...Rembrandt or Einstein or Mother Maybelle Carter, he's a fugitive from justice and he needs to be brought back to face the music he skipped out on.

No art anywhere is worth the value of one 13 year old girl.

No art or science (Einstein) anywhere is worth forgoing anything but the maximum legal prosecution of certain sexual actions towards one 13 year old girl based on legal and moral standards existing in the US in 2009.

Current US attitudes about Polanski’s crimes are just that—current attitudes. It’s quite certain that those attitudes will change—again. Skirts go up and skirts go down. It wasn’t that long ago that inter-racial sex, homosexual sex, or being a witch were punished more severely even than current sex and drug laws.

There is an incredible arrogance in the suggestion that the greatest of human art and science should be sacrificed on the altar of what have proven, over the centuries, to be transient moral judgments. That way lies the caves, and a considerably more primitive moral environment.

Art, science and current morality all have value—none infinite value.

Art or any other accomplishment isn't a get out of jail free card. Polanski skipped town and he should be brought back to face justice. If he doesn't recieve justice, that's another argument. But he has to come back first. He doesn't get to decide what's fair or just, most particularly when the only reason he was able to leave the country and stay out was because he was rich and famous.

All human accomplishments are wonderful. But human beings are more wonderful than any human accomplishment, whatever it might be. If Polonski raped a young girl, then that young girl's life is more important than any of Polanski's movies. If putting Polanski in jail means a loss to art, so be it.

Current US attitudes about Polanski’s crimes are just that—current attitudes.

steambadger:

Current US attitudes about Polanski’s crimes are just that—current attitudes.

I don't know: I was a full-grown adult thirty years ago, and as far as I can remember, forcibly raping a child was considered a Bad Thing even in those days.

I see what he's saying, though. Just look at the probation officer's report to see the prevailing view. Hell, I can remember the old Chester the Molester comic. If the girl wasn't bruised and bleeding afterwards, it was very difficult to get a conviction.

bsharporflat:

If he did all that was reported to a 13 year old girl, I suspect there was some bleeding. The use of a drug also warrants criminal prosecution.

Of course it does. But I don't know why you'd expect bleeding. She wasn't a virgin, he went down on her, so his saliva would have lubricated her vagina, and it wouldn't be unusual for a rape victim to become moist from the physical stimulation, which would have lubricated him when he raped her anally.

Any guy with a daughter in that age range worries about that kind of thing. And the lubrication issue is often tossed out by the defense in rape trials to prove it wasn't really rape.

Still, good joke. :)

?

I don't get it.

I had assumed the small penis comment was you ribbing me. It made me chuckle, anyways.

bobunf:

There is an incredible arrogance in the suggestion that the greatest of human art and science should be sacrificed on the altar of what have proven, over the centuries, to be transient moral judgments. That way lies the caves, and a considerably more primitive moral environment.

There's an even greater arrogance, not to mention repugnance, about the notion that "artists" of any kind should be exempt from the same legal and moral standards that apply to the rest of us mere mortals. In any case, whatever happens to Polanski, his artistic achievements will be unaffected.