Quote Originally Posted by optipez View Post
Dear me. You're the epitome of cancel culture Newish. Liberal, urbane, verbose, and on the surface credible. But, and it's a massive but you've decided arbitrarily to "assume" . You assume he's a crank when some of his musings are entirely plausible and some proven. You assume he can live his life as before despite having a public trashing with no defence from anonymous sources. The "girl" was of legal age, highly unsavoury and socially frowned upon but legally in this matter a woman.
You say it's more complicated than innocent until proven guilty but there is nothing else. At best in Scottish law there's the verdict of " not proven" but that's after a trial.
You cannot run society anything close to fairly if people get wiped out on hearsay.
I can't stand Brand, never liked him as an entertainer, I found him trashy, dumb and offensive and I've little doubt that at best he's been less than chivalrous and at worst a bullying misogynistic predator. I'm unhappy finding myself defending someone I'd cross the road to avoid but this mentality of witch burning has to stop. It's medieval, it brings us all down to a level of an accusatory pack baying for blood.
You dress it up as some superior moral code citing his ability to sue for defamation. You say trial by media is a metaphor and glibly shrug it off saying he can live his life as before. Yet in your eyes he's guilty and should now go to court to prove his innocence. Suing people and using court are last resorts, the final bulwark against anarchy. It's for the state to prove his guilt, not for him to have to prove his innocence.
Why thank you, that's some of the nicest things anyone's said about me this week

Okay... let's see where we can agree because that's always more constructive.

Firstly... I freely admit that I'm no expert on Brand. I didn't like his comedy (tbf I'm hardly the target market) and I've not followed his recent output. I'm led to believe by the media that his recent output focuses on conspiracy theories like "the great reset", COVID conspiracies and pushing the Putin line on Ukraine. Therefore, in my view, a crank. I don't rule out the possibility that not everything he's said is completely wrong. There are often seeds of half-truths in most conspiracy theories. But perhaps I over-state the level of his crankness, I don't know. But there's lots of marginal figures I don't pay any attention to, and that's my right as well as your right.

Secondly... yes, it's absolutely true that suing for libel is difficult, risky, expensive, and only (in practice) open to the rich. If I gave the impression that I think it's anything but all those things, I misrepresented myself. But unless Brand is significantly less wealthy than I imagine (and yes, I could be wrong), this option is open to him and shouldn't be forgotten about or ignored. He can defend himself if he chooses to do so. My point is that he doesn't have "no defence". He has recourse to law, should he choose. I'm not saying whether he should or not - I just point out that he has the option.

Thirdly... I absolutely agree that we shouldn't "wipe people out on hearsay". But in this case, Brand has neither been wiped out in any sense, nor is it merely hearsay. This isn't "he said, she said", it's "he said.... she said, and she said, and she said, and she said, and she said etc", and they all said those things independently and with corroborating evidence that satisfied the lawyers. And I've seen no sign that this has wiped him out in any way. I fear it will have the opposite effect.

Fourthly... I don't think anyone here is a particular fan of Brand in any of his incarnations.

Fifthly... I agree that it's for the state to prove his guilt for criminal sanctions.

Where we disagree...

I'd say what Brand is accused of is significantly more serious than being a "bullying misogynistic predator", unless the word "predator" is doing a lot of work there. I don't want to say that you're minimising the accusations, but that's one interpretation. And, I hope, the wrong one. I'd also use rather stronger language for a man of his age pursuing a relationship with a 16 year old schoolgirl. Call me a liberal or a puritan or a prude, but I think the age of consent is 16 to allow 16-year-olds to pursue relationships with others of a similar age, not people old enough to be a parent.

I also disagree that there "is nothing else" except "innocent until proven guilty". We've already had two examples. Mine (balance of probabilities in civil cases) and yours ('not proven' in Scotland). These are the acceptable and appropriate levels for legal sanction. In our day-to-day lives we make up our minds about individuals and organisations on the balance of probabilities all the time.

Here's my question... let's say that there's someone called Brussell Rand, and that multiple, extremely serious and credible accusations have been made against him. Let's say that there has - to date - been no legal action taken against him. Are people and organisations not entitled to change their view on him based on that evidence, and decide that they don't want anything to do with him any more? And don't want to support him or his work or his career or his bank account directly or indirectly?