Perhaps then you can explain the fundamental differences between the arguments that have been presented against MJ and the examples I presented in my post? Owning a perfectly legal book with odd pictures of nude children in it within a huge library including much more adult oriented pornography? Admitting to sleeping with children, but not having sex with them? A joy in the friendship of children and in elements of childhood? And I already described how many wealthy people and institutions settle suits out of court to avoid the financial and public relations costs of a court case.
I have never argued that MJ's behavior toward children was not crossing a line that most people would be hesitate to even approach, and I posted many times that I believe that MJ's behavior toward children (and in general) was very odd, strange, and frequently creepy (even when compared to most other celebrities and very wealthy people, who often establish new standards in this regard). My entire point has never been to justify MJ's behavior as "normal" or as fitting fully within how most people behave. Instead my point has been to show how elements of even normal people's lives can be extracted out of context, distorted, and selectively cited through bad journalism and greedy people to try to justify a horrible accusation that is, ultimately, lacking true proof.
I'll simplify it further- I am not saying that MJ actions were no more odd than taking out a niece for a movie, sleeping with one's brother at age 10, or owning a copy of a photo of one's kid in a bath at age 1. Clearly MJ's behavior was fully in the weird, not normal, category. But did he actually molest children? No, according to the court case. Was he a pedophile in his head? The facts appear mainly to indicate that he had very unusual and strange ways of interacting with children, and I have no way of knowing if a sexualized interest in children was part of this. But I do I see the evidence that has come to light as not anywhere close to being convincing that such a sexual interest was involved.
To answer the first question - yes, I can explain the fundamental differences. I really have already done so earlier in the thread; but I can do it again within the context of this particular phrasing.
Even though you are willing to acknowledge the fact that they are abnormal, you yet continue to mischaracterize those relevant actions of Jackson's. As strange as they may be, you imply, it is still just as arbitrary to say that for instance Jackson's inviting children over to sleepovers may be indicative of pedophilia as it would be to say that your owning a number of mystery novels is indicative of an interest in committing murder. The problem is, ultimately this simply is not true. People aren't observing "Jackson did this weird thing, and it was something something had to do with kids, so he was probably a pedophile". The reason people look at Jackson's behaviors and come to the conclusion he may be a pedophile is because those are behaviors of a type that it is
well-established is common to non-violent pedophiles.
I've already in an earlier post described the striking parallels between Jackson's activities and Jerry Sandusky's. And, it's important to note, there was nothing all that different about Sandusky compared to other known pedophiles, with perhaps the exception that his fame made his job easy - a trait Jackson would've shared, if he was a pedophile.
It might sound counterintuitive to some, but despite how others may feel I actually don't find the two books with the nude photographs in them Jackson owned to be the thing most suggestive to me of Jackson's pedophilia, the "heaviest weight on the scale" to continue the analogy I used earlier. There are at least two other "heavier weights" to me; the first and heaviest being that Jackson had a "type", and the second being his compulsion for physical touch.
By "type", I mean a preference. In Jerry Sandusky's case, his at-risk youth charity put him into frequent contact with many different kinds of children. Yet of all of them, Sandusky would select certain ones to develop a "more close" relationship with - always boys, and always of a certain age; to wit: just a couple of years before puberty might be expected to start. Jackson's ranch likewise was open to children of every kind, and his charities benefited children indiscriminately; and yet the families he selected to become closer "friends" with tended to have the same thing in common - a boy, of pre-teen age. Jackson was friendly toward and did things with the entire family of course, but the special bedroom-invitations were only ever offered to these boys. To be clear, although Sandusky's and Jackson's apparent "type" was the same, it's not the particular type that I find important, but the fact that there is one at all. If Jackson's little sleepovers had been a scattershot mix of boys and girls, ages toddler-through-teen - if there wasn't this persistently common thread - there would be less of an argument to be made here; but that simply wasn't the case. Jackson had access to children of every configuration and could've just as easily pursued special close friendships with absolutely any of them he wanted, but he exclusively initiated these relationships with pre-teenage boys and it's difficult to come up with a credible reason for this preference outside of an attraction.
As an aside, more important factors like this one, help put others into focus. The books Jackson owned that had pictures of nude pre-teen boys in them - wholly inconclusive alone and devoid of context, perhaps not even worthy of notice; they're art-books after all, surely many people own them. But add the fact that there's other, completely separate reasons to believe Michael Jackson had an attraction or some other preference for pre-teen boys, and fact he owned books with nude photographs of children of that particular type becomes a little more curious. The probably calculus substantially shifts a little further away from "completely random books he happened to pick up somewhere" and a little more toward "quite possibly sought this material out specifically". The books themselves are legal and not considered pornographic when looked at objectively; but it can hardly be disputed that they are the closest thing to pornography that someone with an attraction to pre-teen boys can easily and legally obtain, and would serve the purpose just as well.
So to reiterate, we're not talking about taking Jackson's weirdness, attaching undue significance to the fact that it so happened to involve children, and weaving an arbitrary suggestion of pedophilia out of that. Jackson's behaviors were far outside the norm but they are not unprecedented - they are consistent with the known selection and grooming behaviors of known pedophiles. There are certainly differences of scale - obviously most pedophiles do not have Jackson's money, resources, fame, the ability to create such wide and unrestricted access to a target pool, and so forth; but the MO nevertheless remains the same within the respective capabilities of the individual offender, and it is interesting how when offenders did have the advantage of resources or fame, as in Sandusky's case, they have often used them in nearly identical ways.
And, it needs to be added, neither are we talking about a "Hitler breathed oxygen" situation where we're taking random and irrelevant things that statistically happen to be common among pedophiles and saying that "Michael Jackson being a fan of Star Trek
* is highly suspicious". The behaviors that Jackson happens to have in common with other,
known pedophiles also happen to be behaviors that directly help them to select their victims, establish and gain trust, acclimate their victims to non-standard and/or inappropriate adult/child interaction, and ultimately facilitate or otherwise serve any abuse that happens.
Now in contrast to this precedent, people who insist that Jackson's behaviors are most likely to be completely innocent, have very little in the way of precedent to support that assertion beyond of course the fact that it's a simple logical truth that they could be innocent. It's hard to find an example of another man with a completely innocent habit of taking various other people's children into his bed to point to and say "see, it can happen". Walt Disney built an amusement park designed mostly to cater to children and families, that's about as close as I can get - but the park was an expansion of his cartoon animation studio, he didn't build it in his backyard, he ran it strictly as a business, and he didn't single out and invite special lucky young guests to come up to his bedroom and see his Mickey Mouse etchings.
One last thing - I say "last", although it's something I fully expect to have to say again and again - you say, "But did he actually molest children? No, according to the court case." This is wrong; it's a mischaracterization of the trial that you and nearly everyone here continue to persist with.
Michael Jackson went on trial
one time, for molesting
one child. The jury exonerated him of that
one (albeit multifaceted) accusation. He was not absolved of "molesting children"; he was not found innocent/not guilty of ever having molested any child at any time. This should go without saying; in fact it wouldn't even be worth mentioning if people here did not continue to treat the trial's outcome as an effective rebuttal of every accusation ever made against him. It wasn't. The jury's rejection of the criminal charges against Jackson for molesting that
one child don't even constitute a rejection of the other claims made during the course of the same trial about other instances of abuse for which Jackson was not charged; and nor do they indicate whether or not the jury believed Jackson was a pedophile - they may have easily believed he was and still decided the case that he molested this particular child was nonexistent. So we really ought to dispense with that nonsense right now. I don't think anybody has really made a claim in this thread that actually contradicts the trial verdict, so that it keeps having to be invoked as some kind of rebuttal of the arguments being made. I certainly haven't, at least.
