Screw you, Richard Cohen

Sometimes I feel like, when looking at a particular issue, trying to figure out what you think about it, there's a tendency to react to what's right in front of you. Maybe it's a product of 24-hour news culture, I don't know. But the 'net is full of it. This person wrote this. This person said this on "The View," and here's what I think about it right this second. It seems like our discourse has become distressingly context-free.

Which is why I think The Washington Post's Richard Cohen, in his post this week entitled "Thank you, Switzerland, for freeing Polanski," which begins with the line "The Swiss got it right," is full of it. Shit, that is, not context.

Roman Polanski is a film genius, blah blah blah. He pled guilty to unlawful sexual conduct before I was born, blah blah blah, and then fled the U.S. on the eve on his sentencing. Polanski's supporters point out that the judge in the case was most likely going to throw out the plea agreement and send Polanski to prison (judges aren't bound by plea deals, by the way), and that this was motivated by the judge's desire for publicity. And, yes, the now adult that Polanski admitted to drugging and repeatedly raping when she was 13 has said that she doesn't care if he's ever imprisoned.

Cohen recaps all of that. But I don't particularly care.

I have very little regard for the argument that the U.S.'s belated attempt to extradict Polanski is some sort of miscarriage of justice. Because here's that context I was talking about:

1 - There are people in the legal system who think that serving 40 days in a psych ward is a suitable max sentence for drugging and raping a 13 year old girl.

2 - Most rapists won't even be made to serve that much time.

THAT is the miscarriage of justice, you asshat Cohen and Polanski's various celebrity apologists. RAINN estimates that there are 17.7 million female and 2.78 million male victims of rape or sexual assault in the U.S. Two-thirds of rapes were committed by someone the victim knew. Only six percent of them will ever go to jail. SIX PERCENT! Meaning that 94 percent of rapists are still walking free. Most of them don't live in Swiss chalets or have Polanski's army of apologists, but they're still walking free.

Most victims of sexual assault and rape accept that our attackers won't face legal punishment for various reasons. But the very least we ask as that those of you who - no offense - really don't know what you're talking about stop frakking intellectualizing this deeply traumatic thing that happened to us. If you don't have the perspective to understand this, the best thing you can do is not talk right now.