Posted on 08/29/2007 10:21:01 AM PDT by Balt
11:53 AM 8/29/2007 - It's been a long time since there's been an entry here. So what? Your Priestly Pugilist has been busy, so what's it to ya? And since your PP is in a bad mood, I might as well put you in a bad mood, too, with an opinion you'll probably disagree with.
Way back in the 1/26/07 post, we gave a hint of our opinions about the presumption of innocence. The subjects then were a couple of priests who had been accused of abuse; and, while their diocese had conclusive evidence that they were innocent, allowed them to be railroaded out of the priesthood anyway, even after law enforcement refused to prosecute. I won't rehash the details: go read it for yourself. Again, in the 3/6/07 post, discussing the Duke Lacrosse team, we had a chance to rail on the subject again. This time, I will rehash:
I’m old enough to remember a time when there was, among those involved in law enforcement, a horror for the idea of sending an innocent man to prison; so much so, that it was considered far worse than taking the chance of letting a guilty man go free. Now, our bloodthirsty population seems to take just the opposite attitude, insisting that someone pay for every crime (or even every suspected crime), regardless whether that person is actually guilty. Does anyone remember Clearance Thomas? - “It’s not the evidence, but the seriousness of the charge....”
Now, Senator Larry Craig of Idaho has been accused of "sending signals" to an undercover police officer in a public rest room which, according to the constable, indicated a desire to engage in lewd behavior. The liberal press had jumped all over it (and thereby making all of us mind-numbed robots jump all over it, too), primarily because the senator is a conservative Republican who believes in "family values." Based on the presumption that conservatives are always stupider than liberals, applying Sean Hannity's blue collar, cut-and-slash brand of "shoot first and ask questions later" style of judging others on moral grounds, the press hopes to have us (conservatives) torpedo one of our own for them; and it'll probably work.
Here's the part where I hope to make you angry - assuming you're one of those blue collar conservatives who actually thinks that Sean Hannity has working brain cells. In what lewd behavior did Senator Craig engage? The "sending of signals?" How do you know the supposed "signals" the senator sent expressed a desire for lewd behavior? How do you know they were, in fact, signals of any kind? Because the policeman says so? How do you know the policeman is telling the truth? Because he's a policeman? Or could it be that you know yourself that toe-tapping while on the throne means you want to do something nasty? How would you know that? Hang around a lot of public rest rooms, do you? If I'm sitting on the throne with my iPod plugged in listening to Japanese pop music (which I have done, by the way), tapping my toe to the tune, should I be arrested? After all, I'm a priest, which means (according to the press) I'm ripe for some kind of nastiness 24/7. Lock me up.
Fox News Radio (which we get here in the capitol of blue collar conservatism), has already tried and convicted Craig, And why not? As dutifully expressed by a caller-in (you can't live around here without making at least one obligatory call to a talk show at least once a month), a mother of small children who doesn't know now if she can send her little boy into a rest room alone, Craig is just a sick pervert who needs to be locked up and the key thrown away immediately. Who can argue with that? After all, "the children!!! blah blah blah." Everything, of course, is about the children.
So, here's my question: Is it possible to desire to apply the presumption of innocence rigorously in a case like this without appearing sympathetic to lewd behavior? Were I to have the opportunity to ask Sean Hannity that question, he would most likely respond with a plethora of questions of his own, fired back at 80 rounds per minute, like "So, you think children going into rest rooms should be at risk???" The truth is, for him, the answer to my question should be "no;" and, in the verbal malae that would ensue, the salient point would be lost: to wit, in the case under consideration, no one has said that any lewd behavior has occurred. "That's not the point," Sean would scream, the concerned mother clinging to his arm. "These perverts have to be taken off the street!" Now, who can argue with that?
I don't know what Senator Craig's intent was in tapping his toe while giving birth to a fiber log. In fact, I don't even know he was tapping his toe, since the only witness to this is the vigilant constable. I do know that Senator Craig will most likely loose his job because someone said that he did something which indicated that he probably wanted to do something which he never got to do but would have done if he had been able to get away with it which he couldn't only because someone else knew what he wanted to do and caught him in the act of wanting to do it.
I don't know about you, but I feel safer.
by Priestly Pugilist
WOW !!!!!....This Craig story has hidden Hillary’s latest campaign finance problems for three days.Will the Craig story last beyound her 7 Sep 2007 court date????????????.....
I saw it. He’s gay. Case closed.
How do we know there was a hand under the partition? Because the cop says so? That’s not good enough for me.
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OK. Fair enough.
So is it anytime that there is only one eyewitness to a crime that you doubt the eyewitness, or only when it is a cop, or only when an allegedly conservative senator is in the crosshairs?
Well, I also opposed the Clinton empeachment - I agreed with Renquist that it wasn't what the empeachment law is for. So, it's not because Craig is conservative. But...
Note to everyone: I surrender. Hang him high. I guess it's like traffic court. You can dispute what the patrolman says, but since he's the only "trained observer" on the scene, only his word counts. Besides, his U-tube video shows him to be gay. All I'm saying, as a quasi-libertarnian, is that what goes around comes around. If we throw him out because he seems gay, can someone else through someone else out because he's pro-life? After all, abortion is a right according to the courts, isn't it?
Now I'm getting rediculous. As I said, I surrender. Lynch him.
Yes, the guilty plea is enough. That is what I have been saying. The man is an idiot for pleading guilty and stupidity is enough of a reason to ask him to resign.
Despite what some Freepers think, not every gay dude trolls bathrooms for free sex. If Barney Frank was caught doing that, we would be demanding he be expelled. We should act no different here.
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