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Destroying a Man’s Life
What is the value of a man’s soul? What is the worth of a man’s reputation? Most of us would say that both are priceless: the first is a gift from G-d, the second created by the toil and sweat of the person who lives a productive and honorable life.
But the Left believes the destruction of a reputation and soul is inconsequential if they determine the cause is just.
And thus they have decided to sacrifice Brett Kavanaugh.
Judge Kavanaugh was a man who had worked as a public servant most of his life, dedicating his efforts to being of service to others. His spotless character elicited sneers from the Left, which called him a choir boy. His years of coaching girls, nurturing not only male but female friendships, and hiring women to work for him were meaningless in the face of the Left’s desire to fatally malign him. This entire disgusting display by the Left shows how deeply the secular has poisoned our society.
Dennis Prager was quoted as saying the following about our good and bad deeds:
Every one of us has a moral bank account. Our good deeds are deposits, and our bad deeds are withdrawals. We therefore assess a person the same way we assess our bank account. If our good actions outweigh our bad actions, we are morally in the black; if our bad actions greatly outweigh our good actions, we are morally in the red.
By all accounts — literally all — Brett Kavanaugh’s moral bank account is way in the black. He has led a life of decency, integrity, commitment to family and commitment to community few Americans can match. On these grounds alone, the charges against him as a teenager should be ignored.
And yet the Left says his reputation is worthless.
The Bible teaches that destroying a man’s reputation is as bad as killing or stealing or lying: we kill a man’s soul when we degrade him; we steal his credibility and honor when we promote unsubstantiated slurs; we create a living hell for him when he is forced to live in a culture that lies about him and his contributions to society.
Brett Kavanaugh is not the only one whose reputation is damaged. His wife, Ashley, his two daughters, Margaret and Liza, are wounded, perhaps irreparably; his parents are devastated by the vitriol and slurs against him; his colleagues, friends—in fact anyone whose life has touched his life have been dirtied and wounded. Every person in the media, every Senator who has not promised to support him against this travesty, every human being who not only condemned him before he originally testified to the committee, but in the face of the absence of facts are not persuaded that he has been unfairly judged on the sexual assault of Christine Ford, have committed not only a terrible injustice, but will carry the sin of their behavior for the rest of their lives. For any of them who may be religious, they have sinned against Kavanaugh and his family and against G-d Himself. And there is no making amends.
I found this story that I believe speaks volumes to where we find ourselves as a nation in how we have allowed the Left to destroy Brett Kavanaugh:
A Chassidic tale vividly illustrates the danger of improper speech: A man went about the community telling malicious lies about the rabbi. Later, he realized the wrong he had done, and began to feel remorse. He went to the rabbi and begged his forgiveness, saying he would do anything he could to make amends. The rabbi told the man, ‘Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds.’ The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the rabbi that he had done it, the rabbi said, ‘Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers.’
Where will we find the Constitutional traditionalists who are willing to risk having their lives destroyed?
Published in Culture
I just commented on this theme elsewhere, and will repeat myself here.
If Kavanaugh formed his good reputation by upholding high standards of conduct, as measured by society and his profession — and I think this is true — and if, as a progressive, you tend to reject socially-imposed standards, seeing them as part of a status quo you don’t highly value (and that, I think, is pretty much the chief characteristic that distinguishes a progressive from a conservative), then maybe destroying a man’s reputation really doesn’t seem like a big deal.
In other words, it may not simply be that they’re willing to do anything. It might be that they honestly don’t think they’re taking away something of great value.
Interesting point. The left values reputations also, but they tend to be false.
Exhibit number 1: Ted Kennedy, “Lion of the Senate.”
Maybe the brave men and women you seek are yet to be born, SQ….
Not false, Stad, but different. For the right, the measure is “do you adhere to accepted standards?” For the left, it’s “what have you done for me lately?”
We hear this graphically expressed when women on the left comment on how willing they are to accept sexual misconduct — indeed, how willing they are to participate in it — when the man is a defender of abortion.
I think they are a bit more deluded. He is already judged to be of low character and outright evil by being a conservative nominated by Trump for the court. I mean, Roe v Wade! To them, just the hint of opposition to abortion at any time is proof of misogyny. And anyone who hates and dis-empowers women like that is a rapist, duh! ( That is why the woman in the elevator with Flake told him that voting for Kavanaugh was the same as raping her again. Every man is guilty of every rape unless they buckle under to the feminist demands )
Once the judgement is made, it is just their fully honorable (in their world) attempt to prove that judgement to the rest of the world. As Stephen King put it in Dead Zone, If you knew someone was Hitler before he came to power, and you knew what he would do, would you kill him? Of course! That is the point. They know! Evidence is just a formality. All this patriarchal demand for evidence is blocking Feminist justice!
Take the Muller investigation. There is no evidence of collusion. That fact just shows the need for further investigation. If no evidence is found, then the investigation isn’t complete. And so on.
Same with the Ford accusations. There is no evidence. Which demands an FBI investigation. It can not ever end until the correct conclusion is reached. The seriousness of the charges demand investigation until evidence is found. No other outcome is possible.
So they don’t feel they are destroying a good mans reputation. They already know he is not a good man, he doesn’t deserve the position. That isn’t in question in their minds. How they can make enough others agree with them, or at least have doubts about him, is what matters now.
Maybe so, @nandapanjandrum. My hope is that they won’t be corrupted by the Progressive agenda. If I knew that would be true, I could be patient.
Can’t argue with your assertion (hat tip) . . .
I know that’s what they think; it’s our job to see that they don’t get that expectation met. That we make that decision. No excuses. Very good description (as much as it disturbs me), <span class="atwho-inserted" contenteditable="false" data-atwho-at-query="@phenry“>@phenry.
Alas, it isn’t directly ‘our’ job. It is our representatives job, and half are Democrats who think that way, and most of the rest are scared to death that they might be lumped in with the “misogynist rapists”.
This election will tell much. It will show us if there are enough Democrat voters who are capable of seeing this for what it is, and muster enough disgust for it all to vote against their Democrat reps. If not, I don’t think we will ever regain the chance to make that decision. They have shown they have no intention of letting us get in their way, Trump was a shock and surprise because they were so confident that we couldn’t. They never really played fair, but they will play far less fair the next time they get power. You think turning the FBI in to a political weapon was bad? What comes next is brother against brother civil war type bad.
And don’t forget, they have yet to pay any price for that FBI corruption. None. They have everything to gain, and nothing to lose.
Agree a thousand times over!! We all need to email, fax or call our senators and congressmen to let them know how we feel. If they don’t have a backbone, we can give them some of ours.
Charlie Sykes says he should be nicer about what is happening to him. Published in the Weekly Standard. Republicans are retweeting it.
Sykes has become unlistenable to me. A man can be arrogant or foolish, but not both.
Oh. My. Very. Goshness. Now I’ve seen more than everything. I did say: Repulsivecants, didn’t I?
Don’t mock God. The ref will step in. I do support stopping them and fighting them, however. And I pray the imprecatory psalms about them.
Charlie Sykes used to be very, very good. I haven’t paid much attention to him since he stopped focusing on Wisconsin politics (where his voice is a real loss). But I knew he seemed to have lost perspective over Trump. I actually looked him up to see what he was saying about Kavanaugh because he understands these games and ought to know better. He seems more or less to be in Jeff Flake territory (that might be unfair).
I found the article slightly less bad than I expected. It wasn’t “how dare he be angry.” If it had been written before the fact some of it might have been reasonable advice.
Sykes admires Scott Walker’s cool reserve and that’s where he’s coming from, I think — it really is a genuine preference of his. But Walker was attacked over policy, and he was able to wait and appeal to results. I think Kavanaugh probably will wish he’d handled some of his exchanges with senators more smoothly, and he was right to apologize to Klobuchar. I also can’t imagine trying to do it myself, or criticizing someone in that situation for their “tone.”
I hope this brings clarity of right and wrong.
How can anyone say his anger disqualifies him? I think if he wasn’t angry, he’d have to be a psychopath.
I can not believe this is happening. But since it is happening, please vote.
If you know people who aren’t that into politics… beg them to vote against anything and everything Democrat, because if there is not a strong win for Republicans, this is our future.
If Democrats are rebuked, maybe the few good ones will be able to bring the party back from the brink of insanity.
Judge Kavanaugh is and our country is being tested like we’ve not seen before – they seemed so happy when they were nominated – I hope and pray that they stay strong and focused.
They must, plain and simple. Thanks, FSC.
Isn’t the destruction of the this person the goal? This is for all the women ever wronged and because of all the men who’ve ever wronged. He must pay for all the sins of men. This is certainly not about process and evidence and justice.
Before 2016 no one had ever heard of him outside Wisconsin. He doesn’t deserve a national voice.
The whole thing is Soviet-esque garbage, his kids are getting hammered by other kids, protesters, and the media, and Republicans are complaining about how Kavanaugh comported himself. Sick.
Buck Sexton
delete
This was right on, and the Democrats – and much of the news media – should be ashamed of themselves for trying to destroy a man’s life, because of their unquenchable thirst for power.
The Dennis Prager column I could have done without. Not that the thoughts were bad. All people of good will should believe, as Bill Bennett put it, that you take a man in the totality of his actions. But now is not time to make that point. Prager should of held off that column until Kavanaugh was confirmed.
I read the entire column, and not until about two-thirds of the way through, did he mention that he believed Kavanaugh. Well, that is the issue today. But, no. In typical Prager fashion, he had to make the larger point. Perhaps to always remind us that he thinks of the macro issues – as he calls them – first? Kavanaugh was only incidental to this man’s need to always be in the limelight. It is one of the reasons I am no longer a fan.
It’s interesting to me that some of those in politics who are most critical of Kavanaugh’s tone/temperament are also those those who have been least effective — some of them least vocal — in halting the US slide toward Progressivism and now Socialism.
Sykes, who is a vocal proponent of a particular brand of conservatism, has become a real tiger in his vociferous condemnation of all things Trump.
I am not mocking God, I am mocking them
But they are not ashamed. They are proud and satisfied with themselves. So what are we going to do about it? answer: absolutely nothing.
I completely disagree. I no longer listen to Prager’s podcasts, but I like the fact that he has put Kavanaugh’s situation into a larger context, instead of writing what everyone else is writing. Yes, he does focus on the macro issues, instead of focusing on the “bug dust,” because those larger issues create perspective. To say that his talking of Kavanaugh is only incidental to his wanting the limelight is just silly, George. Dennis has quite enough limelight without holding onto anyone else’s coattails.
Obviously, we disagree. as I said, the column wasn’t bad. I even like his idea of Moral Bank Accounts. It is a clever way to say what I indicated Bennett said. But we need to keep our on the prize. And that prize is Brett Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh is not “bug dust”. But it is not the first time first we don’t see eye to eye.
Excellent post, @susanquinn. Thank you for including the Talmud references. My faith also emphasizes the danger of ungoverned speech in the New Testament. The standards by which our country was formed were rooted in concepts found in those two faiths because they are for the betterment of mankind (important to maintaining a free society), and make what’s going on more than mere politics…#wickedness.
It’s no surprise that those of us who espouse those formative standards of fairness and justice do not care for the Democrats’ situational ethics @henryracette describes so well in this thread. There is more than a different view of the world at stake here. Rod Dreher wrote in an excellent piece the day after the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing: