Posted on 04/23/2007 9:50:42 PM PDT by goldstategop
America's news media, an amoral university, an opportunistic district attorney, and a police department that seems to have collaborated in framing innocent students all combined to nearly destroy the lives of three innocent young men -- members of the Duke University lacrosse team.
The attorney general of North Carolina announced that all charges -- of rape, sexual assault and whatever other charges a mendacious young woman got Mike Nifong to bring against the Duke lacrosse team players -- were being dropped. He pronounced the students "innocent," not merely "not guilty." And the attorney general also declared Nifong a "rogue prosecutor."
The lessons of this terrible story are obvious, but given the political correctness of our time and the inverted values that prevail among America's elites -- particularly the news media, the universities and the legal profession -- these lessons will rarely be expressed, let alone learned.
First, the rape of a name is also a rape. A false accusation of rape can be as devastating to a man and his family as a real rape can be to a woman and her family. Sometimes a real rape is more destructive; sometimes the rape of a name is more destructive. It is therefore a grave injustice not to prosecute the woman who brought these false charges.
Second, moral Americans of every race must acknowledge that our society has a problem of anti-white prejudice in parts of the African American community. Proportionally, it seems that more blacks unfairly mistrust whites than whites unfairly mistrust blacks. Mike Nifong won his race for district attorney largely by appealing to this prejudice.
Third, it is utterly unjust that the families of the Duke lacrosse players had to pay millions of dollars in attorneys fees to defend their sons against a lying woman and a morally corrupt district attorney. Such injustices happen every day because the American legal system, unlike that of other countries such as Great Britain, forces those who win lawsuits wrongly brought against them to pay all their legal bills. Trial lawyers and the Democratic Party, which trial lawyers fund, prevent all reform in this area in order to allow frivolous lawsuits and their accompanying high lawyer profits to continue. That is why three young men who did nothing wrong have cost their families much, if not all, of their life savings.
Fourth, while Duke University has good individuals, like most universities today, Duke is a moral wasteland. Eight-eight professors, abetted by Duke's president, created a mob mentality against the young men not unlike that of a lynch mob. Of course, nothing will be done to Duke's president or to those professors. To get fired as the president of an elite American university, one must suggest that men and women are innately different. Politically incorrect truth telling -- not race-, gender- or class-baiting of whites, athletes or males -- gets you fired. And Duke alumni will continue to fund Duke, just as Columbia University alumni are funding Columbia with record donations despite Columbia's reluctance to discipline radical students who violently disrupted a conservative speaker on campus last year.
Fifth, the moral vision of much of the Left, which led the anti-white athlete hysteria, was revealed again. It views the world not as a conflict between good and evil but between white and black, male and female, and rich and poor. The athletes were rich and white and male. For many on the Left, that alone made them villains. As a general proposition, subject to exceptions that accompany all generalizations, the Left has considerably more compassion for groups (racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and sexual groups it favors) than for individuals.
Sixth, any time Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson get in front of cameras on a race matter, assume that they are there to inflame, not heal. We await their apologies to the three Duke students. But we are also awaiting Al Sharpton's apologies to those he libeled in the Tawana Brawley rape hoax.
Seventh, the next time you hear that someone was indicted by a grand jury, unless you have knowledge of the case, or reason suggests possible guilt, don't assume it. As Joe Cheshire, one of the accused boys' lawyers said, "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich for the death of a pig."
Eighth, it is time to drop the anti-male bigotry and either hide the names of accused rapists -- at least until their indictment -- or also reveal the names of their accusers. Short of that, the press and justice system surely have the moral obligation to reveal the names of false accusers of rape. It is almost beyond belief (but little is anymore) that news media like The New York Times will still not reveal the name of the lying accuser. For the record, it is Crystal Mangum. Shame on her and her supporters.
I weep for those boys and their families. And I fear for America.
It is when liberals are involved.
A prejudice fostered and carefully nursed by the democrat party in order to create a sense of victimhood, garner a misguided loyalty and obtain votes through their heinous Votes for Food programs.
A ninth lesson might be for college teams, frats etc. everywhere to recognize that they can easily be victimized and not put themselves in potentially morally compromising situations by hiring strippers. Just a thought.
I am not really sure how loser pay fits into this, but the other lessons seem quite apt to me.
I see your point and it probably doesn’t being the three were from well to do families (luckily for them) and the accuser has nothing.
I took his meaning to be that many fewer false cases would be filed if we had loser pay laws. Of course like he points out, trial lawyers don’t want that to happen, JMO.
I sent two group emails to the Duke88. The only response I received was from one Paula McClain, who among her other offices is the Co-Director, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity
and Gender in the Social Sciences at Duke. Below is the 2nd iteration of the two messages that I sent.
The Duke Rape case is a crystallization (pardon the pun) of all the corruption to the rule of law, linear reasoning and the presumption of innocence engendered by political correctness and Cultural Marxism (particularly that personified by campus professorial elites) .
It has added a new phrase to the lexicon: To be Nifonged. The egregious conduct of Nifong will be addressed in other venues. As an Illinois state policeman for 28 years, I can say with near complete confidence that a case like this with these facts would never have passed Felony Review with even the WORST State’s Attorney that I ever dealt with.
The most important lesson to be gleaned from this is that Tawana Brawley Syndrome is no substitute for a proper analysis of the objective facts. I LOVE to see liberals like you hoisted on the petard of Political Correctness, racial identity politics, gender determinint feminism and what I have coined as “Tawana Brawley Syndrome”.
TBS exists when one takes a historical reality such as the marginalization of innocent blacks within a once overtly racist criminal justice system or the past subjugation of women or any number of other offenses and attempts to apply that to a contemporary situation wherein the objective facts don’t apply; ala OJ Simpson, Rodney King, Anita Hill etc.
None of this would have happened if an unscrupulous DA had not chosen to exploit racial identity politics using an apparently mentally ill woman for his political gain, and if the Duke 88, the Durham black community, the radical feminists, and the racial grievance industry merchants had sifted thru the facts objectively and not attempted to stuff them into lurid post modern meta-narratives of privileged white male elites sexually exploiting black women. But than the attendant historical overtones of plantation sexual abuse were probably too much for them to resist. I have increasingly noted that fact and truth present no barrier to the fanatical Cultural Marxist.
My question now is this: Will all those who stampeded to rush to judge and vilify these innocent men now arrange a meeting with them, ala Imus to apologize and create a genuine aura of “healing”? I hope so but I don’t think so, because often being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.
Aside from the fact that petty tyrants like you have turned US college campuses into little ivy covered North Koreas, I suspect that you were seeking to appropriate PC bonus points and obtain instant moral authority by championing the cause of the “other” (marginalized black exotic dancer) against racist male chauvinist members of the privileged white elite. A case of cultural Marxist Class warfare that boomeranged. GOD how I love it so!!!!!
Even though I despise the racial identity politics that mindlessly multicultural cultural Marxists like you have fostered amongst my people to our ultimate detriment, I would like to state that I am a black man living in the heart of Chicago’s South Side ghetto, who values the rule of law and truth as best as it can be objectively and humanly determined.
It would be fitting if he gets a pretty penny from you.
I got the response below:
Your continued messages have now moved into the realm of harassment and
I have reported you to your service provider for using abusive and
inappropriate language in your email which was sent through their servers.
Paula D. McClain
Professor of Political Science
Professor of Public Policy
Department of Political Science
Co-Director, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity
and Gender in the Social Sciences
Duke University
Accordingly, I responded as follows
I was unaware that the 2 emails that I sent to you had caused you such distress. I wish to tender my apologies and desire to assure you that you shall receive no further messages from me. But since you are a college professor I was acting upon the putative assumption that universities are about the exchange of ideas, and I thought that my admittedly critically gloating message might prompt a suitable rejoinder. My missive was harsh, yes even severe. But it does contain concepts and ideas that however offensive ought to provoke a suitably barbed retort rather than a threat of server censorship.
Alas, I shall have to reconsider the notion that the campus is about the free exchange of ideas. But this is precisely what I was getting at in my email. If you can ever manage to free yourself from leftist dogmatic doctrine maybe you will realize that.
This is the best evidence of the thought policing that must be extant on all too many college campuses. If she can threaten me with this, someone unconnected with Duke University, just imagine the ax that she wields over any dissenting students!!!! Political Correctness is the intellectual scourge of our time and the worst threat to academic freedom that I have ever seen.
That, sir, is just a work of art. It completely eviscerates the group of 88, in language they completely understand.
In a just world, that exchange would be printed in the Duke student newspaper, as well as the Durham News & Observer.
A few pings.
Nice work, sir.
Seems like all the good professor is interested in is how many tags she can put after her name ~ almost as many words as her message....
Excellent response to a person of her stature in academia. She seems very proud of her accomplishments, too bad she never learned anything.
Thanks for the ping, FreedomPoster.
Terrific email! I like your style.
That response you received from McClain sounds to me like a boilerplate response. I have a feeling that she and the rest of the “88” have been flooded with emails, and she probably has that pre-written response emailed automatically to anybody (anybody she doesn’t know) who sends her more than one email.
Nice.
thanks
A most grateful PING, indeed.
Frank, y’all done good, as they say. You have been subjected to censorship by Leftist forces. That means, you and a multitude of others have stroked a nerve.
I should like to remember your phrase, “Cultural Marxists”. A most apt phrase, which I hope gets mileage.
Okay, enough philosophy for this evening. Good night.
Now *you* are cool :) I’d venture to guess you won’t get anything back from her that speaks to the substance of your letters. She basically said, “Eeeew, it’s one of THOSE people!”
And Crystal GAil Mangum should be prosecuted.
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