I'll offer a few more stray thoughts about the Knox case:
It illustrates the truth of all the advice my parents (and probably yours) gave us about choosing our company carefully and wisely. ''Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.'' ''Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.'' We see this in the Knox case. Her choice of company was abysmally bad and no sane one of us would want our twenty-something ''children'' in the kind of company, making the kinds of 'lifestyle choices' which the put-upon Ms Knox made and will continue to make. Presuming she is 'innocent' as a newborn babe as many say she is, she at least shows shockingly bad judgement when it comes to associates and habits.
''B-but does that make her a murderess?''
No, but neither is she the martyr, the persecuted heroine or the underdog who is being defended in such an over-the-top manner by many Americans, even self-styled ''traditionalists'' and ''conservatives.''
I've reviewed the varying accounts of the case and I am not persuaded that the known facts declare her 'innocence' as her defenders loudly insist. I hear silly comments such as ''but there's no motive!'' Since when is absence of a motive grounds for asserting that there is 'not enough evidence'? Many people are convicted with no motive being established.
People are irrational; people do crazy things, especially young people, especially in cases involving sex, especially people who drug and involve themselves in decadent lifestyles.
And are people who don't join in her defense automatically 'puritan hypocrites' or 'Christian hypocrites', ''demonizing'' her or others like her? No. Those accusations bear all the hallmarks of the left, not resorted to by 'conservatives' or 'traditionalists' or Christians, as a rule.
Can anybody imagine that a woman with her history and associations would have been championed and treated as a celebrity, or defended so emotionally, in past eras? There is a middle ground between saying 'hang her' and making her out to be a poor little innocent being hounded for absolutely no reason.
It seems most Americans can't find that middle ground.
I would prefer to continue to ignore this trial, or the murder itself, if only because it is too sordid and creepy to contemplate. And then there is the added fact that it is not a matter of real import to us; it involves the lives of a small group of people in a faraway country. I am sure that there are many Americans in foreign countries who end up in trouble with local authorities for various crimes, great and small, but most of them never make our national media, and do not inspire many Americans to an overwrought defense of the accused criminal. Why is this woman being defended as though she were a damsel in distress?
Regardless of whether she actually killed the victim, she is without a doubt the author of her own troubles; if she had chosen a more healthy and less sleazy set of companions and lifestyle, she would now be an anonymous American 'student' in Italy, and would never have gone through what she has gone through.
''But does that make her a murderer?'' No, no more than being accused of a sordid crime about which she lied repeatedly makes her a sympathetic victim.
She may not be a murderess (only she and God and a few others know, probably -- but assuredly not her defenders) but neither is she a martyr or a hapless victim who was picked at random to be 'railroaded' for a crime she did not commit. Believing this to be the case is probably the result of watching too many Hollywood movies and TV shows in which blameless people are wrongly accused, though they are pure as driven snow.
It appears she has benefited greatly from the implicit notion that 'beautiful' young women can't also be bad women. Would she have any defenders if she were unattractive and badly dressed? Casey Anthony is another example of this phenomenon.
There may be a few innocents persecuted by evil prosecutors, but not as many as today's popular fiction leads us to think. It is very much part of the liberal mindset to believe that criminals or accused criminals are just misunderstood or persecuted for no reason - or because of racism, homophobia, etc.
She is no underdog, having come from a wealthy background. She has advantages that a 'nobody' from a middle-class or poor background would not have.
I'm used to being alone in my opinions on social matters and the majority, having become socially liberal-to-radical, are often in the wrong these days. And that majority crosses liberal-conservative lines. Ms. Knox is, I would bet my last dollar, a lefty antifa 'colorblind' type, and probably would consider many of her 'right-wing' defenders as her enemies. How do they rationalize that away?
Is she guilty? My hunch is yes, to some extent or other, and my hunch is at least as good as the pre-conceived idea that she is innocent. Many of her defenders say ''I just knew all along she was innocent.'' In other words, they started out biased in her favor. I started out neutral and formed an opinion as things unfolded.
If people want to believe in her innocence, I say, go right ahead. My issue is with this over-the-top defense of her which is way out of proportion to her importance.
Above all, the reaction to this case says something disturbing about today's America or Western culture; it says, to me, that we no longer have a moral consensus. It was true for much of the past that all of us shared an unspoken set of beliefs about good and evil, truth and falsehoods. We once shared a common idea of right and wrong, including sexual morality. Some call the old way 'hypocritical' and 'puritanical' and thus imply that the new way which we see in this case, is better and more 'enlightened.' If you are a liberal or libertarian, that is a consistent position to take. If you, however, claim to be a conservative or 'traditionalist' your position is not consistent.
And I may be the last one who believes this, but I believe that people involved in various kinds of perversions and kinky lifestyles are more likely to be involved in transgressions of morality generally. Our character is all of a piece; we can't be upstanding and honest in one area of our lives and yet dally with degeneracy in other areas of our lives. Decent people don't consort with decadent 'friends' and lifestyles. Yielding to one kind of flouting of morality and decency just makes it easier to yield to many other kinds as well.
I think we have to be very careful about defending people promiscuously, for emotional reasons; we may be found calling evil good, and good, evil.
This is also part of the legacy of the social upheaval of the 1960s, and all its accompanying ills.
