Ben Stein published a pretty awful editorial defending Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF head arrested for sexual assault. Now, I don’t disagree with him about the presumption of innocence, but the rest of the article effectively argues that smart, rich people simply don’t commit crimes. In particular, he says this:
In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?
On a whim, I just did a little research, and couldn’t believe what I found. Guess who holds an economics degree?
For those not familiar with the case, Bernardo is one of the nastiest serial killers in history. He and his wife drugged, raped, and tortured to death a number of schoolgirls in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The story is the stuff of nightmares.
I’ll leave the debate over the rest of Mr. Stein’s article to others. But as for his suggestion that studying economics precludes becoming a violent sex criminal, it seems history provides one hell of a counterexample.
Edit: James Urbaniak has a list of some other economists involved in sex crimes.
xkcd 
DSK is amongst the most important political personalities in France. He was finance minister in 1997-2002.
More than one year ago, as he was the guest of major morning news show on radio (the kind a lot of people listen while driving to work). Before the guest of the day is interviewed, in this show there is a “comedian” (i am trying to explain, but do not know the propers English words) doing a 5 minutes speech on news subjects with jokes and stuff.
On that day he explained (for the joke)that the radio station had to instruct all women to wear the most non-sexual clothes possible, and that a siren was here to anounce DSK to allow women to hide themselves from him as he arrived to the radio station.
On a tv show in 2008 a woman from his distant family and with all of her family involved in the same political party than DSK told that he tried to rape her. Since the beginning of the current DSK scandal, this story is back in the news.
Since DSK has been arrested, french media talked a lot about it and a lot of women in politics and political journalism are explaining that DSK can be very insistent (multiple phone calls/emails unsollicited). All those infos are often told by famous/well known/solid reputation journalists and politics (members of parliament/former minister).
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Leaving aside the particulars of this case and the personalities behind it there may be some merit is some of what he says.
Sure some economists are rapists but is the proportion of economists that are rapists higher or lower than in scoiety as a whole. The argument is that it is less likly that he is a rapist not impossible.
Generaly I think that the rich and famous do have an easier time being aquitted of aleged missconduct, in part this is because it is credable that an accuser may have some other motive. Certainly it seems considerably more likely that you would be accused of a crime if you are well known – I probably know the names of as many celebrities as I do personal aquaintances but celebrities have many more accusations than the set of people I know.
If we hold that the propensity to comit crime is the same across celebrity/non celebrity sections of society then this would suggest that being well known does increase the incidence of false alegations.
I also think there is some credability to the argument that highly succesful people are less likely to commit some crimes. Where a propensity to offend would make it less likely that you would get to the position of success it is more likely that you are not possessed of that propensity (I bear in mind Sylario’s comments, what may be true in general may not hold in each particular case). In this case I dont think that economist is the reference class but that succesful person that is in a role that it would have been very difficult to have achieved were you to have a propensity for rape could be a valid reference class.
Whilst it sounds like Ben Stein may not be a particularly nice guy i think some of his comments are reasonable – he is not advocating that DSK should not be investigated and stand trial but saying that his position makes it less likely that these accusations are true than it would be were they to be made of someone less succesful.
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I like the reasoning that crimes are only committed by people whose tax return’s “Occupation” field says “Criminal”. Ben Stein lives in an interesting world (though that isn’t new after Expelled, of course).
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I think I remember reading that Osama Bin Laden had a degree in finance.
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Mario Firmenich is an Argentine murderer that studied Economics while imprisoned and then graduated top of his class.
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“In this case I dont think that economist is the reference class but that succesful person that is in a role that it would have been very difficult to have achieved were you to have a propensity for rape could be a valid reference class.”
Why do you believe this to be the case? Numerous Frenchwomen have testified that DSK was known to be not safe in elevators, that nobody “under 50 and not obese” should be alone with him, and that he did indeed attack women but that political pressure kept them from commenting at the time.
This is as good a link as any.
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@Gordon
I wasn’t aware there was a trial against Bin Laden?
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I guess the reasoning is as follows:
1. DSK (or anybody with a similar career) has much to lose by acting in the alleged way, more than, say, a no-life loser.
2. DSK has had a career where self-control is an important personal quality.
3. DSK is rich and can buy himself a high-end call-girl or a trip to some exotic place should he need it.
Thus, the act seems incomprehensible.
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Hmmm.. “In life, events tend to follow patterns”…
I’m looking for any kind of ‘relativity’ in that statement.
An example: Every morning my wife annihilates the local slug population in the garden. From her perspective the connection is to do with extensive damage to the flora and fauna. To the slug’s perspective its “where the hell did that come from? A super-huge, complex, well-equipped life-form just comes down and wipes us out for no apparent reason not even as for food!!” This example kind of sums up for me the ‘relativity’ of most things happening on this planet. It exists only in mathematics!
Strauss-Kahn has done this before. Soon he will be Strauss-Kahnnot. He was born that way. He’s ‘big and important’ so he makes good news and who the hell really cares anyway? Just string him up and move onto the next one and where the hell will that come from?
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I couldn’t even read past that specific sentence: “People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example.”.
People don’t commit crimes because they’re criminals, people are criminals because they commit crimes.
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youre a plagarizing fraud, among other things. you should be ashamed of yourself.
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Way to miss the forest for the trees. If you read the read of Stein’s article, he makes a lot of important points. He never said or implied that Strauss-Kahn was innocent. He was merely pointing out the many many inconsistencies, witch hunts, innuendos and assumptions of guild that the the media has placed upon Strauss-Kahn, without once ever bothering to analyze the maid and whether what she claimed made sense. Read the entire article. His one point about economists not being typical criminals (which is of course true) is merely one of 8 points. Had he left that one point off, would you then agree with the rest? Why not point that out too?
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You should draw something referencing My Little Pony, just sayin’
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@JSmith: Stein was arguing that DSK should not have been put in Riker’s Island. It is my understanding that when you are arrested for a crime in NYC, you go to Riker’s Island. Which is worse: allowing a few innocents to spend a night or two in prison after they are accused of a crime or systematically letting certain members of society walk free on the basis of their socioeconomic status?
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“Which is worse: allowing a few innocents to spend a night or two in prison after they are accused of a crime or systematically letting certain members of society walk free on the basis of their socioeconomic status?”
The former, obviously. He voluntarily surrendered his passport, volunteered to be tagged, and volunteered to stay in NYC and not stray too far from an apartment. He has co-operated with the authorities at every stage since his arrest. Given the external factors that would hold him to this (namely that his bid for the French presidency is going nowhere while this is still hanging over him), he seems like an ideal candidate for bail.
Someone has mentioned that he could have ordered a call girl. One of the more lurid stories doing the rounds is that he ordered a call girl and mistook the maid when she arrived.
Another theory doing the rounds is that this is a political frame-up – possibly gone wrong. Previously, he was a leading candidate for the leftist nomination for the presidency, and that had he won it he would have beaten off Sarkozy easily. Someone on the right dreams up a scheme to frame him and sully his name. They figure they should get someone overseas to accuse him just as he’s on his way home. Of course, when he gets back to France the authorities would be keen to try him there rather than extradite him, and he’d likely get off, but he’d be tarnished enough to damage his credibility in the polls. They didn’t figure that the Americans would realize this and rush to get him arrested, claiming the fact that he was flying to France and the French don’t extradite as an exigency. So now instead of merely smearing him, and having damaged goods in the race, they’ve taken him out of the game completely, and potentially face some other viable candidates.
I know what you’re thinking – this sort of thing isn’t likely to happen. That’s about as improbable as, say, one of the candidates bugging the offices of their opposition, or a party being more or less wiped out because two senior figures run candidates against each other.
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Paul Bernardo is a disgrace to my home country and I am glad that they caught him before my sister moved to Toronto. Sexual assault is a very messed up thing.
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Interesting. The section you post seems to contradict the conclusion Mr. Stein makes that DSK is being targeted because he spend $300,000 on a hotel room.
Of course, part of the problem is that Stein is confusing journalism with criminal investigation.
DSK is in the news precisely because people who pay lots of money for hotel rooms don’t get charged with crimes. So, that, way Stein’s right.
But the police (and the ADA) aren’t necessarily out targeting people because they have lots of money. For one thing, people with lots of money have lots of resources to fight the charges. Another is that there are few of them, axiomatically speaking.
As far as being on Riker’s Island, that’s standard. Generally speaking, when someone is charged with a crime they go to jail until they either make bail (if bail is set) or they are released on their own recognizance. Obviously, the prosecution (and the judge) don’t want violent criminals or rapists wandering the streets with the potential to commit more crimes because it looks bad from a PR prospective. So, there are some people who are simply held without bail. People accused of murder, for example, will be held without bail pretty much as a matter of course. The mere accusation of murder will put someone in jail for years while they await trial without any recourse except for acquittal. Murder is just one example, pretty much anything that might make a judge or prosecutor look soft of crime qualifies.
That’s a general problem with the bail system, not something specific to DSK’s situation, or to rich people in general.
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“The former, obviously. He voluntarily surrendered his passport, volunteered to be tagged, and volunteered to stay in NYC and not stray too far from an apartment. He has co-operated with the authorities at every stage since his arrest. Given the external factors that would hold him to this (namely that his bid for the French presidency is going nowhere while this is still hanging over him), he seems like an ideal candidate for bail. ”
You don’t get to set the conditions of what happens to you when you surrender to the law enforcement authorities. The law, the attorney general, and the police do, in order of seniority.
———-
The Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka case is considered THE serial killing/sex crime case in Canadian history. Every single case that’s come after which has involved multiple homicides or multiple sexual crimes, assault, etc, inevitably gets compared to Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka.
The case is infamous in the public psyche because Karla Homolka gained a plea bargain under false pretenses and yet the courts still upheld it, allowing the woman who is believed by many lto be the prinicpal antagonist in the murders and a willing participant – including the trial judge in Paul Bernardo’s case – a free pass. She served 12 years, changed her name to Karla Emily Teale, married, and later moved to Barbados. Meanwhile, Paul Bernardo, who, while a willing participant, was considered a secondary antagonist, an accessory to most of the crimes in American legal-speak, has to serve two consecutive life sentences without chance of perole.
Karla Homolka’s nontorious plea bargain had one positive side-effect; it spurred the Canadian government to pass several bills which established a series of stronger accountability for the attorney general’s office, police investigations, as well as establishing a clear and unambiguous legislation regarding plea bargain agreements.
———-
It’s funny that this comes up on xkcd literally after I spent two weeks helping a client get data out of Weft QDA when it was being difficult. The data? Analysis of articles related to Karla Homolka.
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You’ve got it all wrong, no *real* economist would commit such crimes. Since Paul Bernardo did that means he wasn’t a real economist. He was probably just faking it for the chicks….
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The argument seems to be that being a rapist would be bad for his career. I think Stein got it backwards, being the head of the IMF is very good for a rapist.
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I couldn’t even get past the first point in his article… “If he’s such a womanizer… why hasn’t he been charged until now?”
I know of a professor who has made multiple inappropriate advances towards undergraduate women I know personally. Genuinely creepy stuff, but nothing “violent” so to speak. But when one girl reported him to an advisor, the advisor told her that there had been complaints about this professor before, but no one was willing to risk their academic/professional reputation in order to make him stop. He’s highly respected in the department, how easy would it be to say that the female student was coming on to him, trying to get an A?
Combine that with the fact that it is an engineering professor with very few female colleagues and even fewer female supervisors, what choice did she have? Ignore the problem, or fight a battle where even if she won, she’d be labeled a troublemaker?
I’d say powerful people are not less likely to commit sexual assault, just less likely to get caught. And when they do get caught, it’s for something terrible enough that it can’t be ignored.
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Entirely late on this issue, but as a sociologist (I know, I know, an impure science), Stein’s assertion that criminals commit crimes–after all, life follows patterns, he says–is startlingly naive. By saying economists are unlikely to commit crimes such as rape, he is doubting that individuals who bear the social characteristics of criminals are likely to commit such crimes–and what are the social characteristics of economists? My money says they are largely male, highly educated, and wealthier than average–not unlike Ben Stein, perhaps.
As others have pointed out, economists and those in a similar situation are not merely less likely to be caught or severely punished for crimes, they are less likely to even be suspected of violent crimes (check out prisonpolicy.org or hrw.org for statistics). There are a lot of reasons for race and class and gender inequalities in incarceration rates, but it makes me wonder how much those inequalities are due simply to people like Ben Stein–people with power and influence–and their apparent belief that possessing the characteristics of a criminal precedes the act of committing crimes.
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Finding an economist for your example is practically anecdotal.
If you want to disprove him, you’ll need to show that economists are statistically as likely to be rapists as other professions.
If economists are statistically unlikely to be rapists, then his case is fair.
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“…but the rest of the article effectively argues that smart, rich people simply don’t commit crimes. In particular, he says this:”
One paragraph out of ten is a hell of a “rest of the article.”
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” .. smart, rich people simply don’t commit crimes. ” Eh??
Perhaps it may be better argued that in general ” … smart, rich people don’t get convicted of crimes.” Because they have access to (afford) good legal advice.
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Ben Stein is only defending DSK because they are both Jews.
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Hey you, don’t blame Stein, he’s just performing what is known as tribal grooming. Stein and Strauss-Kahn belong to the same ancient tribe, you know, just like “esteemed philosopher” Bernard Henri Levy”, he’s a tribesman too who was out to defend his dear “innocent” friend …. This tribal phenomenon is quite a common sight, once you start noticing it…
And btw remember the ways of the socalled Chosen Ones are beyond reproach and if you happen to think otherwise… you’re deemed an … you know what…
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This argument connects to arguments about police profiling. In a situation where you only have limited information about a person, for example based on merely looking at them, statistical trends based on race, gender, height, or ethnicity may be useful to draw conclusions. For example, when you’re in a dangerous area and deciding whether to avoid a stranger on the street, statistics on what races commit the most street crime in that area may be useful. But differences within populations far exceed statistical differences between populations – so as you acquire more information about an individual, things like “are they white” or “are they an economist” fall by the wayside in light of more directly relevant information about them as an individual. A court case is designed to bring all of the most relevant information to light, rendering it a far better arbiter of justice than such weak predictors.
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please make your comics funny again. they were for a long time. but really, all the awkward girl stuff isn’t. and it’s been happening a lot lately. and, well, as a former computer scientist, i’m sure the computery/sciencey stuff makes you feel funny but it isn’t funny to anyone else. seriously. i’m a geek but it’s really just not funny at all. you are funny deep down – just discover it again. /unsubscribe ’til there’s something better.
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Eh? Comics are better than they ever were right now… I guess it’s down to personal taste?
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I don’t see the point of assessing a Ben Stein argument; it’s essentially a strawman.
I never heard of the man (well, I did in the context of “Expelled”, but I didn’t waste my time watching that or remembering the director’s name), but a glance at his Wikipedia entry shows he’s a mental midget. Whether you like the underlying sentiment or not [and that’s a definite not], the illogical blabla above it is intolerable.
Favorite quote: “Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.” How many things can you crop into one line? There’s Godwin, there’s fake caveats, there’s nonsense logic, there’s deliberate lies.
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Looking at the article, I think he makes two points here, one good, one bad. The good: he is bringing up the point that this man is innocent until proven guilty and people seem to be losing sight of that. There seems to be some sort of a pattern in the justice system that if a woman gets up in court, acts hurt, traumatized, abused, etc., especially in cases of rape and child custody battles, it will spark some sort of sympathetic reaction from everyone that already puts the case in her favor, which is unfair. So one woman accusing this man doesn’t make him a rapist, and unless he is convicted, he shouldn’t be viewed as such.
It’s the second point that disturbs me the most: the author seems to suggest that just because this man is rich/successful/famous, he should get some sort of special treatment. “Mr. Strauss-Kahn had surrendered his passport. He had offered to stay in New York City. He is one of the most recognizable people on the planet. Did he really have to be put in Riker’s Island? Couldn’t he have been given home detention with a guard? This is a man with a lifetime of public service, on a distinguished level, to put it mildly. Was Riker’s Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn’t he earned slightly better treatment than that?” Surrendering his passport and staying in NYC, those are things expected of an accused ciminal, yet the author makes it sound Strauss-Kahn was doing the justice system a noble favor. Nodboy ‘earns’ better treatment than anyone else just by being successful and he wasn’t “treated shamefully” just because he wans’t given special treatment. Money does not make you above the law.
I think the distinction the author failed to make is between the justice system and the media. The media and the public might’ve attacked Strauss-Kahn unfairly, but thats’ what media does. It’s not the justice system’s job to treat him differently to protect his reputation, it’s the media’s job to stop being so sensational.
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Worth noting today that the alleged victim’s credibility is cratering amid allegations of serious drug money laundering issues with her “fiance” — NYT is reporting the case to be “near collapse.”
Guess Ben Stein should have stuck with the presumption of innocence!
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Quote : RichardP Says > Which is worse: allowing a few innocents to spend a night or two in prison after they are accused of a crime or systematically letting certain members of society walk free on the basis of their socioeconomic status? === End Quote.
This is the most dangerous form of thinking man is capable of. I heartily agree that the rule of law should be applied uniformly, this is without question. However, rationalizing the detainment of admittedly innocent people is a treacherous path that allows one to make overtly wrong judgments one the basis that punishing the innocent is acceptable so long as you get a few of the guilty too.
You have turned Blackstone’s Formula on its ear. No justice system is free of error, but it is ALWAYS wrong to strip an innocent person of his or her liberty. Only a few people are capable of holding this idea of punishing the innocent as truth, their world paradigm must be set up to allow the unjust treatment of the just. Historically this is the domain of despots and dictators.
Is it better to let 10 guilty men go free than to imprison 1 innocent man…? What if you are the innocent man? Please, try to think before you speak. Try to sympathize with your fellow man, because one day you will be him.
The presumption of innocence is the basis of every successful justice system NOT run by the aforementioned dictators and despots.
As for me, I am an innocent man. To deprive me of my liberty you will have to remove from me my last life’s breath!
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all those important individuals demanding a say in the contents of the cartoons, sufficiently dedicated to this cause to go through the considerable effort of straying off topic! You better take heed, before another 1 unsubscribes!
in order to stay on topic myself:”
high-power people are actually more likely to commit sex crimes than the average jack or jane. Sex crimes happen to have a lot to do with power. Usually they’ll vent it on someone who has no voice. Who’s gonna believe the whore?
powerful people are also the target of false allegations relatively often. Attention seekers, blackmailers and frauds all have incentives to pick the more powerful for their games.
In that sense the girl’s role could be questioned as well.
that said,
in both their cases “innocent until proven guilty” seems a healthy attitude to take.
until there is proof, neither is guilty of anything. At least that’s how it should be for the public. Strauss-Kahn’s rep was already severely damaged by the unfounded echoing of the media and public opinion. The maid’s rep wasn’t “big” to begin with (mostly because of presumptions based on her background) but is by now also wrecked. Mainly because people of the public (is ‘audience’ a better word perhaps?) all want their little insignificant opinions, and because media want to have their precious headlines, about something they don’t know a single thing about.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Robb
two funny things, one, he tried to make it look like a break-in but smashed the window the wrong way
two, he is a game theorist and got a pretty generous plea bargain, so maybe he knew what he was doing after all
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OMG! I have a degree in Econ! I’m doomed!
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Interesting to happen to find this blog post today of all days, the day it’s been announced that Mr. Strauss-Kahn might actually be innocent, his accuser has serious credibility issues, and the man’s been released on his own recognizance.
Mr. Stein was wrong about the credit crisis in 2007 and was wrong about Larry Craig, but he seems to have been worth listening to about this one.
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From your summary it sounds like Stein’s a biiig fan of Ayn Rand. Should probably read the actual article before I judge tho.
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Lol @ pogo!
Oh no! An economist! How many women have you assaulted this week?
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Kind of late, but…
@One
Well the one paragraph that was quoted in the post was more like the prime example that best highlights the “who’s more credible, rich guy vs. hotel maid?” argument. Four of the other 8 paragraphs were all variations of victim-blaming or discrediting the victim, two are about how he should be above the law because he’s rich, and one is about how poor people hate rich people. So absolutely every one of those arguments is about whether or not you can really believe that a rich guy committed such a heinous crime especially when the accuser is JUST a hotel maid. All of these arguments leaves a nasty taste in my mouth (probably from emptying my stomach). I don’t think Mr. Munroe is trying to ignore the other 7 paragraphs, but rather, just bringing the focus to the one paragraph that sticks to him the most.
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Hi there, I m french and realy don’t care about the DSK stuff..
I just read your upper post, I just wanna say, that I realy hope your fiancee is going to have a remission. I ve been a XKCD reader for years now.
if only I could give each little smile you gave to me since then to her I would!
AS you are studying cancer developpement you must have seen that we are “curing” more and more of them… I wish you my best, to you and your fiancee.
It had really touched me that you feel closdse enough to your reader to share thing like that.
Futhermore you absolutly do not have to apologise for some king of ” late publication” , you are doing this stuff for free, and we all enjoy it, you don t need to apologize for anything.
Thanks you for evrything again!
Sorry for my english, as I said.. well i m french..
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Hi Randall, like Leger Vivian I am so sad to hear about your fiancee and want to wish you both all the best. My dear wife of 35 years also had breast cancer diagnosed nearly a year ago, had surgery and chemo, and is still undergoing treatment with Herceptin.
I love your work and you have given us all so much happiness and laughter each day, I want to say THANKS!
I think the important thing is to make the most of each day together and not to wreck your lives by worrying too much about a relapse that may never happen.
Wishing you both health and happiness in the future.
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What is a ‘strawman’ again? I know it is something used in arguments, but what is it? I can’t figure it out from the Encyclopedia Dramatica article.
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Also, you can only get so far with statistical analysis (in which you mush allow some margin of error) before you have to go scientific. Let’s do something FUN like brain exams.
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There are certainly many things wrong with contemporary liberalism, but (in my arrogant and accurate opinion) at least one thing terribly wrong with modern, American, conservatism, and it’s the bastard child of Ayn Rand and Jean Cauvin.
Rand I think most of you will know. Jean Cauvin, or “John Calvin” as he came to be known in English, took off where St Augustine left off and decided that the Saved and the Damned constituted separate and immutable categories; he and others, notably the American Puritans, decided that how you ended up in life was a good, if not definitive, hint as to what equivalence-class you were in.
Add in the fact that America really _has_ been a place where it was possible to rise in the world, at least a little—as in ‘work fourteen hours a day and live’ as opposed to ‘…and still starve’ and we have the American tendency to assume that people on top morally deserve to be there. Alyssa’s petty people holding down the mighty works of creative dynamos who are always right merges with ‘touch ye not the LORD’s Anointed’; the poor as Losers and Looters who have shewn their bad character by being poor merges with the comforting notion that the Damned _deserve_ everything they get.
We’ve developed an amazingly reflexive way of assigning people into Saved and Damned categories, and that the rich and powerful tend to be Saved (hence, Willie Nelson usually gets away with smoking dope and some captains of industry have got away with murder) and the Damned (so it’s o.k. if the poor starve, and if a young dope dealer gets raped for his entrepreneurial pains). Some of the immediate assignment of Mr Strauss-Kahn came from this tendency—and so does Mr Stein’s attempt at exoneration-by-class.
(I’m afraid I’m the opposite: I know my history, so a rich man trying to force himself on the ‘help’ seems par to the course…that’s why we call them ‘The Aristocrats’—but I’m always willing to believe that nay given powerful person might not be evil.)
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As someone who is majoring in Mathematical Economics, this argument and counterargument is kind of chilling. Either way, you could argue this for any major or degree. Can anyone tell me any historians who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Any scientists? Any writers? I don’t think sex crimes or crime in general is dependent on degree or field of study, unless you’re a dentist haha. But for the counterargument, the most you could possibly say is that Some people who study economics are sex offenders, because there is at least one person who is a sex offender who is also included in the subset of people who study economics.
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Obviously this article is immensely well thought out, articulate, and well considered. Also, Stein is very handsome and not at all pudgy and balding.
His first point is “How come if he’s such a womanizer he hasn’t been caught before now?”
A natural question, because, of course, rich people always go to jail for the bad things they do, and having lots of power, money, and influence could never make it any less likely for him to get caught/go to jail. How come you liberals can’t get this?
His second point is that life follows patterns. And yeah, I expect you nitpicking bastards can find one or two or five or ten well known economists who’ve done horrendous things, but that doesn’t change the point that they don’t do horrendous things. You lose again, liberals!
His third point is that Khan is fat and short and old, and couldn’t possibly force or coerce or intimidate anyone, ever, which is so obviously true, because no one short or fat or old has ever forced anyone to do anything, ever. QED, pinkos.
His fourth point is something about an airplane. Planes confuse me, and because I don’t understand how they work, I don’t believe in them. If planes are a fiction, how was he a flight risk? You can’t argue with that one, socialists!
His fifth point asks the very valid question “Why should we incarcerate accused rapists?” Why indeed? I mean, he was merely accused of forcing his genitals into another person’s orifices, leaving them a shocked, broken shell of a human being. I mean, it’s not like he stole anything!
As far as his sixth point goes, of course she’s a crazed medication stealing maid, just look at her picture! And obviously no one could have done any investigation to judge the merits of her story before arresting him. It’s not as if that’s a thing police actually do very commonly on a regular basis as one of the core duties of their job, aided by special training in investigation. Another salient point, Mr. Stein.
Onto point seven. Obviously one anchor on ABC’s opinion on the matter is very important to the merits of the case and whether or not he’s guilty, and should clearly be discussed in this article. Thank you for tackling this difficult point so succinctly, Mr. Stein! Bravo, sir!
Onto the last point. See, it’s all class warfare! It’s the poor condemning the rich just because they’ve been accused of a sickening and soul-destroying crime! Clearly this shows how innocent the poor man is.
The obvious point Mr. Stein leaves out, I think, is that old fat people can’t get erections! I mean, Ben could have used himself as an example. Who would believe a fat, wrinkled old man like Ben Stein could get his tiny, flaccid member to stand erect long enough to rape someone? It’s laughable! And Khan is nearly as old and fat as Stein is! He’s clearly innocent. And this one has nothing to do with the rich getting away with things because they’re rich, so you can stop whining, liberals.
Mr. Stein is clearly a genius well beyond the minds of all you whiny liberals, as he made clear in his groundbreaking, brilliant film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” This breathtaking and exquisitely crafted masterpiece was denied its rightly deserved academy award wins by the liberal elite, on the supposed grounds that it was “boring”, and “terrible”, and “the worst piece of film making in the history of mankind, if not other, extraterrestrial cultures across the galaxy and universe.”
You should all go apologize to Mr. Stein right now for being so very rude.
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