Case 1. A keeper. You will end up giving her money for household expenses. In the local culture here, you even start by paying for a substantial bride gift.

And? So yes, in reality that's closer to a "traditional" thing, and less of anything remotely relevant to your allegations of "schools feminizing people" or whatever.

Case 2. A seemingly "free" tension-relief service provider. Watch out for Weinstein-style cases. You could end up at the receiving end of a "regret" rape accusation or other back stabbing. That could go badly wrong. There really seems to be a trend to put more and more alpha players in jail. (#metoo).

What's your fucking point? Anytime you engage in some kind of relationship or interaction with another person, especially some potentially maladjusted person who you barely no, there is always a "risk" in ivolved, I suppose.

And no, an ugly old man who has to show his penis to younger women isn't an "alpha", he's lonely, desperate SOB, I'ver been desperate enough to have to do that, same with a "millionaire" or supposedly "powerful" individual who is worthless, defective, and degenerate enough to waste their time molesting underage children.

You're assuming that all "rape" allegations are false simply because a woman made them (which is stupid nonsense, akin to Valerie Solanas assuming that any rape allegation is true simply because a woman made it), as far as that goes, I'll let the thinking men and women in courts of law and the procedures decide, not anti-intellectual worthless, mentally, socially and otherwise inept idiots or archaic dionsaurs on social media, who probably couldn't name a single letter of their own state or feral law to begin with speculate on that till their anime-masturbating heart is content.

I never payed for it — IvoryBlackBishop

Well, the general case is that you pretty much always pay for it.

Case 1. A keeper. You will end up giving her money for household expenses. In the local culture here, you even start by paying for a substantial bride gift.

Case 2. A seemingly "free" tension-relief service provider. Watch out for Weinstein-style cases. You could end up at the receiving end of a "regret" rape accusation or other back stabbing. That could go badly wrong. There really seems to be a trend to put more and more alpha players in jail. (#metoo).

In my opinion, "free" sex is somewhat an illusion. Julian Assange was supposedly also getting the sex "for free" in Sweden, and where is he now?

Thank you for sharing your personal experience. It helps to understand where you’re coming from.

1. How did you resolve your so called struggle or dichotomy with Romantic/Pragmatic Love?. — 3017amen

The main thing I realised was that this distinction is in our heads - in how we socially and personally conceptualise love, based on what we’re taught and what we experience. My issues can be traced back to my childhood experiences, to how I experienced my parents’ marriage and even in some part to my parents’ childhood experiences, which impacted on what they demonstrated to and taught (or didn’t teach) their children about relationships and sexuality. In some ways I had inherited years of trauma, which I needed to carefully unpack as an adult without assigning blame, and remove the limitations for my own children. It’s not as simple as cause-and-effect, you see, because mostly we manifest this kind of information we’re exposed to as conceptual relations without any awareness.

As another personal example, recently my mother, ten years a widow following almost 40 years of ‘happy’ marriage, finally opened up to her children about her years of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of brothers and an uncle - something she had never told anyone, not even my father. The reverberations of the #MeToo movement had apparently pointed out to her how much this experience impaired her capacity to feel and show love across the board, and (now 80) she wanted ‘a chance to explain’. Some very large pieces fell into place for me at that point - although I had already suspected something.

It’s hard to believe that what seems on the outside to be a ‘solid’ upbringing can conceal seriously distorted or at least limiting concepts of love, but it’s such a personal subject of inner experience that there’s no way to determine what is ‘healthy’, only what is obviously ‘wrong’ (at which point the damage is done). To be grateful that ‘we turned out alright’ isn’t enough for me anymore. The idea occurred to me that what we consider to be normal, healthy relationships may in fact be perpetuating and concealing limiting concepts of love. That this was the second intimate example of ‘systematic distortion’ revealed in what seemed otherwise ‘healthy’ family experiences suggested to me that our social concepts might be missing something important. So your realisation that all we have to understand love are theories fits into this.

Being a parent (and resolving not to make my parents’ mistakes) taught me a lot about what love is and isn’t, as did working in the education sector. Awareness and realisation of potential is more of a significant component to love than we give it credit for. This particular component is common to all concepts of love, and can even be seen as its common strength. It certainly suggests that all forms of love may be different conceptualisations of a single human experience - one that we isolate in relation to certain relationships, for various reasons, mostly to do with fear.

2. How important do you consider Romantic Love? — 3017amen

Well, it’d be disingenuous of me to declare that Romantic Love isn’t important, when I certainly enjoy its benefits! Humans have evolved to fundamentally need other humans, but it’s not just about survival, pleasure or procreation - and the idea that these are the main ‘reasons’ that we touch needs to be reassessed in my opinion.

I read Lisa Feldman-Barrett’s book ‘How Emotions Are Made’ last year, which looks at the neuroscience of emotions and provides meta-research to show that emotions are conceptualised rather than intrinsic, and that current psychology is based on biased research which claims that emotions are ‘universal’. It’s well worth a read. One of the things she found is that humans use interpersonal touch and other sensory connections to help re-balance their ‘body budgets’: how we re-distribute available energy in the body based on our conceptual predictions.

So while ‘romantic’ love is an effective way to ensure we get the interpersonal touch we need to operate at optimal capacity, it isn’t the only source of touch, and confining our connections this way can even limit our ability to restore balance - if we’re both having a crap day, for instance. When it feels like this ‘romantic’ love isn’t enough anymore, we’re led to believe that the love we have is fading. But I don’t think we’re constructed to be ‘two halves of a whole’ as once suspected. We’re more designed to be interconnected in a wide variety of ways with the whole universe - even us introverts!

In a strong, introverted ‘romantic’ relationship like the one you’ve described, it’s easy to believe that we don’t need anyone else - that the rest of the world can fall apart and we wouldn’t even notice. I can relate - and our two children are also introverts just like us, so that’s a feeling we can often get even between the four of us. Adjusting to the idea that our partner derives satisfaction in life from something other than us can lead to fears that we’re drifting apart, that the intensity of connection that we call ‘romance’ is suddenly fading. I think introverts find achievement more satisfying than attention, but it can seem difficult to tell the difference. Two introverts in a relationship means we need to adjust to sharing our partner not with friends or social life, but with hobbies, work and intellectual stimulation without taking this time spent with other people personally.

But the whole social concept of ‘romantic’ love says that this not-needing-anyone-else is how it’s supposed to be - like in the movies, as you say. It comes more from the false idea that we’re meant to aspire to individual autonomy, than any real understanding of what love is. Or perhaps it’s left over from patriarchal expectations - this ‘shut out the world’ idea of ‘romantic’ love can even be a foundation for domestic abuse situations. So when we look around and see that we’re limiting our individual AND combined potential by limiting our connections to the world, we mistakenly think we have to choose EITHER to fulfil our potential OR hold onto ‘romantic’ love.

Personally, I think we need to extract what love is from its differentiated relationship concepts. They’re based more on limitations and boundaries than on a more holistic concept of love as realising the potential in others. Understanding physical attraction as more than sexual ‘love’, and ‘romantic’ love as more than physical attraction, also enables us to feel attracted to someone other than our partner without calling our love or commitment into question.

In many ways that dynamic reminds me of 'redneck' culture in Maine. My habit is to drink in dive bars in Portland, and that's usually the crowd there (I'm huddled in the corner).That thing of being feminine when you're 'out' with your man, though forceful and independent in general especially seems similar.

The 'redneck' thing breaks down along class lines - but not always. There's what's called 'redneck rich,' guys who grew up poor but started a towing business or something, or the sons and daughters of the same. Support for #metoo (as well as, say, BLM etc), on the other hand, tends to correlate with a certain level of cultural capital, or, failing that, with middle-class aspirations. It's a shame because the legitimately good aspects of #metoo quickly become less important than its function as a signifier of class membership, which is then rejected on principle.

I suppose the difference is that, in Maine, all this is in conscious (defensive?) opposition to a 'dominant' culture which seems exactly the inverse of what you're describing (at least in the regions you've visited.)
---
I very much second what @Baden said (the avalanche movie is Force Majeure, by the way, one of my faves.)

A white male (sorry Pete, straight) war veteran appeals to Trump's base more I'd think. Additionally no #metoo references is a bonus. — Benkei

Why would a trump supporter vote democrat? Democrats want a multicultural society. Democrats support more open borders. Democrats see benefits in socialism (general meaning, not arguing whether what they call socialism is actually socialism). Democrats generally do not see the U.S. as really great (it has done great things, but also terrible things).

Forget all 4 of those things, any 1 and trump supporters are out.

#metoo — Benkei

pound me too

What do you mean?

The democrats have too many factions that strongly disagree on different issues. A black woman who is accepting of certain democratic-socialist policies and environmentalism seems to be the only chance of uniting them. I would like to think that hating trump is enough for unification, but it didn't work last time. — ZhouBoTong

A white male (sorry Pete, straight) war veteran appeals to Trump's base more I'd think. Additionally no #metoo references is a bonus.

The vast majority of feminists are humanists. — NKBJ

That remains to be seen. Considering that there were many women of color who have faced sexism and sexual assault and there haven't been any outspoken feminists on their case. I do recall the famous and late Sandra Bland case to mind on this issue.

And most of them, including me, are frankly tired of people trying to strawperson the movement by saying it's about hating men. — NKBJ

I never said it was about hating men. I specifically said that the original intent of feminism was not to speak for "all women, rather to speak for a category of women." This is why discussing the intersectionality of feminism as well as so-called men's rights is important because of the inequality experienced by people of color we see that women of color historically has been the most outspoken among the female gender:

“The problem, and what [many feminists today] are not saying,” Steinem told the crowd, “is that women of color in general—and especially black women—have always been more likely to be feminist than white women.”

Source:https://www.theroot.com/these-are-the-women-of-color-who-fought-both-sexism-and-1823720002

I find it ironic that most of the outspoken women who've I've discussed regarding #MeToo were more knowledgeable of Alyssa Milano than Tawana Burke the founder of the movement.

The article says further:

"Black women and women of color have actively fought for the rights and livelihoods of women for more than two centuries, yet their stories and contributions are often sidelined in the mainstream narrative of the feminist movement."

This was my position earlier regarding feminism. In total, feminism as it is expressed today as it was expressed in the past did not speak for all women.

I do think that the knee-jerk impulse to vilify feminists comes from a fear of men's privilege being uprooted. — NKBJ

I agree with this.

It's very much like people trying to demonize any black rights movement by pointing to the outlier black racists who talk about killing cops — NKBJ

I do not see the correlation of racism and killing cops but okay unless you pressupose that the underlying factor of cop murder is racial hatred and even that is hard to play considering the police force is diverse.

One sexist feminist/racist black does not discredit the entire movement. — NKBJ

Who says it does?

"The greater experimentation and deviation of the 1960s doesn't make the 1950s a period of conformity. Maybe it was just a period of "normality"."

I was born in 1959. I remember the years between 1965 and 1968 as being like the scene in the Wizard of OZ, when everything changed from black and white to vivid technicolor. IT was dramatic, disturbing and incredibly exciting. My brother and I felt like we and our peers were from a different planet from our parents. The older generation that we knew were so profoundly out of the loop in terms of their ability to relate to our language a, music, fashion, that it was like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons, who never really make an appearance. Watch a youtube video of a rock group performing on Ed Sullivan or Dean Martin in the mid 60's and you'll see a bizarre scene of musicians wearing outfits that one could still see today as retro-hip fashion on a teenager. But in the audience you'll see a sea of 50's uniforms, suits and ties on the men and formal outfits on the women that could have come from the 30's or 40's. A complete disconnect, except among the kids in the audience. That kind of abrupt schism in a society is a rarity. Its not that each generation doesnt move away fro the previous. Its the extraordinary rapidity of the change that was so unique in the 1960's.

And at the heart of it wasn't just the desire to party or the effects of television and prosperity. It was something deeper, involving a shift in philosophical worldview. That's what gave the social revolution its power. The twilight zone could frighten people in 1960 because the idea of alternative realities was terrifying to a culture raised on reality as objective truth. By the late 1960's being a freak was a badge of honor and a desirable goal for the counterculture.

A scene in the documentary Berkley in the 60's encapsulated the change in worldview. The campus activism began in Berkley by earnest students who had cut their teeth on the civil rights movement, and represented a kind of continuity with the leftist and communist movements of the 30's. But somewhere around 1966 a much deeper, more visionary shift took place in their thinking, as hippies and political activists began to cross-pollinate. Student began shifting from chanting 'we shall overcome' to 'We all live in a Yellow submarine'. They had become psychedelicized, seeing their opposition to the old ways not just in the traditional political terms of resistance, but as an entirely new worldview with implications for every aspect of life, for the sexual to the spiritual to the social.
Certainly the majority of those who grew their hair long, took drugs or participated in Woodstock didn't buy into the most radically life-altering thinking that the leaders of the cultural movement did, but they were a part of it in some way.

What I miss most about that period between 1962 and 1972 is the incredible momentum of movement of thinking, making movies from 1959 seem like a different century from those of 1969. It spoiled me. I assumed that this rate of social change would persist in to my adulthood. instead what I encountered was a retrenchment, increasing cautiousness and endless regurgitating of themes that emerged in that era. It's been 50 years since that era, and yet
the derivative Zizek , Butler and the anti-hegemomic tropes of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter are all we have to show for it.

"why this idyllic scene does take place in faraway Ecuador?"
I don't know Maybe because it's 5 degrees and snowing here in Chicago.

"Most of the machinic subjectivities are entirely relevant from the point of an adjustment of a subject to the social, cultural, and working environment." "When you engage with your friend, both of you adjust to mutually shared socio-cultural established norms of communication,"

But you know, each of us interprets the meaning of those so-called cultural norms differently. This is why today there are violent disagreements in the U.S. concerning social and ethical and political norms.The understanding of the norms themselves differ from person to person, but normally so subtly that it appears as though those of us within a particular community(urban vs rural) united by those norms believes that we just assimilate them automatically. But even within a community of supposedly shared norms, even within a single family, there can be violent disagreements over the meaning of those 'norms'.

"If the harmony prevails, there is no place for questioning and problematization."
An ideal harmony generally does not prevail in social situations, in direct proportion to the failure of the participants to slip into the perspective of the other. This is especially true in today's political climate.

Identity politics, the #metoo movement, #blacklivesmatter, are just some examples of the way we on the one hand recognize each others' differences more effectively over time, and yet fail to understand why those who we blame fail to live up to our standards.
Most of the philosophical underpinnings of these movements, particularly marxist ones, contain an underlying moralism that drives the blamefulness of their rhetoric. A Foucaultian-Deleuzian account
avoids the moralistic-blame of emancipatory positions because it doesnt try to organize thought around a developmental telos. And yet, it still blames in the sense of pointing a finger at arbitrary sources of conditioning. We are 'shaped by', 'adjust to', 'conditioned by' the affect, social, physical worlds.
Relevance, significance is not what conditions you and me , but what you and I interpret uniquely within what would supposedly 'condition' us.

Thank you dear friend for believing in defending my honor.
However, I was mistaken in looking for someone to defend my honor when I am the only one that can or will.
Once again it came down to my error of placing an "expectation" on someone other than myself.

It's very difficult to disagree with the OP due to how it's framed. Everyone will agree that inappropriate emphasis should not be given to inappropriate outrage, and everyone will agree that appropriate emphasis should be given to appropriate outrage. As eloquently as you've defended your position VagabondSpectre, it boils down to the selective use of a tautology as a cudgel - or as an inert lamentation. Something like a political Barnum statement, people will fill up the OP with examples which are great for them; everyone can agree entirely within their own selection criterion; which ultimately reflects their personal preferences and ideological standpoint. — fdrake

It's true. I had to write the OP in a way that everyone could relate to, else it would just read like my own bias. It's not just that I think we're too outraged about things we ought not be, it's that we're too outraged in general, and that this is having complicated effects. In some cases we're too outraged, in others we're not outraged enough (due to exhaustion; outrage's inflation). The #MeToo movement has some good and some bad effects (some overreactions, some justice) and the awareness of sexual assault that it creates is a good thing, but being amplified so loudly and repeated so frequently has had adverse effects as well. Men's rights groups (which are also a mixed bag of good and bad) and conservative apologists perceive the new environment as the persecution of men and are hardening to the issue (Dr. Ford's testimony was brushed aside as single drop in an ocean of public accusations).

So yeah, as much as social media can be little more than a vector for invective, they're a universal message amplifier by design. If we're apportioning blame to Twitter for normalising outrage about Donald Trump's sexual misconduct, I'd put a hefty chunk of the blame on the way the algorithms work. Hashtag Trump aggregates all the nuances into an already dismissible narrative (FAKE NEWS, like what our OPs brand inappropriate outrage), and longer messages (what, 250 characters is long?) are harder to hear at the same time as their echoes. — fdrake

They're a universal simplifier, but as you say, what gets more clicks gets even more clicks. A small disparity of initial clicks leads to vastly increased exposure in the long run. If we're even slightly more interested in the negative, the salacious, and the outrageous, then they will be vastly over-represented in the mainstreams; social media is a biased amplifier. The disproportionate amplification is I think is a main cause of the overall problem, and looks to persist well into the foreseeable future.

Did Nick literally say he didn't believe you or did he say "you're overreacting" or something similar?

In any case, I'd go for entrapment. Next time you meet with this guy you tell Nick beforehand that if he touches you inappropriately again you will loudly say something about it and knee him in the groin if he doesn't listen and that you demand he's behind you 100% if and when that happens. Possibly involving him kicking the shit out of that guy to defend your honour.

https://www.gocomics.com/ziggy/1973/05/28

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.

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. — Baden

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.

You're fighting the he said / she said fight that is consuming everyone right now. My point is that it may not be helpful to the metoo movement to fight that fight unless it can be won in a convincing manner, and that doesn't appear to be the case here.

The enormous scale of this situation is the problem. The Supreme Court is on the line, the midterms are on the line, the House of Rep and thus the Presidency are on the line. And, the claims being made are arriving at a very precise political moment. Nobody said anything about any of this for 35 years, until the exact moment at which the claims would have maximum political impact.

I'm not evaluating Ford's motivations, which I'm not in a position to know. I'm evaluating how all of this looks to the public at large. I'm evaluating the branding impact this event will have on the metoo movement. And whatever the reality of the situation may really be, it LOOKS very much like a political smear job.

Rightly or wrongly, justly or not, whatever the hard facts may actually be...

The metoo movement is now going to be heavily associated with political smear jobs and other agendas which have little to do with achieving justice for victims.

This situation could be radically changed for the better if hard evidence to support the claims could be delivered. Maybe that will happen, and I'd welcome that. If hard evidence could be put on the table then the perception would change to this situation really being about defending injured victims.

In case it matters, I'm a Bernie Sanders liberal geezer hippy commie pinko. :smile: I definitely don't want this guy on the court. I'm not defending the nominee, but the metoo movement.

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'm not going to argue with you about your presumptions about #metoo as that's irrelevant to anything I've said. — Baden

Or rather, inconvenient to what you've said.

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.

See, those [the business with e-mail you mentioned] are the kinds of reasons that I would like to see for disqualifying a candidate to a nominated federal office. And I want the disqualifying acts to have been investigated and proven. Alleging that someone stole e-mails is not sufficient to act upon. I could allege that someone is a Russian spy, operates a child pornography studio, robs banks, or anything else. Why would anyone believe me? They would believe me if they felt I was a font of truth, if they felt they were obligated to believe me, or they felt compelled by their perception of public opinion to believe me, or at least create the impression that they believed me.

They could disbelieve me for similar reasons, and disbelief would be as valid as belief IF for the reasons just stated.

So it is, if someone is alleged to have have behaved inappropriately (whatever that means), the accusation should be ignored unless the accuser can come up with creditable evidence (like rape kit evidence, official photographs of the injuries (bruises, cuts, bleeding, witnesses to the acts, fingerprints, etc). If there isn't any evidence, then there isn't any evidence. That may be regrettable or highly inconvenient, but the lack of evidence can not be corrected by vehement insistence that an unsupported accusation be taken as truth.

#metoo is not the first or only instance of this sort of thing in the US, or elsewhere.

Jake, you need to go read the details of the case before commenting. — Baden

You need to stop claiming to be the morally superior holy roller expert on the subject, because you certainly are not. As example...

She told her therapist she was assaulted before any of the recent political events. — Baden

She told her therapist, but nobody who could actually do anything to remove the alleged rapist as a threat to the public. This lack of action was a public statement that what maybe happened to her was not really that big of a deal.

She allowed him to become a lawyer, a high ranking public official in the Bush administration, a judge. 35 years of opportunity to right the wrong that she perceives. 35 years of opportunity to protect the rest of us from someone she sees as being seriously flawed. A single police report would have probably ended Kavanaugh's career before it ever started, but instead, for 35 years she chose to ignore us.

She had a right to ignore us. But we also have a right to review this record documenting a lack of concern for the rest of us, and find her credibility weak.

Plus, she asked Feinstein that the information remain confidential. — Baden

She contacted her congresswoman with the intention of her story having an influence upon a major political decision, a fact I see you are intent to ignore. She willfully entered the political process, and is now being evaluated by that process. It's reasonable for people in that process to evaluate her claim as not being useful, given that she brings little to the table other than a claim.

Look Baden, I'm all for crime victims bringing their stories in to the public political realm. I spent a year of my life facilitating that very process. But this is not how you go about it.

As the mod of philosophy forum, and a normally sensible commentator, you should be able to realize that if we accept claims without evidence, then the credibility of all claims are undermined. Such a process is not helpful to the #metoo movement.

If we accept claims without evidence, it's only a matter of time until others begin fabricating claims in order to get money, fame etc, and then nobody will believe anything.

Ford should be allowed to tell her story under oath, not that this will accomplish anything more than boosting TV ratings. She should be respected as a person (unless it can be proven she's lying). But after that, she sucks as a witness, and is basically wasting our time.

You don't get to use #metoo to discredit my arguments. Period. If you want to address my points, do so. — Baden

I am addressing your points. And please recall two things, we have the same goal, and I've invested a ton of my own personal time in serving as a political advocate for crime victims, and was part of a process of changing a major public safety law here in Florida.

You're getting carried away, as is pretty much the entire culture right now, and that getting carried away is a threat to the #metoo movement. If anybody can be declared a victim simply by making a claim, eventually none of the claims will be seen as credible.

Let's assume Dr. Ford is a victim, that her claim is true. She is of course within her rights to talk about that, or keep it private. But if she wishes to use her personal experience to comment upon public policy, she's regrettably gone about that in an unhelpful manner. No police report, no public statements about her experience until the very last minute of a highly charged political decision 35 years after the alleged crime etc.

Whether she is a victim or not we can wish her well, but we can't use her as a model of how crime victims should influence public policy with their personal stories.

Yet you continue to ignore Blasey Ford, the victim's interests — Baden

She is a victim, at this point, of an unproven accusation, an accusation that will most likely stay that way. #metoo and Blasey Ford make an accusation and you (you being a very big plural here, not the singular referring to Moderator Baden) automatically assume grave harm was done. Maybe it wasn't.

Baden scores 10 points from #metoo. — Bitter Crank

What seems to be under appreciated is that the #metoo movement, a very just cause, is threatened by sloppy standards and a rush to jump on a politically correct bandwagon. — Jake

You don't get to use #metoo to discredit my arguments. Period. If you want to address my points, do so. If you want to criticise #metoo, do it in a discussion about #metoo. And standing up for victims of sexual abuse, especially child victims, has nothing to do with political correctness either. It's what's known as common decency.

Crime victims need to keep in my mind that, however difficult it may be, they have a civic responsibility to report crimes to the police because failing to do so puts other people at risk. If they fail to fulfill that responsibility, their credibility is naturally going to take a hit, and maybe it should. — Jake

She was fifteen, and most likely very scared and traumatised. But let's blame her rather than criticise the abuser. Again, all your post demonstrates is a lack of empathy for the victims of these crimes. It does zero in terms of analysis.

At this point the case is one person's version versus another persons version, delayed by 35 years time. There is no way to prove very much about this case. You believe women. Baden scores 10 points from #metoo. — Bitter Crank

Casting my vote for this.

What seems to be under appreciated is that the #metoo movement, a very just cause, is threatened by sloppy standards and a rush to jump on a politically correct bandwagon.

Crime victims need to keep in my mind that, however difficult it may be, they have a civic responsibility to report crimes to the police because failing to do so puts other people at risk. If they fail to fulfill that responsibility, their credibility is naturally going to take a hit, and maybe it should.

Plus, the idea that some privileged elite who has an accusation leveled at him is being treated worse than a 15-year-old who thought she was being raped is severely wrongheaded. — Baden

Oh yes, it's a classist thing, where privileged elite folks ought have less sympathy than those who happened not to be so lucky. I have a sneaky suspicion she too didn't have too many financial struggles during her upbringing, as if that matters.

Does the accused suddenly have the right not to be prosecuted much later? Nazi war criminals were prosecuted long after the war. The only people that objected to that were Nazis. — Baden

You reference Republican hysteria but then your next sentence actually attempts to draw an analogy between sexual assault and genocide, as if they're at all comparable. You appear far more hysterical than me or the Republicans.

Anyhow, let's see, why might your analogy be flawed? Could it be perhaps that genocide is a far more serious crime than sexual assault at a party?

The reason there exists statutes of limitations in criminal matters is to protect an accused from prosecution after witnesses and evidence have been lost when the government could have prosecuted the case earlier. In the case of the Nazis, one reason the government didn't prosecute the Nazis earlier is because it was the government that was committing the crime. I suppose Eichmann could have argued that he ought be freed because the Germans failed to prosecute him earlier when they had a chance, and then the Nuremberg judges could have tried to make sense of that argument, just like I'm trying to make sense of your argument.

See above. There is no right to get away with crimes just because you weren't caught quickly enough except in cases where statutes of limitations apply. — Baden

Again, your comparison of Senate confirmations hearings with Nuremberg. Just withdraw this argument. It's nonsense.

My reference was to the political nature of this whole affair. All we have are competing claims. She says it happened and he says it didn't. They both have plenty of motivation to lie. The consequences of his confirmation will be devastating to the left, and the consequences to him personally will be devastating on the other side of this coin.

And let's not pretend that she came forward now only because she felt safe with the #metoo movement. She told Feinstein back in July about her claims and Feinstein revealed it just before the confirmation vote. Feinstein's motive was to block a candidate for the Supreme Court she doesn't like. She doesn't give a damn about that girl.

It's odd that it takes a potential prosecution of an elite conservative to bring out your concerns about a justice system that is highly weighed against the poor and unprivileged. — Baden

Why because I'm part of the elite? I was pretty much a middle class kid who went to public school (and public means government funded in the US, which I understand is oddly the opposite in the UK), we took exotic trips in our station wagon to the Georgia coast every year, and I don't remember any country clubs. But, whatever. I thought the Clarence Thomas lynching was just as bad, and yet he was hardly from an elite background.

This is an aside also. It's an ad hom. I guess I could tell you that your only motivation in holding your position is because of your disdain of those elite country club kids who you looked upon with envy from your hovel as a child.

I think no one, from the right or the left, suggests there ought be a dissolution of the distinction between juveniles and adults. We all understand that kids lack capacity to make decisions that can effect the rest of their lives, and for that reason they are treated as protected citizens, incapable of fully engaging in society. Juvenile records are sealed usually because we don't want the sins of youth to destroy one's life. I generally think that's a good thing. My guess is that you do too. As I've said, and which no one can answer, is how do you think he could be prosecuted now as an adult for a juvenile offense? You can't wait for someone to turn of age and then prosecute them as an adult. That's not how it works. A 17 year old who commits murder and who is tried as a juvenile can only remain in custody through age 21. Children are children. Do you really not see an absurdity of prosecuting a 52 year old for his actions when he was 15, or do you really consider your Nazi analogy that persuasive?

Baden scores 10 points from #metoo. — Bitter Crank

I don't fully believe anyone, but in my judgment her telling the truth is the most likely scenario, and I gave reasons why. Reasons that nobody has questioned so far, incidentally. So, let's not get up on a cranky horse about the #metoo movement. That's not the issue here. If you want to ask me about my position on that, start a thread on it.

I've never been enthusiastic about people's sexual activities being weighed up for political and professional judgment. That's a very old-fashioned attitude now. — Bitter Crank

The issue is about criminal sexual activities, not all sexual activities. Sexual assault and attempted rape are criminal offenses. That's what he's being accused of. If he likes to wank off his pet dog in his spare time, that's fine by me. Couldn't care less.

How far back should we go to hold people accountable? There was underage drinking going on in that house. There are adults who were responsible for obtaining, making available, or not protecting the teenagers from alcohol. Are you in favor of leveling charges against them 35 years later? If not, why not? — Bitter Crank

No, because I don't care. Why would I? And you asking that question makes me wonder if you've been drinking, frankly. I mean do you think holding down a 15-year-old girl, groping her, and trying to rip her clothes off while holding your hand over her mouth is as insignificant as buying a drink for someone who is underage? What are you trying to say? And please put down your drink while you type your reply in case you spill it all over the keyboard.

If he had come out and admitted it and apologized in an appropriate manner, I might agree that it might not be disqualifying. But what he is doing now by, if it is true, is lying about it and putting his victim through further punishment, which absolutely is disqualifying. — Baden

At this point the case is one person's version versus another persons version, delayed by 35 years time. There is no way to prove very much about this case. You believe women. Baden scores 10 points from #metoo.

It would not surprise me if the boys behaved badly toward the girl. People (males, females) often behave badly.

Kavanaugh could have offered a strategic apology, but he said he didn't do it and is sticking with his story.

I've never been enthusiastic about people's sexual activities being weighed up for political and professional judgement. That's a very old-fashioned attitude now. Franken should not have resigned, should not have been excoriated by the Democratic Party. John F. Kennedy's presidency shouldn't be judged on how many women were procured for him. All this goes for a quite a few other politicians. There are better grounds to reject Kavanaugh (and probably everybody else Trump appoints) than teenage misbehavior. If we were going to hang Donald Trump, he should be convicted on grounds of endangering the nation -- not on being sexually crude and licentious.

How far back should we go to hold people accountable? There was underage drinking going on in that house. There are adults who were responsible for obtaining, making available, or not protecting the teenagers from alcohol. Are you in favor of leveling charges against them 35 years later? If not, why not?

Actually, there are two #Metoo threads, and the administration (me) got them mixed up. Your one is in politics and current affairs now. — Baden

No worries, Thank you for the movement of the thread.

Actually, there are two #Metoo threads, and the administration (me) got them mixed up. Your one is in politics and current affairs now.