Culture warriors are ranting

Well, that Brittany Higgins aborted trial is a spectacular example of the problems with jury trials.   But man, is it causing the angry old reactionary ants of the post-Catallaxy blogs to be very, very upset.  (They hate Brittany, and think this is a the biggest injustice since George Pell was convicted - although I still strongly suspect that he and his barrister made a bad, bad decision in not giving evidence in defence.  Also: no one ended up nude in an office the next morning in his case, making the circumstances of this allegation significantly different.)

I find it very easy to not be emotionally invested in cases like this, as having a good feeling for why a jury is inclined to decide one way or another (or can't decide) is very hard to do without being an observer in the court.  This cautionary concept seems completely novel to many people - and true, this can apply to Lefties as well as to mad angry Rightwingers. 

We do seem to be at some sort of peak of hyperbolic culture warring at the moment.   Well, I hope it's a peak.

To be fair, an example of this on the Left is to be found by those on Twitter who have gone berserk that the media is not spending all day calling the beating death of a 15 year old aboriginal boy in Perth at the hands of a white guy a racist lynching.   Many seem to think the story hasn't been reported at all.  

Unlike cases in America of the "white guy shoots random black guy thinking he's the one who broke into the neighbour's house" type, the arrest here was swift and the trial will likely be on pretty soon too.  A lengthy sentence is assured.

It is a shocking case, but seems to me to be of a kind that's pretty rare, too.   Calm down people.