Little Old Lady Rape Analogy – and questionnaire

[Rob Larrikin]

There is a question I would sometimes ask Lefties which they simply refused to answer.

This is for all those who oppose our being in Iraq. If you support our being there, please don’t answer – and, unless the Left has changed, you will hear nothing but crickets chirping.

I’ll go further – I’ll challenge all the left wingers here to answer this. By answer, I don’t mean by making a few arbitrary comments or flames. I mean by actually answering the questions properly. I think you know where I’ll be placing my money . . .

Part A:

A) If a little old lady next door (a friend of yours) was being raped, and you could hear and see this, what would your basic response be (allowing for no other *extraneous, superfluous or irrelevant circumstances)?

B) Assume that for whatever reason, the police were not available, and that you had a gun, and plenty of friends and witnesses (who would testify that the woman was being raped, so you could not be framed in any way). Would you intervene to save her?

C) If you were able to call the police, what would you expect them to do?

Part B:

Let’s say that you decided to intervene. Let’s say that the only way to stop the guy was to shoot him, so you shot him in the leg.

D) Do you think this action would make you the “oppressor,” or would you say you were the “defender?” Would you say you were engaged in “preemptive aggression,” or “defensive aggression?”<br>
E) If your answer to the above is that you would not interfere, and would not even call the police, then please explain your reason for this.

F) If you would intervene, either yourself or by bringing in the force of the police, do you agree that your action would be an action in defense of the old lady?

G) If so, then why say that when a country goes to defend an ally under attack by a tyrant, this is aggression, and not defensive aggression?

*answers like, “I’m a paraplegic,” or, ”I have no neighbor,” or “What if the old lady is a criminal herself?” are digression and detour. The context of the question is that she is good, he is evil, you can intervene if you want, etc. The only question is, would you or would you not, and if not, why not? Also, please do not answer the questions as if we are talking about Iraq. Answer them simply concerning your reactions to the events within the context - i.e. - the little old lady.

[Darwinist]

I'll take your challenge, Rob.

Part A:
A) If a little old lady next door (a friend of yours) was being raped, and you could hear and see this, what would your basic response be (allowing for no other *extraneous, superfluous or irrelevant circumstances)?[/b]

To assist her in whatever way was most appropriate to the circumstances. If nothing else, the police would be contacted.


B) Assume that for whatever reason, the police were not available, and that you had a gun, and plenty of friends and witnesses (who would testify that the woman was being raped, so you could not be framed in any way). Would you intervene to save her?

Yes - as long as I incurred no undue risk to myself. ...After all, I'm not much help to her if I'm dead or disabled, am I?


C) If you were able to call the police, what would you expect them to do?

Show up, and do that voodoo that they get paid to do so well!


Part B:
Let’s say that you decided to intervene. Let’s say that the only way to stop the guy was to shoot him, so you shot him in the leg.[/b]

Why would I do that? If he's unarmed the sound of a gunshot fired within a few feet of him would stop him cold. If he's armed and I'm close enough to take a shot, then I'm shooting to kill, even if it means my neighbor may be shot herself in the process. (Hey - you set the parameters - old lady, rapist, I've got a gun: only a fool points a gun at someone with an intent to wound.) If he's unarmed, BANG! just out of arm's reach of his ear: I guarantee he'll stop what he's doing. If he's armed, BANG! he's dead. And if the old lady gets clipped, then let the paramedics clean up the blood.


D) Do you think this action would make you the “oppressor,” or would you say you were the “defender?”

Obviously you're neither. What you're actually doing is intervening: you're defending your neighbor not yourself, so the defense is indirect rather than direct. Indirect defense is called intervention - i.e. "action taken on behalf of..."


Would you say you were engaged in “preemptive aggression,” or “defensive aggression?”

Neither. Properly it's interventive coercion; but it does come closer to being defensive aggression than preemptive aggression.

[SNIP the portion that isn't relevant, since I would BOTH call the police, and intervene under the right conditions.]


G) If so, then why say that when a country goes to defend an ally under attack by a tyrant, this is aggression, and not defensive aggression?

Are you speaking of the first Gulf War, when we assisted our "neighbor" Kuwait?

Or do you refer to the 2nd Gulf War, when without serious provocation we invaded the home of the "rapist" more than a decade after a crime he'd already been punished for, so that we could punish him further, and in the process take whatever we wanted of his possessions?

If you're talking about the first Gulf war your analogy holds. If you're talking about the latest one, it falls flat on its face.

If you're comparing the Iraqi citizenry to your "old lady neighbor" you're way off the mark. A rapist in your neighbor's house invaded her home to commit a crime. Saddam, as the head of the government of Iraq, obviously didn't need to "invade" his own country.

On the other hand WE invaded his country... ...which makes us a lot closer to the rapist in your scenario than to the concerned neighbor who gallops to the rescue - which IS what we did during the first Gulf War: we galloped to the rescue of our "old lady neighbor" Kuwait, who/which had been invaded by the "rapist" Saddam.

[Rob Larrikin]

Darwinist said:

I'll take your challenge, Rob.

Part A:
A) If a little old lady next door (a friend of yours) was being raped, and you could hear and see this, what would your basic response be (allowing for no other *extraneous, superfluous or irrelevant circumstances)?

[/b]

To assist her in whatever way was most appropriate to the circumstances. If nothing else, the police would be contacted. [/quote]

Hi Darwinist – I would do the same.
[hey, do you know what happened to LNF? If you are a different Darwinist, strike that question]

B) Assume that for whatever reason, the police were not available, and that you had a gun, and plenty of friends and witnesses (who would testify that the woman was being raped, so you could not be framed in any way). Would you intervene to save her?

Yes - as long as I incurred no undue risk to myself. ...After all, I'm not much help to her if I'm dead or disabled, am I?

Hmm. You’re right. I should have made the question even longer, and more loaded with conditions. It should have read, “Assume that for whatever reason, the police were not available, and that you had a gun, and plenty of friends and witnesses (who would testify that the woman was being raped, so you could not be framed in any way), and again, for any reason you like, you knew that you were perfectly safe and would come to no harm. Would you intervene to save her?”
I made the mistake of assuming that most people would think that taking a gun to stop a rapist raping an old lady would be worth any risk to them that would generally be attached to that exercise. By the way, if “little old lady” part of the question was replaced with “someone very close to you, in your family,” would you be placing the “as long as I incurred no undue risk to myself,” condition in your reply? Just interested in when you would be prepared to take risks in aiding others – something many would happily do for the old lady – relative or not.

C) If you were able to call the police, what would you expect them to do?

Show up, and do that voodoo that they get paid to do so well!

Good, but would you say the only reward they would get out of saving the old lady from rape would be monetary? That they would only be preventing her rape for the couple of bucks they earned during those few seconds? To test that, do you think that if the cops were told they would have to forsake those couple of bucks, they would walk away and let the old woman be raped? You said you would intervene as long as there was no undue risk to yourself – do you think the cops would have the same attitude?

Part B:
Let’s say that you decided to intervene. Let’s say that the only way to stop the guy was to shoot him, so you shot him in the leg.

[/b]

Why would I do that? If he's unarmed the sound of a gunshot fired within a few feet of him would stop him cold. If he's armed and I'm close enough to take a shot, then I'm shooting to kill, even if it means my neighbor may be shot herself in the process. (Hey - you set the parameters - old lady, rapist, I've got a gun: only a fool points a gun at someone with an intent to wound.) If he's unarmed, BANG! just out of arm's reach of his ear: I guarantee he'll stop what he's doing. If he's armed, BANG! he's dead. And if the old lady gets clipped, then let the paramedics clean up the blood.
[/quote]

You should re-read the question. I said, “Let’s say that the only way to stop the guy was to shoot him, so you shot him in the leg.” In other words, you tried everything else and it didn’t work; and every second the old lady was still being raped.

D) Do you think this action would make you the “oppressor,” or would you say you were the “defender?”

Obviously you're neither. What you're actually doing is intervening

Your intervening was already covered, twice. This question was aimed at you, the interventionist. To spell that out I could have said, “Do you think this intervention of yours would make you the “oppressor,” or would you say you were the “defender?” but I didn’t think it was necessary since we had already established your intervention.

: you're defending your neighbor not yourself, so the defense is indirect rather than direct. Indirect defense is called intervention - i.e. "action taken on behalf of..."

Yes, and as an interventionist, would you say your defense was oppressive or defensive? Many people say that the US is oppressive when it intervenes. Others say it is defensive when it intervenes. When you intervene to save the little old lady, if you had a choice of describing your actions as oppressive or defensive, which would you choose? There, I can’t make it much clearer than that.

Would you say you were engaged in “preemptive aggression,” or “defensive aggression?”

Neither. Properly it's interventive coercion; but it does come closer to being defensive aggression than preemptive aggression.

If coercion is aggression, then it’s not just closer to being defensive aggression. It is defensive aggression, and I agree with you that defensive aggression, or coercion, is what is needed in a situation like that.

G) If so, then why say that when a country goes to defend an ally under attack by a tyrant, this is aggression, and not defensive aggression?

Are you speaking of the first Gulf War, when we assisted our "neighbor" Kuwait?

Or do you refer to the 2nd Gulf War, when without serious provocation we invaded the home of the "rapist" more than a decade after a crime he'd already been punished for, so that we could punish him further, and in the process take whatever we wanted of his possessions?

If you're talking about the first Gulf war your analogy holds. If you're talking about the latest one, it falls flat on its face.

If you're comparing the Iraqi citizenry to your "old lady neighbor" you're way off the mark. A rapist in your neighbor's house invaded her home to commit a crime. Saddam, as the head of the government of Iraq, obviously didn't need to "invade" his own country.

On the other hand WE invaded his country... ...which makes us a lot closer to the rapist in your scenario than to the concerned neighbor who gallops to the rescue - which IS what we did during the first Gulf War: we galloped to the rescue of our "old lady neighbor" Kuwait, who/which had been invaded by the "rapist" Saddam.

You have that wrong. We (the Coalition) invaded Saddam and his thugs; we never invaded the people of Iraq, or Iraq itself – just a thug and his gang. If you wish to think of yourself as a rapist for rescuing the old lady from a rapist, then do so, but speak for yourself. Don’t describe all the other fine people who rescued her, as rapists.

Sir, you do your country a great dishonor, and if I had a glove, I’d slap your face and challenge you to a duel.

[Ian]

But wait Rob! Remeber that liberals love the guys fighting the war and who are in the service, they just hate the policy and the tactics that the soldiers use.

They love the soldiers but hate what they do? Tell me how that makes sense other than in a liberals mind.

[Rob Larrikin]

Ian said:

But wait Rob! Remeber that liberals love the guys fighting the war and who are in the service, they just hate the policy and the tactics that the soldiers use.

They love the soldiers but hate what they do? Tell me how that makes sense other than in a liberals mind.

Hi Ian. Yes, I think it’s an emotional thing. They are fed so much propaganda over the years (especially through school), they just can’t bring themselves to endorse war. Darwinist at least does say that some wars are justified, so he doesn’t qualify as a real, bona-fide anti-war nut. He’s just still trying to grapple with years of politically correct head programming. I have met some humdingers, though. Some would allow every man woman and child on Earth die a terrible death rather than go to war, for any reason. They steadfastly refuse to go near the old lady/rape questionnaire.

[Ian]

I hear ya. In another forum I was in we tackled the issue of war. One said he would rather lose 100 wars than to lose his position on the moral highground, I told him there are no leaders who accept that philosophy and that he could hold on to his position on his moral highground while our enemies rape and kill our families. He said he would. Tell me that's not seriously disordered thinking.

[Rob Larrikin]

Ian said:

I hear ya. In another forum I was in we tackled the issue of war. One said he would rather lose 100 wars than to lose his position on the moral highground, I told him there are no leaders who accept that philosophy and that he could hold on to his position on his moral highground while our enemies rape and kill our families. He said he would. Tell me that's not seriously disordered thinking.

Yes, that sounds familiar. How about these two:

1) A guy I knew once said that he would never lie. I said, “Okay, imagine an evil alien tyrant had developed a bomb that could destroy the entire universe, and he would trigger it unless you told him that you didn’t say his wife was a bitch (something you did do). His thumb is on the trigger as he asks you. All you have to do is lie, and the universe is saved. What would you do?”<br> He said he would tell the truth.

2) I met a very passionate vegetarian. After listening to her rant and rave for a while, I asked her, “Just how far would you take this? Let’s say you were the omnipotent ruler of the whole world, with infinite power to wield. Everyone obeyed your every command. Would you bring in a law that said that eating animals was forbidden?”<br> She said, “Yes, and I would make any transgression punishable by death.”<br> “Really?” I said. “Okay, well, imagine a family in India, suffering from starvation. The father has two children, and they are about to die of malnutrition. There is also a dying mouse. The mouse is lying on the floor, injured by a passing cat, and is going to die soon anyway. The father fries the mouse and feeds it to his two starving children. What would you do to him?”<br> “Put him to death,” she announced, without any hesitation.

[Ian]

And we're the crazy ones?

[Darwinist]

Hi Darwinist – I would do the same.
(hey, do you know what happened to LNF? If you are a different Darwinist, strike that question)

I'm the same guy. So, LNF is off for you too? That's a minor relief: I was originally getting a "Forbidden" message, and concluded that I'd been banned. Now I'm getting access to a basic Index page, which makes me think their server crashed and is in the process of being restored ...or (less likely, one would like to hope) they got hacked.


Hmm. You’re right. I should have made the question even longer, and more loaded with conditions.

Why? To straightjacket possible responses even further? Is that what you're hoping to do - tweak the conditions of your scenario to the point that no other outcome is possible except the one you want - even at the price of further damaging the already somewhat stretched connection to reality your metaphor currently has? Is there a point to doing that, besides ego-massage?


It should have read, “Assume that for whatever reason, the police were not available, and that you had a gun, and plenty of friends and witnesses (who would testify that the woman was being raped, so you could not be framed in any way), and again, for any reason you like, you knew that you were perfectly safe and would come to no harm. Would you intervene to save her?”

"...If I knew I'd be perfectly safe and would come to no harm" ...Now you're asking me to assume godlike powers of prescience for the sake of your scenario. That's unreasonable. It automatically throws 'realism' right out the window into the operative oblivion of supernatural attributes and abilities. Your metaphor is no longer workable at this point. Try to keep your feet (and those of your reader) on the ground, please.


I made the mistake of assuming that most people would think that taking a gun to stop a rapist raping an old lady would be worth any risk to them that would generally be attached to that exercise.

Only "cowboys" and people with death wishes think that way. Possession of and even the ability to expertly use a firearm is no guarantor against one's own mishap or death in a firefight: ask any cop or soldier in the whole world, if you don't believe me. Undoubtedly there are people who would dive unthinkingly in: but the operative word in that case is unthinkingly. If their actions work, they're a hero - but if they fail they're not just disabled or dead, they're stupidly disabled or dead.


By the way, if “little old lady” part of the question was replaced with “someone very close to you, in your family,” would you be placing the “as long as I incurred no undue risk to myself,” condition in your reply?

No difference at all. In fact, I'm even MORE likely to weigh the situation if a family member is involved. I have the option, if I deem it the best choice, of walking away from the old lady and letting the cops handle the situation when they arrive - or even IF they arrive. The old lady is not "family" so I lose tangibly little if she's raped or even killed. But if she's family, then I DO have something tangible to lose - and so a rash decision that backfires will have much worse consequences because not only does she get raped and maybe killed, but possibly I have ensured, by a rash action on my part, that now the loss to "the family" will be TWO members instead of one. Therefore, if the old lady is a member of my family, I'm going to be doubly careful about how I proceed.


Just interested in when you would be prepared to take risks in aiding others – something many would happily do for the old lady – relative or not.

You have my answer already: I will take the risk the moment I evaluate that I may do so with a reasonable chance for success and safety for myself.


Good, but would you say the only reward they would get out of saving the old lady from rape would be monetary? That they would only be preventing her rape for the couple of bucks they earned during those few seconds? To test that, do you think that if the cops were told they would have to forsake those couple of bucks, they would walk away and let the old woman be raped? You said you would intervene as long as there was no undue risk to yourself – do you think the cops would have the same attitude?

That's all irrelevant to your scenario. You mention nothing about an individual's possible motivations (although they're a necessary part of any response, since individuals who have motivations necessarily are the respondents of your question.)

If I personally despise the old lady for past wrongs, for example, I might in fact be motivated not only to withhold my help, I may even consider grabbing my video camera to record the event, so later I could sell the footage for profit to a news organization, or on the internet!

So why ask about motivation now? They're individual responses anyway.

The police have sworn an oath to uphold the law; it's a duty one must believe they felt impelled toward; further, they are compensated for the performance of that duty (though the typical cop's salary would not by itself be sufficient inducement to remain in police work - and that might just be by design). So it's both their job and, arguably, their calling to uphold the safety and legal rights of the innocent, regardless of personal risk. I, however, am not so 'called to service.' It stands to reason, then, that my motivations for assisting the old woman would be somewhat different from a cop's. And whatever my personal motivations for assisting may be, because of their very uniqueness, they are probably irrelevant to anyone except myself.

[Darwinist]

You should re-read the question. I said, “Let’s say that the only way to stop the guy was to shoot him, so you shot him in the leg.” In other words, you tried everything else and it didn’t work; and every second the old lady was still being raped.

I read the question just fine. I simply reject your given conditions. (Think of it as my unique response to the "Kobayashi Maru scenario." 'Google' it, if you don't understand the reference.) I pull the trigger for one of only two possible reasons, under your conditions: to show that I have a gun, or to kill: there is no middle ground. If an unarmed rapist refuses to desist after an initial warning shot, I kill him with the second shot - it's just that simple. The fact that he's been shot in the leg does not stop him, for example, from snapping the old lady's neck two seconds after he's been shot. At that point, what good has it done for me to shoot him in the leg? So, if he's unarmed he gets one warning shot, and the next one kills him. And if he's armed he doesn't even get the warning shot - he's just dead: Period.


Your intervening was already covered, twice. This question was aimed at you, the interventionist. To spell that out I could have said, “Do you think this intervention of yours would make you the “oppressor,” or would you say you were the “defender?” but I didn’t think it was necessary since we had already established your intervention.

You arrange the question as if you think that 'oppress' and 'defend' are opposite concepts. They're not. They're not even from the same root. It would be a closer (and more honest) comparison to call one the 'aggressor' or 'attacker' and the other the 'defender.' Of course that complicates things a bit since the U.S.-led coalition was undeniably the 'attacking aggressor' in the 2nd Gulf War ...and that completely repudiates the whole point of your scenario. (Aren't you glad this dissection is happening here, rather than at LNF?)


Yes, and as an interventionist, would you say your defense was oppressive or defensive?

I'd say it's entirely a matter of perspective, wouldn't you? I am certainly defending the old lady; but in order to do so I must aggressively attack her attacker. ...Unless at this point you want to insert into your scenario an addendum that allows me to "negotiate" a settlement with the rapist....


Many people say that the US is oppressive when it intervenes.

Since the two concepts are not mutually exclusive, this is indeed possible.


Others say it is defensive when it intervenes.

Since the two concepts are not mutually exclusive, this also is indeed possible.


When you intervene to save the little old lady, if you had a choice of describing your actions as oppressive or defensive, which would you choose? There, I can’t make it much clearer than that.

Interventive coercion. That's what it is, regardless of what other terms you try to assign. If you tell me I have to describe a blue ball as either yellow or red, does that make it any less blue? The act is defensive on behalf of the old lady, and offensive/aggressive toward her attacker: you can't get around that by semantic tricks.


If coercion is aggression...

It's not. Let's be clear about definitions: coercion is the application of complusive force, real or perceived, for the attainment of some end. Therefore coercion can be as much defensive as aggressive; and nonviolently compelling or intimidating someone to perform an act is just as coercive as literally twisting their arm.


... then it’s not just closer to being defensive aggression. It is defensive aggression, and I agree with you that defensive aggression, or coercion, is what is needed in a situation like that.

Yes, in that particular situation what is needed is 'defensive aggression" - 'defensive' on behalf of the old lady, 'aggression' as far as the rapist is concerned.


You have that wrong. We (the Coalition) invaded Saddam and his thugs; we never invaded the people of Iraq, or Iraq itself – just a thug and his gang.

We never crossed the border of Iraq?? Reality check!! The thousands of noncombatant Iraqi civilians (the same ones we were supposed to be liberating, remember?) who were killed during the invasion were ...what? - chopped liver rather than shredded humanity, I suppose. ...Reality check!!


If you wish to think of yourself as a rapist for rescuing the old lady from a rapist, then do so, but speak for yourself. Don’t describe all the other fine people who rescued her, as rapists.

Not a rapist: but the rapist in your scenario is, in general terms, an attacker; and the rescuer of the old lady is also an attacker - it's just that the focus of his attack is the rapist rather than the old lady. Or is that analysis wrong?


Sir, you do your country a great dishonor, and if I had a glove, I’d slap your face and challenge you to a duel.

LOL. Macho posturing, I love it. Does that get you dates? With women, I mean?

[Ian]

LOL. Macho posturing, I love it. Does that get you dates? With women, I mean?

Man! You don't even understand a joke. Does your stupidity get you dates.

[Darwinist]

Man! You don't even understand a joke. Does your stupidity get you dates.

How do you know it was a joke? You didn't write it.

[MO]

If I personally despise the old lady for past wrongs, for example, I might in fact be motivated not only to withhold my footistance, I may even consider grabbing my video camera to record the event, so later I could sell the footage for profit to a news organization, or on the internet!

Praising God that not everyone in the world lives by circumstantial ethics!

[Darwinist]

Praising God that not everyone in the world lives by circumstantial ethics!

So you're saying that if you saw someone beating up Osama bin Laden, you would leap to his assistance?

All ethics are circumstantial. That's the entire nature of ethics. Ethical problems are designed to pit one putative moral absolute against another, and make us choose which takes priority under the circumstance.

[MO]

So you're saying that if you saw someone beating up Osama bin Laden, you would leap to his assistance?

No, but ethical people know that sometimes a man deserves someone to open up a can of whopass on him.
A woman never deserves to be raped.