The Matt Walsh Show - September 12, 2018


Ep. 102 - How To Protect Men From False Rape Accusations


Episode Stats

Length

23 minutes

Words per Minute

161.2825

Word Count

3,771

Sentence Count

218

Misogynist Sentences

20

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary

False rape accusations are a problem that is not talked about enough. In this episode, we will look at the problem of false rape accusations and how common they are, and the consequences that come from them. False rape accusations can have devastating consequences.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 So I'd like to talk about an issue that isn't discussed enough. There have been recently a
00:00:06.140 number of stories of false rape accusations and the terrible consequences that accompany them.
00:00:14.980 And before we get into the examples, I think the first question, of course, anyone asks is,
00:00:20.260 well, how common is this problem? I mean, how often does it happen
00:00:24.920 that somebody is falsely accused of rape? Feminists and other liberals will, if you've heard them talk
00:00:32.400 about this, you've probably heard the figure 2%. And here's the thing about feminists. Feminists
00:00:38.600 love to make up statistics. I think it's their favorite thing to do in the world. They enjoy
00:00:44.940 that even more than yelling and screaming at men. They just love making up statistics. It's really
00:00:51.800 their favorite pastime. So they have this 2% figure that they will often cite. They'll say,
00:00:58.660 well, 2% of all rape accusations are false. Now, I want to give you an example of how that
00:01:06.760 argument is framed. And I was just looking this up online to try to get to the bottom of it. And
00:01:12.800 I found just, for instance, an article on the website quartz.com, which was published in 2017.
00:01:19.980 And it says this, it says, let's start with the idea that false rape accusations ruin lives
00:01:25.160 and are therefore a universal risk to men. Generally, feminists dismiss this idea by arguing
00:01:32.440 that false accusations are rare. Only between 2% and 10% of all reports are estimated to be false.
00:01:40.100 What's equally important to know, however, is that false rape accusations almost never have serious
00:01:47.040 consequences. Now, we'll get to that almost never have serious consequences thing in a second. But
00:01:54.320 let's look at 2% to 10%. Okay, so that's the range that we've been given here. And so 2% is,
00:02:03.220 you know, like I said, that's, that's what you'll most often hear. Let's look at that. The problem with
00:02:07.340 2% is that, as I said, it's a made up figure. Okay, it's not it's it is not it's just it's not based in
00:02:15.640 reality. A report by a man named Edward Greer, which was published in the Loyola of Los Angeles
00:02:22.840 Law Review, and I think 2000 or 2001, tried to get to the bottom of this figure to find out where it
00:02:29.820 originates. That's why it's a lengthy report where he goes into detail about this idea that only 2% of
00:02:36.460 all of all rape accusations are false. And Greer discovered that it originates from a book written
00:02:44.760 in 1975. And the book gives this figure and cites as its source a speech, which was given by a judge
00:02:53.780 the year before. So Greer contacted the judge's law clerk and found out that nobody really knows
00:03:00.240 or remembers where that figure came from. It's just it's just something that the guy said in the
00:03:05.140 speech. In other words, it's a false statistic from 40 years ago. So when you hear somebody say
00:03:12.940 that, well, only 2% of rape accusations are false. Most likely, here's how it goes. Okay, this is how
00:03:18.700 like to trace the how they came about that figure. What it probably means is that that person saw it on
00:03:27.140 Facebook, from someone who saw it in an article, written by someone who read another article, written
00:03:33.880 by someone who got it from a book, written by someone who got it from a from a from a from a speech
00:03:39.640 given by a judge who doesn't remember where he got it from. Okay, that's, that's how that's how we come up
00:03:45.320 with, with statistics in, in modern America. Now, what about 10%? Because that was the other that was the
00:03:56.020 other figure that we were given 10%. Well, I'm not really sure where 10%. I'm not sure where this 10%
00:04:01.940 figure comes from. But in any case, 10% is pretty high, isn't it? Like 10% of people who are accused
00:04:11.120 of rape are innocent. Isn't that a really high? So if you've got 1000 men in a room, and they've all
00:04:18.540 been accused of rape, 100 of them are innocent. That seems like a high figure to me. And the fact that
00:04:24.960 the author of this article apparently thinks it's a negligible figure is pretty frightening. But here's
00:04:30.400 the other problem. We have no idea how many innocent men are, are really accused of rape, because
00:04:38.900 the only way that we can begin to quantify that number is by looking at the men who have been
00:04:45.600 completely vindicated of the charges. And so they're the only ones that we can even start to quantify. And
00:04:50.940 it's impossible to even quantify them. But that's to assume that every man falsely accused of rape
00:04:57.580 has been vindicated, which of course is not the case. It stands to reason that there's a certain
00:05:02.900 number of men who are in prison right now for rape and who didn't do it, and who are on sex offender
00:05:07.380 registries, yet did not commit the crime. How many of them are? We have no idea. We have no clue.
00:05:13.300 But we do know that false accusations happen. How often do they happen? We don't know exactly. We
00:05:20.880 know that they happen. And we do know also that it's very easy to ruin a man's life and get him put
00:05:30.440 in prison based on a false accusation. So that's really what makes the false accusation thing so scary
00:05:37.320 is that it's really easy to do. All it takes is someone who's willing to tell a lie and tell it
00:05:44.780 halfway convincingly and stick to the lie. And if they're willing to do that, they can probably get
00:05:49.540 you put in prison even without any other evidence. That's what's terrifying about it. Now, so let's give
00:05:58.800 some examples. Exhibit A. A man was, this is a story in the Daily Wire yesterday, about a man who was
00:06:05.900 released from prison, from a 50-year prison sentence, because it turned out that the person
00:06:12.140 who accused him of sexual abuse lied under oath. Now, the accuser is a minor. We don't know her
00:06:18.620 exact age. At least I looked it up. Apparently, we don't know what her age is exactly, so not sure
00:06:24.700 about that. But the accuser said that the guy's name is Joshua Horner. He said Joshua Horner molested her
00:06:31.820 and then shot her dog in order to intimidate her in the silence. That's the story. The story she told
00:06:38.360 is that he molested her and then said, and then I believe it was something like he said,
00:06:45.580 you know, if you tell anyone, I'm going to kill you. And then in order to demonstrate his seriousness,
00:06:52.440 he shot and killed the dog. He was then convicted by a non-unanimous jury, not really sure how that
00:06:59.500 happens, and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Now, several months, actually about a year and a half
00:07:06.120 into his sentence, it was discovered that the dog he supposedly killed was still alive and well.
00:07:13.440 never been killed, never been shot. Now, how is it that the police and the prosecutor
00:07:22.220 never thought to check on this key piece of evidence? I don't know. I'm not sure how that
00:07:28.260 happens. The girl said that the man raped her and shot her dog. Well, it seems like if you could find
00:07:34.160 a dead dog with a bullet hole in its head, then that's a pretty good indication that the accusation
00:07:40.740 is true, right? But if you can't find the dog, then that's a pretty good, that's a pretty relevant
00:07:49.080 evidence on the other side of the equation. But yet nobody checked at all? How is that possible?
00:07:57.140 So this guy, this is what makes it scary. This guy was sent to prison for 50 years based only on the
00:08:08.520 word of this girl. No other evidence, and even the other evidence that could have been used to either
00:08:15.940 vindicate him or indicate his guilt, was never even, nobody ever even thought to check on it
00:08:21.280 until he'd already been in prison for a year and a half. So it turns out that the accuser had lied
00:08:28.520 about that detail at least. And when the investigators came to ask her about all of this, she fled,
00:08:36.640 and she ran away. So Horner was eventually released from prison. Though the DA has said that he doesn't
00:08:43.540 know, he can't say for sure that Horner is actually innocent of molestation, but there isn't any evidence
00:08:49.300 to maintain a conviction. And there is now very good evidence that the accuser is a liar. So he's out.
00:08:55.580 Now, let's just imagine, so we really don't know if the whole story is false or not. But let's just
00:09:04.160 imagine for a minute that Horner is actually entirely innocent of the whole thing. And it
00:09:10.420 seems very possible that he is. It seems even likely that he is completely innocent, because
00:09:17.340 there would be no reason, there'd be simply no reason for a legitimate rape victim to concoct some
00:09:25.500 bizarre story about her dog getting shot. Like, there's no reason to embellish to that extent
00:09:30.960 if you actually were a victim of this horrible crime. But here's the problem. Horner's life and
00:09:38.720 his reputation are now going to be forever stained, forever ruined because of this accusation, even if
00:09:45.440 it is untrue. So not only does he have to deal with the trauma of spending a year and a half in
00:09:50.660 prison as a supposed rapist, and I remind you that spending time in prison as a rapist is not a fun
00:09:57.680 experience. And it seems also there's a pretty high likelihood that he was a victim of sexual
00:10:04.400 abuse in prison, because that's what they do to rapists in prison. Not only does he have to deal
00:10:08.640 with that, but now he also has a lifetime of suspicion that will never go away. There are other examples,
00:10:17.220 recent examples. There were, and these are just from the last few months, two men were falsely accused
00:10:24.700 of rape by a Sacred Heart University college student. Both men had to leave school and one lost his
00:10:32.900 football scholarship over it. And then it turned out that the girl made up the story because I think
00:10:38.180 she felt guilty after having consensual sex with them. She was worried that her boyfriend would find
00:10:43.640 out or something. And so she ruined their lives, you know, because that's what you do. In another case,
00:10:50.500 there was a man expelled from school and subjected to public humiliation by a woman who accused him of
00:10:57.240 raping her at a frat party. The accuser says that she was drugged and assaulted, but an investigation,
00:11:10.440 including a medical exam and rape kit, found absolutely no evidence that any form of sexual
00:11:15.700 contact took place, consensual or otherwise. So the DA, you know, came out and he said very plainly,
00:11:22.440 he said, her allegations are, quote, simply not accurate. Then there were men, two men who were
00:11:30.740 released from prison a few months ago after serving 26 years for a supposed gang rape that never occurred.
00:11:37.760 The accuser now admits that she invented the story. In another recent case, again, these are all just
00:11:42.780 for the last few months. A woman claimed that two men had kidnapped and raped her at gunpoint.
00:11:48.340 And then she later admitted that the claims were a lie when police found video evidence that
00:11:52.740 contradicted her tail. And again, these are just for the last few months.
00:11:59.400 Notice a couple of things about these cases. Notice how in every case, it was just one small thing
00:12:08.280 that rescued these guys. And in some cases rescued them after they'd already been in prison for a
00:12:13.460 while. But without that thing, they'd all still be in prison. So in one case, the accuser had sent
00:12:20.440 sexually explicit text messages to her alleged rapist, clearly indicating that she didn't think
00:12:25.160 she had been raped after it actually happened. In another, you have video surveillance. In another,
00:12:30.220 there's a dog that they happened to find. In another, there's the small detail of the fact that the
00:12:36.980 guy didn't actually have sex with the woman. If he had had sex with her, even consensually,
00:12:41.240 then he'd be doomed. Notice something else. In every case, the penalties for the false accusers
00:12:50.180 or potential false accusers range from mild to non-existent. So the woman who made up the gunpoint
00:12:57.720 rape was charged with a misdemeanor. The woman who invented the frat party rape will face a lawsuit,
00:13:03.740 but as far as I know, no legal penalties. The woman who put two men in prison for 26 years
00:13:08.440 will not be prosecuted at all because of statute of limitations. The Sacred Heart University students
00:13:14.100 who ruined the lives of two men make him the story. She's going to go to jail for 12 months.
00:13:20.580 She got the harshest penalty. And as for Joshua Horner's accuser, if she did indeed make up the
00:13:26.620 abuse like she made up the dead dog, there's no indication that she'll be charged with any crime at
00:13:31.480 all. We also don't know her age. So she could be very young. I mean, we don't know. And we also
00:13:37.280 don't know what role the adults in her life may or may not have played in helping her to cover up the
00:13:43.520 lie about the dog. So the thing though, that ties all these cases together
00:13:51.140 is that while the accusers, who all happen to be women in these cases, while the women received
00:14:00.860 either no penalty or a very light penalty, all of the men, the accused did receive or would have
00:14:07.740 received penalties that far exceeded the punishments that the false accusers face. And this to me just
00:14:15.760 seems like a gross injustice. You know, rape is a monstrous crime because of how it violates and
00:14:23.580 dehumanizes the victim and because of the lifelong devastation that it causes. But falsely accusing
00:14:30.740 somebody of rape is a monstrous crime for the same reason. Let's think about the ways that a false
00:14:42.260 accuser harms her victim. Okay. Um, number one, that years of false imprisonment. So that's pretty,
00:14:49.940 that's pretty big deal. Number two, he faces serial sex abuse while he's in prison because that's how
00:14:57.060 rapists are treated in prison. Number three, his, his reputation is permanently ruined. Number four,
00:15:02.780 his personal relationships, probably his marriage, if he's married will likely be destroyed. Um, number
00:15:08.640 five, he's got loss of employment. Okay. He's never, he's going to, he's going to lose whatever job he
00:15:13.420 had. He's never going to be able to find a good job again, most likely. Um, number six, there's the
00:15:19.480 severe emotional and psychological trauma and then on and on, right? The dozens of other consequences,
00:15:25.840 too numerous to list. Even though that article I read at the top said that, um, rarely are there
00:15:30.240 serious consequences for false rape accusations. I would say that there are always serious consequences.
00:15:36.520 It's just a matter of how serious and how far does it go. And that really depends on how quickly,
00:15:43.700 um, the man can demonstrate his own innocence or if he can ever demonstrate it at all.
00:15:52.660 And if it takes him 26 years, then he's going to be in prison for those 26 years, right? Um,
00:15:58.260 a woman or a man who would subject another human being to all of that. Because again, think about
00:16:09.960 with a false rape accusation, it's not just like, it's, it's, it's, it's not a momentary thing. You
00:16:16.560 are, you are ruining their life. You are taking another human being and obliterating everything
00:16:24.220 about their life. You're blowing it to pieces. And someone who would do that is no better than a
00:16:32.380 rapist or murderer. I really make no distinction. I make no distinction between a woman who would send
00:16:40.120 a man to jail, to prison for a rape he didn't commit. I make no moral distinction between her
00:16:46.700 and a man who actually did commit a rape. I think morally they are the same.
00:16:53.440 And not only is that, that false accuser, not only is she morally deranged, but she is a threat
00:16:59.600 to society. Just as the rapist is a threat to society. So is she because she possesses the, the,
00:17:07.900 not only the willingness to tell the most damaging kinds of lies, but she possesses the ability to do so
00:17:15.060 convincingly. And so she's a danger. She's a danger to any man who happens to end up in a room alone
00:17:22.880 with her. She's a danger to any man who she, she, she develops a grudge against. Um, she can destroy
00:17:31.460 a man's life with one lie. That's the way it works. She doesn't need any evidence. She needs nothing but
00:17:39.100 the lie. And that will be enough at the very least. It may be enough to put him in prison at the very
00:17:46.560 least. It'll be enough to destroy his reputation, destroy his life, destroy his relationships and get
00:17:50.640 him fired from his job, get his scholarships taken away, get him kicked out of school. At the very
00:17:55.000 least, just the, just the story, that's it will be enough to do that. Um, and so she's a danger to
00:18:03.720 society. And the only way to protect her next potential victim is to lock her in a jail cell
00:18:10.100 for a very long time. So it seems obvious to me that false rape accusers, um, at least those who
00:18:20.040 are adults, you know, children who make up stories, even though they also, even though that does happen,
00:18:25.380 like it, maybe it happened with Joshua Horner, it does happen. And it, I mean, um, it, it is
00:18:33.920 devastating for the person who falls victim to that sort of thing. You know, what kind of punishments
00:18:38.060 should, should, should those kids face? And that's sort of a different subject, but for the adults,
00:18:42.660 uh, it seems clear to me that they ought to be given the same sentence that would have gone to their
00:18:48.180 victim. That's, that seems clear. So we have, you know, statute of limitations and all that,
00:18:56.740 but if not for that, then, uh, the woman who put the, those men in jail for 26 years,
00:19:00.500 she should at a minimum be in jail for 26 years. And then she should have to, from there,
00:19:07.380 serve out whatever the rest of their sentence would have been. Um, now, of course, look,
00:19:13.380 I'm not suggesting that any, any woman who accuses a man of rape should automatically go to jail if the
00:19:20.340 man is found not guilty. Like, I'm not saying that because obviously just because a rape isn't proved
00:19:26.320 doesn't mean that it was invented. Just as there are men who are falsely accused who are in prison
00:19:33.120 right now for rape, there are plenty of men who have committed rapes and are not in prison because
00:19:36.880 they were never caught or it couldn't be proved in court or whatever. But if evidence is uncovered,
00:19:44.320 which positively indicates a false accusation, then there should be an investigation and a trial.
00:19:50.440 I mean, in all these cases, there was evidence, right? There's the dog, there's the video evidence,
00:19:56.260 text messages, you know, whatever, um, DNA, like all of these things can be positive evidence to
00:20:03.440 positively indicate that a, a, a false accusation has occurred. And if you have that, then there
00:20:08.700 should be an investigation. There should be a trial. Um, and if the woman is found guilty,
00:20:14.700 she should go to jail for a very long time. Now, you know, rape can be very hard to prove in a court
00:20:25.260 of law. False accusations can be hard to prove as well, but both of them can be proven. And when they are,
00:20:32.060 it seems obvious to me that they should be treated exactly the same. I mean, that's the only way that
00:20:39.900 you're going to be able to protect men and women too. Although I, you know, I think probably women
00:20:45.380 are falsely accused of rape a lot, a lot less frequently, but, uh, that's the only way to protect
00:20:50.760 people from, from, from these kinds of things. And it's very easy. You know, it's, it's feminists
00:20:59.020 like to talk all the time about how, you know, men or the, how women live in fear because of, uh,
00:21:05.600 you know, they, they have to worry about walking, you know, in a parking lot by themselves or walking
00:21:10.080 down the street because they have to worry about men, men are monstrous and all this kind of stuff.
00:21:15.120 And I don't doubt that, um, those are concerns that women have to have. And that's a terrible thing
00:21:19.840 because there are some, there are really bad men out there who have the physical ability to
00:21:25.540 dominate women and are willing to use that ability to very evil ends. But on the other end of the
00:21:32.680 spectrum, you know, you can't completely dismiss this very real fear that men have that some evil
00:21:42.020 woman could come along and just ruin their life with a story because that does happen and it can
00:21:49.420 happen. It's a very real concern. Feminists just dismiss, they just laugh that off. Like it doesn't
00:21:53.780 happen, it doesn't matter, but it does happen and it does matter. And I think we have to treat it
00:22:03.060 very seriously when it does happen. I know there's always going to be the concern that, well, you know,
00:22:10.160 if you start penalizing false accusers in this way, then aren't you, um, making women, uh, who are,
00:22:17.600 who are victims of rape, aren't you making them hesitant to come forward? Well, you know,
00:22:23.480 I kind of think that maybe the opposite is true. That in this environment now where, you know,
00:22:31.540 any story is immediately, is, is immediately believed and, uh, and, you know, any woman could
00:22:37.480 ruin any man's life just with a story, you know, in this kind of environment where there are false
00:22:41.420 accusations and then you have all these stories that come out of men who, who are released after
00:22:46.160 being falsely imprisoned and all this stuff. I think, I think this environment serves to unfairly
00:22:51.560 discredit, um, women who are actually victims of rape. So if you can weed a lot of that stuff out
00:22:59.940 and start penalizing the real false accusers, then I think ultimately it'll, it'll do the opposite
00:23:06.820 and it'll lend more credibility to the, to the, um, you know, actually true accusations.
00:23:16.160 So just some things to think about. Thanks for watching everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.