I just thought I’d chime in. What are we going to do with this guy, and why? There’s no question that he did it, but there are other questions.
The seventies were a much different time, after the pill and a long list of recreational drugs had hit the scene. Law enforcement was playing a game of catch up, trying to identify the recipes to those recreational drugs, because that is what is necessary to make them illegal. It was during the sexual revolution, when educated women shed their usual protectors, on the poorly considered notion that they could and should take care of everything themselves. It was a grey time, where limits were pushed, and in many cases ignored altogether.
But some things should remain constant, including a mother’s obligation that she protect her young. That child did not crawl out of her bedroom window to sneak into a biker bar with the ambition of dancing on a pole. Her mother was in the house, probably high on liquor or drugs or promises of fame or fortune herself. That mama did not do her job.
People on both sides of this tend to speak as though this was a one time thing, I don’t believe that for a second. People who do such things, tend to make it a habit.
Roman Polanski impresses people as arrogant, well, duh. That happens. He knows that he survived the Nazis, when so many others didn’t. He knows he survived the Manson family, when so many others didn’t. It’s hard to be humble when you’ve beaten mammoth odds and so many others didn’t. This is a guy who knows, that it isn’t alway the good guys who win, but he himself survived. Why wouldn’t he figure he’d survive the attentions of Johnny Law too?
He’s going to serve time, here. By the by, it isn’t the fault of his supporters, it’s about politics. Bad, old fashioned politics. We have him now, whether we should or shouldn’t have picked him up is no longer an issue.
The world is changing, and the Swiss have noticed. Their old system of neutrality is no longer serving them, they need allies, partners in business. The Swiss needed to make a gesture. Also note the timing, Polanski was picked up just as Hillary Clinton wrapped up her international rape is bad tour. She’s seen as being marginalized, she needs to burnish her bone fides as somebody who is relevant. She’s not going to step in on his behalf, his name isn’t Clinton.
Polanski is screwed. I wish it were for reasons of right vs wrong, I wish it had to do with protecting people who need and deserve protection, I wish it could be for setting an example, so that others wouldn’t behave so poorly. I wish it could at least be about the rule of law, but it’s for none of those things. There is a shame in that, but we do do what we can, when we can.
