If the rule of law has to be preserved, what is needed is exactly to avoid having an opinion on wether crimes have been committed or not and to defer to the courts for that.

Which is exactly what you and plenty of other people are not doing in this situation.

The amount of accusation toward some1 who is clearly hated deeply are not proof of anything if not the deep hatred toward him in a specific community.

Hatred which could of course have a rational basis, if those allegations are true, but which can't be used as proof of crime.

This is exactly why we don't let the mob decide

It's not racist to discuss the cultural peculiarities of a country. It would be racist to expect a random Italian to hold those attitudes, or to link them to being ethnically Italian. I can say that America is a parochial and ignorant country without offending Americans ITT, because they're aware that I'm not accusing all Americans of being like that.

You are the one who inserted himself into the conversation while being ignorant of the facts.

Its racism to insult a country and bring as proof some supposed recollection of women who traveled to italy.
It's exactly what people do when they talk badly about black people because "every1 i know who goes into a black neighbourhood says x y z".

Courts have the power to put someone in prison. My opinion or condemnation has not. Therefore we do not need to apply the same standards.

Weinstein is not facing any criminal penalty and is free to sue me for libel for calling him a rapist if he thinks I'm over the line. The rule of law looks to be in fine shape to me, and I have plenty of respect for it, which is why I don't want Weinstein imprisoned or shot or whatever. But this thing you have of "you can't say stuff, even true stuff, that has not been legally established" is confusing a legal norm for a civil norm. Legally, you can't state things as fact that are not legally established, and there are good reasons for that and civil recourse available against people who don't comply. But there is no civil norm against saying things I strongly believe to be true and never has been.

It's not racist to say things like "black communities in America are generally homophobic" or even "black people in America are more likely to be criminals" and those sort of things are said, frequently, even in liberal circles. Racism (and bigotry in general) is just the fallacy of division, i.e. assuming that what is true of the whole will be true of all its parts. Confusion arises because when people make generalizations about groups it's so frequently a prelude to racism.

guys can we let the bad poster be a bad poster in his own right, without having idiotic derails about whether he's a bad poster because Italians are lecherous sex pests? kthx

Come on down....

Mario Batali!

Didn't see that one coming.

Molto Mario!?

Man I liked his show!

BTW lol Luciom

Tom Ashbrook? What the hell is going on at NPR.

The experiences of women in a particular country is an observable fact, albeit one subject to confirmation biases and doesn't carry a lot of statistical rigor. Generalizing those experiences onto a particular Italian is bigoted, but we don't need the experiences of 3rd parties to realize that you have retrograde opinions about women. You did that on your own.

F Batali. Dude tried to get out of paying his employee's overtime years ago.

The courts don't protect. They determine what happened though.

Law enforcement protects. And i understand that "it's complicated" because victims for various reasons don't go immediatly to the police.

I see you could care less about people that could be made a suspect without having done anything gross at all. I also see you seem to agree that the current thresold for harrassement is morally correct.

Well, i disagree on both counts, i think that people who end up losing they careers because of other people accusations are something to avoid at all cost and one of the worst things that can happen to justice. And i accept the fact that in order to avoid that at all costs some allegations, even if true, can't be made because they can't be proven. I think that's a fair cost to pay to preserve innocents from the abuse of fake allegations.

I also think that american society (and, it seems, several other societies if this thread is right) has decided to put the thresold for sexual misconduct so low that i can't agree with it. But of course this is purely a matter of personal preference so there is nothing to discuss about it.

Not at all because the case i care most about is that of Spacey and the accusers are male in that case. So no "bitches tripping" or whatever.

I think that if an underage boy is at a hollywood party and at 2am somebody tries to have sex with him this is pretty normal and nothing to fuss about, especially if he concealed his age.

Where in my posts did i write "retrograde opinions about women"???

have you actually read a story from any of these cases? Like a single news article? Because, uh, it seems like you haven't...

I read some articles but i understand that i could have read articles with wrong information.

This is the story i was referring about Spacey. Is this recollection wrong?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/a...pq6#.bjGB7xQvA

I don't understand what is this case about, really.

From what i then read, other accusations are of "unwanted sexual advancements", like, you are accused of asking people if they want to have sex with you? is that a crime now? i really don't understand.

Didn't have time this morning because of Loliom, think ChrisV's take is too climate-centric. Not thinking about climate at all when I (correctly) call Italy Europe's Alabama. No comparison is perfect and many states/countries lack anything much as an analogue, but tentatively:

Italy = Alabama; retrograde, largely impoverished, fond of electing elderly connoisseurs of underage girls, absurd levels of overt racism even compared to surrounding states.

Germany = Californa; largest economy, progressive reputation somewhat undermined by persistent reactionary rump. Often vaguely resented for perceived creeping cultural hegemony.

Spain = Florida; popular retiree destination spot, occasional political flare-ups and at least a past association with less savoury far-right elements.

Britain = New York; here I should emphasise that I really do mean the state entire and not just NYC. Largely cosmopolitan with pockets of insularity. Frank, almost outspoken superiority complex.

Ireland = New Jersey; broadly similar to GB/NY and locked in a perpetual love/hate relationship due to this. Often thought of, by ourselves and others, almost wholly in terms of our relationship to GB/NY.

Find I can't really think of a decent analogue for France, and my ability to say much about American states is exhausted, so that's my partial stab at it.

Edit: Sweden = Oregon maybe?

So, for example, in the case of Weinstein, "looked at" in fact meant "did not look at"? I have to say, you're really not hel-
Oh. Well never mind.

You should try with founding states for italy and germany at least, like one of the 13, because both italy and germany are among the first states of the EU (in its previous iterations).

But i understand that you just want to bash italy with this post so... why not going randomly with alabama (??) for a country that just legalized gay marriage and is accepting more refugees that the whole US is...

For weinstein as i said i read coverage mostly about Argento's allegation. Basically he asked her to perform oral sex on her, she accepted, and i am supposed to think it is a crime or something.

Chris pointed me to far more serious allegations which i was unaware of (about weinstein).

That's dumb and would miss the point, but more importantly, you think it's OK for famous people to rape children and you should go away now.

"it's oke for famous people to rape children"? no it's not.

Is it rape if deep in the night some1 at a party has no freaking idea about the age of some1 and tries to hit on him? no it's not. Is it "morally bad"? why should it be?

It is indeed bad if the boy says "hey i am 14" and the adult keeps going on. Then yes it is really bad.

Do we know spacey knew the boy was underage? you seem so sure.

How are you getting that Rapp was lying about his age? Rapp was a well-known actor on Broadway and Spacey surely knew who he was. They were starring in two of the biggest shows on Broadway at the time.