Last week, Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, suggested that even innocent students should be booted from campus if they were accused of sexual assault. According to Polis: "If there are 10 people who have been accused, and under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, it seems better to get rid of all 10 people."Liberals, is it really worth it to you to disregard some of the greatest advancements in law in human history--due process, trial by a jury of your peers, innocent until proven guilty--just to score a few short-term political points?
So one of the longstanding traditions of American law — that it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent — has now been turned on its head. Under the Polis standard, it’s basically the other way around.
According to Polis, it’s not such a big deal: "We’re not talking depriving them of life and liberty, we’re talking about their transfer to another university, for crying out loud," Polis said, laughing off the idea that his suggestion would violate due process rights. He is not alone in taking the due process rights of the accused lightly, a widely-backed Democratic senate bill is just more circumspect.
Who will protect you when they come for you?
From "A Man for All Seasons":
ReplyDeleteRoper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
I think that Thomas More used to be the good guy and/or hero here and Roper not.
Kinda like Atticus Finch was a good guy in "To Kill a Mockingbird" even though he disbelieved a rape claim.
Things have changed since the 1950s/60s for those who self identify as "liberal."
-Mark Roulo
Darren, here's my problem. For an innocent college student to be expelled is a travesty. No doubt about it. But you seem to have no problem at all with an innocent teacher being fired simply because someone accused him of impropriety without any evidence of actual guilt. When are you going to stop attacking teacher's unions simply because they ask that an accused teacher have a hearing before being fired?
ReplyDeleteYou're *nuts*. I challenge you to find *any* evidence wherein I have advocated what you have accused me of.
ReplyDeleteI don't object to due process. In fact, you'll find I'm quite the fan of it. What I object to is what I call *un*due process and the protection of teachers simply because they're dues-paying members--while at the same time trying to wrap ourselves in the mantle of "children are our special interest".
Due process. Not *un*due process. Is that so unreasonable? Should it *really* take 4 years to fire a teacher?
Due process rights exist because teacher's unions ask for them. Administrators would never be willing to go to the trouble and expense of giving an innocent teacher a hearing. You are a smart man who is right about so many things, but you are naive to think that administrators would give teachers due process rights simply out of the goodness of their hearts.
ReplyDeleteI don't object to due process.
ReplyDeleteTo the previous Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteDue process should involve "a speedy and public trial".