A great article -- thanks! I want to push back on one piece (and not the crux of this, but you sparked a thought). The older I get, the less sure I am that even taking into account what a woman is wearing during an assault is *entirely* wrong. I am not -- NOT -- saying that there's any kind of outfit that warrants assault. Nothing *warrants* assault. But we all advertise certain things about ourselves, whether knowingly or not, by what we wear. If a woman dresses in a way that advertises availability, people will think she's available. And if they think she's available but then find out that she isn't, a small subset of them might feel tricked. Of those who feel tricked, an even smaller subset might get angry. And if there's a tiny subset of men who feel tricked and angry by this woman's "false advertising," there might, *might* be one among them who was always morally/psychologically capable of assault, given the right circumstances.
I want to be really, explicitly clear here. I am *not* saying a woman wearing a dress or a miniskirt or a bikini or a low-cut shirt or whatever else we might be talking about is asking for assault. But let's be real: she *is* asking for attention. Assuming she's young (as the majority of victims are), she probably doesn't understand that, while she has a say in what she wears, she doesn't have a say in who is giving her attention. She can't wear a sexy outfit so that the guy in her algebra class will look her way but then balk when the nerdy guy in her theater class tries to talk to her (a real scenario, and the guy in my algebra class didn't even look at me, after all that!). The girls who are right now wearing tiny tiny shorts and extra-extra-large sweatshirts (so that all we see are bare legs without the slightest hindrance) in the hopes of getting the cute guy's attention will one day become adults who will look back and realize that they were getting *everyone's* attention -- even from the guys (or men) whose attention they didn't want. Even if nothing bad ever happens to them, it's still an uncomfortable truth to swallow.
I'm also not throwing all men under the bus as nothing but "potential rapists" or "future rapists," or whatever the hell people call them. I've interacted with tens of thousands of men, if not more, in my lifetime, and the vast majority of those interactions have been either pleasant or too short to have any lasting effect. Of the remainder, they all backed off once I gave them attitude. I have never in my life encountered a man who was truly dangerous and not able or willing to hold himself back. But we need to be real here too: men (especially young men) are more visually stimulated, more overtly sexual, *and more dangerous* than young women. I don't want to police women's outfits (not counting my daughters', whose outfits I absolutely police), but I also don't want to send young women out into the world without understanding that what they wear really does send messages to people.
Again, not the point of this great article, but it's something that's been swirling around my mind for the last decade or so, and this re-sparked it. I'd be interested to see what others think.
I don't think that's unreasonable. Dressing provocatively could land you on the radar of a dangerous person whose radar you might have avoided in sweat pants. I just think at that end of the spectrum, we're in similar territory as, "well, it wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed home and watched Netflix." Also perhaps true, though not terribly useful as a framework for understanding action and consequence.
Agreed on just about every point. The only thing I might differ on is the idea of "policing" how women dress. Language here is important; actively going around telling young women what they can and can't wear via shaming and other nasty methods is obviously bad, but avoiding that shouldn't preclude us from having an open, public, good faith discussion about how dress matters as a form of communication/expression.
I think in our effort to end policing and shaming, we basically made it impossible to talk about the risks and responsibilities that come with being a young single woman. I was still in school during peak woke, so I remember the attitudes very well. To your point, a lot of college-age girls don't even understand what they're communicating when they dress skimpy (because literally no one ever told them!). Many aren't even looking for attention from men and are just going with the flow/wearing the party uniform, or playing status games amongst themselves.
We weren't allowed to speak openly about how men operate, either. You'd be painting a target on your back (at least I feel I did - maybe it would be different coming from a woman) if you suggested that a lot of sexual misconduct cases are preventable with good communication before and during the act. At least on college campuses, most rapes weren't of the openly violent sort, they were cases of dubious/ambiguous consent. Perps were men at the bottom of the bell curve in terms of wits and empathy, but not people that would consciously and intentionally commit rape. Dumb frat bro is an asshole, but he's not waiting in the bushes.
All that to say - young night life scene is tricky to navigate, and the conventional wisdom of "do whatever you want, girl" is wildly irresponsible to peddle. While we're privately allowed to police the dressing habits of our loved ones, we still aren't allowed to openly address the issue on the cultural level. We're probably gonna have to destigmatize the idea of policing if we want to make any progress on that front.
That's also a good point. I used to be pretty obnoxious about modesty in dress codes - STOP POLICING WOMEN'S FASHION CHOICES - but there are other reasons to do that besides assault avoidance. How we dress matters. I wouldn't wear my skimpy, 80s style running shorts that my butt practically hangs out of to work.
Well said. My mother taught me to dress modestly from as young as I can remember. I preferred smart men who thought girls who were too slutty were a turn off. I’m so glad I was young when we could speak openly !
I think the fact that you had to qualify your entirely reasonable take with so many disclaimers really says it all (I get it, these people are absolutely vicious when they lock onto you)
Thanks for that, I feel seen. When I was editing this, I wanted to take out about 8 paragraphs in the first section, but with every one of them, it was like, "welp, if I don't include that, I'll be vulnerable to THIS dumbass talking point." Getting yelled at by idiots for 10 years has an effect.
Men rape farm animals. They rape elderly women in nursing homes. They hesitate to hire them in nursing homes because they rape cadavers. They rape unconscious women in ICU units. They rape their own daughters, sisters and nieces to the extent that 1 in 8000 births is from incest - a horrific revelation that DNA testing exposed. A man in France got close to 100 neighbors to rape his drugged and unconscious elderly wife by recruiting online. Some of their excuses included thinking she "wanted it" or "her husband's permission was enough." How dare you imply it's about attraction or what a young woman is wearing. It's because of people like you always blaming the victim and NOT coming down hard on the penised people who are never effectively taught to keep said penis in their pants. From the age of 9 or 10, we're taught how to guard against assault and rape, but they're not taught to not rape. That's the real problem.
The only bone I'd pick here is the suggestion that men aren't taught appropriate behavior. They absolutely are, it's just that some of them are deviants who break rules. Deviants know they're deviants, they just act out anyway. You can't educate it out of them, they just have to go.
Men that rape are unteachable. The only way to deal with them is to identify them and have them punished or neutered.
The problem isn't that men aren't taught not to rape - they are, at least in this country - it's that there'll always be a certain portion of men, probably <1%, that simply have zero impulse control or social receptiveness. They do not care what you teach them or want society expects of them; they're slaves to their desires, like animals. Again, we're talking a very small percentage of people, but they're not going away and new ones will be born every day.
Men evolved this bell curve for a reason, but nature obviously isn't the end-all-be-all.
I agree with the first part of your comment. Because some men are monsters, and because they don't wear nametags proclaiming them as such, women are at least a little bit at risk when out and about. I don't think it's fair or good or any of that, but it is the reality of the world. And it's something I'm actively teaching my sons, so that they'll grow into men who use their strength for good and protection.
Respectfully, though, I think the second half of your comment makes a few unfair assumptions, namely that it's "people like me" who are the problem or that "[boys/men] aren't taught to not rape." You have absolutely no idea what kind of person I am, except that you disagree with one comment you read that was in response to one side point in one person's article.
I also don't know where you're getting the idea that we don't teach men not to rape. Every single person I know, read, listen to, am aware of, whatever -- man or woman -- who has ever said anything on the subject at all is pretty conclusive that men shouldn't rape, rapists are monsters, etc. But there are evil people in the world, and there will be no matter what we do.
Are you saying that there is no case where rape occurs because the rapist found the victim attractive? Or that it is such a vanishingly small amount that it's not worth considering?
I find that hard to believe, I would imagine that a man who is planning on drugging a woman to have sex with her, would probably filter for someone he finds attractive. But maybe I'm wrong, I don't claim to have the insight into a rapists thought processes that you seem to.
Sure maybe there's some freaks who can't get a woman to have sex with them so they rape an attractive one to "get back at" women. What does that prove?
"Was it really my fault?" asked the Short Skirt.
"No, it happened with me too,'" replied the Burka.
One may have a hand in one's own demise or distress without justifying the one causing harm. If sexual assault is wrong, it is not justified by a young, fit woman walking naked down a wooded path, foolish as her choice may be.
Women get raped in fucking Afghanistan and Iraq. They're barely allowed to leave the house and dress in the equivalent of cloth hefty bags. What the fuck more are women supposed to do? The "I was taught to dress modestly so I'm unrapable" woman makes me sick.
The rebuttal here, which wasn't touched on in the article, is that even ugly, unattractive women in sweats get raped. Yes, provocative dress can attract unwelcome attention, possibly (date) rape, but rape exists outside of sexuality, as evidenced by the not infrequent rape of little old ladies, and male rape, i.e. if a prisoner is gang raped no one asks what he was wearing.
I think there is a difference between implying a woman was acting imprudent by dressing a certain way and implying that a rapist is less culpable because a woman dressed a certain way. It's the latter that is really offensive.
I think that stranger rape is rarely about sex just violence. When it comes to date rape there may be a higher chance that a woman in very provocative clothes is more likely to hook up with a man who takes it too far. But I think it’s more likely correlation than causation. The cause of date rape is that people raping someone they are on a date with. This gets way easier if everyone is drunk.
If you think it was verboten to suggest George Floyd was an active participant in his demise, try suggesting that he wasn’t murdered at all but actually died of a fentanyl overdose.
To be honest, that one has always made me squint. Drugs were listed on the autopsy as contributing factors to the cardiopulmonary arrest that killed him (that kills *everyone* - we all die from that, it's the proximate cause that matters) but are we really to believe that Floyd just coincidentally OD'd at that precise moment? Nothing about his actions in that video looked like an OD. His underlying health issues seem unlikely to have killed him then if not for the knee on his neck.
I understand the argument: Chauvin's actions would have been unlikely to kill a healthier person, ergo he shouldn't be held responsible. I'm just not sure that washes, even if Chauvin got an especially heavy sentence. If I kneel on a 90 year old woman's neck, and she dies of a heart attack (but not asphyxiation), would we really say that I didn't kill her? Nonetheless, it was a political prosecution, so I have no problem with it being reexamined.
I had a friend kneel on my neck and had no trouble breathing at all but it was very uncomfortable. Fentanyl + advanced heart disease + stress would have been enough to kill him. Sometimes coincidences do occur.
Are you familiar with the "thin skull rule", or the principle that one must "take their victims as they find them"?
It's a concept in common law that it's not a defense that you didn't know, nor could be expected to know, that your illegal actions would cause unreasonable damage due to a peculiarity of the victim.
There are a number of leftists who would read your article, understand it fully, and choose to antagonize police in the hopes that they might become a martyr.
Some, sure. The left does attract those types. A much bigger problem though is how many lefties appear to think fighting cops is a protected form of speech. It...isn't.
Are they “fighting cops”? Or are they doing exactly what Civil Rights leaders did when they refused to leave their seat on the bus, and had to be dragged away by police officers? Are they doing exactly what Civil Rights leaders did, to a T, when they staged “illegal protests” and were subjected to dog attacks and fire hoses?
There are few on the Left willing to give their lives for a cause. There are many on the Left willing to give your life for a cause. Included among them is every politician justifying open borders, sanctuary cities, leniency on imported criminals, antagonizing and obstructing law enforcement...
Nobody believes that. Especially now with the evidence of the impact of far fewer illegals. (and to be clear, other than the Somali fraud gangs, few of our legal immigrants are a concern to anyone, but nice try moving the bar.)
I'm not sure, at this point, they understand the price of being a martyr. I think some are functioning at a level where they think if they do it right they can get martyred and still make it to their dinner reservations on time.
Violent death is so unreal to them I don't think they consider it the same way they might a cancer diagnosis.
I had given some thought to the early Church's struggle with new converts immediately trying to get martyred. I think there is a strong parallel there.
Why we need are the early bishops and presbyrs who spot out against seeking pointless martyrdom.
She was a murder victim, not a martyr. When she cheerfully said "I'm not mad" to her murderer seconds before he blew her head off, she had no intention of becoming a martyr. Herby here specifically asserted that democrats are "trying to get martyred" so your example doesn't make an iota of sense.
Some basics: murder victim and martyr are not mutual exclusive. In fact, they are more often than not linked. The murder is what makes them a martyr.
After an initial person is killed and celebrated for having died in the cause others, seeking the same approval, actively place themselves in situations that lead to their deaths even if the first person did not.
This is nothing new. As mentioned in other comments this was a huge problem for the early Christian church, to the point bishops and presbyrs actively preached against it.
I'm not sure why that is so difficult to understand. Someone was killed doing something, resisting ICE, others assign a high moral value to and this is celebrated as having given all for that cause.
Others, seeking the same praise, might be inspired to try and get the same result, in this case be murdered by fascists.
Still others exert social pressures which push back against that. In that case that pressure is in the form of claiming that the initial victim does not qualify as a martyr or, if she does, as a lesser one.
You know what? If they believe that deeply in the cause they are willing to give their lives for it, then let them proceed. There are causes that are worth martyrdom. But they should do so *knowing* that that is what they are doing - dying, or at least accepting the risk of death, to make their stand.
Renee Good was not that. She had no exit strategy. She had no plan, no preparation to accept the (hopefully just legal, but…) consequences of her civil disobedience. And I don’t think she was planning for suicide by cop either. She didn’t even get her dog out of her car!
Did she die actually believing the narrative that ICE are mere racist thugs and therefore her white privilege power would protect her from any real consequences?
On this note, I don't actually know what the cause here is. Is it open borders? Is it a states rights thing? They don't think the federal government can interfere with sanctuary cities? Do they just want ICE to behave themselves better? Like, if people are out getting their skulls cracked for this, shouldn't we at least know what *this* is?
I don’t know either. The ICE Watch types seem to genuinely just hate the idea of deporting people full stop. In a very emotive way that will escalate so long as ICE escalates, but won’t go away even if ICE starts dressing like neighborhood cops and uber-politely goes about picking up only violent felons. It’s ACAB + No One Is Illegal + Orange Man Bad.
I want to maintain some epistemic humility but it genuinely doesn’t seem from the outside that there is a fully coherent policy goal / immigration strategy beyond “not seeing ICE agents in our community anymore”.
All that said my comment and criticism of the Goods was intended to be somewhat cause-agnostic.
Honest answer, I think her cause was "to stop the spread of fascism". You can question if she was doing that on several levels but I'm pretty sure that she would tell you that was her cause.
Weird take. I made no judgement on the cause itself, just saying if you are gonna go do martyr shit, be serious about it. It’s not a game.
My last statement was merely speculating on why her inability to model the mind of her chosen adversary may have given her a false sense of safety.
I wouldn’t have told the Christians not to believe in heaven… but I’d have probably said “hey if your plan is to provoke the Romans, don’t assume an angel is going to swoop down at the last moment to save you from a gladius to the gut.” Also please brush up on your Latin grammar before doing graffiti.
The left's tactic of "kick the dog till it bites then post a picture of the dog biting the kicker and demand the dog be put down" relies on the "no victim-blaming" framework.
The left's narrative here is "Renee Good was just sitting in her car, reading Susan Sontag poems and minding her own business when out of nowhere some ICE goon came up and shot her in the face."
The only way to counter the left's narrative is to show video of the leadup to the situation and to put the "I'm not touching you" tactics on display.
After 2020, the public is sick and tired of soup-throwing mouthy disrespectful AWFL protesters. Context is the key to nullifying the left's "don't blame the victim" narrative.
I think for healthy life people need an exposure to what violence is really like when they're young. Men are more likely to get it, but even many of us are too sheltered from consequences.
There's a general lack of respect for how fragile we really are and this thought process that nothing bad ever happens to the "good guys".
The world isn't fair and it's certainly not a young adult novel made movie about "The Resistance". Antagonizing people that you swear up and down are violent fascists is a bad idea. It also shows that you don't truly think they're violent fascists, but that's a whole different story.
For a healthy life I'd throw in a statistics class as well, because the whole "would you feel safer coming across a man or a bear in the woods" thing was truly bizarre. I fully understand the point people were trying to make, but it only makes that point if you have a very poor understanding about odds and a really skewed perception of the relative danger of each participant.
"I think for healthy life people need an exposure to what violence is really like when they're young. Men are more likely to get it, but even many of us are too sheltered from consequences."
There is a lot of truth here.
The amount of sheer disbelieve that this could happen by people who continually claim ICE is the Gestapo is something I'm still trying to wrap my head around.
It is one thing to knowingly risk deadly violence to protest and attempt to prevent what you perceive as injustice but I don't think that is what is happening here.
I do believe these people think they are protesting and attempting to prevent an injustice. I even think they'll tell you they are willing to risk deadly violence.
It's the knowingly part I'm not sure they understand.
It's like the metastasized version of the woman who went to one of the Berkley protests in 2016 who posted on Facebook herself with a wine bottle talking about being ready to punch Nazis. When she later wound up in the ER because she got punched in the rioting she complained they hit a girl.
She thought the people she called Nazis weren't allowed to hit back.
Violence is chaotic and uncontrolled and frightening and unpredictable and understanding that helps you understand why you avoid it.
Back in the “peak woke” era, I used to live in a fairly rough area, and this young mother posted on NextDoor (yeah, I know lol… but bear with me) about how some loopy homeless dude kept following her and making lewd comments while she was pushing her stroller at the park. This tough older lady who had a black belt in jiu jitsu gave her some pointers (be aware of your surroundings, don’t travel alone if possible, carry a whistle, etc) and offered to give her some self-defense lessons in case it happened again.
No joke, seemingly everyone else in the group SWARMED her, accusing her of “victim blaming” and that she was assigning blame to the mom for getting accosted, yadda yadda. Not one person defended her (probably because they didn’t want to bring the head on themselves, understandably). She argued back as best as she could but of course it was fruitless. And all she did was try to be a good neighbor and help out a vulnerable young mother and baby in an area absolutely saturated with fentanyl and unstable vagrants (who straight up aren’t going to care about “just don’t SA anyone!” and will just do it anyway, no matter how many times they’re admonished otherwise). No good deed goes unpunished, indeed.
These people are insane. And the funny/sad part is, these were the same people who’d screech at city council whenever the circus came into town. So sick of this moralistic pissing contest infecting literally every corner of the discourse. I’m at a point where I think we should administer a logic and critical thinking test before being allowed to post online (I jest, obviously… but sometimes I do wonder).
That was the reaction I got. It was completely insane. One of my reactions to it was just: we did not used to do this. This crazy prohibition on any sort of victim blaming came out of nowhere, and now people are roasting women for offering to help their neighbors. Madness.
There is a serious difference between teaching people accountability (don't binge drink) and blaming victims to shift blame away from perpetrators. In this case, I see the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of Homeland Security all victim blaming in order to obscure the fact that there are real problems with ICE. Yes, there are people on the left ignoring Ms. Good's role in creating the situation, but that pales in comparison to the senior leaders of the country gaslighting us and avoiding taking responsibility for a death that should not have occurred.
I hope that protesters to do learn from this situation and take steps to keep themselves safe. But I hope far more that serious leaders would say that Officer Wood should never be on the street again, that ICE training should signficantly improve, and that sending thousands of agents dressed like soldiers into neighborhoods is completely unnecessary provocation.
Ultimately we have tens millions of illegal immigrants here as well as spurious asylees.
They need to be removed. Artificially creating circumstances for tragedies with spoiled people breaking the law doesn't change that.
The illegal aliens should not be here and need to be deported. Good should not have been obstructing them, she should have gotten out of the car, and she shouldn't have tried to drive away.
Actions have reactions. You don't get to break the law repeatedly whether on a grand scale of aiding and abetting illegal aliens pouring into the country for decades or playing games trying to be a hero and then complain when things come back your way.
We've been tolerating this nonsense for too long. I'm on Team Double Down.
Even if we accept your assertion that we need to deport every undocumented person, that still doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems with the way the ICE agent acted. Both things can be true: we can continue to deport people and we can have ICE agents that don’t shoot people, even if they are provoked, and even if people are breaking the law. We also don’t need ICE teams dressed like army units to deport the vast majority of people who are nonviolent and minding their own business. Finally, you can support the president’s deportation strategy, and still acknowledge that he grossly mischaracterized the situation, just as you can generally support Renee good’s position, and still acknowledge that she put herself in harms way.
She didn't provoke him; she attempted to kill him. Either intentionally or through stupidity, while committing one crime, which was fleeing after she'd been stopped by officers. Let's be clear, she absolutely knew they were officers because, in addition to being clearly marked and "dressed like army units", she was busy committing another crime, which was intentionally obstructing their operations.
Driving a car into or at someone is lethal force; she directed it at him and received lethal force in return. There have been conflicting reports over whether the officer was supposed to be standing in front of the car. To me it was a tactical mistake, since crazy psychopaths will try and run you over, but he was completely morally justified in shooting her. Renee Good earned her death. I hope others learn from her mistakes.
As far as illegal aliens minding their own business, they could have done so in their own country instead of breaking into ours. They're not minding their own business when they're included on the census and used for political gain. They're not minding their own business when they use our social services, whether that's welfare, our school systems, our healthcare services, etc. You can try to argue that they pay in, but they're a proven net drain on those services. They're also not minding their own business when they're working under the table and undercutting Americans on the lowest end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
If Democrats want to turn down the heat and make things better, they can drop the Sanctuary City nonsense and hand over illegal aliens when they're arrested for other causes. That alone would improve things dramatically and help get the most dangerous out. They won't do that unless they're forced to because they stand to much to lose, and they also refuse to lose face to Trump. Plus, they don't care if useful idiots like Good die as long as they think it plays well to their base.
I think impending funding cuts to the cities (after they inevitably work their way through the courts), and changing public opinion will eventually end the Sanctuary status, but it's likely to cost a few more misguided fools their lives as well as the continued preventable deaths caused by illegal aliens.
This has been wrong for decades. I don't care whether it was Republicans doing it to lower wages, or Democrats doing to shift voting demographics, it's still wrong.
Imagine you are in a plane. It's just you and the pilot, and you're cruising at 10000 feet. If you already know how to fly a plane, imagine that you don't. Unknown to you, the pilot took two doses of his powerful pain medicine by accident before takeoff and becomes unresponsive mid flight.
Whose responsibility is it to land the plane?
Whose fault is the plane crash that is likely to result?
Fault and responsibility are entirely different objects, and the discourse around victim blaming has collapsed them into one.
It remains true that neither side wishes for nuance or a "both things can be true" approach. I'm glad winter is here and cue a new outrage to distract us all.
This is a great essay which pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. One thing I keep noticing is the comparisons between Renee Good and George Floyd/Michael Brown. I think the more apt comparison is that she is the left's Kyle Rittenhouse. She is being martyred by the Left while being painted as a crazy bluehaired Karen by the Right. Conversely, Rittenhouse was held up as a folk hero by the Right and smeared as a racist thug by the Left.
The truth is that both were naive people that stupidly put themselves in situations they never should have been in, and they found out the hard way. Neither deserved to be attacked, but both set themselves up to be. And people's viewpoint of either of them depends entirely on their ideological priors.
Context and circumstances matter in every situation. A person trying to do backflips off of a ski jump doesn't deserve to die, but they are assuming risk and a higher likelihood of negative foreseeable consequences than someone slowly skiing down in control. Drug users don't deserve to overdose, but the danger of overdose is why so many people don't use drugs.
Committing a crime, even a small one, increases the likelihood of a negative interaction with law enforcement. Refusing to comply with good faith police inquiry, even if the cop is subjectively wrong about you (which in so many of these cases they weren't), greatly increases the chance of escalation and a negative outcome.
The left desperately wants George Floyd and Michael Brown to have been productive citizens going about their day targeted by racist evil cops that wanted nothing but to execute a random black person. So far from the truth.
In all these instances the argument against victim blaming is the argument that certain perceptively weaker groups should not be held accountable for contributing to a negative situation. We can't run a functioning society without individual accountability and realizing that many "victims" are totally complicit in the circumstances and outcomes they claim to not want.
It seems to me that the debate comes down to whether immigration law is legitimate. The right thinks it is. The left doesn’t (some will be wishy washy but push comes to shove and “no person is illegal”).
If you think that armed goons with no authority are going after innocent people that don’t deserve it then you’re going to think risking your life in tense encounters is legitimate. If you think ICE is mostly just doing its jobs then this all seems like insane insurrectionism by mentally unstable people.
ICE was there to arrest specific people that had been convicted (not just charged, convicted) of crimes. They weren't just snatching and "disappearing black and brown" people off the street. I found this on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement page: https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-dozens-criminal-illegal-aliens-convicted-murder-child-rape-and-more So these people are who little miss Social Justice Rambo and the rest of her unhinged ilk wanted to protect.
I believe in the right of people to protest laws I think are legitimate, and believe that if they engage in civil disobedience the police should respond with appropriate levels of force and not escalate. I am pro-choice, but if Good had been shot while protesting legalized abortion I would still consider the cop who shot her to have been acting wrongly.
Does civil disobedience include purposely trying to impede the enforcement of the law? It seems to me there is an attempt to occupy some middle space between protest with compliance (early 60s bus boycotts) and open rebellion. The grey area is the point, these actions at scale will predictably lead to incidents, at least some of which the random details will be favorable to a narrative.
This is so weird to me - and maybe the subject of an upcoming post. The thing is, almost nobody on the left actually thinks that immigration law is illegitimate. I've been researching, and it's like 6% who feel that way.
I agree with Jim Goad’s definition of victim blaming- the indefensible belief that human relations are infinitely complex and therefore it is childishly naive to assume that one side is one-hundred percent right and the other is one-hundred percent wrong.
This is the basic meaning behind "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".
It's not about right or wrong; it's about realizing life isn't fair or orderly, but there are choices you can make that increase or decrease the likelihood of bad things happening to you.
Sometimes bad shit happens when you have done absolutely nothing wrong and have in fact done everything right. That sucks and is unfair, but it's life.
On the other hand, as I've gotten older and become more honest with myself, I can look back at almost any bad thing that "has happened to me" and admit that I made a seriesof bad decisions to arrive in close proximity with bad luck.
There's a reason a lot of old people tell you that nothing good happens after 10pm.
You mention the right being fed up, and honestly, yes. There's this idea amongst a portion of the general population that if you cry, scream, and generally just act really annoyingly, that eventually the other person has to give up and stop. But what if we didn't and met them where they're at? I'm very glad to see that we're finally calling their bluff.
Force meets force, and it doesn't always go your way. That's another forgotten lesson. Avoid violence at all reasonable costs because, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is very bad for all parties. However, the left has gotten very comfortable using lighter forms of violence, blocking roads, grappling with law enforcement, and generally pushing the line, confident that there will be no pushback. Particularly with women and men who've never had their asses kicked and this leads to an ignorance of what violence entails and that it works in both directions.
There has been a lack of will to enforce the law, whether keeping violent criminals locked up, dealing with people obstructing law enforcement, suppressing riots, stopping rampant looting, or throwing out illegal aliens.
It's not a fascist state to have basic laws. It's a basic requirement for civilization.
I hate the nonsense term ‘victim blaming.’ We first need to agree as a culture on what the word 'victim’ even means. People should be blamed if they screw up, put themselves in dangerous situations or make fatal errors.
Now that we know that the ICE agent in question suffered significant internal injuries as a result of being struck by Good's vehicle, does it still seem so unreasonable that he shot her? Bear in mind how Tim Pool showed through very slow motion video that Good did,. In point of fact, turn her front tires TOWARD him and then accelerated forward. Likely the only reason that agent is still alive is because the tires lost traction before the vehicle abruptly lurched forward, giving him time to move somewhat out of the way, so he wasn't completely run over.
A great article -- thanks! I want to push back on one piece (and not the crux of this, but you sparked a thought). The older I get, the less sure I am that even taking into account what a woman is wearing during an assault is *entirely* wrong. I am not -- NOT -- saying that there's any kind of outfit that warrants assault. Nothing *warrants* assault. But we all advertise certain things about ourselves, whether knowingly or not, by what we wear. If a woman dresses in a way that advertises availability, people will think she's available. And if they think she's available but then find out that she isn't, a small subset of them might feel tricked. Of those who feel tricked, an even smaller subset might get angry. And if there's a tiny subset of men who feel tricked and angry by this woman's "false advertising," there might, *might* be one among them who was always morally/psychologically capable of assault, given the right circumstances.
I want to be really, explicitly clear here. I am *not* saying a woman wearing a dress or a miniskirt or a bikini or a low-cut shirt or whatever else we might be talking about is asking for assault. But let's be real: she *is* asking for attention. Assuming she's young (as the majority of victims are), she probably doesn't understand that, while she has a say in what she wears, she doesn't have a say in who is giving her attention. She can't wear a sexy outfit so that the guy in her algebra class will look her way but then balk when the nerdy guy in her theater class tries to talk to her (a real scenario, and the guy in my algebra class didn't even look at me, after all that!). The girls who are right now wearing tiny tiny shorts and extra-extra-large sweatshirts (so that all we see are bare legs without the slightest hindrance) in the hopes of getting the cute guy's attention will one day become adults who will look back and realize that they were getting *everyone's* attention -- even from the guys (or men) whose attention they didn't want. Even if nothing bad ever happens to them, it's still an uncomfortable truth to swallow.
I'm also not throwing all men under the bus as nothing but "potential rapists" or "future rapists," or whatever the hell people call them. I've interacted with tens of thousands of men, if not more, in my lifetime, and the vast majority of those interactions have been either pleasant or too short to have any lasting effect. Of the remainder, they all backed off once I gave them attitude. I have never in my life encountered a man who was truly dangerous and not able or willing to hold himself back. But we need to be real here too: men (especially young men) are more visually stimulated, more overtly sexual, *and more dangerous* than young women. I don't want to police women's outfits (not counting my daughters', whose outfits I absolutely police), but I also don't want to send young women out into the world without understanding that what they wear really does send messages to people.
Again, not the point of this great article, but it's something that's been swirling around my mind for the last decade or so, and this re-sparked it. I'd be interested to see what others think.
I don't think that's unreasonable. Dressing provocatively could land you on the radar of a dangerous person whose radar you might have avoided in sweat pants. I just think at that end of the spectrum, we're in similar territory as, "well, it wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed home and watched Netflix." Also perhaps true, though not terribly useful as a framework for understanding action and consequence.
I see that.
Agreed on just about every point. The only thing I might differ on is the idea of "policing" how women dress. Language here is important; actively going around telling young women what they can and can't wear via shaming and other nasty methods is obviously bad, but avoiding that shouldn't preclude us from having an open, public, good faith discussion about how dress matters as a form of communication/expression.
I think in our effort to end policing and shaming, we basically made it impossible to talk about the risks and responsibilities that come with being a young single woman. I was still in school during peak woke, so I remember the attitudes very well. To your point, a lot of college-age girls don't even understand what they're communicating when they dress skimpy (because literally no one ever told them!). Many aren't even looking for attention from men and are just going with the flow/wearing the party uniform, or playing status games amongst themselves.
We weren't allowed to speak openly about how men operate, either. You'd be painting a target on your back (at least I feel I did - maybe it would be different coming from a woman) if you suggested that a lot of sexual misconduct cases are preventable with good communication before and during the act. At least on college campuses, most rapes weren't of the openly violent sort, they were cases of dubious/ambiguous consent. Perps were men at the bottom of the bell curve in terms of wits and empathy, but not people that would consciously and intentionally commit rape. Dumb frat bro is an asshole, but he's not waiting in the bushes.
All that to say - young night life scene is tricky to navigate, and the conventional wisdom of "do whatever you want, girl" is wildly irresponsible to peddle. While we're privately allowed to police the dressing habits of our loved ones, we still aren't allowed to openly address the issue on the cultural level. We're probably gonna have to destigmatize the idea of policing if we want to make any progress on that front.
That's also a good point. I used to be pretty obnoxious about modesty in dress codes - STOP POLICING WOMEN'S FASHION CHOICES - but there are other reasons to do that besides assault avoidance. How we dress matters. I wouldn't wear my skimpy, 80s style running shorts that my butt practically hangs out of to work.
I think we can all be grateful for that.
Well said. My mother taught me to dress modestly from as young as I can remember. I preferred smart men who thought girls who were too slutty were a turn off. I’m so glad I was young when we could speak openly !
I think the fact that you had to qualify your entirely reasonable take with so many disclaimers really says it all (I get it, these people are absolutely vicious when they lock onto you)
Thanks for that, I feel seen. When I was editing this, I wanted to take out about 8 paragraphs in the first section, but with every one of them, it was like, "welp, if I don't include that, I'll be vulnerable to THIS dumbass talking point." Getting yelled at by idiots for 10 years has an effect.
Men rape farm animals. They rape elderly women in nursing homes. They hesitate to hire them in nursing homes because they rape cadavers. They rape unconscious women in ICU units. They rape their own daughters, sisters and nieces to the extent that 1 in 8000 births is from incest - a horrific revelation that DNA testing exposed. A man in France got close to 100 neighbors to rape his drugged and unconscious elderly wife by recruiting online. Some of their excuses included thinking she "wanted it" or "her husband's permission was enough." How dare you imply it's about attraction or what a young woman is wearing. It's because of people like you always blaming the victim and NOT coming down hard on the penised people who are never effectively taught to keep said penis in their pants. From the age of 9 or 10, we're taught how to guard against assault and rape, but they're not taught to not rape. That's the real problem.
The only bone I'd pick here is the suggestion that men aren't taught appropriate behavior. They absolutely are, it's just that some of them are deviants who break rules. Deviants know they're deviants, they just act out anyway. You can't educate it out of them, they just have to go.
Men that rape are unteachable. The only way to deal with them is to identify them and have them punished or neutered.
The problem isn't that men aren't taught not to rape - they are, at least in this country - it's that there'll always be a certain portion of men, probably <1%, that simply have zero impulse control or social receptiveness. They do not care what you teach them or want society expects of them; they're slaves to their desires, like animals. Again, we're talking a very small percentage of people, but they're not going away and new ones will be born every day.
Men evolved this bell curve for a reason, but nature obviously isn't the end-all-be-all.
I agree with the first part of your comment. Because some men are monsters, and because they don't wear nametags proclaiming them as such, women are at least a little bit at risk when out and about. I don't think it's fair or good or any of that, but it is the reality of the world. And it's something I'm actively teaching my sons, so that they'll grow into men who use their strength for good and protection.
Respectfully, though, I think the second half of your comment makes a few unfair assumptions, namely that it's "people like me" who are the problem or that "[boys/men] aren't taught to not rape." You have absolutely no idea what kind of person I am, except that you disagree with one comment you read that was in response to one side point in one person's article.
I also don't know where you're getting the idea that we don't teach men not to rape. Every single person I know, read, listen to, am aware of, whatever -- man or woman -- who has ever said anything on the subject at all is pretty conclusive that men shouldn't rape, rapists are monsters, etc. But there are evil people in the world, and there will be no matter what we do.
I wasn't even talking about you, so you can hop right off of that high horse. And I stand by the statement I made.
Are you saying that there is no case where rape occurs because the rapist found the victim attractive? Or that it is such a vanishingly small amount that it's not worth considering?
I find that hard to believe, I would imagine that a man who is planning on drugging a woman to have sex with her, would probably filter for someone he finds attractive. But maybe I'm wrong, I don't claim to have the insight into a rapists thought processes that you seem to.
Sure maybe there's some freaks who can't get a woman to have sex with them so they rape an attractive one to "get back at" women. What does that prove?
"Was it really my fault?" asked the Short Skirt.
"No, it happened with me too,'" replied the Burka.
The diaper in the corner couldn't even speak.
-Darshan Mondkar
1:00 PM - Jul 13, 2018
One may have a hand in one's own demise or distress without justifying the one causing harm. If sexual assault is wrong, it is not justified by a young, fit woman walking naked down a wooded path, foolish as her choice may be.
Women get raped in fucking Afghanistan and Iraq. They're barely allowed to leave the house and dress in the equivalent of cloth hefty bags. What the fuck more are women supposed to do? The "I was taught to dress modestly so I'm unrapable" woman makes me sick.
One should dress modestly, and avoid situations where danger is known to lurk for reasons other than to be “unrapable." Oh, and carry…
Or men should just be castrated if they can't be taught to keep their dicks in their pants.
This is where we agree.
A modest proposal.
The only one that might work. Look how hard you're working to excuse rapists and blame the victims.
The rebuttal here, which wasn't touched on in the article, is that even ugly, unattractive women in sweats get raped. Yes, provocative dress can attract unwelcome attention, possibly (date) rape, but rape exists outside of sexuality, as evidenced by the not infrequent rape of little old ladies, and male rape, i.e. if a prisoner is gang raped no one asks what he was wearing.
I think there is a difference between implying a woman was acting imprudent by dressing a certain way and implying that a rapist is less culpable because a woman dressed a certain way. It's the latter that is really offensive.
Sure, but whenever someone tries to articulate the former, people immediately assume the latter.
I think that stranger rape is rarely about sex just violence. When it comes to date rape there may be a higher chance that a woman in very provocative clothes is more likely to hook up with a man who takes it too far. But I think it’s more likely correlation than causation. The cause of date rape is that people raping someone they are on a date with. This gets way easier if everyone is drunk.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but when was the last time you heard a man advance the theory that rape was actually about violence?
Rape is related to sex the same way armed robbery is related to money.
It's mostly about entitlement.
Anyone can dress however they please, but they can't dictate others' reactions.
Yikes. I hope you're on a list
Hey #FBI
I'm on lots of lists. I'm trying for a record.
If you think it was verboten to suggest George Floyd was an active participant in his demise, try suggesting that he wasn’t murdered at all but actually died of a fentanyl overdose.
To be honest, that one has always made me squint. Drugs were listed on the autopsy as contributing factors to the cardiopulmonary arrest that killed him (that kills *everyone* - we all die from that, it's the proximate cause that matters) but are we really to believe that Floyd just coincidentally OD'd at that precise moment? Nothing about his actions in that video looked like an OD. His underlying health issues seem unlikely to have killed him then if not for the knee on his neck.
I understand the argument: Chauvin's actions would have been unlikely to kill a healthier person, ergo he shouldn't be held responsible. I'm just not sure that washes, even if Chauvin got an especially heavy sentence. If I kneel on a 90 year old woman's neck, and she dies of a heart attack (but not asphyxiation), would we really say that I didn't kill her? Nonetheless, it was a political prosecution, so I have no problem with it being reexamined.
I had a friend kneel on my neck and had no trouble breathing at all but it was very uncomfortable. Fentanyl + advanced heart disease + stress would have been enough to kill him. Sometimes coincidences do occur.
Are you familiar with the "thin skull rule", or the principle that one must "take their victims as they find them"?
It's a concept in common law that it's not a defense that you didn't know, nor could be expected to know, that your illegal actions would cause unreasonable damage due to a peculiarity of the victim.
Chauvin should be pardoned.
There are a number of leftists who would read your article, understand it fully, and choose to antagonize police in the hopes that they might become a martyr.
Some, sure. The left does attract those types. A much bigger problem though is how many lefties appear to think fighting cops is a protected form of speech. It...isn't.
Are they “fighting cops”? Or are they doing exactly what Civil Rights leaders did when they refused to leave their seat on the bus, and had to be dragged away by police officers? Are they doing exactly what Civil Rights leaders did, to a T, when they staged “illegal protests” and were subjected to dog attacks and fire hoses?
There are few on the Left willing to give their lives for a cause. There are many on the Left willing to give your life for a cause. Included among them is every politician justifying open borders, sanctuary cities, leniency on imported criminals, antagonizing and obstructing law enforcement...
Immigrants are not driving crime in America upward.
Nobody believes that. Especially now with the evidence of the impact of far fewer illegals. (and to be clear, other than the Somali fraud gangs, few of our legal immigrants are a concern to anyone, but nice try moving the bar.)
That's quite a rich fantasy life you've got going there.
I'm not sure, at this point, they understand the price of being a martyr. I think some are functioning at a level where they think if they do it right they can get martyred and still make it to their dinner reservations on time.
Violent death is so unreal to them I don't think they consider it the same way they might a cancer diagnosis.
Same for the early Christians.
I had given some thought to the early Church's struggle with new converts immediately trying to get martyred. I think there is a strong parallel there.
Why we need are the early bishops and presbyrs who spot out against seeking pointless martyrdom.
That's a decent point
Please provide examples of these martyrs. And compare and contrast the good people of January 6th with that epitome of evil Renee Good.
To the left Renee Good is a martyr and will possibly inspire others.
The push back on say her name and similar because she's white is probably a tempering force.
She was a murder victim, not a martyr. When she cheerfully said "I'm not mad" to her murderer seconds before he blew her head off, she had no intention of becoming a martyr. Herby here specifically asserted that democrats are "trying to get martyred" so your example doesn't make an iota of sense.
Some basics: murder victim and martyr are not mutual exclusive. In fact, they are more often than not linked. The murder is what makes them a martyr.
After an initial person is killed and celebrated for having died in the cause others, seeking the same approval, actively place themselves in situations that lead to their deaths even if the first person did not.
This is nothing new. As mentioned in other comments this was a huge problem for the early Christian church, to the point bishops and presbyrs actively preached against it.
I'm not sure why that is so difficult to understand. Someone was killed doing something, resisting ICE, others assign a high moral value to and this is celebrated as having given all for that cause.
Others, seeking the same praise, might be inspired to try and get the same result, in this case be murdered by fascists.
Still others exert social pressures which push back against that. In that case that pressure is in the form of claiming that the initial victim does not qualify as a martyr or, if she does, as a lesser one.
That's the dumbest thing I've read today.
What do you think about MLK and Malcoln X, btw?
edit: why are you calling Renee Good evil?
I assume you're pretending to be stupid, but it's hard to tell nowadays.
No, you seem to be calling me a Nazi by claiming that I think Renee is evil, via sarcasm?
You know what? If they believe that deeply in the cause they are willing to give their lives for it, then let them proceed. There are causes that are worth martyrdom. But they should do so *knowing* that that is what they are doing - dying, or at least accepting the risk of death, to make their stand.
Renee Good was not that. She had no exit strategy. She had no plan, no preparation to accept the (hopefully just legal, but…) consequences of her civil disobedience. And I don’t think she was planning for suicide by cop either. She didn’t even get her dog out of her car!
Did she die actually believing the narrative that ICE are mere racist thugs and therefore her white privilege power would protect her from any real consequences?
On this note, I don't actually know what the cause here is. Is it open borders? Is it a states rights thing? They don't think the federal government can interfere with sanctuary cities? Do they just want ICE to behave themselves better? Like, if people are out getting their skulls cracked for this, shouldn't we at least know what *this* is?
I don’t know either. The ICE Watch types seem to genuinely just hate the idea of deporting people full stop. In a very emotive way that will escalate so long as ICE escalates, but won’t go away even if ICE starts dressing like neighborhood cops and uber-politely goes about picking up only violent felons. It’s ACAB + No One Is Illegal + Orange Man Bad.
I want to maintain some epistemic humility but it genuinely doesn’t seem from the outside that there is a fully coherent policy goal / immigration strategy beyond “not seeing ICE agents in our community anymore”.
All that said my comment and criticism of the Goods was intended to be somewhat cause-agnostic.
Honest answer, I think her cause was "to stop the spread of fascism". You can question if she was doing that on several levels but I'm pretty sure that she would tell you that was her cause.
I’m sure you would have told the first century Christians, “fine, martyr yourselves, but don’t believe in heaven because that’s factually incorrect.”
Weird take. I made no judgement on the cause itself, just saying if you are gonna go do martyr shit, be serious about it. It’s not a game.
My last statement was merely speculating on why her inability to model the mind of her chosen adversary may have given her a false sense of safety.
I wouldn’t have told the Christians not to believe in heaven… but I’d have probably said “hey if your plan is to provoke the Romans, don’t assume an angel is going to swoop down at the last moment to save you from a gladius to the gut.” Also please brush up on your Latin grammar before doing graffiti.
The left's tactic of "kick the dog till it bites then post a picture of the dog biting the kicker and demand the dog be put down" relies on the "no victim-blaming" framework.
The left's narrative here is "Renee Good was just sitting in her car, reading Susan Sontag poems and minding her own business when out of nowhere some ICE goon came up and shot her in the face."
The only way to counter the left's narrative is to show video of the leadup to the situation and to put the "I'm not touching you" tactics on display.
After 2020, the public is sick and tired of soup-throwing mouthy disrespectful AWFL protesters. Context is the key to nullifying the left's "don't blame the victim" narrative.
I think for healthy life people need an exposure to what violence is really like when they're young. Men are more likely to get it, but even many of us are too sheltered from consequences.
There's a general lack of respect for how fragile we really are and this thought process that nothing bad ever happens to the "good guys".
The world isn't fair and it's certainly not a young adult novel made movie about "The Resistance". Antagonizing people that you swear up and down are violent fascists is a bad idea. It also shows that you don't truly think they're violent fascists, but that's a whole different story.
For a healthy life I'd throw in a statistics class as well, because the whole "would you feel safer coming across a man or a bear in the woods" thing was truly bizarre. I fully understand the point people were trying to make, but it only makes that point if you have a very poor understanding about odds and a really skewed perception of the relative danger of each participant.
The "man or bear" conversation was intended to provoke men, and it succeeded.
True. A lot of people never got into a fist fight in grade school and it shows.
Women would 100% be safer in the woods with a bear than you.
Aren't you supposed to be picking up your Handmaid's costume from the dry cleaners right now?
Why would I need that? What a stupid comment.
"I think for healthy life people need an exposure to what violence is really like when they're young. Men are more likely to get it, but even many of us are too sheltered from consequences."
There is a lot of truth here.
The amount of sheer disbelieve that this could happen by people who continually claim ICE is the Gestapo is something I'm still trying to wrap my head around.
It is one thing to knowingly risk deadly violence to protest and attempt to prevent what you perceive as injustice but I don't think that is what is happening here.
I do believe these people think they are protesting and attempting to prevent an injustice. I even think they'll tell you they are willing to risk deadly violence.
It's the knowingly part I'm not sure they understand.
It's like the metastasized version of the woman who went to one of the Berkley protests in 2016 who posted on Facebook herself with a wine bottle talking about being ready to punch Nazis. When she later wound up in the ER because she got punched in the rioting she complained they hit a girl.
She thought the people she called Nazis weren't allowed to hit back.
Violence is chaotic and uncontrolled and frightening and unpredictable and understanding that helps you understand why you avoid it.
AWFLs are as passe as elderly liberal lawmakers, even on the left. Methinks they will go home soon to the safety of the enclaves that created them.
I hate it when they do that! They act all aggressive and then get killed and laugh all the way to the grave
Back in the “peak woke” era, I used to live in a fairly rough area, and this young mother posted on NextDoor (yeah, I know lol… but bear with me) about how some loopy homeless dude kept following her and making lewd comments while she was pushing her stroller at the park. This tough older lady who had a black belt in jiu jitsu gave her some pointers (be aware of your surroundings, don’t travel alone if possible, carry a whistle, etc) and offered to give her some self-defense lessons in case it happened again.
No joke, seemingly everyone else in the group SWARMED her, accusing her of “victim blaming” and that she was assigning blame to the mom for getting accosted, yadda yadda. Not one person defended her (probably because they didn’t want to bring the head on themselves, understandably). She argued back as best as she could but of course it was fruitless. And all she did was try to be a good neighbor and help out a vulnerable young mother and baby in an area absolutely saturated with fentanyl and unstable vagrants (who straight up aren’t going to care about “just don’t SA anyone!” and will just do it anyway, no matter how many times they’re admonished otherwise). No good deed goes unpunished, indeed.
These people are insane. And the funny/sad part is, these were the same people who’d screech at city council whenever the circus came into town. So sick of this moralistic pissing contest infecting literally every corner of the discourse. I’m at a point where I think we should administer a logic and critical thinking test before being allowed to post online (I jest, obviously… but sometimes I do wonder).
That was the reaction I got. It was completely insane. One of my reactions to it was just: we did not used to do this. This crazy prohibition on any sort of victim blaming came out of nowhere, and now people are roasting women for offering to help their neighbors. Madness.
There is a serious difference between teaching people accountability (don't binge drink) and blaming victims to shift blame away from perpetrators. In this case, I see the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of Homeland Security all victim blaming in order to obscure the fact that there are real problems with ICE. Yes, there are people on the left ignoring Ms. Good's role in creating the situation, but that pales in comparison to the senior leaders of the country gaslighting us and avoiding taking responsibility for a death that should not have occurred.
I hope that protesters to do learn from this situation and take steps to keep themselves safe. But I hope far more that serious leaders would say that Officer Wood should never be on the street again, that ICE training should signficantly improve, and that sending thousands of agents dressed like soldiers into neighborhoods is completely unnecessary provocation.
Ultimately we have tens millions of illegal immigrants here as well as spurious asylees.
They need to be removed. Artificially creating circumstances for tragedies with spoiled people breaking the law doesn't change that.
The illegal aliens should not be here and need to be deported. Good should not have been obstructing them, she should have gotten out of the car, and she shouldn't have tried to drive away.
Actions have reactions. You don't get to break the law repeatedly whether on a grand scale of aiding and abetting illegal aliens pouring into the country for decades or playing games trying to be a hero and then complain when things come back your way.
We've been tolerating this nonsense for too long. I'm on Team Double Down.
Even if we accept your assertion that we need to deport every undocumented person, that still doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems with the way the ICE agent acted. Both things can be true: we can continue to deport people and we can have ICE agents that don’t shoot people, even if they are provoked, and even if people are breaking the law. We also don’t need ICE teams dressed like army units to deport the vast majority of people who are nonviolent and minding their own business. Finally, you can support the president’s deportation strategy, and still acknowledge that he grossly mischaracterized the situation, just as you can generally support Renee good’s position, and still acknowledge that she put herself in harms way.
Stop with the cute words.
She didn't provoke him; she attempted to kill him. Either intentionally or through stupidity, while committing one crime, which was fleeing after she'd been stopped by officers. Let's be clear, she absolutely knew they were officers because, in addition to being clearly marked and "dressed like army units", she was busy committing another crime, which was intentionally obstructing their operations.
Driving a car into or at someone is lethal force; she directed it at him and received lethal force in return. There have been conflicting reports over whether the officer was supposed to be standing in front of the car. To me it was a tactical mistake, since crazy psychopaths will try and run you over, but he was completely morally justified in shooting her. Renee Good earned her death. I hope others learn from her mistakes.
As far as illegal aliens minding their own business, they could have done so in their own country instead of breaking into ours. They're not minding their own business when they're included on the census and used for political gain. They're not minding their own business when they use our social services, whether that's welfare, our school systems, our healthcare services, etc. You can try to argue that they pay in, but they're a proven net drain on those services. They're also not minding their own business when they're working under the table and undercutting Americans on the lowest end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
If Democrats want to turn down the heat and make things better, they can drop the Sanctuary City nonsense and hand over illegal aliens when they're arrested for other causes. That alone would improve things dramatically and help get the most dangerous out. They won't do that unless they're forced to because they stand to much to lose, and they also refuse to lose face to Trump. Plus, they don't care if useful idiots like Good die as long as they think it plays well to their base.
I think impending funding cuts to the cities (after they inevitably work their way through the courts), and changing public opinion will eventually end the Sanctuary status, but it's likely to cost a few more misguided fools their lives as well as the continued preventable deaths caused by illegal aliens.
This has been wrong for decades. I don't care whether it was Republicans doing it to lower wages, or Democrats doing to shift voting demographics, it's still wrong.
Imagine you are in a plane. It's just you and the pilot, and you're cruising at 10000 feet. If you already know how to fly a plane, imagine that you don't. Unknown to you, the pilot took two doses of his powerful pain medicine by accident before takeoff and becomes unresponsive mid flight.
Whose responsibility is it to land the plane?
Whose fault is the plane crash that is likely to result?
Fault and responsibility are entirely different objects, and the discourse around victim blaming has collapsed them into one.
I can hear the left flank screaming 😱 already.
A good thought provoking piece. Thank you.
It remains true that neither side wishes for nuance or a "both things can be true" approach. I'm glad winter is here and cue a new outrage to distract us all.
This is a great essay which pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. One thing I keep noticing is the comparisons between Renee Good and George Floyd/Michael Brown. I think the more apt comparison is that she is the left's Kyle Rittenhouse. She is being martyred by the Left while being painted as a crazy bluehaired Karen by the Right. Conversely, Rittenhouse was held up as a folk hero by the Right and smeared as a racist thug by the Left.
The truth is that both were naive people that stupidly put themselves in situations they never should have been in, and they found out the hard way. Neither deserved to be attacked, but both set themselves up to be. And people's viewpoint of either of them depends entirely on their ideological priors.
Context and circumstances matter in every situation. A person trying to do backflips off of a ski jump doesn't deserve to die, but they are assuming risk and a higher likelihood of negative foreseeable consequences than someone slowly skiing down in control. Drug users don't deserve to overdose, but the danger of overdose is why so many people don't use drugs.
Committing a crime, even a small one, increases the likelihood of a negative interaction with law enforcement. Refusing to comply with good faith police inquiry, even if the cop is subjectively wrong about you (which in so many of these cases they weren't), greatly increases the chance of escalation and a negative outcome.
The left desperately wants George Floyd and Michael Brown to have been productive citizens going about their day targeted by racist evil cops that wanted nothing but to execute a random black person. So far from the truth.
In all these instances the argument against victim blaming is the argument that certain perceptively weaker groups should not be held accountable for contributing to a negative situation. We can't run a functioning society without individual accountability and realizing that many "victims" are totally complicit in the circumstances and outcomes they claim to not want.
It seems to me that the debate comes down to whether immigration law is legitimate. The right thinks it is. The left doesn’t (some will be wishy washy but push comes to shove and “no person is illegal”).
If you think that armed goons with no authority are going after innocent people that don’t deserve it then you’re going to think risking your life in tense encounters is legitimate. If you think ICE is mostly just doing its jobs then this all seems like insane insurrectionism by mentally unstable people.
ICE was there to arrest specific people that had been convicted (not just charged, convicted) of crimes. They weren't just snatching and "disappearing black and brown" people off the street. I found this on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement page: https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-dozens-criminal-illegal-aliens-convicted-murder-child-rape-and-more So these people are who little miss Social Justice Rambo and the rest of her unhinged ilk wanted to protect.
Bro I’m on your side.
I’m saying that if you buy the narrative frame on offer, then it’s a noble action.
Being able to discern right from wrong honestly is a duty, quite a hard one
I believe in the right of people to protest laws I think are legitimate, and believe that if they engage in civil disobedience the police should respond with appropriate levels of force and not escalate. I am pro-choice, but if Good had been shot while protesting legalized abortion I would still consider the cop who shot her to have been acting wrongly.
Does civil disobedience include purposely trying to impede the enforcement of the law? It seems to me there is an attempt to occupy some middle space between protest with compliance (early 60s bus boycotts) and open rebellion. The grey area is the point, these actions at scale will predictably lead to incidents, at least some of which the random details will be favorable to a narrative.
This is so weird to me - and maybe the subject of an upcoming post. The thing is, almost nobody on the left actually thinks that immigration law is illegitimate. I've been researching, and it's like 6% who feel that way.
I agree with Jim Goad’s definition of victim blaming- the indefensible belief that human relations are infinitely complex and therefore it is childishly naive to assume that one side is one-hundred percent right and the other is one-hundred percent wrong.
This is the basic meaning behind "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".
It's not about right or wrong; it's about realizing life isn't fair or orderly, but there are choices you can make that increase or decrease the likelihood of bad things happening to you.
Sometimes bad shit happens when you have done absolutely nothing wrong and have in fact done everything right. That sucks and is unfair, but it's life.
On the other hand, as I've gotten older and become more honest with myself, I can look back at almost any bad thing that "has happened to me" and admit that I made a seriesof bad decisions to arrive in close proximity with bad luck.
There's a reason a lot of old people tell you that nothing good happens after 10pm.
You mention the right being fed up, and honestly, yes. There's this idea amongst a portion of the general population that if you cry, scream, and generally just act really annoyingly, that eventually the other person has to give up and stop. But what if we didn't and met them where they're at? I'm very glad to see that we're finally calling their bluff.
Force meets force, and it doesn't always go your way. That's another forgotten lesson. Avoid violence at all reasonable costs because, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is very bad for all parties. However, the left has gotten very comfortable using lighter forms of violence, blocking roads, grappling with law enforcement, and generally pushing the line, confident that there will be no pushback. Particularly with women and men who've never had their asses kicked and this leads to an ignorance of what violence entails and that it works in both directions.
There has been a lack of will to enforce the law, whether keeping violent criminals locked up, dealing with people obstructing law enforcement, suppressing riots, stopping rampant looting, or throwing out illegal aliens.
It's not a fascist state to have basic laws. It's a basic requirement for civilization.
Great post as always.
I hate the nonsense term ‘victim blaming.’ We first need to agree as a culture on what the word 'victim’ even means. People should be blamed if they screw up, put themselves in dangerous situations or make fatal errors.
Now that we know that the ICE agent in question suffered significant internal injuries as a result of being struck by Good's vehicle, does it still seem so unreasonable that he shot her? Bear in mind how Tim Pool showed through very slow motion video that Good did,. In point of fact, turn her front tires TOWARD him and then accelerated forward. Likely the only reason that agent is still alive is because the tires lost traction before the vehicle abruptly lurched forward, giving him time to move somewhat out of the way, so he wasn't completely run over.