Kavanaugh endorsement rescinded

[PetraG]

The ends justify the means. If you have to elect a mentally unstable moron who is a danger to the entire world, but who might appoint judges you like, so be it. The ends (a judge you like) justify the means (electing a 3-time married playboy with 18 or 19 allegations of sexual assault who knows absolutely nothing about economics, diplomacy, other countries, or, actually, anything. But the ends justify it.

There were only two alternatives. The other alternative faced accusations of her own of participating in the cover-up of the offenses of a serial sexual offender and a known sexual harrasser. She intended to make the taking of human life more prevalent through her wrong-headed support of abortion. You may defend her on the grounds that she meant no harm, that she actually did mean to make abortion as rare as possible and may rightly say that only the Almighty can know whether she is honestly following a conscience that has been malformed, but that doesn’t remove our responsibility to refrain from rationalizing support for a grave moral wrong on the grounds that the perpetrator is so much less embarrassing and so much more efficient at accomplishing things that we don’t want to see happen.

The solution isn’t to put HRC into office. The solution is to work harder to get a better pro-life candidate next time. Besides that, some voted for Donald Trump and some wrote in a 3rd candidate.

If you are male, do whatever you want until you graduate from college. No one will care. If you are a woman, the opposite holds true–you can irreparably ruin your reputation by accusing any male of molesting you. So get smart, women! No more accusations! Just go with it.

I think any crime victim can expect that the longer they wait to make their accusation, the less likely it is that they will be believed. Likewise, anyone who takes the “do whatever you want” message you suggest is somehow becoming the norm might find that he is going to be finishing college from prison. Why? Because accusers still convince juries without physical evidence.

This is why we who volunteer for Catholic churches and organizations are taught protocols that both protect victims and protect ourselves from false accusations, is it not? It is because predators need the cover of permissive conduct rules and because even honest accusers sometimes make mistakes.

Again, thank you for helping me understand. I get it now.

I hope you come to understand things from a less extreme and unrealistic perspective.

 

[ConstantLearner]

I guess I didn’t make myself clear, Brendan. I didn’t say Kavanaugh ever drove drunk. I have no idea if he did or didn’t, so I will assume he didn’t.

I don’t hold school drinking against Kavanaugh, and I don’t believe Ford. I’ve said people need to accept Kavanaugh. He’s a Supreme Court justice now, and probably will be for the next thirty years. I accept him. Everything in the world can’t go my way, or Kavanaugh’s, or anyone else’s.

But I don’t accept Democrat “conspiracy theories.” If there was any lying, it was Ford alone who did it.

And Kavanaugh was quite nasty to a female senator who asked if he ever drank to excess. As I watched the hearings, I know she asked politely, and Kavanaugh responded with a rude, “Did you?” I don’t think that was apropos, no matter what. He forced her to say she never had a drinking problem. He was there to answer questions, not ask them.

And, if people are honest with themselves, they know if it had been a Democratic senator, they would have approved all the harassment he could be given. They’d be cheering.

 

[Brendan_64]

I was surprised when you said it didn’t bother you at all , as if you’re talking about someone who did something they had no way to know was even wrong.

It wasn’t me who said that.

 

[PetraG]

As I watched the hearings, I know she asked politely, and Kavanaugh responded with a rude, “Did you?” I don’t think that was apropos, no matter what. He forced her to say she never had a drinking problem. He was there to answer questions, not ask them.

I found this very concerning, because the underlying assumption was that everyone is a binge drinker at some point in their lives. I thought it was good that he was apologetic later about the way he talked to the Senators, though, and did not talk as if his manner was excusable. It was not, and he admitted that.

 

[ConstantLearner]

• Any woman who comes forward to accuse a powerful man of sexual abuse will be mocked, ridiculed, and called a liar or a psycho. This should shut up those uppity women for another 50 years or so. This feminist stuff about “rights” has gone too far. They need to be put back into the kitchens and bedrooms of America. Make America Great Again!

I suppose you think the US should approve slavery, too. Bring that back. So if Trump nominates a woman next time, if he gets a next nomination, you’ll say she should stay in the kitchen or the bedroom. Seems you think all woman are good for is cooking and sex! Apoaling!

 

[Augustinian]

I don’t think that was apropos, no matter what. He forced her to say she never had a drinking problem. He was there to answer questions, not ask them.

I disagree. If the question is about plagiarism, and you have Joe Biden ask it, you can expect a retort. Ditto if you want to nail someone on fathering children out of wedlock, you shouldn’t have Strom Thurmond ask it if you don’t want to answer for yourself.

It would be better for senators to confine themselves to questions about someone’s actual qualifications if this is really supposed to be a “job interview”

 

[ConstantLearner]

It would be better for senators to confine themselves to questions about someone’s actual qualifications if this is really supposed to be a “job interview”

Demeanor is a huge part of a job interview, and I can see you’ve been watching too much news media. That’s their phrase.

 

[graciew]

It is also a kind of a saying.
I have used it and have had the same reaction from a Jewish friend,who in turn would later tease me that I looked more like an " idishe mame "than she did.
She was great and we worked awsome together!
Utter professional admiration as well.

 

[godisgood77]

Too bad rescinding the endorsement did not have the desired effect. We live in very trying times.

 

[Augustinian]

Demeanor is a huge part of a job interview, and I can see you’ve been watching too much news media. That’s their phrase.

I’d say that standing up for yourself when someone makes unfounded accusations is a good attribute to have on the Supreme Court.

 

[PetraG]

I suppose you think the US should approve slavery, too. Bring that back. So if Trump nominates a woman next time, if he gets a next nomination, you’ll say she should stay in the kitchen or the bedroom. Seems you think all woman are good for is cooking and sex! Apoaling!

@Erikaspirit16 was being extremely sarcastic when posting that.

 

[PetraG]

I’d say that standing up for yourself when someone makes unfounded accusations is a good attribute to have on the Supreme Court.

Just to clarify: I thought Justice Thomas showed a good example of how to defend yourself strenuously before a Senate Committee. Justice Kavanaugh, on the other hand, crossed a line in terms of showing deference to the Senators during a hearing being held in their own chambers and said so himself.

 

[ConstantLearner]

@Erikaspirit16 was being extremely sarcastic when posting that.

Sure didn’t seem like it.

 

[PetraG]

@Erikaspirit16 was being extremely sarcastic when posting that.

Sure didn’t seem like it.

This should have been your first hint:

Now I see clearly that I was wrong and you were right!

 

[Godfollower]

Sure didn’t seem like it.

No, it was pretty clear to me, too. The entire post was making a point (well, a series of points) through sarcasm. Re-read the post. Open season on females? Men can do whatever they want without consequences? It was clearly sarcasm.

 

[pnewton]

This post is an incredible misrepresentation of what has happened.Bitterness is not the answer.

 

[PetraG]

This post is an incredible misrepresentation of what has happened.Bitterness is not the answer.

It is a fair representation of the intense feelings surrounding this subject.

A lot of people don’t report this kind of incident when they were in a compromised position when it happened or when a lot of time has elapsed and they’ve kept the secret very carefully, as if it were something to be ashamed of. An example would be a 15 year old at a drinking party we can surmise she would have been in very deep trouble for attending at all.

I don’t know if you are as old as I am, but if you are you know there was a time when handling this kind of thing on one’s own was the expectation for people who “put themselves in the situation” of being a crime victim. It was also, let’s be honest, still a bit in the time frame when male members of the family of a girl who was treated in this way might feel a need to go even a score if they were ever told about an incident like this, but yet not in a time frame when the police would look the other way about the retaliation.

We have to know there are women carrying around stories like this of their own…things that happened to them, things that happened to their sisters, things that happened to their friends, but secrets they have kept for years because the victim could have expected repercussions for having been a victim of a crime.

Could their memories have altered over time? Yes, they could. Do you think any of them would take great offense at that suggestion? Well, of course they would! Think back onto the nastiest things people have done to you over the course of your life, and put yourself in their place. You could be wrong about what happened to you, what happened to your friend or that member of your family. Maybe you think it is impossible, but it’s not. Do you want to be told that? Do you want what happened to you written off like that? Of course you don’t. Of course you find that insulting because you could be 100% right, too, and you don’t need to not be believed.

This is why, by the way, a single accusation can bring on a number of accusers. Sometimes, the victim blames himself or herself or else kept quiet on the idea that this person who seems so respectable couldn’t have done such a thing more than once. Maybe they even blame themselves a bit, but they give their attacker the benefit of the doubt–maybe it was a horrible mistake, a terrible one-time thing. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. When it dawns on them that they were the victim of someone who did this habitually, they are both angered and reassured that their memories are NOT mistaken. That is why they come forward and come forward emboldened to believe themselves.

 

[PetraG]

We have to remind ourselves of this, too: People who are very sure they aren’t guilty of something that happened 35 years ago can be honestly wrong, too, particularly when the topic is what they did when they had been drinking. From the limited knowledge we have now, it is possible to believe Kavanaugh is not lying and yet that he did do what he’s accused of doing.

We also know from experience that this is true. Denial is a very strong force, but especially among problem drinkers. Just like 15 year olds who shouldn’t have been at the party, 17 year olds who shouldn’t have been binge drinking might have faulty memories, too. They can be wrong about what they did, too. Brett Kavanaugh was not a teetotaller in his youth and he was not an unpopular young man who was invited to nothing. That is not in question. Pretty much everything else is, including exactly when and how he started his career with beer.

In other words, while it is totally possible that neither one is lying, it is also possible that either one is correct about what happened, or (what I suspect is the most likely possibility, just based on experience) it is entirely possible that neither one remembers the incident in question correctly. The problem is that whether Dr. Ford is 100% correct or Kavanaugh is 100% correct or neither is even close to 100% correct, at this point we can’t know. Concerning an incident that happened last night, in 2018, there may be video evidence, but in the case of a 1982 incident at an illicit underage drinking party attended by boys and girls who went to different schools held at the home of neither the accused nor the accuser, one party among many with no surviving guest lists, even then known to no one except those who shouldn’t have been there, we cannot know.

 

[HarryStotle]

It is a lot easier to give yourself permission to commit the sins being winked at by your friends, yes. People have trouble believing that driving “buzzed” or trying to drive and text at the same time are “that bad,” mostly because we all want to do what we want to do. That doesn’t mean that we should really expect to be forgiven for all the things that we knew darned good and well were wrong but allowed ourselves to do because they were still widely being rationalized at the time we did them. It would be better if today’s standard became: In 20 years, when everyone accepts what everyone knows now, will you think this decision is OK?

This appears to be assuming that Kavanaugh hasn’t regretted everything he did in high school and hasn’t sought forgiveness and conversion. Are we throwing drunk driving in here when we do not know with any degree of certainty whether that was even committed by Kavanaugh?

Who are we to continue to hold such things against him?

Mary Magdalene was a prostitute in her younger days and, yet, she was the first to see the Risen Christ.

The Samaritan woman at the well married seven times, yet Jesus saw her heart and she saw the One who is the Messiah.

We are called to forgive those who transgress against us. The sins of others that do not personally impact us are left to God to judge and deal with.

I do not think our job as Christians and Catholics is to hold other’s accountable for their past when they have shown every indication of having left their past behind and moved on.

Let God deal with that. He has the wherewithal to know what is required for their true conversion and to know when they have overcome their past sins.

The other problem is that we do not know for certain whether these allegations are even true, so our holding these against Kavanaugh when we have no certainty that any of this is even true remains unsupported.

Do we believe God is the righteous and omniscient judge? If so, he would know completely where Kavanaugh’s culpability is to be found and he will hold Kavanaugh responsible for all of what he has done, if anything.

That job is not ours to carry out. I would be very careful here about what we think or believe to be true because we really have no grounds upon which to make those judgements. We may be held accountable for your judgements about things we are not capable of venturing. So why go there?

Think about that.

 

[HarryStotle]

People who are very sure they aren’t guilty of something that happened 35 years ago can be honestly wrong, too,…

If that is true of the person themselves, it is far more true about those who were not there at all, like you or I. So the best that we can do is rely on irrefutable evidence and not venture hasty judgements, if any judgement at all, knowing that when all is said and done God is the just and all-knowing judge.

No one will get away with anything in the end, precisely because God is the final arbiter.