosses over into making you a rape apologist.
No, this is some "we need to be better than those we convict, and that means always considering mercy as those we punish failed to" bullshit.
You're right though. Deep fry em all in Crisco, balls first, all slow like, and make their parents watch! Woooooo justice!
Did he get the death penalty? What are you proposing his sentence be then? Couple weeks and some knitting classes? Rehabilitation takes time, and I’m all for that. But that’s not what Ashton and Mila were asking for. They were asking for a lighter sentence because he’s a good guy. You aren’t even arguing about the original topic though so none of this is relevant anyways.
People who abuse others only to hide behind fame and religion do not need us to be better. They need to be made an example of.
Does that help in any way?
I consider our ENTIRE "justice" system to be archaic, regressive, punitive, pay to win, and unredeemable. It needs to be destroyed and rebuilt. We have no rehabilitation, more prisoners oer capita than any nation on Earth by a lot, even the ones we ironically make fun of for being authoritarian, and basically we expect to torture our way out of criminality.
I agree Masterson deserves no special treatment, but Americans deserve a benevolent justice system that seeks restorative justice, absolutely NOT making examples of people as we do all the time to cruel cheers.
You really want our courts to continue to appeal to fear rather than respect?
Are you trying to tell me that Society failed Danny Masterson? Do you proof read what you write? No. Society failed the women that he raped. Society fails the millions that will die of treatable disease this year. Society fails the single mother that has to work three jobs to support herself and her child. Society did not, I repeat, did not fail Danny Masterson. Society taught him that rape is bad. Danny decided to do it anyway. Danny failed society.
I hope you're a thirteen year old otherwise this is some sad, pathetic shit.
Was there physical evidence on these? I'd feel the same way, but what if you didn't think they did it? Not say that's what this is. I have no clue.
There was a whole court case about it.
"I know nothing about this but I question the legitimacy of the court's decision" is a bizarre take.
I did no such thing. I know nothing about the case other than the accusation being strong enough that he was dropped from the Ranch and didn't appear in that 90s Show. If there was physical evidence I don't know how someone could think he didn't do it and write these letters, even if they have been friends for 25 years. Only if there weren't physical evidence could I fathom someone close to him like that believing that maybe he didn't do it.
Maybe you should look into details of the court case then, instead of assuming what evidence does and does not exist?
This is ridiculous. I assumed nothing. I asked a simple yes or no question, because I cannot fathom why they wrote these letters either. Commenting is a waste of time, no one is interested in conversation.
Correct. You fucking sure don't.
Wtf is up with Lemmy and people taking the time to reply to a comment without just answering a yes or no question? Is it the clientele? It’s like a damn Gentoo Linux forum where people put more effort ridiculing people than answering questions.
If they didn’t think he did it I could see writing these letters. If they think he did, I cannot fathom writing them. Does that make it clearer?
Wtf is up with people treating Lemmy like a search engine instead of looking up the information themselves?
I didn’t ask for a source. If conversations can’t happen here wtf is the point of Lemmy? We can just read a news site.
"Someone look this up for me" is not a conversation.
Except this isn't about Masterson. This is about Kutcher's support for him. If I have a friend that turns out to be a rapist, that's not a friend. That's someone hiding an important, deal breaking secret. If you've hidden that from me, I'm not going to tell a judge you're an otherwise good person that shouldn't be punished accordingly. If I kept that person as a friend after their rapist nature is revealed, that speaks very poorly on my judgement.
If you really don't believe that these are people that did something wrong, that they should be shunned for the rest of their days by every living being, where's the virtue in even keeping a felon alive? Why don't we just have a door to a firepit in every jury courtroom that opens upon a guilty Verdict? Why pretend to weigh punishment with mercy, but still set them up for failure in every possible way?
Honest question, do we want to be a benevolent society that sees a fallen member, and wants to help them reintegrate after their just punishment, or is mercy as a positive thing in our society as stone dead a concept as greed being a negative thing?
Not writing a letter asking for leniency is not shunning as well as is not vengeance.
I'm not saying that we need to flog the guilty. I'm just saying that we don't need to offer him more help than anyone else would get. Is Kutcher writing letters to every judge involved in a rape case and asking for them to go easy because the perp was a youth pastor? Justice is supposed to be blind. If celebrities, politicians, etc. get special treatment then we aren't working to fix society, we are letting people in power run around doing whatever the fuck they want. Masterson should receive all the help the justice system affords a rapist, but not one bit more, and definitely not because he has celebrity friends writing letters on his behalf.
For just about any other crime I'd tend to agree with the sentiment, but for nearly any other crime I can come up with some hypothetical scenario where that crime is justifiable, where I can comprehend the reasoning behind the act.
I can't come up with any hypothetical where rape or sexual assault is justifiable.
It's never justifiable, agreed, but I disagree that it cannot be understood or that the victimizer deserves special worse punishment or consideration. Before we tested for people on the spectrum, people that legitimately lacked the capacity of impulse control were executed like anyone else. Now courts bicker about how low functioning you have to be for such things.
Some people are born very low functioning and never get diagnosed, or throttle that line, and weren't raised well, etc. Americans in general often refuse to see such nuance in such cases. They prefer to imagine a fair black and white world where every rapist is some evil mastermind when often they aren't in control of themselves any of the time. It's not like our mental healthcare system is robust enough to identify and mitigate those issues for poor kids who need it.
I'm sure there are regular and high functioning rapists, like Weinstein and statutory rapists, but I rarely see a differentiation between those calculated actors and some barely sapient person with sporatic impulse control who really doesn't have the capacity to empathize with their victim or consider the consequences, but squeaked by on the mental competence review. Those are worlds apart imho and should be treated as such.
Im just boggled at the mind at how concerned you are for the mechanics of rapists and how there’s something that makes them rape people and don’t seem to be at all concerned with the effects they have on those they raped.
I see this whole devils advocate thing and like whatever this is internet share your peace, but I just can’t understand how lacking empathy for the people you hurt in any way should lessen the consequences of the impact you cause. Context does not excuse consequences. I’m sure Masterson is sick in the head, you’d have to be to rape someone as maliciously, viciously, and violently as he did. I just hope you’re also out here advocating for more support to the victims who are now also sick from the trauma that was directly caused by this man’s actions.
Sure, let someone who according to you can’t control themselves back on the street and give him a lighter sentence. I’m sure he won’t go out and rape again since his lack of control apparently stops once he’s caught and convicted. We should just wait to see if he does it again and say “ooops, his bad let’s try another 5 years” to his next victim and send her off with hopefully a good ass therapist for the rest of her life since that’s how long the rape is going to affect her.
You talk about society lacking nuance but your nuance seems to extend only to the rapist and his buddies. They were not advocating for him to be rehabilitated. They were asking for him to get less time since “his daughter not having a father” would be an injustice. Sure, he’s been convicted of rape, but the injustice of the law here would be his daughter visiting him in jail where he’s not raping people. Now if Kutcher was like “he’s clearly sick, I hope you find an alternative to prison that helps rehabilitate him so he won’t harm others” I could see your point. That’s not what he said. That’s not what he was asking for. People are angry because it’s enraging to see celebrities and rich people get special treatment. Use each other’s fame to hurt others and escape consequences. Your worry about a lack of nunca is funnily enough so black and white in its arguments, you could say it in and of itself lacks nuance to how complicated the subject and ramifications of rape on a person actually are.
For rape??? Vengeance. Not some magical rehab for sex offenders
You're the most honest and/or self-aware one of the "string em up" crowd here. Thank you.
You acknowledge where your stance comes from. I respect that, sincerely.
I think through introspection, education, and rehabilitation most criminals can work toward enlightenment and betterment. But sex offenders commit the most heinous of all crimes and deserve no extra consideration. They are blemishes in human evolution and are plagues on decency and humanity. At the absolute very best, they should be locked away from the rest of us
Yeah alright