Comment by grobbyy

Comment by grobbyy 2 days ago

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My experience is that for anyone sufficiently famous and polarizing, there are widespread false allegations. It's hard work to work from primary sources and sort fact from fiction.

It's impractical to check everything, do I tend to do deep dives spot checking a small number of things.

For readers, I'd suggest the same thing here. Disregard claims on the Internet, or even court rulings, and just look at primary evidence. Pick a small number of issues.

I make this statement generically, without prejudice to the outcome here.

watwut 2 days ago

My impression is that any allegation is considered false unless at least 19 women came forward and 3 of them have video evidence.

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JKCalhoun 2 days ago

> Pick a small number of issues.

I'm not sure what you mean. I generally agree with you — but I think in the case of Trump you have to disregard at least 26 [1] public allegations of rape if you want to give him a pass, blame his fame, or partisanship, or whatever.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct...

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  • mikeyouse 2 days ago

    Right.. the credulousness of these people is insane. “I can’t believe the guy who said he liked to sneak backstage at the Miss Teen USA pageant and bragged about grabbing women by the pussy would assault someone!”

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    • InsideOutSanta 2 days ago

      It's worth noting that Stormy Daniels' description of her encounter with Trump also amounts to rape. I don't think she ever used the word, but it's clearly what she describes.

      Ms Daniels said she "blacked out" despite consuming no drugs or alcohol after Mr Trump prevented her from leaving the room by blocking the door. She said she woke up on the bed with her clothes off.

      "I was staring at the ceiling and didn't know how I got there, I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there," Ms Daniels testified.

      Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she did not tell Mr Trump to stop. "I didn't say anything at all," she said and that she left the hotel room quickly afterwards.

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-08/stormy-daniels-testif...

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  • NoMoreNicksLeft 2 days ago

    >you have to disregard at least 26 [1] public allegations of rape if you want to give him a pass,

    Allegations mean little, and for celebrities they tend to pile up proportionate to their fame. We live in a society that has absolutely no disincentives for false allegations of rape, and that has only grown more true the last few decades.

    Instead of disregarding 26 allegations, one has to wonder why anyone would regard them in the first place. Furthermore, for many people, their regard/disregard is highly selective and comes down to the politics of the accused.

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    • InsideOutSanta 2 days ago

      Well, Trump does agree with you:

      "When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."

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electrondood 2 days ago

Here's a list of people who are both famous and polarizing, along with their number of credible claims of sexual assault.

1. Elon Musk - 1

2. Donald Trump - 26

3. Kanye West - 0 known

4. Greta Thunberg - 0 known

5. Joe Rogan - 0 known

6. Jordan Peterson - 0 known

7. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - 0 known

8. Andrew Tate - < 10

9. Vladimir Putin- 0 known

10. Mark Zuckerberg - 0 known

The idea that just being famous and polarizing attracts false allegations, is false.

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  • Acrobatic_Road 2 days ago

    There is no incentive to make up allegations against most of those people. But if you make up a false allegation against a presidential candidate, it could cost him the election and move national politics in the direction you favor. How many allegations did Trump have against him before vs. after running for president?

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    • nobankai 2 days ago

      There is no incentive to make up allegations, period. Lying about sexual assault in court is perjury and jeopardizes victims as much as the defendant.

      The simpler correlation is that most of the people on that list respect the law and do not consider themselves beyond reproach. Mind you, Tate was fleeing Interpol on human trafficking charges when he was arrested. These men know what they did wrong which is why they lash out when accused instead of respecting due process.

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      • Acrobatic_Road 2 days ago

        >There is no incentive to make up allegations, period.

        That's obviously not true. For example, this woman confessed to making up an sexual assault allegation for political purposes:

        >One of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accusers admitted this week that she made up her lurid tale of a backseat car rape, saying it “was a tactic” to try to derail the judge’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

        https://www.yahoo.com/news/kavanaugh-accuser-admits-she-fabr...

        https://globalnews.ca/news/4628088/brett-kavanaugh-rape-accu...

        And we know that at up to 10% of rape accusations are provably false. The real number of fake accusations could well be higher.

        https://archive.is/x0DEo#selection-915.19-919.1

        >Lying about sexual assault in court is perjury and jeopardizes victims as much as the defendant.

        So what? If I make up an allegation against you, there is little risk to me unless you can PROVE I lied. But if the "evidence" against you is just my word, what can you do with that to establish that I am lying?

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  • roenxi 2 days ago

    I think your argument is spot on, but there is important context which can be revealed by doing the same list for assassination attempts. Trump is qualitatively different from these other people - it just isn't because he is famous and polarising.

    And Vladamir Putin (0), seriously? Good luck to anyone who attempts to make a public accusation against him. There will be a fatal fall through a window in their future. He could have raped 200 women and nobody would say a thing.

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