Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Roman Polanski

levite · 09-29-2009, 05:07 PM

I'm not going to say I don't approve of Polanski getting a little justice-- although there appear to have been enough improprieties with his first trial/plea agreement that I am inclined to think a new one is in order-- I have no qualms about putting someone away, whether they happen to be talented and/or famous or not.

However, I do have to question: this seems to be an awful lot of trouble to capture one aged criminal, whose crimes involved the misuse of sex and drugs nearly forty years ago, at a time when half the world was misusing drugs and engaging in sexual improprieties of one kind or another. Maybe if there were some evidence that his apparent taste for underaged girls had survived the 20th Century, or even the Seventies.... I mean, if it were just a matter of the local sherriff snagging some geezer out of the park in Fresno and plopping him on the bus from the local clink to send him down to LA with the rest of the trash, I wouldn't think twice about it. But an organized manhunt involving DOJ and Interpol? How much paperwork does this generate? How many agents are involved? How much bureaucracy? How many of my tax dollars are going toward nabbing one old criminal in Europe, who doesn't appear to have done anything illegal there in thirty-odd years, and hauling his aged ass home to go through all the legal bullshit here, where there is at least some chance he'll end up with a few months in the LA jail plus a zillion hours of community service that he can do from behind a camera?

Sure, what he did was bad. No question. But it was also forty years ago, and there seem to be bigger fish to fry. That's just MHO.

(And, BTW, I think there's a big diff between hunting Nazis, who absolutely did contribute to the deaths of many, and hunting this guy, who may or may not have had non-consensual sex with one girl. Like I said, perfectly willing to believe that he did, and that if he did, it was bad. But there is some element of doubt, and in any case, it can't be compared to mass murder.)

09-29-2009, 05:07 PM	#45 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	I'm not going to say I don't approve of Polanski getting a little justice-- although there appear to have been enough improprieties with his first trial/plea agreement that I am inclined to think a new one is in order-- I have no qualms about putting someone away, whether they happen to be talented and/or famous or not. However, I do have to question: this seems to be an awful lot of trouble to capture one aged criminal, whose crimes involved the misuse of sex and drugs nearly forty years ago, at a time when half the world was misusing drugs and engaging in sexual improprieties of one kind or another. Maybe if there were some evidence that his apparent taste for underaged girls had survived the 20th Century, or even the Seventies.... I mean, if it were just a matter of the local sherriff snagging some geezer out of the park in Fresno and plopping him on the bus from the local clink to send him down to LA with the rest of the trash, I wouldn't think twice about it. But an organized manhunt involving DOJ and Interpol? How much paperwork does this generate? How many agents are involved? How much bureaucracy? How many of my tax dollars are going toward nabbing one old criminal in Europe, who doesn't appear to have done anything illegal there in thirty-odd years, and hauling his aged ass home to go through all the legal bullshit here, where there is at least some chance he'll end up with a few months in the LA jail plus a zillion hours of community service that he can do from behind a camera? Sure, what he did was bad. No question. But it was also forty years ago, and there seem to be bigger fish to fry. That's just MHO. (And, BTW, I think there's a big diff between hunting Nazis, who absolutely did contribute to the deaths of many, and hunting this guy, who may or may not have had non-consensual sex with one girl. Like I said, perfectly willing to believe that he did, and that if he did, it was bad. But there is some element of doubt, and in any case, it can't be compared to mass murder.) __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne) Last edited by levite; 09-29-2009 at 05:10 PM..