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Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

Except, for that part where he directly responds to a WaPo author who thinks due process isn't a thing that should exist.

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The WaPo author explicitly says, "This is not a legal argument about what standards we should use in the courts; it’s a moral one, about what happens outside the legal system."

The Medium piece conflates social justice and legal justice. Slavery was legal, so forcibly returning slaves to their owners was legally just. However, we came to recognize it as a moral wrong, something socially unjust. Eventually, we changed the laws, but the cultural change had to happen first.

What is the end game in a world where an accusation of a crime is accepted as factual, and any questioning of that accusation makes one an apologist for the crime at best?

The legal system is supposed to be a reflection of society's morals. If you challenge the moral framework, by asserting that an accusation should never be questioned, you challenge the legal framework by extension.

Nobody is saying that accusations should never be questioned in court. But we live in a society that, outside of court, treats rape victims very differently than victims of other crimes. The dynamic is lampooned here:

https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/a-usef...

It is that aspect of the moral framework that people are attempting to change. Like it or not, society has collectively acted to excuse rapists for millennia. That has been gradually declining; at least now it's a crime that is taken somewhat seriously.

>The Medium piece conflates social justice and legal justice

>we changed the laws, but the cultural change had to happen first

>This is not a legal argument about what standards we should use in the courts; it’s a moral one, about what happens outside the legal system

So basically you are describing the very means that will be used to change the laws to remove due process. "Morality" will be used change the legal environment.

As far as I know, nobody serious is advocating for removing due process. If you have examples of that, I look forward to seeing them.

So, your slavery example corroborates what the others in the discussion are accusing the WaPo author of. Slavery was legally just, but socially unjust. Thus "we changed the laws, but the cultural change had to happen first." The WaPo author's position is "doubting the accounts of rape victims is legally just, but socially unjust". Do you see where this is going?

Yes. It is going to a world where we take rape as seriously as other crimes, and treat its victims with the same respect as other victims.

The two justices are inextricably intertwined regardless of their momentary inconsistencies.

Nobody ever said due process shouldn't exist except the author. Again, another scarecrow the author sets up to dehumanize the opposition. The point raised was about listening to rape victims, taking their accusations seriously, and not blaming the victim, but somehow this is against due process? This isn't about the accused but the accuser.

Due process is a legal situation, and it matters after an arrest and during the investigation of a crime. Listening to rape victims at face value is not a violation of due process.

Quote from the article:

In the Washington Post, Zerlina Maxwell argued that “we should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser [of rape] says,” for “the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist.”

(Which is another quote in of itself)

Is there another way to read these words that I am aware of?

>Due process is a legal situation, and it matters after an arrest and during the investigation of a crime. Listening to rape victims at face value is not a violation of due process. Listening, yes. Blanket accusation based on a single account is de facto limitation of due process. Shaming a rapist who gets off on a technicality is one thing. Shaming a person who has been accused of rape is quite another.

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