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comment by OftenBen
OftenBen  ·  2361 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: #MeToo comes for John Lasseter

Tell it to Garrison Keillor.





Quatrarius  ·  2361 days ago  ·  link  ·  
OftenBen  ·  2361 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    “The woman and I were friends from before her employment to the end of it,” Keillor wrote. “we exchanged scores of emails about our children, travels, ordinary lives, and she signed many of hers ‘I love you.’” Later, he wrote, “When I retired, she asked for a job recommendation and I wrote a big booming one for her and she got the job.”

But all of that is nothing compared to a good golly gosh, 12 whole pages from a lawyers office.

Prove it in a court of law and I'll eat my hat. Until then, the court of public opinion has decided on another chewy morsel to macerate.

oyster  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What’s annoying isn’t that you are the type of person who wants to wait for a trial ( you aren’t that person) it’s that you’ve revealed in your answers you’ve already decided he’s innocent.

You’ve just decided that she is guilty of lying instead. You’re not above any of this. You might not want to admit that but if you’ve already decided he’s innocent you clearly think she lied. That’s what bullshit, I’m friendly to the men who harass me, I have to be. Other woman probably don’t have the same experience with some men I do, good for them. Anybody using that as evidence to discredit women who come forward is bullshit.

You don’t have to form on opinion on innocence of either party, but don’t pretend you’re not a part of the court of public opinion when you clearly are. Sitting back and listening without judgment requires that you actually want to hear out both sides, not decide that you in your infinite wisdom know why women act how they do.

OftenBen  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    You don’t have to form on opinion on innocence of either party,

You do actually, the presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of liberal democracy.

I hope that if these claims are able to be substantiated that it goes to trial and Keillor is proven guilty by a jury of his peers.

I am not okay with the court of public opinion deciding who does and does not get the axe. Mob rule is never okay and should not be aspired to.

oyster  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ah yes, everybody falls back on that.

The kicker though is that also needs to mean you assume she is innocent of lying. You’ve made it clear you think he’s innocent at the expense of her innocence.

This is a pretty big problem with this subject. There are plenty of people in the world that think if a man is found innocent then the woman is lying and should be locked up all while having zero proof of her lying. That is also mob rule, except from people who think they are enlightened and above that sort of thing.

OftenBen  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    There are plenty of people in the world that think if a man is found innocent then the woman is lying and should be locked up all while having zero proof of her lying

Not a position that I hold.

The burden of proof falls upon those making the claim. Negatives cannot be proven.

Prove the claim in the court of law and I'll join the posse to ride down and take him to the pokey.

oyster  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Do you actually not see how calling this a witch hunt and belittling what her lawyer did in a childish fashion makes you look ?

You can act all proper now, but you obviously don’t respect that she is innocent as well. At the very least you are considerably more careful picking your words as it pertains to his life than you are hers.

Edit:

To add

    Prove it in a court of law and I'll eat my hat

That saying means you highly highly highly doubt that will be the outcome. Meaning you don’t just thinks he’s innocent, you think it’s so damn unlikely he’s guilty that you’ll eat your hat if it goes that way. That’s not just presumption of innocent, that’s when you don’t bother charging someone at all.

OftenBen  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

One of these people is accused of a crime, one is not.

It is a cornerstone of liberal democracy that the accused be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

oyster  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well you haven’t denied thinking she’s lying, or denied that you don’t care to respect her innocence so I’ll just keep going with the assumption you agree. This latest comment seems to say you don’t have to because she’s not on trial.

She isn’t accused of a crime but that doesn’t mean she’s not on trial in the very court you find so distasteful. For the entire time I’ve been alive women have been afraid to come forward with allegations of harassment or assault because of what it could do to their life even if they have plenty of evidence. There’s a reason things got to this point, I understand finding the outcome less than ideal but honestly I just think we’re lucky things didn’t get violent.

OftenBen  ·  2356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Well you haven’t denied thinking she’s lying

I am unable to form an informed opinion of that, not enough relevant data.

    respect her innocence

She's not on trial, I have no idea what this phrase means in context.

    you don’t have to because she’s not on trial.

Correct. There is a claim in the positive being made that Garrison Keillor is a sexual predator, or however we choose to label him. That claim is the one being evaluated in this case. My opinion of the person making the claim will be formed after the veracity of the claim has been examined by due legal process.

The fact that we are even discussing violence shows how far from civilized these discussions are.

oyster  ·  2356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I am unable to form an informed opinion of that, not enough relevant data.

Interesting you didn't feel this way about the pages of work her lawyer did that you've never seen. You formed an opinion on that one.

    She's not on trial, I have no idea what this phrase means in context

Yes you do, because I explained to you how she is on trial in the court of public opinion that you seem to have a problem with.

I'm going to go on a tangent here because this irritates the hell out of me. You were challenged on a point and you shut down and started quoting what you think you believe in.

    It is a cornerstone of liberal democracy that the accused be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

This is something you said because apparently it's something you believe in, I bet you've even said you would die for it, but only in the context that they told you to care about it.

You don't have to presume innocence or care about any of that stuff unless somebody is literally on trial by the government, right ? I mean that's basically what I'm challenging you on. You say she's not on trial so you can belittle the prosecutions paperwork all you want while disregarding the whole thing as a witch hunt and I say she is on trial in another way. This concept was a thing before it became easily quotable though for reasons. Do you see any other reason to presume somebodies innocence ? Take the government out of the equation. Why should you presume innocence in a one on one situation ? A group ? Family ? Community ? Does it matter at all to you in those situations ? Because the only thing you can seem to say here is that she isn't on trial which suggest to me that you haven't considered presumption of innocence as a concept outside of government.

I have, and I don't have any interest in carrying on a discussion with people who can't leave their safe harbors of easily quotable concepts the government told them to care about.

Quatrarius  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

why do you spend so much effort being the way you are when you could be a net positive to the world instead

OftenBen  ·  2360 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The presumption of innocence is vital to the functioning of our legal system.