The politics of Get a Man
It is unfortunate that this concept is viewed as acceptable in any society, let alone become commonplace as it has in ours.
It comes off the back of the theory that men are expendable in the development of society, and sometimes it’s hard to translate into every day life.
There’s an article here
which looks at the concept of get any man, rather than get the right man.
It’s the ugly side of the human mind, that takes the freedom of another human being, to prove expedience, at the expense of what the majority of us like to believe is justice.
What may be a hidden reality is that we’ve had far more men wrongly convicted in this country than we would like to think.
The article also crosses another bridge to places further away
The police are not there to “get people’. A culture of this nature is an abuse of power, and damaging to society. We’ve seen that play out in an unfortunate manner of recent, with a raid on a journalist’s apartment. It’s well publicized and I’m not going to rehash that story here.
That of course was the much publicized search warrant executed on the home of TV3 journalist Heather du Plessis-Allan. In this, and it matters little, that ‘the man’ was in fact a woman: The culture evolves to a greater evil, when it becomes not only an assault of the freedom of the individual, but a threat to society. The media reacted accordingly, they have their place, and the judiciary wasn’t slow in making their feelings publically known either.
This is where we also must act accordingly, about the way men are treated. Every time Justice is denied, every time the man takes the punishment of a crime he didn’t commit, that is an attack on our freedom.
Thanks Downunder for posting this opinion piece.
Comment by voices back from the bush — Tue 8th December 2015 @ 6:12 pm
We should consider putting a Guy (made from a broomstick and straw) into prison, when we cannot catch the actual murderer within say 6 months.
If that seems a silly idea, then why don’t we put the Police Commissioner into prison instead?
We can’t, he is already in prison for perjury and false imprisonment……
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 9th December 2015 @ 2:20 pm
lol Murray – I’m sure the Police have a Straw Man argument equal to the occasion.
Comment by Downunder — Wed 9th December 2015 @ 3:21 pm
I don’t agree that police investigating Ms du Plessis-Allan is in any way relevant to the problem of police fitting up some convenient but wrong person for a conviction, always a male (because police would not be so cavalier regarding a female who might be harmed through false conviction and punishment).
Ms dP-A intentionally broke the law in various ways including forging police signatures in order to obtain a gun wrongfully, causing trouble and risk for the gun store owner who I understand made the complaint. When someone makes a complaint about quite serious law breaking then police surely are obliged to do their job.
Whether Ms dP-A’s stunt was of much or any public benefit is doubtful. We already know that if someone commits brazen acts of law breaking they might get away with something. Would you be doing anyone a favour by breaking into your neighbours’ house then returning their property you stole, in order to demonstrate that their building materials are not secure enough to stop burglars?
Few members of the public are likely to have available the contacts who assisted Ms dP-A in obtaining the false documents and signatures, and indeed she has provided no evidence that criminals or anyone else has ever obtained a gun through this ‘loophole’ that she claimed to expose through her career-development plan. Whatever the gun shop and/or police have done to tighten up the process, someone will probably still be able to thwart it through sufficiently sophisticated deceit.
It may be appropriate for the Court to discharge Ms dP-A without conviction or to give a reduced sentence in recognition of her claimed good intentions, but it would be wrong for the police not to investigate or not to prosecute if evidence of serious law-breaking is found.
I can’t help but suspect that there is a degree of white-knight influence on many people’s thinking about Ms dP-A and her behaviour.
Comment by Man X Norton — Wed 9th December 2015 @ 5:45 pm
#3 – beautiful! thanks.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 9th December 2015 @ 7:41 pm
Man X Norton Reducing this to a gender issue and suggesting that defending the girl is a white knight approach really does miss the point of the post.
The media as an institution has been too often guilty of exactly the same thing, in the way it processes an individual article. MOMA goes to great lengths to point this out because each attack on an individual is also an attack on fathers and men in general.
The same applies here, that the attack on the individual is also an attack in general on the media, their place in the scheme of things, the job they do.
That article linked to makes that point – you, ‘the media’ don’t like it when the tables are turned, when you are made the ‘black man’, when, ‘the get a man’ approach is tried out on you, yes you understand it then, and you protest loudly, but look at what you’ve been doing with your reporting, look at the way you’ve been treating us.
I think it is cut yourself off at the knees stuff, to limit your view to some sort of gender analysis, as the post says
Comment by Downunder — Thu 10th December 2015 @ 10:24 am
Here is a example of that bias.
We get the picture of the male.
But the real nasty piece of work.
The female.
No picture.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/crime/news/article.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=11558602
Comment by DJ Ward — Thu 10th December 2015 @ 8:04 pm
Down under (#6): I don’t agree that my reply reduced the matter to a gender issue. Most of my opinion had nothing to do with gender and would apply whether the journalist who broke the law had been Ms or Mr du Plessis-Allan. The point was that the police response to a complaint about the gun-related offending was in no way evidence of police abuse of power or a police attitude related to ‘getting people’ regardless of whether they are the right people.
Comment by Man X Norton — Fri 11th December 2015 @ 8:54 am
Interesting find DJ Ward.
The headline
as it should be is about the story.
What you’d expect next is reference to the four years she got for blackmail.
It looks like the writer couldn’t separate themselves and their personal feelings about adultery from their job of providing a report on the court proceedings.
It’s typical of the mediocrity in the media and the lack of editor leadership we see these days, that allows subjective reporting rather than objective reporting.
Leave the reader to make their own judgement, just write up the story.
The question I’m asking; is didn’t they have a picture of her, or weren’t they allowed to take one?
Comment by Downunder — Fri 11th December 2015 @ 11:46 am
And the answer is yes there is a picture as per this article
Which is the same story in the OTD, so, did the Herald decide not to post her picture or was there some fancy footwork by her Lawyer to get it removed?
Comment by Downunder — Fri 11th December 2015 @ 11:56 am
It’s surprising that the NZ Herald named her at all. It is possibly our leading white-knight newspaper that frequently chooses not to name female offenders under various justifications, even when the Courts have not suppressed their names. In this case choosing not to publish a photo was probably another version of the same attitude. We believe the public and especially men should be made aware of what she looks like so they can protect themselves from becoming involved with her.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Fri 11th December 2015 @ 12:15 pm
Comment by Downunder — Fri 11th December 2015 @ 1:27 pm
How to get a male.
For females who treat men as objects.
Or entertainment for the herald.
One user posted: “I faked a pregnancy… And a miscarriage… Just so my boyfriend would propose to me”.
Look at the picture with the baby as well.
And men get protection orders.
What a joke.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11555917
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 11th December 2015 @ 8:18 pm
People’s lying always comes back on somebody…… Often not the guilty party.
These women are doing a large amount of damage to women’s credibility. They think they are skiting how smart they are, but really they are tilting the scales against both women and men listening to rape complaints, listening to what women say in general. (If I was a woman, I would be pretty furious.)
Be careful out there…..
If not sure, be cautious and ask for evidence, especially where evidence can reasonably be supplied. eg accusations of violence, but no sign of any bruises – then why do NZ police sometimes prosecute in these situations? Because they need conviction statistics, as much as we need pay packets and convictions are just so easy to obtain from a thoughtless, skill-less court.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 19th December 2015 @ 10:46 am