General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Does anyone get it yet? [View all]moriah
(8,311 posts)What I do:
Attempt to distance my own emotions from it, particularly if they're strong and I find myself wanting to dis/believe before hearing the full story.
Then I listen to what the alleged victim says happened. I wait for any response from the person who was accused.
I then try to weigh the facts.
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What I DON'T do:
Take Twitter or other social media as Gospel truth during a breaking news event unless they're linking to "regular" news, and even then I try to remember "regular news" sometimes inaccurately accuses people of things like bigamy and identity theft without doing proper fact-checking during juicy news events.
Defend or minimize the behavior described, whether or not I believe it to be a true allegation. Doing so actually implies you are afraid it is true.
Dismiss an allegation *solely* because of the political affiliation of the alleged victim or the accused. If other things come out that discredit an allegation or after hearing it out with as open of a mind I can it just doesn't sound real, political affiliations might be used to explain why someone would have motive... but motive isn't proof. (Edit to add: someone accused of raping his stepdaughter likely will have plenty of people with motive to shoot them -- it was mighty considerate of the one I wanted to shoot that he elected to give himself extreme sanction OUT of state, rather than here.)
Use the alleged victim's sexual history or sexual behavior to excuse crossing consent boundaries. The only possible relevant history is previous times the alleged victim has made demonstrably false accusations of similar conduct using similar language, and in court that should be considered OUTSIDE the presence of the jury before it's decided if it's similar enough to the current allegation to be relevant.
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If I can't hold myself to those standards, I can't hold others to them. And that's what I mean about compromising my integrity.