Reader Email: On Roman
Les Sums It Up
Yesterday’s blog ended up being mostly about Roman Polanski’s case and an interesting take on it that I read. Les wrote in with his take.
Les Writes
Rog:The Polanski argument can be divided up into 2 camps.
Camp 1: A couple of dozen movie people and some European politicians that think we should forget the facts of the case and the conviction.
Camp 2: Everyone else in the world that has a 13 year old daughter, sister, cousin, niece, granddaughter, or friend.
The plea agreement Polanski made was guilty, time served (42 days), plus probation. Instead he ran to Europe. Sorry, drugging 13 year old girls and then raping them when they are unconscious is not an act that society should forgive because the perp has been in hiding for 40 years. Bring Polanski back to the states and throw his ass in prison. As a grandparent of young girls I’d love to see everyone who thinks that what Polanski did was a forgivable act in jail.
You’re right Les and my first reaction to the whole thing was to fall into category 2. I was 10 when all of this happened so I don’t remember the first round of legal battles. By the time I was old enough to know who Roman Polanski was (Through research on a term paper on the Manson Family actually.) it was already a decade old and the details has already become fuzzy in the media. When I read Colonel’s well thought out argument I was ready to nod my head and shrug too. I had forgotten that he drugged the girl and just how young she was. (Probably because I remember the fling with Natasha Kinski who was 15 and by all accounts just dating the dude.) You’re right. What he did is not something we can just gloss over. We’re throwing teachers in prison for having ‘consensual’ sex with girls older than 13. Why shouldn’t we make sure that man who drugged and raped a girl 30 years ago spends the time he earned behind bars? I think it is easy to see why some people might lump this into American squeamishness when it comes to sexuality, but in the end that’s a misguided thought. This man is a rapist, plain and simple. I honestly don’t know how someone can defend that, but as I said it was really nice hearing a different opinion that was nicely written and not totally reactionary.
