(I do like that the drama's back, though)

aw

(eat the rich)

Yah, way more fun when people rip into each other, right?

Eat them or guillotine them? Not sure which is more satisfying

experience on this board has shown that entertaining insane ideas is worth it if Jon`C is around to drop truth bombs on them

Around the time I wrote my comment about it "not being worth it to entertain arguments of people who've already made up their minds", I have to confess that I'd been reading a lot of conservative riff raff in the comments sections of various articles about the Kavenaugh allegations, looking for some redeeming quality in their reactions amid all the vitriol (I didn't find any).

Also keep in mind how long I've been hate-watching 4chan. It's somewhat difficult to even comprehend content on that site without getting so far into the mind of anon that you become something of a relativist in the process (staring right into the abyss).

TBH it's nice having some conservatives around who have better arguments

That's not the only possible explanation for why they had the letter prepped. Before contacting Senator Feinstein's office, Ford initially contacted the Washington Post about these allegations many months ago. It's possible the GOP heard about them from someone there. In additions, there were rumors swirling around Capitol Hill for weeks before the news went public. The authors of this letter could've heard those rumors. I don't think you can take the letter as evidence that Kavanaugh did it.

It's hard to attribute that sort of deceit and cunning to the GOP given how negative the backlash to that letter was. If they were so calculating, they probably would've realized that it'd backfire in a big way.

I like it

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1042835866924863490

Speaking of Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt there writes that a fundamental flaw of Eichmann's trial was that more attention was given to what the victims suffered than what the alleged perpetrator did. This seems like an instance where something similar is happening. Obviously, it's truly horrible that Dr Ford has been traumatized. What really matters is whether Kavanaugh did the things that he's alleged to have done. Appealing to her pain and suffering is hardly irrelevant, except for whipping up the mob into a frenzy.

I agree with what you've said, there should always be due process (how can we expect legal systems to work if there isn't?) and I hope the truth comes out too.

That said, I am a victim. The entire topic of "doubt" rubs me the wrong way. Victims just aren't trusted when we come forward, it's one of the issues frequently discussed around #MeToo. There's a healthy amount of questioning that need to come up, obviously, but holes in her story != proof that she's lying, which is the sentiment I get from way too many people. That's why I said bad faith, because I'd be hard pressed to believe that the questioning we're seeing is of the "fair" variety and not the usual victim-blamey BS that always comes up when an accusation against a public figure is made.

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but for what it's worth, we agree here. There's a problem with people who assume that she's lying, or that inconsistencies in the story make it non-credible. There's also a problem with people who assume that her story is completely unproblematic and unambiguous, and that anyone who doubts aspects of it must be acting out of malevolence. There are real questions here, and unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to arrive at definitive and satisfying answers to them.

The GOP is undoubtedly wrong to force her into testifying so soon. It's obviously deeply unfair to her personally. Unfortunately, the circumstances in which this arose have a larger political context, and Democrats and Republicans are both trying to profit from it. With the midterms coming up, Democrats have an incentive to stall Kavanaugh's confirmation as much as possible, and Republicans have an incentive to rush it, while they know they still have the votes. This political context, unfortunately, has very little to do with the allegations themselves, and isn't really conducive to doing right by Dr Ford.

I think if it weren't for the midterms coming up, it would be much easier for the GOP to pull Kavanaugh.

I agree. But I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest they should postpone the nomination given this circumstance. You can accuse the Democrats of trying to halt, but you can equally accuse the Republicans of trying to ram through their preferred nomination.

I think if you try your hardest not to view this politically, giving some time for people to speak, and for evidence and testimonies to come forth, is the right choice.

I hate the people doing this because it's ignorance reigning supreme.

Testimonies are inaccurate. They just are. Eyewitness statements from people who were all 100% confirmed to have been at an event will diverge in major details. Even good witnesses are not perfectly reliable.

Hell, it's obvious if you try it yourself. Just think about an event that happened in your past, and try to remember the exact ordering of events, who said what, exactly what you felt. It's damn near impossible. Insisting a standard that people are to have 100% accuracy on an event decades ago is utterly ludicrous.

If I'm going to be me and quote Nietzsche, he summarized humans pretty well when he said:



So I don't think people who are insisting it's a false testimony should be taken seriously. It is, in fact, angering. Sexual crimes are often very confusing for the victim and difficult to come forward on. This kind of bad criminology deepens the feeling that it's helpless to do anything.

Of course, that doesn't mean each and every last accusation is 100% real. But it's my suspicion that they're more often than not real. And given the very low rate sexual crimes are even reported, nonetheless actually tried, providing some social leeway to the accuser to make her statements without pressure and to not ramrod in Kavanaugh is only appropriate.

Even if he did do it, personally I don't think even that is an auto-exclusion, so long as he conducts himself admirably during the situation. People make horrible mistakes in life, and nobody is irredeemable. But the movement of conservatives to try and hush her up, or to deny the existence of sex crimes, or to imply there's an overwhelming problem of false accusers, is harmful to our society.



It's fine to doubt, and to open up a discussion. The line is between wanting to really hear her out, or to browbeat her so Republicans can score a political victory.

I think it's cheap to immediately accuse Democrats of trying to score a political win in circumstances like these, which is something many people have done.



Do we agree that tainting the courts is now the primary political concern in America?

I don't know if you saw my last posts when you wrote this, but I don't think you can isolate this from the political context. A Supreme Court justice confirmation is the circumstance in which this incident arose. Unfortunately, at this point it's only of interest to the extent that is has a bearing on the confirmation. It's not really a venue in which justice can be sought for Dr Ford, unless you think that justice is served by Kavaunaugh not being appointed. That'd be a convenient view for a deeply partisan Democrat to hold, and if that were someone's view I'd be curious how much they've really thought about why that is a fair punishment, and wonder if they can disentangle their opinion from their political sympathies.

In my view, this is entirely political, you can't accurately understand the situation without appreciating that: Democrats have a clear incentive to "postpone" the nomination, and, in fact, that may very well have something to do with why it took so long to go public. Republicans have a clear incentive to rush it. That's just how it is. Kirsten Gillibrand can heave and haw about justice all she wants, but that's not really what this is about.

Like, I don't give a **** about what you (or anyone) "can accuse" Democrats or Republicans of doing. I'm not interesting in that kind of moral equivalence or whataboutism. I'm not really interesting in tallying up who's done more worse stuff. Look, this is politics. So it's gross; it's really gross. But the stakes here are really high for both sides, and they have good reasons to do what they're doing, as abhorrent as it is.

You don't have to postpone the nomination until after the midterms.

I wouldn't use the language of tainting, but I'd agree that there's a massive fight happening between Democrats and Republicans over the judiciary, and that similar fights over the judiciary are happening in other countries in which democracies are threatened.

The thing you're saying about motivations, though, does diverge in one way. People who want to postpone the nomination can have multiple motivations, they can have some genuine care for Ford and her testimony, or they can have some desire to see Kavanaugh defeated for political reasons. I think the only reason people want it to continue is political expediency. I don't see much "legitimate" motivation for not wanting to give some leeway (not even until after the midterms, even before) just to hear her out.

So when do you want to postpone it to?

Or, in simple terms, I think the accusation of political expediency is more solid against the Republicans than against the Democrats here.

I think Vlad Tepes had some interesting ideas.

No, I think there are some people who want to see it continue are genuinely troubled that a person who they see as being a man of character would have his career "destroyed" by unfalsifiable and unverifiable allegations.

I happen to think that those people are totally wrong on several counts and are giving a bull**** justification, but I don't think they aren't sincere in believing it.

Ah, geez, maybe four weeks from now? At least enough time for people to speak, and for the public newspapers to write and allow people to hear different narratives and decide.

These people must live in a fantasy world where people with power committing sexual crimes isn't a commonplace occurrence. For people who try to understand the world, we recognize it is.

I think anyone being truly impartial, if such a thing could exist, would conclude the Democrats are "more" in the right here. Not perfect in every way, but more in the right.

In the same place regarding comments online.

I don't know why it matters why one has to have a stronger claim than the other?

It's pretty clear that the stakes are high for both sides. I don't think the Democratic or Republican bases would be satisfied if their politicians didn't do what they could to get the outcome they want. I don't know how many tweets I've seen by liberals invoking Merrick Garland. Quite a few: clearly, many Democrats believe that that whole episode gives Democrats permission to do whatever they can (i.e., to employ Machiavellian tactics that they'd generally associate with Republicans) to make this go their way.

You really think we'll be talking about this for four weeks? As soon as this story takes on that kind of time scale, the news cycle would move on.

October 18th... elections looming. I mean, now I'm effectively repeating myself. I agree, this would be more fair to Dr Ford. But just because you decide to "do the right thing", even if its for principled reasons, doesn't mean that it doesn't have consequences that matter on the plane of political calculations. You can't abstract away from them.

You should tell them that I guess?

Yo, check your condescension bro.



I guess in the future, when I'm struggling with some morally ambiguous situation, I should just ask you what you happen to think, and assume that that's "objectively" right and represents what a "truly impartial" observer would say. That's very convenient.

So, while both sides are realpoliticking, we shouldn't do the right thing because it benefits one side and that would make the other sad..?

I don't really see what you're arguing for. People are aware that many Democrats are jumping in because of the political advantage. How should that factor in?

It's pretty funny to call someone condescending before being condescending.

I'm not sure what your point is. It's as if all you care about is insisting we all acknowledge Democrats have things to gain. So what? What's your solution?

When did I say that? Both sides are "realpoliticking". Yes, it's gross. I wish it weren't that way. But that's what they're doing, and they're both behaving as rational actors, pursuing their interests.



I'm not being dismissive here, I genuinely don't know what this means. Factor into what?

I'm advocating not dismissing Republicans as buffoons or as bad faith actors who are uniquely bad, and instead acknowledging that we're not good guys, and that they're not bad guys, but that we're playing the same game by the same rules, that we actually do a lot of the same things, and sometimes we win and other times they do, and that's just how it goes.

Not an accurate description of what happened.

Also, the response of yours which I labeled as condescending really skirted what I was saying.



Who said anything about there needing to be a solution. We're not disagreeing about solutions here, we're disagreeing about analysis.

Incidentally (or perhaps not at all incidentally) this is just another iteration of an argument that we've been having for about 200 pages of this thread.

buT YoU CAnT cONfIRm A JuSTiCe iN AN elECtIoN YeAr

Let me make my case by presenting an analogy: suppose you worked at a company and were hiring a person, but heard from a shaky source during the hiring process they had committed a crime. The reckless approach is to hire them and confirm the information later. The wise approach is to collect information to the best of your ability and make your decision under consideration of the evidence. I don't think this is some sort of wacky interpretation, this seems like something most people would agree with as basic wisdom.

WRT Kavanaugh, whether or not there are completely biased people is besides the point. For anyone with a degree of moral integrity, for whom Kavanaugh's possible actions would factor into their decision, as above the wise approach is to hear out the evidence as much as possible. Since that is not possible under the current timeframe, anyone who wants to avoid recklessness would want to wait and hear out more evidence.

Anybody who actually cares, regardless of political affiliation, would tend to side with the Democrats on this one. All you've done is lumped people who do have some degree of caring about making a wise decision with reckless partisans, and concluded the political situation is ****ed.

WRT my comment about allegations, the best available evidence suggests false sex crime accusations are very rare and generally sex crimes are underrepresented. Statistical reasoning suggests then that it's unlikely she's falsely accusing. That's why I personally dislike the people expressing reckless confidence of a false accusation more than those doing the opposite, even though I'd prefer if all people heard out the evidence first.

I'm trying my hardest to weigh my opinions on the best evidence I have stored in my brain. And holding the nomination right before the election would help Republicans: the threatened seats are mostly incumbent, so Democrats need more campaign time.

Lastly: I'm really tired of this "all sides" rhetoric. Are we still really doing this? Everybody who's conscious knows there are plenty of issues with the political system in general. But you have to be seeing things with blurred vision to claim there's blanket equality between Democrats and Republicans.

It seemed you disagreed with my view that the least partisan, most rational person would prefer holding off on the nomination.

It's hypocritical to call Republicans hypocrites. Remember Bill Clinton? Checkmate.