Save the republic.

So. I’m not the only one hurting for income these days — the ACLU is up a creek, too.

Apparently the American Civil Liberties Union — you know, the folks who defend our First Amendment rights, and our rights to privacy, due process, and equal protection under the law? Those folks? — has just lost an annual check for $20 million. Twenty million dollars! Fully one quarter of their operating budget.

So. Remember when I said that donations to charities make really great gifts? Well, yep, it’s still true — and maybe we can dig a smidge deeper under the couch cushions, and ask our friends to do the same, and send a little cash toward the ACLU, as well.

Here’s the New York Times piece that broke the story, and here’s the statement by the no-longer anonymous donor, and here’s a link to the membership/donation page on the ACLU site. Commenter DMcK over at Balloon Juice (where I first learned of this sad turn of affairs) suggests, and I think reasonably, that the best bet — if you can afford it — is to become a “Guardian of Liberty” (despite the sadly right-wing sounding title. When did “guarding liberty” become identified as a right-wing pursuit? But I digress!) and give a monthly gift, starting as low as (say) $5. The regularity of the income is very valuable to advocacy organizations and nonprofits, and I know from our experience with NPR, where we donate on a similar monthly program, it’s fairly painless on the donor’s end. If, on the other hand, that is beyond your means, I also know that anything you can give will help.

Can a bunch of well-intended folks sending in checks for ten and twenty and fifty dollars make up for the loss of twenty million? No. Not really.

But we can make a dent, and moreover, we can take an active position of responsibility in protecting the very rights that make this country such a good idea in the first place.

So. If you’ve got a little spare dosh, please consider sending it to the ACLU, and please spread the word. Freedom, as the saying goes, can’t protect itself.

Roman Polanski and us.

At some point this summer, when torture was the subject du jour, my wise husband turned to me and said: “There just aren’t two sides to this issue!”

I don’t often feel that way — indeed, though I may sound confident of my positions, I am often plagued by uncertainty, or at least a stereotypically liberal tendency to see the legitimacy of nearly all sides to an argument — but very occasionally, there really is but one side to an issue, and just the one. Torture is such an issue.

The Roman Polanski case is another.

Here are the facts, stripped of emotion: Roman Polanski pleaded guilty to drugging a 13 year old girl and — in spite of her repeated and documented “no”s — raping her both vaginally and anally in 1977. He then fled the country and has been living as a fugitive from American law ever since. He: 1) committed a felony act against a child; 2) admitted to it; 3) escaped. He was recently arrested by the Swiss authorities, and now faces extradition to the United States.

Even if we — momentarily — set aside his actual crime, the first point at which there are no two sides to the issue is the question of justice. The man pleaded guilty to a felony and then fled, rather than face justice. There is no question of a statute of limitations — indeed, Polanski added to his rap sheet when he got on that plane and left the country. He committed one serious crime, and then committed another.

If we, as a society, value the laws we’ve enacted, then we, as a society, have to take it seriously when they’re blatantly disregarded. Do felonies matter? Does the justice system matter? As a citizen in a constitutional republic in which the final word on any issue lies not with public opinion or politicians but with the justice system, I think that there are no two sides to this question even before we consider the crime.

Yet we cannot avoid the simple truth that the crime matters, too. When I was a rape crisis counselor, I would tell sexual assault survivors that they owed nothing to anyone — that if they couldn’t face filing charges, that was their call. In a one-on-one conversation with an individual survivor weighing his or her options today, I would say it again.

But the fact is that such a philosophy is only partially honest. The fact is that laws are established not to protect, or avenge, individuals. They’re established to protect all of society, both in a literal sense (if a rapist is put away, he’s not free to rape again) and in a figurative sense (what do we value? what matters to us? how do we protect those values and norms of behavior?). The enormity of this case has — rightly or wrongly, fairly or not — removed it from the realm of the individual and placed it in the realm of the collective. This is no longer a case about one man and one child — it’s about American society, and how we deal with men who rape children, admit it, and run away.

And moreover, the survivor has been through the justice system — what she feels about the case is no longer relevant to the case. It’s a matter for her and her loved ones and her therapist (and please God I hope she has one, because lordlord, I cannot imagine what she has gone through and what it’s doing to her now), but it frankly should have no bearing whatsoever on what happens to Roman Polanski, rapist.

I’ve seen the question posed, as a rhetorical: Who benefits from the arrest and possible extradition of Roman Polanski?

But it’s not a rhetorical question. It’s a question that goes to the heart of our society and our values. Who benefits from holding people — regardless of talent or fame — legally responsible for their acts? And who benefits from the statement made when the American justice system insists on bringing a child rapist to justice?

We do. We benefit. All of us. Our entire society benefits, and in particular, the girls and women whose bodies are still too frequently treated as expendable commodities, benefit.

All of the people who have tried to argue that Roman Polansky no longer deserves what he deserves are ignoring not only the truly heinous nature of his crime, but also the demands of a law-based society. Here is a list of some of the apologists, and I, personally, will no longer be able to watch a movie starring Tilda Swindon or Gael Garcia Bernal, or directed by Martin Scorsese, without a very bad taste in my mouth — if I watch it at all. (Update: Crap! Terry Gilliam, too!)

The right of 13 year old girls — or anyone — to not be raped, and the central position of the legal system in the functioning of our society are not, cannot be, less important than the life’s work of, and cultural affection for, a talented criminal. Who Polanski is, his work, his family life, or the number of years that have passed since he escaped the American legal system don’t have any bearing, whatsoever, on what the outcome of this case should be.

There are no two sides to this issue. There is, really, only one.