Dylan Farrow wonders why Woody Allen still gets away with it

[peregrinus_bis]

You’re arguing rhetoric and abstracting away from the realities of dealing with real people.

You’re re-framing what I’m saying as a defence for those accused of molestation, which I am not, and I have made abundantly clear, and that is boring and dull of you.

We do not “side” with the accused by default - and if you do, you are failing to form a useful part of your society in this respect. Protecting someone’s reputation, family, livelihood and so on from harm is entirely appropriate until we know they are guilty.

I do not argue that woman suffer molestation, assault, rape and the full suite of sexual attacks by men. To be clear, I live in a family that has suffered extensive damage from this in its most extreme form short of murder, so have familiarity with this sphere and its impacts. You may trust that, through the pachinko of life, I have seen a lot of what can happen - so in no respect do I take this lightly, nor academically, nor do I abstract from reality.

I have always, for one reason or another, had an excellent moral compass, balanced and compassionate.

You are fouling the presumption of innocence on your prejudice, and that is foolish, and sad, and I am perturbed to note @beschizza’s treatment of the concept.

You cannot hack the presumption of innocence. You can sit back comfortably in the first world and watch it be thwarted, but you cannot hack it. It is a fundamental safety mechanism against abuse.

But if you have been sitting there allowing the thwarting, then do something. But if that something results in anarchy, you may be on the wrong path.

The justice system does not have an obsidian bottom. But the concepts on which it is constructed do.

Before you retaliate, please answer the question I asked before, in a simple sentence.

What would you have the presumption of innocence replaced with, with regards to your own future potential accusations?

[anon50609448]

First, I get the impression you thought I was accusing you of supporting or at least excusing sexual assault. I think I was stating the reality of how sexual assault takes place and how people who commit it are excused for doing so, and the part our justice system plays in that. I don’t think you support or excuse sexual assault (well, I think we all support sexual assault by - often unknowingly - participating in cultural norms that allow it to continue you, but that’s not personal).

@peregrinus_bis

What would you have the presumption of innocence replaced with, with regards to your own future potential accusations?

Something that organically arises from our common struggle for justice.

When you ask that question, you should note that I said:

@anon50609448

I’m not saying we should change our whole justice system.

I don’t think there is a practical change to be made at this time away from the presumption of innocence. We should uphold it as a tool of the best system we have right now, but we shouldn’t revere it or ascribe it powers beyond what it actually practically accomplishes.

@peregrinus_bis

You cannot hack the presumption of innocence.

What of my example of making being part of a religious minority a crime? Presumption of innocence is completely subverted because it’s ability to protect people is limited by the system it functions in. Take away certain other rights and the presumption of innocence becomes worthless because you are guilty of the thing they are accusing you of.

That’s an example of how presumption of innocence can fail to protect people because other rights aren’t there to support it. But I seemed to be making case that it could actually harm people in the right system.

Imagine a system where trials are ruinously expensive for most people and are available only to the rich. In that system, people who are accused of crimes largely have to plead guilty because they can’t afford to defend themselves, so presumption of innocence doesn’t protect them at all. However, wealthy people get to have very high standards of proof needed against them. That means there is a huge inequality in the outcomes of justice depending on your financial resources. Presumption of innocence has been gamed to only apply to the rich. So then we have to ask, is it better to have presumption of innocence for a few than for none? If it’s an unmitigated good, then maybe you think the answer is yes. But when the few are the rich, or the male, or the white, or the people in any other identifiable group I think that inequality itself is a great harm.

That isn’t a thought experiment, it’s America (and many other countries). This is not rhetoric, it’s a description of how real people are really oppressed.

@peregrinus_bis

Protecting someone’s reputation, family, livelihood and so on from harm is entirely appropriate until we know they are guilty.

You’ve way overstepped presumption of innocence here. Presumption of innocence only applies to punishments from the state. It doesn’t apply to other people thinking ill of you (reputation) or to your employer deciding you are a liability to them (livelihood). The idea that presumption of innocence ought to apply outside of a courtroom is a huge problem.

A court of law can find that both a person is “not guilty” of a crime and that another person is “not guilty” of lying in saying that person committed the crime. A rational person, in many circumstances, can’t replace “not guilty” with “innocent” and hold both ideas at the same time. If your friend tells you your other friend punched them, you can assume your friend wouldn’t lie, or you can assume your other friend wouldn’t punch, but (barring an unusual explanation) it’s very hard to assume it was just some kind of innocent misunderstanding. When people apply of innocence outside of a courtroom they do just what you said we don’t do:

@peregrinus_bis

We do not “side” with the accused by default

[Medievalist]

@anon50609448

When people apply [presumption] of innocence outside of a courtroom they do just what you said we don’t do: [side with the accused].

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t.   False dilemma is false.

My failure to leap to judgment without evidence harms no one. I’m not voting for either party in an Alabama election, and I’m not buying anything from either one.

[anon50609448]

@Medievalist

My failure to leap to judgment without evidence harms no one. I’m not voting for either party in an Alabama election, and I’m not buying anything from either one.

I employed the phrase “in many circumstances” and gave a specific example of how what people call “presumption of innocence” on a personal level means reflexively siding with the accused.

Our ability to be disinterested depends on how deeply the thing affects our lives. And maybe it doesn’t change your behaviour either way, but if you are undecided on whether Roy Moore assaulted anyone then I think that’s downright foolish.

[Magdalene]

@anon50609448

I think we need to evaluate how “presumption of innocence” serves people with power and fails to serve people without power. It’s a very dear principle to people who worry more about being falsely accused of assault than they do of being assaulted. It’s an even dearer principle to people who have to worry more about being rightfully accused of assault than they do of being assaulted.

[Barradeno]

@peregrinus_bis

Should you ever find yourself accused of a crime you didn’t commit, what do you think you would like the rules to be?

I think that “beyond reasonable doubt” is an appropriate standard for criminal proceedings, because it is preferable to let a criminal go free than to jail an innocent person. But it means that sometimes we are going to find real criminals not guilty.

This is my own experience: I had to serve as an alternate juror in a month-long trial of somebody accused of killing a 5-year old kid during a botched gang revenge shooting. In my opinion, the accused was proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but one of the prime jurors, because of a previous interaction with police, decided that he was not going to support the prosecution. No unanimous agreement was reached, one against eleven, and a mistrial was declared.

Do I have the right and the freedom to decide whether I want to associate with any of those two people—the killer and the absolver—in social or professional settings, based on the information that I have? You bet I do.

[Melizmatic]

@Heraclito

Wow, it looks like it might be Jon Favreau.

Nope, not him.

[peregrinus_bis]

@anon50609448

You’ve way overstepped presumption of innocence here. Presumption of innocence only applies to punishments from the state. It doesn’t apply to other people thinking ill of you (reputation) or to your employer deciding you are a liability to them (livelihood). The idea that presumption of innocence ought to apply outside of a courtroom is a huge problem.

I don’t know where to begin, so I won’t. It appears to me you understand philosophy, but not jurisprudence. The former allows us to dream and create, the latter is designed to protect us.

To inform this interaction, let me say I have difficulty tracking what you say - there is a lot, it is simultaneous, and ideologically loud. I feel slightly like the discourse is with a 17 year old punk from Camden, London, in April 1979.

Let’s go bit by bit, please. Because these concepts are vital. This is no situation where “I have no answer” is an answer.

The doctrine of presumption of influence extends outside the courtroom - an example is the law of defamation. If you, here, accused me of something, and I can prove you were incorrect, and that I suffered loss as a consequence of your statements, I have firm ground to sue you for damages in the civil courts (and I would).

The simple way to look at it is this; we must be ever vigilant in defending our rights and the defensive mechanisms around each of us. Apathy allows tyranny to enact its psychotic dreams.

Allowing Trump to be voted in was a damn fool failure.

[anon50609448]

@peregrinus_bis

I don’t know where to begin, so I won’t. It appears to me you understand philosophy, but not jurisprudence. The former allows us to dream and create, the latter is designed to protect us.

To inform this interaction, let me say I have difficulty tracking what you say - there is a lot, it is simultaneous, and ideologically loud. I feel slightly like the discourse is with a 17 year old punk from Camden, London, in April 1979.

In the first paragraph you suggest that if I don’t agree with you then I must not understand. In the second you say that because you don’t understand me I must be incoherent. That doesn’t seem to allow a lot of room for a scenario where there is anything you don’t know or anything you are wrong about.

But, just to let you know, I’m writing for other people who may still be reading, not just for you, so whether or not you understand everything I say isn’t my only concern, and whether you walk away agreeing with me or thinking I’m a 17-year-old punk is of absolutely no concern.

@peregrinus_bis

If you, here, accused me of something, and I can prove you were incorrect, and that I suffered loss as a consequence of your statements, I have firm ground to sue you for damages in the civil courts (and I would).

You keep telling me I don’t understand presumption of innocence, but I don’t think you understand it. “Innocence” or “guilt” doesn’t exist in a civil defamation case. No one will be declared guilty, no one will be acquitted. One party will be ruled in favour of and damages will be determined. You can learn this much by watching Judge Judy.

@peregrinus_bis

Let’s go bit by bit, please. Because these concepts are vital. This is no situation where “I have no answer” is an answer.

Yes it is. We have something in place that is obviously much better than nothing and I don’t think anyone should be in a mad rush to tear it down and throw up some novel idea in its place. People should keep talking about the realities of the system and gradually we’ll come to something better, just like we came to this system by talking about the flaws in previous systems.

@peregrinus_bis

The simple way to look at it is this; we must be ever vigilant in defending our rights and the defensive mechanisms around each of us. Apathy allows tyranny to enact its psychotic dreams.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. Being vigilant means being critical. The idea that you’d read apathy into my responses here is crazy to me. A person who is apathetic towards something wouldn’t go on at this length about what the think of as the problems with it.

[Medievalist]

I think we’re making the same point.

If I was voting in any election featuring Roy Moore, I’d vote against him based on the evidence I have available to me. He’s condemned by his own words as a bigot and a dirtbag and (in my opinion) is almost certainly guilty of discrimination, inappropriate sexual behavior and harassment. He is unfit to hold public office and it would be immoral and unethical for me to vote for him, given the information I possess.

I’m not voting for Woody Allen for anything, so I don’t have any reason to pass any judgment. And since I am fully capable of serving impartially on a US jury, I am capable of according the same presumption of innocence to Mr. Allen as I grant to Ms. Farrow. Simultaneously. It’s not difficult for me to be ethical and fair minded, because as you noted these people do not deeply impact my life; I have no political, social or economic relationship with them whatsoever.

[generic_name]

@Heraclito

Who holds an SO like that? She looks like a hostage

Maybe an 80 year old man who is losing his balance? If I didn’t know anything about these people that would be my first impression of the photo. Plus the look on her face and her stance don’t really shout “hostage” to me (but she could be, I don’t know.)

Nevertheless, to say that Soon-Yi is a helpless hostage is not much different than saying Dylan is being manipulated by Mia Farrow, in both cases we’re treating a grown woman like a child. I have no idea what is going on in any of these people’s heads nor what their private lives are like.

We all come to these things with our own baggae. I have a friend who just out of college married a guy almost twice her age, and while we all clucked about it under our breaths, twenty years later they are still married (and it wasn’t even for money either, the guy’s not rich.) I also know someone who was accused of rape, and we all assumed he was guilty, but he was exonerated and even got an apology. Perhaps you all think I’m a creep now, but that’s what I’m working with here. I know that Woody Allen could be guilty, but the way I acted towards people I know makes me hesitate.