We Can Work It Out - Politics & Philosophy | Page 70 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Something I wanted to mention in relation to the left/right divide in US politics, and those in the US who suggest they are just a little to the left or right of the centre – the centre of your politics is far further to the right than many others democracies. @Beatlebug suggested the video and arguments she posted up there were from someone who was left-leaning, from a UK point of view, he could be a member of the Conservatives, while the majority of those on the very right-wing of the Republican Party would be barred by our right-leaning mainstream party.

The majority of the Democrats wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable in our right-wing mainstream party.

Nor would I ever suggest the left are less ineffectual at violence discourse/action than the right. The ultra-left are as anti-Semitic as the extreme right. The Communist Revolution in Russia didn’t come from the right, nor does the suppression we still see in China.

I will probably burst forth on “Is oppressing oppression oppressive?” soon…

And see this is about oppression. Rape is never a crime about sex, especially marital rape, but is about control.

A question asking “Is oppressing oppression oppressive?” sees, as shown here, people running to discuss the Nazis and how we counteract something like that happening again, how we respond to those – be they considered to be on the left or right politically – who espouse hate. We head for the big ticket items forgetting how oppression can be a part of our personal relationships, and the laws that protect us (or not) from that. We forget to take it down to that personal level.

Marital rape (MR), and its legal history, is a good example of this.

We’re not talking big politics here but instead how lives are lived, how your life is lived, and how the state and its laws protect you.

Based on a judgement in the 18th Century by the British judge Sir Matthew Hale in 1736…

A husband cannot be guilty of rape upon his wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind to her husband which she cannot retract.

…MR was LEGAL in most countries whose legal code was first created by white European Christians, which is basically most countries. It has only started to be made illegal in the last fifty years, and often against the wishes of (probably mainly) male politicians.

The rise of feminism in the ’60s and ’70s started seeing the rise of calls for MR to be recognised as a crime. Many men felt emasculated by the idea that they could no longer force themselves on their wives, that their wives were suddenly no longer blow-up dolls without a choice.

Speaking for my own country, shamefully the UK only acknowledged MR as a crime in 1991.

Looking at Australia, @The Hole Got Fixed, it took until 1994 for the Northern Territories to recognise MR (the last state to recognise MR as a crime was Queensland in 1989).

As I illustrated above, @50yearslate, the US still has many States resisting judgements that laws which didn’t acknowledge MR as a crime were unconstitutional. These judgements have been made by State courts, and there has yet to be a case which has reached the Supreme Court to create a federal judgement, which has allowed States to be mealy-mouthed about it and create big loopholes by building in big exemptions as to which rape laws apply, and excluding shocking things like drug rape.

In that regard South Carolina is the worst state in the US, as it only recognises MR, which they call “Spousal sexual battery,” with a high level of violence or threat of.

The basis of criminal law is about oppressing behaviour that is oppressive, creating a society where there are rights and wrongs, but we often forget the small things and zoom in on big political issues, losing sight of the personal.

I wonder if @Dark Overlord would have commented:

Even if women and minorities are still oppressed, it’s not the white man’s fault and trying to get revenge on the white man will only create oppression.

if he recognised that it boiled down to something like rape, and if he supports the position of those States that have grudgingly accepted a man can rape his wife but have created loopholes that mean he can rape away so long as clever about it and doesn’t beat her?

We should fight oppression at every level, and that often means bringing in laws that oppose it.

Where would DO have stopped laws that prevent oppression? We know the slave owners felt they were being oppressed as countries abolished slavery…