— from Cindy Wolf —
Here’s the thing…we know it happened. Women who grew up or went to school with those boys know it happened. We were at the parties, at the frats and in the dorm rooms. We drank too. We smoked pot with those boys. We liked sex. Unfortunately, instead of treating us gently as valued friends, some of those boys thought we were prizes to “score” or pleasure providers to coerce at will. The world was their oyster and no one would ever punish them for taking what they wanted.
According to his friends, Kavanaugh drank. He drank like those boys did…to a point where he doesn’t recall everything he did. In his high school yearbook, he boasted about being a “Renate Alumnus”, which the woman in question finds humiliating and dehumanizing. At the very least, it is likely he behaved badly and can’t remember it. He won’t own it and he clearly isn’t all that sorry.
His reaction to the very first allegation could have been “I drank a lot and didn’t behave well as a young man. I cannot remember acting this way, but because I drank until there are gaps in my memory, it is possible this happened. I deeply regret any pain I caused to this woman. In the intervening decades I have tried to live my life with responsibility and dignity. I have worked hard to exemplify how a person in a position of power should act in the world, with a keen awareness of how each action and decision effects other human beings. “That is not what he said or what his allies said. They said it didn’t happen, but even if it did, it happened long ago and shouldn’t count. They said she should have complained sooner and to the police. I say, why? So she could have been further traumatized and ridiculed and silenced by someone else instead of choosing silence for herself?
Nothing good ever happens to people who report mistreatment by people of higher social status, oftentimes even if there is irrefutable evidence. Remember Brock? The girl he terrorized endured his attack, all the trauma of questioning and trial, and then had to hear from the judge about how this young man’s life shouldn’t be ruined. She has to live with the PTSD and psychological damage of aggressive personal physical and psychological attack for the rest of her life, but the concern was for him because she was simply damage done in the wake of his youthful highjinks. We women of privilege with white skins and college educations need to start exacting a high price for this behavior. We need to change our toxic culture. If Kavanaugh gets appointed, at least this time he suffered.
When there are more women in government and law enforcement, when we have the authority to grant and take away power, when the generations of men we raise see us as equals and friends join us in the effort, we will see the profound shift that is possible in society. We will free up all that human energy spent on daily coping with the stress and sadness of disempowerment and voicelessness. We will shift this. It is a matter of time.
Cindy, thank you, well said.
No woman or man may sexually harass or assault another;
No woman or man may criminally murder another;
No woman or man may criminally kidnap, maim, steal from, or embezzle from another;
AND
No woman or man may be judged guilty of any criminal allegation without a sufficient showing of proof via competent evidence.
The presumption of innocence has been the “standard for civilization” long before it was ever adopted as a criminal standard by the late-arriving United States of America.
This is not a new standard and it is not limited to the legal arena. It is foundational for the success of any advanced society and it is the minimum standard for fair treatment by one person of another— since antiquity.
There is no way around this standard IF justice and fairness are the goals and anarchy is to be rejected.
To the extent any person does not understand this definition is the extent to which my exhortation about the price of inadequate education demonstrates the degrading and dumbing down of human society.
This is the challenge we now face. Apart from sexual assault or any other crime, this lack of comprehension is evidence of a qualitative decline in human society most recently exhibited today by segments of “elite” pre-Millennials and their older-in-age political facilitators; and it is directly correlated to a decline in quality education due to years of a systematic lowering of the bar for politically correct reasons.
Smart sounding politically correct soundbites reveal, daily, this astonishing failure and decline in human intelligence.
We need real education. The cost of its absence in our most elite universities is more and more evident in every single area and aspect of civil society.
Honest people know this but are afraid to speak up given the climate. I live part time in and around some of our most elite universities and have observed this “devolution” personally.
correction- “post-millennials”
Oh, and Cindy…you certainly describe what many “boys” did along with the commonly held assumptions they held and shared ….and, yes, lived by —though not a reliable legal standard it’s quite a powerful narrative.
I’m so moved by your final observations that I’d like to shine light on your final passage below:
“When there are more women in government and law enforcement, when we have the authority to grant and take away power, when the generations of men we raise see us as equals and friends join us in the effort, we will see the profound shift that is possible in society. We will free up all that human energy spent on daily coping with the stress and sadness of disempowerment and voicelessness. We will shift this. It is a matter of time.“
Thanks for the torch.
Chris Graham: Whether or not he did these acts, his mad-dog response to being questioned, his over the top assertion that his life is now ruined (yes, he will just have to lower himself to going back to a lifetime appointment as an appeal’s court judge), his replying to questions about his drinking by attacking the questioner about her drinking (which was not the issue, so classic deflection), and his conspiracy theories all add up to a man who does not have the judicial temperament for the Supreme Court. Can you imagine Ruth BG replying to questions like this?
And sometimes there is no corroborating evidence. If a woman is terrorized but there is no witness and no physical evidence, the best we can do is look at the circumstances and extrapolate—by the reports of others we know he drank himself stupid sometimes; by reports from others, he could be a mean drunk; by his yearbook we know he gloried in the 100 Keg club; by his yearbook we know he was part of the group who humiliated the woman named Renata. While this is not proof positive, it does say that there are concerns and a possibility that he assaulted this woman. This is not a court of law, with a beyond a reasonable doubt standard. This is a job interview for a position where the person selected should be like Caesar’s wife, beyond reproach. His behavior when questioned already pushes him out of that category. When you add in the other evidence of a less than stellar past that he pretty much excuses as “Boys will be boys,” the end result is the need to find someone with fewer liabilities for that position.
Mable- i never opined about his or her testimonies— if you can call them that.
I found her quite credible but I don’t know her or anything about her or her background or what may or may not have happened to her over the last many years of her life other than what she and her attorneys want me to know. I’m truly ignorant about her and him in ways that matter if you really want me to judge by character alone- which by itself is insufficient anyways.
Objectively, I don’t need the above level of personal familiarity to suggest that there isn’t yet sufficient legal proof to conclude what you suggest.
Do you know what happens when you cannot sufficiently and independly corroborate allegations of criminal conduct? It happens everyday in every court of the land. It means the accused retains the innocence he or she had when the allegations were first made. That’s how it works! Your system of justice would amount to a catastrophic failure of society.
We can’t let emotions interrupt basic reason. Of course, that doesn’t stop anyone from saying and believing whatever they will—which was the point of how far we’ve declined (and are declining) as a society— based on an inability by many to logically test the unsoundness of their thoughts, beliefs and assumptions.
But then we are a society that not only tolerates and teaches irrational beliefs to our children, we enshrine the right to do so in our highest laws of the land—(i can sense the indignant righteousness rising right about now).
Thus, does it surprise me that so many leap to conclusions without competent supporting evidence?
No, it doesn’t!
That’s why we have an independent judiciary that would prevent your conclusions from taking effect in real life.
Your logic leads us to a dangerous place. It’s more commonly found in totalitarian, illiberal, and thuggish regimes— regimes without a developed, independent judiciary.
Surely, that’s not what you wish for us.
Kudos to Cindy for her clear articulation. And an added postscript here…this is not about the bashing of men, rather we are observing the evidence of an overly partriotical society..an emphasis on the masculine superiority to the detriment of the femine…both archetypes reside within each of us. It is our job to balance these energies within.
Chris Graham wastes hundreds of words to weave a web of confusion about what is a rather simple, straightforward question, but what do you expect of an attorney?
Here are the facts:
1. Either Christine Blasey Ford is lying, or
2. Brett Kavanaugh is lying.
3. Ford has nothing to gain and everything to lose by lying. She has lost a lot already.
4. Kavanaugh has everything to gain by lying: a permanent seat on the highest court in the land, if not the world.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, whom do you think is lying?
….and kudos to you both for realizing how this conditioning resides in us all.
As we reflect on how we unconsciously project and reinforce inequality, let’s insist on a rationally-based system of public education so that we don’t send our young to university to be easily co-opted from a lack of intellectual vigor to think, analyze, and reason independently.
You can’t address deep inequalities without eschewing the “thuggish” group-think, soviet-era Stasi-like thought-police throughout society but especially on the campuses of our most elite schools.
This utterly deficient thinking represents the eopitome of irony that’s surely lost on these elitist roving tyrants—who to our dismay shape much of today’s incoherent discourse on equality.
Let’s take responsibility for aiding this social malady through omission, if not actual participation— if we’re sincere.
Otherwise, others may rightly be concerned that ours is nothing more than a play for raw power instead of a plea for raw fundamental change.
I can’t think of a worse way to undermine the cause for Women than to be found wanting in the very qualities we say society lacks—that’s how we define hypocrisy.
For the sake of getting past the ineffectual mid-point of this struggle, embrace self-criticism—that’s how we define authenticity.
The concerns we address are not discrete or singularly male-female; on fhe contrary, we’re stymied now by a much more prescient social decay caused by the debasement of Reason; this is directly tied to a decline in educational standards due to the politics of accomodating our nation’s demographic challenges over the last 10-15 years.
Absurdity reins- for example, science and math are deemed by radical left professors as vessels of white male domination. Tell that to the millions of Indian and Chinese software engineers and mathematicians attending the lkes of CMU and employed in Silicon Valley, Mumbai or Shanghai.
It confirms to them how weak in mind we truly are becoming. If you can’t connect these dots, hit the pause button and dig deeper.
Let’s fess up.
Michael- your spectacularly subjective interpretation on motives as to who has what to gain and lose betrays the biased prism through which you view these events. I initially referred to an objective legal standard that’s been tested and restested over centuries. I refuse to delve into an emotional morass to “divine” the so-called “truth” without competent corroboration. Not so many words, yes?
My Public Defender friend assures me sworn testimony is evidence…
That aside, this is a job interview, not a court of law. All that was being offered was testimony and all that was being asked is sufficient investigation of credible allegations.
Ok, now I’m going into the the morass of emotion that I wanted to avoid. I do this for you, Cindy.
I think that position lacks merit. We sit in judgment no matter the name we use—job interview or other. Consequences flow from that judgment. Fairness is implicated.
The standards employed here are insufficient in a court of law, or in a modern civilized society.
No matter how much we want to believe Dr Ford, we can’t conclude or judge without “sufficient” competent evidence. If we do, we judge unfairly.
That’s a tough reality. I see no logical basis to find this outcome a byproduct of a patriarchal society. That’s irrational conflation.
Further, judging Kavanaugh’s demeanor as belligerent, disrespectful or lacking in temperament given the circumstances is a highly subjective exercise. Surely, one can see that?
What’s your prisim? Keep it in mind. The proof of bias is perhaps reflected in that a majority of men likely see the same events (not “facts”..please,
precision of language) very differently.
Our mission if we’re sincere is to get past this ineffectual mid-point; otherwise progress will not be made. That means instilling a self-critical filter to weed out obvious bias as much as our intellect is able—hence, the connection to quality education.
As you say, Cindy…equality can and will happen if we really want it to…together.
….and don’t think I see the world’s societies as not being patriarchal…i most certainly do. but if we’re not precise in language and logic, we cannot prevail as those who are disingenuous will successfully use our imprecision and illogic against us.
As usual Mr. Graham hits the nail on the head! Curiously Ms. Wolf avoids any mention of Dr. Ford’s claim and proceeds directly to an indictment of Judge Kavanaugh, with less than 13% of her homily citing innocuous facts that do not disqualify his appointment and the remaining 87% comprised of innuendo and character assassination. So let’s critique Ms. Wolf’s offering, by paragraph:
(17%) Guilt by association; “We know it happened” generic fluff, about how adolescents, including Ms. Wolf, did this stuff, inferring that Kavanaugh did too, “like those boy’s did”.
13%) Kavanagh’s disqualifying behavior; he drank (beer), he did not say that he was unable to recall his actions at the time, Ms. Wolf says that. Being a “Renate Alumnus” apparently refers to a number of friends dating a young lady who had one date with Kavanaugh. The sexual innuendo, which is disputed by Kavanagh and Ms. (Renate) Schroeder Dolphin, appears to arise from media speculation as doe’s ownership of the resultant humiliation and dehumanization.
30%) Presumption of guilt; Ms. Wolf’s allegation that Kavanaugh drank too much and was insensitive ignores all other evidence including Kavanaghs sworn denial, sworn statements from Dr. Ford’s “witnesses” that contradict her claim and the only tangible contemporaneous evidence, Kavanaugh’s calendar.
25%) Red Herring; Ms. Wolf’s tory about Brock is unrelated to Kavanaugh with apparent intent to galvanize “women of privilege with white skins and college educations” to;
15%) Vest elite women; with “authority to grant and take away power. “ Is that what Ms. Wolf is about? Empowering white college educated (indoctrinated) women to make their male “oppressors” and their wives, daughters, mothers, sisters and friends suffer. Ms. Wolf offers you a cruel, spiteful, vicious, tragic and yes a DEPLORABLE future based on identity politics, tribalism and a zero sum distribution of your $20 trillion plus national debt. Good luck with that!
So for the record:
• Dr. Ford claims Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a small party approximately 35 years ago, she’s not sure of the time, place or date, but refers to four other persons being present including her longtime friend Leland Keyser.
• In sworn testimony none of them, including Ms. Keyser, can remember the party.
• In sworn testimony Judge Kavanaugh denies the claim.
• He produced a contemporaneous personal calendar that shows him away from home on all but two weekends that had schedule conflicts likely to preclude attending a party.
• Ms. Renate Schroeder Dolphin is one of 60 women who signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying “he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect.”
• So the preponderance of collective recollection, character references and evidence fails to support Dr. Ford, who as the accuser bears the burden of proof which she failed to provide.
• And for you internationalists, Article 11 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that the presumption of innocence is a human right. Judge Kavanaugh is entitled to that right.
Phil,
Ms. Dolphin rescinded her support, calling the yearbook entries hateful and hurtful. A number of her friends on that list also rescinded support.
Regarding privilege, it is important for women who can speak out and name names do so to establish behavioral patterns and also to change law enforcement practices around sexual assault. We cannot solve a problem we cannot clearly see. It is unfair to ask anyone to do this who fears reprisals. A woman who cannot be frightened with threats to her livelihood is in a better position to talk.
Every American is legally empowered to recount an incident and name the people involved so long as it is the truth as believed by the teller. In a Defamation suit the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff. Your attacker would have to prove not only that you have made an inaccurate statement, but that you know you are lying. Of course this presupposes access to fair and impartial justice – see the above regarding the need to use privilege to overcome credibility bias.
Good work, Chris. You got your reply to me down to a mere 63 words, versus your average of 276 in four previous comments (neglecting your correction). But then you relapse and give readers another 272 in your reply to Cindy. Sigh.
As an attorney, do you think the standard of guilt or innocence in this case should be “beyond a reasonable doubt” or “the preponderance of the evidence?”
I, for one, think it should be the latter, as Kavanaugh is being judged upon his suitability for a lifetime office that will have tremendous impact on our lives — especially those of women — for decades.
We’re not trying to put him in jail. At least not yet.
I’ll just say thank you, Michael, for the conversation. In all sincerity I think my comments explain where i’m coming from and won’t add more. This is such a very understandably emotional subject that I regret my first input. To say that Flake’s facial expressions captured some of the torture and vicarious pain experienced in listening and watching last week would be an understatement. I so very much in my deepest places never again want to see or hear of any form of violent imposition, especially one of brute power, imposed over or on a woman. It’s beyond disgusting to me to imagine these facts as having happened. But I’m tempered by Reason and Logic—my anchors and guides when life’s many contradictions leave me blinded and bewildered. We do the best we can. Peace.
Michael-(if the editors would allow me this short addendum)–everything else aside, I’d appreciate a conversation with you one day over:
How the Quantum (Macro) blends into the Classical (Micro) worlds? Quantum mechanics theory and predictions have amazing precision–as I’ve read–often better than parts-per-trillion accuracy.
What causes the superposition of multiple waves to collapse?
-Measurement?
-Decoherence?
-Spontaneous Localization?
I’d appreciate opening my mind to your thoughts on these matters.
Chris,
I painted a picture of elite white academia as I experienced it in the eighties. Your arguments about teaching reason seem oblivious to students’ need for basic physical safety. Your discomfort with your outrage leads you to try to find a way to think of me as unenlightened so you can go back to sleep in a comfortable place where logic and reason reign and behavior stems from kind and rational motives. You are calling on what you believe to be fairness and reason to silence me because you do not like how you feel when you empathize with my position. I have told my story. Dr. Ford has told hers. You should feel rage and disgust. We do. To move beyond this to wisdom and clarity of vision is the challenge.
I am aware of the fear of false accusation men will have to live with. Take heart. Only 6% of reported rapes prove out to be false charges. It will be a good thing if boys are afraid to be alone with girls for fear of false accusations. Girls have to be afraid to be alone with boys because it means they can be physically attacked and then told to shut up because they can’t prove it. 1in4 will experience this. At this point, it is clear that equal protection under the law is unavailable. Our rape and sexual assault statistics show that with very few outliers, it is men who commit these crimes and the law is not written to prevent or punish them. Therefore, in order to protect ourselves and our children, women are going to have to tell each other who did it so the predators can be avoided. I understand this may be your first serious glimpse through THIS lens, but for us, it is a matter of survival to trust each other and believe each other so we can survive without attack. Fortunately defamation laws allow us to do this, so we should take advantage of that before 45 gets his stated wish to change them. I am frankly puzzled by fears of character asassination. It would be lovely to live in a world where Brett Kavanaugh would lose even a dinner invitation. As it stands he will not lose his job nor his wife nor the respect of people heavily invested in not looking at ugly truths straight on in broad daylight.
Cindy- my words we’re meant to mean I look for the day when I won’t hear or see episodes of violence against women because we’ve moved beyond it as a human family-because it no longer occurs. But certainly not that I want the subject to go away before and until it’s finally and actually resolved. Obviously, if it were to go away or be swept under the rug prematurely, it won’t be resolved. We agree.
There you go again, Chris.
Typical attorney behavior. Attack my subjectivity. Evade and deflect. And now you want to talk with me about quantum mechanics.
Words, words, words but not many meaningful ones.
Michael—Let’s change tact. Would you mind sending me your email through Margie or Lin? Let’s talk about what reality might mean from a quatum perspective. You can talk politics with others. It’s not my true interest. We will vote in November and we’ll do what’s necessary to move society in the humane and more evolved direction. I also fund the enlightened political movements financially. That’s the extent of my politics. I mostly contribute to science and education.
In the meantime you have a remarkable background, education and insight into matters so deep and significant that bypass all constructed language. The language as applied in theoretical physics speaks universally, quite literally.
At this very moment I write to you from the Patron’s lounge at the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan. I have access to some of the sharpest minds in astro-physics and a sundry of others in the physical science fields via intimate sessions. On Orcas I fret about being cut off from such minds —that is—until I learned of you and your background. Can you refer me to others on the island similarly trained?
If you do not wish to share your knowledge and passion that is your will but I’m sure we’re politically aligned and I, more than you might imagine, appreciate greatly your area of expertise.
I’m not political by nature. I’m into searching for meaning. Still, i make sure my politics align with reason, common sense, and the free expression of ideas.
All my comments in the OI are geared towards improving the thought process and I try to limit myself to saying what is necssary as what is necessary is never illogical. Granted, it’s wordy and sometimes it rubs the wrong way. I can promise never to comment again in the OI if that will make others happy.
Again, my passion is the search for meaning at the quantum level and then to contemplate how this reality fits with our classical newtonian world. I’m sincere.
I’m not sure what world people are living in when they believe that females need to fear all males in general. Misandrist beliefs like that are, ironically, hypocritical and amoral. They harm our society and seek neither to surface truth or “start a discussion”, but instead seek exactly the opposite – to spread lies, cause division, and silence a group based purely on their sex.
Hysterical emotionalism leads to skewed perception and absurd beliefs, a phenomenon demonstrated perfectly by Cindy’s sick desire for boys to be afraid to be alone with girls as retribution (based on her perception of universal male culpability).
Chris, thank you for standing up for reason and civility. It’s important to publicly unveil the irrational tactics used by postmodernists and progressives to undermine a civil society. Enlightenment now!
Chris: re “I can promise never to comment again in the OI if that will make others happy.” What an offer! Your silence would be golden.
Marc-Why would you want to silence someone? I don’t know if I could ever say that to someone, anyone—how does your mind work to even get to that point? Totally dumbfounded. Are you proud of yourself? What kind of person makes a comment like that, seriously? Does Eleanor share your opinion? Have I been so uncivil to warrant that kind of comment?