Um, I don't think Michael Jackson qualifies as a Great Debate

Is this a Great Debate? It seems more like a freak show crossed with a with a plastic surgeon’s nightmare to me.

And just for the record, I have no clue whether the Gloved Wonder molests children, but I think he is so far removed from reality that it wouldn’t suprise me if he were orifice-raping Tralfamadorians.

While we’re at the whole criminal-celebrity gawking thing, has OJ come any closer to finding the killer yet? I hear he’s been searching every golf course in Florida. Enquiring minds want to know. The rest of us don’t give a shit.

Don’t mind me, I’m just venting after a particularly futile day of shoring up our national defense system.

We now return you to your regular mindless programming.

Stranger

Why isn’t it a great debate?
Anything can be discussed and debated, even if you think that the conclusion is a given.

Well, okay, not a great debate. Sort of middling. Something to pass the time till something better comes along.

Sort of like a paperback from a rack at the airport during a weather delay – it’s better than staring at the people walking by but you’ll chuck it in the trash when you’re finished.

Back when Great Debates was first established, one of the exemplars of a worthy GD thread was IIRC Kirk vs. Picard. (Or something equally Trekky.) The point was to give a forum to the kind of “long-running discussions” that couldn’t be answered factually, but were too “serious” for MPSIMS. There was no requirement that the debates be of cosmic importance. But it did become customary that participants in GD discussions be able to back their arguments with evidence.

The types of “debates” that weren’t suited to the rigorious style of GD–those that were more about sharing opinions than trying to prove a point–were in MPSIMS. But MPSIMS was extremely overcrowded. So IMHO was born. The forums were still overcrowded, so CS was born to take on the arts and pop culture threads.

This forum structure has been in place for quite a long time now, as it seems to work quite well. Many topics could go in more than one forum, so it’s incumbent upon the OP to choose what kind of discussion he wants of the proposed topic, and to phrase the OP in such a way that it fits into that forum.

I think that the linked thread certainly belongs in Great Debates. As I said, there is no requirement that the topic be of cosmic importance. It is certainly a subject that has captured the interest of vast numbers of people for more than a decade. I’m guessing that brickbacon was looking for the more rigorous debate usually found in GD, rather than the personal opinions found in IMHO. The OP phrased it in a way that is GD-worthy. He offered facts with a cite, and based his arguments on those facts.

And the basic question of the OP–leaving aside the question of his personal weirdness, do you think the evidence supports his guilt or innocence–is the kind of tough question that GD is well suited for. It’s very hard to evaluate the evidence dispassionately, and the whole case touches on many other important cultural issues. I think the OP chose the GD forum in an effort to avoid the thread dissolving into a miasma of personal opinions and jokes.

Michael Jackson may be a freak-show, but if someone can make a GD-worthy thread about him, then there’s no reason it shouldn’t be there.

Yeah, he has some major psychological problems. The issue is whether his relationships with pubescent boys are of the molesting variety or not. And discussing that with any kind of rational analysis is touchy country, even on this board.

What I am convinced of is, he has an unhealthy obsession with boys of that age, probably resulting from his “never having had a childhood” in being forced into childstardom with the J5 back when. Whether that obsession has a sexual component, and whether he’s acted on it, is not yet certain – though the inferences are pretty strong. And one other thing: despite the general attitude of people and the work of newspapers and police public relations people, the fact remains that under the law, he, and all persons accused of crimes, are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

That doesn’t mean one has to believe in his innocence – simply not form a rock-certain conviction of his guilt until after all the evidence is out in the open.

Like every child of the Sixties, he’s trying to find himself! :stuck_out_tongue:

The courts are obliged to treat him as innocent until proven guilty. I am under no such obligation.

I think he probably is guilty of molestation… but he is just weird enough for me to think that he could be completly asexual, and that nothing illegal happened.

Correct. But what you say you’re doing in your post that I quoted is what I’m suggesting is right. I’m simply saying that, while we can form definite opinions, we owe it to anybody accused of anything to be sure of our facts before we make an absolute judgment. I agree pretty much with your analysis, as a point of fact. I’m just very much at odds with “they arrested him; he must be guilty” stance that I often see in people (and about a lot more instances than the Gloved One).

Yeah, I understand, and I’m not really that upset about it. I just had a crappy, long, grueling, and did I mention crappy day, and decided to lash out at something that was of no importance whatsoever. 'Pologies to brickbacon, if he’s looking, as my vent was directed at the topic, not the poster.

I get irritated, though, about the tendancy to focus on some celebrity crime. It’s not a new phenomena, of course, but so much time and presumed value is paid upon it that it serves as a distraction from more newsworthy (IMHO, natch) items. Ultimately, twelve poor slobs with access to all of the information the court will allow (or at least, which isn’t concealed or repressed by prosecution and defense counsel) will decide if there is sufficient evidence of guilt to put him in the clink or not. There will be a lot of financial reprecussions for his creditors and sycophants, but it isn’t going to impact they typical household in the way that, say, sending a bunch of kids off to some Og-forsaken sand pit an a quixotic attempt to install democracy in a part of the world soundly divided by tribal vendettas and religious schisms will, and yet, I predict that vastly more media time will be spent on this topic than on, to pick a completely random country, Iran.

'Course, you could say that about any entertainment news, but this strikes me as a particularly morbid form of entertainment. Or maybe it just gives me the absolute, spine-torquing, shuddering creeps that parents would continue to put their children in the unsupervised care of someone so badly divorced from reality that he thinks nothing of openly admitting that he invites their children into his bed. I agree that he clearly has every pedigree of a molester, but it won’t be me who decides whether the evidence demonstrates it or not, and it just gives me the creeps to hear people talking about it for “fun”.

YMMV and all that.

Stranger

This is the Pit so I have no obligation to stay on topic, right?

Anyone notice this is Thread Number Three Hundred Thousand? I’m excited. A little.

Do I win a prize? :smiley:

Stranger

Yes, we let you live. :smiley:

Even if he didn’t have sex with the children (which I, personally, think he did), giving kids alcohol is illegal.