Your Most Controversial Opinions!

One needs a liscense to:Practice law, Medicine, child car provider, drive a car, cut hair, be an elecrician/plumber.
Why we do not have minimum standards and require a liscense to have children is beyond me. No other job in this world is more important.

LOL....The notion of New York and romance having anything in common just kills me!

I can personally see my capacity to end a life. One does this with conviction. however I do not have the capacity to rape.

There is no evidence that exists to this effect. No one is exactly like me. You may speak of this in terms of a tendancy in the general populace but can not accurately apply it to the individual. You have applied it to yourself and question your own character. That is your issue. In the case of physical abuse I do not question mine.

As I have read the premise of the experiment one can say that any answer I might give is now biased.Let me give you some examples from my life that I feel apply. the first two do not invilve violence but they did involve reward at the expense others by pressure or deceit.
The first happened whent I was about 15 or so. There was an Amway party hosted by my parents and many of their friends and relatives attended. I was the only one in the crowd who asked about evidence of the quality of the products while everyone else talked about the oportunity Amway provided. They all gave me flack. I was freaked out by what I saw there in my relatives and parents friends.The second involves my 4 hour stint at telephone sales (magazines).I was 20 and sorely in need of a job. The day began with a briefing of the spiel and a little practice with another potential sales person. The script was set up so if you were refused at a particular point you were instructed to automatically repeat a given point in return. We were both not yet comfortable with the spiel but the supervisor said..."Don't worry, you will learn as you go. Follow the script and you will do fine." All the calls were monitered. I fumbled through for a bit and began to get a feel for the wording. Many calls but no takers. Finally I had an older woman on the line. She listened and was polite. When she said no thank you I went into repeating portions of the script as directed. I very shortly uderstood by following the script what I was doing. I could feel through the conversation that this person could be swayed. I said thank you and have a nice day. I suddenly recognized I had had a "mark." First and only time in my life.I began listening to all the conversations going on among other people in the room. I would't give you a plug nickle for the life of any one of them. I was in a room of scum. Shortly there after the supervisor came out to talk to me. He said "you have a very pleasent voice and a great demeanor on the phone but you do not have what this job requires" I looked him in the eye and said "You mean I am not a big enough asshole." He was like "Well, I wouldn't say THAT" I just kept looking him in the eye. He finally says "I think you should go."The last involves a party I attended when I was 18. Late after most people were gone or passed out I was still up drinking and BSing with one of the guys there I knew. There was a girl we both knew there who was really trashed. The guy began playing up to this woman and I kinda joined in. She enjoyed the attention. We ended up all stumbling into the bedroom. She was not against it until this guy began to get serious. She began saying no. Well that was the end for me. He continued to push the issue. Finally I asked him what the hell was wrong with him? She was not interested. He looked at me and said
"C'mon, she will. I told him no F'n way. He didn't want to take no for an answer from me either it appeared. He was extemely pissed at me and finally left. To even be near the filth and realise what he would have done even though I stopped it, left a bad feeling in my gut. I actually felt so guilty even though I did the right thing that I applogized for the both of us.Based on my understanding of who I am and many other choices I have made in my life, the very premise of the experiment would not seem right. I believe I would have left it up to the student to call the shots up a to point. If the individual appeared to reached the point where I would consider them masochistic I would have stopped.Edited by 2ice_baked_taters, : No reason given.Edited by 2ice_baked_taters, : No reason given.

I would dissagree.
I Think you would find that intelligence has no bearing on a persons moral behavior.

One thing I have noticed is that though rape of men by women or other men has been acknowledged at one small point in this thread it has largely been ignored. So it suggests to me a double standard harbored by both men and women. It is more acceptable if women rape men or, men rape men or, if men or boys are raped in general?
If an older male teacher would have had an affair with a younger female student of say....15 The public response would have been drastic. Such was not the case with recent similar events when the reverse happened.If one goes by Frogs way of thinking all women should assume they are capable of rape.

It is very relevant with respect to my point. Your May-December "affair" comment illustrates my point. It appears you want us to somehow feel more for one person wronged than another.

The notion of Nature Vs. Nurture is a meaningless statement.
There is no sepparation.
.

This is an interesting way of thinking I do not agree with. I can go through life assuming I am incapable of acts of good. So this means I am more likely to commit an act of good simply because I refuse to believe anything I'm doing is good.Your comments are simply identifying those who do not wish to take responsibility for their actions. Of course this touches on the shakey subject of morality. Our moral discrepancies cause war which we justify. Interesting loop.

Bad or evil is subjective. For instance, people we might consider to have done terribly evil terrorist attacks only see their actions as justified reprizals for what they view as terrorist attacks.
Not all people do this. I am very aware of what I suck at. I am painfully aware of my weaknesses. They are frustrating at times. In the case of the milgren exp. It apears to be what I call the sheep and the flock syndrome or herd mentallity....not taking responsibilty for ones actions. Refusal to think for ones self. Disturbing how quickly we can dehumanise others..."whatever it might mean to be human"I would see myself tested in some manor to see if it is just me or that I really do understand who I am. I understand what circumstances could make me commit a violent act in general but rape is about power over another. Pleasure by the physical and or psychological damage of another. That is not in me. I think we define a persons character when they say what they mean, mean what they say and back it up with demonstration. "This" = trust from others.

I would be more likely quick to act where a man is involved. In either case I would report it but my first honest reaction was to want to know more about the situations with the woman before I proceeded.We are predisposed as a whole to think of men as violent and women as passive. I've been watching it here. I have seen it countless times in ereveryday life. It is acceptable of a man hits a man who has struck him. If a woman strikes a man not only is it not acceptable to hit her back but if he presses charges people do not think he is a man.
So men are supposed to accept violence and women are not held to the same standard.

So when a doctor rapes a patient without violence because the doctor is an authority figure and the patient is confused and flustered and freezes like a deer in the headlights, not able to cope....and never pursues it...what then?
Rape by coercion is more acceptable? The victim is less a victim?
The violence is there, it is just less visible and it appears you find it more acceptable.

My example is what happens very often without physical violence to many people including minors. The point was to illustrate indifference to an attack that can affect people just as profoundly.
If I force you into a legal battle and spend you into bancrupcy resulting in the loss of your home,job,and marriage or death of a loved one because of stress and lack of funds for medication?...How should you rank on the empathy scale?

I stated my opinion on the acceptability of one assault over another and the desparity that seems to happen because of gender or perception.
The Idea afloat is that we should somehow feel more empathy for one victim than another.