I'm not even going to bother...

responding to this since several commentators on the post site have done a great job, as have the writers and commentators over at feministing.com, but I had to post this absolutely horrible op-ed by Peter Hitchens (yes, brother of idiot Christopher who makes me embarrassed to be an atheist).  I know I've been rather quiet lately, but we're house-hunting and busy at work, blah blah blah... I will update soon and leave you with the article for now.  Ciao.

How the Left censored the blindingly obvious truth about rape

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

Women who get drunk are more likely to be raped than women who do not get drunk. No, this does not excuse rape.

Men who take advantage of women by raping them, drunk or sober, should be severely punished for this wicked, treacherous action, however stupid the victim may have been. But it does mean that a rape victim who was drunk deserves less sympathy.

Simple, isn't it? You can hate rape and want it punished, while still recognising that a woman who, say, goes back to a man's home after several Bacardi Breezers was being a bit dim.

Yet a wave of hysterical ultra-feminist propaganda has this week forced a State agency to reverse a perfectly sensible decision to cut compensation to rape victims who were drunk.

Personally, I'm not sure where all this 'compensation' came from. It used to be grudgingly paid out. Now it flows in tens of millions (£200million last year) from the taxpayers' pockets into the hands of the wronged.

I suspect it is the result of the almost total failure of the criminal justice system to prevent crime, catch culprits or punish them when caught. Instead of offering justice, the state provides a cheque.

So I suppose we must resign ourselves to the fact that a growing slice of our taxes will be handed over to victims of unsolved rapes, while rape itself increases – the inevitable result of the collapse of sexual morality.

But I cannot see why women who ignore the wisdom of the ages, and make themselves more likely to be victims by drinking too much, should get the same size cheque as women who are raped despite acting responsibly.

Someone called Bridget Prentice, a one-time teacher who now has the banana republic title of Justice Minister, actually said last week that 'a victim of rape is not in any way culpable due to alcohol consumption'.

This is flatly untrue and she must know it is. Of course she is culpable, just as she would be culpable if she crashed a car and injured someone while drunk, or stepped out into the traffic while drunk and was run over. Getting drunk is not something that happens to you. It is something you do.

Nor is being drunk – which makes you miss danger signals, make bad judgments, lose consciousness in unsafe places and then lose your memory, too – comparable with 'dressing provocatively' as the feminist thought police would like to pretend.

If women want to dress provocatively, then they should be free to do so, and I say thanks a lot to those who do. Our society is based on self-restraint. We can be provoked and still behave ourselves.

We do not need to compel women to dress like bats, as many Muslim countries do, so as to curb the unchained passions of hot-blooded menfolk.

All the above is a statement of the blindingly obvious. Yet, in the main forums of public opinion, such views are becoming harder and harder to express because of the unreasoning storm of fury that will follow.

The collapse of the Tory party into the arms of Leftism has made this much worse, particularly on the BBC, which no longer feels any duty to give airtime to social and moral conservatives.