Crimes and Other Things

There are crucial distinctions separating  crimes, actions creating a civil liability, and simply sleazy or disgusting behavior. It is important to resist tendencies to blur or ignore them - whether by making crimes out of non-crimes, excusing bad actions  because they fall short of being criminal, or something else.  

 Taking examples from the news,  if Harvey Weinstein raped any of the women who say he did, he is a criminal and should be prosecuted as one.  If he went against policies or mutual understandings on harassment  in his treatment of women working or wanting to work at his  movie company, he  is liable to lawsuits for doing so. In the unlikely case he did neither but only behaved  for years as a crude, overbearing,  obnoxious lecher, he is still a lowlife whose company decent people might want to shun, but not someone who should be hauled into civil or criminal court.  If Kevin Spacey attacked and  tried to sodomize a fourteen year old boy, he is a criminal and deserving of prosecution (deserving even  if that is impossible due a statute of limitations). If he harassed fellow actors on the job, he is fair game for lawsuits. If he did neither but continually hustles and propositions the legal age men he meets socially without respect to their interests or inclinations, he is still a very  unpleasant character but not someone who belongs in court. If in his thirties Roy Moore felt up a fourteen year old girl, he is a criminal pervert who should be prosecuted (should even though can’t due to a statute of limitations).  If in his thirties he only trolled malls for and  tried to date legal age teenage girls, he is a creepy guy one would not want to hang out with but not someone who should be in court.

Not every bad action is a crime or even a tort. There are many things one  should disapprove of or condemn which are not matters for the government or the  law but rather for individual judgments base on one’s sense of decency and propriety.