As your username suggests, your sense of fairness and reason is of no concern to me whatever and in fact laughable. Somebody who prides themself on snark should not be allowed within a hundred yards of Samantha Geimer or any issue concerning her or a decent human.
Thank you. And I apologize for my comments on your family. (Though I’ll add for mods benefits that I never made a legal threat- pursue meant “through the board channels”; for all I know you may have a home in France that would avoid anything legal completely.)
My final words on the case since there is to be no consensus here will be to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., when he said:
In my opinion, law is concerned with the crime. Justice is concerned with the victim. I side with justice.
On what it implies, yes. It is after all the only thing I know about you, and I seriously doubt you’re unaware of its implications on this board and with me personally.
Half this board is snarky as hell. There’s supposed to be some of of taboo against it?
If Polanski is supposed to be left alone because it harms the victim, why prosecute in the first place? I’m sure taking the stand is traumatic when the event is pretty recent. Wouldn’t everybody be better off if we just acted like these things never happened?
The ‘Free Mumia!’ movement shows that for some people, any crime can be hand-waved away if the person is an ‘artist’. Gore Vidal also believed that at one time, lobbying for the release of a murderer on the grounds that his prison writing showed such artistic ability and compassion that he HAD to be completely rehabilitated. The guy killed again almost immediately upon release.
Come to think of it, the Free Mumia! movement seems to be slowing down. Time to make up some new placards: “Free Roman!” I imagine they won’t be able to get too many mothers to march this time, however…
For some reason, I have always thought that justice was primarily concerned with crime as an offense against society, not merely as an offense against the victim. I believe that justice demands that Polanski pay for his original crime and for his flight, whether the victim is for that or against it.
Except there’s no evidence for “severe mental problems,” “drug addled,” or “psychotic breakdown,” you’re just pulling all that excusing speculation out of your ass. Are you and Roman BFF, or what?
And considering your aversion to “snarkiness” for whatever reason, your willful twisting of lieu’s measured post is the pot calling the kettle black. He never said or even implied anything like “fuck the silly bitch,” and for you to imply he did is offensive.
And justice is NOT merely about the victim. We don’t let grown men sleep with 13 year olds even if the 13 year old really, really likes it, so the victims wishes is NOT the end of the inquiry.
Since Monica Bellucci and Tilda Swinton both support his release, I guess neither one of them would mind if someone 'luded up their glass of champagne and ass-raped them, so long as he or she was willing to do 45 days in jail and miss an awards show.
Yes. In fact the bedroom of my townhouse was used for some of the scenes of The Pianist. :rolleyes:
As for no evidence, I’m not a psychiatrist and neither are you and if we were we haven’t examined him and if we did it wasn’t 30 years ago. He was found not insane at the time, but this wouldn’t be the first time they got one wrong. The alternative is that a perfectly sane man with no prior or subsequent history of sexual violence decided “Just for the hell of it I’m going to do something completely perverse and sadistic and evil and that could land me in prison for the rest of my life”- it doesn’t make sense.
But be that as it may, if he was sane as Judge Judy or whoever the gauge is these days, my other objections stand. (I do think it’s odd that the same people can say “Sharon Tate et al were murdered 10 years before the rape/the Holocaust happened 30 years before the rape/what the hell do they have to do with mental state?” can be so passionate about prosecuting a crime that happened 30 years ago because they feel it was so horrible that 30 years hasn’t made a dent.
This is the Pit my dear, you’re allowed hyperbole and foul language. And “fuck the silly bitch” does seem to be what I’m hearing from many posters.
That was really really good background music- what was that, Sousa?
If Polanski was brought here and stoned in the street and his head piked on the mailbox of Jack Nicholson’s house and his hands and feet and entrails all severed and nailed throughout the land and his violently severed penis displayed forever in an exhibit at the Smithsonian with actual recordings of his screams and with all these relics bearing signs proclaiming “SEE YOU ALL WHAT IS DONE TO CHILD RAPISTS”, do you think it would result in the rape of one less 13 year old girl? Would it “unrape” Samantha Geimer?
(And you’re surely not suggesting she enjoyed it?)
Fuck you. Nobody has said anything anywhere close to that. Not in the least. You’re trolling right now because there’s no way you can actually believe that.
As to this being the Pit, you threatened legal action for things said in the pit. Try to get more hypocrisy in your next post will ya?
It wasn’t worth it before. Your arguement on the whole was so disjointed and illogical that it was best to assume you’d feel better another day and a logical discussion with you could at that point be resumed. But if you’re going to actually imply I said or meant anything like that then let me pointedly assure you that your assertion, devoid of merit, is simply beyond absurd.
This discussion is raising a side issue, but one I hesitate to open a separate thread on.
In the past few decades, there have been great strides toward recognizing victim’s rights - one specific right is the right of a victim to make a statement at the sentencing phase. This victim is, effectively, making a statement at the sentencing phase, but nobody seems to want to pay attention to her.
Are victim’s statements only relevant if they are saying, “Fry him?”
I would fully support her being allowed to make a statement at an actual sentencing hearing. I would also hope that the judge would give Polanski jail time anyway. I do not support her desire to call off the sentencing phase.
So then based on this logic Jodi wasn’t being rhetorical when she asked if Polanski and I were friends, but it was a valid question? Or when I’ve been pretty much accused of thinking child rape should be legal, people actually think that? My arguments, in no particular order, are
1-the victim doesn’t want it
2-her life will be mercilessly disrupted [it’s already begun- if not everybody knows “hey, the buxom middle aged blonde lady over there got anally sodomized by a famous guy back in the day!” now then they will soon enough]
3-it’s not going to restore her to before the rape to sentence him
4-not one person will be safer because he’s behind bars
5-not one person will benefit from him being behind bars
6-it will cause a diplomatic incident [admittedly this one I couldn’t care less about, but I’ll mention]/an old man who’s no longer a danger will be in danger of his life]
7-the cost of a new trial (which I’ll bet you money at 5:1 odds he’s going to get) and incarceration will be extremely expensive in a state that’s already in a desperate shape financially
8- said monies and state resources could be far better spent in the location and prosecution of criminals still in the state" is illogical, beyond absurd, and disjointed
9- the defendant hasn’t even lived here in 31 years and thus is no conceivable harm to any American
10-the victim doesn’t want it (I repeat because it deserves two spaces)
To me these are not illogical, disjointed, or beyond absurd arguments. You may disagree with them, but even others who are on the opposite side admit they have merit. Personally I find the lynch mob mentality of the “I’M AGAINST RAPING CHILDREN AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT!” to the complete detriment of the victim freakishly infuriating. (And as I’ve said: if she wanted him prosecuted, I’d chip in $5 for his air fare myself, but while I realize this is just a freak show to me, I don’t understand how people can’t realize that it’s not a freak show to Samantha Geimer and her family. She is a flesh and blood human being who is about to have the most painful incident of her life, one that took her years to overcome, one that she has said REPEATEDLY was far more painful due to the media coverage than the event (interestingly Polanski said the same of Sharon Tate’s murder), and an event that was pretty much dead and awaiting burial until recently is about to be raised from the dead and made front page news, and if there’s a new trial she will probably be compelled to testify, and the scabs and nerve endings will bleed and feel pain again. I should be happy for her?
I’ll retract the “fuck you, silly bitch” line in favor of a far more polite "Take another quaalude Sammy, you’re about to be raped again. But it’s alright because this time it’s people who want justice for you. Because it’s not about them… it’s about you… and society. Because your rapist and your rape being first page news again (hell, smile girl, you’re bigger than Mackenzie Philips!) is going to make the world a better place, because it’s going to send out a message.
Not sure what that message is, but it’s going to send one.
(I’m going to take a stab here and assume nobody here has ever known or loved a victim of a highly publicized violent crime case.)
So what message is going to be sent if nothing’s done, if Polanski’s released? Do you really want to send *that *message? I don’t.
I feel for his victim, I really do, and I fully understand where she’s coming from, but the punishment for his crime cannot solely rest on what the victim does or does not want.
Even a child knows that actions have consequences. It’s beyond time Polanski faced his.
Of course not. The problem is there are at least two victims here: The person who was raped and society as a whole. What we have here is a case were justice has not been blind or fair. We have a case in which the fame and money of the accused has had a bigger impact on the outcome than the facts of the case. Do we really want to establish that if you have the wealth and resources to avoid punishment you should? If Roman Polanski had been hiding under an assumed name in Kansas, would this be under discussion? Should the flight charges be dropped as well as the rape conviction? Do the rich and famous get to operate by different laws?
The rape victim has every right to lobby for leniency for Polanski, and the court can even go back to the original deal and give him probation if that is where justice lies, but he needs to come back and face justice, not just for the girl raped but for the concept of rule of law.
A quick question: If the judge reverts the sentence to the original deal and gives him time served and probation, where does that leave Polanski? Would the probation start now? If not, would he have violated it retroactively by fleeing and not reporting into to the correction system as required by probationers?