Re: Is Stallman nuts?

From: Thomas Lord <lord@basiscraft.com>
To: "Adrienne G. Thompson" <adriennegayethompson@gmail.com>
Cc: libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
Subject: Re: Is Stallman nuts?
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 13:45:18 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <0219be5bf933a4a7b4fd1dadfd25757a@basiscraft.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CACvtE5F8ocUR-uHcKwSfnob60c3c1AiHfr1c+NMBmj8k=G0TvQ@mail.gmail.com>

I wanted to express my strong agreement with this, from Adrienne G.
Thompson, part very strongly:

> "The fact that a young woman might have presented herself as "willing" does not absolve the alleged offender of rape if he knew - or in the case of someone of Minsky's stature where it would be inferred that he "had a duty to know" - that she was underage."

I would also say that beyond any question of law, men trying to raise
funds and socially network, who find themselves at a lavish, high-money
event, surrounded by women significantly below their age and acting in
these highly sexualized ways ought to be enough to stop those men from
participating further.  I believe the culture at MIT (and Stanford), and
the individual men, are rightly due lots of criticism and perhaps in
some cases prosecution.  

So, thanks Adrienne for opening that line of discussion. 

Nevertheless, the record of what Minsky did or didn't do, and what he
knew or should have known and when is far from clear, and the accusation
of "sexual assault" is indeed not fair.  Nobody is served by being fast
and loose with the facts, here.  There are plenty of solid facts to
protest on! 

-t 

On 2019-09-15 13:20, Adrienne G. Thompson wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 1:38 PM Thomas Lord <lord@basiscraft.com> wrote: 
> 
>> Remarkably, in order to make their allegations against Stallman, both
>> Selam G. and Edward Ongweso Jr. must speak untruthfully about what
>> Stallman wrote.
> 
> Contrary to Stallman's comment that "the word 'assaulting' presumes that he applied force or violence", force or violence is not necessary to constitute rape or "assault". Stallman is not a lawyer. The fact that a young woman might have presented herself as "willing" does not absolve the alleged offender of rape if he knew - or in the case of someone of Minsky's stature where it would be inferred that he "had a duty to know" - that she was underage. 
> 
> Hackers are known to be socially inept. Their humour can often be crude, off-colour and - like the majority of men in the world - totally sexist (I'm convinced that many of the men I know have their balls in their brains:-)  ). 
> 
> The record on Richard Stallman underscores that he is driven by ethical sensibilities. He's not about to approve of rape anytime soon. So let's just tell rms to shut up about the Epstein matter, not to attempt to defend his idols (some of which I, _personally_, know are not worth defending) and to get a female FSF colleague to censor all his comments pertaining to women before these comments go public. 
> 
> Adrienne 
> She/her 
> -- 
> Freedom - no pane, all gaiGN!
> 
> GNU C-Graph - http://www.gnu.org/software/c-graph
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