There Are Still Good Men, The Heroes in the Stanford Rape Case

There are a lot of men in the news this week.

First, there is Brock Allen Turner, the Stanford frat boy/Olympic hopeful/rich white kid that raped an unconscious woman behind some dumpsters after a raucous party and a night of binge-drinking. He was convicted by a jury of his peers of three felony counts of sexual assault. This is a boy who was caught red-handed in the act of rape, but still cried "Not responsible". "Alcohol made me do it!" "It was consensual!"

Then there is Judge Aaron Persky, the presiding justice in the Brock Allen Turner case, who ignored the three year minimum jail sentence, and instead handed down a much more lenient sentence with his all-powerful magisterial hand. Judge Persky felt Brock's good grades, athletic prowess, and family status balanced out his brutal attack of an unconscious woman. Six months is apparently harsh enough if you flash your Stanford alumni card and ask pretty please. Remorse? Judges these days don't need to see no stinkin' remorse, I mean.... boys will be boys. Right? A longer sentence would have had a "severe impact" on the Stanford athlete turned rapist. We certainly wouldn't want his egregious actions to have too great an impact on him.

Then there is Dan Turner, Brock's father, who felt his baby boy had already suffered enough. He's a good kid. Just look at his grades and his athleticism and his family's social standing. In Daddy's eyes, Little Brocky shouldn't serve any prison time at all. "His life will never be the one he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve," whined Daddy in his letter to the court. "That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life."

Yes, this week has been one long string of men behaving badly. This story is enough to make even the manliest of men throw up their hands and scream "Men are pigs!"

Yes, Virginia, there is rape culture. Even the most skeptical among us kind of have to admit that after watching this dog and pony show.

But...

There are two other men in this story.

Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonnson were riding their bicycles, on their way to their own Stanford party, when they saw Brock Turner behind a dumpster moving on top of his very still victim. They could have rolled their eyes, chalked it up to alcohol, minded their own business and biked away to their own party.

But they didn't.

They confronted Brock. When he tried to run, they tackled him and held him down until police arrived.

By all apparent measures, Arndt and Jonnson should have identified with Brock. Afterall, they were Stanford students on their way to their own party, both white and male and privileged. In a Society ruled by rape culture, they should have ridden on laughing together about how "she must have asked for it" or "look at how she's dressed" or "that's what she gets for drinking so much."

But instead they felt empathy for the victim, not Brock. They saw a human being in need, unconscious, covered in dirt and pine needles, mostly naked and vulnerable, and they set aside their own safety in order to help her. The scene was so disturbing to these two men that one of them actually cried as he gave his account of events to the police. It wasn't Brock, the promising young white male with whom they should have identified that caused them concern.  There were no slaps on the shoulder or high fives and fist bumps or "Go gettum, Bro" encouragement.

Instead they felt empathy for his victim. A woman they knew was a person and not a piece of meat.

There are still good men in this world.

Thank you, Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonnson. Thank you for being an example of what men should be, an example of goodness for me to hold up for my sons in the midst of all of this disgusting lechery and horrible injustice. Thank you for being role models.

Because boys will be boys. And while some little boys do like to lurk behind dumpsters, more boys dream of superhero capes. I want my boys to be the kind that wear capes. Or at least the kind of boys that ride bicycles and aren't afraid to stop and help another human being in need.

Even when that human being is a drunk, unconscious woman.

Victim Blaming - Gun Owners Don't Make The Socially-Approved List

Over the weekend, a local news station reported on a house robbery. On the surface, it sounds pretty run-of-the-mill.  People's homes are broken into and their possessions stolen with frightening regularity. Most of those cases never make the evening news.  But this one, which took place in Cumberland County, North Carolina, was definitely not your ordinary garden-variety house robbery.

According to authorities, an M-4, M-14, AK-47, and a STG-77 as well as extra magazines for the weapons, boxes of ammunition, and military camouflage vests with body armor plates were taken from the residence.

This family was seriously ready for the zombie apocalypse.

Regardless of whether or not you can understand why this family had this type of arsenal in their possession (zombies...duh!), please keep in mind that their home was invaded and their property stolen. They are victims of a crime, a crime which has certainly shaken their sense of security in their own home, a sense of security which may have already been tenuous considering their impressive weapons cache.

Opinionated local viewers have filled up the news station's Facebook feed with comments about the gun owner's irresponsibility.  When people suggest that it was the gun owner's fault the weapons were stolen, that he should be prosecuted for "allowing" someone to steal his guns, and that if no one owned guns there wouldn't have been any guns to steal... Well, that sounds a lot like victim blaming.

You might be familiar with "victim blaming" from another weekend news story concerning Jennifer Lawrence's second round of leaked nude photos. Any suggestion that maybe it wasn't such a great idea to store naked photos on a cell phone is met with accusations of "victim blaming".  As if you are blaming the victim of the crime for the crime itself.

The term "victim blaming" is most often used in cases of sexual assault.  Suggesting that the victim had anything to do with the assault, whether by her dress or her actions (or lack of actions) is criticized as victim blaming. Miss Nevada was accused of "victim blaming" for her brash and insensitive suggestion that women could learn martial arts to protect them selves from sexual violence during the interview portion of the Miss USA pageant. The four college students who invented innovative nail polish that changes color when it comes in contact with several common :"rape drugs" have also been accused of victim blaming, because women shouldn't have to worry about guarding their drinks.  Maybe we should just teach men to not rape.

If we were to turn around some of the Facebook comments about the burglarized gun owner to apply to other victims, say victims of sexual assault, we can see how duplicitous the criers of victim blaming really are.

"Those guns should have been locked up and secure! That's irresponsible." versus "Maybe she shouldn't store nude pictures on her phone.  That's irresponsible." ...Or better yet, "Can you believe she wore that short skirt. That's irresponsible."

"And just why does someone have all these?" versus "And just why was she walking alone at night?" or "And just why did she get so drunk?"

"Only paranoid people believe they need that kind of firepower!" versus "Only skanks and whores dress like that!"

"If you want an arsenal like that, then you need to make sure they are locked away safely." versus "If you want to go dancing in the clubs, then you should go in a group to ensure safety."

Call me crazy, but suggesting a gun owner is responsible for the theft of his guns isn't much different than suggesting Jennifer Lawrence is responsible for her leaked photos or a rape victim is somehow responsible for her assault. There are victims and there are criminals.  Even if there was something that maybe the victim could have done to possibly prevent the crime, it doesn't negate the injustice of the crime. And just because you don't agree with the victim's actions (whether it's wearing a sleazy outfit or owning military-style weapons), it doesn't give the criminal a free pass.

But maybe victim blaming is only for those that make it onto the acceptable, socially-approved list of victims (i.e. women, minorities, the impoverished).

Gun owners definitely don't make it onto the list. (It tends to be a liberal-designed list, after all.)

Maybe it's because they refuse to wallow in victimhood.

Heck, that's probably why they bought their firearms in the first place.