It is hugely frustrating to see conservatives, who couldn’t give a damn about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, weaponize the accusations against Biden. However, it’s also frustrating to see so many liberals turning a blind eye. The accusations against the former vice-president are serious; why aren’t they being taken seriously?Obviously because it's the only moral decision, since derailing his candidacy at this stage would ensure a Trump re-election, and that latter is literally the worst possible outcome. For humanity and the world, not just the country. It goes beyond patriotism, it's a religious duty with metaphysical force.
I think conservatives are less hypocritical here, because their real objection seems to be the same one she's raising: why the double standard? Why is a guy like Kavanaugh subjected to a life-altering examination in the public eye even given that he faced accusers who fielded no actual evidence, but Bill Clinton and Joe Biden are ushered past security with a wink and a nod? Well, we know why: religious duty with metaphysical force.
One obvious reason is that Reade’s accusations are very hard to prove.Yes, but Kavanaugh was accused of running a high-school rape ring that somehow preyed on college-aged women who gladly attended these high-school parties, while being a blackout drunk who somehow excelled in law school and rose to the high bench, and the star witness against him had no corroboration that the event she described had ever happened. Several of his accusers recanted, and the lawyer flogging the story is now in prison for defrauding his client. Mere difficulty of proof can't be the reason. Speaking of which:
You know who has talked publicly about the importance of taking women seriously? Biden. During the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Biden stood up for Dr Christine Blasey Ford, noting: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”It certainly would.
Does this presumption not apply when the guy being accused is a Democrat running for president? It would seem that way.
She does at least get to the point of questioning the duty:
[It is] hugely unlikely that Reade’s accusations will do any damage whatsoever to Biden’s ambitions. Allegations of sexual assault certainly haven’t posed any hindrance to Trump. The allegations against Kavanaugh didn’t stop him from becoming a supreme court justice. The allegations against Louis CK didn’t kill his career in comedy. And the multiple women who have accused Biden of touching them inappropriately in the past haven’t exactly derailed his career.In point of fact, there are endless photos of Biden touching women inappropriately. She's right, this hasn't done him any damage apparently.
The conservative position as I understand it is that not all of these accusations are equally believable, and we ought to insist on some level of proof before deploying the very harsh sanctions we (at least sometimes, haphazardly) levy against the guilty. Harvey Weinstein is in Rikers right now, stripped of fame and wealth and freedom, and he'll likely die there. Jeffery Epstein would have died in prison even if he hadn't been killed. The punishments do really fall, sometimes, and they are sometimes life-ending punishments. Conservatives argue that such punishments should not be deployed without proof, and certainly (as in the case of Kavanaugh) not without corroborating evidence. I don't get the sense that they don't believe the punishments shouldn't be deployed at all.
The liberal position seems to be that accusations should presumptively or even always be believed, and career-ending consequences deployed, if the accused is the wrong kind of person. If they're the right kind of person, even hard evidence -- endless pictures, blue dresses -- should not be allowed to interfere with their exercise of freedom and power.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding or misstating the positions; perhaps liberals simply can't believe (in spite of the obvious evidence) that a nice guy like Joltin' Joe Biden or Bill Clinton could engage in anything bad. Rascally, perhaps, but bad? Obviously they're not bad people, so they can't be guilty; and the evidence of our eyes must therefore be deceptive. (AVI's favorite, Slate Star Codex, calls that top-down processing.)
It does appear, though, the double standard is real. The accusations against Kavanaugh were unlikely, and some of them were implausible on their face. All the same, screaming hordes of liberal women came to try to force Congress to destroy him -- not just to refuse to promote him, but to impeach him, investigate and try him, find a way to send him to prison for the harm he allegedly caused the nice-seeming lady with the memories she recovered in therapy decades after the event almost certianly never happened. The accusations against Clinton and Biden are supported by physical evidence, which you can verify for yourself. No similar outcry is occurring. In fact, you can't even get the press to admit the story exists.
of Biden touching women inappropriately.
ReplyDelete8 year olds and 13 year olds are not women, technically.
The reason why I keep provoking or instigating or pointing out things that people don't like hearing or reading or thinking about, such as they are livestock in a matrix created by powers beyond their comprehension, is because I know the essence of human nature. Especially American nature and ideals. Once you people find an enemy to kill, you will kill them, if that is where the mass consciousness is going. But the reality is that your best enemies are traitors in USA that nobody can touch. And that is a reality that should bother the "bomb those foreign terrorists until the rubble bounces" Americans.
I'm not here to shoot up some public institution, the way some here are thinking but most dare not say due to consideration of you the host, Grim. I'm here to get rid of, or kill, all of America's enemies, foreign or domestic. Although who determines what is an enemy is not the government authorities.
ReplyDeleteIn order to KILL all the domestic enemies, let's just stick to the domestic and not foreign enemies, it requires a different strategy.
Rascally, perhaps, but bad?
ReplyDeleteThey are under mind control and NLP. They don't know what they are doing and they don't choose what to believe. They obey orders, which tell them what to believe. This is the truth of the matter in its most simplistic fashion. They don't know what they are doing, literally.
Their minds are hijacked for the most part. Some do so willingly, of course, but to them it is as the View said. That director guy, whatshisname, wasn't really rape rape, you see. They don't believe it. They don't believe Veritas' videos of inside Planned Profit either.
This is the Shadow they have suppressed. They cannot deal with it because then they would have to recognize they have a problem, that it exists. Then we have an alcoholic recognizing they are an alcoholic. That would begin fixing the problem. Their controllers don't allow that to happen.
Good application of top-down reasoning. I had only incompletely made that connection.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to get to false equivalences in matters of sexual accusation and we should all beware making them too quickly. I think you made some nice divisions here.
There is a double standard, but that doesn't mean I should engage in it. I'm not going to jump on any bandwagon consisting of allegations of private behavior 27 years ago not alleged and publicized appropriately at the time. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, but it can't be resolved now. Waiting this long killed any chance of that.
ReplyDeleteUmnnnhhh....a couple of observations.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, Tex99 is correct. Further, there is no "pattern of practice" that has come up. Hair-sniffing is not NEARLY as horrible as what's alleged by this staffer.
As to the 'inappropriate touching' thing......well, not so fast. The oldest Boomers (I am among them) do not regard putting a hand on a shoulder as 'inappropriate.' It's friendly; a support gesture. It never was treated as malevolent throughout the '50's, '60's, and '70's and only became a damn-near crime in the last 20-30 years--and even then, not consistently enforced--if at all--particularly in typical friendly office situations.
Around the waist? That's in the 'red zone.' Hair-sniffing? That's a perversion problem which to me is FAR more significant than hand-on-shoulder stuff.
The whole "inappropriate" thing arose with 2nd-Gen Feminism, NOT 1st-Gen, which should tell you something
IMHO.
One difference between Left and Conservative reactions to accusations of Biden past behavior and Trump past behavior is the Conservatives' acceptance of the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption in contrast with the Left's general rejection of those.
ReplyDeleteAnd in fact, as I watch Trump's children today, of various mothers, interact with each other, with Trump, and with their current mother, I see real evidence (if not hard proof) of a considerable measure of that rehabilitation and redemption.
The real problem for the Left, it seems to me, is not so much that they're ignoring the accusations of Biden, but by ignoring them, they deny Biden any opportunity to demonstrate his own rehabilitation and redemption. That's a problem they don't even recognize exists because of their rejection of the possibilities. That rejection, also, argues against a premise that they're ignoring the things to protect him from failing to demonstrate.
Eric Hines
Because he has the infinitely more important relationship right, the worst believer is better than the best unbeliever. Of course a Christian, and maybe even a Moslem, will point out that a bad actor probably doesn't have that first relationship right, but apparently worshipers of the Party are freer to judge.
ReplyDeleteSince it looks like Democrats use legal accusations to garner more power unto themselves, my first inclination on any new accusation from their side is to think of it as another power grab - until evidence proves otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe Indian Vedics, as of 4000+ years ago, started collecting data and analyzing it over the correlations between astrological star configurations and when people would get married. They obtained a large amount of data showing that when people marry and when they divorce or if they divorce or if they have multiple children, all correlate to their natal birth charts.
ReplyDeleteCounter argument: Then why has Western science not seen any such correlation?
Y: because Western science is so ignorant they think astrology came from the West, so they study Western astrology, that does not utilize the stars as they are now, but as they were in 500 BC. This is then called "science".
So from an alternative viewpoint, Trum's whatever relationships, are mostly a result of his chart.
ReplyDeleteCounter: What happened to free will?
Y: It's still there. The celestial energies only give a bias towards things happening at certain times and places, it does not lock them into place. People can still choose or actually influence their own fate.
Thus Trum would have been destined to have marriage problems or multiple marriages, but he was not destined to become a OJ Simpson, unless he chose to. Or a Ted Kennedy.