Defending Assange against sexual assault allegations

[hfojvt]

147. isn't that human behaviour though

take a man I admire, let's say my father. I've known him for a number of years and he seems like a really great guy. Now suddenly suppose my father is accused of rape. What am I gonna think? Am I gonna think "oh crap, my father is a rapist" or am I far more likely to think "what the hell?, his accuser MUST be lying"

So you can expect family to blame the alleged victim. That's what families generally do - they defend their own, especially if "their own" has been decent to them.

Now step away from family. What about a pastor or a teacher? Teachers you don't know as well. My chemistry teacher, for example, was accused of getting some students drunk and making passes at them (and he was allowed to sneak out of town and become a college prof). I had two years of classes with him. So I interacted with him perhaps an hour a day during the school year for two years.

Still, you think you know him a little bit. He's pretty friendly and easygoing and teaches a subject you like. Why wouldn't you take HIS side over the side of somebody you don't know as well? How do you KNOW that some girl (or guys in this case), just didn't get bad grades in chemistry or maybe got detention for disrupting class and this is their way of getting revenge? Certainly I went to school with some kids that I wouldn't trust any further than I could throw them.

One trouble, though, is power. I tried to explain this to my sister. She was talking about some guy that I knew, and she said something like "he's a pretty nice guy" and I said "Of course, he is nice - to YOU. You are a cute girl and he wants you to like him. So he pretends to be nice. Whereas with me, he shows his true colors."

Mr. star quarterback maybe plays that game too. He is respectful to teachers and coaches and principals, and perhaps other adults, because they have power over him. He needs their approval. Ah, but to those below him in status?

Still, it is easy to see how an athlete can get a good reputation that way. Further, people WANT to believe that he is an all American boy, a good kid, not some thug. He also has family, and friends (and family of friends) whose first instinct will be - defend our family, defend our friend.

Really though, what do you expect them to do? Throw their sons under a bus?