Blog entry 4 - Support for Kavanaugh's confirmation

Blog entry 4 – Support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation

Although it pretty much feels like it to me in this case, I understand that nothing is truly black and white.  Here are what I perceive as objections to my criticisms.

Kavanaugh’s reputation was destroyed by these baseless accusations against him.  Any other Supreme Court nominee will be unwilling to accept the nomination if this kind of practice is allowed.  Isn’t this sufficient justification for Kavanaugh to have been confirmed?

First of all, Ford’s accusation apparently was “basefull”.  A baseless accusation isn’t one that hasn’t been proven, it’s one that is made up, with no basis in truth.  I truly doubt Kavanaugh would have behaved the way he did with a baseless accusation – his behavior seemed clear to me to confirm that he was hiding something, refusing to answer direct questions, turning questions back against the questioner, deflecting questioning, and ultimately being protected from the prosecutor’s questioning by his supporting senators, who themselves deflected the discussion from his testimony.  Kavanaugh has been accused of a lot of other bad behavior, and I, for one, have an extremely hard time discerning which accusations are baseless and which have merit.  I understand that at least 1 accusation was identified as false, pretty quickly.  That doesn’t make them all false.

Second, with the understanding that we have reasonable expectation that at least some of those accusations have some validity, Kavanaugh chose to continue forward with his nomination rather than withdraw it.  In many other cases like this, the nominee would simply withdraw.  The severe damage to his reputation is largely his own doing.  Unless you truly believe he is lily white and perfect, and that NONE of what he was accused of has an ounce of truth, he treated this as a battle he chose to fight.

In fact, if anything resulted from the hearing, it’s that Ford’s testimony was discounted out of hand by the Senate Republicans, and by a large part of the country.  The person whose reputation and livelihood has suffered deeply is Ford.  She lives in Palo Alto, and she and her family can’t go home.  Unlike Kavanaugh, she has no security.  She has received death threats.  Those who are worried about reputations might spare a thought for Ford’s.  She never had anything to gain personally, and much to lose.  And, despite all the #MeToo comments, I think many victims of sexual attacks will conclude that their reputations would be destroyed if they step forward.

But I can certainly envision people being accused of things baselessly.  I definitely think that’s a bad thing. I think people ought to care about whether accusations are true or not.  I just don’t think, on balance, that it’s Democrats who make baseless accusations in general, so having Republicans claim that politics in general will be demeaned by baseless accusations because of this precedent is actually slightly funny.  Maybe there’s something special about “baseless” sexual accusations.

Should Americans be so hung up about sex/sexual conduct/accusations of sexual misbehavior?

Personally, I think we waste a huge amount of time on judging people based on sexual preferences and accusations of sexual behavior.  In both directions.  We spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about whether same-sex couples have the right to have a wedding cake baked by a specific baker.  Or which bathroom someone should/must use/be able to use.  And we spend a huge amount of time worrying about a coverup of Trump’s extramarital affair(s).  Not my business.  Not my concern.  In this case, of course, Kavanaugh _isn’t_ accused of consensual activity, but of sexual assault.  He has become a symbol of all that is wrong with men for liberal women, and a symbol of all that is dangerous about accusations of sexual misdeeds by conservative men.  Both of those muddy people’s thinking.  It’s hard to picture that Kavanaugh would have been confirmed without a bunch of old white men (and 1 old white woman) seeing it as an unfair attack based on the distant past that wasn’t and would never be proven, mistakenly (in my opinion) seeing the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice as a symbol of justice for the concept of the presumption of innocence.

Seriously, though, does it really matter who is on the Supreme Court?  They’re just these guys.

That is quite true.  We do go through all this process to supposedly to select people who have the education, the experience, and the character to make final decisions about the laws in our country.  But they’re almost more like a jury than a judge in some ways.  They disagree about their decisions.  They actually benefit from those disagreements – that makes the court stronger.  A court full of people who thought exactly the same would be much weaker, would be seen as less legitimate.  And it’s impossible to distinguish between what the justices say that is based on law and what the justices say that is based on an underlying bias.  At the end of the day, they’re just people, and the court’s validity isn’t truly going to be destroyed by 1 guy who doesn’t belong there.  And that’s assuming it’s just 1 guy.

That said, the Senate is supposed to vet nominees.  They have a duty, officially, to determine whether a nominee is acceptable.  I, personally, feel they completely failed _me_.  And, without actually naming valid candidates to the Supreme Court, it brings into question the legitimacy of their composition, and, as a result, questions the legitimacy of their decisions.  I, personally, have felt that the Supreme Court has made important and controversial decisions that are important to this country.  When people are added to the court in a sham, kangaroo court, it diminishes our rule of law.  All those people who chant “USA! USA!”, what the hell are they chanting for if it doesn’t matter whether the Supreme Court acts based on the rule of law?  All these people who so proudly proclaim their support for the Second Amendment, as if it were handed down by God to Moses… is that just lip service for something they care about?  Do they actually, honestly love our country, our government, our constitution, our checks and balances of power?  If so… I would hope that, eventually, they would agree that Kavanaugh was a deeply flawed nominee who shouldn’t have been confirmed.

Won’t it diminish the court to remove _any_ justice, once confirmed?  Isn’t that a great reason to keep Kavanaugh, whether or not his confirmation was legit?

It probably will diminish the court’s legitimacy, if it’s seen as a political maneuver.  If it’s like the Republicans wasting time in Congress for 8.5 years trying to repeal the ACA.  And it WILL be seen as a political maneuver by some people.  Just as some people will always believe that Obama wasn’t born in the US, or that he was a Muslim (not that that ought to even matter!), or that he secretly hated the US and was working to destroy us somehow.  It’s certainly possible that we will never be able to correct this mistake without it making things even worse.  That’s been one of my challenges/concerns.  After 9/11, we got so upset, we invaded Iraq, we tortured people, we’ve assassinated people with drones, we lost our way.  And people still don’t accept that, they still think invading Iraq and torturing people and drone strikes were GOOD.  (As far as I can see, including people who think abortion is abhorrent because they value life so much, and who are convinced of the importance of honoring people’s religions.)  Maybe, ultimately, this is a case where we just let this mistake stand.  Maybe if we had done NOTHING after 9/11 it would have been for the best for us as a country.  But I look at 9/11 and think of the opportunity squandered.  We could have forged stronger bonds globally to combat terrorism through legal methods.  We could have had empathy from the rest of the world on an ongoing basis without the torture.  The world could have been better and stronger, rather than weaker morally and in terms of global cooperation.

I give myself points for continuing to share my thoughts in these blog posts.  But today was another day without much to show in the way of action.  I volunteered to help with some midterm election stuff, and I got a training video to watch so I can help by sending texts to voters.  But I still need to watch the video, and I haven't sent out any texts yet.  I guess there's got to be stuff I can do in the future, and I'm making a bit of progress.  But I will know that I've stepped it up a notch when I'm not just sharing my thoughts, but also my actions.  Cross your fingers!