This is getting silly

[textualdeviance]

I really should be avoiding the subject, because it's starting to piss me off too much, but...

If Jackson weren't a famous pop star, but instead the plumber down the street, with all the same "quirks", would YOU let your kids sleep at his house? Would you even let your kids play there?

A reminder of some of the evidence at his 2005 trial:

*Fingerprints of the boys on some books of porn Jackson had
*He gave them alcohol that he called "Jesus juice"
*He owned books with pictures of naked boys
*Testimony from four other victims, including the one from his 1993 trial, which he settled for $22 million. If you're innocent, you don't pay off your accusers.

This is all unargued fact. That it didn't result in a conviction is almost entirely due to a starstruck jury.

I don't care how much he was abused himself as a child. It's tragic, but it doesn't excuse what he did. I know, how about we excuse his dad for abusing Michael, because he had his own rough childhood, right? Oh, wait. I forgot. Joe is more eeeevil, because he abused someone with a lot of musical talent.

A history of abuse is an explanation for why some people become abusers themselves. It is NOT an excuse, and certainly not something that should be used as a pass for the guy to keep doing what he wanted without any consequences whatsoever. Are his victims somehow less important because they weren't famous musicians? Did they have less of a right to not have their trust violated because the guy who wanted to get them drunk and sleep with them was famous?

People are whining about the "character assasination" going on in his death. What about the same thing that's happening to his victims, who are still alive, and still living every day with what he did to them, and who are being labeled lying golddiggers?

Jackson was a pedophile who had virtually unfettered access to his victims because of his fame. And now those same victims are being victimized again as the world strives to plug their ears and pretend that nothing but his music matters. Disgusting.

Comments

[ceilidh-ann.livejournal.com]

It's his kids I pity. They've had a freakshow surround them their entire lives and now that they're fatherless, they're going to be pulled through the chaos of this aftermath and they'll never get to mourn in peace. His death just took up over 10 minutes on BBC News at 6. That's more than any single segment on the Iran election aftermath. More than Neda. There is the injustice.

[falcongirl.livejournal.com]

If you're innocent, you don't pay off your accusers.

Actually, you do. Especially if it's a jury trial and the evidence is circumstantial but damning - as it was in all his trials. There was no direct, physical evidence that he sexually molested anyone. There was circumstantial evidence that he was engaged in corruption of minors. That makes him fucked up, but as he was emotionally about their age, it makes him an object of pity more than anything.

If there had been any physical evidence, he wouldn't have been acquitted. Everyone WANTED him to be guilty. He would have gotten no slack whatsoever.

Do I think he was innocent? No. Do I think he raped kids? No. Do I think he was a very fucked up individual who should have had oversight around minors? Yes.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

He may have been emotionally stunted--most pedophiles are--but he was still an adult, with an enormous amount of social power over the kids he was alone with.

I have no more pity for him than I would have for anyone else in the same situation. He did something wrong--repeatedly--and was never brought to justice for it.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Also, there's very rarely physical evidence in cases of molestation that only involve fondling. That doesn't mean those cases are any less real or any less traumatizing than cases that do have that evidence.

Additionally, some of the jurors in the 2005 case admitted that they were starstruck, and regretted their not guilty votes.

[spookyevilone.livejournal.com]

I don't deny at all that it was a case of justice not served. I'm also not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying that it was a circumstantial case. And, imnsho, handled extremely poorly. It went to the news before court documents had been filed. It would have been better settled with a private settlement that involved trust funds and court mandated counseling and sex offender watch list or treatment.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I agree that he should've been in sex offender treatment a long time ago, and it burns me up that his celebrity meant people never actually forced him to get help, and that his scary behavior was just blown off as "eccentric."

Wearing a monocle and smoking a pipe is eccentric. Surrounding yourself with kids and hiring a brood mare to producer your own isn't eccentric, it's screwed up.

As for circumstantial, I'm kind of on the guilty until proven innocent side when it comes to child sex offenses. It's true that sometimes kids are coached to lie about these things or do so when they're trying to work some other angle, but usually, when that happens, their stories fall apart quite easily, and there's no history or anything to support their allegations. In a case like this, with multiple accusations going back decades, and even video evidence of inappropriate physical intimacy, it's just not possible for the kid to be lying.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

"As for circumstantial, I'm kind of on the guilty until proven innocent side when it comes to child sex offenses."

And what could POSSIBLY go wrong with that? Oh wait, this: http://www.freebaran.org/

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Like I say, it happens, but it's almost always something that falls apart very early on in the investigation phase. It almost never goes all the way to trial.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

Except when it doesn't and innocent people go to prison for DECADES. Even being charged with a sex offense against children (whether you're convicted or not) can ruin your life forever because pedophiles are today are more terrifying than Bush tried to make terrorists. The reason our justice system is based on the "INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty" principle is that it is MORE MORALLY WRONG for society to punish an innocent man than to allow the guilty to go free. This applies regardless of whether the guilty party spray painted your porch or raped your baby.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Forgive me my reactionary state at the moment. I'm just tired of seeing all these people dismissing even the idea that what he (probably) did to those boys was something wrong. Robbing someone of control over their own sexuality is horrible no matter how it happens, and it doesn't get better just because it's some friendly celebrity doing it.

I get that there's an overblown Catch a Predator mentality right now, which is threatening to get in the way of free speech and net neutrality and everything else. But IMHO, the worst part of it is that it's reinforcing the idea that pedophiles are always going to be some stranger in a van, instead of creepy Uncle Bob, because it makes people more likely to dismiss kids who talk about what Uncle Bob did. If Uncle Bob doesn't fit their mental profile, then surely, the kid must be lying. Ugh.

I know false accusations happen, but I think it's important to take every accusation seriously and give them due diligence in investigation and prosecution, no matter who the accused is. Doing so will help ensure that the right people get brought to justice as well as helping clear the innocent.

(Of course likewise, I also wish we'd stop treating this as a criminal justice issue and start treating it as the mental health one it really is. Jail is not the place for sex offenders--they belong in mental health facilities.)

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

Agreed across the board, really. Except that I have no legal expertise or knowledge that would lead me to believe that I have any idea who is or is not guilty of a crime.

But other than that, we're really on the same page.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I think in this particular case, one can't rely only on the jury's verdict to declare innocence. There's just too much else that was wrong with the case itself and with how the jury deliberated to declare it a clear decision. It's very much like the OJ trial, in many ways, and it's a pity that there wasn't an easy option for a subsequent civil suit, as happened in that case.

But as it stands, he should've been convicted on posession of child porn anyway, since that bit of evidence was never in dispute.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

I have issues with child porn laws in general, but that's neither here nor there. Basically I think that people who sexually abuse children should face serious charges, whether or not there's a camera running, and that people who profit from a crime should face serious charges regardless of what that crime is. As such, I think that the creation of child porn is already covered under other laws, and that restricting the possession of child porn poses too much of a risk to free speech, and just reinforces the legal concept of the obscenity test, which I view as deeply broken.

As to whether or not he should have been convicted- I'm not saying that he was innocent. But I don't know enough to say that he was guilty either. I don't know. I do know that in general it is vital that we uphold that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing. But I also don't know if that trial was fair, or if a retrial/appeal should have happened. No clue.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

The problem with posession has to do with market issues. The more people there are who purchase the stuff, the more people will harm kids in the process of making it, because there's a market there.

Dry up the market, and you help dry up the supply. It's the same thing with criminalizing drug posession, trafficking in endangered species or stolen goods, etc. The end user is still a participant in the overall crime, and they have to be held responsible for their part in it.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

I understand the rationale. I just don't buy it. The production of child porn (in America, anyway) is practically nil. It's souvenirs of child abuse, and it's not the photos that hurt the kid- it's the abuse that does that. Now, you could probably argue that the reason there's so little child porn being produced is BECAUSE of the laws prosecuting possession, and I certainly can't refute that. But I don't know that it's the case, either.

And in terms of drugs? I think many street drugs should be treated like alcohol and tobacco are- legalized, regulated, taxed, and kept out of the hands of minors as much as possible. Drug use is an informed consent issue, imho.

Similarly, I'd like to see age of consent laws revised so that the use of coercion/force is illegal, not sex between individuals of different ages (so that individuals of similar ages could be prosecuted under something analogous to stat rape laws, and consensual sex between individuals of different ages wasn't automatically viewed as coercive).

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

You don't really believe that a 12 year old has the mental capacity to consent to sex with a 25 year old?

I mean, I'm all for Romeo and Juliet exceptions, but beyond that, no way. The social power that adults have over kids is coercive in itself, and even if a kid thinks she's consenting, she's really not, because she doesn't have the reasoning capacity to understand the situation.

I'm not saying kids don't have sexual desires. Just that their brains aren't developed enough to understand the larger social issues involved, and that makes it way, way too easy for adults to manipulate them into sex.

It's not the sex itself that's the problem. It's the preying on someone who has no way of understanding social power disparity. It's the same problem as having sex with someone who is intoxicated, or mentally ill. The "informed" part of informed consent just isn't there even if a verbalized "yes" is.

I agree with you on the drug laws thing, but as it stands now, drug trafficking is the root cause of a heck of a lot of horrible criminal activity, from exploiting workers in coca fields to gang violence. As long as they remain illegal, buyers are still part of that overall chain, and are still responsible for it. Wal-Mart wouldn't be able to abuse its employees if people didn't shop there, y'know?

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

I think that the capacity to consent is a difficult thing to assess, and a very difficult thing to legislate. Kids develop very differently. As such, I'd like to see age of consent laws (which assume that not only can young teens not consent, but which also assume that older teens can) move towards laws that target the actual circumstances- specifically coercion, pressure, and force.

"It's not the sex itself that's the problem. It's the preying on someone who has no way of understanding social power disparity. It's the same problem as having sex with someone who is intoxicated, or mentally ill. The "informed" part of informed consent just isn't there even if a verbalized "yes" is."

This is exactly my point. Social power disparities can exist in situations where people are the same age (or close enough not to count under existing laws). Similarly, actual consent can be disputed by irate parents or schools or whoever. I'd rather have the court assess the actual specifics involved than simply assume that a 14 year old can't consent to sex with her boyfriend but a sixteen year old can. Don't even get me started on the unjust way these laws are applied to same-sex couples.

I get your point with the market thing, I really do. But the way to get Wal-Mart to treat their employees well isn't to drive them out of business, it's to make them responsible for their actions through regulatory processes.

For now, possession laws make sense. But if we want to move towards that kind of regulatory action, it has to begin with legal possession.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Yeah, age of consent laws are a big, patchwork mess, and most of them aren't based on any real understanding of cognitive development. I know most of them were originally predicated on the age that they figured a girl could get pregnant, and thus should be allowed to get married so she don' have no bastard child. Bleh.

Personally, I'd put the across-the-board AOC at around 16, and have the five-year buffer rule set for that. And I think things like prosecuting a couple of 10-year-olds for playing doctor or prosecuting a 14-year-old for taking nude pictures of herself are preposterous. I mean yeah, you'd want to investigate a little to figure out whether there's just natural curiosity going on or something else, but still.

I hate our cultural madonna/whore complex.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Well, here's where I have to step in. When an innocent man is accused of molestation or pedophilia, the kids aren't the only victims. Better to damage an adult? Maybe, but it's a hard price no matter who's paying.

I have a friend who had his first teaching gig in, of all places, Forks. We all told him it would be a bad fit for him socially; he's liberal lefty with a big belief in the power of education as well as the learning potential of kids. Forks is pure Red Republican so insular that their eighth graders still color pictures in class rather than doing, well, eighth grade work.

When my friend made a misstatement in class, one of the kids went home and accused him of attempting to coerce the kids into keeping secrets from their parents. Out of this alone, the parents decided he must be a pedophile and reported him as such to the school. The call I got from him that afternoon was searing. He was devastated. He'd been misinterpreted in class and in moments his entire career was on the line, four months after graduation. He was in pieces. It's heartbreaking to hear a man in his mid-thirties, big and burly, weeping with terror that his professional life is over before it had even begun.

Innocent until proven guilty is the law of the land and it's a good one. Everyone deserves it, even pedophiles.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Like I say, in cases in which there's absolutely no evidence or past behavior to go on, there shouldn't be any issue with something not even going to trial. Even the most cursory of investigations would've proven that there wasn't even probable cause in your friend's case.

But that's not what happened here. There was not only enough evidence to go to trial, but a considerable amount of evidence revealed during the trial that constituted inappropriate behavior with minors, at the very best. That he was acquitted was simply a matter of pressure on the jurors, which they've already admitted to.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

"If you're innocent, you don't pay off your accusers."

I love you to tiny pieces, but this statement is complete bullshit. Innocent people pay off their accusers all the fucking time.

[hunnyfreak.livejournal.com]

As someone who has sexual abuse in her family, this whole thing infuriates me! Honestly, I cannot put it into words. People at work wondered why I'm not upset like them about his death and I tell them "He was a pedophile, why would I be sad that he died? Yes his earlier music is awesome and he changed the face of music, but the guy was also a freaky f&*k." And when they said, "But he was never convicted" I told them, "And neither was my relative, but he sure as hell sexually abused 4 of my family members!" That shut them up real quick!

[irradiatedsoup.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I don't personally believe he did it. I think he was a very mentally ill and very sad person in many ways, but not a child molester.

I also love his music and always will.

I know it's a really fraught issue, and I'm sorry if my perception of him upsets you.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

So how do you explain the pictures of naked children and him sleeping with kids?

[irradiatedsoup.livejournal.com]

See my first comment where I said mentally ill, and incredibly sad. He surrounded himself with children, he also surrounded himself with kids toys and spent a great deal of time playing with them by himself. He wasn't right, I'm not disagreeing with you on that point, I just don't think it was sexual.

You have every right to think it was, and I respect you for it.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

You do know that this is a really common profile for pedophiles, yes? An awful lot of them don't see themselves as adults. They don't percieve themselves as any different than the children they befriend. And thus they don't see their intimacy with those children as anything other than "innocent" exploration, the same as two children that age would do with each other.