Blameless

[Ally]

[QUOTE=Cap'n Jack;81057]

But Ally, the majority of female murder victims are in an intimate relationship with the man who kills them, they are wives and girl friends.

And what does that have to do with anything whatsoever under discussion?

The prostitutes are in the minority.
The suggestion of 'blame' is purely in the mind of the police investigating the case... and yours, of course.

No the suggestion of being blameless in your actions as opposed to choosing a risky lifestyle as a contributory factor in one's own demise is one that exists in the mind of any rational person who actually views women as people, and not as a collection of poor pathetic unfortunates who were just too stupid, weak or womanly to take responsibility for themselves.

You see them as being much more pathetic than I do. You treat their memory with much more contempt than even the police at the time did. They lived their life as they saw fit and by attempting to exonerate them from the responsibility of their choices, you reduce them to dumb animals with no more rational ability than a dog.

They were not blameless.

[Limehouse]

Thanks Limehouse
Yes, I think this 'parish' attitude is universal amongst the forces of law and order. I live in an archaic system where my small island is divided into numerous parishes, each with its own police force, and these officers spend their entire life seeking out criminals from other parishes who have committed sins in their parish, refusing to accept that it could be one of their own parishioners under their direct control.
This is what enabled the 'Beast of Jersey' to prey on vulnerable children for so long, as his parish police force were convinced that it could not be one of their own, so searched for a 'beast' outside of the parish. As far as they were concerned Paisnel was just a good old boy from the local parish.
'Not on my patch' is probably the most popular and prolific statement on any police inspector's lips.
I can't agree with Ally's statement
'It is a global mindset that those who die via predictable means from their own actions are viewed as less important deaths than those who die from no contributory action of their own.'
For is a women selling sex any different than a woman who sells adult movies; or even a woman who sells shoes?

I think the Piasnel case is one of the most horrific I have ever encountered. When the story broke, I was about 12 and living in local authority care. The image of that horrible mask and those spikes has haunted me for years. Then, the story just seemed to fall out of public consciousness. For many years I thought I had dreamed it all, then, more recently, when the children's home abuse in the Islands became public, it was all in the news again. Everything on that front seems far too quiet to me. I feel that children in care have been and still are, viewed much like the prostitutes - something dirty, not very nice and probably responsible for their own situation. Perhaps that's why nobody much cares for them.

[Cap'n Jack]

'And what does that have to do with anything whatsoever under discussion? '

It means, Ally, that the majority of women who go down dark alleys with men for paid sex do survive that experience.
But many women die in horrible circumstances in their homes, murdered by their lovers or husbands.
I'm assuming that husbands and lovers have sex with their women, just as prostitutes do, so it is not the act itself that offends but rather the payment for the act.
I'd like to see you get blame out of that.
Limehouse is right, it is the social stigma that is attached to the circumstances of a completely innocent individual who is driven to the circumstances beyond their personal control, and that's where authority steps in and the completely innocent individual is often abused or even murdered.

[Ally]

And the majority of people who drive drunk survive the experience and the majority of people who take illegal drugs survive the experience and the majority of people who do loads of really stupid risky things survive the experience. And the majority of women who marry actually survive that experience too. So it's really a useless example.

But when they DON'T survive the experience, people are not inclined to view them as blameless in their deaths.

People blame the heroin addict who overdoses. People blame the drunk who crashes. And people even blame the victim of domestic violence who dies, especially if there was a history of abuse in the past. If your husband beats you, he's an animal. If you stay to get beaten, you are equally to blame.

If you know something is risky and you choose to do it anyway, people are not inclined to exonerate you from blame, no matter WHAT the risky behavior is.

[Roy Corduroy]

If I had a daughter who was a student, and if that precious daughter were murdered by a man who also killed prostitutes, then yes by all means I would want it shouted from the mountaintops that she was 'blameless.'

Roy

[Limehouse]

If I had a daughter who was a student, and if that precious daughter were murdered by a man who also killed prostitutes, then yes by all means I would want it shouted from the mountaintops that she was 'blameless.'

Roy

And if my daughter was a prostitute, and she was killed by a man who also killed students, I would not consider that my daughter deserved to die more than the student, and I would not want other people to think that. I would want the man brought to justice and I would want the police to consider the murder of all women as significant and tragic.

Incidently, at the height of the Ripper killings, police were warning ALL women in northern towns to stay off the streets. They were advising women not go go out dressed up (ie short skirts and high heels) and the prevailing sentiment was that many women were 'asking for it'. That kind of attitude is deeply insulting to men as well as women (suggesting men can't control themselves). At the same time, a film called 'Dressed to Kill' was virtually endorsing the view that a woman out for the night on her own, dressed to the nines, was fair game for any bloke who fancied beating, raping and even murdering her.

[Ally]

The 1980's Dressed to Kill was about a guy who dressed up as a woman to kill a woman. Maybe you are thinking of another movie?

And warning women not to dress up in short skirts and high heels at a time when a serial killer is stalking prostitutes is not saying that the way you dress means you deserve to die, but if you dress like a hooker, you might put yourself in the target pool. It's absolutely no different than police issuing a warning to people who were pumping gas during the DC sniper episodes or police warning that a man is out assaulting middle aged blondes...if you are in the target category, or look like you are in the target category, a warning is APPROPRIATE so that you can take the necessary action to protect yourself.

It's not saying you deserve to be attacked. It's saying act smart. And while you would not want people to think your daughter "deserved" to die, you aren't going to stop people from thinking it if they have a mind to. But we aren't talking about "deserving to die". We are talking about being "blameless" in action.

[Natalie Severn]

I am not religious or particularly "judgmental" but I do like and respect the attitude Christ had towards prostitutes,adulteresses and other conventional scapegoats.I like most particularly his attitude towards Mary Magdalene-a common prostitute who became one of his most trusted workers and is believed by some scholars to have become His wife or lover ."Let those who are without sin cast the first stone" he is reported as saying.I have always appreciated those words of his.
In fact the only time when Christ did crack the whip and get heavy with "sinners" was when he chased those " wronguns" out of the synagogue-he hated the money lenders and other "traders" who brought their little obscenities -sort of " mini stock exchanges" to operate in the sacred ground of synagogue.

[Ally]

There are two concepts here that people think are interchangeable and they are not.

One is "deserved" and the other is "blame". Deserved relates to worth. To be worthy of or to not be worthy of.

Blame deals with responsibility. Blameless means having no responsibility for an event.

No one is saying that being a prostitute is a state that is worthy of death. But there is a difference between being seen as worthy of death and having some responsibility for the actions that led up to your death.

Worth and Responsibility are not the same thing. People on this board seem to think that if you don't absolve all responsibility from the victims you are making a judgment on their worth. But the two are completely separate concepts. I have absolutely no moral judgment regarding prostitution. I could care less about its perceived "wrongness" or its morality. If two consenting adults want to have sex, what do I care? I am more offended by the fact that some of the victims were thieves than I am that they were hookers.So I am hardly going to say they deserved death because they were prostitutes. But that doesn't mean I think they were blameless either.

Jesus was all about responsibility as well. Accepting the wrong in your actions and repenting and atoning for them and also accepting the judgment that comes with them.

[Natalie Severn]

My understanding of the gospels is that prostitutes ,drunks and the poor ,destitute and needy generally ,were far dearer to Jesus than any other sector of society.He said so again and again."Its harder for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven than a camel to get through the eye of a needle".I know he spoke endlessly about redemption----but in Christ"s teachings ,prostitutes appear to be nearer a "state of grace" than ever your rich man is for example.

[Cap'n Jack]

Cracking good post, Limehouse.
I lived with a working prostitute for three years of my life, she never wore short skirts, she never let me down, she was well read and could beat anyone at trivial pursuit, she loved the honesty of Christ, like Natalie, but she hated her Bible, she cooked a mean breakfast and she could find love without sex. I would have been devastated if anyone had killed her for being a working prostitute and then told me that she was to blame for her own murder.
Ally is retreating to definitions here because she knows she is on shaky ground, but I'd remind her we talk of conception here.

[Robert]

Um - was the woman taken in adultery a prostitute? She was taken in adultery - I'm not sure that money changed hands.

[Ally]

No Ally is using definitions because words actually mean something and attempting to claim something that people aren't saying or lame attempts to shuck responsibility in with worth are the tactics of pathetic shysters and liars...oh wait, that's right.

My statements are completely supportable by fact and precedent. If you want to live in a dream world where everyone skips about happy as a lark and no one has any responsibility for their own actions and no one judges others for their actions, that's fine.

Delusional people are amusing to mock.

But as for your charming prostitute story, Ted Bundy worked at a suicide hotline. So let's all hold his hand and tell him what a swell guy he was. Who gives a rat's ass if your hooker could cook. It's irrelevant to the argument.

[Cap'n Jack]

'Ted Bundy worked at a suicide hotline'

I know it's late, Ally, but fhat the wuck has suicide to do with murder?

[mostfoul]

So what exactly is the debate going on here?