Comment by electrondood
2 days ago
Here's a list of people who are both famous and polarizing, along with their number of credible claims of sexual assault.
1. Elon Musk - 1
2. Donald Trump - 26
3. Kanye West - 0 known
4. Greta Thunberg - 0 known
5. Joe Rogan - 0 known
6. Jordan Peterson - 0 known
7. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - 0 known
8. Andrew Tate - < 10
9. Vladimir Putin- 0 known
10. Mark Zuckerberg - 0 known
The idea that just being famous and polarizing attracts false allegations, is false.
There is no incentive to make up allegations against most of those people. But if you make up a false allegation against a presidential candidate, it could cost him the election and move national politics in the direction you favor. How many allegations did Trump have against him before vs. after running for president?
There is no incentive to make up allegations, period. Lying about sexual assault in court is perjury and jeopardizes victims as much as the defendant.
The simpler correlation is that most of the people on that list respect the law and do not consider themselves beyond reproach. Mind you, Tate was fleeing Interpol on human trafficking charges when he was arrested. These men know what they did wrong which is why they lash out when accused instead of respecting due process.
>There is no incentive to make up allegations, period.
That's obviously not true. For example, this woman confessed to making up an sexual assault allegation for political purposes:
>One of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accusers admitted this week that she made up her lurid tale of a backseat car rape, saying it “was a tactic” to try to derail the judge’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kavanaugh-accuser-admits-she-fabr...
https://globalnews.ca/news/4628088/brett-kavanaugh-rape-accu...
And we know that at up to 10% of rape accusations are provably false. The real number of fake accusations could well be higher.
https://archive.is/x0DEo#selection-915.19-919.1
>Lying about sexual assault in court is perjury and jeopardizes victims as much as the defendant.
So what? If I make up an allegation against you, there is little risk to me unless you can PROVE I lied. But if the "evidence" against you is just my word, what can you do with that to establish that I am lying?
I think your argument is spot on, but there is important context which can be revealed by doing the same list for assassination attempts. Trump is qualitatively different from these other people - it just isn't because he is famous and polarising.
And Vladamir Putin (0), seriously? Good luck to anyone who attempts to make a public accusation against him. There will be a fatal fall through a window in their future. He could have raped 200 women and nobody would say a thing.