You be the judge - sexual assault?

[pjdude1219]

I said that you can't insert specific emotions into a person's mind.

no you said you can't insert specific emotions into PEOPLE's mind. the fact you used the plural is important. you flat out said that you couldn't influence anyone's emotions which is patently false. now your claiming a specifity that you didn't initially claim. even in the individual your still wrong. its not actually all that difficult to instill negative emotions into people. its not perfect but to pretend you can't influence people thoughts and emotions is just bonkers.

You might try to instill fear but instill anger instead. You might try to instill sympathy but instill contempt instead.

do you have a point other than trying to convince us your an idiot? cause your doing a bang up job of it.

What has that got to do with propaganda?

evidence your wrong.

Do you think propaganda is a precision tool?

No but that has zero bearing on your nutty claim.

Smart people are less likely to make that mistake.

id say poe's law works just as well for stupid as it does for extremism.

One yardstick is "likes". Wanna compare?

generally the people who want to engage in dick measuring contests are insecure about themselves. also morons tend to like other morons and intelligence is reviled. also this is a naked appeal to popularity and ultimately meaningless. A civil rights activist would be a lot less popular at a clan rally the the the grand wizard of the kkk doesn't mean he is wrong. don't understand why your choosing your hill to die on to be such a stupid and bullshit argument but hey you do you.

 

[pjdude1219]

To me, if somebody "steals" from Bill Gates and he doesn't notice the "loss" then there's no crime. If a woman doesn't notice that she's been "assaulted" is there a crime?

I think we focus too much on the perpetrators and not enough on the victims. "What he did" is not as important as how it affected her.

as an aside to your dumbassery. while i sincerely believe your not actualy claiming this but your implying raping someone who is unconscious is not rape because they don't notice.

 

[Jeeves]

But I'm talking about a hypothetical case in which the world doesn't know he did anything.

If you're not caught, it's legal? I do not believe you will find that in any law-books.
The crime is committed in the action, not in the witnessing of the action.

As I said in message #8, "If a woman doesn't notice that she's been "assaulted" is there a crime?"

YES.
As long as it remains hypothetical, it isn't a legal matter; it's a psychiatric one.
Thinking is legal. Doing is criminal. Even if you got away with it.
Why are you having so much trouble with this?

 

[sideshowbob]

You were asking whether fantasizing about someone is a crime.

That was only part of the larger question, which is: Is there a crime when the "victim" doesn't know anything happened? (Discounting comas and other forms of incapacity.)

 

[Jeeves]

Is there a crime when the "victim" doesn't know anything happened?

Still yes.
The law isn't made by the victims of crime; it's made by a society through its legislative and judiciary processes.
When you break a law, the law is broken, regardless of whether anyone knows about it.
Thus "victimless crimes" through to "crimes against humanity", with no specific complainant are still crimes and prosecutable if/when discovered.

 

[sideshowbob]

you flat out said that you couldn't influence anyone's emotions

I said nothing of the kind.

now your claiming a specifity that you didn't initially claim.

The English language is interactive. I clarified what I meant by the original statement.

its not perfect but to pretend you can't influence people thoughts and emotions is just bonkers.

If I had meant "influence", I would have said "influence". I think I said "insert".

generally the people who want to engage in dick measuring contests are insecure about themselves.

And the ones who avoid dick-measuring contests often have short dicks.

also morons tend to like other morons and intelligence is reviled.

So the people (and/or persons) who like my posts are morons? Apparently I have a higher opinion of the membership than you do.

also this is a naked appeal to popularity and ultimately meaningless.

It's a form of feedback. Intelligence has a lot to do with incorporating feedback.

A civil rights activist would be a lot less popular at a clan rally the the the grand wizard of the kkk doesn't mean he is wrong.

I'm not suggesting that a few likes makes me right. I'm suggesting that your assessment of my intelligence is not universal.

don't understand why your choosing your hill to die on to be such a stupid and bullshit argument but hey you do you.

I'm a long way from dead, sonny boy. Allow me to quote Woody Guthrie:

"Come all of you cowboys all over this land
I'll teach you the law of the Ranger's Command:
To hold a six shooter, and never to run
As long as there's bullets in both of your guns"​

Free advice from me:

1. Don't come to a gunfight unless your guns are loaded.
2. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
3. Don't come to a battle of wits unarmed.

 

[sideshowbob]

When you break a law, the law is broken, regardless of whether anyone knows about it.

That doesn't seem like a very useful definition.

Thus "victimless crimes" through to "crimes against humanity", with no specific complainant are still crimes and prosecutable if/when discovered.

Neither of those terms applies to a situation in which nobody knows a "crime" has occurred.

 

[sideshowbob]

while i sincerely believe your not actualy claiming this but your implying raping someone who is unconscious is not rape because they don't notice.

In the example to which I was replying, the woman was unaware that anything had happened.

What I also said in that same post was, "I think we focus too much on the perpetrators and not enough on the victims. 'What he did' is not as important as how it affected her." If she didn't know about it, it didn't affect her. But the same principle goes both ways. If she was raped, repeatedly and violently, our society concentrates more on incarcerating the perpetrator than on helping the victim. Sure, it's important to prevent the perpetrator from re-offending. All I'm saying is that the effect on the victim should have primary importance.

 

[sideshowbob]

If you're not caught, it's legal?

More like: no harm, no foul.

The crime is committed in the action, not in the witnessing of the action.

Crime ought to be about harm, the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. That's why the law is subject to judiciary interpretation.

 

[billvon]

That was only part of the larger question, which is: Is there a crime when the "victim" doesn't know anything happened? (Discounting comas and other forms of incapacity.)

And we've come full circle.
Yes, it's a crime when the victim doesn't know about it. It is the action, not the knowledge of that action by the victim, which makes it a crime.
No, fantasizing about someone is not a crime. There's no action.

 

[sideshowbob]

It is the action, not the knowledge of that action by the victim, which makes it a crime.

That's what's wrong with our legal system. There should be more emphasis on the victim than on punishing people for technicalities that didn't hurt anybody.

 

[billvon]

That's what's wrong with our legal system. There should be more emphasis on the victim than on punishing people for technicalities that didn't hurt anybody.

I disagree.

Do you think if a pilot gets falling-down drunk, gets on an airplane and flies 280 people to their destination (and lands hard, but with no injuries) that no crime was committed because no one was hurt?

If a man fires his semiautomatic rifle into a crowd, but miraculously no one is injured, should he escape punishment because no one was hurt?

If someone steals your car, but you are sent on TDY for a year and so you don't notice - should the police not arrest the thief, because you didn't know your car was gone?

 

[sideshowbob]

I disagree.

Do you think if a pilot gets falling-down drunk, gets on an airplane and flies 280 people to their destination (and lands hard, but with no injuries) that no crime was committed because no one was hurt?

If a man fires his semiautomatic rifle into a crowd, but miraculously no one is injured, should he escape punishment because no one was hurt?

If someone steals your car, but you are sent on TDY for a year and so you don't notice - should the police not arrest the thief, because you didn't know your car was gone?

Finding out that your pilot was drunk would cause psychological harm. Surviving a shooting would cause psychological harm. If your car is "borrowed" with no damage done, no harm, no foul.

If I leave my change on the table at a bar and somebody takes a nickel when I didn't even know how much I had, should he go to jail?

 

[Jeeves]

Finding out that your pilot was drunk would cause psychological harm. Surviving a shooting would cause psychological harm.

It wouldn't cause them any damage if they didn't find out. But the pilot and his four drinking buddies who did know, and considered it okay since nobody was hurt that time, could go right on drinking on duty, and that would be all right by you, until one of them crashed a plane, killing 450 people....
.... which deaths are on your hands for allowing pilots to drink on duty, so long as they're sure the passengers don't know.
We don't just make laws on an ad hoc basis; we make them to protect the population from the probable consequences of certain actions - even if those cosnquences don't manifest every single time the law is broken.

 

[sideshowbob]

But the pilot and his four drinking buddies who did know, and considered it okay since nobody was hurt that time, could go right on drinking on duty, and that would be all right by you,

Fair enough, a law to prevent potential harm is sometimes justifiable.

So how does that apply to a woman who has had "something" done in her presence that she doesn't know about?

 

[Jeeves]

Fair enough, a law to prevent potential harm is sometimes justifiable.

So how does that apply to a woman who has had "something" done in her presence that she doesn't know about?

No license for abuse. No double standard. Prevention of such offences through drugs - yes, even if you're a doctor and she was under general anaesthetic for a legitimate procedure and your invasion was a bonus. No "How come it was all right when my friend the judge didn't get caught, and it was all right until my victim discovered that she's pregnant?" No "stealing is against the law, unless you do it cleverly".
Taking liberties with another's person, work, property or privacy is wrong; it is therefore against the law; it is therefore criminal.
No exceptions; no loopholes; no weasel-clauses.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Guys maybe thinking too much about what is a crime over having the punishment fit the crime.

:EDIT:

lol not my best sentence.

 

[billvon]

Finding out that your pilot was drunk would cause psychological harm.

Not if no one found out. Right? So if an airline successfully hides its drunk pilots, it means no crime is committed.

Surviving a shooting would cause psychological harm.

Again, as long as you convinced people there was no shooting - they were firecrackers or something - then no crime; let him go with a pat on the back. Right? I mean, what's the worst that can happen?

If I leave my change on the table at a bar and somebody takes a nickel when I didn't even know how much I had, should he go to jail?

No, because you left it there as a tip (and if you didn't, that's your fault.) Servers do not go to jail for getting tips.

(edited to add)

Fair enough, a law to prevent potential harm is sometimes justifiable.

There you go. A law that protects people and their property from undue risk is often a good law - and is quite enforceable.

 

[Jeeves]

So if a church successfully hides its child-abusing priests...

maybe thinking too much about what is a crime over having the punishment fit the crime.

But crimes are generally judged on their severity. The otherwise record-free thief who took $5 from an account nobody noticed until the yearly audit won't get more than a caution; the car-borrower who didn't damage it and refilled the tank gets a few hundred hours of community service instead of jail; I've already let you and you naughty husband off with a tongue-lashing.
Most criminal justice systems in populous and heterogeous societies don't have the facilities or leisure to make every punishment fit every crime, but judges certainly have a lot of leeway in the sentencing or minor, non-federal and juvenile crimes, as well as small claims civil litigation.
In a small community like a native village, punishment and rehabilitation can be far more closely custom-fitted.

 

[Jeeves]

Come to think of it, attempted murder shouldn't be a crime, either.
Wait till the sniper improves his aim and actually kills somebody before you arrest him.