A solution to this problem would be much more compelling evidence, such as for example, the 2nd man said to be in the rape room coming forward to confirm Ford's story. — Jake

The 2nd man alleged to be in the room has already been identified. Do you know who he is? Do you know what his relationship to Kavanaugh is? Can you put those facts together to understand why, if the story is true, he probably wouldn't want to corroborate it? You give the impression of not knowing the basics of the case.

You object to assault victims being believed when evidence is lacking,
— Baden

No, I did not say that. — Jake

So, you don't object to assault victims being believed when evidence is lacking?

but you actively discredit Blasey Ford as being involved in a political smear job on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.
— Baden

No, I did not say that either. — Jake

So, you don't believe Blasey Ford's accusations are part of a political smear job? Or you have evidence this is a political smear job?

Let's just get those two cleared up at least.

On a basic definition, of course:

"Knowledge=facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject."

Skills, for example, can clearly be independent or not fully dependent on language. Babies function before they can speak.

I understand your general point, but it's not a particular claimant's fault there isn't much evidence to support them. And it's not unusual for assault victims to take a long time to summon up the courage to speak. Combine those two facts with only a presumption that the truth should be told and there is no wrong being done here. It might be an unfortunate side-effect of a particular claim being uncorroborated that it sediments a general impression of the unreliability of such claims. But the alternative is the injunction that victims should not speak the truth of what happened to them simply because they might not be believed, which is worse, as the absolute guarantee of not being believed is to not tell anyone in the first place.

So, I find your position self-contradictory from two perspectives:

1) You profess to be worried that sexual assault victims will be not be believed, but you discourage them to come forward except on certain conditions which would preclude many of them of having a chance of being believed.

2) You object to assault victims being believed when evidence is lacking, but you actively discredit Blasey Ford as being involved in a political smear job on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. You say it "looks" like a political smear job. OK, and Kavanaugh "looks" guilty. Where does that leave us?

it LOOKS very much like a political smear job. — Jake

Do you see the irony here? You are criticizing those who think Kavanaugh looks guilty because you think they lack evidence other then the accusations. But you think you have the right to characterize these accusations as a political smear job on the basis that they "look" like that to you though you haven't produced one shred of evidence that they are. You see the problem? You need either to produce your evidence or be defeated by your own logic.

You've been busy positioning yourself as an avid supporter of the metoo movement, whatever you're going to say about that. That's the bottom line underneath all your many arguments. Your intentions are good, and I share your support of metoo. But, your analysis of what is good for the metoo movement is less than fully sophisticated. — Jake

I don't need any movement to help me come to the conclusions I've come to. It's common sense to me.

Anyway, please quote me from this discussion the parts where:

1) I positioned myself as an avid supporter of the #metoo movement

and

2) I analyzed what is good for the #metoo movement.

Quotes only. And then I'll tell you what I meant by those quotes and what, if any, connection there is to what you said.

Who, or what, do you think real leads the most powerful country in the world? — Metaphysician Undercover

A conglomeration of forces for and against Trump seemed to have formed a kind of Frankenstein's monster of an administration that's blindly and destructively stumbling forward. There is nothing worth calling a leader. There's no coherence around an obvious central force or set of values.

The good christian virgin must have come in for a bit of ribbing from his Frat-bros, eh? — unenlightened

Exactly. It was a strategic mistake on his part to go full pure virgin on this one.

This type of thing would be less damaging for Kavanaugh if he hadn't done the Fox News Interview where he painted himself as a paragon of purity in a way that's inconsistent with a stream of evidence now being brought forward. The chances of him not being a bare-faced liar even on that score are very slim and that in itself should be disqualifying for a judge.



I'm not part of the #metoo movement, and I don't know much about it or its official response (if there is one) to this ongoing story. Also, it's just a recognized principle around here that we address each other's arguments rather than just say things at each other.

I've made my position clear several times and it's that no unexamined, unanalyzed, decontextualized allegation in and of itself should be the basis for presumption of guilt about anything. What it is is the basis for suspicion. Then you put it context, investigate it and see if you can either dispel the suspicion or confirm the allegation, or at least come to a greater level of certainty as to its truthfulness. A very high level of certainty should be required for a criminal conviction, a lower burden for a civil suit, and for simply being denied a promotion (or equivalent) a lower level yet as the severity of punishment should be to some degree proportional to the level of certainty of guilt achieved (and there should be a critical cut-off point of probability where the allegation is dismissed outright and no negative consequences for the accused accrue. We're not there with this case). Now, that's my position. I'm not going to argue with you about your presumptions about #metoo as that's irrelevant to anything I've said.

There are four complaints out there now. Only one of them is Ford's and the latest is from 1998. And I've said several times re Ford's accusation already that if he had owned up to it and apologized sincerely, my attitude would have been much more forgiving. But you refuse to listen to me and seem intent on repeating your prejudiced impression of what I'm saying instead of actually responding to my position. Having said that, the idea that what happened to Ford was just "juvenile sex play" is absurd. No-one is arguing that we should punish consensual sexual exploration among teens of the same age. But that wasn't the case there.

Not sure whether to be amused or horrified that the leader of the most powerful country in the world has the mental age and emotional maturity of a 12-year-old, and is literally being laughed off the world stage. And that a huge swathe of Americans are just fine with that because, apparently, the only job in the country where no standards of competency at all apply is the Presidency.

I wasn’t aware that he started referring to himself as General Trump. — 0 thru 9

:lol:

Willingly taking a lie detector test is probably more noteworthy though. — Maw

Yes, that adds some credibility at least. As does the fact that she now has witnesses who heard her specifically mention Kavanaugh as being the one who assaulted her way before he was being considered for this post.

And if Kavanaugh passes a lie detector test, you'd vote to confirm. — Hanover

Obvious non-sequitur.

. If lie detectors weren't bullshit, why do we have jurors? — Hanover

I hope eventually the apparent sexual abuser, who apparently almost nothing will stop you batting for, does get put in front of a jury because with four accusers, conspiracy theories notwithstanding, he very likely deserves to be behind bars.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/kavanaugh-accuser-ford-releases-polygraph-results-showing-no-deception.html

Another nail in the coffin for the Republican smear campaign / conspiracy theory effort.

I haven't 100% concluded he's guilty btw though I think it's far more likely he is. But *spoiler alert* I would like as many facts to be uncovered as possible in order that we all get as close as possible to the truth of what happened.

I think it'd probably be more important to locate the rapist and the various accomplices, as opposed to someone who supposedly was nearby. — Hanover

This topic is about what Kavanaugh did.

It seems you've concluded he's guilty, so why do we need to have the investigation? — Hanover

You really can't work out the answer to that yourself?

What's striking is the gulf between the stories. Kavanaugh claims he was an innocent virgin who concentrated on Sunday School and his projects whereas the women claim he was a regular drunk, a sexual abuser and an accessory to gang rape. There's no way an investigation won't be able to show one of those two versions of his past to be utterly false. And I'm pretty sure at this point, Republicans in the know, know which one that is.

Appears very credible. And confirms Kavanaugh's alleged pattern of behaviour. No doubt the right will swing into left-wing conspiracy theory mode. But a proper investigation should easily show her to be lying if she is, so they'll be calling for that, right? No, of course, not. They'll be trying to get Kavanaugh nominated as quickly as possible before it's shown beyond doubt that this is true.

He actually took it well, considering. :D

I haven't reached my media time yet. What went down?

Just saw that. :eyes:

Don't even know what the previous "just" moderations you were complaining of were, seeing as you insist on being oblique about it. But, ok, have it your way.

@StreetlightX, to my knowledge, is no more zealous than any of the rest of us in modding. And throwing out a bunch of insults isn't going to help solve any feedback issue.

Yes, while you've been off sipping tea, the place has gone to pot. :( Guide us...

@VagabondSpectre :lol:

@Posty McPostface Apologise for taking this off-topic. :zip:

Fair point. Closed lounge Trump.

Edit: I guess now that you meant putting general Trump in politics to get posters to post in there rather than start new topics. That's under discussion in the mod forum. The main point is we don't want a proliferation of Trump threads. They tend to degenerate into low quality regardless of the good intentions of the OP writers.

MOD OP EDIT: Please put general conversations about Trump here. Anything that is not exceptionally deserving of its own OP on this topic will be merged into this discussion. And let's keep things relatively polite. Thanks.

She's also a member here actually, although she hasn't posted in ages...

She's in her thirties, married and moving to LA. :lol: She's an actress and has done some modelling too, so eat your heart out. :broken:

The Powers That Be seem to me too lenient on topics of religion. Far too much rubbish is permitted. — Banno

I'll go glass half full and consider that a welcome antidote to the oft levelled charge that We Powers That Be are predominantly militant atheist lefties. Having said that, feel free to report as that's probably the best way to get a result on low quality posts. We're not everywhere all the time, especially if we can help it.



Religion is a part of life and is as worthy of philosophical thought as anything else. Religious dogmatism is anti-philosophical though, I agree. Again, please report.

My sister is moving to the US, so I hope for her sake, no, but anything is possible in the land of opportunismity.

Sometimes the moderators fingers get twitchy when they get near the "delete" switch. A number of interesting discussions have been aborted. — Bitter Crank

Here's how it works:

Chances of OP deletion or closure = OP dodginess factor x Moderator caffeine intake

Three cups already today, so expect the unexpected.

Trump just tweeted: "The Democrats are working hard to destroy a wonderful man, and a man who has the potential to be one of our greatest Supreme Court Justices ever, with an array of False Acquisitions the likes of which have never been seen before!"

Is an "Acquisition" somewhat of a cross between an inquisition and an accusation? — Pierre-Normand

I do do that sort of thing myself sometimes. It's a lot funnier when he does it though. :D

Senate minority leader Schumer said back in January he would "use everything he's got" to stop the confirmation. Wouldn't the simplest explanation be that the Democrats are doing what they said they would and are prepared to throw everything they can at stopping the confirmation? — Hanover

No, because that isn't what he meant. For example, if I say, "I'll do everything I can to stop you beating me in our game of tennis next week" and then you get mysteriously murdered, it doesn't mean I killed you to prevent you winning. It's just a figure of speech. Getting involved in a conspiracy like that would destroy his career and the likely outcome would be just another conservative nominee. More to lose than gain.

but I don't know what it would entail other than what we already know — Hanover

The fact that you can't comprehend how the FBI or local investigators could possibly uncover any more facts in this case is irrelevant. If you're interested in the facts of any alleged crime or in justice for either party then you do an investigation. You don't throw your hands up and say because you have no idea how professional investigators uncover facts that maybe they shouldn't bother trying. There just is no other option in terms of getting closer to the truth.

This is such nonsense. — Hanover

Really? So now you're claiming you're not ignorant of the facts? Then why did you say this:

So, could there have been a woman silently almost raped in the midst of a party filled with people, with the only witnesses being extremely loyal to the rapist and refusing to turn him in? — Hanover

When Ford's claim is this:

"Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stair well from the living room. They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help."

Yes, I overstated the number of people who were supposedly in the vicinity of the alleged event, — Hanover

And why did you overstate it? Why did you say this:

Am I to believe that a there was a party filled with sociopaths, some of whom were aware of the goings on at the party, but none of whom were at all alarmed by the behavior? — Hanover

When this is what Blasey Ford said:

"The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others."

So apart from Kavanaugh and Judge who were in the room, your crowd filling the party was two people.

"At one point when REDACTED jumped onto the bed the weight on me was substantial. The pile toppled, and the two scrapped with each other. After a few attempts to get away, I was able to take this opportune moment to get up and run across to a hallway bathroom. I locked the bathroom door behind me. Both loudly stumbled down the stairwell at which point other persons at the house were talking with them. I exited the bathroom, ran outside of the house and went home."

https://obrag.org/2018/09/transcript-of-letter-prof-christine-blasey-ford-sent-to-senator-feinstein-accusing-judge-kavanaugh-of-attempted-rape/

So where did the party filled with "sociopaths" idea come from? Where did your idea that there is anything implausible at all about her leaving the party without the other two people (who were probably drunk and were talking with Kavanaugh and Judge when she left) seeing her or noticing something wrong?

An alleged attempted rape occurred in the close proximity of a handful of people, yet despite what I would assume to be a violent event (assuming, as I've never been witness to such an atrocity) there were no witnesses to it occurring or of the aftermath. — Hanover

The claim is that an alleged rape attempt occurred in a locked bedroom upstairs where music was being deliberately played to drown out any sounds. And there were only two other people in the house, who were downstairs.

If you had actually bothered to read the transcript, I guessed you never would have written that post. So, I charitably presumed you were just ignorant of the facts rather than trying to unfairly discredit the story.

The simplest and most straightforward explanation to all this is that Kavanaugh was a bad kid and is lying about it now to save his chance to get his dream job.

The most complicated and convoluted explanation to this is that it's a big conspiracy theory with Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez (and other as yet unnamed accusers) collaborating with Dems to take down a conservative nominee (even though his replacement is likely to be just another conservative nominee).

And there are plenty of other possibilities in between.

How to distinguish? Investigate. Why don't the Republicans want to investigate? Because they know, like all of us, that the simplest and most straightforward explanation usually turns out to be the true one.