So this Russell Brand thing. Was it a case of public rape? Or is it the work of the “government”?
This is my basic proposal. It’s neither.
The accusations against Brando are tough, but they haven’t been tested in a rigorous enough way for any of us to say, “He’s guilty of sexual assault.”
At the same time, Brando’s fans are crying out that “they” brought him down, and the henchmen of Big Pharma and big media are targeting Brando for hosting a popular vaccine-skeptical YouTube show. That scream sounds extremely creepy.
On the one hand, we rush to judgment, and on the other hand, we rush to conspiracy theories. Where has good, honest skepticism gone?
serious accusation
No one should discount what the Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatchers investigation says about brands.
Four women have accused him of sexually assaulting him between 2006 and 2013, when he was at the height of his fame as a cartoonist and “serial shagger.”
Some of the accusations are very serious.
One woman said he raped her. Text messages between the woman and Brando seem to suggest that something terrible happened. “When a girl says this,[s] No, that means no,” the woman wrote. Brand responded, “I’m very disappointed.”
It’s easy to imagine such messages appearing as evidence in a sexual assault trial. Brands have questions to answer.
But should we now accept that he is a rapist? Does that mean he is guilty of everything? In my opinion, that’s not the case.
I don’t want to live in a society where a man is branded a rapist just by making an accusation.
Then there will be tyranny. Without the guardrail of the presumption of innocence, without the democratic requirement to prove someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before marking them as “criminals” and banishing them from the public eye, society would There will be chaos. A single finger can destroy lives and reputations.
Indeed, in the era of #MeToo, many men’s lives have been turned upside down by accusations from the pulpit of the mass media that go far beyond the bounds of normal justice.
“Is the accuser now and always holy?” John Proctor famously asked in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
Frighteningly, the modern Western answer to that question appears to be “yes.”
“Believe in women” was the #MeToo slogan. It sounded like a feminist cry, but in reality it chipped away at every pillar of justice.
Of course, women who come forward with accusations of sexual assault should be taken seriously. But momentary belief, the uncritical treatment of claims as true, betrays the skepticism essential to justice.
That skepticism is best embodied in the presumption of innocence, which implicitly encourages some level of doubt in the words of the accuser. Until we consider the evidence, of course.
Even though Harper Lee’s A Tale of Alabama has become the literary and moral fulcrum of the modern Western world, its central cry is that it is wrong to rush to judgment, even in cases of rape. It is strange that it has been lost to history.
conspiracy theorist
Skepticism does not mean thinking that the accuser is a liar.
Some in Brand’s online army say the women are making accusations against him, dismissing them as handmaidens of the “regime” who do The Man’s bidding for influence and money. It is never meant to be.
It simply means suspending judgment until all the evidence is presented and tested to the limit.
There is a reason why criminal trials are weighted in favor of the defendant and against the prosecution. Why should a defendant be presumed innocent, be able to remain silent, and be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the eyes of 12 ordinary men and women?
That’s because society values freedom very highly, and over time has decided that it is actually very difficult to suspend a person’s freedom, even if they are accused of a crime. it was done.
No one will appreciate this point, but it’s important. Russell Brand’s life should not be destroyed just because he was accused of criminal activity.
But while democracy skepticism is lacking in the ‘believe in women’ lobby, skepticism is distorted among brand supporters and wider ‘dissidents’.
The accusations against Brand were quickly dismissed by WEF’s zealots, the kind of people who can’t resist saying the word “fraud” for three minutes. It was an injustice, they cried. The globalists and MSM are out to get our boy.
Apparently, the brand’s journey from wide-boy comics to warriors against the “coronavirus narrative” has upset the establishment. So they are destroying him.
This is not skepticism either. It’s a conspiratorial fantasy. There is no evidence that globalist moguls or media figures sat down to plot the brand’s downfall. However, it does not hold true as a theory.
Many men, including men of all the “right” opinions, have been the subject of #MeToo-style accusations. Harvey Weinstein, mind you, was a full-fledged Democrat.
For those of us who are more interested in rationally evaluating society than crying on Twitter about the brand-bashing funders of the coronavirus regime, accusations against brands existed long before anyone made them. This seems to be very consistent with the current trend of criticism. You may have heard the term “new coronavirus infection (COVID-19).”
Instant belief is a problem, but instant disbelief is also a problem. In both cases, cynicism usurps skepticism. Cool, rational questions are sidelined by moral challenges.
For elite “believe in women” factions, momentary beliefs serve to reinforce self-serving narratives about male predation and female victimhood.
For cynics in the “anti-establishment” movement, the moment of disbelief serves as a reminder that no official narrative is trustworthy.
Mainstream media, politicians, and those who harm their heroes should never be trusted. Both sides elevate ideology over truth.
Both sides forget how important doubt is to a just and free society, how important honest, curious, proof-seeking doubt is.
Is the brand guilty? I don’t know.
And here’s the difficult part. That we would never do that.
Reprinted with permission from Spiked.
