What about when the courts don't do the job?
A lot of people are understandably low on trust for a legal system that doesn't do anything about multiple highly-public sexual offenders.
What about when the courts don't do the job?
A lot of people are understandably low on trust for a legal system that doesn't do anything about multiple highly-public sexual offenders.
> What about when the courts don't do the job?
Well, then you'd presumably fall back onto the old witch hunt; plenty of puritanical mobs are still around to say something like "What about when the courts don't do the job".
Good thing we don't live in those unenlightened days, eh?
MLK famously said 'a riot is the language of the unheard'; if you want people to avoid social pressure (note: not a lynch mob -- no physical harm), you have to give them a better, fairer alternative.
A functioning justice system for sex crime accusations would be amazing; for valid reasons, a lot of people do not trust that this exists.
Doesn't matter how you dress it up, persecuting someone on the basis of absolutely no evidence other than victim testimony is, for all practical purposes, the modern equivalent of pointing at the witch and shrieking.
> A functioning justice system for sex crime accusations would be amazing; for valid reasons, a lot of people do not trust that this exists.
They have no valid reasons. No system is perfect. Claiming that the system getting it wrong 1 out of every 1000 times is a valid reason is just stupid; no system is perfect.
There was a system for the witch trials as well; the accusations were just the starting point for the sham trials, torture, and executions. Are you okay with that because it was a system, even if imperfect?
Our justice system doesn't fail 1 in a 1000 times, particularly when talking about sex crimes. It fails far more frequently than that, given the prevalence of sexual assault and the rarity of convictions [1]. Additionally, there's an aspect that justice must be seen to be done: high profile repeat offenders walking free damages confidence in the system out of proportion to their frequency.
As above, if you want people to use a system, the system has to work.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/07/the-s...
> Are you okay with that because it was a system, even if imperfect?
What makes you think I'm okay with the current system? Upthread I even said "if you are unhappy with the way things are, petition to change them instead of mobbing".
Just because I hold the opinion that evidence matters does not mean that I am a bad person.
I haven't said I think you're a bad person; it's bold to accuse someone of a misreading based on your own misreading.
People aren't required to only critique a system using the tools that system provides; progress is often made when people step outside of the system (e.g. Rosa Parks) rather than quietly accepting it. There's evidence for that in countless civil rights campaigns.
There are a good number of what many would consider heinous behaviors that are not crimes. Even if our current system of justice worked perfectly, we would still be left with a basket of people who no one wanted to be associated with, but whom had, legally at least, "done nothing wrong."
Do you have a solution to that that doesn't involve limiting freedom of association and speech?
"freedom of association" and "freedom of speech" are governmental concepts, used to limit the behaviors of governments.
They are not some core, universal rights that every individual must respect when interacting with other individual.
The accused in this case absolutely still has the citizen rights of association and speech. He can gather with people and he can publish his thoughts. The fact that a bunch of individuals have decided they don't want to gather with him is in no way a reduction of his rights.
To be clear, I agree with you -- that was the point I was making.
There's no right to being accepted, and no right to make people approve of your actions.
It's not actually a problem in society that needs fixing if people decide not to associate with someone on the basis of their behaviour.
I agree with you too.
It's not a problem you can, or should, solve legally.
Alternatively you could identify the minority of people who tend to start riots and exclude them from society since they're almost always outsiders who resent being outsiders.
"Do the job" depends a lot on what the facts are. Unfortunately, unless you were actually there, you can't know perfectly.
It's a matrix: a perfect system would always punish the guilty and refuse to punish the innocent.
Without perfect information, you have to choose: will you bias the outcome punish the innocent, or to not punish the guilty?
Truly naive to think that the legal system that is currently shielding an offender as nefarious as Epstein is the place to turn to for reasonable treatment of sexual abuse victims.
Not saying people should leap to letter signing, but it also misses the mark to suggest that the US legal system will resolve the issues these kinds of actions cause.
who said anything about the US? the article isn't even talking about the US?
it seems that the author lives in Germany and that he went to court in Britain: https://pretty.direct/consentorder.pdf
I did. In response to the thread starter, who made a generalized statement.
If I've missed an implication that limited their suggestion to specific regions, them I'm happy to retract. But what I'm seeing is a general suggestion, so I've extrapolated that out and tried to apply it to a hypothetical where the advice might be appropriate.
Feels like maybe you've assumed that the thread starter was scoping the suggestion to the regions where this offense occurred. Again, I don't see that implication in the text, but I feel like it's an entirely reasonable assumption. That being the case, I don't fault anyone for thinking only in those terms. But I also don't think I was out of line to engage with the thread starters points in the way that I did.
sorry, my response was a bit too heated. I toned it down. lot's going on. you're right and it is fair to scope it further, it's a valid talking point.
The UK justice system has its own issues, and its own high-profile offenders without consequences. I'm not as familiar with Germany, but I imagine it has the same.
absolutely. I'm just annoyed by the US centricism here. courts, lawyers, and the executive branch are all just people. it's not a never failing machine and it will never be one. just because there are instances of neglect doesnt mean the whole system is bogus imho. I'd even argue that it's more that the system isn't protected enough against people in power misusing it.
And yet it's the same (usually politically-aligned) interests who say:
- "the BBC let this person get away with this for years" and also "cancel culture has to stop",
- "there's too much filth on the internet" and "don't you dare demand I tell you my age",
- or the most complex and culturally nuanced one: "children are being groomed" but "she's 18 now, she's an adult and she can make up her own mind about posing nude in a tabloid".
As difficult as it is, any invitation to treat a subject with less nuance is better considered misbegotten until scrutinised much, much further.