UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

Wait. So those numbers are statistically insignificant, yet the estimates of unreported rapes, which come from very sketchy sources/methodology and are also pretty close too, are significant and worth hanging your hat on?

I'm starting to think there are a lot of people who are too invested in the idea of campus rape being epidemic.

 

I think you should leave the statistics to me, because you're way off in the weeds now. That's not remotely a correct takeaway from that report.

 

No. If we're going to deride the 1-in-5 studies, there are enough issues with the DOJ study to put it in the same boat.

Even if we don't do that, the numbers the DOJ produced don't exactly paint a rosy picture, so I'm not sure what we're even parsing here.

 

We're parsing whether a woman is more at risk on a college campus. It appears from all available information that she is not. But that is definitely contrary to the general perception and the narrative being pushed by activists.

 

She may not be MORE at risk on a college campus, but she IS at risk. It may or may not be negligently lower than otherwise, but it's there and is very real.

 

Yes. However, I think you'd have to acknowledge that the tenor of discussion on this topic is geared primarily, and perhaps almost solely, to college students.

 

So, is 6.1-in-1,000 OK? Evidence that there ISN'T a problem? Evidence that the issue is getting too much attention? That it's a hoax? Eighty percent of incidents unreported is OK, too?

If the answer to all of those questions is no, then parsing the stats to this degree is an oop-level message-board circle jerk.

 

And this idea that anyone said a given level of rapes is OK, that's coming straight from your head and the activist circle-jerk that has been going on for a few years now and that is leading to this absurd secret tribunals of non-investigators investigating a horrible crime and meting out punishment by their best guess.

We all agree rape is bad. The need to expand the definition to things that have even victim's advocates saying "whoa, wait a minute" is where the message is getting lost.

 

Glenn Reynolds, and people of his ilk, said it's a hoax, bought and paid for by Democrats who disseminate it through the lapdog media. "A phony crisis is better than no crisis."

That's all in my head and the activist circle-jerk? Someone who has a healthy respect for the gravity of sex crimes doesn't say things like that. And, as long as we're talking about circle jerks, let's be honest: Reynolds, or George Will, would have no interest in the rape issue had it not been the Obama administration that released sloppy data.

Sorry, but if rape is bad, then it's bad and needs to be addressed whether it happens to 20 percent of women or 2 percent.

 

That's too simplistic. The response is informed by how big the problem actually is, first, and what rape actually is, second.

Colleges (and police departments) have a finite amount of money and resources available to throw at problems. If they are spending enough money to stop a 1-in-5 problem tha tis really a 1-in-200 problem, then they are wasting money and resources that could be better spent in other areas.

Also, as has been documented, addressing it as a 1-in-5 problem seems to be ruining the lives of a number of innocent men, like the guy from the University of Michigan in the Slate piece.

 

How much attention and resources do think this problem would get if allocated by the group of people who call campus rape a politically motivated hoax?

 

Probably not enough. Just like it would get too much if allocated by the advocacy movement.