Because people’s memories of what happened fifty years ago, and their abilities to identify the 77-year old rapist as the perp age 27, are spot-on infallible, I suppose.
That’s the thing- I’m not sure how legally workable it would be, but I could see something where for cases of murder and rape, if there is DNA evidence, say from a rape kit, then that could possibly be a reliable prosecution. But for any case where the prosecution depends on eyewitness (which is problematic even if the crime was yesterday) or circumstantial evidence or someone’s testimony based on their memory of events, then yeah, there’s a damn good reason we have that limitation.
Mmmm-hmm I agree, justice would hardly be served relying on people & our crappy memories in any way, getting worse over time, constructing and reconstructing. Before long you’d have courts full of hogwash accusations of events based on bad dreams about something else entirely.
Besides… humans don’t rely on courts for everything do they. I can’t say what I’d do in that or similar situation, but I couldn’t rule out murder. I’m only human, just like the perpetrator.
That seems exactly the kind of question that the court needs to assess. And let’s assume that the accused will have access to lawyers able to make that case to challenge that evidence. That’s what they’re there for. It’s a very fair question.
But it needs to be answered not just assumed.
I think you’ve illustrated the problem quite nicely: the moral mindset that I’m talking about thinks that it’s meaningful to distinguish between institutional and personal morality, and while it’s OK to push a button or sign an order to kill babies–or maybe it’s not OK, but it’s still not something that will dissuade supporters–it’s definitely bad to express support for a rapist.
Yet here we have in this thread people saying that, despite their misgivings, they support Obama, but they’re absolutely repulsed by the GOP’s support of a rapist. From the standpoint of someone who is horrified by Americans who continue to throw their support behind a government and politicians that have literally led the country in killing millions of people since 2003 alone, the outrage here is definitely and pathetically hypocritical.
The fact that Republicans are also butchers doesn’t make Obama or his supporters, even the cynical ones, any less morally repulsive. The same applies to Democratic supporters more generally.
This is why your analogy doesn’t work. In your scenario, I’m not at the meeting. I’m on their message board, trolling them.
@CarlMud, I don’t assume an equivalency between critique of Republicans and support of Obama. I even said, “I feel like this type of story and the discussion happening in this thread plays into a kind of GOP-bashing / implicit support of Democrats. The two sides of this equation don’t form a 1:1 relationship but the relationship is definitely there.”
As if to illustrate my point, @RogerStrong basically responded, “Well that’s war, it happened in WWII,” as if that makes our ongoing wars of imperialism any better, @anon55609254 even speculated that Obama loses sleep over continuing to pursue war after saying that despite his criticisms he’ll continue to vote Democrat, and @awfulhorrid said a GOP president would be even worse (so we should support Democrats no matter what).
The problem with the lesser of two evils is that it lets people absolve themselves, or even their chosen candidates, of moral culpability, it doesn’t “push back” against rightward swings but allows itself to be propelled in any direction along the political spectrum without taking a principled stance, and it offers no exit strategy from this dynamic, which from the standpoint of someone who wants change is an absolute disaster.
So like I said, supporting a baby-exploder like Obama, even if there are layers of institutions and chains of command between him and the horrible endpoints of his actions and policies, while saying how horrible the GOP is, is definitely the height of liberal hypocrisy. It’s what leftists have been pointing out since forever ago.
And yes, BB is one of my daily stops. Sure they post articles that criticize government policy, but they go balls to the walls against the GOP and let Democrats off the hook about a lot of things. I have to go to Black Agenda Report, Democracy Now, some Glenn Greenwald article, or some other source to get a sane voice that really lashes Democrats for being every bit the monsters as their GOP counterparts–if only a little more polite and well-spoken.
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Which is exactly why it should apply in cases of child abuse.
It’s pretty easy to find lots of posters at sites like American Spectator and Free Republic who think that all our protections against unjust prosecution and imprisonment should be tossed away like used Kleenex where the alleged crime in question is pedophilia.
I’m hoping to find somewhat less of the boinger community are of that frame of mind. Having the accused diddler be a Republican of course does not help…
Ooops, beg your pardon. I will straightway change my opinions to get in sync with what the majority of the people who’ve never been asked about the issue think. Silly, silly me!!!
You can be certain that that same .01% does get asked and thankful they don’t get their way entirely.
Got anymore articles like the one before? I’ve run out of comics to read this morning.
A big part of the issue, though, is that we have a thread discussing a person sexually abused minors in his care getting support from a variety of politicians and you came in to say, “But what about Obama?”
American foreign policy (a euphemism for murdering people by the thousands abroad) is carried out by both political parties and is supported by the majority of voters at one time or another. In 2001, 72% of American supported going to war against Iraq.
But that doesn’t mean that when people kill each other, steal what they want, and abuse children they all have to stay silent because it would be hypocritical for them to point out evils lesser than the ones they at some point supported. We can still ask our friends, “How did your day go?” and talk about that for a while without talking about foreign war, economic policies generating poverty in wealthy nations, or other mass harms we inflict on each other as a species.
We don’t need to start every discussion with:
- Obama is a war criminal
- Obama is not a war criminal
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When Republicans who rail against various “perversions” are found to be guilty of, or at least condone those same perversions, they are rightly accused of hypocrisy. And the editors of BoingBoing are assiduous in bringing that hypocrisy to our attention.
When Democrats who rail against corporate corruption, and seethe about those who don’t pay “their fair share of taxes”, steer government business their own way and cheat on their own taxes (search on “Charlie Rangel” or “Nancy Pelosi’s husband”), they are rightly accused of hypocrisy. And the editors of BoingBoing…
It sounds a bit like you are disappointed in boingboing. I don’t know what else to say. That’s not dismissive of your concern about crappy democratic politicians doing crappy things - it’s a real thing. But, in this thread any “the Democrats are bad too” comments seem like they are excusing child molestation, even if that wasn’t their intent. I think backlash can be expected.
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I am, a little. Anyone who really wants to make creative changes in how our country works really needs to get away from the mindset of “Democrats good, Republicans evil”.
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I’m finally in the .01%! I’m rich!!!
Oh, different .01%. Damn. Anyway, this whole financial transaction reporting thing reminds me of Office Space and flair. There’s breaking the law, and then there is not showing sufficient enthusiasm for following the law. There’s a hard threshold at 10k, but deposit/withdraw less and you could still be accused of committing a crime. Well then make the damn law so it’s the lower threshold. It’s like a parent that says “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT”. That’s not how the law works, or should.
It has common elements of surveillance and due process that Boingers traditionally don’t like, only it’s banking instead of emails and phone calls.
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Actually to be clear 2 of his alleged victims were 14.
"According to the document, Individual A told prosecutors the abuse occurred in a motel room on the way home from wrestling camp. Hastert, the only adult on the trip, told the 14-year-old that he would stay in his room while about a dozen other boys stayed in a different room. Individual A said Hastert touched him inappropriately after suggesting he would massage a groin injury the boy had.
The other former wrestlers told prosecutors Hastert touched them in the locker room at Yorkville High, after saying he would give them massages. Two of those wrestlers, who were ages 14 and 17, say Hastert performed sex acts on them."
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Thanks, the first story I saw on this only referred to his victims as 17-year-old wrestlers; when the confessions came out, I first saw the reference to 14-year-olds, which is a lot more “childlike” than I first understood.
I think you’ll find that the attitude of many here would be better described as “Democrats evil but reasonably sane (in a short-sighted way), Republicans evil and batshit crazy”.
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