reserved

In my experience people blame three entities for perceived (including real) crimes:

1. The perpetrator

2. Society (or the situation)

3. Jews

Depending on the order of preference you can sort people into camps:

Neo-cons: perpetrator, society, Jews

Modern liberals: society, Jews, perpetrator

Nazis: Jews, perpetrator, society

Radical left: Jews, society, perpetrator

Old-style socialists and Leninists*: society, perpetrator, Jews

What you call "neutrality" is simply a form of taking sides. So is impartiality. The difference is not the position taken but the road used to arrive there. Depending on the above, you will either blame the perpetrator or society and take sides accordingly. The difference between the neutral/impartial and the two other players is that they have a higher stake in the matter.

Incidentally, there is nothing wrong with the rapist himself blaming society (an abstract system) or an illness of some kind. Unless he accuses other people without evidence he is perfectly within his rights to blame absolutely everything and anything and argue that he is innocent, even lie if he thinks it will help him.

*I have to be fair towards Lenin here. He did defend the Jews and wasn't stupid or evil enough to see problems in Russia as being the Jews' fault.

Heh, nice one Leauki.

What does it make me if I a blame the perpetrator alone... and not society or jews?

Also, I can't shake the feeling you were at least halfway serious... because this is pretty accurate for some people I have met. You forgot to include the victim in the list of people to blame... blaming the victim is usually pretty high on the list of people to blame. (especially if the victims are jews)

It's an order of preference, not absolutes.

In your case I think you blame the perpetrator 100%, but if you had to choose who comes second, you would blame society rather than Jews.

Hence, for you the order of preference is: perpetrator (100%), society (0%), Jews (0%). To you it makes sense that society, an entity that was at least part of the equation, was a possible culprit but turned out to be innocent.

Outside the case of rape, I myself certainly put some blame on society. Generally not a lot, but I do think we as a society can do things to reduce crime. We can adjust prison times, reform the school system to avoid indoctrinating idiots with the idea that rich people are evil and desderve to be robbed etc..

I am always serious.

Yes, that's true.

In many Islamic societies women are executed for having been raped.

But I'm not sure if there is a general attitude towards blaming the victim or whether that isn't just an outcome of blaming per order of preference. Blaming Jewish victims is the same as blaming Jews. Conservatives have a tendency to blame the victim if the victim is also the perpetrator. (You think that is the right way to do it? You are a conservative.) And stoning women for being rape victims is really a symptom of blaming the situation the perpetrator was put into. The woman was dressed "provocatively". That's a problem with society.

They say "she dressed provocatively" in the USA too... it just ends with a rapist getting a reduced sentence rather then the woman stoned to death.

Certainly society has problems, but "bad things happened to me" is no excuse to do bad things to others... Which is when people blame society typically. Many see what was done to them as a cautionary tale, not a learning experience; which path you choose to go down is exactly that, a choice.

If anything, in this article I am pointing a finger at large swatches of society... Backhanded insult towards conservatives and full faced slap on the face to liberals. Ironic since some would say that belonging to "neither group" would make me neutral

EDIT: oh, and as for what you said about "if the victims are jews its just blaming jews"... yes, but jews was just a type of victims to be blamed... women can be blamed for being raped. the "rich" for being robbed, and so on.

I cannot imagine why a rapist should get a reduced sentence because of how the victim dressed. After all, it's the act of raping her that was the crime, not his increasing lust.

I do support the idea that, for example, a peeping tom should be punished less (or not at all) because of what the woman does. In that case, it is not the act (the peeping) that is the crime, but the combination of act and circumstances, I'd say.

As for the second point, you know the difference between Britain and Iran, right?

In Britain, women get stoned first, then commit adultery.

Still unconvinced. In all these cases people blame the victims not because they are victims but for other reasons.

You blame the perpetrator because he is the perpetrator. Society is blamed because it is society and is thus present and can be blamed. Antisemites blame Jews because they are Jews. So in order to fit here, victims would have to blamed because they are victims. But that's just never the case.

Jewish victims are blamed not because they are victims but because they are Jews. Non-Jewish victims wouldn't be blamed. Non-victim Jews would be blamed.

Women are blamed for being rape victims because they are women. But that's not general enough because it simply isn't universal. (Prejudice against women is universal, but this particular example isn't.) The justice system does not blame ALL women for one rape and nor would it blame ALL victims for crimes. It's the combination of woman and victim that takes the blame. So this falls under "situation".

Blaming the "rich" is an extension of blaming the Jews. You will usually find that those who blame the rich pretty much equate rich people with Jewish people and rarely blame the non-Jewish rich (and if they do, they do it because of their similarity to the Jewish rich).

Lenin, for example, blamed rich people for Russia's problem (and he had a point), but he specifically didn't blame the Jews. He was a radical "society, perpetrator, Jews" person. I count anti-establishment opinions as blaming society or the situation.

for the most part, I agree with the discussion.  I will only pick a nit.  IN islamic society, the only way a woman can get raped is if she breaks a law - being unescorted by a male relative.  I will not try to fathom why then, once she has broken a law, she is basically an unperson in the law's eyes.

As for Quote 2, that is the whole abrogation of responsibility of the perp.

Actually, in many cases women were raped even though they did have a male relative escort.

And in Iran it is not illegal for a woman to travel alone. That's Saudi-Arabia.

you could say a woman there need 4 male relatives as an escort.

because she needs 4 male witnesses...