Phil Nugent, this time, on Roman Polanski:
"I don't think that people would support this kind of use of their tax dollars and the police's time if Polanski had robbed a bank or maybe even if he'd killed somebody, but throw in "anal rape" of a child, and many people would probably all for seeing him torn apart by hungry bears in the Thunderdome on live TV. I'm not sorry for Polanski. I don't think his talent gives him license to rape children. I don't even, I swear to God, support the rape of children by anyone. But the Los Angeles County Justice Department is performing an expensive, international operation that I doubt it would like to try to justify on the grounds of protecting and serving the public, all because it got its shins kicked. They feel that they can get away with what they want to do because there are certain crimes that set off such a light show inside the skulls of most people that, if they're told what they're seeing is in reaction to one of those crimes, they'll forgive the law anything. So did John Yoo."
Well the expense is one aspect that I did not think about... hummm... food for thought.
ReplyDeleteWell, a lot of people have daughters. Including a lot of people in LA.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising that it sets some lights off.
I have to say that I don't care about the expense of this.
ReplyDeleteIf it were my son or my daughter who had been drugged and raped, and the rapist admitted in court that he had done it, and then spent the next 30 years living in villas and mansions in Europe while my kid struggled to regain something of themselves and attempted to become a functional adult, hopefully even successful; I'd want to see this man finally pay for what he's done.
And this isn't the first time that we've seen the government go after rapists and/or murders who have fled to Europe. This isn't special for Polanski.
And really, how would you feel if it were your son?
It is healthy and important that a light show go off in our skulls over crimes this deprave. Responding with anything other than violent revulsion is a betrayal of one's humanity.
ReplyDeleteA reasonably intelligent adult can have a strong viseral reaction to a crime like this and also be grateful that the justice system is designed to handle all crime, even the most heinous, in a dispassionate way.
I'd like him to suffer the way only children can suffer. But, I know we can't have a judicial system based on that desire.
I think Nugent's point, though, Jeanne, is not to deny that the light goes off, or to criticize those heads in which it goes off -it is to not let the light blind us to the other matters involved here. That way (letting there be no penalty too harsh for horrible criminals) madness lies.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, where are the sane people in Hollywood? There are too many luminaries signing the pro-Polanksi petition.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's really rich that Woody Allen, who seduced his own daughter, signed it too. I suppose that John Phillips wishes he could sign it from the grave.