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Where’s Your Hill?
When Roy Moore was in the process of being brought down in the Alabama Senate race last December, the standard response from the establishment side of the GOP was, “Look, Moore is a nutcase. This is not a court of law. There is no due process or presumption of innocence. He’s not the hill you want to die on.”
When Alex Jones was purged off of social media the response was, “This is not a government action, but the actions of private individuals. Besides, he’s a nutcase and this is not the hill you want to die on.”
Enter Brett Kavanaugh. As his reputation is destroyed by the minority party suddenly the establishment is appalled. Why? Well, primarily because even though he was nominated to SCOTUS by Donald Trump, Kavanaugh is seen as “one of us,” one of the good chaps whose pedigree of private high schools, Yale and all the right government clerkships and appointments was beyond question.
Is this the hill now? When you surrendered all of that territory before, when you tucked your collective tails between your legs and ran like scalded dogs, now you want to turn and fight? Look what you gave up before. Like the Alabama race, proceedings in the Senate Judiciary Committee are not the equivalent of a court of law. The ideas of due process and presumed innocence you gave away in December are a little hard to reclaim now. When you look at all of the private, non-government entities behind this smear job, how can you rebuke them?
Principles are funny things. If you don’t apply them to the people you dislike then they are unlikely to be of any use when you really need them.
Published in Politics
Here’s the problem, and I’m going to say it again. I know that maybe you don’t read what I say, or don’t pay attention, or don’t care about the facts or the law. That is what bothers me.
There is NOTHING WRONG ABOUT DATING TEENAGERS!!! We actually have a specific rule about this, codified in the law. It is called the “age of consent.” In Alabama at the time, and still today, and still today in 30 other states, that age is 16.
So you see, I am not “defending my side at all costs.” I’m objecting to you, and many others, accusing a man of essentially pedophelia when he was actually obeying — yes, obeying — the specific legal rule on the subject that was enacted by the State of Alabama, and is the current rule in most of the country.
There was one — a single one — allegation of dating, and sexual misconduct with, and underage girl, allegedly 14 at the time. Now maybe it was true, but I don’t believe it in the circumstances. If I remember correctly, Moore was elected to statewide office twice, and the girl never spoke out. She didn’t raise the issue until about 30 years after the fact, at the 11th hour of a very important Senate race. That is not good enough for me.
To make it clear, I’m an old married guy who hasn’t dated a teenager since he was a teenager. The problem that I have is people taking legal, permissible behavior and somehow twisting it into a disqualification for office, especially when people do so based on questionable and late allegations.
Is it now necessary for me to know who Michael Avenatti is in order to keep up? I’ve seen the name a few times, of course, in connection with Trump controversies, IIRC, but didn’t realize he was important.
That’s a very bad principle to follow.
“Innocent” and “wacko conspiracy theorist” are not exclusive categories.
He’s Stormy Daniels’ sleezy porn lawyer.
I know I’m getting into this late, but there is quite a difference. Moore and and Jones are repulsive insects who make our side look like vermin by our mere association with them. (I’m a not-Republican and not-human garbage nutcase, but anyone not a leftist is immediately globbed in with them.)
Brett Kavanaugh is a better man than I’ll ever be, and all of this is a hatchet job by the fascists of the left. That’s why this is a hill I’ll die on.
Yeah. It needs to be said that not only is he an attention whore, but he also has delusions of grandeur in that he thinks he’s going to run for President in 2020.
or as Politico refers to him “potential presidential candidate”…
Libertarian ticket?
Nope.
I’m not saying morals don’t matter, I’m saying the bar has been set to an impossible height – perfection. The left is willing to have rapists, womanizers, Klansmen, etc. in office. They are willing not only to accept imperfection, they flaunt it.
Good thing I’m not running for office. I’d be dead meat 5 minutes after I filed . . .
Do you really wanna go there?
Why not? Our comments have been all over the map!
Seems like a perfect fit.
I hope he runs as a Dem. The primaries would be soooo much more interesting.
He’s planning to run as a Democrat.
So how is that any different from me? Except being President is not good enough. My real name is Napoleon Bonaparte and am going to invade Russia to destroy Hillary Clinton’s internment camps and free the prisoners.
Best post in this thread!
Ya think?
Of course it did. Moore is not part of the coastal elite. Deep south, and when he was in his 30’s in the South then, it was not weird to date teenagers. It is weird now, especially in DC.
This is part of the whole changing what is OK after the fact. We have legal protections against that too. But, since I guess only what matters in a Court of law is important, we can ignore the reputation destruction side of things. Not law, don’tcha’ know
You left out killers, as long as they are a Kennedy.
Porn is at home with the Democrats just as much as the Libertarians. Though, I am pretty sure only the Libertarians had a fat man strip. I figure the Dems would have a sexy lady.
I think this is what the whole argument boils down to. Last minute accusations are the typical Democrat ploy of last resort, whether they are true or not. Maybe Roy Moore should have been defended on the grounds of denying the Dems one of their most effective tools.
Put another way, we should always force the Dems to put all of their cards on the table up front.
Your Republican President had an affair with a pornstar while his wife was at home with their infant son. I’m not sure Republicans really hold the moral high ground here.
Impossible height?
If we’re talking about Kavanaugh, I don’t think the standard of “Didn’t try to rape anyone when he was in high school” isn’t too high of a standard.
I’m pretty sure you meant our Republican president.
But it was a voluntary exchange of services between two consenting adults. Doesn’t that tick all the correct libertarian boxes? Why do you have a problem with it?
If someone is going to be accused of a rape it might be nice to have a few facts like “where” and “when”. Kind of hard to defend yourself from an accusation that spans several years and an unknown location. No witnesses willing to confirm it ever happened. No police report, medical records, never informed parents, teachers, friends at the time. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Just a sudden accusation 30+ years later. it’s a joke.
And no I do not “always believe the victim” . Here’s a fact people ( women included) lie about things all the time. Thats why we developed our judicial system over hundreds of years to deal with events like this.
Because it allows him to opine with certainty about something that’s unproven?
You may have missed my point. My problem with it isn’t a legal one, but a moral one. And my point is that Republicans really aren’t in a position to smugly crow about moral superiority.