Yes
No
I don't recall that comment and the search function, poor as it is, is not bringing it up for me. Lacking the context of the remark, I am hesitant to respond to it. Your comment was right in front of me, and perhaps most importantly, it was directed AT me, as it was regarding sentiments I held.Originally Posted by earthJoker
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
This thread is the context. And yes, it was kind of an evil parody of RB post, as he was the one calling us (he was speaking ing general and in plural, so who did he meant other then Hazir) having disgusting and sickening views.
Very late call here, but lets do it.Folks, can we tone it down a bit? On either side of the issue, this need not get quite so hostile.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
@ wiggin, the essence of this whole discussion is that you work from the premise she was a credible rape victim, which I did not see at all, something that started quite early.
Congratulations America
Well, obviously this thing was set up by Sarkozy (scared for facing him in an election), who is of course big buddies with the neocons who secretly still run the US government. That, and DSK figured out that 9/11 was an inside job and obviously had to be shut up. Comon, isn't it obvious?
Anyway, the system seems to have worked more or less. The case was properly investigated, there's a lack of (credible) evidence, and they let him go. Maybe they were a bit quick in arresting him, but he was leaving for France, so I can see why they did that.
My biggest concern is still the complete lack of privacy suspects get over there. And no, I do not just care because he is famous, I always have objected to it, but this case makes it all the more clear how damaging it is. I am happy to live in a country where suspects have their privacy protected, especially with grave allegations like rape. Once you have publicly been named and shamed, there is no turning back.
And finally, one newspaper here mentioned that DAs are elected over there, and they like to make big, high profile arrests with a lot of media attention, to 'cash in' popular support. I find that, well, a bit uncomforting to be honest, that DAs (and judges sometimes, apparently), have to care not only about justice but also about their own position politically. It can seriously affect judgment. I am not saying it happened here, and if it did it backfired since they have to let him go, but the idea makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
I don't get why you quoted that. I stand by every word I said.Is your memory really that short?
Note the word allegedly, used twice.
Actually I don't have to justify anything as her story is not credible and my hunch was right. Your presumption of guilt on the other hand was not.
Congratulations America
Uhm, yes you do. You're complaining that the DA knew the case was falling apart even before the bail hearings, when AFAIK that's completely untrue. It's irrelevant if her credibility is questionable based on evidence they have now - what's relevant is whether your assumptions of her being a liar from the getgo are justified based on the evidence available at the time, and furthermore whether the DA's choice to pursue the case aggressively was justified based on the information they had at the time.
I'm not even going to address you going back to this ridiculous trope of a 'presumption of guilt'. My first post in this thread is me arguing against your entire way of thinking about this. This entire thread has been you making unsubstantiated claims and accusations while I and others ask you to provide evidence or backing for your outlandish statements.
Rubbish, the information about the phone call was given to the DA's office within days of it taking place. The bail hearings were 5 days after the accusation.
I can only laugh as with every little piece of information we get this whole affair is turning into what I though it was from the beginning. Some whore trying to take advantage of a rich customer.
Which makes it rather irrelevant if my claims were unsubstantiated; they have been falsified already. The problem is that you can't admit that with all your 'reasonable' arguments, you were still plain wrong.
Now GGT can hector on about how a whore can be a rape victim too.
Congratulations America
This is ridiculous! Half a dozen people have already pointed out that the fact there was a phone call is not enough to derail the case, it's the content that was troubling.
Neither of us actually know what happened - let alone whether the woman in question was a 'whore'. What we know is that a conviction is unlikely due to questions about the credibility of the accuser. And IIRC you first opined this was a conspiracy to take DSK down before the elections, and only later decided it was a woman out for a civil settlement once it became clear that a sexual encounter had taken place.I can only laugh as with every little piece of information we get this whole affair is turning into what I though it was from the beginning. Some whore trying to take advantage of a rich customer.
Uhm, it matters quite a bit. Unsubstantiated assumptions are a big problem here; in fact, it's the entire problem with this thread. Nearly everyone else here has argued that we should wait for the justice system to do its work, and it appears that it has.Which makes it rather irrelevant if my claims were unsubstantiated; they have been falsified already.
Oh oh, all of a sudden we have a problem seeing what is being leaked by the investigation.
The justice system did not work, and you were wrong too. If the justice system would have worked DSK would not have spent days in prison or under house arrest. Sloppiness made that it took them 6 bloody weeks to draw the inevitable conclusion that there wasn't really such a strong case against him to start with. You were the one assuming that there was a reasonable case because you can't believe your legal system is so rotten that it would destroy the life of an innocent man.
But, whatever, you believe you live in a country with a legal system that stands for justice. The rest of the world knows a lot better.
P.S. I have never stated anything on the actual sex taking place. And I have still not seen anything convincing that it took place. I do consider it more likely now, given the fact that the accuser had two jobs.
Congratulations America
Speaking of liars... no one presumed Strauss-Kahn was guilty, in fact no one else except you presumed anything at all about this case, least of all wiggin who pointed out how ridiculous the thread and the poll are when none of us could possibly no what occurred in that hotel. It's only you who's insisted on trying to frame this whole thing as some kind of stupid 'did he, didn't he' discussion', as if anyone here could possibly know what really occurred in that hotel room.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Damn right you are, I presumed something about this case which turned out to be the truth. Now go fuck yourself.
Congratulations America
um, no you didn't. The fact that this woman has lied in the past doesn't mean she wasn't raped in this particular instance. The fact that she called her buddy in organized crime about making money out of it doesn't mean she wasn't raped either. Turns out, sometimes rapist rape women who aren't of unimpeachable moral character? All it means is that her testimony can't be relied upon, which isn't the same thing as proof she made the whole thing up to get money.
I don't know why you're so chuffed with yourself about this, to be honest. Even if you turn out to be right in the end all you've done is taken a guess that had a more or less 50% chance of being correct and got lucky. Meanwhile, your conduct in this thread and near overt misogyny reveals you to be generally despicable human being, but then anyone familiar with your posting history probably already knew that.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
And you probably wondered why I told you to go fuck yourself in my first reply.
Congratulations America
Because you knew how he, and pretty much everyone on the board would emotionally react to the exultant bigotry you've been displaying with your aptly-labeled misogynist comments and were plainly defensive about it?
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
The justice system appears to have worked as perfectly as possible.
Because you're a sad, pathetic little man who doesn't like to have it pointed out how utterly full of shit it he is literally all the time?
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Congratulations. You're a wonderful human being.
Congratulations America
I don't get this. DSK is French, but so is Lugarde, and I doubt there was ever any serious doubt she'd be the replacement (despite plenty of good reasons - outlined here and elsewhere - why a non-European might not be the worst idea as a replacement). What European interest was this attacking? How would this work to American advantage?
Yeah, and I never said it was an extremely strong case. Which is why I did not say he didn't rape her. To the contrary, I have at some points even said that explicitly (ugly people get raped would be the last example of that). That however doesn't really matter all that much because no matter how flimsy the notion was originally, it is congruent with what has been disclosed now. The assumption that the woman is a liar has been proven right, the likelyhood that she lied about the alleged rape has risen exponentially. If DSK is acquitted, I will think it was because he didn't rape her, not because he has such a great team of lawyers.
So in the end it all doesn't matter, I was right, and you with all your 'solid' reasoning were not.
Congratulations America
You explicitly said in the post I linked that you think the maid lied about being raped. Sounds like you said he didn't rape her. Furthermore, my issue isn't that your assumption is probably right now. It's that you made any assumption at all before you had any evidence. That's been my entire problem with this thread.
No, you weren't right. You weren't right to make unfounded claims about an alleged rape victim on the basis of a flimsy pretext. That discourages reporting of a heavily underreported crime and flies in the face of our justice system, where we don't automatically blame the (alleged) victim. And you aren't right now to claim that the DA acted wrongly regarding DSK's imprisonment and bail conditions. Based on the information available at the time (which you yourself acknowledge hardly makes a strong case about the maid's credibility) they did everything correctly... and once circumstances changed, they didn't cover anything up but freely acknowledged that the case was in jeopardy.So in the end it all doesn't matter, I was right, and you with all your 'solid' reasoning were not.
edit: This entire thread has been you fighting one argument while the rest of us fight another one. You're fixated on this 'did he or didn't he' nonsense, where you try to come to conclusions on nearly nonexistent information to match your preconceived notions of guilt or innocence. The rest of us simply profess not to know, leaving it up to the people with access to all of the actual evidence to sort it out... and we just object to your frankly insulting take on this whole situation. We don't care that the maid is not now a credible witness.
Folks, can we tone it down a bit? On either side of the issue, this need not get quite so hostile.
Fair enough, Dread. I think I've made my point ad nauseum anyways.
The DA (prosecutor) also has to be competent. The current NY DA replaced a 95 year old who was in the same office for about 30 years. And already it looks like he won't be re-elected because of these high-profile cases. But one goal of electing a prosecutor is to avoid a situation where well-connected elites don't get prosecuted for doing bad things, which seems to be all the rage in France.
But I still don't quite grasp what kind of privacy one can reasonably expect in a case like this. When DSK didn't show up to work for a few days, wouldn't someone notice and ask where he is? Same goes for anyone.
Let's take the case away from rape for a second. Imagine a bank employee is briefly arrested for bank theft of another bank, then released on bail while charges are filed. Does his right to privacy really mean his employer can't learn that their employee has been indicted for robbing banks?
As difficult as it can be, I don't see the compelling interest in keeping indictments secret.
First of all: agreed they should be competent, obviously. AFAIK over here it's a 'normal' job, so if you are not competent you are fired. I can see the goal you mention, on the other hand they may protect people who are important for support in during a campaign (political heavyweights, community leaders, etc.), or not prosecuting popular figured to begin with. I don't think there's any system that is 100% perfect.
Regarding your bank employee: there are two distinct things I have to say about that. First of all, being employed at a bank requires a screening here, because it's easy to commit fraud, or abuse personal information. So the bank would be informed in this case, similar things apply for, for example, teachers and allegations of child abuse. OTOH, due to privacy, the employer requires you offer a 'certificate of good conduct' specifically for that job description, but they are not allowed to see your files at the DOJ. This means that the employee has to request a certificate, and he either gets one or not, but the employer only sees the certificate, or not, without knowing why it was or was not granted.
For jobs where you don't need a certificate of good conduct (and you need one for a lot of jobs), I imagine you could call in sick, or call in to say you have legal troubles without specification. It's not really their business is it, if it doesn't affect your work. Especially since at this time you are only a suspect and not convicted.
More importantly, there is a difference between telling your family, friends, and professional contacts, on a need to know basis if you want, and it being publicly announced. If you are accused of abusing a child, chances are your house may be trashed and you are forced to move, for only being accused. The big issue is that in one situation, the person decides himself what he shares with who, and in the other the DA/media spread it. That is a huge difference.
Note that indictments are not kept secret here, but privacy is also protected. I don't think it's law, but more of a gentleman's agreement that media never report the full name of suspects or recognizable images. Not knowing the name obstructs their fact finding jobs, not publicizing it does not. Of course, if a suspect seeks media attention himself, they can report it because he chose to make it public himself. Which is what usually happens with more famous people, since otherwise sooner or later people start to notice it is probably about him. Exceptions are made if it is important to the public, for example if someone is suspected of a crime and wanted, and also dangerous to the public, they will release images, but they generally don't do that lightly.
A slightly amusing consequence is that Geert Wilders accidentally put a wrong photograph in his 'movie' Fitna when he wanted to show Mohammed B., who is the murderer of Theo van Gogh (notice how over here he is known as Mohammed B., instead of his full name). Instead he showed a photograph of a muslim rapper
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
This sounds both highly opaque and a bit strange. Not knowing why an employee has/hasn't gotten a "clean bill of health" in their criminal background seems like a recipe for bureaucratic nightmare. It also basically creates a system where someone who has done something wrong is basically scarred for life in the employment market.
We have background checks where employers can specifically see if there is a criminal past. A bank shouldn't hire a convicted thief. But I don't see any reason why a carnival operator shouldn't hire one. People deserve second chances after all.
Once again, I think the opaque nature of this can really muddy the waters in a very different direction. The DSK case has been a media mess, but it doesn't negate the public interest in knowing if someone is indicted for a crime.More importantly, there is a difference between telling your family, friends, and professional contacts, on a need to know basis if you want, and it being publicly announced. If you are accused of abusing a child, chances are your house may be trashed and you are forced to move, for only being accused. The big issue is that in one situation, the person decides himself what he shares with who, and in the other the DA/media spread it. That is a huge difference.
Note that indictments are not kept secret here, but privacy is also protected. I don't think it's law, but more of a gentleman's agreement that media never report the full name of suspects or recognizable images.
Using the logic of this "gentlemen's agreement" (which I'm sure protects the elite more than anyone else), Osama Bin Laden's name could not be published as the mastermind of September 11 simply because he was never formally convicted.
I realize that's an extreme example, but I'm trying to highlight how subjective this "gentlemen's agreement" actually is. I think that matters of law and media deserve clarity, not agreements to censor facts from the public.
The background check is specifically for one job, e.g., the one I had to get for the nuclear power plant was only for 'access to sensitive information' and 'vital infrastructure'. Plus, most things are erased after a number of years.Why would it protect the elite more? If anything, they are exposed more often because people can put one and one together. Especially the non-elite are protected by this.Once again, I think the opaque nature of this can really muddy the waters in a very different direction. The DSK case has been a media mess, but it doesn't negate the public interest in knowing if someone is indicted for a crime.
Using the logic of this "gentlemen's agreement" (which I'm sure protects the elite more than anyone else), Osama Bin Laden's name could not be published as the mastermind of September 11 simply because he was never formally convicted.
I realize that's an extreme example, but I'm trying to highlight how subjective this "gentlemen's agreement" actually is. I think that matters of law and media deserve clarity, not agreements to censor facts from the public.
Of course it's somewhat subjective, but in OBL's case there were the extra circumstances: 1. he was big in the media around the world so everybody knew him anyway, 2. he was on the run and dangerous. Both reasons to make the name public. I think Dutch people who were convicted of terrorism are still somewhat anonymous, including for example the convicted murderers of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Well, DSK was somewhat "big" around the world, and he was a public media figure in Europe. He was also "on the run" and leaving the country where the alleged crime took place.
This "gentlemen's agreement" of keeping indictments secret would only feed into the mis-perception that arrests or indictments are just one step away from cut-and-dry convictions.
For all this talk about the French (or Europeans) believing in presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law, it looks like arrest, arraignment, or Grand Jury indictments are (over the pond) one step away from conviction. There's also the assumption that the legal system and the media should censure itself, as Europe does, because people would rush to judgement.
The reason given is that the (European) defendant couldn't possibly get a fair trial, but that's only because you guys think indictments and media coverage means a prejudiced jury and automatic conviction. That's circular reasoning without much foundation, seems to me.
Seems the Dutch system is very similar to ours.
The shortening of names was used in the campaign of the SVP for their anti-foreign-criminals proposal
Notice the "Ivan S." (shortened name) and the black bar that they used to symbolize a criminal (rapist in this case).
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
So, Wilders name was never mentioned in the press during that court case/appeal...to protect his privacy? Your media is the arbiter of what's a "reason" to breach privacy?
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote