On Tuesday, the Louder with Crowder team uploaded the latest installment in the “Change My Mind” series: “Rape Culture is a Myth.”
During the course of the approximately 45-minute video, Steven Crowder interacted at length with three students, and out of those three, only one attempted to debate Crowder on the issue in a calm and rational manner.
The entire video is worth watching, and is one of the best “Change My Mind” installments to date. I won’t transcribe every conversation (watch the video for that), but I will detail the first exchange with a student named Macy because it illustrates so perfectly the ways in which progressives argue.
Macy began by calling Crowder an “idiot a**hole” as she approached the table. After saying that she herself had been a victim of rape, she sat down with Crowder to debate.
After Macy presented a rather vague definition of what she believes is “rape culture,” Crowder set out a more specific definition on which they both could agree: “A society or culture at large where rape is either promoted, encouraged, or tolerated.”
While Crowder offered statistics from the FBI and the Department of Justice regarding the reported number of rapes in the United States, Macy relied entirely on anecdotal evidence, going as far as claiming that the statistics offered by Crowder, which are based in part on uniform crime reports, were “bulls***” because “sometimes [the police] don’t report everything.” She then cited the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) as a resource that offers different numbers than the FBI.
Macy then argued that individuals who commit rape often get away with it, to which Crowder replied: “Proportionally to other crimes, rapists are convicted at about the same rate as armed robbers, for example.” He then asked: “Do we have an armed robbery culture?”
Macy didn’t answer that question directly, but pivoted to her shock that Crowder had the “audacity” to come to the university campus and question the notion of rape culture. When Crowder replied, saying he had the audacity to speak “the truth,” Macy became visibly upset, and said: “And speak the truth?! You know what? How about somebody rapes you, and then you come and tell me that rape culture is a myth?!”
At that point, the exchange began to go off the rails.
Crowder repeatedly asked Macy to provide him with evidence that rape is “tolerated or encouraged” per the rape culture definition they had previously established, and she repeatedly offered anecdotal evidence, even bringing up SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Once Kavanaugh was brought up, Crowder played dumb in order to see if Macy could explain the entire situation. Macy said that Kavanaugh “allegedly raped women when he was younger,” noting that “we’re not 100% sure.” She went on to make claims regarding his yearbook that are unprovable, and implied that “the fact that a rapist is probably going to still be appointed” was an indication of rape culture.
After dropping “playing dumb,” and citing several key statistics regarding rape and sexual assault in the United States, Crowder pressed Macy on the details of the Kavanaugh allegations. She offered an explanation that was equal parts vague and incorrect, then went back to arguing from an emotional position.
Crowder cut to the point, telling Macy that she hadn’t offered any evidence or data beyond the anecdotal, adding that to “use [the unverified Kavanaugh allegations] as a springboard to say that we live in a rape culture I think is intellectually disingenuous, and I think it does a great disservice to people who’ve actually been a victim of a horrible crime.”
At that point, Macy began to raise her voice and get teary-eyed, stating again that she had been the victim of rape. She then called over a campus police officer to try to have Crowder removed. When the officer approached, and was speaking very calmly, she became upset, and said: “You’re not mad?! So if I called you and said somebody raped me, you wouldn’t be mad?!”
After the officer left, Macy said she had a class to get to, and told Crowder: “I hope you never f***ing get raped because it’s horrible — and rape culture exists.” She then disputed Crowder’s FBI statistics once again, and left in tears.
Following Macy, two male students debated Crowder, one of whom was very respectful. Additionally, a female student asked Crowder to restate his definition of rape culture because she hadn’t heard it, and said that she too disagreed that the United States is a rape culture as defined.
Check out the entire video here: