The #MeToo movement is suffering from a self-inflicted wound
The #MeToo movement is bleeding profusely from a self-inflicted wound. Right now, all across America women who support the movement, women who have been victims, women who know victims are crying and wailing because the movement has supposedly taken a hit with the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.
Their scorn and outrage have been leveled at the Republicans and one Democrat who voted for him. The reality is they should be venting at the Democrats who tried to use this movement in an effort to derail the confirmation.
Every civilized society bases its survival on laws. And the level of freedom within a society is linked to these laws and their enforcement. Our Founding Fathers had just won the independence of our great nation through a bloody conflict with arguably the strongest empire of the time. And they remembered the amount of freedom they enjoyed based on the enforcement of the laws they were subject to.
One thing that led to the War for Independence was the notion of fair enforcement of the rule of law. A study of the conflicts that led up to the Boston Massacre shows that a big issue to the colonists was the notion that they were subject to British law, but were not treated as British Citizens. They were British Subjects. Heavy handed treatment by military authority was many times excused because they were subjects, but not citizens.
So, when the Constitution was written, the Founders remembered this treatment. And vowed that all citizens would be treated fairly within the law, to include the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. This is the basis of our criminal justice system.
Fast forward to 2018, and we find that a sitting Judge is accused of sexual assault. To be sure, this isn’t a criminal complaint. And many feel that because this isn’t a criminal complaint, within the realm of a court of law, the notion of innocent until proven guilty does not apply.
The #MeToo movement screams “Believe the Woman! AT ANY COST!” When it was learned that Christine Ford was accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault, the movement believed her. With no further inquiry as to the truth of her allegation, she had to be right. And overnight, Brett Kavanaugh became a rapist. And the freedom of the Constitution was turned on its head.
Many have argued that the notion of innocent until proven guilty does not apply here, because this isn’t a criminal trial. That line of thinking is extremely dangerous. For several reasons.
First, it doesn’t matter that this is not a criminal trial. (Many have referred to it as a Job interview. That’s wrong as well). The simple fact is, the accusation is of a criminal act. IF you are going to accuse someone of a criminal act, then the presumption of innocence still applies. What changes in a situation like this is the level of proof. In a criminal trial, a case must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Absent a criminal trial, proof doesn’t need to be as solid. As Sen Collins stated in her speech on the Senate floor, “fairness would dictate that the claims at least should meet a threshold of “more likely than not” as our standard.”
The second reason that this line of thinking is dangerous is that stated simply, no person would be safe from ANY accusation or character assassination. Due process, and the presumption of innocence dictates that the burden of proof lies with the accuser. But the #MeToo movement would have us throw that due process way, and place the burden of proof on the accused. As they insisted that Judge Kavanaugh do.
I could list many cases of accusations of sexual assault that were in fact false accusations. The list of men who have been released from prison for rape convictions following new DNA testing would fill pages to this article. I could discuss the Duke University Lacrosse Rape case. But I won’t. Instead, I’ll ask the reader to look up the Rosewood Massacre, and the allegations of Fannie Taylor.
There is much we know about the Ford accusations. But there is even more we don’t know. The facts are rather simple. She made an accusation to her Representative on July 6th. A letter was sent to Sen Feinstein on July 30th. The first hints of the accusation occurred on September 12th. After that, it was a circus trying to get testimony and investigations into the allegations. On the one side, the Democrats demanded a full FBI investigation into the allegations. This is important, and I will comment on it in a bit.
The Republicans, to their credit, attempted to investigate the allegations with extreme deference to Ford. Even offering to travel to her to hear her testimony. They moved deadlines twice, in an attempt to hear her testimony. And finally, she agreed. In another move to appear sympathetic, they chose a woman to ask her questions, rather than having a panel of men appear to bash a woman witness.
We’ve been over the story, and its proof or lack of it many times, so I will just summarize: There is no, no corroborating evidence to suggest that Brett Kavanaugh was the individual that tried to sexually assault Christine Ford. None whatsoever. It comes down to her story against his story, and as Senator Collins said in her speech, the testimony does not reach the lowest threshold of “more likely than not”.
But then, this is no surprise to the Democrats of the Senate. Let’s look back at what I said earlier. Feinstein knew about the allegations on July 30th. She did not provide the letter to the FBI until September 13th. Why? Because she new it was unprovable. They knew at the time that Fords BFF was going to dispute the allegation, or at least would not corroborate it. If she had called for an investigation in July, it would have shown now corroborating testimony, and the allegation would have died then.
But that didn’t matter to Feinstein. She was banking on the #MeToo movement. A movement that has wreaked havoc on Hollywood, and in a couple of cases, Congress itself. She didn’t need it to be true. She just needed an allegation serious enough to call for further investigation. In doing so, she hoped that he would either withdraw, or an investigation would last long enough for the current Senate term to run out. She was banking on a withdrawal or that the Democrats would take over the Senate after the elections. Which would then make any nomination by President Trump un-confirmable.
Simply put, she used the #MeToo movement, and it backfired.
And this is where I come back to the #MeToo and the self-inflicted wound. They have embraced Christine Ford as a victim. They believe her, even as her testimony is proven so full of holes as to be laughable. And this is their problem.
Sexual Assault has touched my family on a few occasions. And false accusations have also touched us. I won’t go into detail here in this public forum. I state this to say that I do support the #MeToo movement. But I also support Due Process.
Was Christine Ford sexually assaulted? I do not doubt that she may have been assaulted at some time in her youth. But I do not for one minute believe that it was Brett Kavanaugh. I’m ready to believe any victim of sexual assault. But I’m not going to ignore due process and convict a man on an allegation alone.
The #MeToo movement should embrace Christine Ford. But they hurt themselves when they accept with no corroboration that her attacker was Brett Kavanaugh. The Democrats know this. But they used the movement, and that was nothing more than politics.
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Common Sense, Common Decency and the Law, is as alien to them Bruce as personal ethics and conscience is....
You are right. And the #MeToo movement suffers because of it.
it only suffers if we allow it , but if we state we believe but the rule of law MUST be followed , we can then help by making sure that evidence is prosecuted follows.
When exactly was Brett Kavanaugh indicted for a crime by the Senate? Until then happens he has nothing to whine about.
Your hyperlinks aren't working properly, I'm sure that wasn't by design. /s
Here is the actual link:
Bruce, feel free to read my article about this
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About a third of your article here is taken up by talk of Feinstein, the committee machinations, etc. None of that is relevant at all to whether or not Kavanaugh is more or less likely to have assaulted Christine Blasey in 1982.
It is a sort of slight of hand to attempt to cite the Democrats on the committee as a reason Kavanaugh is innocent, but it is nonsense. He either did it or he didnt, and the persuasion one way or the other is either there , or it isn't. Feinstein et al, has nothing to do with that question.
Dr. Ford 100% identified Kavanaugh as her attacker. And Judge. She was asked how sure she was and she said 100%. Another senator asked how she could be sure, and she said "the same way that I know I am talking to you right now", in other words it was something she was completely sure of.
Christine Blasey knew Brett Kavanaugh prior to the incident. She was during that time frame casually dating one of Kavanaugh's good friends. As I showed in my article, cognitive scientists say that it is "ridiculous" to think that she doesnt remember who attacked her.
We also know, as some level of general corroboration, that Kavanaugh hung around with, on a regular basis, the exact people Ford mentioned as having been downstairs at the gathering. We also know that Kavanaugh was a frequent drunk that summer, and Ford says he was drunk the night he attacked her. We also know that Kavanaugh's crowd of pals , which he was a leader of, disrespected girls like Christine Ford. Mark Judge wrote an article for an "underground newspaper" in which he disparages girls from the school Blasey attended, and in that article he implies that girls from that school were sluts.
We also know that Ford told people about the assaullt prior to Kavanaugh being nominated to the Supreme Court. That is also important.
And we know Ford passed a lie detector test as to whether or not she was being truthful about the incident in her account to the judiciary committee.
Bruce, in sum, all that is more than enough to have denied Kavanaugh the seat on the Supreme Court. Not enough for prison, but enough to keep him off the Supreme Court. If there was a 25% chance that he is a sex criminal from his past, that's enough to deny him the seat. Personally I think it is more likely than not that he assaulted Blaey-Ford. I think the probablility is over 50%. I think that today he believes that what happened was not serious enough to keep him off the dream position on the Supreme Court, and that is why he has lied about it. He went to Yale Law goddammit. As he never tired of reminding everyone.
I havent even gotten into his disgraceful partisan performance during his second hearing.
The idea that there is no 'evidence' that he does not belong on the Supreme Court is ridiculous.
Sorry John. I disagree. Not one of the 4 witnesses she named corroborated her testimony. No one corroborated being at a house with all the other people present. No one corroborated Judge Kavanaugh being at some gathering with Ford and the other three at the same time. No one corroborated her details, however sketchy they were. And these were HER NAMED WITNESSES.
I said my family has been touched by the issue of sexual assault. I can tell you without a doubt that their stories include date, time, place, how they got there, how they got home, who they were with, and who they told right after the incident. The passage of time has done nothing to their memories of the event. All Ford can say is it was Kavanaugh and Judge was there. And that's it.
Or the female classmates that the liberal reporters kept calling asking them to make something up about Kavanaugh.
Sex assault experts say a majority of the women dont report it, and it is not unusual for them to not remember everything.
If it was only Ford's word against Kavanaugh's word, you would have a better case.
But Ford knew the people. She was in that social circle to a degree. Kavanaugh and his friends were drunks. and they did disparage girls, even from the school ford came from .
And Kavanaugh was willing to lie about that period in his life.
He doesnt belong on the Supreme Court, whether he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or not.
There is a good chance we just put a sex criminal on the Supreme Court.
ask your experts to riddle ya this....
Link?
Link?
Who are you saying was 'unwilling to go the police'?
NOWHERE in that WSJ article does it state that "Democrat Attorneys tried to get her to lie and change her story".
Thank you for being so helpful in refuting your own BS.
#1 false statement.
#2 false statement.
if it was anything more than a fabricated political hit job, ford would have gone to the police.
the following is a public service announcement.
if you have been sexually assaulted dial 911 (not feinstein)
I love how when it was pointed out that Ford was not a "Survivor" and never even claimed to be raped and was accusing someone (with not only no corroboration but testemony that conflicted her claims) of what she thought was attemped rape the chant changed from "we beleive survivors" to "we beleive women". Talk about cheapening/destroying a movement that mattered. The new bar is that any one with a vagina is to be unconditionally beleived or you are a woman hater. Thanks moonbats.
I would like to point out that you don't have a fucking clue about what you're talking about.
WTF brought you to the conclusion that Rape is the ONLY form of non-consensual sexual contact that qualifies one to the title of 'Survivor'?
Well if that's the case I am a survivor of groping and sexual misconduct too. Can I join your club?
Luckily, I have NEVER been groped or sexually assaulted so I'm not a Survivor.
If you want to join MY club, you'd have to have been physically abused your entire childhood. Still want to join?