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J. K. Rowling challenges new Scottish hate speech legislation, openly challenging them to arrest her for calling trans criminals men who pretend to be women:
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615
#ArrestMe is, dare I say it, brave and powerful. At least she's putting skin in the game. It's also pretty well calculated in my opinion.
They can't really attack her for being a right wing extremist when her world famous books are a pretty clear allegory of Racism Bad. She even makes sure to target India Willoughby, who is apparently anti-black. Rowling has an enormous pot of money for expensive litigation and automatic worldwide attention on her. It's hard to righteously defend people such as
It's very practical politics to fish out the worst of the enemy milieu to preface one's normative statements. I think Rowling has a good shot at tactical victory - either the govt won't charge her or she'll win in court. On the other hand, only systemic change is going to change the progressive-leaning status quo. You need an Orban or some similar force to drag out the weed by the roots, rather than just pruning away when it grows particularly egregious. Rowling is no Orban, that's probably far too extreme for her.
The legislation is here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/contents
Crimes include 'stirring up hate' by 'behaving in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting' to select groups. Looks like it allows nigh-limitless opportunities for selective enforcement. And a huge drain on police resources, given they can't even investigate all crimes:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-68703684
'Rich person flaunts the law, confident they will never face consequences' is not a very unique or interesting story. It's certainly not 'brave' or anything... if no one rich or powerful is going to face any legal consequences of any kind over Epstein connections, you can be damn sure she's not going to pay for anything relating to this, either.
But I don't see why conservatives would think this is supporting any of their claims? The conservative claim has always been that they are oppressed for their views, living in constant danger of being cancelled or arrested by the woke mobs and captured government institutions.
Someone blatantly pointing out in the most public way possible that this has always been a fiction, that governments may make figleaf declarations about opposing these types of slander but will never actually enforce them because they actually are inherently conservative entities that are on the side of the privileged and the default, that anyone can make the most vile comments they want and always could without fearing legal reprisals, that the whole Petersonian rhetoric about free speech crackdowns was and always has been a charade... why is that good for her side, exactly?
I mean, I guess the truth is that I'm being too simplistic in considering it one 'side'.
The Peterson/'free speech absolutist' wing points at 'cancel culture' and the specter of government censorship as a general bludgeon against the left, but they're actually committed to a much more broad model of conservatism and just using that to stir up their base.
Whereas people like Rowling aren't fully committed to that broader conservative project, they just want to slander and eradicate trans people, and they're annoyed that people like Peterson have scared some of their supporters into thinking they might ever face consequences for spewing vile slander 24/7, thereby mildly restricting the spigot.
So while the two have been default bedfellows up till now, it seems like JK has recognized the conflict of interest there and is ready to abandon the pretense of being oppressed in favor of proving that it's safe for everyone to start spewing as publicly and loudly as possible.
"Rich person flaunts the law" implies that the rich person gets away with crimes because they can retaliate using their wealth and connections. Rowling doesn't have judges or lobbyists on speed dial, and she's not going to contact her friends in the banking industry or the Mafia.
"Rich person flaunts the law because they have enough money to pay for a good defense, and because if something absurd happens to them, the public will see how absurd it is" is a noncentral example of a rich person flaunting the law and is more like the rich person not being railroaded than it is like a typical rich person flaunting the law.
I pretty strongly disagree. 'The system is not set up to persecute rich people, the powerful people running the system aren't really interested in harassing rich people to begin with, money can buy you out of problems through ;legitimate' methods that most people can't access' is the central meaning of 'Rich people don't ace consequences' that I always think of.
This may be one of those left vs right 'systems define society' vs 'personal responsibility and individual actors' things. I don't think of rich and powerful people as dangerous ubermensch who will crush anyone that crosses them and are therefore above the law. I think of them as over-privileged and under-perspective children, safe in a world that is carefully designed to benefit them at all turns, such that they never really need to learn self-restraint or discipline.
Then why did SBF get prosecuted and sentenced to 25 years in prison?
Well in that case it is because he fucked over a lot of rich people.
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Because he fucked around with and stole/lost other rich people's money. Same as Madoff.
That's one of the few ways I do believe rich people can suffer consequences around here. Being new money helps.
Epstein’s crimes were not of a financial nature, nor were they perpetrated against rich people, but he still faced consequences.
I think you're ignoring the several consequence-free decades of being an open procurer and supplier of child prostitutes for the wealthy and powerful, but you're also mistaken at the end there. Epstein absolutely did perpetrate crimes against rich people - the purpose of the entire arrangement was to blackmail the rich and powerful with recorded footage of them committing unspeakable crimes. Those were the targets that got him killed - Ehud Barak has much more access to the levers of power than Virginia Giuffre.
I'm aware that that's what lead to his death, but I can't find any indication that that's what lead to his first arrest in 2006. I don't think it was part of anyone's script for Epstein to get arrested. They would have preferred that he just stay out of the public eye for his whole life.
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I don't remember the full sequence of events now, but I thought the inciting incident had something to do with information about his rich and powerful associates being in danger of leaking to the public, and then he was disappeared and teh issue was hushed up? I could be wrong.
But, either way, yes this is a hueristic not an immutable law of physics. The fact that it takes being an incredibly high-profile pedophile and sex trafficker for decades, with the full knowledge and in full view of everyone on the planet, to face any consequences eventually, doesn't really disprove my point that the rich are insulated from consequences. It's not an inviolable shield, but it's a pretty massive one.
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