Seth Barrett Tillman: “Some Uncomfortable Thoughts About the Smollett Prosecution”

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Dave Chapelle knows it. See . I know it. And you know it too. There was no hate crime; it was a hoax. And there have been many hoaxes in recent history. It is a long, long list. Smollett’s actions have (inadvertently) exposed the race hoax industry, and its regular accessories across the U.S. news-media-&-entertainment-industry complex. The media will purport to believe anything. The beast has to be fed—copy has to be sold—clicks have to be inflated—even if the ultimate result is racial violence grounded in a hoax.
 
But we should still take a good, hard look at the Smollett prosecution…

Read the whole thing.

19 thoughts on “Seth Barrett Tillman: “Some Uncomfortable Thoughts About the Smollett Prosecution””

  2. I did not know anything about the judge’s ruling either. Maybe Juicy flounces off of history’s stage a free ma . . . whatever.

    It’s still entirely clear that the he tried to start trouble with a race hoax; may he never cease to look over his shoulder in fear.

  3. Smollett was just the most recent and highly visible among the literally hundreds of hate crime hoaxes. Indeed, there is an entire book about them:

    “Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War” by Wilfred Reilly (2019)
    https://www.amazon.com/Hate-Crime-Hoax-Lefts-Campaign/dp/1621577783

    “In Hate Crime Hoax, Professor Wilfred Reilly examines over one hundred widely publicized incidents of so-called hate crimes that never actually happened. With a critical eye and attention to detail, Reilly debunks these fabricated incidents—many of them alleged to have happened on college campuses—and explores why so many Americans are driven to fake hate crimes. We’re not experiencing an epidemic of hate crimes, Reilly concludes—but we might be experiencing an unprecedented epidemic of hate crime hoaxes.”

    “Wilfred Reilly is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University, and the author of the books “Taboo: 10 Facts You Can’t Talk About,’ “Hate Crime Hoax,” and “The $50,000,000 Question.”
    https://www.amazon.com/Wilfred-Reilly/e/B07RBL17FQ

    Kentucky State is an HBCU.

  4. Incidentally the trial judge in Smollett’s prosecution was not the same person as the one who issued the ruling that Tillman discusses. Unless there is concrete evidence of prejudice in the conduct of the trial, its not grounds for reversal, or a new trial.

  5. What’s surprising here is the apparent incompetence of the political hackery. The hakery itself is hardly surprising in Cook County. The interesting question is why the powers that be reversed course from ignoring it to prosecuting it.

    Was Judge Toomin incapable of rationalizing his decision in a way that would pass even cursory review or simply couldn’t be bothered? Why has it taken this long to come out?

    Prosecutorial discretion is the real problem and Soros seems to be the first to both notice and exploit it. The Constitution guaranties every defendant a fair and prompt trial. The reality is that if every defendant exercised this right, we would have to construct court houses on the scale of Amazon warehouses and place every citizen not directly employed by the justice establishment on permanent, perpetual jury duty just so someone arrested as a teen could come to trial before he died of old age. The alternative is a “system” that won’t bear scrutiny. Hedging prosecutorial discretion about with its own set of due processes could easily crash the system as badly as eliminating it and making every case come to trial.

  6. As posted over there: About one-third of hate crimes turn out to be hoaxes, and on college campuses it is over 50%. Real hate crimes are just stupid assholes shoving someone and saying “nigger” or getting a few guys together to victimise anyone who looks like a victim, without regard to race, sex, orientation, etc. Just someone who looks vulnerable. They’ll call you (or your girlfriend) whatever they think will hurt and get you to engage with them.

    Between the hoaxes, the sociopathy, and the dim meanness, there aren’t many real hate crimes left over. Some. And prosecute those bastards hard, thanks. But that’s not what’s usually happening.

  7. I question how many “hate crimes” there actually were, historically…

    Time was, it was a fairly typical thing to hear guys at the base I was assigned to talking about going up to the gay bars in the Seattle area and doing a little “gay-bashing” for sport. I always took those assholes at face value, assuming they were actually doing what they talked about. Wasn’t a terrible amount you could do about it, because nobody in authority was particularly interested in doing anything about it–You’d report it, they’d roll their eyes, and you got the distinct impression that you were the problem.

    Around that time, I was spending some time with the various SF/comic venues, and got to know a few folks of “alternate sexual persuasion”. Talking to them, I discovered that there was a huge mismatch between “assholes talking trash” at the base and actual cases of, y’know… Gay bashing. Namely, that on the weekends when these guys would be talking about going up there to “do things”, nothing actually happened. It was like there were two parallel universes, one where guys supposedly went out “gay-bashing” for sport, and one where such things almost never happened. The gays seemed to be living in that second universe, thankfully.

    It wasn’t until about a decade later, when I ran into some of those self-same self-described “gay bashers” as actual “out and outrageous” gays themselves that the light came on for me: They’d been talking trash about going up north to Seattle to “beat up faggots” in order to provide cover for their own forays into experimentation with their sexuality–If anyone from the base ever saw them up there, then they could explain their presence with the “manly” excuse that they were up there cruising for “faggots to beat up”.

    Or, so I now surmise. From the way you would hear people talking about all that, back in the day? You’d assume there was this vast amount of anti-gay thuggery going on, which did happen, but at a vastly lower rate than people talked about it.

    Weird thing is, I think most of the legit cases of gay bashing I knew about were performed by other gays, ones who weren’t out of their closets, as of yet. The one guy I knew who got prosecuted for it? He was “out” within less than a couple of years, gay and proud of it. I suspect there’s a lot of rage there, based on jealousy and denial of self. Most straights that are actually straight, and not self-repressed gays acting straights? Most of them really don’t care, so long as someone takes “No” for an answer when they’re approached. The guys who over-react and get vicious, when another guy makes a pass at them? Usually react badly because they’re threatened by the experience, while an actual straight is just vastly amused by it all–“Oh, isn’t that cute… He thinks I’m attractive…”. You have to be threatening with your pass attempt, before you’re going to get aggression out of your usual straight in return for a pass.

    Race goes the same way, too–The worst major offender I knew for anti-black racism was a white guy who was actually part black. His dad had crossed the color line sometime back in the 1950s, and raised his kid as a white, but there was so much animosity in the family over the issue that the kid picked up and amplified it to such a degree that it wasn’t funny. It was not all that much fun watching what happened when it came clear what his dad’s actual family background was, when they showed up for the man’s funeral. Talk about your “cognitive dissonance”…

  9. @Assistant Village Idiot,

    The longer I live, the less I take things at face value, especially what people make a point of telling me about. Most of those incidents, wherein other young males were boasting about their “manly” activities? I think back on those, and it was the sort of thing and situation wherein the “me” of today would be rolling my eyes and going “Oh, sure you will… And, why are you telling me this, again…?”.

    Biblical line runs something like “…the guilty flee where no man pursues…”, and that’s a telling observation of human nature. Man tells you something? Nine times out of ten, it’s not what he’s telling you, it’s why he’s telling you that specific fairy tale. Every time I run into someone who’s got their bigotry on, I’m moved to look a little deeper into their background, and I often find out that the guy who rails against pedophilia or who brings it up in order to denounce it? Dude usually has something going on involving kids. Racists? Usually hiding something like the proverbial “n-word in the woodpile”. People denouncing gays? Almost always other, closeted gays themselves, who’re simultaneously disturbed by their own attraction for the life, and enraged that someone else has the balls and strength of character to be true to themselves and be “out” as gay to everyone else. These types take it all as a reproach, and that’s why they attack, attack, attack those that enrage them.

    I’ve never known an actual “straight” heterosexual to be threatened by a gay or a lesbian–They’re mostly vastly amused by the whole thing. The people who react badly to things? Generally, they’re already insecure about their own sexuality themselves, and are reacting out of fear of their own attraction.

    I will have to admit that there are a couple of legit anti-gay bigots I know who’re straight, but they came by their bigotry honestly, having been molested or victimized by gay predators. Not many of those that I can think of, though… Even the guy I knew who woke up after his roommate went to great pains to get him drunk, finding said roommate naked in his bunk with him didn’t really have all that much animosity after the fact–Distaste? Yes. Animosity towards other gays? None at all.

    I think it’s all of a piece with how your find many of your most virulent anti-Semites are actual Jews–In order to really get the hate on, it has to be self-hate.

    Or, so I’ve surmised from my experiences and observations in life. Could be wrong, but… I’m not sure how the hell you’d go about gathering the data to refute it.

  10. Walter S, thanks for the info. Mr. Tillman is usually better than this.

    I’m tempted to fall back on the old cliche that hard cases make bad law. This was not only an outrageously lame hoax, highly publicized due to the originator’s minor celebrity, it was an equally outrageous and ham-fisted application of ‘prosecutorial discretion’ after Smollet’s FIHP intervened. Of course in recommending a special prosecutor a strong statement of Smollet’s guilt was likely. If he was likely to be innocent, or the charge unprovable, then a special prosecutor would have been completely unwarranted.

    What I have heard of the case makes me think that the second prosecution was largely due to the fact that instead of thanking his luck stars (and his FIHP) and then *STFU* about the whole thing, Smollet took the obvious reaction to his lame-ass acting when not speaking from somebody else’s script and the dropped charges as license to make himself the poster child for why we should believe all hate-crime hoaxers.

  11. I didn’t follow the trial that closely, but didn’t the defense try to tag the alleged Nigerian perpetrators as anti-gay, only for evidence to come out that one had had some sort of consensual encounter with Smollett?

    To; “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” add; “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”.

  13. judge toomin, could have just targeted kim foxx’s malpractice, we’ll see if jussie’s attorneys pick up on this

  14. Race goes the same way, too–The worst major offender I knew for anti-black racism was a white guy who was actually part black.

    I have a theory that the most angry blacks are the light complected ones who resent not being white. I see lots of black conservatives who are far from the “color line” and seem comfortable with their situation. Obama might be one but he was also a grifter whose entry into politics was fraud against a darker black opponent.

  15. One way you can tell that the issue of race is becoming pretty much a non-issue, in real terms, is seeing all the whites passing themselves off as ethnic minorities in order to take advantage of all the various set-asides and other such things. If the situation for blacks in America were all that bad, these days, who the hell would be stupid enough to do that?

    Other interesting point along those lines would be the number of mediocre male athletes “switching genders” in order to achieve stardom by competing against women, which is another sign that the gender issues are pretty much “solved”. It’s really all over but the going over of the battlefield, and shooting the wounded, at this point. It’s actually rather funny, in a macabre way–I don’t think it’s going to be too long before you start seeing biological men being named mothers of the year and what have you. Were I a feminist, at this point, I think I’d be having some serious second thoughts about the entire exercise–As a group, they’d have been smarter not to have gone for “equal rights” but “different rights”, and then gotten the traditional feminine prerogatives enshrined into written law. In the end, I am pretty sure that women a few generations hence are going to look back at the feminists of this era as a pack of purblind dolts who sold out their own gender for a mess of pottage.

    Like race, gender issues are things pretty much of our own making out of some rather unfortunate realities. Race, for example? It’s basically a pragmatic recognition that many behavioral traits are heritable, encoded into our biology–Along with the fact that such traits are many times associated with specific behaviors, enough so that it can be a valuable tool for people to assess new acquaintances. What’s unfortunate is that many of the outward markers that have become associated with these things bear little or no relationship to the reality of what heritable behavioral traits a specific individual might have, although you can sometimes make valid assumptions based on appearances and demonstrated behaviors. Enough so that many people become convinced that those assumptions are actual racial traits, which is where a hell of a lot of the problems come from.

    Ah, well… It’ll all shake out, eventually. Or, not–I suspect that we’re about to enter an era of real strangeness, as people start doing their own genetic modifications on their kids, for whatever reasons. By the end of the next century, assuming we don’t manage to kill ourselves off, the human race may look very, very different–And, the whole thing will be a moot point. Or, alternatively, we’ll find something else to hate about each other, and the racists of today will look like charming primitives, whilst the genetically-engineered look down on those who didn’t go in for it. Who knows? With people, there’s always something…

  16. Since all the old categories are dissolving and identity is a free-for-all, I think sports will have to segment into Natural vs Juiced, Natural vs Altered, u.s.w.

  17. I think what they’re going to have to do, given all the idiocy surrounding gender identity, is move to a setup where you compete in divisions based on your physical characteristics. If you’re above a certain muscle mass and bone density, you’re in one category; below it, another.

    Which will make it a lot harder to divvy up the competitors, but hey… It’s what we’re left with, after the idiotarians got their hands on the controls. Common sense would say “Yeah; girls are mostly smaller and have different proportions of body fat to muscle; they should compete in a separate category…”. That’s common sense, which is apparently now an ‘effing superpower.

    I really feel for a lot of the “just plain folks” types out there who only want to do their thing on a level playing field with their peers. The sad fact is, most of these males competing as females are actually some seriously creepy freaks, whose competitiveness as males was below average, but who found a way to live out their Walter Mitty-esque fantasies by sidelining actual women. I’ll wager you this much–I will not be surprised to find out that a lot of these freakoids are probably still having heterosexual relations with women, and they’re about as “female” as I am. It’s all about the athletic ego-boos, not their gender identities.

  18. Every time I run into someone who’s got their bigotry on, I’m moved to look a little deeper into their background, and I often find out that the guy who rails

    Yup. The homosexual who denounces ‘breeders’ and ‘rug rats’ is actually deeply ashamed of [s]his sexual conduct. The feminist railing against rape is actually barely in control of her own depraved sexuality. And don’t get me started on anti-racists, peace activists, etc.

    (I think in “Closing of the American Mind” Bloom notes that [J.B.*]’s conduct suggest violent impulses she could barely control. All for peace, of course.)

    * Memory tells me it’s a popular folk singer, but I no longer have a copy of the book to check. Might have been Harlan Ellison in “The Glass Teat,” not Bloom.

  19. @Erisguy,

    Mmmmm… I’m kinda getting at the opposite syndrome. What you identify does go on, but the sort of thing I’m seeing is pretty much your typical “self-hating Jew” syndrome going on, but with more than just someone’s religion.

    You find a straight who’s decrying gays…? Often, said straight would be acting out as gay, themselves, if they didn’t feel the weight of society’s disapproval and their own self-doubt. Same-same with a lot of the other sorts of demonstrated bigotries–You hardly ever see the same depth of racial animosity and fervor with the unquestionably “member of” that race or ethnicity that you do with the edge cases who’re basically over-acting in order to affirm their membership in the in-group. Similar behavior to be seen with new converts to a religious faith or similar such identity-group–They’re more fervent, more fundamentalist, and way, way less tolerant than the established and unquestioned types they’re trying to become identified with.

    Which, when you get down to it, is the flip side of the coin I’m talking about, and which you’ve identified–The more-fervent-than-thou convert. I think we’re seeing the same thing, but it’s sort of two sides of the same fun-house mirror.

    They’re all pretty much not my sort of people, TBH. I have always had a suspicion of the fervent “believer” types, whatever the espoused belief. There’s always something a little “off” with their behavior, and I find their general blindness to how much they have in common with each other to be extremely disturbing–The “witch hunter” mentality on either side of the line is to be avoided like the plague, and anyone who easily takes up stuff like that generally has something more than a little “off” upstairs. I guess I’m just not much of a “believer”, in anything–When I was deciding which branch of service to join, the Marines just left me with a visceral sense of “There’s something not quite right with these guys…”, mainly due to things like poetry written to their rifles in Leatherneck. It’s like dealing with Mormon missionaries, in some ways–They’re so thoroughly inculcated and indoctrinated with the tenets of their faith that they either slide easily into life-long adherence, or they become vociferous Jack Mormons that have no faith in anything whatsoever, having had something broken in them by the experience of coming to question their faith. Marines who’ve come to question the Corps and its tenets (because, believe you me, that’s a friggin’ religious experience masquerading as an armed service…) usually become deeply cynical and somewhat damaged by the experience of losing that faith.

    Which is meandering towards something else entirely than the original point I meant to make, here…

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