Good Feminist

[bralbovsky]

Crucible isn't parallel. Maybe you've been hearing witch hunt too often.

This is more akin to the catholic church stuff or the Penn State stuff, or the Olympic gymnastic stuff. Well funded, powerful organization ignores powerless because of loyalty to its own.
Kav has none of the humanity and vulnerability of John Proctor. Shouting might be the only thing they have in common.

What's the threshold?

What's the threshold for certainty that a Justice has to be spotless?
What's the threshold for a Justice to be honest?
What's the threshold for a Justice to be a defender of the Constitution?

Not high enough apparently.

[Bonefish]

Oh man.

Ok, I'm not saying Kavanagh is Proctor. I am saying that I can see how making accusations without evidence, and even well meaning individuals can be caught up in a fury of demonizing. The last k of evidence, but the insistence that we don't NEED evidence kinda bothers me. I wonder if there are any other times when people in America have levied accusations of nefarious shit, and ruined people's lives and careers.

Sure, when it's Kavanagh getting hoisted, it's a laugh and a chuckle. But what happens when it's a black man accused of raping a white woman? We ever seen any sort of bad happen there?

[Phoebe]

Though the evidence isn't great, there is other evidence. The accounts that suggest he is lying about his past drinking behavior are very credible. His college roommate, some of his drinking buddies from Yale - he's not being honest about this, which combined with the high likelihood that, for instance, he knew he was looking at documents stolen from Democrats but lied to Congress later, makes it seem like he's being dishonest about a LOT of things. The moment that really turned the whole thing for me was when he went on Fox and whined about having been a virgin. This man has been an attorney his whole life, and as we saw during the Clinton years, a particularly vicious one. For him to dissemble in that particular manner, as if being virginal and having good grades meant he couldn't possibly have assaulted anyone in the manner described, struck me as very deep dishonesty. I totally believe that he has followed almost all the rules all his life, the rules of a game he was designed to win and did win, and then, when he could get away with impunity, he broke some. He's precisely the kind of guy who would do what Ford alleges, but not actually rape her. Like his Yale friend said, he's the kind of guy who thinks it's funny to bust in on people having sex so he can humiliate them, including particularly the woman. A sport he can conduct without fear of punishment. I have known many guys of this exact pedigree and seen how they behave.

[bralbovsky]

Totally against unsubstantiated charges.
Totally for reporting crimes.
Totally for having them investigated.
Routinely disappointed.

The weak generally do not use the justice system to beat up the powerful. Yes, the Mockingbird thing happens, but I'd have to investigate whether it was really common. My limited experience says that the system, police, the DA, are more responsible for those false accusations than individual victims. I'd love to get into these weeds, but it's like diving in the everglades, you might go down a sinkhole and never find your way out.

I served on a grand jury. It was an eye-opening experience which I cautiously endorse, sort of like opening very old tupperware from the fridge.
I learned three things"
I have a wonderful life. The system is a meat grinder that spits out people whose lives are largely broken already. Martha Stewart did not go to jail because she committed a crime. She went to jail because she pissed off powerful folks and they used the system to remind her of her place. The only remotely middle class defendant I saw in six weeks was a woman who had killed her second husband with antifreeze. She actually killed the first one that way too. Everyone else was poorer than owners of a cape cod in a middle of the road suburb.

Get a lawyer. Especially if you didn't do it. This is why rich people don't go to jail. Rich people hardly appear in court. When they do, it's newsworthy because it's so rare. Maybe the heroin epidemic has shifted this, but mostly having a lawyer insulates you from the whole gritty process. If you can afford a good one, you'll float out of the system easily. No matter what you did. Regardless, definitely get a lawyer because...

It's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Case in point. There were two juries seated, for caseload. They had sent one home early, so we had to hear a few of their cases. Long story short, One little bag of coke, two folks charged with trying to sell it. The plan had been to have each case heard by a different jury so the evidence wouldn't be questioned. This from the DA, who already has all the power. He has the police and the courts and everything on his side already.

This is my issue with Lindsey Graham, with Kavaanaugh's outrage, with all those people who say this is about sex, when it's really a specific abuse of power and privilege. They already have most of the cards. They make the rules. They have most of the money. They are largely exempt (sometimes statutorily) from rules the rest of us have to follow. And they complain when anyone outside their circle interrupts their plans to keep more of the marbles.

Unquestioned male privilege is what's on trial. The examples of brown men who are pawns in a larger game (Mayella avoiding a beating) or even white men steamrolled because they stood in the way (John Proctor was a murder for economic reasons, sex was just the ruse), are not parallel, not equivalent, and are used to cast entirely unsympathetic villains in the role of victims.
So they can justify their privilege and get away with it, again.

[Bonefish]

Bralbovaky is a rapist. He sends me unsolicitated dick pics.

Oh, you don't? Well it's my word against yours, and I am the victim here. I don't need proof or witnesses, now that I've come clean, it's your liberal given duty to believe my story. Rapist.

[bralbovsky]

Sending dick pics was never the same as rape. Also, sent pics would by definition constitute evidence. Also, there's neither motive, nor means nor opportunity. I suppose I could private message them...prolly won't.

This does not mean I am a good guy, but that's a separate thread.

To your point:
Memories about priests and reconstructions of circumstances have taken a long time, but they exist in the absence of physical evidence, he rememebrs...she remembers

Teachers, for example, have to be very scrupulous about where they are seen and with whom. This not just to avoid obviously vulnerable circumstances, and, as they say..."even the appearance of impropriety"..., but also as a way of managing a semi public life choice.
Would it be possible for any student in any school to falsely accuse any teacher of misconduct? Of course. Why doesn't it happen more often?
Motive, means, opportunity.
Also, cross examination, and the maelstrom of power dynamics.

Is the teacher an unethical slug who lies to everyone? That might be an easy accusation, but you'd still have to find or invent a time and place and survive the pressure of inquiry.
Since we're talking about false accusations here, that's also a crime, so ..motive, means , opportunity. Ford has no ostensible motive. It would be wildly altruistic for her to take one for the team for the sole purpose of sinking the nomination. The chain of hoops one has to get through to get a hearing also gives each person who touches the information some small vetting power.

Not unimportantly, the date of her original letter is after his short list announcement, but before his actual nomination. I'm also trying to run down the date on the letter with 65 Kavanaugh friends on it who said he was a friend to women, because if it was really early in the process, why would one need such a thing?

[Bonefish]

She doesn't have motive? Revenge is often a notice, for real or percieved offenses.

The point, dear friend, is that proof and evidence are required. And witnesses testimony is the shakiest of evidence. Eye witnesses of an event 35 years ago, in which multiple witnesses have mentioned heavy intoxification, is even shakier.

Did it happen? Maybe. Hell, I am inclined to believe the worst bout white rich boys and their antics. So I believe it did happen.

But practically, proving it is going to be hard, and most likely, come down to the personal opinions regarding Kavvie. So people who think he is a rapist are going to believe he raped her or whatever the allegation is, those who believe he is innocent will call it a frame up or smear, and the majority will be left standing here shrugging their shoulders.

There is also the issue that judging someone by the actions of their seventeen years old self, and using that to damn a person today is dirty pool. People can and do change. Past conduct matters, but more relevant is recent and ongoing conduct.

There's plenty of recent Kavvie conduct that shows why he shouldn't be confirmation.

[Phoebe]

The issue is not that you should be responsible at 50 for every single thing you did at 17, though in some cases the statute of limitations will not have run out. The issue is that if he has a pattern of bad behavior and then lying about it, including sexual misconduct, gambling, dumb financial decisions, misuse of illegally obtained documents, and more, we can't trust that he has the integrity of character to be a Supremr Court Justice. Remember that we're not trying to put him in jail; we're giving him an audition for the one of the most important positions we can bestow. In my opinion, his own hearing testimony was enough to disqualify him tout court. Being an attempted rapist is also bad enough, it qualifies.

There is more evidence than a single person's first-hand account. There is actually a calendar entry where he went to a party for "skis" including the same people she says were there, on a weeknight when he says he never would have been partying. There's her encounter with Mark Judge at the Safeway; there's an easy ability to try to figure out whose house it was and how the floor plan was laid out. There's the question of when and how she brought her story forward; she didn't invent it yesterday.

The letter from 65 women includes at least two who took it back, after finding out things they didn't know at the time about how Kavanaugh and his friends had humiliated them publicly. I believe he's telling the truth that it was generated right after the first complaint came out, because a few women decided to distribute it to their friends and gather those signatures, which is something you can easily do in a single night. The charge seen on social media that the 65-woman letter was sitting around waiting for the inevitable seems unfounded, in other words.

Now a second classmate has come out to observe that she drank to excess frequently with Kavanaugh and he's being dishonest about it, which makes her doubt the rest of his honesty. So now we have two Yale women, both of whom are completely credible, not making any allegations about sexual misconduct* but plainly supporting the idea he drank heavily and frequently. This is why it's important that Democrats get their act together and emphasize other instances where he may have lied to Congress, rather than only talking about Ford's story, because it speaks to a pattern of untrustworthiness that we can't have in a justice. I feel like Democrats are using this incident just as much to pander to their own base in hopes of juicing the November chances, so they all decided to fixate on an FBI investigation and the believability of the victim, rather than strategizing in a more general way about how to raise serious doubt about the nomination. We already have that doubt no matter what the investigation says.

* Edited to say I already forgot that one of those two women did make an allegation about sexual misconduct of a lesser, non-criminal sort, but still speaking to the type of character he had: he and his friend (the NBA player, later) busted in on their friend who was off in a room alone with his girlfriend, exposing and shaming her in the process, which they thought was hilarious, and supposedly that was all Kavanaugh's idea. I don't find it a far stretch from "guy thinks this type of behavior is so hilarious" to "guy and his friend also think it's funny to trap a young girl in the bedroom". I think one reason he may be so outraged is that he never intended to actually have sex with her right there, but they were playing some sort of game they found hilarious when drunk. From her perspective it's a violent assault.

[Bonefish]

I find nothing to fault with your assement. Kavvie has a sordid history, and I wouldn't want him for a Justice. Like I said, recent conduct is extremely relevant, and it doesn't look good. In fact, it looks like something we really need to be talking about.

Thus why the talking points that seem to suggest that if I do t think Kavvie is a bad dude because of what he did 35 years ago, that I somehow want to empower rapists and coddle them, piss me off. I can believe he was(and is) a rapist and sexual predator, and it's IRRELEVANT. there is a litany of reasons not to confirm.

Making the allegations of sexual misconduct just reeks to me of something.

[bralbovsky]

Absolutely concur.

Apparently even Feinstein agreed, until it became clear to her that none of his other inadequacies was going to stop the train in the ways they normally would.
She should have shared it with the other original concerns along with the request for confidentiality, even though that would have been tough to maintain given the present contentious climate and clearly broken process.

[FlameBlade]

Yet, GOP seems to be well-aware of the letter, already having a letter signed by 65 people ready the day after. They knew, but didn't push to have a different candidate. There are dozens others to select from.

[mimekiller]

Very cool

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... ssion=true

[Phoebe]

Dude if my husband was sticking a cigar in some lady, she might end up lacking knees. And if seeing my kids daily and having a house depended on it, I might spare his knees even if it damn near killed me, so... This is our Feminist Reality in 2018.

[mimekiller]

It's one of those things because power dynamics I can wrap my head around, some of the more NUTTY things I hear out of the crazy regressive feminist left makes me laugh(Too drunk to drive, too drunk to consent stands out as INSANE) but yea, if someone thinks the job they love or the life the have is directly threatened by rejecting a sexual pass, not good and not fair!

[Phoebe]

Fairness, which is it?

A wakes up at 6:15 and takes two or three kids to school; goes to work at 9.
B wakes at 8:10 and takes one or zero kids to school; goes to work at 9.

OR

A wakes up at 6:15 and takes two kids to school; goes to work at 9.
B wakes at 6:50 and takes one kid to school; goes to work at 8.

OR

A takes all three kids in a state of total chaos wasting about two hours of daytime each morning, because there is no reliable system at all.

[bralbovsky]

A) None of my damn business

B) second option at least acknowledges division of labor, which seems most balanced option. This is only worth mentioning because the eventual distraction of the children goes away, and if one party habitually confuses spouse for staff....well, it holds together like Antarctica these days... inexorably disintegrating, maybe better in some seasons, so much so that one feels it might be saved, but the satellite photos don't lie, and these cracks began years ago. Switch gears now or lose Polynesia later.

[Phoebe]

Both Twitter and WordPress now actively censoring/banning the expression of radical feminist intellectual opinions concerning sex and gender categories. Whether you agree with those opinions or not, they aren't the kind of harassment that deserves to be banned from public discourse; meanwhile, both of those platforms regularly indulge truly repugnant forms of racist and sexist harassment. So exactly as expected, radical feminism is just too much for public consumption and needs to be suppressed, because THE most radical and offensive idea you can have is that women should have complete autonomy over their bodies.

[mimekiller]

Almost as if the thousands of people working in India handling harassment reports tweets don't have the context to understand how to do their job well.

And if that's not the case then its simply a antilogarithm run amok, not terrified mods in twitter sweating bullets over female rights or what not.

[Phoebe]

Nope they specifically targeted select individuals and particular ideological statements for this. And it wasn't done out of fear; it was done because they totally disagree with the opinions that these people are presenting. And they're perfectly legitimate opinions even if you don't agree with them.

[mimekiller]

Honestly I only know of right wing and alt right popular figures getting the permanent boot from twitter, if anyone else is I would like to be educated on the topic(not for nothing but laura Loomer is handcuffing herself to twitter HQ today haha)