Re:Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Kno...
by kelnos on Monday October 07, 2019 @07:38PM
(#21187166)
Yes, I absolutely still agree. A mental illness does not absolve you of responsibility for your actions. If someone is a well-known member of some community and is in a position of power and influence, and they have a condition where they have trouble not swearing, I would think that having someone (without that condition) vet their public communications before sending them out would be a minimum logical, smart thing to do.
I think your analogy is a little bit fallacious, though. We're not talking about a verbal tic here; we're talking about actual actions that make women feel unsafe in his presence.
Put another way, I would be far far more comfortable telling someone "hey, yeah, he has a verbal tic that makes him say 'fuck' a lot; it's weird, but just ignore it" than I would be telling a woman, "hey, yeah, he's [something] and that makes him inappropriately hit on you all the time in situations where he has power over you; it's weird, but just ignore it". Yeah... nope.
I think your analogy is a little bit fallacious, though. We're not talking about a verbal tic here; we're talking about actual actions that make women feel unsafe in his presence.
Put another way, I would be far far more comfortable telling someone "hey, yeah, he has a verbal tic that makes him say 'fuck' a lot; it's weird, but just ignore it" than I would be telling a woman, "hey, yeah, he's [something] and that makes him inappropriately hit on you all the time in situations where he has power over you; it's weird, but just ignore it". Yeah... nope.