5 ms·

These sorts of discussions keep rising. I don't think we have decided how to deal with it. In law, armed robbery is a much more severe crime than an antisemiti

• olliej 5y ago
  Way to equate too things that aren’t remotely the same. One person was murdered because someone thought they passed a fake $20 bill, vs people asking that another should not be allowed to be at a conference.
  • Gunax 5y ago
    No, what I am comparing (not equating) is armed robbery, rape, and a drunk tirade. Whether you allow perpetrators of each to rejoin regular society says more about oneself than the crime. It's about the narrative we tell. Are you branded for life, or someone who made a mistake? And this forgiveness is largely divorced from the severity of the crime. If you want, reread my comment and notice that not only am I not equating George Floyd's death to anything i did not even mention it.
    • olliej 5y ago
      No, you used George Floyd as an example. George Floyd was limited in how he was able to operate in society after his release, as people are asking this person be restricted. You chose George Floyd because he is a name that has been made significant, not because he was allowed at a conference but because he was murdered. You are therefore comparing to case: * a person who is well known because they were murdered * a person we don’t even know the identity of, because people don’t want to be present at a conference So you are equating them, you could have used any name, or said a general ex-con, but you specifically chose Floyd.
      • Gunax 5y ago
        Yes, that's all correct. I chose Floyd (and Gibson) because they are famous. I am also comparing Floyds crime to the unnamed person's crime and to Gibson's famous tirade. But I am not comparing Floyd's murder to anything. His murder is not related. Yes, you can replace them with hypothetical people if you want.
        • olliej 5y ago
          You made the choice about bringing someone like Floyd into this. you thought that there was an equivalence to make. Here’s the thing: no one said Floyd wasn’t an excon, and his crime did severely limit his options in life. It is inescapable though that if you bring in Floyd for his “fame” that you are comparing the thing that made them famous: being murdered vs being anti-Semitic
• ryukoposting 5y ago
  I don't think there's a way to make the court of law and the court of public opinion align perfectly on every decision. The dichotomy between the court of law and the court of public opinion is inherent to American society- that's how it's supposed to work. Amendments 4-8 more or less codify the notion that one can only be punished for measurable harms, of which one is clearly the culprit (or at least that's how it's supposed to work). "Innocent until proven guilty" and all that stuff. In contrast, the court of public opinion works off of a free-flowing, sometimes contradictory set of widely-held virtues. That means that the court of public opinion can hold people accountable based on virtues that aren't codified into law. That's not always a bad thing; in fact, it's the entire engine of social progress.
  • Gunax 5y ago
    As a society there are sets of established but unwritten rules and norms. I think we are living in a era of re-writing those rules, and until a new equilibrium is reached there will be uncertainty and ambiguity.
• cafard 5y ago
  Mel Gibson got sent up the river for more than four years? How quickly one forgets.