Bill Cosby - Is it true???

My take is not that he is innocent; but rather that he has not been found guilty of any crime. There is a difference. I think it's a any reasonable person couldn't help but conclude that he's a sexual predator.

 

That's fair. I think I am pretty much in the same space.

 

I'm very angry with Bill Cosby. Someone as clever, apparently wise, witty and caring has been shown to have a perverted wish to rape women. Let's be honest--BILL COSBY NEVER NEEDED TO DRUG WOMEN TO HAVE SEX WITH THEM! Men like him have ready and willing fans everywhere...women who would cheerfully have jumped into bed with him.

No...he has a need to rape/molest/feel powerful far beyond what any ''normal'' man would feel.

Interesting that a few men who worked with him (Jimmy Walker is the first who comes to mind) said they didn't know about the drugs but that his womanizing was an open secret.

I wonder about his wife.....

 

If some of the monologues on his old comedy albums are correct, she was (is?) a devout Catholic. Of course that might or might not have anything to do with what she knew, didn't know, was willing to tolerate, her thoughts regarding divorce, etc.

I'm frequently amazed at how many wives used to, maybe still do, follow the "Men do those things" mentality.

 

And it continues....

Two more women accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault - CBS News

 

Maybe now we'll get some facts instead of all this rampant speculation; and if he's guilty; he can go to prison, as he should.

 

Bill "Qualude" Cosby filed a suit against seven of his accusers. I'm not an attorney, but that seems like a really stupid thing to do because of what could be revealed in court (if the suit ever reaches that stage).

Bill Cosby Sues Seven Sexual Assault Accusers for Defamation - NBC News

 

its so wrong but I couldn't resist

 

This ^ is worth a repeat.

 

Am I crazy for thinking at least one of his accusers was been proven to be lying? I'd him proving just one of them is a liar does nothing but help his case. His lawyers are already stating they have evidence of Goins lying.

 

I have no doubt that some of his accusers are outright lying and some are exaggerating. The potential damage, namely dragging everything back out before the public eye, could far outweigh the potential good, IMO. Even he proves that seven of the women lied, what does that say about the accusers he didn't name in the suit? If he won, it would be a small victory at a very large price.

 

What would it matter if one of his accusers lied? At this point, there's dozens of women accusing him. He himself has admitted fondling various unconscious women (all long ago, well past the statute of limitations). There have been Hollywood folks coming out of the woodwork to admit that it was well-known that Bill Cosby was a womanizer and fond of what used to be called "the ol' Mickey Finn."

I think it is one of the significant problems with the way that American society approaches rape cases: we tend to go in aggressively doubting the word of the victim; presuming that if a victim lies or prevaricates about something else in her life, that will somehow make her account of the rape less truthful; presuming that if one victim of a rapist lied, that somehow makes the accounts of other victims less truthful; and so on. And no doubt all the more so when the apparent rapist is a major celebrity.

It seems likely to the point of certainty that Bill Cosby was a serial drugger, fondler, assaulter, and raper of women for decades. If, among his many victims, there are to be found one or two opportunists with false or exaggerated stories, that should have zero relevance to the presumed veracity of the other victims.

I'm not certain whether our willingness to dismiss or diminish the claims of all these victims based on the possible falsehood of one is a knee-jerk sexism impulsively presuming male reliability and female unreliability; or one of knee-jerk favoritism of someone wealthy and powerful; or knee-jerk favoritism of a popular celebrity long viewed as (successively) unthreateningly funny, unthreateningly cool, avuncular, fatherly, leaderly; the reluctance of African-Americans to accept that one of their first major media superstars is a predator, or the reluctance of white Americans to condemn one of the first major African-American media superstars, and thus potentially be perceived as racist; or some combination of all the above.

 

I don't disagree, but I will say that he's as entitled to the presumption of innocence and the standards of evidence as anyone else. But we also have allowed our legal system to evolve into something that favors the wealthy.

If guilty, he should be punished. It is good that there is more awareness of the issue of consent than there was when he was victimizing these people.

 

None of those are particularly original arguments, in fact they've been around for a century or two... particularly down here in the deep south.

Refusing to assume someone is guilty rather than innocent isn't sexism, it's learning from history. The only sexism and racism here is from the people trying to resurrect the lynch mob.

Where's Amy Schumer's trial for admitting to being a rapist? Where's Lena Dunham's trial for admitting to making false rape claims and child molestation? Curious that only men, and in particular black men, seem to face the oh-so-concerned public's wrath. This isn't about justice. It's just another modern day lynch mob.

 

I think it is verging on the absurd to compare Bill Cosby being outed as a sex offender to a lynching.

I am not suggesting, nor is, I think, anyone rational suggesting, that he be sentenced to anything without due process. Presumption of guilt or innocent is a legal presumption, a presumption by the government and judiciary. It was never intended to be, nor can it reasonably be construed to be a legislation mandating common opinion. Of course the system should presume Cosby innocent until proven guilty, that's not even a question.

But I, and most other people, are not the system. We're just citizen bystanders who happen to have our own opinions-- opinions which, thank God, have no force of law or merit as testimony.

It sure as hell looks to me like Bill Cosby's a sex offender. It could always be a massive conjunction of hoaxes, lies, and frame-ups. But after a certain point, one has to really wonder what is more likely: that a guy drugged and molested a bunch of women over the years, or that scads of random and otherwise unconnected women could all get together to frame one celebrity. What would be the benefit to them? Money? There are a lot of richer celebrities out there. Fame? Are there really that sizeable a number of people who wish to be famous as a rape victim? Racism? There are bigger black celebrities, and in any case, how likely is it that thirty-odd women (a number of whom are black) all harbor racist enmity toward Bill Cosby?

Also, FWIW, Amy Schumer did not admit to being a rapist. In a serio-comedic speech, she described accepting the advances of a completely drunken guy in college at a low point in her self-esteem, and when said drunken guy failed to actually have sex with her, and instead passed out, it was her point of realizing she wanted something better for herself, romantically and sexually. Her characterization as a potential rapist comes from a couple of douchey anti-feminist sites-- it has no merit. While I have no particular liking for Lena Dunham, much the same is true about characterizing her as a maker of false rape claims: she assigned a pseudonym to her rapist when she wrote her memoirs, and her error lay in not clarifying that it was a pseudonym. Again, some anti-feminist site dug up a guy with that name who attended her university at the same time she did, who roughly fit the description she gave, and he had never even met her before, so the anti-fems trumpeted that she was a liar. She apologized to the guy, clarified that he had not done anything to her, and that he was not the guy she was referring to in the book, to whom she had assigned the name randomly as a pseudonym.

If there were thirty-odd guys who came out of the woodwork and said that a certain female celebrity drugged them and fondled them or had sex with them while they were unconscious; and numerous people acquainted with that celebrity over the years acknowledged that she was kind of known for drugging and messing around with guys on the sly; and said female celebrity actually admitted to drugging and fondling several men, under the presumption that their silence was acquiescence; then I would presume that female celebrity was a serial sex offender, and that she should be arrested and tried, and, if found guilty, tossed in the clink for a goodly chunk of time.

 

I think that Cosby's respectability and status have actually protected from being "lynched," at least in the sense of news media feeding frenzy, and with the public in general.

The number of people--social leaders, politicians, etc--who have commented has been relatively small compared to the number who could've commented. And their comments have for the most part have guarded, very much "we don't have all the facts yet."

With the exception of the bottom feeders involved in Entertainment "News," I feel that Cosby was spared much of the negative attention that might have heaped on a less respected celebrity. The mainstream news media were relatively quiet until the number of women stepping forward made the charges seem likely to be true. Cosby is certainly receiving a lot of attention now, but I think that it could be much worse, a total feeding frenzy.