No, my point still stands.
If Trump publicly admitted that he sees nothing wrong with having sleepovers with non-related prepubescent children and sleeping with them, he’d rightfully be labeled a pedophile, because people hate him.
But people like MJ’s music, so despite the plethora of “in your face” evidence, they defend him using the same arguments that conservatives use for Trump. Frankly, any MJ defense argument could be made for Trump.
I’m beyond disappointed in the so-called “progressive” Lemmy space and will never be able to take political discussions seriously here again after witnessing this attitude. It is pure hypocrisy and double standards, and disgusting pedophile and child abuse apologia that delegitimizes and loses all credibility for any future discussions on the topic.
The Culkin defense never made much sense anyway. For a practical, personal example: if one of my dad’s wealthy friends was accused of child molestation by multiple children, me saying, “Oh, but he never did anything to me,” wouldn’t discredit the victims at all. As the child of a friend (and same circles), I would clearly be of a “higher status” and therefore protected.
Culkin was a famous child; predators are often selective with their victims. The argument here is that MJ targeted “lower class” children while treating famous ones well. That way, if accusations ever surfaced, the less privileged kids would be branded as money-hungry liars because the famous ones would publicly insist, “He treated me well.”