It's good to see that so many people here strongly disapprove of child rape. Nothing reaffirms my faith in humanity like seeing countless people saying, "No, I do not think that sexually abusing a minor is a good thing!" Congratulations! You're not monsters. Though obviously such monsters do exist, people who say that there's absolutely nothing wrong with raping a thirteen-year-old. We know they're out there, and we have to make sure they know that we don't cotton to their kind.

No, there's nothing like moral outrage to make people feel good about themselves. Bonus points if they can also find a way to be outraged at some perfidious, libertine, un-American country, especially if it's France. They just don't have the same clarity of moral vision as we do, after all.

And the best part? Here we have an opportunity to be righteous without having to do anything. We can be the good guys just by making one loud, uncontroversial post of condemnation, and from the comfort of our own homes, no less. Global warming? Have to change your light bulbs. War? Gotta vote, or if you're feeling really motivated, protest. Sex scandal involving a minor? Thump chest and advocate a slow, painful death for the moral reprobate in question.

So while Roman Polanski may well be a dog for whom hanging is too good, I fail to see how screaming that fact on the internet is useful--expect, of course, as a means of proving that we are, in fact, better people than Roman Polanski, which, given the contempt we clearly hold him in, isn't really all that high a standard, is it?

Or maybe you're all dispassionate observers who just want to see Justice done, and who derive no personal pleasure or satisfaction (or reassurance) from your loud observations of the bleeding obvious. In which case, I'm sorry. I thought you were looking for a cheap way to big yourselves up. Clearly I was wrong.