The fallout from the arrest of Roman Polanski has been interesting and, in many ways, heartening. While there have been many posts defending Polanski — I touched on some yesterday, as did the redoubtable Kate Harding — most bloggers on the left and the right alike have condemned Polanski and praised the arrest. I know, one shouldn’t be surprised that there’s general consensus that someone who drugs and rapes a child, then flees jurisdiction to avoid punishment is someone who probably deserves to be arrested, but it’s still nice to see.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that everyone sees things this way. The film and artistic community, alas, seems to feel that raping a 13-year-old girl is okay if it happened a long time ago, and the perpetrator is famous. Even the liberal Huffington Post has been an epicenter of this activity, mainly because Arianna Huffington has a lot of famous friends who don’t seem to understand why it is that people would want a child rapist brought to justice. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy gives us the usual run-down:
Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.
He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.
Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.
We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it.
Interesting how Lévy sort of elides a few things, such as:
- The crime Polanski committed
- The fact that Polanski pled guilty to the crime
- The fact that Polanski is only beyond the statute of limitations because he’s successfully dodged extradition for 30-plus years
- The fact that the vast majority of Holocaust and Stalinism survivors aren’t rapists
- The fact that common criminals are often apprehended like common criminals
Lévy then helpfully provides a list of artists and filmmakers who you can safely avoid doing business with, including Salman Rushdie, Milan Kundera, Pascal Bruckner, Neil Jordan, Isabelle Adjani, Arielle Dombasle, Isabelle Huppert, William Shawcross, Yamina Benguigui, Mike Nichols, Danièle Thompson, Diane von Furstenberg, Claude Lanzmann, and Paul Auster.
Ultimately, I think the phrase “common terrorist” at the start of Lévy’s screed gets to the heart of the difference of opinion between the European view of this matter and the American one. There is much to like about Europe, but there is no question that culturally, there is a more rigidly defined hierarchy of classes. Polanski is part of the “right kind of people,” and therefore his sins can be forgiven, ignored, swept under the rug.
American culture is not so willing to ignore criminal conduct. Note: I didn’t say totally unwilling. Being rich and powerful can get you out of punishment, whether you’re O.J. Simpson or Ted Kennedy or Dick Cheney. But there is at the very least the notion that this is a bad thing, that justice should, in theory, treat all criminals the same. That a rich, powerful child rapist is no better than a poor child rapist, and that each should face equal punishment.
Reading Lévy’s post and others like it, I don’t get the sense that Polanski defenders believe this. I think they feel that Roman is a famous guy who’s made great art, and all he did was have a little sex with an underage girl, so hey, why not just forget it? Why arrest him as if he was a criminal, when he’s really a swell guy?
Well, because he is a criminal. A confessed one, one who refused to serve his sentence. One who has been evading justice for three decades.
Now, justice may take the form of Polanski having the charges dropped; there is at least some evidence that there were ex parte communications between the prosecutor and the Judge in the case. I’m not an attorney and don’t know how California courts would remedy that, but I do know that they can’t remedy that so long as Polanski refuses to stand up and face the court. By his stubborn refusal to come back and deal with legal matters through legal channels, Polanski acted as a common criminal. And criminals get arrested; I’m sorry, M. Lévy, but they do.
Finally, I find amusing the fact that Polanski is probably in jail today specifically because of the actions of his attorneys:
Roman Polanski’s attorneys may have helped provoke his arrest by complaining to an appellate court this summer that Los Angeles prosecutors had never made any real effort to arrest the filmmaker in his three decades as a fugitive, two sources familiar with the case told The Times.
The accusation that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office was not serious about extraditing Polanski was a small part of two July court filings by the director’s attorneys. But it caught the attention of prosecutors and led to his capture in Switzerland on Saturday, the sources said.
Polanski, 76, was taken into custody at the airport in Zurich, where he was scheduled to headline the city’s film festival. Details of his appearance were widely available on the Internet. Variety also reported his planned attendance in August, the month after Polanski’s attorneys had filed two separate documents with the 2nd District of the state Court of Appeal asking for a dismissal of the 32-year-old child sex case against the filmmaker.
In both, the lawyers alleged that the district attorney’s office in effect benefited from Polanski’s absence, because as long as he remained a fugitive, officials could avoid answering allegations of prosecutorial and judicial wrongdoing in the original handling of the case.
Yeah, you know, that was probably a really stupid thing to argue. My guess is that to some extent, the L.A. District Attorney’s office was letting this go, not so much because they didn’t believe in the case but because it’s a hassle to try to get someone arrested overseas and then extradited to the U.S. But when you argue that there’s a conspiracy to try to cover up wrongdoing in the case, and that’s why nobody’s trying to bring your client in, you’d better be damn sure that’s the reason why nobody’s trying to bring your client in. If it isn’t, there’s a good chance that the prosecutor will go after your client, hard, to prove they have nothing to hide. And that’s doubly true if your client is a child rapist.
Ultimately, I think the phrase “common terrorist” at the start of Lévy’s screed gets to the heart of the difference of opinion between the European view of this matter and the American one.
With respect, I think this gets to the heart of the matter;
He’s an artist and there are supposed to be different rules. This outpouring of support from (piss) artistes is unsurprising if you watch their films.
Just yesterday, I happened upon a scene in a middle brow, art flick, where a woman was anally raped by her ex husband. It lingered lovingly over this, far longer than needed to make it’s point (if it had one). She then went to the bathroom covered in a sheet, stared into the distance, for about 20 secs, which in flim time could be about, ooh, five minutes. She then exited the bathroom, and resumed conversing with him as if he’d forgetten her birthday or something.
When you look at mainstream films in cinema and tv, how many of them don’t feature murders of young women, (how many of them girls, teenagers?).
Polanski makes people rich. Which is why so many rich people are defending him. He’s famous, well connected, and by defending him, people in Hollywood think they have something to gain. They are defending him because of one thing: MONEY.
If he wasn’t rich, everyone would treat him like the scum he is.
Jeff, I appreciate your posts on this issue greatly, but I take small issue with the sentence “even the liberal Huffington Post…”
This is because it implies that the Huffington Post is normally very progressive on women’s issues but has fallen off track this time in an effort to give a forum to Arianna’s rich and powerful showbiz friends. Actually, HuffPost is one of the more hostile online environments for women on the liberal blogesphere. They routinely print objectifying pictures of female celebrities, urging their readers to choose the “best chest” in Hollywood as one example.
Now they’ve been running a series on why women are so darn unhappy. Speaking as just one woman, I’d say it has something to do with the fact that even on so-called “progressive” blogs, women are routinely put down, objectified, and expected to embrace our role as second-class citizens with a cheerful smile plastered on our faces. That makes me unhappy as hell.
Jeff–seconded. Oh, and puleeze–he was apprehended like a “common terrorist.” OH NOEZ. Treated like the common people! The utter gall, I tell you!
Yep, smelling a whiff of classism there.
The people defending him, it seems, are largely people who live in that same high-end world. And they seem to believe that it’s OK, really, for people of their class to sexually use and abuse women and girls of other classes.
I am glad that the victim in this case seems to have recovered and made a life for herself, and has moved on. That’s great for her, and I hope she finds complete healing.
But we should still fry the son of a bitch in hot oil.
Regarding Jeff’s line “…even the liberal Huffington Post…”
Rose, I think that Jeff’s referencing the cliché about The New Republic. I may be recounting this badly, but the way I remember it, the line “even the liberal New Republic” became (still is?) a bit of a shorthand in conservative publications and blogs for “look, we found someone, an ostensible liberal or left-winger, who agrees with us.” The New Republic, because of editorial policy — it was once edited by the extremely conservative Michael Kelly, for example, and at another time, Andrew Sullivan — was endemic in stuff like that.
In other words, I think that line should be read as a bit of a roll of the eyes. I’m pretty sure — though I’ll happily admit to having been wrong — Jeff would agree with everything you say in your post.
Ultimately, I think the phrase “common terrorist” at the start of Lévy’s screed gets to the heart of the difference of opinion between the European view of this matter and the American one. There is much to like about Europe, but there is no question that culturally, there is a more rigidly defined hierarchy of classes. Polanski is part of the “right kind of people,” and therefore his sins can be forgiven, ignored, swept under the rug.
I think Jeff is right that this isn’t just a matter of Artists vs. the World in Europe, because there’s been a great deal of outcry against the arrest from European politicians and bureaucrats, who are supposed to be representing the views of the regular people in their countries, not representing the Disaffected Artist.
In contrast, an American politician or bureaucrat could kiss his job goodbye if he ever said anything that defended an admitted child molester.
Is it because he’s rich and famous, or is it because many people simply think that a purportedly non-virginal 13-year old girl is perfectly able to consent to sex with a rich and powerful 40 year old man?
The latter is more disturbing IMO but might also be an explanation.
I hear ya, Falstaff. And really, I’ve been very touched by Jeff’s posts on this issue. I consider him one the blogesphere’s smartest and most decent men on the issue of women’s equality.
You know what’s so sad? I too am kind of shocked that there has been so much outpouring of disgust over the drugging, rape and sodomy of a child. In a better world, I wouldn’t be shocked at all because it would be assumed that all decent people would agree that child rapists need to serve time for their crime.
“The fact that Polanski is only beyond the statute of limitations because he’s successfully dodged extradition for 30-plus years ”
While the rest of your post is solid, I have to object to that. The statute of limitations also applies to successful fugitives, not just crimes reported late. It’s been a long time and the victim wants to drop it, both of which should count for something.
I think rapists should do time, regardless of social standing, but I also think those two factors matter.
Except … and I cannot stress this enough … she did not consent. I’m not accusing you of getting this wrong, Sailorman, it’s just that all the debate over age of consent seems to miss one of the most important parts, IMHO … that if she’s been 45, it still would have been rape.
He drugged her, she said no, and he had sex with her anyhow. That’s rape.
—Myca
It’s been a long time and the victim wants to drop it, both of which should count for something.
I’m not sure why, considering that both are because Polanski has been a successful fugitive. I’ve been reading the contemporaneous news reports, and apparently the judge just wanted Polanski to finish his 90-day psychiatric evaluation at the Chino jail and then be voluntarily deported and not allowed to re-enter the U.S. Gosh, another 48 days of psychiatric evaluation and a life of exile from the U.S. as he chose for himself? Oh noes!
If we drop it on the basis of “It’s been a long time and the victim wants to drop it,” then the lesson is that if you can evade sentencing for long enough, the victim of your crime will get tired of having it brought up constantly and never resolved, and will ask that the case just be dropped so she can have some peace. What a great way to deter crime.
While I truly respect the victim’s wishes to move beyond this I believe Amanda Marcotte stated it the best: This isn’t about proxy justice for the victim. That’s not what our legal system stands for (at least in theory.) It is the best interest for society if child rapists are treated as the criminals they are.
I’m quite sure that the same people who cite the victim’s wishes here would have a totally different attitude if she wanted him to serve time. Then they’d be saying “That vindictive slut! Why can’t she just get over it and leave this poor old man be!”
The needs of the victim only seem to count when the victim is saying what they want to hear.
interesting cultural zeitgeist at work here. it appears the American left and right are more or less unified in their condemnation with one faction of the cultural if not political left balking…the international artistic/intellectual community whose sophisticated views of sexuality define them from the great unwashed who the populist right represent, but more importantly for our purposes, also from the victim left.
This would only make sense Jeff, if Polanski defenders were coming form the right. But this is generally an internal leftist debate,though a few free-thinking sophisticates who occasionally align themselfves with the right (bernard henri-levy and i suspect camile paglia soon) may weigh in on polianski’s side.
what i see happening is these two factions of the left have been more or less aligned from the days when the sexual revolution marched under the banner of freedom, thus unifying the libertine left (and libertarians as well as moral relativists whose morality is limited to the regime of negative rights) and the feminists. the gay rights movement was/is a perfect unproblematic issue, for example.
but mainstream feminism now marches under the banner of equality which when deployed outside the concept of equal protection under the law, often entails a clash with freedom, which helps explain how the progressive regimes of the 20th century descended into totaltarianism.
but i haven’t seen a smackdown like this since the women against pornography days. but back then the equality brigade was on much shakier ground, scaring liberal feminists concerned with statism as well as the free speech principle which remains worshipped by much of the left despite Herbert Marcuse and political correctness. here, the authoritarian impulse falls well within the limits carved out by classic liberals…and will thus box the sophisticated left into a corner. could result in major schism.
in short, the liberal huffington post’s deviation from the assumed feminist position here is unsurprising.
The very idea of a statue of limitations creates a situation where if you avoid something long enough, you don’t go to prison for it. I don’t think the point of that idea is to teach any kind of moral lesson, however.
The fact that Polanski is only beyond the statute of limitations because he’s successfully dodged extradition for 30-plus years
Does the statute of limitations apply in this case? I thought he’d been tried and found guilty and then fled. Does the statute of limitations apply to someone in that situation?
The danger with saying “the victim says drop it, so we should drop it” is that it gives the perpetrator a reason to put pressure on the victim. When the perpetrator is powerful – or homicidal – that can lead to some pretty nasty results. This woman is certainly the victim, but the crime offends society in general and her feelings, while worthy of consideration and sympathy, should not control events.
The people defending him, it seems, are largely people who live in that same high-end world. And they seem to believe that it’s OK, really, for people of their class to sexually use and abuse women and girls of other classes.
Was there not a case within the last 12 months of a fashion magazine that had a semi-nude and provocatively posed 15-year-old girl on the cover? Another example of what you’re talking about, using a half-naked girl to sell magazines and clothing. If the publisher ever came to Illinois I’d want the State of Illinois to arrest them for child pornography.
Manju, I’ll just point out here that feminism has often been at odds with the left and the right, even during–or perhaps especially during–the sexual reveloution. This was because we argued for the right for women to have the kind of sex they wanted (and not the sex that their partners/society slut-shamed/prude baited them into) AND we said that it was fine for women to say no, and that it was rape if the no was ignored. This was sacrilige among men (and some women) on both the right and the left.
The danger with saying “the victim says drop it, so we should drop it” is that it gives the perpetrator a reason to put pressure on the victim.
And this has happened in other rape cases–heck, in other criminal cases in general. It is not unheard of for an alleged perp and/or his/her supporters to pressure, threaten, or intimidate victims or witnesses into shutting up.
The very idea of a statue of limitations creates a situation where if you avoid something long enough, you don’t go to prison for it. I don’t think the point of that idea is to teach any kind of moral lesson, however.
Les, I don’t think you understand either the statute of limitations or the facts of Polanski’s case. The point of a statute of limitations is to make prosecutions realistic. For the majority of crimes — pretty much everything except murder, which has the victim as also the ultimate proof of the crime — there’s a statute of limitations. This is because the evidence is lost or degrades over time and the witnesses’ memories fade, as well as the witnesses moving away, becoming untraceable, or dying themselves.
The statute of limitations has no applicability to Polanski’s case because he was prosecuted very shortly after he committed the crime. There is no jurisdiction in which the statute of limitations for rape is less than a month. He was prosecuted, he pleaded guilty to the most minimal of the charges (statutory rape, or what CA calls “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor”), he was convicted, and then he ran away before he could be sentenced. So what does a statute of limitations and the reasons underlying such statutes have to do with Polanski’s case?
Sheelzebub: my recollection was that here was a brief honeymoon period between the pornographers and feminists, as both were outcasts taking aim at a common enemy: traditional christian sexual morality, especially hegemonic wasp prudeness.
by the 1970’s feminists turned their attention to the pornographers, framing them as a new patriarchy or even as an extension of the old (which i think is too pat) culminating in an ill-advised union with the christian right to fight pornography, which resulted in a backlash.
so now one of the biggest smackdowns in feminist spaces is when sex workers and their allies speak up for themselves as feminists and the old guard responds that they’re victims, or even worse, collaborators while others split the difference by pointing out that even if they are tools we all are so why single them out.
I don’t know if there’s an equivalent saying in the legal profession, but coloquially this is summed up as “don’t poke the bear.”
I wonder if part of the issue might be a knee-jerk reaction against the U.S., and in particular the U.S. justice system (which has some abuses that are well-known in Europe — Guantanamo, the death penalty, etc). (Not that it would be any excuse, of course.)
I was going to say, Amp–Polanski is in no danger of being treated like a detainee in Guantanamo. The dog-whistle that I caught in Lévy’s comment was the word “common.” Polanski, the implication goes, is “our sort.” :::Rolls eyes:::
Operor non perago gero.
hf
Can’t make head or tale of it. Three verbs, all in the first person, with nothing to punctuate or articulate them. What kind of Latin is that?
Terry Gilliam signed the petition too.ARGH
The argument that I have found the most outlandish is that he has suffered for thirty years–constant fear of apprehension, unable to travel to certain countries, missing out on awards events, etc–and that is enough punishment. The only reason he has had to endure these supposed indignities is that he has been a motherfucking fugitive from the fucking law.
Fuck him, and fuck his suffering of indignities. He should have thought of that when he raped a child and then fled justice.
Apparently, the general population of France isn’t weeping for Polanski. A poll by La Figaro showed that 70% of the respondents (I belive 30,000 people responding) thought he should be extradited and held accountable for his crime.
I’d like to repeat one comment that I’ve seen elsewhere: If Polanski had drugged and raped a 13-year-old boy, do you think he’d have this outpouring of support?
Yes
Good catch, though BHL’s peice oozes so much elitism it almost reads like parody. I’m really godsmacked by Whoopi and even the likes of Katrina Van den Heuvel. I wonder what they’re thinking and I suspect the bubble they live in is about to blurst. this Clinton/Kennedy throw the female under the bus for the sake of the great liberal male is about to hit a third rail, i think.
i mean, he did drug and anally rape a child,no?
If Polanski had drugged and raped a 13-year-old boy, do you think he’d have this outpouring of support?
The priests who abused boys had/have plenty of apologists, too. Some aspects of the rhetoric are different, but they did not lack for people to makes excuses for them. And certainly, many, many people thought it was all in the past and should be let to lie.
I used to have a modicum of respect for Harvey Weinstein, but his recent comments are disgusting. For example: “Whatever you think about the so-called crime…”
Seriously? WTF? There is no dispute that he drugged a thirteen-year-old child, and there is no dispute that he penetrated her, more than once, after she told him to stop. How in the hell is that a “so-called” crime?
Rose, I think that Jeff’s referencing the cliché about The New Republic. I may be recounting this badly, but the way I remember it, the line “even the liberal New Republic” became (still is?) a bit of a shorthand in conservative publications and blogs for “look, we found someone, an ostensible liberal or left-winger, who agrees with us.” The New Republic, because of editorial policy — it was once edited by the extremely conservative Michael Kelly, for example, and at another time, Andrew Sullivan — was endemic in stuff like that.
In other words, I think that line should be read as a bit of a roll of the eyes.
That is 100% what I meant. People who point to HuffPo as a bastion of liberalism vis a vis Polanski are much like those who point to TNR as a bastion of liberalism vis a vis the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza; neither represents mainstream liberal opinion in any way, shape, or form on these issues.
Oh, and Manju, I have a post percolating about the fact that most of Polanski’s strongest defenders come from the left. While I think this is partly tribal on the part of the right (hatred of Hollywood trumping hatred of women), I’ll give the right credit in that I have yet to see anyone on the right excusing or minimizing the actions of Polanski, and that is emphatically not the case on the left.
Of course, for feminists and feminist allies, this is not surprising, just disappointing. We know all too well that there are plenty of fauxgressives out there who think it’s perfectly okay for women to be abused if (insert “more important” principle here). I’d say that a good 75-80% of the left is with the 100% of the right that’s appalled by Polanski. But the 10-15% of everyone who isn’t is almost 100% “progressive.” And that’s disheartening, to say the least.
We know all too well that there are plenty of fauxgressives out there who think it’s perfectly okay for women to be abused if (insert “more important” principle here).
Yeah, and one of those ‘principles’ is that of artistic expression. They don’t hide their ideas on women and girls, it’s up there on the screen, they just aren’t called up on it that much, maybe that’s partisan, itself. Maybe if they had to answer for what they produce, they might not feel like supporting Polanski.
Polanski’s support on the left doesn’t surprise me given the extensive propaganda campaign on his behalf that has attempted to frame the issue as a case of overzealous prosecution of a consensual moral crime, rather framing Polanski as a convicted child molester who used his power and privilege to evade his obligations under the criminal justice system.
Ah but then it wasn’t only European members of the artistic community who made it clear that they supported Polanski was it? They of course got in there first because he was arrested in Europe and the news needed time to spread but clearly this attitude towards him of assuaging what he did because of who he is isn’t just a trait of Europeans.
I mean fancy maintaining this peculiar anti European bias/stereotyping when even you admit in the next sentence that the fame and wealth of the offender have also been important factors in judging moral issues/court/legal issues in the US sometimes too.
It seems to me given that Americans clearly do it too that the accurate thing to say about the situation is less that Europeans view money and fame as important factors and more that Westernised societies seem to.
Even still it’s an issue of realising that it is the individual people who represent their opinions and support for Polanski and not entire continents.
It’s just pretty illogical to extrapolate larger European reaction from the behaviour of some of it’s artists given that the majority of ordinary people and certainly the ones I know (I live in Europe) are also seriously applauding his arrest like you good American people.
Jackson denied ever having sex with a minor, much less “drugging and raping” one, whereas Polanski admitted giving her the drugs and having sex with her. Polanski pleaded guilty to statutory rape, while Jackson was found not guilty of the charges against him. But these things like guilty plea vs. not-guilty trial verdict are of course irrelevant nuances.
It seems to me that there is really one rational reason to ignore him, which is that we may be better off spending the time and money someplace else (it’s not as if most rape victims get relief.) Given that we tend to underfund prosecutors and police, we might be able to jail more than one rapist for the cost of dealing with him.
Even that argument has some strong counters, namely that the publicity here will act as an additional deterrent to potential rapists, and act as an additional boost to confidence in the justice system. I easily come down on the side of “get the bastard and jail him.” But in the limited realm of cost/benefit analysis I can at least understand how someone could disagree.
Speaking of comparisons to the priests, while the political right isn’t signing “Free Roman” petitions, they are engaging in an awful lot of boo-hooing over how, if Polanski had been a priest, there would be no sympathy for him. I think the winner in this round-up of reactions is probably Peter Smith: “Let’s say Roman Polanski was a priest who, say, fled the country and for decades avoid serving a sentence for statutory rape. Well, the question is a bit obvious. Would anyone sympathize with the end of his longtime fugitive status for his statutory rape conviction? Wouldn’t people be indignant if a Catholic organization honored him in exile?”
Yes, because movie awards honor people for their moral righteousness, not for their artistic achievements. /sarcasm
I’m glad Polanski finally got arrested and will finally face sentencing and punishment for his crime, but the idea that movie awards should be determined by whether the writer/ producer/ director/ actor is a Good Person is ludicrous. People can certainly decide that they don’t want to financially support a bad guy by going to his movies, and I think that’s legitimate; indeed, I support boycotting those who have signed any petition on Polanski’s behalf. But if an organization is going to give out awards for artistic merit, there’s no point in getting the morals of the individual artist muddled up in that (although a morally bad message in the art itself may be relevant).
Would anyone sympathize with the end of his longtime fugitive status for his statutory rape conviction?
Well, and the thing that’s obvious is that yes, some people would sympathize with him. We know this because we have already seen it happen. It would just be different people than the ones sympathizing with Polanski.
Some people are hypocrites. In other news, the sky is blue.
well the catholic award could be for helping the poor or something, therefore achieving a similar compartmentalization
Manju,
Any Catholic award is going to be evaluating someone on a moral basis, not for individual acts. You cannot be a good Catholic while also being an unrepentant child molester because you are not reconciled with God. You can be an excellent movie director while also being an unrepentant child molester. There is no similarity.
i’m not too sure about that, PG. I’ve heard catholics explain that all of us are sinners but you get redemption from good acts. you have to repent i think but i heard polanski’s lawyer on Andersen cooper say last night that Polanski has expressed a lot of remorse and thinks his behaviour was horrible.
I’ve heard catholics explain that all of us are sinners but you get redemption from good acts.
Uh, which Catholic said that you can be redeemed through works alone?
i heard polanski’s lawyer on Andersen cooper say last night that Polanski has expressed a lot of remorse and thinks his behaviour was horrible.
When has Polanski said this? He told Martin Amis that he was being unfairly hounded and that really everyone wants to fuck little girls.
In Catholic theology, a person doesn’t repent in order to escape punishment; he repents knowing that he will spend time in Purgatory. This is one of the distinctions between Catholic and Protestant beliefs.
Godfather III.
The guilty plea?
Its not that important. Since we’re all sinners they could still honor the pedophile priest for his works and get away with it on a technicality and given some of their behavior in the past its not clear to me that they wouldn’t if not for the backlash.
Manju,
if your understanding of Catholic theology comes from the movies,
and your understanding of a guilty plea is that it constitutes repentance rather than merely admission through a series of “yeses” and parroting back what you’re told,
this qualifies as yet another useless discussion.
I don’t like it when conservatives or anyone else redefines terms to their liking, and I don’t like it when liberals do either.
Progressivism is as progressivism does. The implication behind “fauxgressive” is that a Polanski defender must not also be *truly* progressive in other areas, because no one who defends drug rape can possibly *really* believe in (say) consumer safety regulations or prohibiting government wiretapping. I don’t think that that’s necessarily the case.
Agreed with the rest of your post, this just bore repeating.
what makes it useless PG is yet another attempt to frame minor differences as major distinctions, which leads us down the path of debating minutiae again when the general point still holds. Peter Smiths comment went well beyond giving out awards so even if there is this colossal difference between a catholic award and an artistic one, which is a big if, we’re still left with a general point that holds.
Manju, you seriously just cited “Godfather III” to argue a theological point and are arguing with a lawyer as to what courtroom procedure signifies.
To say that you have lost this argument is an understatement.
—Myca
Oh dear. To clear up some misconceptions on Catholicism, straight from a Catholic’s mouth:
1. One typically does not receive awards just for being a good Catholic. In fact there are no official recognitions for this other than promotion (i.e. from preist to bishop etc) and sainthood. Some organizations affiliated with the Church give service awards, and those are much like service awards one would receive from any volunteer organization.
2. “I’ve heard catholics explain that all of us are sinners but you get redemption from good acts.” Good acts are not enough. Reconciliation is required (although it is no longer required as a sacrament) for redemption. To reconcile with one’s sins, one must FIRST be repentant in their heart and then must commit to a life of good acts, especially those that address the sin that one has committed.
3. “In Catholic theology, a person doesn’t repent in order to escape punishment; he repents knowing that he will spend time in Purgatory.” Not really. Most modern Catholic teaching (outside of fundamentalist circles) does not focus on Purgatory or even Hell. Although it is still in the Catechism, the focus is on purifying the soul to be worthy of being with God (the Catholic definition of Heaven), rather than punishment. It is a learning, rather than pavlovian, process.
4. “Godfather III. ” Are you kidding me? Godfather III as an authority on religion? It is important to learn that Hollywood gives the most inaccurate portrayal of Catholicism that I have ever encountered. Few if any writers who write about Catholicism have the first clue what they’re talking about. If you see it in a movie, it probably isn’t true.
Most modern Catholic teaching (outside of fundamentalist circles) does not focus on Purgatory or even Hell.
What do you consider “fundamentalist circles”? Is Pope Benedict a fundamentalist?
Oh heck yeah the current Pope is a fundamentalist, moreso than his predecessor. Honestly, most Catholics don’t like him. So unfortunately, right now the fundies are running the show. Fundamentalist Catholicism is much like other fundamentalist Christianity (mainly protestantism) here in the U.S. There’s actually a bit of a schism growing right now because the conservative branch of Catholicism has started to adopt some beliefs from fundamentalist Protestantism that are against the Catechism.
We’ve got a weird system.
Given that Catholicism operates somewhat hierarchically, I think it’s reasonable for outsiders to evaluate the religion’s teachings based on what the Pope is saying they are. Otherwise, it seems like my claiming to state what constitutional law is, while acknowledging that I’m arguing based just on my interpretation of the text and ignoring Supreme Court precedents I consider wrong. Maybe those precedents will get reversed eventually and my view will be vindicated, but in the meantime, they’re the popes.
ETA: A Pentecostal church just ordained a sex offender (the serious kind, not the Romeo-and-Juliet or college-streaker kind: 30-something convicted of molesting an 11-year-old).
Well we’re getting off-topic, but that’s like saying that in 2001 all Americans lived their lives by the credo “If you’re not with us, then you’re against us” because Bush said it in a speech, and American leadership is hierarchical. Granted that’s how the world saw it, but we both know that’s innacurate, as is saying all Catholics expect to be punished in Purgatory just because fundies push that. Reasonable people accept correction when they’re wrong, even if that wrongness was based on semi-reasonable assumptions.
ETA the heirarchy of Church leadership is not as rigid and top-down as most would assume, like it is in, for example, a traditional monarchy. The Catholic Church is as varied in belief as all Protestant religions rolled together, and practices a lot of bottom-up leadership with individual parishes experiencing quite a bit of autonomy, united by central beliefs and practices such as the Trinity, one Baptism, and the Eucharist.
See, that right there is why you should all be atheists. We may not get eternal bliss (or agony), but when we’re good atheists, we get Oreos.
i cited the godfather to make a subtle but serious point in a humorous way: its just religion and therefore subjected to high degrees of interpretation and subjectivity. but even if you can’t be redeemed by good works alone, why is it so outside the bounds of possibility that a catholic group was simply honoring someone for their good works, regardless of whether or not the works were sufficient for redemption?
as to whether a guilty pleas are evidence of remorse i guess its a judgement call but i don’t think pg’s status as a lawyer proves that its not…argument to authority. logical flaw.
my larger point is that the microscopic focus on these points only serves to create artificial criteria designed to exonerate one side while convicting another. even if i were to grant PG her points –good works aren’t enogh, a plea isn’t remorse, and you can’t seperatre a catholic award from morality–we’re still left with Peter Smith’s overall point, priests wouldn’t be granted the same consideration in general, since it wasn’t dependent only on the awards scenario.
Er, what? At no point have I said “all Catholics live their lives by what the current Pope says.” I know lots of Catholics who diverge wildly from the Pope’s teachings on how to live, particularly with regard to pre-marital sex and use of contraceptives for birth control. However, I don’t use that as a basis to tell people that the Catholic Church is down with the Pill. Inasmuch as Roman Catholicism is an organized religion, and the Roman Catholic Church is an entity with a leader who is, from what I understand of the doctrine, supposed to be infallible when he speaks ex cathedra, it doesn’t make much sense for an individual layperson to proclaim that her understanding of Catholicism is the true Catholicism, while Pope Benedict is just a silly ol’ fundamentalist whose views on Catholic theology ought to be discounted.
Like the Supreme Court with regard to what the Constitution means, the Pope has the authority of his position in stating what Catholicism is, and we non-popes/justices can disagree with them and think they’re getting it wrong. When you have a group that’s more liberal than the folks at the top (and the majority of American lawyers are to the left of the majority of the Supreme Court), there’s going to be a lot of disagreement.
Saying that our views should be deemed more definitive on the subject than theirs, however, strikes me as a bit arrogant. I prefer to say “this is how X is currently being interpreted, but I think that is wrong,” rather than “some fundamentalists who happen to be the people in charge of this sort of thing interpret X this way, but their views should be discounted in any assessment of X because most of the rest of us don’t agree.”
as to whether a guilty pleas are evidence of remorse i guess its a judgement call but i don’t think pg’s status as a lawyer proves that its not…argument to authority. logical flaw.
Myca might have noticed that in addition to being a lawyer, I also provided a link to the guilty plea itself. It’s not a “judgment call” unless you’re illiterate and can’t read a guilty plea in which all Polanski does is acknowledge that he committed statutory rape, with no statement of regret or remorse. No statement of regret or remorse is required for a guilty plea, although they’re often made at the sentencing phase when the convicted is supposed to throw himself on the mercy of the court and bawl about how he will never forgive himself etc etc. But they’re not obligatory, and since Polanski never got to sentencing, he never got to engage in that particular performance.
You’ve advanced absolutely no evidence that either Polanski’s guilty plea specifically, or guilty pleas in general, are evidence of remorse. Indeed, Polanski’s whole excuse for fleeing was that he had made the guilty plea in order to get a minimal punishment (90 days psychiatric testing) and was afraid the judge would demand more punishment. If he made the guilty plea out of remorse, he couldn’t be expecting to get something in return for it. That’s why they’re called plea bargains: the defendant allows the prosecution to save its resources, and in return the prosecution recommends a lesser sentence.
my larger point is that the microscopic focus on these points only serves to create artificial criteria designed to exonerate one side while convicting another.
With whom do you think you’re arguing? The only thing you quoted from my post was the bit about the awards that I thought was ridiculous. Who’s being exonerated and convicted here, in your mind?
Well, for me it comes down to the fact that approving his motions to dismiss the case in absentia while he lives safely in France is giving him a right that we deny to most other convicted child molesters. It says that wealth, privilege, and persistence does allow you to get your way over time.
If he’s been horribly abused by a biased judge and overzealous prosecution, if he’s entitled to the original plea bargain (that he broke by skipping town) and should be released with time served, those are arguments he needs to make in the presence of the new judge and prosecutor. And even then, he has substantially more privilege than most accused of his crime.
Hey, just as a point of curiosity, didn’t The Vatican recently abolish purgatory? I thought I read something about that.
Manju, you really really need to stop using arguments that you don’t understand. It’s embarrassing. Chief among these is your continued pre-freshman level of understanding of how logical fallacies work. Appealing to the judgment of someone trained in legal matters, when we’re discussing legal matters, isn’t an ‘appeal to authority.’
I will refer you to the Wikipedia page on Argument from Authority, which lays it out thusly:
Notice the bolding on the word fallaciously? Yeah. That’s what we’re missing in this case. Unless you’re interested in arguing that PG is not a legitimate authority?
Additionally, I’ll reference the Nizcor Project’s ‘Appeal to Authority‘ page.
Okay. Clear? Good. Now cut it out.
—Myca
PG:
The remorse/good acts/plea debate is a sideshow of minutiae that may not even be relevant since its dependent on your premise…
“Any Catholic award is going to be evaluating someone on a moral basis, not for individual acts”
…being true. But we don’t know its true. As of now its just an argument by assertion. And even if it were true the Catholics would still have loopholes, the guy expressed remorse and did good acts, everyone a sinner so why single him out, and presumably if they punched these loopholes there would be howls of protest, which is Smiths point.
I an certainly see how such compartmentalization would be more difficult for the catholics as opposed to the artists, but i certainly don’t see it as impossible. And even if it were, you may have got Smith on one sidepoint, but his larger one…
“Let’s say Roman Polanski was a priest who, say, fled the country and for decades avoid serving a sentence for statutory rape. Well, the question is a bit obvious. Would anyone sympathize with the end of his longtime fugitive status for his statutory rape conviction?”
…remains unscathed.
artists/catholics
Myca: the flaw in your argument is that you took one form of the argument to authority fallacy—“This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject”—and assumed it was the only one.
From the very source you cite:
In this construction it does not matter if the person in question is or is not an authority, as i concede PG certainly is one and next time I’m in legal trouble as i ususally am I’ll be sure to consult her, as she’s spectacular at getting people off on a technicality but i digress where was i…
oh yes. my dismissal of your argument as a logical fallacy was accurate.
I an certainly see how such compartmentalization would be more difficult for the catholics as opposed to the artists, but i certainly don’t see it as impossible.
Manju, Catholicism is a religion. You can’t be “good” at it without being a good person, and in Catholicism, you can’t be a good person unless you repent of your sins. It is therefore nonsensical to imagine Roman Polanski getting an award for his Catholicism if he were known to have committed a sin of which he has not repented. The compartmentalization you’re speaking of is not possible in Polanski’s case. It might be in the case of someone who had molested a child, confessed the sin, repented and worked to make amends, who was recognized for his moral strength in overcoming his past sin and turning it into good for others. But that doesn’t exactly fit Polanski or the nature of the Oscars.
And even if it were, you may have got Smith on one sidepoint, but his larger one…
“Let’s say Roman Polanski was a priest who, say, fled the country and for decades avoid serving a sentence for statutory rape. Well, the question is a bit obvious. Would anyone sympathize with the end of his longtime fugitive status for his statutory rape conviction?”
…remains unscathed.
It’s a rhetorical question, and like many rhetorical questions, it can be answered differently than the asker expects. Judging by what actually occurred with the priests’ child molestation scandals, wherein families were persuaded not to turn the offenders over to law enforcement by being falsely convinced that the Church would take care of the matter properly, I think we can safely say that some within the Church itself would have shielded him from prosecution and punishment. So the idea that Polanski would have gone wholly without sympathy had he been a priest is unlikely — the sympathy just would have been coming from his hypothetical industry (the Church) instead of his real one (Hollywood). You and Smith are full of it on this.
Who’s being exonerated and convicted here, in your mind?
artists/catholics
Given that I’ve posted several comments on this blog excoriating Polanski’s defenders, including those who are artists, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Well, smith didn’t say “award for Catholicism” he just said a “Catholic organization honored him.” i have a church on my street that honored 911 heroes in their congregation and as far as i know they didn’t look into their sins. so the detachment is possible.
this is true and probably the best angle to slice smiths arguement apart…the old “your side actually does do it too” argument which as made me so infamous here. I haven’t kept up with the whole priest molestation scandel since religion bores me ( i mean i learn about it thru the godfather) but i’m sure we could find some conservatives out there who defended, played down, or enabled the creeps (Bill Donahue???)
artist can avoid morality when presenting their awards but others can’t.
i have a church on my street that honored 911 heroes in their congregation and as far as i know they didn’t look into their sins.
This is way too vague for me to know what actually occurred. My alma mater “honored” 9/11 heroes, but they didn’t give them honorary doctorates (which is the traditional form of recognition given by a university for achievement).
artist can avoid morality when presenting their awards but others can’t.
Who said this? Not me. I said that the morality of the artist is irrelevant to judging the merit of the work (though the vision of morality expressed in the work may be relevant to evaluating its merit). Similarly, the morality of the athlete is irrelevant to judging how many touchdowns he’s made, and the morality of the engineer is irrelevant to judging whether he has designed the most structurally sound bridge at the lowest cost. Organizations that give awards based on artistic, athletic, or other forms of amoral merit have no obligation to evaluate the recipient’s morality. In contrast, a religious organization is supposed to foster morality and charity (indeed, this is part of the justification for giving religious organizations tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status).
If PG had been making an argument, you would be more correct. She wasn’t. She was telling you what a plea of ‘guilty’ means. This is something she knows and you do not, because this is an area where she is educated and you are not. Calling it an appeal to authority is like calling a doctor’s diagnosis an appeal to authority.
This isn’t up for discussion. You throw gravel, and you’ve been called on it before. This is your last warning. Stop now.
If you want to reply to this post, do it in an open thread.
—Myca
Hey, just as a point of curiosity, didn’t The Vatican recently abolish purgatory? I thought I read something about that.
You’re probably thinking of limbo, where the unbaptized babies went, which was always kind of an odd idea. Purgatory, where pretty much everyone ends up because who doesn’t need purification before entering God’s presence, seems to me very sensible. Then again, I’m coming from a Hindu background where the notion of sins just disappearing seems to violate Newton’s third law of motion.
Yes I am. Good catch.
Yeah, limbo is weird.
—Myca
@ 50
I think I know exactly what you are talking about, and yes that is illegitimate tactic of distancing.
However, there is such a thing as a fauxgressive, faux feminist, even people who are faux atheist- that is they are not suited to be irreligious, (perhaps none of us are, but that’s another question).
Precisely because of the last sentence of the quote, when people keep exceeding the bounds of what they identify as or are out of tune with what it means, they can justly be accused of being false. They may or may not be consciously aware that they are not what they seem or claim to be.
I know it’s off-topic but someone has to think of the children:
What became of the billions of Limbo babies when they closed the joint down? Grandfathered into Purgatory for a short period of purification? Promoted directly to Heaven? Tricky, it might even make sense to put together a team of lawyers (plentiful in Hell of course) to straighten this out.
Limbo was never official, and the most recent document didn’t “close it down.”
Briefly, limbo as a doctrine has always been one possible answer to the difficult theological question of what happens to babies who were never baptized. The church has never had an official answer; Limbo (in various flavors) has been proposed to solve this theological problem as well as some other ones, but has always been theoretically.
The recent Vatican document, “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptized”, basically states that there is theological and scriptural reason to think that such babies actually do end up in heaven, rather than limbo. Limbo is still something that people are free to believe in; this recent document is just a statement of theological research, not an official part of the magisterium. All that’s really changed is that the thinking at the top level of the church hierarchy is moving more towards favoring easy-admit policies for babies, and away from innovative solutions like Limbo.
But it should be noted that the church does not view this as a solved problem or a settled question – we have theories because there is no revelation on the topic. The “all babies go to heaven” theory is currently on the ascendant, but it is very unlikely ever to become doctrine (just as limbo never did) barring some major revelation or prophetic visitation.
So what happened to the billions of babies is: nothing. They stayed wherever God had put them in the first place; on this matter we’re guessing about what His policies are, not setting them.
The “all babies go to heaven” theory is currently on the ascendant,
So, now, what about dogs? This Sunday is the Feast of St. Francis (patron saint of animals) and as is his custom our pastor will read a sermon purportedly written by his dog. I seem to recall there was a country song out there with a title along the lines of “If there’s no dogs in Heaven, I don’t want to go” and I must confess some sympathies along those lines.
Robert,
What’s the deal with Purgatory? Has anything changed doctrinally there? Does almost everyone (who’s not hellbound) go?
When I lived in Paraguay, people said novenas for the souls of the dead immediately after the death, on the three-, six-, nine-, 12- and 18-month anniversaries of the death and then every year after that to pray for people to be released from Purgatory. A lot of my American Catholic friends said they had never seen this practice in the States. I assumed it had something to do with people dying without last rites due to a shortage of priests. Are Americans not doing this because they’re generally less observant/traditional or did something actually change?
Americans are generally a lot less observant in that way, these days. That’s a change; I know in my grandmother’s day saying a lot of novenas and such was still pretty common. It still is among some ethnic Catholics; it’s a varied faith.
As far as the demographics of Purgatory, that’s above my pay grade to speculate. ;)
xxxx
Les wrote:
No, in fact it doesn’t. In this case, the fugitive is a convicted criminal who has deliberately avoided serving his sentence. The statute of limitations doesn’t apply after a warrant is issued, let alone after a guilty plea and a conviction.
I’m sure that Polanski is a different person than he was back then; thirty years will do that do you. I don’t know if he’s a better or a worse person, and I decline to judge a person I know almost nothing about. But I don’t have to; a judge presided over his case, he had the advantage of the protections inherent in the American legal system, he pled guilty, he was released after promising to appear for sentencing, and he broke his word and ran. He could have chosen to serve his sentence as the person he was then. He chose not to. Now he has to deal with it as the person he is now. That was his choice, every day that he chose to continue to break his oath to the court.
RonF wrote:
Nope, at least not in New Hampshire (which is the tiny slice of criminal law I know well). Imagine the statute of limitations running like a clock. It stops when the first paperwork is filed with the court. Usually, that’s the application for an arrest warrant, but in the case of warrant without an arrest, it might be the affidavit in support of the arrest.
Even before any paperwork is filed with the court, if you leave the state, the clock stops. Return to the state and it starts running again. There are other things which stop it, but that’s the most frequent one around here.
But once a warrant is in effect, the statute of limitations doesn’t apply. I know of one fellow who committed a minor misdemeanor in a jurisdiction near here. They got a warrant for him, but then couldn’t find him. About thirteen years later, a cop on patrol at night checked on a person sleeping on a bench, and arrested him on the warrant. Still good.
Now, his defense attorney might argue that they could have arrested him at any time, or could have pursued him more. That’s why a good officer or prosecutor’s office documents all attempts to follow up on a warrant. If they tried and, say, reached the wanted person by phone in Florida, and the wanted person told them to pound sand, and they can’t get him extradited, the judge is not going to have much sympathy for the defense’s argument. On the other hand, if they filed the paperwork and forgot it, and the guy has been living in the next town over for the last fifteen years, that case is probably a goner.
But that’s not the statute of limitations. That’s the defendant’s right to a speedy trial, and whether the lack of speed was the State’s fault, or the defendant’s.
In NH, anyway, the statute of limitations is only intended to address cases where the person has been around, and was simply never charged. It’s not intended to give fugitives a sporting chance. That would, to paraphrase one justice whose name I can’t recall, make the prosecution of criminal law into a game, rather than a serious business.
PG can correct me if other jurisdictions do it differently. I do not have a broad education in the law.
Grace
CPP:
Also, I was under the impression that criminal sentences are generally by way of jail time or monetary fines. I wasn’t aware a judge could say “I sentence you to a quamtity of suffering sufficient to penalize you for your crime.”
Jeff Fecke:
Though if he is extradited, the governor of California is hardly in a position to deny him clemency or refuse to commute his sentence. Golden Rule and all that.
sylphhead:
No one who defends any sort of rape can possibly believe in sexual autonomy for everyone and the universal right to control ones own person.
Grace,
Your understanding of how statutes of limitation operate accords with mine.