{"id":8819,"date":"2009-09-29T02:30:33","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T09:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8819"},"modified":"2009-09-29T02:30:33","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T09:30:33","slug":"repulsion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8819","title":{"rendered":"Repulsion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> yesterday, as did the redoubtable Kate Harding<\/a> — most bloggers on the left<\/a> and the right<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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 L\u00e9vy gives us the usual run-down<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interesting how L\u00e9vy sort of elides a few things, such as:<\/p>\n