I almost never flip through the AM dial, but I did this morning. What I was treated to was an epic rant by right wing nutcase shock jock Ed Thompson, which just exposed how depraved and America-hating the right wing is.
As I listened with my jaw on the floor, Thompson, raving about an 'uptick' in crime, called openly for eliminating Ammendments 5 and 6 of the Bill of Rights, convicting American citizens without trials, and torturing and mutilating them once convicted.
Ok I'm lying. It wasn't actually a right wing shock jock that advocated for those things. It was a bunch of commenters here at Daily Kos.
See, there is a diary on the rec list right now that deals with the Roman Polanski case. That diary maintains that allegations made to a grand jury, at least in this case, are necessarily factual. But many of the comments go quite a bit further, calling for Polanski to be castrated by the state.
That is right, not only are many 'liberal' commenters are calling for the state to permanently mutilate one of its citizens, but they are calling for it to do so even when that citizen has not been duely convicted of the charges in question.
According to grand jury tesimony of the then 13 year old victim, Polanski plied her with drugs and alcohol and then had sex with her. The diary and commentors are taking these allegations to be indisputable facts. However, Polanski was offered a plea bargain by the prosecutor, and pled guilty to 'unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor', ie statutory rape. He was never convicted, in a court of law, of anything else. Anything else, is, at this point, "alleged".
To review, Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse - not rape, not sodomy, not anything else. He has merely been accused of those other things - he has not been convicted of them.
In this country, one of our most important defenses against tyrany and guaranteers of our continued freedom is codified in Ammendments 5 and 6 of the Bill of Rights. The government cannot imprison you, deprive you of your life or liberty without due process of law, which is a fair trial by a jury of your peers.
The alligations other than unlawful sexual intercourse have not been proven in a court of law and Polanski has not been found guilty of them. Did he do it all? Maybe, but we are to treat the accused as innocent until proven guilty.
If you are calling for Polanski to be sentenced as though he has been convicted of these other crimes that he has not been convicted of, please stop to think for a minute. And if you are calling for him to be sentenced to bodily mutilation at the hands of the state for these other crimes that he has not been convicted of, take a good look into your soul and do some house cleaning.
Here's a link to the Bill of Rights