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Justice, New York Style (A Perp’s View)
Ze women zey simply luv me,
Zey can’t get enough of my stuff,
Though I’m fat and I’m old and I’m ugly,
And ze sex that I like, it is ruff.
Ze ones zat I most like to favor,
Ze ones for me most preferential,
Are ze poor ones I peg as defenseless,
Who can’t prove our sex ain’t consensual.
And if zez ingrates still complain,
Understand not ze honor bestowed,
I got money and lawyers and clout,
So I walk..
It’s my right…
I am owed.
5 Responses to “Justice, New York Style (A Perp’s View)”
Well if he, or France, asks for an apology they won’t get it.
The prosecutors dismissed the case because, by their own admission, the accuser had told too many lies to be credible. Strauss-Kahn’s age, ugliness, and fatness have absolutely nothing to do with his accuser’s inability to tell the truth. And yes, when you can’t prove that the defendant committed the crime, he IS owed the right to walk free, whether the crime you can’t prove is rape or anything else.
You’ll note that neither poem nor cartoon is concerned with the credibility of the evidence against Strauss-Kahn. The attitude is clear: ugly old fat men who have sex with young women ought to go to jail, no matter whether there’s any evidence that they did anything criminal. Disgusting.
My, my, my, Daniel. Haven’t you bought whole the high-priced p.r. DSK and his legal team have been peddling?
Credibility is of course the issue here. So let’s look at what’s credible and what’s utterly incredible in this situation.
A fat old man comes naked out of the shower and has a sexual encounter (that a sexual encounter took place is admitted by all) with a hotel maid half his age who came into his room to clean.
Now, sir. What is credible and what is incredible here?
a) She was immediately smitten with his looks and French aura and happily had consensual sex with him? Or b) he forced her into non-consensual sex?
Which is credible? Which is incredible? Especially since we have since learned that a number of other women have complained about DSK’s non-consensual advances in the past.
I want to be fair-minded here. Tell me truthfully. Which do you believe is credible and which is incredible?
P.S. If you can find a single person from an impoverished country who hasn’t lied or been willing to lie to get into this one, or a single New Yorker who hasn’t fudged his/her incomes taxes or wouldn’t sue someone who injured them personally, I will eat my computer.
You say the only two possibilities are 1) she was awed by his physique or 2) it was rape. That’s an obvious false dichotomy. Many things besides physical attractiveness may cause a younger woman to want sex with an older and less than handsome man. Among those things are wealth, power and personal charisma (see Lewinsky, Monica). Of course, nonconsensual sex is also a possibility – but we don’t put people in jail based on possibilities. We put them in jail based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
A witness who previously lied about being raped for her personal benefit would almost certainly give a jury a reasonable doubt that she would do so again. All lies are not created equal; many people may lie to get into America, but relatively few choose a lie that falsely implicates other people in crimes they haven’t committed – and even if people did routinely tell such lies, that would make it all the more necessary not to convict defendants based on that testimony.
I wanted to add, we’ve been through this same narrative in the Duke rape case, where we were supposed to accept the accuser’s story despite a proven history of lying, just because the accuser was poor and the accused was privileged. Fortunately, Cyrus Vance was more honest and ethical than Mike Nifong, and put justice and the evidence before his personal ambition.