"His presumption of innocence can only be built on the presumption that ... her words are not evidence."

well, yeah. by definition, actually. an accusation is not evidence of that accusation, and thinking in such terms creates a very muddy position, logically, that's actually kind of scary. but, orwellian scare mongering aside, it's really an attempt to use words (and not a very good one) to try and replace a presumption of innocence with a presumption of guilt. that's what is really going on there.

....because, after all, his presumption of innocence *is* the presumption that her words are not evidence. right?

i got deleted by somebody for pointing this out. which is whatever, but i wasn't really pushing that point. that much, i thought, was so obvious as to pass without debate. i suppose not.

it's not the first time i've seen somebody get very emotional about this, though, in ways i'm not able to understand.

...and, so, what i was interested in is whether or not the presumption of innocence is something that people actually support? do you actually believe in this idea? or would you actually rather a presumption of guilt?

well, i think it's more just a perspective. really, an arbitrary one. either option could be presented as a null hypothesis. but i'm getting the perception that people that lean towards the assumption of guilt care less about process and more about retribution. that is that they don't care about the presumption of innocence, they just demand "justice". in the end, that reduces to a very different concept of justice - a procedural concept vs. a kind of violent, retributive blood lust. and that may go a ways to explaining why arguments so quickly collapse into nonsense and name-calling. it's not about discourse, it's something more primal than that. further, i suspect there's a correlation between people that want to tweak the presumption of innocence and people that want more punitive sentences. i wouldn't expect that the people arguing for the presumption of guilt would be in favour of rehabilitative or restorative justice systems. i'd suspect there may even be a correlation with support for capital punishment.

i'm just drawing obvious conclusions, though. i realize i'm not going to get a real discourse. people seem to be afraid to take this position because of the perception that it's considered tyrannical. it's not that obscure, though. i've read essays in favour of it. i had a textbook last year that presented it as a debate (to my amazement). i've seen it work itself out in cases, and on analysis in the media. it may actually be the dominant view in some places. i mean, it's a "new right" position. so, some people might find that scary. but the new right has been pretty successful. if you're agreeing, it's less that you're evil and more that you're just a conservative. conservatives are real people. there's no inherent shame in that.

so, while i happen to be on the liberal side of the argument (the presumption of innocence), i realize it's sort of arbitrary and am not going to demonize people that disagree with me (even as i realize the same level of respect will unfortunately not be returned). rather, i think it's more important that this social shift is discussed properly as it happens so that people understand what's going on and have the chance to react, respond and adjust to it. it's a pretty big shift in social attitudes! and that's neither left nor right, it's just democracy.

really, what i'm interested in is re-separating the ideas of evidence and accusation. then we can be honest about which null hypothesis is being used.

when i think of people that confuse evidence and accusation, i think of joseph mccarthy, john ashcroft and the early puritan colonies in massachusetts. it's not the same thing as assuming guilt. but the intellectual subversion it creates is more dangerous than just being honest about legal philosophies.