Kennedy to retire - USSC will swing even further right

So...if you don't get what you want you're fine with destroying the Supreme Court?

That's basically what you're suggesting when you say you hope that in response to these accusations you hope the GOP fills the court with EXTREME right wingers.

So, when those EXTREME right wingers (your words here) start taking rights away from the LGBT community, minorities, and women, will you be rooting for or against that?

 

Kavanaugh must withdraw his name. Now.

The Republicans need to extend an olive branch to the Democrats for all the damage this and other confirmations have caused.

To make amends, they must immediately begin with the impeachment of Clarence Thomas. Republicans need to hold Thomas responsible for his lies during his confirmation when Anita Hill stood up to him for his immoral sexual acts.

#UnitedWeStand

 

I'm comfortable disagreeing on that. I appreciate your point. But, there's no room for grace and forgiveness with that approach.

 

He has the right to go on television and give interviews like anyone else.

He has a lot of heat with possibly 4 women accusing him of assault.

There are allegations that his college wing man raped a passed out woman in college.

There are allegations that he frequently rode a train on inebriated co-eds.

I have no problem with him contesting the allegations and trying to sway the American public.

 

I would first note that no man is infallible. I would much rather a person who has made mistakes in their past and learned from them (legitimately) over a self righteous social justice extremist with no moral wrong doing. We've come a long way in keeping people who should not be in power out. However we are starting to swing in the opposite direction and letting the loons back into the fold.

I have a problem with the #metoo movement. There are legit predators who deserved to be behind bars. Cosby and Weinstein come to mind. However there is this ambiguous angle which we must take into consideration. Sexuality is complicated and it certainly isn't binary. We are not talking about kidnapping women, forcefully raping them and throwing them in a ditch. At what point is it wrong to get a woman drunk, both parties knowing that she will say no unless she has a few drinks? Is it ok for guys to shove their junk/teabag their passed out male friends but not ok to do it to women? Women tend to prefer guys who show initiative vs guys who are passive. At what point is 'showing initiative' turning into sexual assault? Are we going to start holding middle age guys back from promotion because he kissed little susie on the playground when they both were 10?

This is about the line drawn and the individual not knowing if they crossed it because it varies from individual to individual, and with each individual, that line changes depending on the other person. How far do we take this nonsense?

 

(I left out house party and drugs).

Seems like the confirmation process is supposed to be so rigorous (ahem), because we have decided that grace and forgiveness, while certainly important in life and society, maybe shouldn't apply to certain conduct in the context of a life tenure as a Supreme Court Justice.

People lose their right to vote for committing a felony. (I know there is a disagreement over the wisdom of this.)

I just can't see overlooking attempted rape (if it actually happened) for a Supreme Court Justice.

Not being snarky, but do you feel the same way about murder or attempted murder or completed rape?

Appreciate the way you have laid out your position and am really just curious.

 

I agree with you on your concerns re: aspects of the metoo movement.

I think Nook was discussing actual attempted rape and not the other situations you described.

 

Kavanaugh did not admit wrongdoing and beg forgiveness.

More to the point, if the person who sexually assaulted Ford was poor and black, he would till be in jail. Even if he served his sentence and parole, he would be a convicted felon who can not be lawyer and likely never be appointed to a federal judgeship.

 

Nothing to forgive - Kavanaugh didn't admit to it. You'd have a point if he admitted to something and showed some sort of penance/remorse.

If he did admit it though, he would most likely have been canned - for political reasons.

The only reason he is still out there "fighting" is because government has barely any reputation left (unlike private companies faced with #metoo dilemas) and GOP doesn't want to take any chances when it comes to getting a conservative majority on SCOTUS, hoping (probably rightfully so) that electorate will not notice Senate's obvious politicization of the nomination process, because public no longer believes fake media nor has the attention span to appreciate long-form reporting. Nuclear option in senate needs to be reversed somehow.

 

No, I am good keeping someone that sexually assaulted someone off the SCOTUS.

I don't have a problem with them in most other professions but not the SCOTUS where there are only 9 spots and they are lifetime appointments.

There is a big difference between a 10 year old kissing a girl on the playground and a college kid slapping his penis out at drunk girl at a party. Also, there is a big difference between Dave from accounting having done it decades before and the SCOTUS.

As far as at what point is too far? Well I would say having sex with someone that is drunk is putting yourself at risk. If you have to get her drunk to have sex with you, then you are playing with fire.

Is it worse to sexually assault a man? Any guy that takes his penis out and shoves it in someone else's face is asking for trouble...... it really isn't that hard.

Also showing initiative is different than getting a girl drunk or shoving your penis in a girls face.

The reality is that people that have done terrible things in the past are more likely to be held accountable, even many years later because of social media.

For the most part it is pretty simple. Don't **** someone that is drunk and cannot give you consent....... when someone tells you to stop, then stop..... and don't stick your penis in someone's face without permission.

The reality is the frat like behavior was condoned and in some ways encouraged by other men for a long time and now, some of the women that had to endure it are speaking up (I am not necessarily saying it happened with BK) and voicing their opposition to the "boys will be boys" culture.

I do agree with you though that there is a WIDE array of sexual assaults and not all crimes are equal. A man that exposes himself is not the same as someone that rapes a woman at gun point. However I don't think any of them should be excused but the punishment would likely vary. I also believe that a woman that is proven conclusively to have lied should have criminal punishment as well.

 

Heather MacDonald argues that the sexual revolution of the 1960s may be partly to blame for the sexual free-for-all atmosphere in high schools and on college campuses in the 1970s and 80s.

https://www.city-journal.org/kavanaugh-feminist-narcissism-16188.html

excerpt:

"The most salient fact about this alleged episode will never register on elite consciousness: the sexual free-for-all environment, which may or may not have given rise to an assault by Kavanaugh. The sexual revolution declared that the traditional restraints on the male libido—norms of male chivalry and gentlemanliness and of female modesty and prudence—were patriarchal and oppressive. Men should stop protecting women and putting them on a pedestal. Males and females were assumed to desire easy sex with equal fervor, and to be able to walk away from a one-night stand with equal complacency. With regard to students, adults should remain nonjudgmental and as far out of the picture as possible. Chaperones were relegated to the relic pile, as fusty as a mothballed corset. Starting in the 1970s, affluent parents often absented themselves from their teenager’s parties, leaving the house liquor cabinet unattended. Popular culture became hyper-sexualized.

"The results were not pretty: the male libido, free to act as boorishly as it wanted; females getting drunk to reduce their innate sexual inhibitions, unprotected by any default assumptions against casual premarital sex. Whether a 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh took advantage of this putative sexual liberation, many other teenagers have, and in so doing, merely followed the new script for sexual relations.

"Those derided Victorian values of chivalric paternalism are now being reimported covertly on college campuses, however, where male students are deemed responsible for female well-being during drunken hook-ups, even if the male and female student are both equally inebriated. The #MeToo movement is going further, turning a drunken pat on the butt in a suburban kitchen into a criminal offense and a squeeze on the knee under a dinner table grounds for banishment. A panelist on The View complained that the 'white men' on the Senate Judiciary Committee were 'not protecting women.' One might have thought that the committee’s role was to protect the constitutional balance of power."
​

more at the link

 

Yes because there are no black people where they grew up and the poor black man likely would have to break into the house to be in that situation lol.

They were dressing up in black face over at Ford's school so I'm just assuming there were no black people there ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ )

 

(This isn't directed at you Nook. I am just jumping off of your post and the article posted by Os.)

Do you think that it depends on "how drunk?"

I agree that having sex with a passed out or barely coherent girl is obviously wrong.

I don't think that two college kids/young adult who are both buzzed who decide to have consensual sex is then retroactively an attack by the male because the male is responsible for his actions/decisions when buzzed and the woman is not.

That isn't equality or equal footing by any means. Like it or not, a lot of people when I was young and I gather a lot of people now have sex while under the influence of something. I think to now declare that depending on how the woman feels about it later (maybe much, much later), the act might have been an attack by the man is simply wrong.

If I go out to dinner with my wife and we have a cocktail, share a bottle of wine and then go to our home and have sex, have I committed rape? She may have been over the legal limit to drive. I might have been too. But we both consented to have sex at the time. Can she retroactively withdraw it by citing our joint drinking?

I know it is trite, but how is one sex held responsible for decisions made while inebriated or stoned and the other sex isn't. The article posted by Os is interesting because it points out that attitude would seem to have an implicit foundation that women aren't equal to men and therefore don't share responsibility.

Again, this line of thinking falls apart when the person becomes incapacitated. No doubt. But, laying down a blanket rule that men can't have sex with women who are drinking or smoking weed is unrealistic and unfair.

 

Donald "Grab 'em by the p***y" Trump speaking on behalf of anybody's character with regard to sexual harassment is farcical. With regards to anybody who isn't already squarely in Trump's corner, it only hurts either Kavanaugh or Trump.

Honestly, I'm surprised about how well he has held his tongue on this one so far. His handlers must have him hogtied in a corner somewhere.

 

There is no one that isnt vulnerable and yet of all the recent scotus nominees you mention the only two people accused of such. Since Thomas, we have had Roberts, Alito and Gorsuch as conservatives nominees and yet none of them was accused of such. But with Kavanaugh there are potentially FOUR allegations already - common logic says he has likely done somethings others like Gorsuh & co didnt do to make him so 'vulnerable'