Discussion for article #238186
My, what a broad brush you have there, Amanda.
You do your so-called cause no justice by slopping paint all over the place like that.
But, it is telling that you convicted him months ago before actual âevidenceâ was available. Some of us will continue to wait for more to come to light for a fuller picture ⌠itâs still in the stages of fragments being conveniently presented by people with agendas.
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My initial instinct was not to be too hopeful. The blunt fact of the matter is that people treat sexual abuse differently than other crimes.
I donât think that is the dynamic at play here. Americans love to believe their idols conduct themselves in their private lives in a manner consistent with their public persona. If I heard Bill Cosby described during this mess as âavuncularâ once, I heard it hundreds of times. The truth is he is a predator. And all those who bent over backwards to give Dr. Huxtable the benefit of the doubt should be ashamed.
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On Cosby specifically, I was convinced awhile back. I mean, the sheer number of accusations OF THE SAME BEHAVIOR was pretty damning. Cosby has been built up as an âiconâ of our culture, and some people resist believing bad things about iconsâŚeven when the evidence is overwhelming as it has been in his case for some time. Itâs time for these people to face the cold reality that one of their heroes is a serial rapist.
However, you over-reach when you start to generalize outward. The two closest incidents of rape/molestation accusations involving people I personally know both turned out to be false accusations. Now, is that typical? No, I believe most accusations are based on real events, and statistics tend to bear that out. However, most accusations donât involve someone being accused of molesting/raping 30 or more women either. Most are one-time accusations (at least, from the perspective of those who hear about them). And in those instances, there are just enough false accusations thrown around, I believe, for most of us to try and âbalance the scalesâ as best we can.
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Mr. Cosby has been on my slime list from the 1970s. Youâre pretty slow.
As far as I can tell Amandaâs agenda is to get people to believe women when they are telling the truth. And your agenda is?
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This âfragmentâ was under oath testimony of Cosby himself.
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Not defending the guy, but with all the women involved I am not sure why some of this did not come out sooner. I know that he settled with a few but it is strange that so many come out decades later.
I imagine that it does have to do with embarrassment and various other hurdles. And again, not defending Cosbyâs actions, but dragging somebody through the court of public opinion is not a good way to get justice. It will probably hit him in the wallet and that is fine, but it is also not the best system of justice. Many innocent people have been torn asunder and cast aside by it. Again, I think he is pretty horrible for everything he has done, it is just one of the situations where what to do about a situation gets tricky.
Josh Duggar: Reality TV + Bill Cosby: Sitcom TV = TLC ratings âFamily Valuesâ juggernaut on Thursday night.
First episode: âNo BillâŚYOU pull your pants up!â
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Hereâs the best part:
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As a white male I understand that black men are often accused of things they donât do. But as a man I also believe a lot of men are disgusting pigs when the cameras and mics arenât on. Sadly there are just a lot of men (and maybe some women too but it really seems like a male maybe testosterone driven thing) that in public really put on a good front but in their personal/private life are just scumbags. I remember growing up a couple from my church went to see Andy Williams filming a Christmas TV special and they were so disappointed because off camera Andy cussed and told dirty jokes to the crowd. Bill Clinton comes to mind as a similar personality and hey he and Andy are white! Seem like a lot of preachers fall into this category too.
Edit: And I havenât paid much attention, but perhaps throw Woody Allen in this heap?
What about the Tawana Brawley case? She said that she was raped and had feces smeared on her? She was championed by Al Sharpton and that rape case turned out to be a hoax.
I believed her and that case, as I said before, turned out to be a hoax. She has disappeared and Al Sharpton now has a TV show and is an advisor to the president.
I did belive the charges against Cosby when I went to the Smoking Gun website and saw the civil legal papers in which 13 Jane Does had agreed to testify against him. That case, in which the recently Quaaludes addmission surfaced, was been settled out of court in 2005. However, there had been allegations re his predatory tactics for years.
This latest round of Cosby allegations happened because comedian Hannibal Buress made a remark about Cosby being a rapist, and it was picked up by social media.
Now, it is in the cout of public opinion that heâs been found to be guilty.
Ha ha ha ha thatâs Gold man, comedy gold ha ha ha haâŚ
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Some much for the headline of this piece. The last defenders of Cosby will fight until the final bottle of benadrylâŚ
Albeit I get the sense that theyâre not so much defending Cosby as attacking any woman who says that a couple dozen on-the-record accusations and a string of settled lawsuits might mean a rich, powerful man is lying in public about being a predator.
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The thing with rape allegations, particularly ones in which significant time has passed, is that thereâs very rarely any physical evidence, and any physical evidence (semen stained and blood stained panties) wouldnât even necessarily prove a crime was committed. The available evidence is 30+ women, most whoâve never met or shared their stories with one another, telling almost identical stories about the way the assaults occurred. And now we have Cosby himself confirming their stories. To expect more evidence than that is frankly pretty naive, but is indicative of the post-CSI climate in which people believe most crimes can be proven or disproved based on evidence. Thatâs just not the case, especially in cases involving sexual assault.
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In the immortal words of Moe Szyslak: âIâve done a lot of stuff I ainât proud of; and the stuff I am proud of, is disgusting.â
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It doesnât seem difficult to understand why this did not come out sooner. At a time when his star was no longer shining quite as brightly (he did so much racist moralizing I stopped listening to him long ago), 30 women came out with basically the same story and there is still a huge segment of the population that does not believe them. What woman would want the kind of fame and ruination that outing this would have brought about 20 years ago? These women had no way of knowing they had so many fellow victims. WowâŚit is so disgusting. Iâm certainly glad he is facing the âembarrassmentâ that his lawyers and PR people tried so hard to prevent. But I am sad to think of all that has been lost by his victims and will never be recovered, and that it has been aggravated by his fame. I donât care about him going to prison (unless he is still doing it and thatâs the only way to stop him), but I wish that it was easier for them to get restitution.
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Bill Cosby isnât just some guy on the street or even a well known local legislator, heâs a cultural icon who broke down a lot of doors for black entertainers, was a great champion for HBCUs, and introduced America to a side of black America that much of white America wasnât even aware existed. With his pudding commercials and TV shows he became Americaâs first black dad. When his son, Innis, was brutally murdered the country wept and grieved with him. I think itâs fair to say that until Cosby came along no other entertainer of color had achieved the kind of universally beloved status.
With all that said, is it any wonder why these women wouldnât want to take on such a powerful man? Is it any wonder why they thought they wouldnât be believed? Most of America didnât even fully recognize that raping a woman while sheâs passed out or drugged is even really rape, and yet these women were supposed to have the courage to report a man as powerful as Cosby? The only reason these women feel safe coming forward now is because there really is strength in numbers, because theyâre being believed, and because our attitudes about rape have changed. Too much time has passed for them to get any real justice, so the only justice they can hope for is in the court of public opinion. I applaud them for finally finding the courage to confront their rapist.
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When Janice Dickinson jumped in, I have to admit the accusations became slightly less credible to me. I know, it was unfair of me, but it got weird. I liked him in the 60s when he was cool. His perfect father role was unappealing to me and I think he became a bitter old guy after his son was killed. His moralizing to the male African American community seems pretty ironic, now.
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It is so very unfair that this monster is immune from the law because of the statute of limitations. I wish there were some way to make him pay.
As a modest beginning, not only should he be boycotted, but anyone who does not boycott him should be boycotted.
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Hmm, the link to the purportedly strong evidence against Woody Allen is pretty weak. Over half the points are that one judge found for Farrow in the custody battle. And point number three is refusal to take a polygraph test which no lawyer is ever going to let their client do because they are utter rubbish.
One of the reasons that people are not very keen to leap to conclusions is that rather a lot of folk peddling these scandals have woefully low standards of evidence.
A pattern emerged in the Cosby case very early on and there were many independent accusers. That is what makes the case so credible. That is what makes the accusations against Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Leon Brittan and a sitting Tory MP so credible.
False accusations may be rare but they certainly occur. Automatically assuming people are innocent should not be replaced with an automatic assumption of guilt.
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