Liberals felt vindicated when the rumor went around about Cosby that he’d confessed. Now they feel vindicated that he’s being charged in Philly. What they don’t understand is that none of this is a good reason to trample the rights of an accused person before they have been given a fair trial.
For months, radical liberals have been doing everything they can to bury actor, comedian, Bill Cosby. It’s has been well over a year since the most recent spate of rape allegations against Cosby were made public and it was well before anything even remotely similar to conclusive evidence was even suggested that left leaning media and commentators put up a fairly impassable wall of shame around him.
Most disturbing is the fact that Cosby had received nearly complete public condemnation before anything other than accusations had been recorded. There was no evidence of rape, and Cosby maintained his innocence. Despite this, the majority of news sources responsible for reporting on the case were more than happy to condemn him in spite of the fact that zero factual evidence had been brought to the table.
The smear campaign was so fast, so broad, sweeping and effective that even commentators who said that they could not say whether or not Cosby was guilty due to lack of evidence were shamed as woman-hating misogynists. They equated “Cosby Defenders” with “Rape supporters,” using all-caps like unbalanced Facebook users and they got away with it.
But how does a vast cross-section of the mainstream media get away with this kind of behavior in a country where individual freedom and the right to a fair trial is enshrined in the founding document that we all claim to cherish?
The fact is that this kind of anti-male, anti-reason, identity-based politics has been nurtured in American universities for decades. We see it in the Rolling Stone Duke University rape case wherein the investigators who pursued the allegations say that the accusations of rape were not just unfounded but could be proved wrong conclusively. We see it at colleges across the country where conservative speakers have their talks subjected to violent protests, where reporters are shoved out by disingenuous mobs as happened at the University of Missouri just a few months ago.
Salon Magazine, the once respected trumpet of classical liberalism, (read modern libertarianism), posted an article in November of 2014 under the headline “3 Reasons Cosby Defenders Should be Ashamed.” In it, writer Chris Ostendorf leans in saying “It’s not a great time to be a Bill Cosby fan.” He goes on to list- (a shameless click-bait search engine optimization tactic) reasons people who are not convinced of Cosby’s guilt are not worthy of their right to freedom of speech. The article spends most of its time pointing fingers at the worst cases, where someone said something unpleasant and then went on to equate all so-called Cosby defenders with those people.
That is a classic radical leftist tactic straight out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. You begin by finding the ugliest person who even remotely resembles your opponent, then you somehow claim that the two are the same- and bam! You have yourself a straw man. That fell under item 1. on his list entitled, Consent is consent is consent. Which means exactly nothing. I could just as easily say Due process is Due process is Due process.
The second item listed was called, Just because it happened a long time ago, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, which is a rebuttal to an argument no one serious is making. I honestly think that these people are arguing in retrospect with people they overheard at a honky tonk bar.
The last item listed is Victim blaming won’t fly in Cosby’s case. This is just another diversion, and it places people who are concerned about women’s ability to defend themselves from sexual assault in the same pen with those who say that victims are to blame for their assaults. You can call it a false equivocation, or a straw man fallacy, or just downright dishonest.
The argument that no one has been allowed to make over all the burning torches and shouting is that because we do not know for sure whether or not Bill Cosby is guilty, it is wrong and irresponsible to treat him as if he is.
Now that there appears to be at least one confession on the books, and Cosby has been charged with sexual assault in a Philadelphia court, it appears dark days are on their way for the beloved comedian. Unfortunately, this will make it even less likely that liberals will ever learn the lesson that equal protection under the law is not just a formative American value, but a principle human right, as well as a Constitutional guarantee.
