Kay Brooks is pontificating that Tennessee should not being spending any more money to secure its Parks against crime. Instead, we should be looking for ways to blame victims of crime in Parks for the crime that happens to them, according to her own logic. Those men like me who argue the contrary, she calls "cowed."
Allow me to uncow myself for a second. I'll accept Ms. Brooks' premise for the sake of argument and conclude accordingly that homeowners are to blame for home invasions because they own homes. If they weren't so reckless as to own a home, then quite logically criminals would have nothing to invade. Same thing applies to having a car: if you don't have one, you'll never be the victim of grand theft auto.
Now, if we can come back from the land of total delusion and the lack of all reason, I'd have to ask who is really being cowed? Am I cowed because I freely demand that my elected officials accept responsibility for securing our public parks? Or would I be cowed by submitting to Kay Brooks' judgmental world where every bad thing that happens to someone is attributable to little beyond the victims themselves? Thus, the only requirement is a crushing moralistic inventory of the flaws and the errors of the victim: as if we should assume from Ms. Brooks' seat of judgment on high that the victim doesn't already have the capacity to judge herself and feel her own regrets.
But let's carry Kay Brooks' delusional logic to its end: if each of us, like the Bicentennial Mall rape victim, is ultimately responsible for the bad things that happen to us, then there is no good reason to ever pay for park rangers or for police or for security cameras or for armies or for navies or for any other government security measure. Why spend even one cent on any of us who obviously had it coming? I have to hand this to the former School Board filler: it would have saved us billions of dollars if we just would have blamed 9/11 on ourselves and stayed home from Iraq.
UPDATE: Tiny Cat Pants wonders whom Kay Brooks hates more, women or men. But Aunt B. does not care in the comments section for analogies to crimes against property (like the one I made above) as her genitalia should be absolutely governed by her.
This is just too much. Saying it is her fault because she shouldn't have been in the park at that hour is just like saying it's her fault because she shouldn't have been wearing such a short skirt or low cut blouse, etc. It's just so - passe. Most of the time people say foolish things like this because they want to find some reason it will never happen to them. "I'll never be raped because I would never walk in a public place alone after dark". Tell that to the 61 year old woman who was raped during the home invasion last night. As long as the state capitol has police protection at night it is not too much to ask the the capitol mall also have some police presence. It may not have averted this awful attack - but it's a reasonable request. All people should feel free to enjoy all public spaces whenever they want - and giving in to anything less is giving away our freedom to criminals. I do not judge this woman, she has been through enough.
ReplyDelete"except her premise"?
ReplyDelete"except her premise"?
ReplyDelete"except her premise"?
ReplyDeleteYour criticism is a lot more constructive in this instance than it usually is, anon. However, I don't require you repeating your spelling error comment 3x in order to make the necessary grammatical correction.
ReplyDeleteI think you should make an acception in this case, Michael.
ReplyDeletegood post,btw.