The Glade 4.0

Finally.

Thoughts? It's been pretty appalling to watch Hollywood dance and try to defend him. "It wasn't rape-rape, I'm a victim's advocate and I know the difference!"

Fine, it wasn't rape-rape, it was just the one rape.

They don't believe in the rule of law. Pure and simple.

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The Dude abides.

Yeah listening to Whoopi trying to dismiss the drug induced rape as not rape was torturous.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I know the law is complicated, but I must have seriously missed that "Sexual violation of a minor and fleeing the country after pleading guilty is ok if you are talented section"

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

The man has already been convicted so no matter how they try to spin i, he's still guilty.

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The Dude abides.

The initial conviction and plea-bargain was handled in bad faith by the prosecutors, who went back on their deal with him after conviction. (which is why he fled the country.) Even the victim wants the charges dropped.

For most of the 30 years the United States' policy on Roman Polanski has mostly looked like a vendetta. Looks like they finally got him, too.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

He pleaded guilty to plying a 13 year old with quaaludes and champagne then had sex with her. He says consensual, or as consensual as a drugged up 13 year old can get, which is of course not at all legally or otherwise.

Any issues with the plea bargain is not justification for fleeing the law. I'm sure Charles Manson thought the judge was out to get him too, after all he never personally hurt anyone. That doesnt mean he gets to vacation in France for 30 years.

The victim brought the charges 30 years ago. As of 2003 at least, she still wanted it resolved, but yes more recently she'd given up and who can blame her. I'm sure she's had enough of this issue over the years. Of course she's since been paid off in a civil settlement as well.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

The whole "going back on the deal" thing was solely regarding the drugging charge. Regardless he is still guilty of statutory rape, and also charges related to him fleeing the country. Charging someone with statutory rape for an 18-yo having sex with their 16 yo girlfriend is pretty stupid. But a 44 yo with a 13 yo? That is crossing the line. Even withut the drugging/forced situation.

And it isn't up to the victim to decide whether charges should be dropped. The victim said this "I think he's sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don't think he's a danger to society. I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever — besides me — and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It's an unpleasant memory ... (but) I can live with it." Which is hardly a glowing endorsement.

It isnt to protect the current victim, its to protect future victims.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Her rights were the ones violated, so why should she not be the determiner of whether to press charges regarding rape?


Fleeing the country charges fall to the appropriate jurisdictional authority, though, and thus they should pursue those regardless of what the woman decides.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You don't need justification for fleeing the law. "Justification" is a subjective thing. The law is not "good" or "right." There's no inherent nobility to abiding by it. It simply is there. You either get caught or you don't, you either get punished or you don't. He got away with it for a long time, and I don't blame him for fleeing, after the con-job the prosecutors pulled on him--the law proved themselves untrustworthy. Once you lose that confidence, you lose any hope of being treated fairly. Now they caught him. Ah well, he can certainly afford good lawyers, maybe he'll still get off. Maybe he won't.

There's not even any inherent morality condemning a 44 year old sleeping with a 13 year old. In other centuries, 12-14 years old was the age they married girls off to men twice three times their age, without their own choice. That was "the law." Is that enough to justify it back then?

Each culture and society makes up its own laws and moralities. There is no such thing as virtue, everyone does whatever they think is best to do. That's fine. I dislike what he did, sure, but I totally sympathize with his flight based on how it all transpired. At the same time, I'm not going to cry if he gets the book thrown at him. You pay the consequences for your own choices.

Of course, if he does get the book thrown at him, he's lived a better life for having fled. He got to live 31 years free, admired and able to work on his art, and he's now in his mid-70's. I bet he wouldn't give those years up to go back and face the music then...

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Anytime someon tries to justify this by implying that it should be ok for a 44 year old to have sex with a 13 year old, I just laugh.

Oh, and Taly - human sacrifice was acceptable centuries ago. So was selling your children into slavery.

It's a nonsensical argument.

First of all, that's a strawman. I never said it should be "ok." What I argued is he paid for that crime, the legal system made their deals with him, then went back on them and charged him with things they agreed not to the first time.

Secondly, up until 2 years ago, the age of consent in Canada was 14, and that made it okay for a 14 year old and a 44 year old. While what Polanski did would still be a crime, it puts it in a bit of perspective. But ever wonder how many of the things you and I did will be considered monstrous in a few hundred years? And maybe some of those things we condemn now will be accepted again?

Arguing any kind of objective morality is the nonsensical argument. we judge based on our own opinions, nothing more. (Whether we form those opinions ourselves, or just adopt the common ones, makes no difference.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I haven't paid a lot of attention to this case, but from what was recently reported, it wasn't the prosecutors that went back on the deal, but the judge indicated that despite any deals made, he was probably going to sentence the guy to additional time in jail (additional to the time he already spent getting psych evaluations).

There is no guarantee that judges follow what is agreed upon by the parties.

Since the judges and the prosecutors both work for "the people," that's a colossal injustice in the works right there... It's a cop-out. You make deals, then can't live up to them after the fact? If a defendant knew in advance they were going to cheat you, they might not have made a plea to start with.


If I had made some deal with the legal system then it looked like the judge was going to hit me up for far more than the deal stipulated, and I had the means to flee the country and live comfortably, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Pretty short sighted opinion.

What Polanski did was a bit more than "just" having sex with 13-year-old girl:

(text, but giving this a NSFW warning)
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskicover1.html

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Polanski is evidence that it isn't. He managed 31 years of immensely lucrative freedom.

Not that I support him fleeing, just that Talya's point is logically correct.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

DFK, I was referring to her statement:



I should have been more clear.

Ah.


Well, in that case I'm still not sure that I'd describe it as "short-sighted." I don't agree that it's a "cop-out" either, but I certainly have some issues with judges not following prosecutorial agreements. That's a great way to undermine the willingness of people to plea-bargain.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Prosecutors can't make deals about sentencing. They can make recommendations or offer support for a sentence, but that doesn't bind the judge from taking other information into account and issuing a different sentence.

That is a good thing in most cases, and to think that the judge should somehow be bound to deals made by the attorneys in that matter is a not wise in my opinion.

What the judge cannot do is charge the person with crimes not presented by the prosecution, which is where the deals are usually made.

But back on track, he fled the country to avoid spending an additional 45 days in jail (for a total of roughly 90 if I recall the article correctly) for the statutory rape and drugging of a minor.

That is not my understanding.



Perspective? A third-world country says it's, what, illegal but not "very illegal" - that's supposed to give me perspective on what, exactly? It was still illegal, even in Canada, and now it's illegaler (lol). Meanwhile, at the time and since, it's been clearly illegal in the US.

I don't think our justice system allows for a defense based on what's legal in other countries.



It doesn't make for a defense. If it's illegal at the time, then it's illegal. None of this other stuff makes what he did any less illegal.



It's not my opinion that what he did was illegal. It's a fact.

In your post you weren't talking about what was legal. You were discussing morality. You talked about it being "ok." that's a morality judgement. Nobody is arguing it wasn't illegal. (And I'm certainly not arguing one way or another about it being right or wrong.) You're shifting the goalposts. Whether or not something is illegal doesn't **** matter, except for the possible penalties if you get caught. The law is not "good" or "right" just because it is law. It's simply the law. I break the law every day in all sorts of ways. Most people do. Because most law is bullshit. But that doesn't mean we can't get in trouble for doing so. (And the fact that we can doesn't make it in any way "wrong.")



See above. You're shifting the goalposts. You went from discussing whether it was OK based on moral reasons, to now talking about legalities.



Once again, we weren't discussing law.

Look at your original post again:



Should be ok? You're not discussing law there, just as I never suggested in any way that he didn't break the law.

Let's clarify it this way: Whether you are right or wrong if you reply to this by flaming me is up for debate, and can never be objectively settled. And if you call me a "**** amoral ***** from hell" in the privacy of your home and I don't hear about it, you won't get censured for it. But if you post it here in reply to this thread, you might get banned. It's not a matter of right or wrong...it's a matter of the rules. Polanski broke the law, he got caught, he got away and lived a happy productive, free life. Then he got caught again. Can't blame him for running away, it appeared at the time to be a damned good idea for him.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Dude should have just went to jail, he would have been out by now. He would have paid his debt and been square with the house.

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Raell Kromwell

Don't want to go to jail? Don't plead guilty to drugging and anally violating a child. Watching Hollywood try and cover for this convict is disgusting. God bless the Swiss for arresting him, something the French have refused for decades

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore