Also, the thing which many people seem to forget here is that the victim of this past crime is not a child anymore. She is an adult person. Still many people seem to treat her as a child in terms of the whole argument. Again, to me it seems that this whole scheme is not about bringing any justice to her or respecting her wishes but to victimise her further and take revenge out on Polanski. And like I have stated, surrendering Polanski to the hands of the yanks is unethical.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-02/the-lost-polanski-transcripts/full/

“In addition to that, there has been some indication that there is some blame to be put on the mother for allowing the daughter to go. However, it appears from the testimony at the Grand Jury—and also from the probation report—that the mother asked to go on that photo assignment, and it was Mr. Polanski who suggested and who indicated that the mother should not go, because it would—it might inhibit the girl in the photo session.”

Still, without more details, that doesn’t excuse the mother to me, but it makes her look less of a savage abuser of her own daughter.

You have a 44 yr old guy trying to convince the mother that her daughter will be inhibited if the mother is there, so the mother shouldn’t go? Inhibited?! Leave you daughter alone with me?! Red flags right there.

Note that the right to hit one’s children is not based on a conception of a child as a “miniature adult,” but on a conception of a child as the property of the parent. In fact, it is only because we think of children as miniature adults that we assign them rights.

This is a weird framing of the issue. The only reason the rape case is still a live issue is because Polanski fled the country before he was sentenced. The agent most responsible for keeping the rape case alive is Roman Polanski. He’s had thirty years to lay it to rest and he chose to thumb his nose at justice instead.

Boohoo.

The French conservatives are demanding that Mitterand resign. In the latter’s half-fiction, half-autobiographical 2005 book, he details nothing less than several trips to sexually exploit boys in Thailand.

Are we surprised?

Mitterand thought he was grandstanding to the (stupid and gullible anti-American) French public when he said, “In the same way there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America, that has just shown its face.”

That “scary” America is the one who goes after child sex tourists and throws them into jail. It’s true that this America almost doesn’t ever do its job, but it sure bothers the heck out of slimy international pedophiles when it does.

I think Whoopi’s comments showed a very clear lack of information and certainly a lack of preparation, and if I were her I’d be very embarrassed about them. But I didn’t read it as an empathy fail – like us, her opinion on the events were based on how she imagined them more than on what actually happened. To her credit, she’s convincingly portrayed victims of rape and abuse in at least two films I’ve seen, so I’d hesitate to call her ability to viscerally empathize with a rape victim into question.

Also, it’s possible to overempathize, and essentially project our own reactions onto the victim so intensely that our personal desire for “justice” exceeds that of the person who was wronged. Empathy can be incredibly instructive in understanding other viewpoints, but when we insist on concocting fake one-sided narratives to trigger the most heavy-handed emotional result possible, we’ve skipped straight into demagoguery.

I find it insulting to claim that a homosexual mindset develops from abusing children, a gross and extremely homophobic overgeneralization based in ideology rather than reality.
=================
Nice strawman. If you would ever like to address what I wrote about sexuality development, please do so.

Now for my questions: How do you explain that a lesbian turd like Ensler advocates raping girls and then puts the words in their mouths that they enjoyed it? Why did young women all over America perform this play claiming this was progress?

“Pedophilia is a completely different orientation from the homosexuality between consenting adults”

You need to get something straight – human sexuality is not definied by age boundaries as it pertains to definitions of sexual orientation ( hetero, bi or homo). Pedophilia is not a separate category from heterosexuality or bisexuality or homosexuality. Polanski has sex with adult women and rapes girls. Is he not heterosexual because of it? Even if he only had sex with 13 yr olds, he would still be heterosexual in his orientation.

The concept of sexual orientation (e.g. having a homosexual mindset) has nothing to do with having consensual sex, nor with orientation towards a selected age group. It refers to the sex of the sexual orientation target as compared to the individual in question. Nothing more.

He is guilty, and sparing the women as much as I agree, it is kind of to late. We are constantly saying that by not prosecuting she spared, but the truth is no matter what she will not be spared. He fled, so for her now 45 has been face with media for all this time. It is his fault not hers. If he had not fled he would be convicted (possible that would have lost his status but not likely) done his time and then be released, and the victim would be ready to move on.

He now should be charged for both running and the rape.

I cannot believe anyone is defending him. IT is RAPE. Whether she was 16, 10, 46, 89… it is because she said NO!!!!!

The mother is guilty for not being a great parent and a bit star struck… but she did not rape her daughter.

That is all.

My comment, since apparently I need to come back and explain it, was that this girl, who is now a woman, IS and always will be someone’s daughter. It’s safe to say that most people mean something to their parents if no one else in the world. It’s likely that, if her parents are alive today, they would support her present plight. And if Whoopie had been the woman’s mother, she might have a differing opinion on the subject. I’m referring to her lack of EMPATHY for this rape victim. Yes, she could connect herself personally to actually being raped. However, don’t twist my desire that Whoopie, and others, have empathy. I think getting people to understand and empathize is a necessity and whichever way that message gets across, be it be getting men and women to look at their daughters as human beings who may have something like that happen to them one day OR that they themselves could, shouldn’t matter.

Normally, when we find someone’s opinion disagreeable, we attribute that to the PERSON rather than to some larger group, which by the nature of its size generally cannot be in full agreement about an issue, much less a whole set of issues. For one thing, each individual will identify with many groups; for another, individuals are actually capable of thinking their own thoughts, rather than repeating everything that other members of one of their groups may say. I don’t consider all conservatives abhorrent just because I find many of Bill O’Reilly’s opinions abhorrent; I don’t consider him to speak for all conservatives, just like I don’t think Hollywood speaks for all liberals, much less most. Because most people are pretty freaking complicated, and it’s completely meaningless to stick them in one box vs another. (And for the record, all the feminist blogs – which to my knowledge are considered liberal – have been very outspoken in their condemnation of Polanski and the people in Hollywood who support him.)

As for Polanski, I cannot believe this issue is even under debate – it’s unclear to me how it is at all justifiable for Polanski to evade punishment for the clear rape of a child. He has already been convicted of the crime, now let him serve the sentence he deserves. I agree that we should respect the wishes of the victim, but it will not spare her attention should he walk free, nor is it a matter for her to decide – the case is criminal, not civil. The case has received so much attention already that like it or not, it has become a pretty Big Deal, one which may well have ramifications for the future if we don’t act emphatically.

My opinion is also that the fleeing-jurisdiction charge is a separate and ambiguous issue, in which the victim is only tangentially involved, and that there are compelling arguments both for and against the extradition and subsequent prosecution on the basis of that charge alone.

But my impression from most people here is that the only “acceptable” opinion is one of pure canned moral outrage, and that anything else is tantamount to promoting/supporting rape. Even Gwen is guilty of this, when she erroneously adds to the widely circulated myth that Hollywood has rallied to some kind of monolithic support for rape, when even the infamous petitions had no more than 40 signatories who actually worked in Hollywood. I remember something similarly depressing from political debates in the US – taking a nuanced stance on an issue is always taken as a sign of weakness, but fudging or ignoring the facts isn’t.

What about the right of corporal punishment? I took Germany until 2000 to illegalize the parent’s right to hit their children.

To quote Lloyd deMause (a Psychohistorian): “The further back in history one goes the more massive the neglect and cruelty one finds and the more likely children are to have been killed, rejected, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused by their caretakers.”

Let’s put Ensler’s words into Whoopi’s: “*IF* if it was rape, it wasn’t rape-rape, it was good rape. ”

What will we hear next from Samantha Geimer, “The good rape from Polanski helped to nurture her and help her grow as a woman?”

Liberals are too monstrous for words.