"Are you entirely unable to see why this is objectionable?"
If you can show that the numbers are likely false, then you do of course have a valid reason to object to their use. But that's not the same as justifying your "calls rape victims liars" claims.
"if there's a level of drunkenness that prevents you from knowing that an unconscious individual is failing to provide informed consent, Ted doesn't think that it's rape"
His explanation of how the law would treat the symmetric case looks incomplete (or inaccurate), as it leaves open the question why the answer to that case would not then generalize into a more general "drunk people are not responsible for their actions" principle. As I wrote in an earlier post: 'If you take the "rapist has to know" part out of context and apply it to other cases, you could interpret it as saying that you can do whatever you want without legal consequences as long as you're drunk enough, but it should be obvious that's not what he meant (especially given his attitude towards alcohol elsewhere in the mail).'.
So there's a sentence in his post that in isolation could be interpreted to mean that if a person is drunk enough then he's not responsible for his actions. But overall it's not plausible to consider this an accurate interpretation of his real views, because the sentence occurs within the explanation of the more limited symmetric case, and because it would be inconsistent with the negative view toward alcohol use that he clearly expressed elsewhere in the mail. Note that even if taken in isolation, the sentence would not match Valerie Aurora's claims ("rape was impossible if both people were drunk enough").
Re: My overall take on the discussion
If you can show that the numbers are likely false, then you do of course have a valid reason to object to their use. But that's not the same as justifying your "calls rape victims liars" claims.
"if there's a level of drunkenness that prevents you from knowing that an unconscious individual is failing to provide informed consent, Ted doesn't think that it's rape"
His explanation of how the law would treat the symmetric case looks incomplete (or inaccurate), as it leaves open the question why the answer to that case would not then generalize into a more general "drunk people are not responsible for their actions" principle. As I wrote in an earlier post: 'If you take the "rapist has to know" part out of context and apply it to other cases, you could interpret it as saying that you can do whatever you want without legal consequences as long as you're drunk enough, but it should be obvious that's not what he meant (especially given his attitude towards alcohol elsewhere in the mail).'.
So there's a sentence in his post that in isolation could be interpreted to mean that if a person is drunk enough then he's not responsible for his actions. But overall it's not plausible to consider this an accurate interpretation of his real views, because the sentence occurs within the explanation of the more limited symmetric case, and because it would be inconsistent with the negative view toward alcohol use that he clearly expressed elsewhere in the mail. Note that even if taken in isolation, the sentence would not match Valerie Aurora's claims ("rape was impossible if both people were drunk enough").