Minor and Major Disagreements

It seems like an overly ambitious, or presumptuous thing, to disagree with someone very smart and very well respected. But I’m going to do that today anyway.

Since January, when I became aware of Jordan Peterson, I’ve enjoyed learning a lot from him. But this past week there were a lot of us conservative Americans who took issue with a tweet or two Peterson sent out concerning the Kavanaugh confirmation.

images from here

Dr. Peterson was addressing the polarized tension. And he suggested that one possible thing to consider was for Kavanaugh to be confirmed—which means he was safe from the accusations—and then step aside to allow another conservative justice to take his place. This would leave him with his life intact (he’d still be a circuit court judge, which wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t been found worthy of the Supreme Court following the accusations against him). And those who were so upset about him personally would be mollified.

Here’s the thing. Jordan Peterson is Canadian. He isn’t a political person, and it’s hard to pin him down with a label. He talks about justice and Western civilization as though the US, Canada, and Great Britain—and others—are equivalent in their debates between freedom and it’s opposite (which I call tyranny, but is called liberal, leftist, progressive, socialist, and other names). But there’s a reason Canada didn’t join with the colonies to rebel against the tyrannical British crown back in the 1770s, and failed to join us in our constitutional republic in the 1780s. They tolerated more tyranny than we were willing to tolerate.

And then there’s a difference in recent experience. Brett Kavanaugh is not the first US Supreme Court nominee who has been viciously opposed by the tyranny side, who abuse their advise and consent role.

The way “advise and consent” was set up to work, the President would be allowed to appoint justices that shared his political ideas, as long as they were qualified to be justices and were not unsavory characters or simply cronies.

The Republican side, which is the side that actually follows the Constitution, if anyone does, has allowed the president that privilege with very little rancor over the many decades. Republicans have voted to sustain candidates even when there was clear evidence those justices would not judge based solely on the Constitution, but would impose their personal viewpoints from the bench, making themselves an unelected extra-legislative body. The Republicans could have been fully justified—had they had the strength of numbers—to refuse to accept justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, for example. But, in the spirit of collegiality, they limited their own advise and consent power.

But the Democrats, most obviously with Robert Bork, and certainly continuing since then, have decided to block nominations based simply on their (the Democrats’) political bias. And their bias happens to be against the Constitution. They object to justices who will keep their oath to abide by the Constitution.

Only one Democrat voted to confirm Justice Kavanaugh; that means every single remaining Democrat is claiming the appointee was unfit to be a judge, despite a sterling character record and long and open record on the bench proving he was fully capable. And they were willing to pull out all the stops: wait until after the hearings, toss out a still anonymous accusation about 36 years ago that had no evidence or corroboration, lie under oath, collude with other liars, and orchestrate the character assassination of a good man—because they don’t agree with him.

Kavanaugh was the most egregious since the derailing the Robert Bork nomination—or maybe including that. But they also nearly succeeded in undermining Justice Clarence Thomas’s hearings, with false charges against his character—and to this day they continue to honor the woman who falsely accused him.

Their threats led to less controversial appointments by Republican presidents, for the sake of peace, which took the Court in a bad direction, from which it will take maybe another lifetime to recover. Justice O’Connor and Justice Kennedy are two, both appointed by Reagan (who had to deal with a Democrat Senate and House his entire eight years).  Also Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed by Gerald Ford, and David Souter, appointed by George H. W. Bush.

In other words, Republicans have already tried the conciliatory route, to avoid controversy and tension. And the result has been a much less Constitution-following court. We’re trying to make up lost ground.

There can’t be compromise for the sake of peace over certain things.

Jordan Peterson agrees about that. In a response about what he’d meant by his tweets, he said this: 

And, people said, “No, that’s wrong, because if you let the accusers knock you out of the race, then they win, and that will embolden them, and you should know better than that, because you have told people not to withdraw.” And you know—look, fair enough. I don’t know what the hell is the right way out of this mess. I don’t see a clear path forward out of this.

You know, what I see now is the—  I mean I don’t like the believe-the-accuser philosophy. I think that’s an appalling philosophy. You have to be naive beyond comprehension to think that that’s a good idea. To think that people wouldn’t misuse— If that was the rule, every accuser is right? Oh, that’s a great rule, that is. [sarcasm]

I’m not willing to give up the presumption of innocence. And for the idea that it’s better to let, you know, ten guilty people walk free than to convict one innocent person—that’s a good bloody rule. That’s a good rule. And we don’t just give that rule up because we’re feeling all empathic and morally superior about it.

screen shot from here

So there’s a baseline we can agree on. Whatever we do, we can’t give up on the presumption of innocence. Not even for the sake of peace.

But how do you know when you’re at the point of refusal to make peace for the sake of a relationship? It’s a more personal question that is now playing out on our larger population. These are questions about accountability, justice, forgiveness, and mercy. If you’re trying to be merciful and have peace for the sake of a relationship, how do you hold someone accountable and have justice for the sake of the larger community?

In a relationship the size of this country, when there are essentially warring factions, how do you stand up against the bullying side to keep both your personal sovereignty and your self-respect?

What about mob rule? Can we agree that’s a bad thing? We should. But the opposition, at this point in history, defines “mob rule” as something only “right wing” extremists can do. Meanwhile they mob conservatives to run them out of restaurants. They scare police away from downtown Portland,OR. They riot if a conservative speaker is invited to a university campus.

Eric Holder, Obama’s former attorney general, suggested Democrats forget taking the high road; "kick them." Hillary Clinton called for no civility until they’re in power—that is, wielding power over us. This isn’t about Trump’s lack of civility, as they claim; it’s about their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that we the people have not kowtowed to their supposed right to rule over us.

They talk about repealing the Second Amendment, or doing away with the Electoral College, or even doing away with the Senate—which is based on equal state representation rather than population. They want to get rid of anything our founders designed to keep us free from tyranny—because their goal is tyranny, and the Constitution is in their way.

We don't really have a lot of disagreement with Jordan Peterson. He was doing a thought experiment that happened to go down a path many of us have traveled before, so we know how that would go, and we reject it. But there's still this question he was dealing with:

We’ve got a problem. The problem is, is that, I don’t see any way of moving this forward without exacerbating the polarized tension.

He may be right. There may be no path without polarized tension. But he’s the clinical psychologist. So my question for him is, at what cost should peace be the goal?

If Europe and beyond had succumbed to Nazi rule, they would have had peace, of a sort. But they would be subjects of tyranny; that would be the cost. Can we agree that cost would have been too high?

The thing with logic is, if you start with the wrong “if” statement, you’ll get the wrong “then” outcome. So the starting point may not be, “If the goal is peace,” unfortunately. We might be beyond a peaceful outcome with people who are our literal enemies. Peace only comes after we defeat them.

Well, there’s one other way to peace: Those who are seeking to wreak havoc on our constitutional republic could stop it. Life would get better for them—even though they don’t see how—and it would certainly get better for us. But the record of power mongers doing that is pretty dismal.

The problem is that, at a granular level, all of us know Democrats that aren’t actually trying to tyrannize us; they’re just not thinking things through the way we freedom lovers do. So we mostly just avoid talking about divisive issues with them—anything beyond work, weather, food, and sports, maybe. And we can get along fine with them as long as we can avoid being attacked. That’s a sort of peace we’ve been used to for about a century.

The hope, then, has to be separating out regular people who have been among those enemies, but are really just our neighbors who don’t have a good understanding of the alternatives. If they knew they could choose freedom,prosperity, and civilization—rather than tyranny, poverty, and savagery—they’d step over to our side.

But for those who insist on ruling over us—on taking away our liberty, property, and civilization—and who stir up mob violence against us, there’s no path to peace. We are, however, still very hopeful—possibly naively so—that we can defeat them in the arena of ideas, without violence. (Though that explains why they have been calling speech that disagrees with them “violence,” because they prefer to think of us as the bad guys.)

Some of what has to be done is pointing out the extremes of the would-be tyrants—getting that message out despite the complicity of so much of the media and academia who hide the truth.

It’s a time to stand up and speak truth, even when peace is at stake, and even when it looks to bystanders that we haven’t been tolerant enough of tyranny yet. In this case, the bystanders don’t know what we’ve already learned by hard experience.

Truth Before It's Too Late

It’s an act of faith to live in truth.

This is from Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, rule 8: “Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie”:

If existence is good, then the clearest and cleanest and most correct relationship with it is also good. If existence is not good, by contrast, you’re lost. Nothing will save you—certainly not the petty rebellions, murky thinking and obscurantist blindness that constitute deceit. Is existence good? You have to take a terrible risk to find out. Live in truth, or live in deceit, face the consequences, and draw your conclusions.[i]

Peterson asserts that it is lie upon lie that brings us to what appear to be unavoidable crisis points. He talked about one such point in one of his podcasts. Someone challenged him with this dilemma: “You have said that the only moral absolute is always to tell the truth. What if you have Anne Frank in the attic and the gestapo at your doorstep?” Here’s his answer: 

Jordan Peterson
screen shot from the podcast

Then I would say that there have been a lot of lies that have got you to that point. So, you may be in a situation where you’re damned if you turn right, and you’re damned if you turn left. And what that means is, you made a lot of mistakes along the way.

So, if the totalitarians are knocking at your door, if totalitarians are knocking at everyone’s door, that means everyone should have spoke up a lot sooner. And then they wouldn’t end up in a situation where the gestapo was at the door and Anne Frank was in the attic.

Now and then you end up in a situation where you’ve made so many mistakes that all you’ve got is hell around you. And that was certainly the case in Amsterdam when the Nazis came in. I mean, the Dutch are an admirable people. And I know they were invaded by the Nazis and that’s a terrible thing.

But many many many many people made many terrible errors for all of that to occur…. This is the answer. You be awake, and you make sure everything your society does doesn’t lead to the point where the gestapo’s at your doorstep and you have Anne Frank in the attic. It’s a little late to be thinking then, I would say.

He frequently mentions Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, in which the author analyzes, as Peterson describes it, the “direct causal relationship between the pathology of the Soviet prison-work-camp dependent state (where millions suffered and died) and the almost universal proclivity of the Soviet citizen to falsify his own day-to-day personal experience, deny his own state-induced suffering, and thereby prop up the dictates of the rational, ideology-possessed communist system.”

In other words, he took responsibility, at least for his own part in the situation he had come to. But once he finally came to tell the hard, unvarnished truth, it changed the world. As Peterson says,

No educated person dared defend that ideology again after Solzhenitsyn published The Gulag Archipelago. No one could ever say again, “What Stalin did, that was not true communism.”[ii]

These big, state-sponsored lies lead only into darkness. As we say in Spherical Model terms, they lead to tyranny, poverty, and savagery—always down and away from freedom, prosperity, and civilization. You can’t create anything but hell when your building material is deceit.

There are big lies and little lies. In his book, Peterson quotes Hitler, from Mein Kampf, as recognizing the power of the big lie[iii]:

[I]n the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the fats which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

Peterson follows up, saying that big lies are made up of multiple little lies:

First, a little lie; then, several little lies to prop it up. After that, distorted thinking to avoid the shame that those lies produce, then a few more lies to cover up the consequences of the distorted thinking. Then, most terribly, the transformation of those now necessary lies through practice into automatized, specialized, structural, neurologically instantiated “unconscious” belief and action. Then the sickening of experience itself as action predicated on falsehood fails to produce the results intended.

The big lie that communism—or socialism, its synonym—is about fairness has always been illogical, and yet believed by the masses. It isn’t about making everyone equal, for the sake of fairness; it is about making everyone subservient to the wielders of power, and enforcing that subservience by policing people’s every deed and their very thoughts.

How could a national leader tell such a big lie? Well, boldly. The masses are more gullible about big lies, because of their audacity. It seems too incredible to believe it could be a lie.

But it had to start smaller. Something like, “We were treated unfairly,” “Everything bad we suffer is the fault of our enemies,” “Those who treated us badly are evil scum,” “They are beneath us,” “They are beneath our contempt,” “Everyone who isn’t us is beneath our contempt and doesn’t even deserve to live,” “Our being in power is the only solution for a world full of worthless scum,” “Wipe out the subhumans and ensure our power forever!”

It could start, alternatively, with “We deserve the fruits of the labor of our enemies,” “We must take what is rightfully ours, and they must submit to our right to rule over them.” That’s a short trip down the same road.

It starts with a relatively small divergence from a known truth—until the truth is nigh unto forgotten, or no longer recognized as true.

Here’s an example. The truth about humans is that we reproduce with a long gestation period and an extraordinarily long time of growth to adulthood and independence. The best way humans handle that is with a committed mother and father together raising their children to adulthood. Even though we know this, and have seen this truth played out over many millennia, people lie about it:

·         Sex doesn’t need commitment.

·         Men get sex without commitment, so women should too.

·         A woman shouldn’t be “punished with a baby” (to quote our past president).

·         It’s just a clump of cells.

·         It’s a woman’s choice.

Abortion has never been about value-less choices. It has always been about escaping the natural consequences of behavior that was a lie to begin with. What could have been “I offer you myself to show our forever love,” instead becomes, “I get what I can in the moment to serve my lust,” and “The loss of a subhuman life is mine to snuff out at my convenience.” The lie leads to an ugly way to live.

And before you realize it, you have 50 million babies murdered in the womb. A quarter of a million black babies a year are murdered in this country—more than are born; we’re supposed to believe that’s not racist? Or just plain evil?

Here are some other lies that lead to bad ends:

·         It’s unfair for some people to make a lot more money than others. I’m really thinking of the poor when I advocate taking from the rich.

·         You always have to believe the accuser—unless the accuser is accusing someone you agree with or you just don’t like her.

·         You should “shut up” (as Hawaii’s Senator Hirono demands) if you’re not a woman, or a person of color, or an LGBTQ… person, because your tribe matters more than your individual morality.

·         We support the right self-defense, but we need stronger gun laws; no one needs a gun. And we totally trust government to be the only holders of weapons.

·         Almost all of us in media vote Democrat and favor leftist ideas and causes, but we’re totally unbiased in our reporting.

·         People are just hiding behind religion as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT people, so they should be forced to act against their conscience.

·         Our enemies are wrong, so they should not be allowed to speak, so shutting them down by any means necessary is justified.

·         The other side does it, so we’re justified in doing it back to them.

This week we’re looking at this one:

·         Of course someone who is a lifelong activist in leftist causes would have no ulterior motive in accusing a Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault 36 years ago without any corroboration.

Christine Blasey Ford during testimony September 27th
screen shot from here

We've covered this for a week already. Do we need to follow the trail? A partisan block of senators takes their “advise and consent” role to mean “sabotage and prevent,” certain that their goal is justified by any means necessary. Everything they do is colored by that fact. Here's what has happened this week:

         

·         Daily the accuser’s story appears less plausible and more contrived. There are witnesses who have refuted her claims about her flying, her claustrophobia, her need for a second front entrance in her house (which was put in for renters, with no discussion about her fears, several years before her first claims of assault to a therapist), and her claim to know nothing about polygraphy.

·         Meanwhile, the chant is raised that, because the man Kavanaugh got upset during the hearing, when accused of attempted rape—and even gang rape by another discredited accuser—suddenly his temperament is not judicial. (They still seem unaware that their behavior is un-senatorial.)

·         The FBI report is complete; no additional evidence was found. Even though this took the full week the opposing senators had requested (a single day would have been adequate, because all the possible witnesses had already offered sworn statements), the opposing senators and their complicit media now claim it couldn’t possibly have been a thorough investigation, and they’re appalled, supposedly.

But the vote will be held, due to surprising and uncharacteristic grit from the Republicans. And then we will find out whether these lying senators, who never cared about the woman, and never cared about the truth, and never cared about justice have set a pattern that works for their purposes, that they will continue to practice in the future, or whether they are set back a step and we have a chance for society to move away from that darkness.

One more Jordan Peterson quote from the book:

To tell the truth is to bring the most habitable reality into Being. Truth builds edifices that can stand a thousand years. Truth feeds and clothes the poor, and makes nations wealthy and safe. Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, so that he can become a partner, rather than an enemy. Truth makes the past truly past, and makes the best use of the future’s possibilities. Truth is the ultimate, inexhaustible natural resource. It’s the light in the darkness.

See the truth. Tell the truth.[iv]

Let’s hope we’ve called for truth soon enough this time. So we don’t find ourselves with Anne Frank hiding in the attic while the gestapo is at the door, and it’s too late.

---

[i] Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Random House Canada, © 2018, p. 226.

[ii] 12 Rules for Life, p. 215.

[iii] 12 Rules for Life, p. 227.

[iv] 12 Rules for Life, p. 230.

Innocent Until Proven

Living according to principle is a good thing, generally. Better than random and unprincipled living. But what if you’re living by principles that are not true? That leads you to bad ends. Possibly harmful to yourself and others.

We’re witnessing an example. Some of us live by the freedom principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” with equality before the law, rather than preferential treatment for certain classes. Some others of us live by a different principle: “Always believe women accusers.” Notice the lack of evidence and the presence of special class.

Found on Facebook. Credited to Occupy Democrats Logic

They’re using the phrase “Always believe the survivor.” But a person is a survivor only if they actually went through something to survive. You don’t know they’re a survivor just because they’re alive, because you don’t know what they’ve gone through.

How do you come to know what they’ve gone through? Their say so and other evidence. You can’t just delete “and other evidence” because of their tribe, such as their being female.

Senator Feinstein corners Senator
Murkowski between testimonies
Thurday, image found here

The principles of freedom that we adhere to, that are embodied in our Constitution, aren’t the normal way for humans throughout history. They’re a rare discovery, a way to perpetuate the occasional decent society. The norm in human experience is tyranny, poverty, and savagery. Those things are easy to get. Freedom, prosperity for the masses, and civilization are rare, and ought to be treasured and protected.

When people yell at our senators in elevators that they have to believe the survivor because she’s a woman, or collar our senators in the hallways, and then our senators weaken—we have reason to be upset about that. This isn’t about one Supreme Court nominee; this is about the rule of law and the maintenance of our 230-year experiment in self-governing through a constitutional republic of limited government and guaranteed rights—rather than the alternative of any popular flavor of tyranny.

How do we know the “always believe the woman accuser” principle is false? Evidence. History.

Let’s start way back. Joseph was falsely accused by his slave master Potiphar’s wife, for which he was imprisoned. Michelle Malkin recounts this story on a Facebook live. She says,

"Joseph and Potiphar's Wife" by Guido Reni, 1630
image from Wikipedia

The sad fact is that people—yes, that includes women—tell lies about all sorts of things all the time. And, yes, that includes lies about sexual harassment, assault, and rape. Women have told these types of lies from the beginning of time.

Other examples include Emmitt Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago, visiting relatives in the south in the 1950s, accused of raping a white woman—absolutely falsely accused. Obviously so at the time, but racial prejudice led powerful people to disregard his human value and set his murderers free. In 2007 his accuser admitted she had lied. Too late.

Emmett Till
Meme found on Facebook, credited to Penny Whitehead

More recently there’s the Duke Lacrosse players, and football player Brian Banks. 

Brian Banks
Meme found on Facebook, credited to Stanley Trump Ziel

And this story, of a man who spent 28 years of a 48-year sentence after being falsely accused of rape—even though the actual perpetrator was named at the time. The accuser had a dream, and this guy’s face came to mind, so she recounted her previous story and blamed this man. The real perpetrator eventually confessed, leading to the case being overturned.  

Clarence Moses-EL, who spent 28 years in prison
after being falsely accused of rape.
Image from here.

And let’s not forget this one, which is eerily similar to the current witch hunt—and which has proven over time that character certainly wasn’t the problem: Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Clarence Thomas, during his nomination hearing
screen shot from here

In literature, we have To Kill a Mockingbird, which looks very similar to the Emmitt Till story. We like to think we would be on the side of Atticus Finch, the lawyer who defended the accused. But if you’re the kind of person who believes Christine Blasey Ford only because she’s a woman accuser, and you’re ignoring her lack of evidence, including the refutation of her story or refusal to corroborate by all her named witnesses, up against Brett Kavanaugh’s life reputation, contemporaneous evidence (calendar), six previous deep FBI character investigations, many character witness who have known him for decades both in work and private situations, and his own testimony—then I can guarantee you are the very kind of person who would have sided against Atticus Finch’s accused, and against Emmitt Till, because tribe means more to you than truth.

from the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, with updated graphics
Meme found on Facebook, credited to Fred McCarty

And that’s why we don’t want you or anyone like you to have power over us. You are not fit for causing anything but tyranny.

What does your tyranny of tribe look like for real humans? Take a look at what you’re doing to a good man and his family. Ted Cruz talked about what Kavanaugh meant by his "family being destroyed":

To some that may sound like hyperbole. I don’t think it is. Judge Kavanaugh has two young daughters, a ten-year-old and a thirteen-year-old. For the rest of their lives, their daughters will go to school, will interact with people, many of whom are convinced their father is a rapist.

I want you to think of the effect that has, when those are the allegations. That’s where it starts. Not, “I disagree with your jurisprudence.” Not, “I think you’re wrong in how you interpret the Constitution.” But “You are…” And let’s be clear: he has been accused of, among other things, participating in repeatedly drugging and gang raping women, to take some of the more sensational, I think ludicrous, claims that have been aired.

These little girls are going to have classmates of theirs repeat those charges to them.

Some of the most poignant testimony yesterday was when Judge Kavanaugh described how he’s taught law at Harvard Law School for over a decade, and he said he may never get to teach law again. And that’s entirely possible. That’s entirely possible, even if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to the US Supreme Court as a sitting justice, in our polarized world. I’m a graduate of the Harvard Law School. I think it is entirely possible those on the left would say, “We don’t want someone we believe is a rapist ever teaching again.”

He also talked about how much he has loved coaching girls’ basketball, coaching his daughters in basketball. He mentioned he may never coach again. That’s a very real possible consequence of the mudslinging and irresponsible behavior of the last two weeks. It may well be, in this tribalized, partisan, divided world that the parents of the other girls say, “No, we don’t want him as a coach anymore.”

Real damage has been done. A lifetime of good living has been buried by one suspiciously timed and unsupported allegation.

People who want power that is not limited by the Constitution caused this damage. I don’t know whether Blasey Ford was merely a tool or simply a liar. But the real victims here are Brett Kavanaugh, his family, and justice—and all of us who love justice.

Don't we ever believe victims, then? Most of the time. Because most of the time they are telling the truth and the evidence, especially when gathered fresh, is likely to show that. We do the best we can, in an imperfect but best ever justice system, to hold wrongdoers accountable. Sometimes, with "innocent until proven guilty" as a principle, we feel frustrated that justice can't always done. But that's a sacrifice we make so that justice can be done as often as possible, and tribal preference is never substituted for blind justice. Because we know that's where tyranny lies.

Who Is Telling the Truth?

There has been enough coverage of the Kavanaugh hearings that I thought I wouldn’t write on it. But, after the hearings, completed almost three weeks ago, in which Brett Kavanaugh comported himself well, showed himself to be fully qualified for the task of weighing matters according to the Constitution, and also showed himself to be a man of particularly decent character—then the drama began.

Judge Kavanaugh at today's hearing.
screen shot from C-SPAN

So I think that, in the search of truth, there are things we ought to discuss.

Who I believe, and who others believe doesn’t much matter. What matters is what is actually, factually true, outside of belief. And if we can find that out, then we can act based on reality.

I will deal only with the allegations by Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford. There have been no other credible accusations; all additional accusations have been spurious, unsubstantiated, and clearly timed to harm rather than to enlighten. So we’ll dispense with those.

That is not to say that Dr. Blasey-Ford’s allegations are credible. I spent much of the day listening to her testimony and then to Judge Kavanaugh’s. As a truth telling person myself, I have a hard time seeing other normal seeming people lie. I used to watch a TV show called Lie to Me, in which the psychological consultants were able to read facial micro-reactions and tell a lot about what people were thinking. While there may actually be such a science, or talent, that show was fiction. I don’t have that ability. I have to use my other resources and discernment skills.

Did Dr. Blasey-Ford appear to be lying? Not that I could tell. But was she telling us what actually happened? I don’t think so.

The way this is being handled, Republican and Democrat committee members took turns asking questions, five minutes each. All of the Republicans ceded their time to an expert female prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, with much experience getting stories from victims of sexual assault.

Note: Mitchell is a prosecutor. She interviews victims to get their stories as accurately detailed as possible so that perpetrators can be prosecuted and held accountable. She wasn’t there to trip up the accuser; she was there to get details out.

Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell questioned for Republicans.
screen shot from C-SPAN

The Democrat members of the committee did not ask questions to get out any true details. Not one. They each spent their five minutes telling Dr. Blasey-Ford that they believed her, and that she was brave and heroic for coming forward. And that the Republicans were meanies for not indefinitely postponing to begin an FBI investigation.

They embellished with several commentaries on the importance of character:

Senator Feinstein:  I hope the majority changes their tactics, opens their mind, and seriously reflects on why we are here.

Change out the word majority for minority, and then she’s saying something I can agree with. She also said what we’re about is “a real question of character.”

Senator Hirono: Does character matter? Do our values, our real values about what is right and what is wrong, and about whether we treat our fellow human beings with dignity and respect? Do they matter anymore? I believe they do.

Let’s just note that they say character matters, so what they’re doing says something about their character. I’ll come back to this later.

About the multiple calls to begin an FBI investigation. What happens in an FBI investigation? The FBI would get a statement from the accuser. Done. They would get a statement from the accused, under penalty of perjury. Done. They would interview witnesses, under penalty of perjury. Done. They would gather corroborating evidence from others who could shed light on the situation, people who knew the accuser and accused and witnesses at the time, and could have offered additional details. Done. In fact, there were six previous in-depth character investigations of Judge Kavanaugh prior to previous hirings.

Judge Kavanaugh has additionally provided a calendar identifying his whereabouts and activities during the given time frame. The calendar shows that, when the family was in town, he was involved in basketball practices and other typical activities. Parties were listed, including where and with whom. Names of some so-called witnesses were included, some at parties. But the other person accused, Mark Judge, was listed only in relation to a non-party event.

No one, not even the other female witness, Leland Keyser (her name was then) who remains a friend/acquaintance of the accuser, has any memory of the event. In fact, she goes as far as to say she knew of no party or gathering ever attended by Christine Blasey-Ford that was also attended by either Brett Kavanaugh or Mark Judge.

Dr. Blasey-Ford provided no explanation for why she attended this pre-party event, at a house that must have belonged to one of the other attendees but she doesn’t know whose, when she was two years younger than the others and attended a different high school. Her explanation was that it must have been a spur-of-the-moment event she was invited to at the country club they all belonged to. But what was her motivation to go to such an event, if she wasn’t dating any of the attendees, or was not a close friend of any of them? And there was only one other female? Who says those people were never at the same events?

Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford
screen shot from C-SPAN

She does not remember how she got there, or how she got home, although during questioning, which included maps of the area, she admitted that the distance meant she must have gotten a ride. She says her friend, Leland, did not even notice that she left, nor did she follow up or ask later, nor had she been aware of anything amiss going on upstairs at the house prior to the two boys careening drunkenly back down the stairs followed later by the young Dr. Blasey-Ford’s exit out of the house passing by all of them. Her exit wasn’t noticed, when in full view of all, even though they were supposedly the only females present?

Why didn’t she tell anyone? Not even whoever gave her a ride home? Because she was ashamed, she said. Of what she had done? Only in so far as she didn’t want her parents to know she had attended a party at a house with no parents present where there was drinking going on, of which she had partaken (one beer, she said; she was 15).

Could something—some kind of assault—have happened to her? Quite possibly. Was she assaulted, in the way she described, by someone else? She was offered that possibility in questioning, but insists she is 100% certain that the perpetrators were Brett Kavanaugh and his accomplice Mark Judge.

Yet Dr. Blasey-Ford’s accusations and corroboration are so thin that no charge could ever be brought, no warrant could ever be given. It is clearly, by every legal way of looking at it, so unsubstantiated that it could only do damage as rumor.

So calls for any additional investigation without any additional information from the accuser are fruitless. The leads have all been followed.

We know enough now, from the investigations and testimony, to look at the facts we do know:

·         Christine Blasey-Ford claims she was assaulted but not raped by a drunken Brett Kavanaugh when she was about 15 and he was about 17.

·         She offers no details about where, exactly when, with any corroborating witnesses.

·         So far no evidence of any kind beyond her personal claim has been provided or found.

·         Brett Kavanaugh categorically denies that this event ever happened, or anything like it, nor does he remember any social event that included Christine Blasey-Ford.

·         Mark Judge categorically denies in the same fashion.

·         The other two named attendees, including her female friend, deny any knowledge of anything like this ever happening, or that Kavanaugh ever even attended any of the same events as the accuser.

·         Everyone who knew Brett Kavanaugh at the time, and in subsequent years, has testified that, not only did they never hear of any such event, it would be totally out of character for the Brett Kavanaugh that they knew.

·         His calendar shows some meticulous detail—and was kept and accessible after all these years. On that calendar he included social events, but nothing that could have been this party appears.

·         Brett Kavanaugh further submitted to a media interview, along with his wife, where he explained that, not only was there no attempted sexual assault, he was a virgin at that time, and during college (when other accusations claim he did vile things), and for years afterward.

·         There is nothing in his subsequent life that would bring his character into question. He is a religious man, and his behavior with his wife and children, with his co-workers, and with friends and acquaintances leads one to believe that he is being truthful about his denial. There appears to be nothing to hide.

About his being a virgin, one news interviewee said that right there is proof he’s lying. But for religious—and studious—people, that would be the norm. I never dated anyone that wasn’t a virgin up to and through the time of our dating. That was totally normal in my high school and college life, in a religious community among studious friends. Also, if you read Coming Apart by Charles Murray, you see that this more conservative behavior is known and acted out in the most well off zip codes, similar to Kavanaugh’s.

Let’s let blind justice weigh the scales. Everything comes down in favor of Brett Kavanaugh. Everything.

Dr. Blasey-Ford claims her coming forward now in not politically motivated, but relates only to protecting the country from having a person who would do such a thing in such a high office. However, she did not say anything about him when he was elevated to various other courts, including the DC circuit court, where he has most recently been serving, often considered the second highest court of the land. And his name has been on the Federalist Society/Heritage Society list of acceptable judicial candidates since before President Trump was elected. She wasn’t worried about him possibly replacing Justice Scalia. She did not act, and did not mention Kavanaugh’s name to anyone, including her therapist, until July 2018, when his name appeared on the short list to replace Justice Kennedy.

Why now? is a valid question.

Senator Feinstein
screen shot from C-SPAN

She hasn’t been asked political questions. But she sought to put her story forward through political people, her congresswoman and Senator Feinstein. Whether she is outright lying about who assaulted her (if anyone), or whether she has, after all these decades, falsely remembered who did such a thing (think of A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster, in which an Englishwoman takes an Indian man all the way to court for attempted rape, unable to remember details, until she realizes that she was mistaken and it never happened), the people on the Democratic side have used her for their purpose of delaying confirmation of an eminently qualified judge with an impeccable character.

Their timing is peccable.

Senator Feinstein has had the information in hand now for 60 days. Dr. Blasey-Ford provided it to her congresswoman three months ago. Feinstein had it well before the hearing. She had it during private interview questioning. She had it during the hearings. During all of those opportunities, she did not even hint that she was questioning his character or wanted his side of any such story.

One would think that, based on the timing, this was a Hail Mary attack to delay the inevitable confirmation.

People are talking about the attempt to delay until after the midterms, in hopes that a different Senate might prevent any Trump nominee from getting confirmed. But more imminent is the hope to delay beyond this week, because Monday, October 1^st, is the start of the new Supreme Court term. That is when they decide which cases to take up and what the schedule will be. The Democrats would much rather that happen with a 4-4 court than a 5-4 court.

In other words, the Democrat idea of “getting to truth” and paying attention to “character” includes falsely accusing a particularly decent man, destroying his life and livelihood, with false sanctimony on their faces.

This is evil.

Evil people, working among civilized people, take advantage of good people and their predictable behavior. Good people try to give people respect and the benefit of the doubt. Good people try to calm their anger and look for a reasonable explanation. They bend over backward to give someone with unsubstantiated claims the chance to be heard—just in case. They don’t want to appear unkind, or uncaring, or impolite.

That’s how you get what you’ve gotten in media the last couple of weeks and in today’s hearing. That’s also how we’ve gotten a president who stands up to those bullies simply by not caring whether he appears nice. I’m beginning to appreciate that willingness to fight back.

What we should have gotten was, “The burden of proof is on you, the badly timed accuser. If you can bring us a shred of evidence to help us believe there’s some truth to your story, despite its terrible timing, let us see it.”

And then you go ahead and confirm.

What else we should have gotten—and still should get—is a defamation of character lawsuit. Including Senator Feinstein. Including everyone else and their sleazy lawyers who have made additional allegations. Sue for jail time—so that Soros money cannot buy them out of the consequences.

If Judge Kavanaugh is not worthy of the Supreme Court, it means he is not worthy of his current district court position either. So what is at stake for him is a lifetime’s reputation and hard work, and the ability to make a living for the next thirty years. There is measurable harm to him. Even if confirmed (and I trust he will be), this has put a shadow of scandal over him, as has hung unfairly over Justice Thomas all these years.

The burden of proof—under these circumstances—must be on the accuser. Dr. Blasey-Ford wanted to remain anonymous, but you don’t get to do that kind of damage to another human being from the safety of anonymity. At best that is cowardly; at worst it is pure evil.

If she were telling what actually happened, there would be corroboration, including a pattern of behavior in the character of such a man, and she could find it. If she had no animus and is merely mistaking the identity of an actual attacker, that could be discovered. (The prosecutor today suggested the kind of interrogation that could lead to exposing what actually happened, but that her counsel failed to offer.) With no animus, there could be a non-jail settlement, as long as it exonerated Justice Kavanaugh.

But if the accuser is not held accountable for defamation of character under such high stakes, then the precedence is set for every Supreme Court nominee, and any other person nominated to an important position, that the Democrats do not agree with on policy.

They have done this before. I’m old enough to remember what they did to Robert Bork, which invented the term for thwarting a nominee. I also remember the Anita Hill accusations against Clarence Thomas.  And let me just point out that, while Hill has been lionized by the Democrats for her bravery, her testimony appeared then, and still appears to be, a false accusation. How do we know? Her behavior. And his. She continues to do whatever is necessary for her “leftist” causes, and has benefited from the notoriety. Meanwhile, Justice Thomas has remained an unimpeachable character, and has done his job of applying the law according to the Constitution, as he took an oath to do, even though the Democrats whisper continued lies about his character. They were never worried about someone with bad character being on the Court—these were people who supported Bill Clinton. They just didn’t want someone who would uphold the Constitution.

Senator Graham
screen shot from C-SPAN

Senator Grassley was too kind to Democrats today, but I do credit him with defending the investigative process by the Republicans. They gave the woman every opportunity to tell her story and provide evidence. She added none.

Senator Graham today, was downright feisty, something we don’t usually see from him (here, during questioning Judge Kavanaugh, and here and here to media between hearing sessions).

If we have any respect for basic principles like “innocent until proven guilty,” and the rule of law, we should see a vote on Friday to confirm.

If we get something else, then evil wins.