Kavanaugh endorsement rescinded

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We adopted our son, he was placed with us to foster while the paperwork and legal process was gone through at 10 days old. His birth mother saw him the day he was born and self-discharged 4hrs after delivery leaving him in hospital. I don’t blame her for this, the plan from the first child protection conference for our son was held at 22 weeks gestation, and it was decided he would be automatically placed into care.

Point being, her body once she’d given birth was hers. He did not rely on his birth mother’s body after birth, at first he was dependent on the neo natal team at Liverpool Women’s, then us. During pregnancy was the only time he was entirely dependent on her body if she had chosen to terminate the pregnancy then that would have been her decision. A decision that I accept and support.
 
Inquisitor85 said:
Point being, her body once she’d given birth was hers. He did not rely on his birth mother’s body after birth, at first he was dependent on the neo natal team at Liverpool Women’s, then us. During pregnancy was the only time he was entirely dependent on her body if she had chosen to terminate the pregnancy then that would have been her decision. A decision that I accept and support.
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This argument falls apart very quickly when we try to apply it in other domains.

Any woman, or yourself, is completely dependent upon the world, people and order around you. Your dependence, as an individual, upon the human culture, society and political order, is roughly akin to the dependence of a human fetus upon its mother. Suppose the collective society no longer wishes to support your existence and decides to terminate you?

Are you okay with that? Given that you are as “entirely dependent” upon the whole of society as the fetus is dependent upon its mother?

Why are the rights of the human being in fetal form discounted completely in deference to the mother’s rights?

And shouldn’t the right to exist of one individual likewise be completely discounted in deference to the rights of the collective body (society or the state) to choose not to support that individual?

Would this be a decision that you accept and support? The right of any society to dispense with individuals it no longer chooses to support for any reason whatsoever?

Are you sure you’ve thought this through?
 
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ConstantLearner said:
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EricF:
I thought charity got checked at the door in political threads. They are actually kind of ridiculous. Nobody is talking with anyone else. They ate talking at each other. Nobody’s mind is being changed.
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It is silly because no one’s mind will be changed. If Kavanaugh himself said he lied, there are those who would not believe it.
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Malcolm Gladwell on the fallibility of memory and lying.

 
HarryStotle said:
Malcolm Gladwell on the fallibility of memory and lying.
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Exactly. Totally honest people can be absolutely mistaken. I don’t think Dr. Ford is lying. I think she may be mistaken. I think if Judge Kavanaugh did what she said he did, he could certainly have had no memory of it and his friend could have had no memory of it–the charge is that they had both been drinking, and no one says that they never did that. If she is right that Judge wasn’t comfortable around her, it may be that he was reacting to how she looked at him and wondering, “Did I do something I can’t remember?” She may be 100% right and yet may have interpreted his reaction wrong…and he may have honestly forgotten about that entirely.

Again: my biggest concern is that Judge Kavanaugh may be a problem drinker, not because I don’t believe Dr. Ford but because I think the evidence that he has had far too much too drink far too late into his decision-making life is greater. He also seems to be in denial about the possibility that he has had enough to drink that it would have interfered with his memory. (Really: he should know that people who black out do not know they blacked out! If they knew, they wouldn’t have been blacked out. “I fell asleep” when applied to sleep that came on prematurely because of alcohol use is referred to by everyone else in the room as “you passed out.”)

Now, he may be falling to that common mistake that Mr. Gladwell talks about: he may be mistaking his inner confidence in his memory as a gauge of the accuracy of it. I can’t know that. I do know that if there is evidence that he is in denial of about the extent to which he uses alcohol, a substance which famously impairs the ability to maintain discretion, I think that is a big problem in someone who needs to be able to maintain discretion 24/7, every day of every year, for the rest of his life. His willingness to use the tone of voice he did with Congress–which he now says he regrets–is also concerning. I think it showed he has fallen into a contempt–totally understandable, since our political system has fallen in decorum generally without any doubt!–but a problem in the difficult role he would be taking on. If not even a justice of the Supreme Court maintains decorum at all times, who will?
 
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Inquisitor85 said:
Point being, her body once she’d given birth was hers. He did not rely on his birth mother’s body after birth, at first he was dependent on the neo natal team at Liverpool Women’s, then us. During pregnancy was the only time he was entirely dependent on her body if she had chosen to terminate the pregnancy then that would have been her decision. A decision that I accept and support.
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No. There aren’t any people that we are allowed to kill because they depend only on us to stay alive and we don’t want the responsibility. To “terminate the pregnancy” is to kill a child. When a pregnancy ends of its own accord, that is a different matter. It happens all of the time. If a mother were to choose not to seek medical help that would increase the chance of her child surviving to term, even that is different than actively seeking a medical intervention to end the pregnancy by killing and removing the body of the unborn child.
 
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PetraG said:
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HarryStotle:
Malcolm Gladwell on the fallibility of memory and lying.
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Exactly. Totally honest people can be absolutely mistaken. I don’t think Dr. Ford is lying. I think she may be mistaken.
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This might change your mind.

theconservativetreehouse.com

Christine Blasey-Ford Friend In Delaware Was Career FBI Agent and Likely Together During Accusation Letter Construct... - The Last Refuge

In a letter released last night from a former boyfriend of Christine Blasey-Ford, there was a name curiously not redacted. The name of Monica L McLean was revealed as a life-long friend who Ms. Ford helped with polygraph preparation. The media has begun to focus on the letter as outlining a lie...
theconservativetreehouse.com theconservativetreehouse.com

Give this entire fiasco a month or so to work itself out.
 
HarryStotle said:
Give this entire fiasco a month or so to work itself out.
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I don’t believe Ford was mistaken. I believed her at first, but I subsequently saw far too many red flags to believe she was truthful or even mistaken. I won’t go into them all as there are about ten, but I’ll say it started when I began to reflect on the fact that a claustrophobic women, with PTSD, who was terrified of flying, flew all over the world for work and pleasure. That was red flag number one. Number two was the fact that her letter was filled with grammar mistakes that no PhD professor would make. No elementary school kid who actually studied would make them. So, who wrote the letter? And on and on.

Of course the #MeToo movement will make a martyr our of her. I dislike that more than Kavanaugh.

Doesn’t mean I like Kavanaugh’s politics, but that’s fine. It would be a rare person who liked all nine justices. I’m more upset with Ford than anything because I always expected Kavanaugh to be confirmed by a slim majority.
 
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The Ford lies mount. That was another red flag for me. As a psychologist, she should know all about polygraphs.

www.foxnews.com

Christine Blasey Ford faces her own allegations

The ex-boyfriend of Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford claims he saw Ford helping a woman prepare for a potential polygraph test -- a claim that contradicts Ford's sworn testimony; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
 
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HarryStotle said:
This might change your mind.

The Last Refuge – 3 Oct 18

Christine Blasey-Ford Friend In Delaware Was Career FBI Agent and Likely…​

In a letter released last night from a former boyfriend of Christine Blasey-Ford, there was a name curiously not redacted. The name of Monica L McLean was revealed as a life-long friend who Ms. For…

Give this entire fiasco a month or so to work itself out.
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Whether she is lying or not is totally besides the point (IMHO), unless Congress wants to go after her for perjury.

Let us assume she is telling the truth. Let’s assume she has video evidence. If this is evidence that Brett Kavanaugh never saw when he was in high school, it is totally believable that he both did what he’s accused of AND has no memory of it AND that he neither apologized nor tried to amend his life because no one ever told him that he was doing things while drinking that he had no memory of doing and no one ever confronted him with the news that he became a person when he was drinking that he would never want to be. Someone has to tell you these things, because if you’re to a certain point, you won’t know.

So–if it doesn’t matter even if she is telling the truth, I don’t see how it matters whether she is being truthful or not. I have no way of knowing, but in a way, I hope you can see why I don’t think it matters at this point, except to teach people how to deal with their friends when they do things like that after having been drinking.

This entire fiasco will never entirely work itself out because once again we have a situation which harkens back to a time when truths like this were almost always hidden. People with drinking problems were enabled, rather than confronted with their behavior while under the influence. The beliefs about the responsibility of friends was different. The understanding about preventing anyone from the experience of a sexual assault and what someone ought to do if they thought they were assaulted by someone under the influence or while they were under the influence were different.
 
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At this point, I think we’re in a situation much like the one confronting us concerning situations that happened when the sexual abuse of children wasn’t appreciated as a danger (or when it was covered up as a one-time “mistake” and not wanting the perpetrator to “have his life ruined over one bad decision”) and when the possibility of false accusations by people who do not intend to deceive were not appreciated and the high likelihood that accusers are telling the truth was discounted because a likelihood isn’t a certainty.

People are beginning to learn that everything they do might be videotaped and transmitted to the whole world. Even high school students are beginning to get it through their heads that recordings of their behavior that get into electronic storage will not ever go away. We have to think about what we want for the Kavanaughs and Fords of 20-30 years from now, just as we have been thinking about both protecting children and protecting people who work for the Church from false accusations, which (as it turns out) are two goals that can be served using the same protocols.
 
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If he did something while more drunk than he can remember while in high school but that no one ever told him about, I don’t see how this taints the rest of his life. What a young person who should not have been drinking at all does when he is unaware of the dangers of drinking is very different than decisions and patterns of behavior made as an adult.
 
If she’s telling the truth, Kavanaugh was once a would-be rapist, at the very least guilty of assault and battery. That would disqualify him, but she doesn’t seem to be telling the truth. I say “seem” because we’ll probably never know for sure.

People will, for the most part, forget about this soon enough. It appears Ford will be confirmed by two votes (the senator who was absent today will be back tomorrow), so he’ll get his job, the news channels will begin reporting other things (they try to get new news each day), and that will be that except in the minds of the evil who cannot and will not let it go. Normal people lose interest in these things quickly. We have lives of our own to deal with. I’m more concerned with my hair appointment tomorrow than in thinking about Kavanaugh. He’s going to be a Supreme Court justice. People need - and for the most part will - accept him. They’ve accepted Clarence Thomas for many years.
 
ConstantLearner said:
If she’s telling the truth, Kavanaugh was once a would-be rapist, at the very least guilty of assault and battery. That would disqualify him, but she doesn’t seem to be telling the truth. I say “seem” because we’ll probably never know for sure.
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That is just it. The statute of limitations on a matter like this expired a long ago for a reason. When it is alleged to have happened, there wouldn’t be record of it. Science can attest that eyewitness testimony concerning a matter so long ago is suspect (as discussed in the Gladwell clip above). Some jurisdictions are considering changing this for offenses that are occurring now, because contemporary evidence can say more for a longer time than the sorts of evidence and the sorts of investigative techniques available in the past.

He’ll be confirmed when he’s confirmed. I’ve given up predicting the Senate and everything else in politics.
Trump could become staid and boring tomorrow, LOL; anything is possible.
 
I don’t understand all of these “temperament” and “heavy drinking” claims being made against Kav now that no corroboration was found on the allegations. This guy has been a federal judge for 12 years and has an excellent record. If he had temperament or drinking problems I’m sure some kind of flags would have shown and complaints been made well before now! This is just purely people that already didn’t like him either due to Ford or politics, making up yet more reasons why he shouldn’t get the nomination. I don’t think the people that support Kav due to there being no evidence or corroboration saw any of the same things that people that hate him saw. I saw some (righteous) indignation and the emotion he did show helped his case in my opinion. As for perjury I feel like Dr Ford actually proveably lied (fear of flying, claustrophobia, prepping someone for lie detector) as opposed to Kavanaugh. Kav actually did say that he has drank too much in the past and that does not prove that he blacked out. Hasn’t anyone here ever drank way too much in their youth without blacking out??
 
Gingersnaps4 said:
I don’t understand all of these “temperament” and “heavy drinking” claims
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The “temperament” issue is really absurd from this vantage point.

The accusers lined up against Judge Kavanaugh for a month and accused him of serious and despicable crimes, calling him every name of ugliness there is.

And then they complain when he gets mad. What did they expect?

Would anyone be able to pass that kind of “temperament test”
 
That is what it would take, pretty much. This whole thing has been ludicrous.
 
There is such a thing as righteous anger, there is a time for polemics and harsh, mean criticism. And if Mr. Kavaungh is innocent of these allegations, which there isn’t much against him here, that would be an appropriate time to be passionate and angry, don’t you think? After all, Christ himself was very harsh with the respectable Pharisees, even going so far as to call them a brood of vipers (which apparent, according to Mr. Kavanaugh’s critics, makes Christ unfit to be judge of living and the dead).

What interests me is how Democrats, both senators and laymen, sound a lot like the Pharisees: they have the appearance of virtue and politeness, but their actual actions when it matters reveal plots and wickedness. That’s not to say Republicans are saints, but the Republican senators on the Judical committee handled this nomination quite gracefully and justly to the best of their ability given the circumstances out of their control. What’s funny is that the Republicans are being more just while being willing to expressing it passionately and even rudely, while the Democrats are actually very unjust while claiming to be acting nicer than the Republicans.

We Christians need to break away from our culture’s excessive stoicism regarding anger, and teach people the proper times and ways and reasons to express anger, instead of doing what we have been doing for the last ten years, teaching people to suppress it under the guise of politeness. President Trump is an iconoclast tearing down all the decorum and pump and politeness and correctness in politics to reveal the corruption and filth at the heart of the system, that is, in our own hearts and the hearts of our politicians we elect. What we need to generate is a pathway so that another man can carry on this progress with more virtue and intelligence and faith, with all due respect to President Trump.
 
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