Come on - if I accuse you of being 74 and having sex with a a 17 year old girl on a billionaire's private island - then nobody can defend you? Minsky is dead and he cannot defend himself, the girl said she was directed to have sex with him - but she did not say she eventually did it, she did answer a question about where she went to do that and she answered that which would imply that she had sex with him - but it is entirely possible that she meant the place where she was directed to do it, but eventually failed, there is a witness saying that he turned her down. These are the facts from the deposition and it is fair to point them out.
There is another aspect of his emails - he also wrote that she presented herself as willing and that was entirely misquoted as 'she was willing', which was unfair. Stallman's point was that it is a bit misleading to characterise the act as 'assault' if it was she who sought out Minsky and he was not aware of the fact that she was coerced by Epstein. This is a bit insensitive splitting hair - but the misquoting was really mean.
Err... anyone can defend him. The fact that RMS did defend him is prima facie evidence that he was able to defend him.
Now, most people would mount a defense along the lines of "I don't believe Minsky would have sex with trafficked girls". RMS, always with the innovative methods, decided "Maybe it's not so bad to have sex with trafficked underage girls".
But, like it or not, he was clearly capable of making that defense. So I don't know where "can't defend" is coming from.
I am not a native English speaker - should I use 'nobody is allowed to defend' instead? He was punished for defending his friend and the parent post justifies that:
"RMS was defending his friend who, at the age of 74, is accused of having sex with a 17 year old girl on a billionaire's private island.
There is not a defense for what RMS was writing or how he was trying to defend Minsky.
...
The firing was appropriate and reasonable, not a response to extremists, zealots, or some other kind of witch."
As if it was enough to defend someone accused of some crime to be guilty as well. This is clearly absurd - so I am trying to get the author to explain what he really meant.
RMS is not guilty of a crime, I don't think anyone is saying that.
RMS can (could) make his defense, nobody stopped him, sreened or censored the posts, his opinions are legal.
RMS can't (couldn't) make some of the statements he made and keep his prominent positions.
The issue at hand is not that he was defending his deceased friend. Indeed I think it is very possible that the actual situation was that Minsky was there and declined the sexual advances. That is a story which is out there, I'm not here to judge if it's true or not.
It was the way RMS was defending. Those specific statements are things you "can't" do and - qualifying here - keep a prominent public position, especially when you are making them in a prominent forum in that institution.
RMS shouldn't be charged with a crime, but he did make a whole lot of people not want to work with or be associated with him.
OK - the whole flamewar shows that indeed the mailing list was probably not a good way of defending Minsky. It was not effective and it generated a lot of chaos. But then the question is what would be the appropriate way?
There is another aspect of his emails - he also wrote that she presented herself as willing and that was entirely misquoted as 'she was willing', which was unfair. Stallman's point was that it is a bit misleading to characterise the act as 'assault' if it was she who sought out Minsky and he was not aware of the fact that she was coerced by Epstein. This is a bit insensitive splitting hair - but the misquoting was really mean.