This article seems almost prescient (in its tone, if nothing else), despite being merely a summary of particular trends. It’s also highly relevant for showing the rare value to society of an art history degree.
William Blackstone once wrote:
all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously: for the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
The latter part has been deemed The Blackstone Formulation, being a restatement of a principle of law that goes back much further in time than the 1760 date on which Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England was published. It has reappeared frequently in different times and places, typically reworded slightly but with the numbers rarely changed. What is often lost is that we’re not actually talking here about things like whether a woman should accept a marriage proposal from a man credibly accused of beating the fuck out of his past partners. We’re talking specifically about the criminal law and whether the government is or should be empowered to end or suspend someone’s freedoms, and under what conditions that power can be exercised. The point is to encourage us to think about the consequences of acting under the guise of justice to punish those whose guilt is less than certain.
During the Kavanaugh hearings, I often found myself screaming that the presumption of innocence is not for confirmation hearings. But while the Blackstone formulation helps us understand why we might set a high standard for conviction (beyond reasonable doubt), simply screaming at the internet that the PoI is for criminal trials and not for confirmation hearings doesn’t explain why we should have different standards.
To this end, I want to ask a new question that might help. You can call the this “Crip Dyke’s Question” but the rule being questioned should, I think, clearly be named, “The Lindsey Graham Formulation”:
Is it better to place ten rapists on the Supreme Court than have one innocent man serve his lifetime appointment in honor and privilege on a court of appeal one level below?
Tweet the fuck out of #CripDykesQuestion. Call your senators and ask their staff members this question. Go to debates and use the audience question time (or pre-submission of questions mechanism) to place this question before your senators.
This isn’t too late. This is what we have to do before the next confirmation hearing, and if we want the question to penetrate the public consciousness, we must start now.
So, in a Pharyngula thread Giliell observed:
Actually I do think that people, especially white men*, voting for Trump because they want to live in a world where they can “grab them by the pussy” (or tit) and not face any repercussions is quite a sensible hypothesis.
*I will forever not understand white women
Which led me to think: isn’t the heterosexuality of women who grow up in communities where men’s entitlement to sexual assault is the norm rock solid proof that sexual orientation isn’t a choice?
I mean seriously, if being raped *did* cause het women to forever reject sex with men and become radical lesbian feminists, you’d quick-as-fuck see a heterosexual men’s movement to stamp out rape.
So I’m watching the second season of Jessica Jones last night – for various reasons I didn’t watch it when it came out – and I finish the first episode and have time so I dive into the 2nd. As is her gig, Jones is investigating something. She gets hold of someone else’s computer (or tablet or whatever – I think it was a touch screen + a keyboard & I’m not sure what that is anymore) and is scrolling through the comments they’ve left on a site. When she focuses in on one, you can see the comment immediately above it, indented and obviously on a different topic. In that comment, redleader is responding to AliasJewel. That’s fun enough. But the actual body of the comment was
Douglas Adams is underrated as a philosopher IMO!
I had to giggle.
I will not provide direct spoilers in this post, but I assume that anyone commenting will be people who have watched DWs11e01, so consider this your spoiler warning for every single comment in this thread and also considered yourself hint-warned, if not spoiler-warned, for the rest of the body of this post.
Right. Allons-y!
I’m not quite sure how I feel about Whittaker. There’s a bit of the crazy that Tennant brought to the role, but it’s toned down a bit, so it’s not as if I’m looking forward to a Doctor with quite the same manic energy. On the other hand, adding more detail to the tinkerer/ inventor aspects of the Doctor seemed to be something within reach of the character, but perhaps not as emphasized in the past. That could be something unique brought to Whittaker’s Doctor. In the meantime, the Dramatic Monologue™ in the Big Dramatic Moment™ seemed a transparent restatement of what the creators of the new series hope to bring to the show. I also can’t decide putting those words in the Doctor’s mouth was really, really cool, or just too meta.
Grace is a complete delight. The train scene was fantastic, and obviously she has many qualities that make her someone to admire, respect, or just fantasize about being when you grow up.
I like Grandpa/Graham – they had to work a white guy into the show, and I’m pleased with this iteration. Of course, like all the characters, he still needs some fleshing out, but that’s fine. We’ve got a whole season (series for your Brits) ahead of us.
Yaz is my favorite new character, at least so far, even though I think that the producers seem to be expecting Ryan to be our empathetic entree into the world of the Doctor (I say that based on narration that occurred at the beginning & end of the episode).
Anyway, who else saw the episode, and what did you think?
Original source unknown:
So, the NY Times has a theory which is theirs: Julia Swetnick’s sworn statement is responsible for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. From the article:
The Republican senators got into a lengthy conversation about Mr. Avenatti and how he could not be trusted and concluded that Ms. Swetnick’s claims did not add up. Why would she as a college student repeatedly go to high school parties where young women were gang raped? No one came forward to corroborate the allegation, and news reports surfaced about past lawsuits in which Ms. Swetnick’s truthfulness was questioned.
“This was a turning point,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “That allegation was so over the top, it created a moment that was scary, quite frankly. But that moment was quickly replaced by disgust.”
… One Republican congressional official called Mr. Avenatti’s involvement “manna from heaven.” From the other side, a Democratic congressional official called it “massively unhelpful.”
So there you have it: don’t go to the wrong parties, if you’re going to be raped, make sure that you have sympathetic witnesses, and if you hire the wrong lawyer, then when justice doesn’t happen, it’s your fault. Of course, they don’t actually identify even one yes vote by someone who would have voted against Kavanaugh if only Swetnick had shut up like a good girl, much less the two that would have been necessary to change the outcome. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is don’t speak up, unless you speak up a little bit, politely, about things that are appropriate dinner table conversation. Otherwise when injustice happens, it’s on you. Because goodness knows that if women were just encouraged to shut the fuck up a little bit harder, we wouldn’t have a perjurer and probable sexual assault perp sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
So if you’re thinking about speaking up about the assault that happened to you, think again: you’re probably just making things worse. Our newspaper of record has said so.
Gods, I’ve written three e-mails to each of Oregon’s senators in the past week and given each one phone call. I’m resisting, but damn I’m exhausted. So without any more preamble, let’s do this:
That felt good.
And while you may feel like swearing, that’s blocked in your country, you USAmericans:
And maybe something that an unnamed SCOTUS nominee should probably have been told a time or two when growing up:
An explanation for divergent testimonies:
And, while we’re at it, why don’t we just
Try not to tear yourself apart, though. We are the
Catholic morality demands rapists face no punishment when their victims testify as to their deeds, according to Bishop Donald Sanborn:
…what should we think about Judge Kavanaugh?
Moral theology — indeed the law of God — requires us to not think any evil of him beyond what is evident. If there is insufficient evidence to make a certain judgement of guilt, then we must hold him guiltless. If there is sufficient evidence to cause suspicion of guilt, then we may lawfully suspect him. To think evil of someone without sufficient evidence is a sin of rash judgement, and it is a mortal sin if the matter is serious. This matter is certainly serious.
In this case, however, it is Judge Kavanaugh’s word against Dr. Ford’s word. Moral law requires us, in that parity of contradictory testimony, to take the word of the superior, which in this case would be that of Judge Kavanaugh.
Emphasis mine.
It’s hard, penis, of course, to determine what makes Kavanaugh the “superior” penis of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, but I’m sure that Catholic penis theology probably has some opinions on that as well. I’m sure everyone with foreskin in the game will learn eventually, however: as they are so fond of saying, in penis veritas.
Well, now that the Catholic hierarchy has begun telling us that we must forget about Kavanaugh’s past sexual assaults and move him along to a new position, I’m sure the opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination will die any day now.
Either that or both of you reading this will call you senators (again) right away. I can’t guess which is more likely.
So, I deliberately stayed out of PZ’s When humanists go bad thread. But y’know, I didn’t realize it had gone on quite this long. When I saw a spate of comments all directed to that thread, however, I had to check in again just to know what is keeping that thread alive.
The answer? Andy Lewis.