Corrib Gas Gardai story

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I probably say I am going kill someone every day in my job. Doesn't mean I am trivialising murder. It was stupidity on the guys part but when I read the women involved claiming that local people should be scared, you realise it has nothing to do with the comments and all to do with publicity for their campaign. What I don't get is why the media are all over it.

They don't claim they were assaulted. They don't claim mis-treatment. They don't claim unfair arrest.
 
Lunchtime, I'd rape a club sandwich right now and murder a cup of tea
But the local Spar is a rip-off, they'd rape my pockets
I need a healthy diet anyway, I'm so slow on the football field the speedy wingers rape me.

You can hear each on these around the place
And if you watched RTE and the World Cup last summer you definitely heard one and the followup apology

Publicity coup for indymedia and S2S.
 
Okay, don't want to get up too much on the soapbox, but the allegations (if true) demonstrate a very weird and frightening attitude to women by men who possess a lot of personal power as officers of the Gardai. It displays an attitude to power and women as objects that can be dominated and controlled through rape or deportation. Rape in particular as a phenomenon is primarily linked to power and not to sex and while to speak of something is not the same as doing something, it indicates an aberrant mindset. We dont tolerate racist speech just because speech is a type of act that is offensive in and of itself.

This is not the same as general chit chat jokingly spoken about buyng a sambo in Spar or saying that such and such a team murdered another one on the pitch.
 
If a person had said that to a female member of the Gardai ,what reaction do you think they would get?? Or if a member of the Guards found a tape with the same content,do you think they would just let it go??
 
Very well put.. you are right that each one has to be put in context,and in fairness I have never heard anyone saying they would rape a sandwich or whatever it was..not the men I know ,thankfully..
 
thedaras said:
If a person had said that to a female member of the Gardai ,what reaction do you think they would get?? Or if a member of the Guards found a tape with the same content,do you think they would just let it go??
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Well they didn't say it the girls. And I don't see what the guards could do if they found a tape with me joking with friends about rape. Just like they couldn't do anything if they found a tape of me joking about murder.
 
The use of the word 'rape' was careless and insenstive. However, it is no different in reality to how groups of men discuss women all the time when together. Just the other night in the pub, a collegaue told me how he would 'do' another colleague of ours. He didn't mean he actually wanted to rape her or thought rape was somehow right.

The fact remains, they didn't threaten the girls, mis-handle them, abuse them or falsely accuse them. They referred to them during what was supposed to be a private conversation and yet the girls are saying now that were frightened. How, if they didn't know about the comments.

By the way, I have also heard women use rape in the wrong way. I have heard girls calling other girls slappers or commenting 'that she is asking for it'. As I said earlier, there is a wider issue with regards to peoples attitudes to sexual crimes but I don't see why these three guards are being crucified.
 

Totally agree with this.
I'm reading another extremely heated thread on another forum about this and one thing i just keep thinking is if this conversation said 'strangle' or 'murder' instead of rape there wouldn't be half the outcry that there is.

It's a sensationalist story when really the men were thick eejits having a stupid and totally inappropriate conversation and the protestors are using it to blacken the gardais name and stir up supprt among the public.

I love if some of the abuse that they've screamed at gardai made the front page.
 
thedaras said:
Very well put.. you are right that each one has to be put in context,and in fairness I have never heard anyone saying they would rape a sandwich or whatever it was..not the men I know ,thankfully..
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I don't think rapists actually go about mentioning the word rape or that they would like to rape someone, and likewise murderers tend to keep these things to themselves, so your social circle is as safe as the one with the choice language.
 
As a complete aside to the main issue here, I found it quite sad that most of the conversation between the gardai was spent discussing how they had arrested one of the women (the one in the tractor) and how it wasn't done according to how they were trained. They seemed to be very taken up with this, fearing they might be punished for this, while one of them (the seargeant I think) was defending their approach (even to the point of saying they would have needed to put scaffolding up beside the tractor to be able to follow the training method!). I was quite taken with how worried they were about the technicalities of how to arrest someone who was obviously being a real nuisance obstructing the road in their tractor. Obviously this is a minor thing in this story but it just struck me as odd that they were so worried about this technicality in procedure whilst at the same time making such a stupid comment as the one discussed here.
 
When someone logs onto your facebook page and posts something dodgy about you which looks like you have written it yourself it is known as 'frape' or facebook rape. I have heard someone say that he would rape a cheesecake which caught me off guard to be honest.
Our humour has obviously become alot more edgy and we are not prone to stifling social ettiquette anymore, so the margins for social acceptance are now wider.
I don't think for a minute that anyone is condoning violent sexual assualt, and in general rapists are viewed as the lowest form of scum.
 
As a complete aside to the main issue here, I found it quite sad that most of the conversation between the gardai was spent discussing how they had arrested one of the women (the one in the tractor) and how it wasn't done according to how they were trained. They seemed to be very taken up with this, fearing they might be punished for this, while one of them (the seargeant I think) was defending their approach (even to the point of saying they would have needed to put scaffolding up beside the tractor to be able to follow the training method!). I was quite taken with how worried they were about the technicalities of how to arrest someone who was obviously being a real nuisance obstructing the road in their tractor

+1

Wasnt a funny joke, but its clear that they werent advocating/threatening rape etc., so they should get a kick up the This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language, told to make sure they're not being recorded, and tone down the "wit" while they're in uniform.

Dont have much sympathy for the Shell to Sea protest, rent-a-crowd republicans to a fair degree. They showed their true colours with their assault of security guards and destruction of property. Think of all the money wasted because of them.

+1

I do know that people in the emergency services like police, firemen, ambulance crews and even nurses in accident and emergency often joke on their breaks about matters they experience like suicides, murders etc. They have to. If they carried all the emotional baggage around they would end up in hopspitals themselves. The important thing is when they are dealing with the victims etc they act professionally.

I also heard first hand emergency service members joke about this because it's how they deal with seeing this kind of thing all day. I think the Guards in Corrib made the joke because they don't put the same emotion on rape that others do because if they put those emotions on rape, murder etc how would they cope working..

If my private conversations were recorded my boss would sack me long ago!
This is totally blown out of proportion and unfair on the Guards in question I feel.
 
I've no doubt that the guys in question find the actual concept of rape truly disgusting.

It seems like they were laughing at how far fetched the notion that a woman would not be safe in their custody.

I think anyone who believes that making a very dark joke in private about rape, murder, suicide, racism, religion, etc implies that you condone any of it probably has a poor understanding of the human psyche.
 

And now their careers are probably over. Really bizarre. These guys will probably lose their jobs for making inappropriate comments to each other in private while you have politicians who have been proven to be corrupt still in the Dail and Seanad.
 
Quote: "I couldnt disagree with you more Betsy Og. Correct, they werent actually advocating rape but they were trivialising it. That is NOT acceptable."

Nobody said it was.

It was a private conversation and I would be sure that when the time came they would be professional and sympathetic to the victim.

Its easy to blow these things up but remember that these Gardai probably have wives, mothers, sisters, nieces, etc, and would take assault & rape seriously.

It sounded like they were doing a stupid Father Ted sketch, they will be reprimanded and it should be let go.

I have no connection to Gardai, Ruhama, 1in4, Amnesty or any other person/org who has an interest in this.
 
It was a private conversation
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It was a private conversation between men who, when an allegation of rape occurs are meant to investigate the allegation, which may/not result in charges.

Now, if these guards, don't take rape as being a serious crime, how can you expect them to investigate any allegations of rape fairly....
 
pinkyBear said:
Now, if these guards, don't take rape as being a serious crime, how can you expect them to investigate any allegations of rape fairly....
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Are you concluding that a dark joke about rape made in private means they don't think rape in reality is a serious crime?
 

+1 to all of the above.

That kind of talk may well be indicative of the kind of talk that is prevalent among bunches of guys most of whom would find rape abhorrent but I think that misses the point. That kind of trivialisation shapes our views. If you think it's ok to joke about it then you create a culture where it's acceptable. Would you think it was more disgusting if they were discussing raping a child? If so why?

Bottom line is that these guys are the people I have to go to if I am raped. I have to trust that they will act for me and protect me. That they will take me seriously. That they genuinely get how absolutely awful rape is for the victim. If they can make it a joke then how do I have confidence in them or the justice process. I'm not adverse to black humour in anyone's private sphere but some things aren't funny. Rape is one of them.
 

How on earth can you reach that conclusion based on a stupid comment. Have you never said something inappropriate in private? Have you never laughed at a comedians joke that deep down you know you shouldn't laugh at? Doesn't mean you have certain views or you consider certain things acceptable.

If they had threatened to rape or deport the women, this would be a completely different story but they didn't.
 
Quote: "I couldnt disagree with you more Betsy Og. Correct, they werent actually advocating rape but they were trivialising it. That is NOT acceptable."

Nobody said it was.
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You are right, nobody said it was and I dont think I suggested that anyone said it was. i was just giving my opinion.

Subjects like this are always going to divide people but for me, I agree with horusd's well written comment.

having said that, I dont think they should lose their jobs over it but should be reprimanded
 
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