Sorrow for the Victims

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I recall an observation from Thoreau that the more that people accept a concept or principle as valid, the less interested they become in its many applications.

That isn't exactly how he phrased it, but it is a truth that remains so today — and, I suspect, will always be true.

There is always a time when something that was previously considered unthinkable happens, and it is shocking — but the more it happens the less shocked we are.

It has become that way with terrorist attacks and mass shootings. And now, I fear, it is becoming that way with sexual abuse cases.

Sex scandals involving prominent people are not new, of course. Even in sleepy Central Arkansas, the buckle of the Bible Belt where I grew up, such a scandal reared its head when my district's longtime congressman was caught in a relationship with a stripper.

That kind of thing was shocking at the time even though it wasn't new.

And sexual abuse and harassment cases involving vulnerable young women and minors isn't new, either — but with such rapid–fire revelations focusing on more and more prominent people, one begins to develop a sort of numb acceptance. The response is that the point has been made.

For some reason that makes me think of a time when I worked on the copy desk at the old Arkansas Gazette. In a short period of time, there were two high–profile and extremely grim cases of fathers murdering their families — one of which occurred one dark, rainy night (really) in Little Rock. It was so dark and rainy that neighbors who happened to be up that late probably mistook the sound of gunshots for thunder.

Even if they had known what they were hearing, no one could have done anything to save the victims. The patriarch of the family shot his wife and daughters in their heads before turning the gun on himself.

The other murder case occurred around Christmas in a rural setting. The murders were carried out over several days as family members arrived to exchange gifts.

Those murder cases sent shock waves through all of Arkansas, but in hindsight the reaction would have become more muted if more fathers had flipped out and started killing themselves and their families.

I guess my overwhelming emotion is as it was then — one of great sadness for the victims — of whom there are many.

First and foremost, there are the children who have been scarred by people they probably trusted. We all have to grow up and face a sometimes ugly world, and we each do it in a different way. It is a bargain that is made, and it usually comes at a cost. The children in these cases were compelled to pay too high a price.

Yes, I feel very sad for them. But I don't know what can be done — except to try to be more courageous about speaking up when I think something is wrong. Still you can't legislate courage, can you?

And that leads me to a second group of victims — the rest of us.

As polarized as this country has become in recent years, there is little tolerance for those who deviate from what is expected at either extreme.

Or even those who insist on that old–fashioned concept of innocent until proven guilty.

I know that means evidence, and the problem with sexual abuse cases is that there are seldom witnesses. But witnesses aren't the only kind of evidence. In fact, accusations are not proof, no matter how many accusers there are.

Physical evidence is preferred. There may be some kind of trail or some sort of forensic evidence. Finding it probably requires a lot more work than most criminal cases but to obtain true justice, isn't it worth it?

As Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo said, "Justice, though due to the accused, is due to the accuser, too."

That still holds, doesn't it?

Judgment Day

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On this day 63 years ago, 21 Nazi leaders were found guilty of and sentenced for crimes against humanity.

In the years to come, the public wearied of the Nuremberg trials. It was the first tribunal, the one whose verdict was handed down on this day in 1946, that dealt with most of the surviving Nazi leaders — one was tried in absentia — and that was what mattered to most people. Subsequent trials dealt increasingly with those who plausibly could argue that they were following orders.

But with 21 convictions (there were a handful of acquittals), the public's desire to hold someone accountable for the Holocaust seems to have been satisfied.

It's all so clear in hindsight.

But I suspect that, if time travel was possible and any of us could return to the early 1930s, when Hitler seized power, we would find it difficult, if not impossible, to persuade the Germans of that time that they were anointing those whose acts would lead to the Holocaust.

Appearances can be deceiving.

That was the great deception of the Nazis — the "big lie" of which Hitler spoke. "The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one," Hitler said, "especially if it is repeated again and again."

I've heard it said that, because Barack Obama has a knack for public speaking, he is Hitleresque. Hitler, some rightfully say, seduced the German people with his oratorical talent. But to suggest that a president is carrying out an agenda similar to Hitler's because he has a way with words condemns any leader whose words inspire others.

Americans are still inspired by the words of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and, from more recent times, Ronald Reagan. And people of many nationalities were inspired by Pope John Paul II, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Can anyone say that any of those people advocated fascism?

There are those today who recklessly compare the Obama administration to the Nazi leadership. This must be an exaggeration, the most outlandish comparison those critics can think of because it has no basis in reality. It is as big a lie as any ever told by the Nazis themselves.

I agree that America has its faults. I agree that the president has made some mistakes in the first eight months of his term. Most presidents do make mistakes, frequently in their first year in office.

But no one who has studied Nazi Germany or Hitler to any extent could seriously compare the Germany of the 1930s and 1940s to America in 2009.

Yet that is what some people are doing today.

Obama's critics certainly have the right to disagree with him. And they have the right to say what they believe. In America, you are entitled to your own opinion — but, as I wrote the other day, you're not entitled to your own set of facts.

If anyone really believes that we are witnessing the rebirth of Nazism, that person has no idea what he/she is talking about.

On Blogging, Opinion and Anonymity

This morning, I have been reading about an interesting legal case involving a supposedly anonymous blogger in New York whose identity was revealed by the blog's host, Google.

The blogger had "posted rants" about a model at a blog titled "Skanks in NYC." The model, Liskula Cohen, didn't want the blogger's comments to remain on the internet for the rest of her life so she sued to get information about the blogger's identity, and a judge ordered Google to comply.

Google complied, and now the blogger says she will file a $15 million lawsuit against Google for not protecting her identity.

"The judge rejected [her] argument that blogs on the Internet 'serve as a modern–day forum for conveying personal opinions' and should not be regarded as fact," reports Stephen Samaniego for CNN.com.

Samaniego says legal experts believe the blogger is not likely to win the suit.

It reminds me of an online discussion I had with another blogger a few months ago.

This blogger had written about a murder case in which a child went missing and her body was later discovered in a suitcase. The church the child attended — and the home of the church's pastor — were investigated by the police. No one in authority had accused the pastor of anything, but his grandchild was about the same age as the murdered child and it turned out they had been playmates. The victim lived near the church and the pastor's home. That made them locations of interest.

When I was a general assignment reporter, one of my beats was the police beat. Based on my experience, it sounded — to me — as if the police in this case were leaving no stone unturned. I think most of us would agree that is the kind of diligence we would want from the police if someone we loved — particularly a child — met with foul play.

But the blogger made a remark in her report that was along the lines of "It's hard to imagine a pastor being involved in something like this, but ..."

That struck me as being sort of a non–accusation accusation, and I made the comment that, if the police investigation revealed a more likely suspect, the pastor might feel inclined to sue anyone who had implied that he might have been involved.

The blogger got defensive and responded that she had been stating her opinion. "That's what we do here," she said.

I replied that I understood what she was saying, but I also majored in journalism in college and, as a result, I know a little about communications law. I'm not a lawyer, but I know enough about the law to know a civil proceeding and a criminal proceeding are two different things.

In both instances, the burden of proof falls to the one bringing the charges. But the proof need not be as compelling in a civil case as it needs to be in a criminal case.

Remember the O.J. Simpson murder case? In the criminal case, Simpson was acquitted of murder charges because, in the jury's eyes, the prosecution did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. When the families of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman brought Simpson into court for the civil case, the prosecution did not have to meet that standard. It also did not need a unanimous jury verdict. There were a few dissenting votes, but there were enough votes supporting the prosecution that Simpson lost and was ordered to pay millions of dollars to the plaintiffs.

Communications law has been evolving for hundreds of years. It has adapted when new forms of communication have emerged, but the principles have remained constant.

Many bloggers believe — erroneously — that anonymity is guaranteed on the internet and that their statements can be defended as opinion.

Anonymity is not guaranteed. If a blogger writes something that is considered pertinent to a legal investigation, the provider of the blog space is likely to side with authorities, as Google did, and produce whatever information it can. Bloggers who sign up with Google only have to give an e–mail address, but if law enforcement is seeking information, a blog space povider may well do as Google did and turn over that address to the authorities and let them track down the blogger.

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"Google does comply with valid legal processes, such as court orders and subpoenas, and these same processes apply to all law–abiding companies. At the same time, we have a legal team whose job is to scrutinize these requests and make sure they meet not only the letter but the spirit of the law."

Google statement

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As for bloggers who believe that opinion is a defense, I would remind you that the judge in New York rejected that argument.

Laws vary from state to state, jurisdiction to jurisdiction. And communications law is still emerging in the virtual world.

But, until these laws have fully emerged, the best advice I can give to bloggers would be:

• If those conducting an investigation have charged someone with a crime, that is when it is appropriate to begin forming an opinion. Until such a charge has been filed, though, any such "opinions" can be viewed as speculation.
  
  That could leave you vulnerable to a lawsuit. And even defending yourself in a lawsuit can be very expensive. It can be even more costly if you lose. How costly? It depends on the jury.


• Just because you have an opinion about someone or something does not mean you must express it.

The Day After Christmas

It almost seems traditional for people to reflect on some of the lesser-known attributes of the Christmas season the day after the big day.

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd observes that "When consumerism curdles, it’s tempting to become an emotional Marxist about Christmas. Not Karl. Groucho."

When Groucho Marx and Christmas are mentioned in the same breath, you know you're in for something.

Actually, it was kind of a sneaky way to work in Caroline Kennedy's book, "A Family Christmas," a collection of all sorts of holiday stories, poems, songs, etc., into the column.

Ms. Kennedy says the book continued her mother's holiday tradition. Jackie Kennedy wrote holiday poems for her mother, and Ms. Kennedy and her brother wrote holiday poems for Jackie.

Dowd remarks that she found a 1953 letter from Groucho to Fred Allen in Kennedy's book, and she goes on to speculate that just about everyone would have a holiday tale to contribute to the book.

Her story, Dowd said, would be about Trigger, "one of those wooden horses that bounced on springs." It was a gift she received as a little girl, one that she clearly treasured.

But one day, Dowd says, she awoke to find the horse was gone. Her mother, who experienced the loss of her father at the age of 12, had been touched by the sight of a young boy who "stared longingly at the horse" when he and his mother passed the house. Dowd's mother gave the horse to the child.

It took several years for Dowd to learn what her mother's generous gesture really meant.

"Her lesson was lovely: that materialism and narcissism can only smother life -- and Christmas -- if you let them," Dowd writes.

It's a lesson we would do well to remember, even if Christmas has come and gone.