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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
Sykes was not ineffective. He was extremely effective as a Wisconsin radio host. He is one of the reasons Wisconsin is purple (maybe reddish-purple) and not blue. Ironically enough — and he knows it, I think — he’s one of the reasons Trump won Wisconsin. Specifically, he helped keep the Milwaukee suburbs sane. If more American cities had that kind of a voice, it would do more good than any national talking head can.
I wish he were still in Milwaukee talking about Tony Evers and Foxconn and basically anything other than Trump.
I just want to say that there has been some stellar writing on Ricochet lately. Susan this was a great piece. And I’m editing this comment to say that while I intermittently consider canceling my membership here, my hand is stayed when I read such high quality and thoughtful essays like the ones authored by @susanquinn and @katebraestrup (“What I Wrote”). I was pretty discouraged listening to the flagship podcast the other day (I found Rob’s observations particularly confounding) but the writers we are privileged to read here (Susan, Kate, @bossmongo, @dajoho, @simontemplar, @docjay – may he return soon – our many “Doctors,” @davecarter, @henryracette and the list goes on and on) buoy my spirits.
I didn’t name Sykes as ineffective because I didn’t listen to him often enough then to form an opinion. Since the 2016 election I’ve had my eyes opened about the role of influential GOP in contributing to the US sliding Left by either 1) actively voting for more liberal legislation or 2) failing to mount effective opposition to Leftist policies.
Watching how aggressively combatant some GOP are now in their opposition to Trump I wonder what could have been accomplished and where we would be now had we opposed Barrack Obama and the Left with similar dedication. Democrats are showing without apology that basic civil liberties are at risk for those who oppose them, and still I see some GOP sounding more concerned about the way Donald Trump defends those liberties…especially when as we’ve noted few other GOP are doing so.
It suddenly hit me, where I’ve seen this before.
It was in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) desperately and hopelessly defends his good name against a hurricane of slander launched against him by corrupt politicians.
The only difference is, in the movie one of the corrupt Senators has a crisis of conscience and, in the end, tells the truth. This kind of vestigial integrity no longer exists in today’s Democratic Party.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
That is our system. So they lie and slander. His kids are just a price to pay if they care at all.
Kavanaugh is ant-statist for the most part, so they are freaked and the whip up the useful idiots.
This is your interpretation of “Do not bear false witness,” yes?
I think I read the like in Martin Luther’s commentary on that commandment as well.
Amen. This and everything related to it is an amazing topic.
Why isn’t the ACA wiped out? Tell me.
So many Republicans effectively like centralized power and propriety. Few of them get the Alinsky – Frankfurt School stuff.
Also, I don’t get all of the Prager hate. So many religious types are so pissed off at him right now. His moral views make a ton of sense to me. Not anyone here, but I see a lot of lying about Prager, too.
Kavanaugh’s temperament is well-known. Now watch Clinton lie about it.
Too bad Jeb isn’t ruling over us, right?
Calls to National Review. Two minutes.
From Luther’s Small Catechism [PDF]:
Yep. That’s it. (I may have read it in the larger. Maybe I read both!)
Not that I’ve read enough to say for sure, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this were in Aquinas, the Talmud, and other notable sources.
In the meantime, we have Luther and Ricochet. Not bad.
The same group of people who thought it was fine to weaponize the IRS against political opponents – which should send historical political leadership into gravespins of extreme duration – wouldn’t have any problem smearing anyone, if it advanced an agenda.
I’m not sure why we’re surprised. I’m guessing that with Trump in office, literally anything goes.
A memory of insomniac:
June 1977. I’m in Ivanovo (200 km North of Moscow), studying for my medical school entrance exams – in a kind of “exile”, being denied admissions in Moscow for 2 years prior for being Jewish (that is a different story). A dear friend comes to visit and brings with her a treasure trove – “Pravda” and “Izvestia” newspapers from 1934-1938 Stalin show trials. Our mutual friend – Alesha Venediktov (now running opposition radio station “Echo of Moscow”) somehow got his hands on them in one of the old book stores in Moscow – in itself an act of consequential political subversion. Mind you, nearly all the newspapers and history books of the period were destroyed to ERASE any memories of “enemies of the people”. The old newspapers are given to me to read overnight so we can pass them on to others.
And so I read and read, and at the end, after the night of immersion in what felt as an alternative reality of horrors (even by the standards of Soviet propaganda of 1970s) – bacchanalia of insanity, of utmost perversion of truth, of celebration of naked disregard of the truth and reveling in it, of mass hysteria – school children vigorously blacking our faces of yesterday’s revered leaders from their textbooks, millions of children and adults with tear stained faces chanting “death to X” – whoever was the villain of the day – and the villains, Revolutionary heroes of 5 minutes ago, on their knees, crushed in spirit and body, given sanction to their accusers to judge and kill them – I firmly realized that I would refuse to accept that alternative reality as mine.
That is why I applaud Judge Kavanaugh testimony. It took an enormous courage not to grant legitimacy and give sanction to the kangaroo court that we have witnessed.
Reminds me of that reporter who said she’d give Clinton a “Lewinsky” if it meant keeping abortion available.
But give Sykes credit for trying . . .
I’ll always be a Prager fan. I haven’t read the column in question, but there isn’t a single conservative columnist with whom I’ve agreed with on every viewpoint. However, Rush comes the closest . . .
It turns out that Jeff Flake’s new BFF, Senator Coons, has violated the duo’s supposed principles, moderation, or whatever. Senator Grassley brings the pain:
Good grief. And good for Grassley–I like when he gets upset at this garbage. I can only hope more Republicans take his lead. But then again, there is the ice cube incident in the bar–oh my!!
From USA Today:
Via Power Line:
I believe that Kavanaugh should be confirmed.
However, Trump’s mocking comments at the rally last night went so far over the line, he is creating the Blue Wave all by his lonesome.
Gary, you should know by now that I would like President Trump to tweet less, and with more grace and dignity. I think you and I agree on that.
However, before we credit the man with too much responsibility for generating leftist outrage, it’s worth noting that two of the most decent and anodyne men in modern political history, Mitt Romney and Brett Kavanaugh, have both been savaged by the left for the most tenuous of justifications. Prior to the sexual witch hunt being initiated, we were being assured that Kavanaugh would spell “the end of the Constitution,” as well as (more importantly to the left) the end of legal abortion.
I think we can safely conclude that, moving forward, no Republican president will be treated decently by the left. That ended sometime during the Bush administration.
I think media-fueled Democratic outrage is going to be a constant feature when they are not in power, just as media silence will characterize intervals of Democratic rule.
Hank, I am not writing to express any difference with you. I agree with everything you say. The Left not only hates us, but it seems, at many times, that they hate decency itself. They will continue with harassment of every decent person who doesn’t agree with their thirst for power, until this country bows down to their every whim. And we must not allow that to happen.
This should not excuse Trump, however. He is making things worse. I think both Gary and I agree with most things he does, and even says, regarding policy. That does not mean he needs to say them. He is President, and it is time he acted that way. I know he won’t; but we must not keep from saying it. It’s is just not his tweets; it is whole act. What good are these rallies? He ought to stop them.
Isn’t this about the 12th time you have informed us that something he has done is the straw that broke the Republican party’s back? How many times can one back be broken?
If you pay any attention to the Democrat Media ( MSM) you know they have not reported a hint of the evidence against Ford’s allegations. To someone who watches CNN only, Ford was a credible and entirely truthful witness, her story is ironclad, and Kavanaugh (the rapist) was a textbook example of improper temperament.
Trump’s comments were accurate and reflect what many many Americans are saying and thinking. By him saying what he did, many Americans may be hearing for the first time that there are significant reasons to reject the accusations as untrue. In other words, Lindsey Graham’s comments in the hearing, and Trumps comments last night are the first defenses of Judge Kavanaugh most of them have seen.
And of course, those who are stuck in the old ‘game’ of politics are sure that for the president to state the truth is detrimental to the party and the president. Better we should all just concede that Kavanaugh is probably a gang rape party organizer and withdraw him, otherwise, the mean old Democrats might say we are old white guys who were mean to a victim, and that will cause a blue wave.
That’s not Trump, and that’s why Americans voted for Trump. I understand you miss the good old days, but most of us do not.
I for one have no tolerance left for the idea that someone who makes accusations of this nature, not just without evidence, but where every last one of the witnesses she named have testified under oath that they witnessed no such thing, must and should be treated with kid gloves, never confronted, never opposed, and by default believed. That is a complete non starter to anyone interested in justice. If you notice, the constitution is full of protections for the accused. There is no such protection for accusers. That is for good reason.
That’s a very good question. I suspect they’re quite good — that his support in the communities in which he holds them goes up. I don’t know that, but I suspect it’s true.
Overall, things do seem to be going pretty well. We’re likely to get hurt in the mid-terms, but we kind of saw that coming anyway.
Of course he should stop his most successful forms of generating public support. Because winning is important, so long as winning is within the bounds of Jeb! and Jeff! sensibilities.
The statist media and the Democrat party lie. It’s well funded, too. How do you respond?
I understand why people respond this way, Clifford. It’s galling to have people who thought Trump could never win (I was one of those) continuing to condemn him for what he does (I’m one of those, albeit more gentle about it).
But there’s a false dichotomy in your response. Some of us would like him to continue tweeting, to continue to criticize the press, and to continue to be bigger than life. But — speaking for myself — I’d also like him to back off on what I think are the counter-productive aspects of it, the petty and inaccurate comments that frustrate a lot of us who support his policies but don’t want to defend behavior that we wouldn’t engage in ourselves out of a sense of decency.
I reflexively defend the President, finding myself much more in accord with his supporters than with his critics. But I think those of us who really are on the same side, but who differ in how palatable we find Trump’s behavior, should work harder to find some common ground. That means not making gratuitous swipes about what we all know to be the case (as my friend Gary did above), nor making snarky defenses of what many of us find distasteful by suggesting, as you did, that we’re all patsies who would rather lose than step out of line.
We should work harder to work together.
I really don’t get it. You say you have no evidence of it, but you believe it anyway. You may be right, and I don’t have evidence that you are not. But why is this dispositive for holding them. He probably could get a good crowd in California, if his handlers chose the venue properly. But would he win the state? Of course not. I don’t even know that he win the district for the local Congressman.
I hate to say it, Hank. You usually make a good case for your thoughts. But I think this is rather weak.
And I mustn’t forget why I really hate these rallies: The man is president. We are not some South American rinky-dink country; we are the United States of America. I suspect, in your hears of hearts, you agree with me: Why should our President hold rallies when he is in the office?
George, I’m actually not at all upset about the fact that he holds rallies. He’s an atypical President, a media figure who is engaged in a pop-culture war with the left. We always knew that he was a reality television figure; we probably didn’t expect the press to surrender any pretense of objectivity and join him at his level, but that’s what happened. (And I won’t speculate which actually hit bottom first.)
I don’t mind the rallies. I don’t mind the bravado, the boasting, and the general silliness. I prefer Reagan, but I’ll accept this. I just don’t want bullying or seriously inaccurate statements, or petty squabbles with inconsequential people. But I’m generally okay with the Trump on style, considering it a part of the pushback against a tiresome left that has too long had everyone cowed.
Hear! Hear! Thanks, @phenry.