Yes, the system is broken. That's why they're coming out publicly with it because the system doesn't work. You can say "Things should be changed" but this has been an issue for decades at minimum, and it hasn't changed. Telling these women to stop coming out like this because its "wrongheaded" and "tyrannical" is still missing the point. He will literally never be proven guilty for this with the way the system works. Do you think that makes him innocent?
These women are absolutely entitled to keep "coming out like this", the movement of people coming forward is absolutely a positive thing - I'm not sure how you inferred from my post that I might have thought otherwise. I would personally hope that it will continue to bring about seismic change and discussion.
I only had an instinct to comment on this thread at all when I read people saying that allegations should automatically be treated as true. I profoundly disagree with that. I think Franco
appears to be guilty as sin, his body language is telling, the common thread of allegations is telling, and people can treat him accordingly - but in the eyes of the law, I do believe he's allowed the presumption of innocence.
It is certainly true that men in position of power are harder to prosecute. It is hard for them to be challenged. It is too easy for them to exploit their position. It can be a challenging predicament to be faced with requiring a burden of proof in the face of horrifying injustice. I don't believe we need to treat all allegations as true in order to convict these people - we merely need to entertain the possibility that they
might be true and then encourage others to come forward. People can be convicted based on circumstantial evidence and based on a high probability of guilt - the United States has the most highly populated industrial prison complex in the world - when the political will exists to imprison people, they will be imprisoned. They just aren't in many cases, either because the cases are never brought at all or because people lack the means to prosecute them. It should be a matter of national, social conscience to allow people to prosecute this sort of crime. We should encourage corporate social responsibility in the organisations that employ the accused. We should be punishing people who help cover-up these things, in some cases, even to go so far as to consider them complicit in the acts themselves. But in so far as life and liberty are affected, the principle of how the law should be applied - should people come to be judged by a jury of their peers - it should be consistent. If the law is wrong or lacking, it should be improved upon.
I'm not saying don't personally judge Franco as guilty - on the weight of the things I've seen and read myself - I consider that he probably is. I'm just saying that it
is tyrannical to demand a change in how actual law is applied, based on the circumstance, purely because the system has failed people thus far. "Believe women" is true to me to the extent that their claims should be acted upon in 100% good faith, and treated as potential victims. The alleged perpetrators should be treated as exactly that. I don't believe it fair or rational to mean that I should automatically believe everything everyone says. Statistical failings are not a convincing argument to wilfully dispense with the pursuit of truth and engage in potential miscarriages of justice.
The instruments required to remedy undesirable behaviour in law either exist, or can be created, without compromising the legal rationale (things like habeas corpus, presumption of innocence etc) that have guided us - albeit imperfectly - as far back as the Roman Empire.
