Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Well, Bill Cosby’s career is basically over. I understand he’s got an NBC deal coming up, but I suspect that’ll get canceled quickly. I think at this point he’s likely going to disappear and die quietly a few years from now. That’s a pity, because he’s a genuinely funny man, and I have fond memories of his performances when I was growing up.

Of course that was all before we knew he is basically an evil rapist.

Or so the world has decided. There’s no actual evidence, there are no charges filed, there is no confession. But clearly he’s guilty as sin, right? He has to be, because…well, he just is!

I have no idea if the allegations against him are true or not. They “feel” like they could be, but, to be fair, he is also a very famous, very rich man, and I’m sure it’s entirely possible one, some, or all the allegations could be being made by attention-/money-seekers who want a slice of the Cosby pie.

But even if he actually did do what he’s accused of, he hasn’t had his day in court. Part of that is because many of the allegations were made long ago, and the statue of limitations has expired (and despite what some people seem to think, no, it shouldn’t be extended for sex crimes. Sex crimes aren’t special. Crime is crime), and in other cases, as mentioned in the article I linked to above, there isn’t any evidence beyond, “She said, he said”.

So how should we react to these allegations? We should ignore them. Until there is something of real substance (charges filed, a confession, etc), all we have are a handful of people saying something bad happened while the accused says nothing. There isn’t anything there we should be reacting to.

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