On Cosby

Bill Cosby is in Canada for a few shows this week (even CNN is covering the story) . His performances have been met with protests. Given the accusations of rape it is understandable. But in Canada as in the U.S. the concept of innocent until proven guilty is a given.  While that applies to the legal system,  clearly the court of public opinion is not held to the same standard.  In one radio interview I heard a demonstration organizer state that given the number of allegations,  they must be true. Really?   Bill Cosby has a lot of things to answer but the tone of the comment just seemed to be gossipy for lack of a better word. Until something legal actually transpires, I am going to ignore all things Cosby.

Mea Culpa on Cosby

Late in 2014 and early this year I commented on the allegations leveled against Bill Cosby. I argued that he should be treated as innocent until proven guilty.  As it turns out, Bill Cosby has admitted his guilt. Mea culpa, I was defending a guilty man.

Or was I?  I was only arguing that the presumption of innocence until proven guilty is the modus of the legal system in the West. Jumping to the conclusion that he was guilty of these terrible things before his day in court was wrong.  I made no assumption of his guilt or innocence. I stand by my initial suggestions.

Unfortunately for Bill Cosby not many people are going to continue to stand by him now that he's admitted that he got sedative drugs for women so that he could then have sex with them.  That is shameful and from the sound of his admission, felonious. 

On Bill Cosby

It's odd that Bill Cosby has been vilified so quickly for allegations of rape and sexual assault decades ago, given his positive public image over the past several decades.  It's not clear at this point what really did or did not happen with respect to these allegations, and if they are true, that's terrible. But whatever happened to the notion of "innocent until proven guilty"?

Just asking.

Knee jerk liberals versus Harvey Weinstein.

Whenever somebody asks me to describe modern liberalism (as opposed to classical liberalism, which is entirely different) in one word, I always ask if I can use a hyphen.  That's because my word is knee-jerk.  Or knee jerk in two words if you prefer.  Liberals constantly react with their feelings and do not stop to think about the logic of a situation, the totality of the facts, or the consequences of their immediate reaction.  Knee jerk.

At least they are consistent and do not disappoint.  With Harvey Weinstein accused of multiple instances of sexual harassment and possibly even rape.  Liberals were quick (though not quite as quick as if he had been a Republican)  to jump on him as a misogynist, sexist jerk.  There's a lot of evidence that they are right.  But just like the case with Bill Cosby, he deserves his inevitable day in court, doesn't he?  I mean innocent until proven guilty in a court of law is kind of a founding principle isn't it?  Isn't it an American ideal?  They certainly apply that standard to illegal immigrants.

And Harvey was a proud Hillary donor and supporter.  But now, he's liberal poison;

Embattled film mogul Harvey Weinstein — a once-dominant force in the Academy Awards who rewrote the rules of Oscar campaigning — has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in response to mounting allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him.

The film academy’s 54-member board of governors, which includes such industry luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kathleen Kennedy and Whoopi Goldberg, voted in an emergency meeting on Saturday morning to remove Weinstein from the organization’s ranks in an unprecedented public rebuke of a prominent industry figure. The move marked the latest blow in Weinstein’s stunning downfall and, in symbolic terms, amounts to a virtual expulsion from Hollywood itself.

So much for the idea of innocent until proven guilty. It's hard to feel sympathy for liberals eating their own, especially when the likes of Harvey Weinstein were instrumental in foisting modern liberalism on America - he's reaping what he sewed. And while he will probably turn out to be guilty of all manner of Hollywood debauchery and unwarranted sexual advances, he does, like any other American, deserve hisa day in court.