People are social creatures, and their behavior is based on imitation to a much greater degree than generally supposed. How else to explain why a generation decides at once to pierce their tongues, or why stocks rise and fall? How to explain how a child learns language? Even our desires are not our own; we learn them from others.
“We don’t even know what our desire is. We ask other people to tell us our desires,” Rene Girard said during a lecture at Stanford’s Old Union in February. “We would like our desires to come from our deepest selves, our personal depths—but if it did, it would not be desire. Desire is always for something we feel we lack.”
Envy and resentment are the inevitable consequences of this drive toward mimesis. These emotions, in turn, fuel conflict; it occurs whenever two or more “mimetic rivals” want the same thing, which can go to only one. It might be a woman, a presidency or a research grant. Many religious prohibitions are meant to regulate and control such conflict.
“When we describe human relations, we lie,” Girard said. “We describe them as normally good, peaceful and so forth, whereas in reality they are competitive, in a war-like fashion.”
Brig, Soren and Reidar- Rene Girard has a deep understanding on the origin of malevolent , evil behavior (your mother is evil and malevolent), and the history of society repeatedly using scapegoats and the undescribable horrors when innocent people are sacrificed to appease their delusional fears. Terrible, terrible, terrible events happen.
Carlos is safe from the mafia in Japan…and in Lebanon. But the American’s turned over their own citizens to Japanese mafia.
This is unprecedented legal action. Your government does not protect you from thieves, liars and mafia.
An American father-son duo admitted to helping orchestrate former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn’s audacious escape from Japan as they made their first appearance before a Tokyo court on Monday.
Former special forces operative Michael Taylor and his son Peter were extradited by US authorities over allegations that they and a third man, who remains at large, smuggled Ghosn out of Japan in a music equipment case as he awaited trial.
At the Tokyo district court, the pair did not contest the facts laid out by prosecutors in an indictment, effectively conceding their role in the saga.
“Is there any mistake in what the prosecutor just read?” the judge asked each man in turn. Both replied no.
Michael Taylor, 60, was led in first to the courtroom, with his hands cuffed in front of him. He wore plastic slippers, dark trousers and a white shirt with no tie.
His 28-year-old son was brought in after, with both men wearing face masks.
The pair face up to three years in prison if convicted of helping Ghosn—currently an international fugitive living in Lebanon, which has no extradition treaty with Japan.
The former auto tycoon was out on bail while awaiting trial on four counts of financial misconduct, which he denies, when he managed to slip past authorities onto a private jet, transit in Turkey and land in Lebanon.
The December 2019 escape was hugely embarrassing for Japanese authorities, and US prosecutors called it “one of the most brazen and well-orchestrated escape acts in recent history”.
Black box
In court, prosecutors laid out again the almost cinematic details of the operation—including that Ghosn was hidden in a large case with air holes drilled into it to slip past security at an airport.
As airport staff handled the black box, which was too big to X-ray, one joked that “maybe there’s a young woman in there”, according to the evidence listed by prosecutors Monday.
Ghosn first hatched a plan to flee Japan six months before his escape, prosecutors said, contacting Michael Taylor using a secret mobile phone after being introduced by his wife Carole.
Worried that security guards tailing him could disrupt his escape, he sent his lawyer to police to complain he was being stalked and have the detail reduced, prosecutors added.
Prosecutors said Ghosn and his wife paid the Taylors for their help through an online ad company and directly, with public broadcaster NHK reporting that Peter received 144 million yen ($1.3 million).
The Asahi Shimbun daily said the pair spent most of the money on preparations for the escape, including the costs of chartering a private jet, claiming that they were not paid for their help.
Ghosn at large
The Taylors had fought their extradition to Tokyo, claiming they could face torture-like conditions, and did not comment on their case after arriving in early March.
A third man, identified as George Antoine Zayek, is also accused of involvement in the escape but remains at large.
Ghosn is still in Lebanon, where he was questioned last month by French investigators over a series of alleged financial improprieties.
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Among the allegations are improper financial interactions with Renault-Nissan’s distributor in Oman, payments by a Dutch subsidiary to consultants and lavish parties organised at the Palace of Versailles.
The questioning took place with his defence team and a Lebanese prosecutor present. Ghosn was heard as a witness as he would need to be in France to be formally indicted.
Others involved in the Ghosn case have faced legal proceedings, including his former aide at Nissan, Greg Kelly, who is also on trial in Tokyo for his alleged role in underreporting the tycoon’s income.
And a Turkish court has sentenced two pilots and another employee of a small private airline to four years and two months in prison for their role in Ghosn’s escape.
“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar. You are only telling the world that you fear what he might say” George Martin
Brig, Soren and Reidar. I will not let you mother silence me. She fears all the documents and truth of what she has done. That is why she is trying to cancel me, and have me placed in jail. That is why she does not allow you to talk to me. It is very simple. She fears being exposed.
If I was her, I could not live with myself after committing such acts of evil.
Swarm is a decentralised storage and communication system for a sovereign digital society.
Swarm is a system of peer-to-peer networked nodes that create a decentralised storage and communication service. The system is economically self-sustaining due to a built-in incentive system enforced through smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
I am putting PutnamBoys.com and MountainDreamers and all information on Swarm and IPFS so it cannot be deleted.
Your Papa cannot be deleted- no matter what your mother thinks she can hide from her fraud. She wants me to in jail or dead, but she cannot escape reality. It will catch up with her.
18. Glynn M and Addaction, Dad and Me: Research into the problems caused by absent fathers, 2011
19. Wellings K, Nanchanahal K and MacDowall W, ‘Sexual behaviour in Britain: Early heterosexual experience’ The Lancet, 388, pp1843–50 cited in CIVITAS, Experiments in Living: The Fatherless Family, London: CIVITAS, September 2002 [accessed via: http://www.civitas.org.uk/ pdf/Experiments.pdf (16/01/13)] CIVITAS, Experiments in Living, Op. cit. London School of Economics and Political Science, Boys with absent fathers more likely to be young fathers, 7 September 2011 [accessed via: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2011/09/absent_fathers.aspx (06/08/12)]
20. Horn W and Sylvester T, Father facts: 4th Edition, 2002, National Fatherhood Initiative; U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), The relationship between family structure and adolescent substance abuse, 1996, Rockville, MD: National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information; Harper C and McLanahan S ‘Father absence and youth incarceration’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA, 1998; Brenner E, Fathers in prison: A review of the data, 1999, Philadelphia, PA: National Centre on Fathers and Families
21. Wellings K, et al, Op. cit. Ellis B et al, ‘Does father absence place daughters at special risk for early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy?’ Child Development, 74, 2003, pp801–821 cited in Andrews K, Maybe ‘I do’: modern marriage and the pursuit of happiness, 2012, Connor Court
22. Harper C and McLanahan S, ‘Father Absence and Youth Incarceration,’ Journal of Research on Adolescence, 2004, pp369–397
I could have never imagined, that society would call Math RACIST, and form their own justice math. Your mother works at school that supports this insanity. Math is Math- PERIOD. Wake up, and stop the delusional people around you.
Read a full discourse on how math and science is being destroyed by the social justice people around you. They are not your friends, they are truly fragile, and easily prone to violence.
His son is DEAD… and the father is “guilty” of embarrasing a judge. That is how our court system works. They certainly do not care about you or other children.
A Grieving Father Is Standing Trial for Criticizing a Judge on Facebook
Jonathan Vanderhagen believes a judge doomed his son to an early death. The judge says Vanderhagen’s Facebook posts were intimidating.
A Michigan man was jailed last month on a $500,000 bond after writing critical posts on Facebook about the judge who denied him custody of his son. Jonathan Vanderhagen, 35, is now standing trial for malicious use of telecommunication services.
The saga began two years ago when Vanderhagen petitioned Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Rachel Rancilio for sole custody of his 2-year-old son, Killian. Vanderhagen argued that Killian’s biological mother was unfit to be Killian’s sole guardian. Judge Rancilio disagreed and the child’s mother was able to retain custody.
Shortly after the custody dispute, Killian passed away in his mother’s care from what authorities concluded was a preexisting medical condition.
Despite that conclusion, Vanderhagen believed that Killian would still be alive had he been granted custody. Since his son’s death in 2017, Vanderhagen has used his Facebook page to criticize Rancilio’s custody ruling. Those posts, none of which were deemed threatening by the police department that investigated them, landed Vanderhagen in jail.
According to a complaint and an emergency bond hearing provided to Reason by Vanderhagen’s lawyer, Nicholas Somberg, Vanderhagen was charged with one misdemeanor count of malicious use of telecommunication services due to his criticism of Rancilio. The definition of “malicious use” includes using a telecommunication service with the intention of terrorizing, intimidating, threatening, or harassing Rancilio.
The case report filled out by Sgt. Jason Conklin of the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office notes that Rancilio was made aware of Vanderhagen’s posts, several of which included screenshots of her own Facebook page and pins on Pinterest. The screenshots are accompanied by captions promising to expose the corruption of the court system and calling Rancilio and Mary Duross, a 14-year veteran Friend of the Court who was involved in the custody case, “shady.”
“At no point does [Vanderhagen] threaten harm or violence towards Rancilio or Duross,” Conklin wrote in the case report.
Conklin took various screenshots of Vanderhagen’s Facebook posts, including the following.
Dada back to digging & you best believe im gonna dig up all the skeletons in this court’s closet ????
The Facebook post in question shows Vanderhagen holding a shovel with the photoshopped initials R.R. and M.D., believed to be Rancillio and Duross, respectively. The caption says, “Dada back to digging [and] you best believe [I’m] gonna dig up all the skeletons in this court’s closet.”
The post was published to Facebook on July 8. Somberg explains to Reason that the date of this particular post should have jeopardized the case brought against Vanderhagen.
Vanderhagen received a letter from Sgt. Morfino, dated July 10, informing him that there was a warrant for his arrest for malicious use of telecommunications. The letter says the actions occurred “on or about” July 7. Vanderhagen was arraigned before the Macomb County District Court on July 11.
Vanderhagen was released on a $10,000 bond under the condition that he would not engage in direct or third-party contact with Rancilio. Vanderhagen was also prohibited from sending “inadvertent messages by way of Facebook” to Rancilio.
Following the arraignment, Vanderhagen continued to use Facebook to post about his son, his son’s mother, and his case, topics Somberg argues are not in violation of the bond conditions set on July 11. Regardless, Vanderhagen was summoned to appear before District Judge Sebastian Lucido at the end of July for an emergency bond hearing, allegedly for “posting messages” about Rancilio.
A list of exhibits presented to the court highlights Facebook posts calling his son a hero, criticisms of his son’s mother, and criticisms of “the system,” none of which directly referenced Rancilio.
The only reference to Rancilio is found in Exhibit 1, which features screenshots of Vanderhagen’s July 8 Facebook post. Considering Vanderhagen did not receive his bond conditions until three days after that Facebook post was published online, however, its inclusion seems like an inappropriate attempt to paint Vanderhagen as more of a threat than he actually is.
In a transcript of the exchange between Somberg and Judge Lucido at the emergency bond hearing, Somberg argued that Vanderhagen has a First Amendment right to air his court-related grievances online:
MR. SOMBERG: Every one of these exhibits are innocuous, are irrelevant, are not threatening, are not harassing or not intimidating in any way whatsoever. And I would make the argument that he can F say the Judge, F the President of the United States. I mean you have the right to say that stuff.
Lucido’s responded that there are “limits” to the First Amendment right to free speech:
THE COURT: There cannot be anything of a threatening nature. You can’t yell. They used the example, the famous case, you can’t yell fire in a public place or movie theater, something like that. We’re talking about threatening a sitting Circuit Court Judge is the original allegation against Mr. Vanderhagen. When there’s a no contact, it’s no contact directly, indirectly or social media. These are [although] he likes to hint around the fringes of it, in my opinion they are of a threatening nature after the no contact was put in place.
Somberg then asked Lucido to explain why the other posts were considered threatening towards Rancilio. Lucido told Somberg that the Facebook posts “speak for themselves:”
THE COURT: You can sit there and read every one of them if you want but [they’re] already part of the record.
MR. SOMBERG: I understand that, your Honor, but you just said that you found the exhibits to show that they are threatening in nature. I’m just asking what—
THE COURT: Correct—
MR. SOMBERG: —is threatening about them.
THE COURT: —because [they’re] alluding to Judge Rancilio and I’m not going to sit here and explain it any further. But here’s what I am going to read and what is also put in LEIN. Do not harass, intimidate, beat, molest, wound, stalk, threaten or engage in any other conduct that would place any of the following persons or a child of any of the following person’s in reasonable fear of bodily injury, spouse, former spouse, individual with whom the defendant has a child in common, resident or former resident of the household. Do not assault, harass, intimidate, beat, wound or threaten the following persons, Rachel Rancilio. And in my opinion, he’s violated that.
“People have a constitutional right to express opinions about government officials, including judges,” says Loyola Law School Professor Aaron Caplan. “Defendants who appear before a judge have this right, just like anybody else. It might not be wise to criticize the judge hearing your case, but it is a right that defendants have if they want to exercise it.”
Caplan notes that free speech “does not include the right to make what the law calls ‘true threats’ to inflict bodily harm on any other person, including judges.”
Yet Conklin, the investigating sergeant in Vanderhagen’s case, concluded that “[a]t no point does [Vanderhagen] threaten harm or violence towards Rancilio or Duross.”
Not only does it appear that Vanderhagen’s First Amendment rights have been violated, Judge Lucido also increased Vanderhagen’s bond to $500,000, raising questions about the use of excessive bail amounts as a means of further punishing and suppressing Vanderhagen’s speech.
In an emergency appeal, Somberg argued that legal precedent states that “bail is excessive if it is in an amount greater than reasonably necessary to adequately assure that the accused will appear when his…presence is required.” The nature of the offense, Somberg continued, also raises questions about the $500,000 bond. Vanderhagen was charged with a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a maximum fine of $1,000.
Somberg can see no logical explanation for the court’s decision to increase Vanderhagen’s bond 50 times the initial amount. Vanderhagen has no criminal record. Nor is he a registered firearm owner. These factors, Somberg argues, would justify a lower bond, not a higher bond.
In a statement to Reason, Somberg likens the high bond to intimidation. “He has never threatened anybody, has no criminal history, and is no flight risk. A $500,000 cash bond is what you would expect for a murderer or rapist. I can’t think of any other reason to set such an astronomically high bond other than to intimidate and punish him for his speech. We are fighting this case not just for my client but to defend the constitutional rights of all of us,” Somberg says.
