Good morning!
1. Oh! You’re bigots and fools, then! Got it. I was watching a mob of—I don’t know, feminists? The “resistance”? chanting yesterday at the Senate: “I believe Anita Hill! I believe Blasey Ford!” I believe that the only reasonable translation of this particular chant—all chants make protesters sound dumb, some chants more than others; at least this one doesn’t start with “Ho ho, hey hey!”—is “I believe whatever story supports my political agenda, and I believe people according to what they are, rather than based on any objective criteria!”
I guess it’s not sufficiently catchy.
2. In case you aren’t nauseous enough...Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick will be one of the eight honorees of Harvard University for their contributions to black history and culture, the university announced yesterday.
Kaepernick, distinguished for his incoherent on field protest during the national anthem, instantly setting off the NFL’s version of #MeToo, as in “I want make my own pointless, annoying protest that I can’t adequately explain!,” thus costing the NFL fans and billions of dollars, will receive the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. The deliberately divisive honor to Kaepernick, who favors socks with cartoons of pigs in police uniforms, is apparently the work of Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Hutchins Center and Barack Obama pal. You may remember Professor Gates as the race-baiting catalyst for Obama’s “beer summit,” after Gates impugned the character of a Cambridge police officer. No personal agendas here!
The award supposedly honors individuals who “Emerging from a variety of backgrounds and professions…represent the quest for knowledge, freedom of expression, and pursuit of truth that are foundational to black history and culture, and that were foundational to Du Bois as a thinker and activist.”
Yup, that sure sounds like Colin Kaepernick!
3. Ed Whelan, call your ethicist! Ed Whelan, an attorney and president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, upped the craziness quotient in the Kavanaugh confirmation process and took a First Class seat on the Brett Kavanaugh Nomination Ethics Train Wreck by announcing that Ford’s accusation from three decades ago was based on mistaken identity, and that another student, whom Whelan named and thoroughly doxxed, along with publishing his yearbook photo, was the real alleged assailant.
Well, you can’t just accuse a random private citizen of sexual assault, or even alleged, unsubstantiated sexual assault while a drunken high schooler. I know Ed went to Harvard College and Harvard Law School, but even then, he’s no idiot. I have to believe that this isn’t just an unfounded accusation, because Ed knows that he’s asking for a lawsuit if it is. He wrote:
“By one week from today, I expect that Judge Kavanaugh will have been clearly vindicated on this matter. Specifically, I expect that compelling evidence will show his categorical denial to be truthful. There will be no cloud over him.”
Whelan has to deliver on a statement like that, or have his own reputation permanently scarred. The only explanation I can come up with is that Kavanaugh’s twin has already agreed to admit to being at the infamous party and having some kind of episode involving Ford. Of course, there will be no reason to believe him, either.
Still, I may go to the Senate and chant, “I believe Brett Kavanaugh, I believe his secret twin!”
Just for fun.
4. Integrity test alert! Maybe an intelligence test too, for the U.S. public. How cynical and transparently political can Christine Blasey Ford’s demands be before even Democrats admit that she has little credibility and is, like Anita Hill before her, the agent of a desperate partisan hit job? The smoking gun is her lawyers’ recent demand that Kavanaugh testify at the special hearing regarding her claims before she does. That defies all traditions of fairness and due process. The prosecution always goes first in a trial, because the accused has a right to respond to specific facts and allegations. Ford is demanding unfair conditions for Kavanaugh and a rigged process. She should not be able to demand any conditions at all. As Professor Turley wrote,
“Ford can testify or not testify but, if she wants her allegations to be considered, she cannot set conditions on the Senate for such testimony….The only condition for either witness that will be recognized by the Senate is that their testimony will be truthful. If Ford will not testify, the Senate committee would have grounds to move toward to a final vote. That may avoid the “interrogation,” only to clear the path to confirmation.“
My guess is that Ford will not testify, and will see how long she can delay the vote before finally refusing. If the American public isn’t smart enough to deeply resent this unethical marring of Constitutional process by the Democratic Party, then they deserve to see their Constitutional rights minced in the years ahead, as the radicalized Democratic Party has signaled as its intent. NeverTrumper and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson tweeted,
“If the FBI were to find strong evidence implicating Kavanaugh in a crime, Democrats would oppose him. If there were a muddled mix of accusations and memories, Democrats would oppose him. If Kavanaugh were completely vindicated, Democrats would oppose him.”
He could add that if it were definitively shown that Ford made up the story to sink his nomination, or if she openly apologized to Kavanaugh for getting him mixed up with someone else, or if that mob at the Capitol started chanting, “Ho Ho Hey Hey, I guess we don’t believe Ford today!”, the Democrats would still oppose him.
I have to believe such dishonest grandstanding risks turning off fair voters. It certainly should. Writes Donald Henniger in the Wall Street Journal:
“Incidentally, the standard trope that Donald Trump has degraded our politics? We don’t need to hear that anymore.”
No, we do need to hear it, just not from those who are denigrating it too.
5. Troll Of The Year: Juanita Broaddrick. Speaking of grandstanding, here is Chuck Schumer’s vomit-inducing tweet:
“If you are a survivor of sexual assault, you are not alone. We stand with you. We believe you. And if you need to talk, you can call 800-656-HOPE to reach a national, confidential helpline 24/7.”
The woman who credibly claims that she was raped by Bill Clinton tweeted back, “Should I call?”
Someone else who shouldn’t bother calling is U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison’s former girlfriend Karen Monahan, who posted a medical document on social media indicating that she told a doctor in 2017 that Ellison had abused her. Ellison is the co-chair of the Democratic National Committee, and this is a lot more evidence than Blasey Ford has.
Ethics Alarms 
I think you did not write what you meant:
“I have to believe that this isn’t just an unfounded accusation, because knows that he’s asking for a lawsuit if it isn’t.”
Yup: typo, bad proofing. Thanks. It now reads…
“I have to believe that this isn’t just an unfounded accusation, because Ed knows that he’s asking for a lawsuit if it is.”
Well, there would be about as much reason to believe him as, say, Ford or Kavanaugh.
As a hypothetical, suppose every person allegedly at the party agrees that Kavanaugh was not present. Never mind the rest of it, who else may have “done it” or what. If everyone except Ford agrees Kavanaugh was not there, does that matter at all?
I’m not sure it does. One of the things about memory, especially really old memories, is that they play tricks. I personally have recounted events from long ago that turned out to have substituted one person for another, and friends and relatives have done likewise, or gotten significant bits wrong. Of course, none of them involved being pawed or sexually molested, either, so there’s that. I’d think a person would be more inclined to remember that.
So where does this all leave us? Absent some magical bit of objective evidence beyond memory, it leaves us exactly where we are now – an unethical accuser raising an allegation that should never have been raised 36 years after the fact. It was unfair to the accused for a plethora of reasons, not the least of which is that it’s frankly impossible to prove what really did happen – either as she described them, as he describes them (or rather, is convinced didn’t happen) or something in between.
For good or ill, what all this boils down to, no matter how great Whelan eventually is at constructing a plausible scenario, is how convincing Ford is under cross-examination if she testifies. If she does not testify, I suspect Kavanaugh will be confirmed.
Oh, impeaching him will be a cause celebre for the Democrats, for sure, but an accusation this old is unlikely to ever provide sufficient proof for him to be removed.
The list of people the Left plans on impeaching once they gain power just keeps growing.
How exactly is giving the Left power not going to play out like the French Revolution?
A fine question.
Alas, I can offer no comfort.
MW,
I had the same thought yesterday. Those of us opposed to the left’s interpretation of the “general will” must be swept aside if their utopia is to become a realty. The ends justify their means, as usual.
Regarding 4.
My thinking is that the Senate should NOT hold a special hearing regarding Christine Blasey Ford’s claims.
Instead it should move without delay to a final vote and install Brett Kavanaugh as judge on the Supreme Court.
Motivation
Due process is more important then keeping Kavanaugh from being nominated; even if this does mean that there is a risk that later the allegations of Ford are proven true.
As in regular justice, there are all kind of rules to protect the innocent, even if it does mean that sometimes a guilty person will walk away free.
As with a marriage, “Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”
The White House / FBI should make known that the FBI is doing a background check on a nominee. That’s the time one could discuss claims and allegations why the nominee is not fit for the function.
After the background checks are finished, the Senate can discuss the nominee.
No more room for last-minute pop-up allegations.
That would be Donald Trump’s solution if he were majority leader. But he’s not, so it’s not.
And it would have nothing to do with due process.
For the record, I think the Senate JC is doing the right thing, giving her every chance to testify. What I would be upset about is if they agree to delay past next week, or acquiesce to her more absurd demands (Kavanaugh first, no lawyers examining her answers, subpoena for Mark Judge).
This isn’t a trial, due process is not the same as trial due process, and the standard of proof, if there was one, would be either “clear and convincing” or “preponderance.” Unfortunately, there is no such standard for a hearing. It’s just “who do I want to believe?”
Why did she not wait thirty-five years before making the accusation?
Is that not the new norm now?
What is there to believe?
She did not even specify where this took place.
Are we supposed to believe it took place in a space station orbiting Betelgeuse?
Here is an argument you might want to consider.
How Strong Does the Evidence Against Kavanaugh Need to Be?
Even if it wouldn’t support a criminal conviction or civil liability, a merely credible allegation is enough to disqualify him.
By Kate Shaw
Ms. Shaw is a law professor.
Sept. 20, 2018
1137
Image
Christine Blasey Ford as a junior in high school.
Image
Brett Kavanaugh in the 1983 Georgetown Preparatory School yearbook.
The allegation made by Christine Blasey Ford — that at age 15 she was the victim of a sexual assault by a 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh — has not only upended Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, but has also left Americans wondering what standards should apply to an accusation like this.
It’s natural to place this sort of accusation within a criminal-justice framework: the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt; the presumption of innocence; the right to confront and respond to an accuser. If Judge Kavanaugh stood criminally accused of attempted rape, all of that would apply with full force. But those concepts are a poor fit for Supreme Court confirmation hearings, where there’s no presumption of confirmation, and there’s certainly no burden that facts be established beyond a reasonable doubt.
What matters here isn’t law as much as politics — though not (or not just) partisan politics. Confirmation hearings are also about constitutional politics — the debate, involving both institutions of government and the polity, about what the Constitution means and requires.
So what standard should the Senate use in evaluating the claims made by Dr. Blasey and in deciding how they bear on Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness for a seat on the Supreme Court? The Senate’s approach to its constitutional “advice and consent” obligation has always depended on context. A number of factors matter: the timing of the vacancy; the justice being replaced; the nominee’s likely impact on the ideological makeup of the court; even the popularity of the president (very popular presidents have always had more leeway when it comes to picking justices). Then, of course, there’s the nominee.
Nominations have failed — that is, been withdrawn or voted down — for various reasons. Sometimes it’s because a majority of the Senate rejects a nominee’s vision of the Constitution and the role of the court. That was the case with Judge Robert Bork, a Reagan nominee whose skepticism about the Constitution’s protection of privacy and liberty convinced a majority of senators that he was simply too far right of the mainstream to be confirmed.
Other nominations have been unsuccessful because of private conduct. Another Reagan nominee, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew from consideration after the press uncovered reports of marijuana use that the F.B.I. had failed to unearth. And the Senate blocked President Lyndon Johnson’s attempt to elevate Abe Fortas to chief justice after evidence emerged that as a sitting member of the court, Justice Fortas had also been serving as a de facto adviser to the president, and after questions were raised about the propriety of outside payments he had received while on the court.
These allegations weren’t tested with the rigor that would have attached to judicial proceedings; neither evidence nor testimony (where it was given — Judge Ginsburg withdrew before testifying) was subject to the sort of adversarial testing that would occur in a court of law. But in each case, a constellation of considerations, both political and constitutional, operated to defeat nominations of individuals who were certainly qualified, by conventional metrics, to sit on the Supreme Court.
This context-dependent approach arguably leads to the conclusion that the existence of credible allegations against Judge Kavanaugh should be disqualifying, especially if further corroborating evidence emerges. That’s true even if the evidence wouldn’t support a criminal conviction or even civil liability.
I don’t know exactly what the threshold should be, but it must be considerably higher than that of an uncorroborated accusation, utterly immune from falsification in principle. Otherwise the process falls apart, as any appointment can be derailed by a single false accuser, whether they’re malicious, deranged, or even hired. I’d expect a law professor writing for the New York Times to understand that much.
Just kidding, it’s been some time since I expected that.
Since they control the outrage machine, that is exactly what the Democrats want: one false accusation to block their enemies.
You’d have to tread very carefully around your definition of “credible,” and I’m not sure it’s possible to split that hair. In common usage it could mean anything from “The evidence suggests this accusation is correct” to “There’s currently nothing specifically suggesting this accusation is NOT correct” and even to “I believe this person to be generally honest and trustworthy so I find any statement they make likely to be correct unless firmly proven otherwise.”
The first one MIGHT work, although it would still leave wide-open the question of just how much supporting evidence would be required to disqualify someone from a SCOTUS seat. The other two are useless- if an accusation is old and vague enough it is impossible to prove wrong, and the nominating president’s party will find an accuser unbelievable while the opposing party will find them absolutely credible.
I’ve been hearing that legal principals shouldnt apply, because it isn’t a crimial charge – rather, that we should simply treat it like a job interview, and wouldn’t we want to know if a person we were interviewing was accused of something like this?
Although, as emotionally appealing as that is – no. Job interviews can ask about felony convictions, but Kavanaugh hasn’t been charged/tried/convicted of anything. If he were sitting in an interview, and was asked, he could look you right in the eye, and say with a clean conscience that his record was clean. And he’d be telling the truth. Sounds good to me!
Here’s my response to THAT:
1. “This context-dependent approach arguably leads to the conclusion that the existence of credible allegations against Judge Kavanaugh should be disqualifying, especially if further corroborating evidence emerges. That’s true even if the evidence wouldn’t support a criminal conviction or even civil liability.”
This is no different from the House Rep. who said that an accusation of sexual assault by a student should be sufficient to expel him from school if there was even a 10% chance it was true. In other words, give woemn the power to get any man kicked out of school without due process or the presumption of innocence.
2. She’s an idiot. Any law school that employs such a fool should be run out of business.
3. The Times should not have published this any more than it would publish an article arguing that slavery should be reinstated.
I have just one question about her overall premise, that a credible accusation is all that’s necessary.
What makes Ford’s accusation credible?
1. Every person identified by Ford as being there, except for her, has denied it happened. Are we so jaded that we must conclude they are all lying? Strike one against credibility.
2. She is unable to identify the house where it happened. I’m okay with her not being able to remember the year, that’s always harder. But the location should not be hard. Strike two against credibility.
3. She appears to have gotten some details wrong in her original telling, and her excuse is that the therapist got it wrong. Foul ball.
4. Why do we believe her, and not Kavanaugh, who has been far less equivocal at his peril, both professionally and legally? I understand that historically, women have been wrongly disbelieved and attacked in cases of actual sexual assault, but does that history mean we must automatically grant credibility to women’s accusations regarding sexual assault? We have tried that in Durham, NC for the Duke Lacross team, and at the University of Virginia with A Rape on Campus. Did those do nothing to teach us that both men and women can bear false witness? Strike three against credibility.
The idea that a “credible” accusation is enough strikes me as an offense against both reason and fairness. It is an utter abdication of the Golden Rule, and it is a repudiation of our tradition of a presumption of guilt. I understand that in this case, such a presumption is not a rule, but it is still an American ideal. Are we so far gone that we must abandon it for the barest accusation of sex crimes?
This is a risible piece, wrong on its face and wrong logically, morally, and ethically. It is indefensible, and the woman who wrote it should be ashamed.
1. Correction: “…every person [but one, who has not spoken about the matter]…”
Should the standard be, “a single random person said they did something evil 35 years ago at an unspecified time, location and year with zero corroborating evidence or testimony? Is THAT all you need you need to block a nomination? No? Then by all means let’s move ahead with Kavanaugh already before we end up setting a lethal precedent.
I find the demands of Ms. Ford’s attorney and pundits alike, who weigh in on the optics of having the all male Republican members of the Judiciary committee question Ms. Ford, absolutely patronizing to women as a whole. The prevailing theme is that a bunch of old white men should not be able to question the witness. Why the hell not? Has Kavanaugh demanded that Kamala Harris, and Diane Feinstein and the other Democratic women on the Judiciary committee recuse themselves from grilling him because they are female and inherently biased against him. Moreover, none will not vote his nomination out of committee even if he were a saint.
If we examine the thesis, it suggests that Ms. Ford the accuser cannot undergo the same scrutiny as the accused. Is that the image women want to project; frailty and unable to defend themselves against mean questions from men? How does one project the ability to compete at all levels when demands are made that suggest they are unwilling and unable to withstand any real level of scrutiny? Are women actually requiring men to fall back on the patriarchal notion that women need protection from dominant male aggressors.
Such notions that the idea that only a woman has the sensitivity to address the issue fairly, openly and honestly is no better than saying only a man can do XYZ because he is a left brained thinker. Sorry, I don’t buy that; much like I don’t buy the notion that two people of different genders should get the same wage package out of a sense of fairness when each had the opportunity to negotiate for themselves. Sure it would be in my financial interest to lower the wage of the better negotiator to avoid litigation but how long will she or he stay if that individual knows the value of the services he or she can command elsewhere.
Of course this an adversarial situation. It has been since November 9, 2016. The call for an FBI investigation is an obvious delay tactic but the fact that over 1000 alumnae of the girls school have signed a letter attesting to the factual basis of Ms. Ford’s complaint without any first hand knowledge of her or such events effectively poisons the well of possible witnesses. I may not be an attorney but any witness coming forward now that may have actual knowledge of the event is forever tainted by the #metoo gangbang by the Holcomb alums in my mind. How can any female contemporary of Ford bear witness against Kavanaugh after this public letter and be trusted to tell only the truth when so many from that school have demonstrated their own gender bias?
The demand for having Kavanaugh to go first is an odd move. I know what the goal is. The person with the last word is the one remembered. Ms. Ford’s attorney wants to be able to add evidence after he finishes his testimony for purposes of impeachment. But that is not the normal process. This is not the private sector in which gamesmanship is played out in the boardroom. We require procedural norms to be followed. Nonetheless, my recommendation is to let Ford follow Kavanaugh. He can simply say it never happened. Ms. Ford can tell her side, and then Kavanuagh can rebut her testimony. The attorney never demanded that Kavanaugh could not have the last word.
Finally, I am tired of the phraseology of the term “old white men”. No one would ever use the term “Uppity Black Caucus” for the Congressional Black Caucus or the Feminazi Caucus for the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. Each is demeaning, irresponsible, and suggest to voters such as myself that fairness and equity are not the goal. The goal is to dehumanize the opposition.
I think the more important point is that, without hearing her testimony, Kavanaugh has nothing to work with but bare denial. If she goes first, she might be compelled to state particulars which he could falsify.
My point was give them what they demand but reclaim the ability to rebut the accusation. Nowhere in the demand was the statement that Ford have the last word. Give them exactly what they asked for and no more. Nowhere is it written he cannot be recalled to rebut anything she says.
That should be Holten not Holcomb
This mean they haven’t found a picture of a heavier Brett Kavanaugh in an orange jumpsuit ala George Zimmerman?
“Our “Yandy Brave Red Maiden Costume” is being seen as a symbol of women’s oppression, rather than an expression of women’s empowerment.”
Translated: “We were pandering to the horrible values of “sex-positive” liberal feminists with our slutty costume, but it turns out the equally horrible “sex-negative” feminists shrieked the loudest this time, so now we’re pandering to them. Also, please save us, we live in a dystopian clown world.”
Oops, wrong thread.
I read through the comments and didn’t seen this posted, if it already has been, mea maxima culpa:
Blasey-Ford’s pal/former classmate Cristina King Miranda then: “Many of us heard about it in school and Christine’s recollection should be more than enough for us to truly, deeply know that the accusation is true […] The incident did happen.”
Blasey-Ford’s pal/former classmate Cristina King Miranda now: “THAT IT HAPPENED OR NOT, I HAVE NO IDEA, I CAN’T SAY IT DID OR DIDN’T.” (bolds/caps mine)
Was she for it before she was against it?
Here is a comment on this issue.
“Today, I saw a demand from a Democrat that Kavanaugh “confess”.
“Confess” to WHAT?
That he’s a Polish spy?
That he tried to blow up a bridge with arsenic?
That he’s a “wrecker”?
And if he won’t, what’s the solution, to keep him up 36 hours in a row? To slam his fingers in a drawer? To threaten his family? Will they at least give him some hints as to his “crime”. The “victim’s” claims are far too rickety on which to build a show trial.
The more hysterical the Democrats get, the more they resemble Andrei Vyshinski.
Someone needs to tell them that Darkness at Noon and The Gulag Archipelago aren’t how-to manuals.”- Christopher C. Morton
Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho
Cristina Ford has got to go
Ho, Ho, Hey, Hey
Brett Kavanagh is here to stay
… and all the other cogent arguments above.
There is a new hyper-SJW now writing Opinion at the NYTs. I found her piece titled ‘We Are Not The Resistance’ to be particularly interesting.
She began:
“Donald Trump is the one who is pushing back against the new nation that’s struggling to be born.”
I find this statement interesting because it is certainly true. And this view is shared (unless I am mistaken) by Jack and everyone who writes on this Blog. The ‘New Nation’ is an ‘idea nation’:
Said Pres. Lincoln: “…a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure”.
As that New Nation is now talking shape, and the demos of it are assuming power in it, there is a new Ideology that must be grasped. She writes:
“Since the beginning of the Trump administration, it seems there has been a new crisis roiling our nation nearly every day — a new jaw-dropping allegation of corruption, a new wave of repression at the border, another nod to white nationalism or blatant misogyny, another attack on basic civil rights, freedom of the press or truth itself. Invariably, these disturbing events are punctuated by Trump’s predictable yet repugnant Twitter rants.
My view of this statement is that, again, no one who writes here does oppose it, and they would struggle mightily to be able to intellectually counter the assumptions, the assertions, expressed in it. Because quite frankly the only thing that could oppose it, or counter it, would come directly out of a statement that supports ‘white identity’. This is essentially what this POC is saying. The New Nation is a Nation of Color, a browning nation. This is of course just a fact. No one on this Blog, I have noticed, has ever spoken in open terms about this basic reality, these basic facts.
But what she writes, though she is really and truly speaking as an American of the New Nation (the Lincolnian nation as it were), shows I think where the Progressive American attack is concentrating its energies. The key terms are ‘corruption’; ‘repression at the border’; ‘nod[s] to white nationalism’; ‘blatant misogyny’; ‘attack[s] on basic civil rights’ [and] ‘freedom of the press’; and most interestingly ‘truth itself’.
There is nothing at all out of line with these statements and they are direct and inevitable extensions of the Lincolnian doctrines it seems to me. When they were stated then — and at that time they were, of course, as they are now, part of a series of lies and deceptions, that is, truths mixed up with lies and deceptions — they put in motion exactly and inevitably what we are now seeing and living in our present.
And these are — please correct me if I am wrong — exactly the policies and the values that Jack supports 100% as does everyone who writes on this blog. To be *ethical* is to see the world in the light of, and to accept the tenets of, the New Nation Struggling to be Born. That is to say ‘the tenets of America’s civil religion’ as it was shaped by Lincoln and the rise of the new national state. I defy anyone to prove me wrong in this. This is what you want, this is what you work for, and you can define nothing else. You would be terrified to put up any sort of counter-definitions. Why?
The Opinion writer continues:
“The disorienting nature of Trump’s presidency has already managed to obscure what should be an obvious fact: Viewed from the broad sweep of history, Donald Trump is the resistance. We are not.
Indeed, you are not. You are carrying forward precisely and with very little deviation exactly what the Radical Republicans of that era set in motion and which now define ‘the tenets of the American civil religion’.
Every native American movement, and by this I mean those manifestations of the white demographic (I do not know how else to put it so I put it in direct terms) — are now seen as villainous. There is not one intellectual who wrote, for example in the 1920s and 1930s (Lothrop Stoddard, Madison Grant) whose ideas you can mention in public. And all the people who might think in these terms are anathema to you. You rail against them just as much as the ‘progressives’. You minds have been ‘cleaned’ and ‘purified’ by decades of social engineering and now if it were to happen that a contrary idea were to rise in your mind it would be undercut immediately!
You can only think, see and define just as the Progressives see, think and define. There is not one area where you are not in ideological agreement.
What I cannot understand, since what I say here is true, is why are you in resistance? What exactly are you in resistance to? In the New Nation struggling to be born, should you not continue your activism by ending opposition to the great movement of the time? That for which ‘America’ stands?
This is the part I cannot figure out! Since you stand just 2-3 degrees right of center, and the center is completely ‘progressive’ (and ‘Lincolnian’), and too these are the policies of the National Government and more or less those of the Government-Business collusion, what precisely are you opposed to here?
“Those of us who are committed to the radical evolution of American democracy are not merely resisting an unwanted reality. To the contrary, the struggle for human freedom and dignity extends back centuries and is likely to continue for generations to come. In the words of Vincent Harding, one of the great yet lesser-known heroes of the black freedom struggle, the long, continuous yearning and reaching toward freedom flows throughout history “like a river, sometimes powerful, tumultuous, and roiling with life; at other times meandering and turgid, covered with the ice and snow of seemingly endless winters, all too often streaked and running with blood.””
No one of your (excuse the plural usage, it is a convention of language and I have no alternative but to use it to refer to a *general you*) could define, in any way, shape or form, a platform of opposition to what this writer is saying. To do so you’d have to turn against your own notion of America as the Savior Nation, and the American Project as a metaphysical necessity in the great Scope of Things. The historical river is an inevitable flow that is entirely bound up in recent American definitions — those you have been indoctrinated in — that to oppose them you’d have to rip out threads and fibres that are part of your being. The ‘self’ itself is constructed around these ideas, and deconstruction of the ideas amounts to deconstruction of the self. And that results in anguish and spiritual pain.
I oppose every single suggested (insisted, coerced) tenet that is expressed here, and that expressed by that monster-politico Lincoln himself and his radical progressive party. It is all part of a sham! And that sham continues through today into sheer radicalism.These were, and they still are, business decisions. And this sort of pseudo-progressivism arose concurrently with the rise of a powerful nation-state that violated, in the most grotesque and direct terms, the imperative of the Constitution. The first order of violation, which is now only increasing and openly visible in this our present, was begun then.
Now, whose side shall you take? You agree to go forward with what has been set out for you to accept and integrate into your very self, and you serve this with your whole heart while singing the Anthem, or you work to establish an intellectual platform that could oppose it.
::: yawn (I’m still waking up) :::
OK, well I guess it is time for another cup of coffee! Let the thought-provoking comments roll on .. like a Great River! 😉
Solid thread. Read through all his tweets here.