BTW, following up on some of what brandtotter said, part of the reason why I'm in favour of giving the accused a fair hearing is that I've been on the other end of things. A couple of years back I discovered second- or third-hand that a former friend of mine was accusing me of having tried to pressure her into sex.
In fact, I was the one who'd called a halt to things because I was getting mixed messages from her. We'd continued on as friends for a year or two after that, and I had no hint that she had any complaint in that regard until after she developed a grudge against reynardo for unrelated reasons...
So, yeah. People *do* make malicious accusations. In my case, any adverse consequences were social (and honestly, fairly minimal; it was a pretty unpleasant thing to hear, but most of my friends are sensible enough not to pass judgement without hearing both sides of the story - and there were several other people in our circle who could attest to her conveniently selective memory). But you can probably see why I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of a mob beating one stranger up on another stranger's say-so.
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Date: 2006-04-22 04:54 pm (UTC)In fact, I was the one who'd called a halt to things because I was getting mixed messages from her. We'd continued on as friends for a year or two after that, and I had no hint that she had any complaint in that regard until after she developed a grudge against
So, yeah. People *do* make malicious accusations. In my case, any adverse consequences were social (and honestly, fairly minimal; it was a pretty unpleasant thing to hear, but most of my friends are sensible enough not to pass judgement without hearing both sides of the story - and there were several other people in our circle who could attest to her conveniently selective memory). But you can probably see why I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of a mob beating one stranger up on another stranger's say-so.