John Kasich Actually Gives Some Sound Advice and the Left Goes Crazy

 Christina Cauterucci at Slate reports:

At a Watertown, New York, town hall on Friday, John Kasich advised a female college student to steer clear of “parties where there’s a lot of alcohol” to keep from getting raped, assaulted, or sexually harassed.

His comment came after a first-year student from New York’s St. Lawrence University asked the GOP presidential candidate and Ohio governor, “What are you going to do in office as president to help me feel safer and more secure regarding sexual violence, harassment, and rape?”

But she then added:

Kasich’s viewpoint is a cynical, victim-blaming, finger-wagging perspective. Former Dear Prudence columnist Emily Yoffe once made a similar argument to Kasich’s in the pages of Slate, when she wrote that “the rise of female binge drinking has made campuses a prey-rich environment.” If women didn’t get drunk, the thinking goes, they would be able to resist the advances of men waiting in dark corners, ready to prey on easy, intoxicated targets. And if they just stayed away from men who can’t control their alcohol-amplified sexual impulses, they wouldn’t become the victim of such heinous crimes.

It would make just as much, if not more sense to tell men to stop drinking so much so they don’t rape women. But rape and sexual assault are just as much about power and violence as they are about sex, and alcohol is not the root cause of rape. Kasich should blame misogyny, poor sex education, and toxic male behavior, not women, for the scourge of campus sexual assault. Women don’t need paternalistic counsel from politicians—they need men to learn about consent, respect for boundaries, and the swift punishment that awaits them when colleges and courts do their jobs. 

First of all, Kasich didn't say anything about rapists going unpunished, as a matter of fact he went full Regressive on that part of the issue basically agreeing with the Regressives that rape and/or sexual harassment occurs anytime a Regressive  says it does. Cauterucci understands Kasich is in line with this, she reported it in the same column:

First, Kasich spoke of the importance of confidential reporting mechanisms and rape kit accessibility “if something happens to you along the lines of sexual harassment or whatever.” Then, Kasich claimed that Ohio is in the process of ensuring that the state’s college students know the state’s laws and “confidential policies” so “co-eds” are “not vulnerable, at risk, and can be preyed upon.”

But when we look at the rest of  Kasich's comment we can see he didn't come anywhere near "victim-blaming." He was simply providing advice to young women: If you don't want to deal with a bunch of alcohol-fueled men, stay away from alcohol fueled parties.

It is really no different than telling people to stay out of the Tenderloin at 3:00 AM. No one would blame anyone for getting mugged in the Tenderloin and think the perpetrator shouldn't be punished, it is just that it makes sense to warn people about places where the potential for trouble is high.

Cauterucci was not the only one to go into a Regressive orgasm over Kasich's comment. The Hill reports:

It didn’t take long for his comment to come under fire. On Friday, the Democratic National Committee lashed out at Kasich, accusing him of victim-blaming.

“While President Obama and Vice President Biden are leading the way to help stop the epidemic of sexual violence on college campuses across the country, Republican presidential candidates like John Kasich and Donald Trump are insulting women everyday on the campaign trail by blaming victims of sexual and domestic violence,” DNC spokeswoman Christina Freundlich said in a statement.

Steve Benen at the Rache Maddow blog writes:

 Kasich has an unfortunate habit of sounding like an amateur, especially when talking to and about women...

The problem with such a response should be obvious. If a woman goes to a gathering and gets assaulted, it’s insane to think it’s her fault for having gone to a party where people were drinking. The solution is for men to stop committing sex crimes; encouraging women to make different choices in their social habits badly misses the point.

This is positively insane. Where exactly did Kasich say that if a woman gets assaulted it's her fault?  He was just pointing out an environment where problems are much more likely to occur.

And notice, Benen doesn't mention rape, He writes about assault and sex crimes, which, of course, are to be defined by any Regressive woman anyway she sees fit.

 -RW