Alan Dershowitz really went after Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby today for charging the six cops involved in the death of Freddie Gray, saying it was entirely based on politics and “crowd control.”
He concluded that it’s “unlikely they’ll get any convictions in this case” and if they do they’ll likely “be reversed on appeal.”He said this on Newsmax TV. Yet Dershowitz is still widely characterized as a "liberal."
Let's look at the record...
Dersh thought so highly of Jeff "kidfucker" Epstein that he gave Epstein the very rare privilege of reading his book manuscripts.
Dersh believes that he has the right to call Virginia Roberts a prostitute even though there is no evidence to back that claim.
Dersh thinks that Israel had few Palestinians in it until after the Jews showed up.
Dersh thinks that the IDF has treated the Palestinians fairly.
Dersh believes that he has the right to categorize Norman Finkelstein as a "Holocaust denier" even though Finkelstein lost most of his family to the Nazis.
Dersh (falsely) accused John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of using pro-Nazi sources in their famous piece on the Israel lobby.
Dersh defended O.J. Simpson's innocence.
Dersh believes Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, to be a bigot.
Dersh believes that MEK should not be listed as a terrorist organization.
Dersh once wrote that child pornography is enjoyed by "thousands of people who would never dream of molesting a child."
Dersh says that convicted child molester Baruch Lebovits (whose early release has proven to be extremely controversial) was the victim of an extortion plot.
And now we learn that Dersh thinks that the justice system should not pursue charges against any of the six cops in Baltimore who arrested a completely innocent man. Dersh says that we should not hold them accountable for the fact that Freddie Gray's spine was shattered while he was in their custody. In Dersh-o-vision, the great malefactor is Marilyn Mosby.
I've always thought that Claus von Bülow was innocent of the charge that he tried to murder his wife. Now I'm not so sure.
16 comments:
What's wrong with defending OJ's innocence? I don't find anything unlikely in the idea of a black man being framed by the LAPD.
As for the rest, I don't think he really believes any of those things. He might want you to believe it, but that's all.
Due to circumstances beyond my control (at least at that point), I had to figuratively throw myself on Alan Dershowitz's mercy to graduate from law school. When things fell apart with my third year paper advisor, he was the only other choice available to me because of the subject I'd chosen. He refused to meet with me or even talk to me on the phone (although his secretary talked to me several times and was absolutely wonderful), but he gave me a decent grade and so I managed to graduate (with honors even).
I swore to myself at the time that I wouldn't say anything negative about him as long as he gave me a passing grade, but he makes it so difficult sometimes.
O.J. was guilty only of being an accessory-after-the-fact. The objective of his shenanigans was to draw fire away from his son (prior marriage), who was the real perp.
Some of these guys, you have to wonder if they're being blackmailed.
Yeah, I agree that OJ took the fall for someone else's crimes--in this case his son's, IIRC.
A friend of mine lived in Brentwood back in the day, and more than once witnessed OJ's kid knocking her around in hate and anger.
She's convinced OJ took the fall for his hate-filled, violent kid.
Works for me...
You might try reading Dershowitz's article about child pornography. He is absolutely right. The idea that thinking about something is the same as doing it is scary. We then have the thought police taking over. You're the one who is constantly harping about the loss of privacy, he says that allowing the government to have records of our private thoughts is unconscionable in a democratic society. Further, he says that we need to research the relationship between fantasizing about sex with children and acting on those fantasies. He is absolutely correct. The yuck factor has prevented us from doing the research that we need to do.
The yuck factor is pretty damned inescapable.
Representational porn inevitably involves actors, and thus the creation of photographic child porn is necessarily criminal.
You may ask: What about child porn using CGI or some other form of trickery? I will admit that this is a more difficult case to argue.
One can say that people who would never commit murder nevertheless enjoy watching murders enacted -- in sickening detail -- in horror films. But we know that those murders are not real, that they are special effects. That's why our society has decided that it can live with that form of "porn" (if I may use the term in its broader sense).
But what if someone caught dealing in kiddie porn says "It's all special effects"? How do we truly know?
Not long ago, I read a column by Glenn Erickson (aka DVD Savant) in which he confessed that he can no longer always spot which parts of a shot are real and which are CGI. Now that is the opinion of someone who has an expert's eye: Erickson used to work in Greg Jein's special effects shop.
It is unreasonable to ask law enforcement personnel to run each piece of kiddie porn past the CGI esperts at ILM. (And I strongly doubt that anyone who works at ILM wants to look at that stuff!) Thus, it is safer simply to place ALL child porn on the forbidden list.
That said, I recognize that our definitions should not be too stringent. As I said in an earlier post, the nude figure in Maxfield Parrish's "Daybreak" is actually copied from a photo of a naked child. It could be argued that this painting functions as a kind of "disguised" kiddie porn. But no one in his right mind wants this painting to go unreproduced.
Not long ago, I saw a documentary about Lewis Carroll's photographs of children, which included some nudes. The standards of that day are not the standards of our own, and I would not categorize those photos as pornography as any kind. Nor do I think that Dodgson was a pedophile. But many would disagree with me.
My own attitude toward porn is summed up by the words "laissez faire" as long as two requirements are met: All participants must be of age, and all participants must be consenting. If you start looking for ways around those two simple requirements -- well, you're starting down a very dangerous path, and I am VERY suspicious of your motives.
What if child pornography decreases rather than increases the amount of child sexual abuse? What if sexual deviants can satisfy their urges by viewing child pornography? I don't care what the yuck factor is, knowledge is important. Moreover, stigmatizing pedophiles absolutely leads them to murder their victims, the shame becoming overwhelming leading them to do anything to hide their actions. Look, I have five granddaughters and the thought of any of them being sexually abused terrifies me. But if anything were to happen to them, I pray that they come home rather something worse.
"I don't care what the yuck factor is, knowledge is important..."
...said Hubertus Strughold as he tossed his naked victim into the ice to see how cold affects the body. C'mon, small j, listen to yourself. It has been known for a long time that there are some forms of experimentation which simply cannot be done ethically, even if the knowledge gained would be very helpful.
"What if child pornography decreases rather than increases the amount of child sexual abuse?"
The only more-or-less ethical way to address that question would be sociologically. We could compare two already-extant societies, one in which child porn is nearly unknown, and one in which it receives fairly wide distribution. Then we could compare the abuse rates in those two societies.
I honestly do not know of anyone who has done that work.
Hm. Let me think about this.
I've heard that kiddie porn was made illegal only recently in Japan, so that society may provide one metric. But can we accurately measure child sexual abuse in that society? There are any number of factors to take into account -- for example, do Japanese cops make it a high priority to arrest and prosecute child abusers?
Similarly, I'm pretty sure that there isn't much child porn circulating in North Korea or Saudi Arabia. But since those governments cannot be trusted to tell the truth, how can we truly know the abuse statistics in those countries?
Those are the kinds of problems we run into. I just don't see any real way to address the question.
Let's go back to the beginning. Dersch says that those who use minors to make porn films should go to jail. He also says that those who sexually abuse children should go to jail. He further says that the government should not have access to our secret sexual fantasies. I think you would have to agree with all of those propositions. As Oscar Wilde said, "If anyone's secret sexual desires were known, it would cause a scandal." The question then is, how do we prevent people from acting on their fantasies with minors. If David Vitters want to wear a diaper with his prostitutes, yuck factor though it is, I don't care. Apparently Louisianians don't care either, but that's another discussion. If Vitters wants his lady friends to have tiny breasts, shaved pubic hairs and dress in diapers, I don't care. I do care if children are harmed. We have to find out why pedophiles are attracted to children (I think its the unequal positions of power) and how it can be prevented. We don't get there by stigmatizing and humiliating those with those tendencies. Shaming doesn't work with any psychological problem, be it alcoholism, gambling or sexual addiction.
What nonsense. Shaming is extremely useful. Remove guilt and shame and a behavior is normalized.
C'mon, you're Jewish and I'm Italian. If there is one thing in the world you and I should agree upon, it's guilt.
Guilt and shame are NOT the same. You can google "guilt/shame" and find numerous articles discussing the difference. Lord Jonathan Sacks has a wonderful article on it. The key difference is that guilt is something which can be atoned for, shame is a permanent state. Thus, if you feel guilt, you can go to confession and not just get God's forgiveness, but you can forgive yourself. Shame however is something for which forgiveness is not available. Shame therefore leads to honor killings and the murder of child victims of sexual abuse. And can we now agree that Derschowitz, whatever faults you think he has, was not being irrational and indeed made some valid points in his article about child pornography.
"The key difference is that guilt is something which can be atoned for, shame is a permanent state."
So if I understand you correctly, guilt is what you feel if you cheat a friend or sell nukes to the Klan or participate in the making of a Twilight movie. Shame is what happens when you have an Italian or Jewish mother.
(An Asian guy once told me that Japanese mothers are even worse guilt-givers -- or shame-givers -- than Italian mothers. I wouldn't know, personally.)
So when (as the old joke has it) an Italian or Jewish mother gives her son two neckties for his birthday, and he wears one of those ties the next time he visits her, and she says: "So, you didn't like the other one?"...
...is that guilt? Or is it shame?
See, I always called it guilt. If I'm wrong, I feel deeply ashamed.
Small j, you are sickening....you sound as if you're personally arguing on behalf of your own sick traits. The making of child porn involves kids. Who cares if it alleviates sickos' needs? Who would argue from the sick, toxic, slave master rapist pov?
I don't even agree with Big J's live and let live attitude. We need to progress from the toxic patriarchy's use of women and children as objects for male sexual release. We're not jism rags. Humans should not be trafficked, period. There is NO way for johns to know whether prostitutes are underage or whether they're consenting or slaves. ALL johns need to be jailed. Porn is not exempt from trafficking, either.
It shouldn't be on me to educate you. Read and evolve.
zee, I'm positive that small j is innocent of the "sick traits" you ascribe to him.
Maybe we all need to evolve. For my part, I've just learned to live with my guilt. Or shame. Or whatever.
And I should mention again, zee, that what I THINK small j was referring to was also the thing that Dersh once talked about: The legality of "fake" child porn, which does not involve actual actors.
I admit that this is a (somewhat) different kettle of fish. I will also admit that there are sickos out there who can get turned on by the girl in the Coppertone ads, yet I don't think that those ads should be illegal. So this IS a more difficult question to settle.
For my part, I think that it is safest to take a harder line against any form of porn involving the underaged (even if we are just talking about paintings and drawings and computer art) than against porn involving adults.
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