Official - Michael Jackson was scum

[Jrrarglblarg]

I don't know about that. I mean, Michael Jackson didn't last too long after his supply of Boyz was cut off.

Fallacy Birdwatching Question for the audience: is this a No True Scotsman? It almost seems like goalpost shifting, and it's certainly a non sequitur. But is it a NTS?

 

[Babbylonian]

I don't think there's any doubt that Jackson was a pedophile.

While I'm in the "probably" camp, I don't think there's enough solid evidence that there can be no doubt at all.

The evidence that I've seen indicates that he liked being around little boys, and given what's been said/revealed about his childhood (and the childhood of his siblings) it could have simply been that he wanted to use his wealth and status to offer fun childhood experiences to children and share in them. At least some of the parents of these kids made the decision to try to take advantage of his "weirdness" and get money out of him - not a surprising outcome because there are bad people in the world - followed naturally by secondary opportunists who wanted to take advantage of the perception that "where there's smoke, there's fire."

Again, that's not to say that he never did anything wrong with a child, but anyone who is certain that he was a pedophile isn't being a skeptic.

 

[Checkmite]

IIRC, the civil case insurance was not even insurance he bought for himself but was part of his contracts with his record/film/entertainment companies.

I'll have to see some definitive evidence of that. IANAL (obviously), but I've never heard of an insurance policy that say a record company can get on a person, that pays out for any damage resulting from actions or crimes committed by that person. Nor have I ever heard of an insurance policy that exists to pay out literally anything for any reason at the whim and direction of the policy holder. It sounds far more likely to me that the insurance company which paid out in this case would've been the company that insured the Neverland Ranch against claims of bodily injury (which sexual molestation legally counts as for the purpose of insurance settlements in policies that don't explicitly have clauses about sexual abuse, at least that's my understanding).

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I don't think anyone could argue that it was a bad case, and if I had been a Juror, then I would not have voted to convict and would have been quite upset at the State's evidence and witnesses. Nevertheless, I believe Jackson was a Pedophile...Big Time.

Check my sig bro. Check my sig.

 

[Pup]

While I'm in the "probably" camp, I don't think there's enough solid evidence that there can be no doubt at all.

The evidence that I've seen indicates that he liked being around little boys, and given what's been said/revealed about his childhood (and the childhood of his siblings) it could have simply been that he wanted to use his wealth and status to offer fun childhood experiences to children and share in them.
[snip]
Again, that's not to say that he never did anything wrong with a child, but anyone who is certain that he was a pedophile isn't being a skeptic.

You caught my use of "pedophile" to mean someone who gets sexual feelings from boys, not necessarily someone who acts on those feelings, right?

He had a gender preference. He liked little boys, not particularly little girls, to the point that the preference was noticeable. One could say, well, he was a little boy and so saw himself in them. But he didn't limit the children in other ways that resembled him. That makes me lean toward "pedophile."

Society doesn't really have a category for someone who can honestly say, without feeling any sexual overtones:

Jackson: "We're going to sleep, I tuck them in and I put a little like, er, music on
and when it's story time I read a book. We go to sleep with the fireplace on. I give them hot milk, you know, we have cookies, it's very charming, it's very sweet, it's what the whole world should do ?"

If a person claimed there was nothing sexual but didn't want to be hooked up to instruments for study, I don't know how one could produce evidence the person really had no sexual feelings from the experience. I don't know how one could provide evidence they did, either, as long as they didn't act on it. Society doesn't make allowance for non-pedophiles to do such things with other people's children.

I don't know if that's a failing of society, or whether it's a sign that only pedophiles find the risk worth it in our current society, but I lean toward the latter. Even if they take no action that would be illegal.

 

[Babbylonian]

You caught my use of "pedophile" to mean someone who gets sexual feelings from boys, not necessarily someone who acts on those feelings, right?

In the absence of an admission of those feelings, hard evidence that he indulged such feelings, or, as you mention, scientific proof of them, I don't think one can be certain that he was a pedophile. I suppose one could feel certain of it but that's not a feeling for which I have much respect.

ETA: In other words, yes, I understand the distinction you're making. I just don't think it's meaningful unless you can produce convincing evidence.

 

[Fudbucker]

Adults allowing children to sleep with them has been happening since we all lived in caves. It is a little odd, when the child isn't related, but I've been in enough foster homes to know it happens -and sometimes the children are preteens.

I can imagine that ranch was a wild place for a kid to be. Wild like a circus -the same parade of adventure and wonderment and luxury that is breathtaking during the day can become the source of anxiety and stress at night.

In a house that huge, I can imagine a small child thinking anything might be living there, hiding in the closets or camping in the basements. I'm not at all surprised if more than one decided to go find an adult -MJ or anyone else- to sleep with.

We all like to pretend that because our own children sleep in our own homes and only crawl into bed with us, that anything outside those norms is weird and evil, but in fact, it happens all the time. It just doesn't usually make the damn news.

I just threw up a little.

 

[marplots]

I just threw up a little.

The priest from Harold and Maude...

 

[Fudbucker]

Some of you must have been rabid Jackson fans. Grown men who sleep with little boys are to be avoided at all costs.

"Jackson raised eyebrows when he said in the Bashir documentary that he has allowed other people's children to sleep in his bed at Neverland.

"Why can't you share your bed?" Jackson said in the documentary, which aired in February on ABCNEWS' 20/20. "The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone."

He insisted the practice was innocent and involved nothing of a sexual nature. "I give them hot milk, you know, we have cookies. It's very charming. It's very sweet. It's what the whole world should do."
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116601&page=1

I'm sure some of the skeptics here would have no problem letting their 12 year son sleep with a grown man, am I right?

And what's better after a night frolicking under the covers with MJ than a trip to his special triple-locked closet of adventure!

 

[Fudbucker]

The priest from Harold and Maude...

LMAO! I'll have to rewatch Harold and Maude.

 

[Fudbucker]

Civil cases aren't about Justice, and as noted previously, which you took no notice of, he didn't settle, and didn't want to settle, his insurance company did.

Sure they are. That's what suing someone is all about: you did something bad to me and now you're going to pay. When OJ got off, Goldman hauled his ass into civil court and won.

 

[Marcus]

Here's a place to start:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-thomson/one-of-the-most-shameful_b_610258.html

Thanks for posting this, it's a real eye opener. At the time I was convinced by the media coverage that he was guilty.

 

[cullennz]

In one article, I read that Santa Barbara and L.A. spent over two million just on the first and second investigations and the trial that went south for them. Since the other suit was civil and the court and attorney costs were taken up by the plaintiff/defendant, it's quite likely that those "bestest lawyers in the world" that Jackson's reported to have had, plus the attorneys for the insurance company and the blood-suckers for the plaintiff were going to exceed that amount by quite a bit.

IIRC, the civil case insurance was not even insurance he bought for himself but was part of his contracts with his record/film/entertainment companies. Those people don't look at it as OMG Fifteen Million, but in terms of how much hurt was going to be put on their income from their billion dollar property, Michael Jackson. And, as it's been noted, Jackson believed his fans would believe him once they saw all the evidence. ETA: The original suit was for twenty million. He had offered them a million to go away. When they countered with fifteen million, he countered by cutting his offer to 1/3 of that amount. I don't think that sounds like someone who was buying their silence. His management, though, wanted it to go away.

Link please?

 

[cullennz]

You really haven't read much of the case. At one point during the grand jury the prosecutor handed the accuser an unwrapped pornography magazine seized from Jackson's house. He then later tried to use the fact that the accuser's fingerprints were on that magazine as physical evidence Jackson had handed it to him.

Then the defense got the accuser to state exactly when this allegedly occurred...and the date he claimed was six months before that magazine had ever been published.

Seriously, people who think Jackson was guilty have not read much of the trial at all, they've only heard the news reports which were invariably slanted. Reporters literally left the room after each witness for the prosecution testified, so they could get all the salacious details into the news as quickly as possible for ratings...so they missed the cross-examinations in which every single witness foundered.

That is what happens in every high profile case

 

[Checkmite]

I'm sure some of the skeptics here would have no problem letting their 12 year son sleep with a grown man, am I right?

And what's better after a night frolicking under the covers with MJ than a trip to his special triple-locked closet of adventure!

None of the accusers claimed anything so straight forward; I'm pretty sure none of them ever mentioned closets or other special rooms. But one thing that is consistent between all of them was the fact that Jackson had a "system", a grooming process that was much the same across different alleged victims.

Not to belabor the point, but the parallels between Michael Jackson's alleged grooming process and that of Jerry Sandusky are striking. Both had an ostensibly above-board interface that by its nature provided access to children of some vulnerability (Sandusky's foundation for at-risk youth vs. Jackson's backyard amusement park for kids with medical issues). Of all the children their respective interfaces gave them access to, both Jackson and Sandusky tended to gravitate towards and single-out children of a specific sex and age-range to engineer more personal relationships with. Both took time to ingratiate themselves with their (alleged, in Jackson's case) targets' parents and families, while still creating regular opportunities to be alone with the children themselves. And both used those opportunities to slowly acclimate the children to progressively more physical closeness and affectionate touching. As in the Sandusky case, even the kids who report that Jackson never fully progressed to the abuse stage with them, still describe this same escalation of contact. And in Jackson's case there was emotional manipulation as well; during the trial one child witness (who again hadn't himself been molested, IIRC) described once complaining that Jackson's excessive touching was making him uncomfortable, and claimed Jackson's response was to become whiny and try to make the boy feel guilty for not "loving" him.

 

[HenryLee]

Here's a place to start:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-thomson/one-of-the-most-shameful_b_610258.html

Very interesting. Thanks.

 

[Marcus]

Some of you must have been rabid Jackson fans. Grown men who sleep with little boys are to be avoided at all costs.

"Jackson raised eyebrows when he said in the Bashir documentary that he has allowed other people's children to sleep in his bed at Neverland.

"Why can't you share your bed?" Jackson said in the documentary, which aired in February on ABCNEWS' 20/20. "The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone."

He insisted the practice was innocent and involved nothing of a sexual nature. "I give them hot milk, you know, we have cookies. It's very charming. It's very sweet. It's what the whole world should do."
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116601&page=1

I'm sure some of the skeptics here would have no problem letting their 12 year son sleep with a grown man, am I right?

And what's better after a night frolicking under the covers with MJ than a trip to his special triple-locked closet of adventure!

I'm not so sure MJ's "sleeping with" boys actually involved sex. If you look at the testimony of the boys (now men) there is no sex involved.

 

[Denver]

I'm not so sure MJ's "sleeping with" boys actually involved sex. If you look at the testimony of the boys (now men) there is no sex involved.

I also recall from the trial someplace (or maybe from an interview) where he said that while the kids did sleep in his bed, he was not in it when they did: he was on the floor.

 

[cullennz]

So what I'm getting is some people here would happily let their kid sleep in bed with an adult male with a fixation in Peter Pan and nude pre-pubescent "art" of kids.

I seriously doubt you would be happy with the idea

 

[Jules Galen]

None of the accusers claimed anything so straight forward; I'm pretty sure none of them ever mentioned closets or other special rooms. But one thing that is consistent between all of them was the fact that Jackson had a "system", a grooming process that was much the same across different alleged victims.

Not to belabor the point, but the parallels between Michael Jackson's alleged grooming process and that of Jerry Sandusky are striking. Both had an ostensibly above-board interface that by its nature provided access to children of some vulnerability (Sandusky's foundation for at-risk youth vs. Jackson's backyard amusement park for kids with medical issues). Of all the children their respective interfaces gave them access to, both Jackson and Sandusky tended to gravitate towards and single-out children of a specific sex and age-range to engineer more personal relationships with. Both took time to ingratiate themselves with their (alleged, in Jackson's case) targets' parents and families, while still creating regular opportunities to be alone with the children themselves. And both used those opportunities to slowly acclimate the children to progressively more physical closeness and affectionate touching. As in the Sandusky case, even the kids who report that Jackson never fully progressed to the abuse stage with them, still describe this same escalation of contact. And in Jackson's case there was emotional manipulation as well; during the trial one child witness (who again hadn't himself been molested, IIRC) described once complaining that Jackson's excessive touching was making him uncomfortable, and claimed Jackson's response was to become whiny and try to make the boy feel guilty for not "loving" him.

I hear what you are saying, and it makes me sick because Pedos are such masters of Social Manipulation. In addition to Manipulating the kids, they also manipulate the Parents and other Authorities entrusted with the Child's safety so they can discredit the Child (if need be) or any other Accuser.

Preachers, Police, Parents...I've seen them all rush in to protect the Pedo....and it gets really crazy when the Pedos story falls apart. By that time, though, the Pedo is usually an old man with a lifetime of witnesses who are willing to come foreward against him. For example, my Brother-n-Law the Preacher Man contacted a female cousin (who is a well-respected Attorney) to say some nice things at a trial about his Brother the Sunday School Teacher who was accuse of Pedophilia. Well...she came to the Trial alright and offered testimony against his Brother saying that he had molested her as a young girl 30 years before. Additionally, she brought some evidence that other family members provided (Old News Paper Clipping and Police Reports from another State!!!) that showed the guy had been an active Pedo for over 60-freakin'-years!!! He went to prison of course, but he a lot of people defending him for a very long time.