By Kris Mead
The level of straight face lying has reached an exorbitant level
in the last two years. Just this past week America had a potential Supreme
Court Judge, Brett Kavanaugh, refute his alleged claims of sexual assault
against him by sharing with the Senate Judiciary Committee his high school
calendars, which ironically, marked the days in which he planned to drink … underage.
However, he was quick to note that he never drank “too much” and never had a
lapse in memory from drinking (right …). What was even more amazing was the
very fact that Americans, “hardworking Americans,” believed Brett over the
alleged victim – Dr. Ford.
Ford has nothing to gain from making this accusation and
providing her testimony to the Committee, other than providing the American
people a fair assessment of Judge Kavanaugh’s character. Kavanaugh will not
have any criminal charges pressed against him from Ford’s testimony and Ford
will not receive any sort of civil award for damages.
One set of Americans who side with Brett Kavanaugh but must
desperately fight their moral conscience to do so are women. These types of
Americans seem to suggest defenses such as, “everyone does stupid things in
high school” or “I wouldn’t want someone looking back 35 years into my past”
are legitimate. Their defenses don’t refute that Judge
Kavanaugh committed sexual assault, but rather they try to rationalize
committing sexual assault with say, “teepeeing Johnny’s house.” The latter is
something that immature youths commit, while the former is an egregious act
that is not only immoral and outright disgusting, but is a felony.
The other kind of defense that many Americans have used is
to first rationalize Kavanaugh’s actions, and then, second, go after Dr. Ford’s
credibility. The first attack that
Kavanaugh supporters use against Ford is the fact that, “why did something
that happened 35 years ago, and was alleged to be so terrible, just now become
public knowledge?” This attack demonstrates that the attacker lacks information
about women who have been sexually assaulted and, more importantly, women who
have been sexually assaulted by men who had resources (i.e. rich, white men). These
victims tend not to report. According to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, in 2016 only 23 percent of victims of sexual assault or rape
reported these incidents to authorities. The reasoning for not reporting is
usually due to fear that the victim will experience retaliation, especially if
the alleged perpetrator is well known or comes from a wealthy family. It was
also found in a report by the Rape, Abuse, & Incest, National, Network
(“RAINN”) that, between 2010-2014, out of every 1,000-sexual assault
perpetrators, 994 walked free.
The other attack that they use against Ford is “she was
probably drinking at the party and so was no angel either.” Yet this is again
trying to rationalize attempted rape with underage drinking. If these linear
thinking apologists were to actually listen to Dr. Ford’s extremely detailed
testimony, they would realize she was not asking to have sex. Consensual
sex does not typically require the man to place his hand over the woman’s mouth
to stop her from screaming. Furthermore, consensual sex usually does not
require the man to have to try and rip off the girl’s clothes.
So, there is ample reason why Ford did not come forward
earlier. Also, it wasn’t that Ford had never
discussed this assault with anyone previously. It was stated that in 2012 her counselor, whom
she was seeing because of sexual assault experience, noted that Ford told her
she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh in high school. Also, Ford told
her husband in the same time. Ford repeated her claims in 2013 during a
counseling session.
Finally, what these hearings have established are not only
the partisanship and level of indecency that has engulfed the Republican Party
(remember this was the party that was supporting a child molester for the open
Senate seat in Alabama … luckily he lost … barely), but the white male
privilege which has been in American politics since its onset. Although it would appear that women have made
strides in government, it still seems that with a flip of a switch white men
can still force their will and do so unapologetically. Also, what is sickening,
is the fact that the Republicans just need a simple majority to get their “guy”
on the bench. The fact that they will refuse to withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination
and select another far-right judge is due to two fears. The first fear being
that the Republicans would be politically embarrassed. In other words, by
taking away Kavanaugh’s nomination, they would essentially be saying that,
“yes, this guy is too far gone and we were wrong to select him.” The other
issue is the Republicans are afraid that they may very well lose Congress in
the midterms. So, by having to go through a whole new nomination process, they
may not get Republican dominant hearing before the elections.
Both of those points only matter if the Republicans set
aside their morals, which they haven’t done on numerous occasions. For if the
Republicans listened to their morals, they would realize that Kavanaugh is a
lying scum bag of a man. In his “firing” rebuke on Thursday Kavanaugh sounded
like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Rush Limbaugh as he decided to claim
that all these allegations were some sort of left wing conspiracy and a
“Clinton revenge.” In Brett’s opening lines he displayed that he is not a
neutral jurist, but rather a deeply slanted, right wing ideolog who most likely
will decide law, not based on the facts, but based on his conservative and
nonexistent morals. Kavanaugh is a man who is adamantly opposed to an FBI
investigation, into the alleged claims of sexual assault, but at the same time
professes he is completely innocent. In turn, because the hearing is not a
criminal trial, the “burden of proof” is not that of “beyond a reasonable
doubt” but just a mere “preponderance of the evidence.” With that burden of
proof measure, there seems to be enough character doubt against Kavanaugh that
he should not be deciding cases and enforcing law against the American public,
and especially not deciding law against American woman. For if Kavanaugh had no
problem trying to rip a woman’s pants off, he surely would have no problem deciding
women’s rights, as it appears he doesn’t believe they have any. So yes, people
do “dumb things in high school”, but as the old saying goes, “some people don’t
change from high school.” Kavanaugh may have grown up, but he is still that
rich, entitled, kid from suburban D.C., who is unaccustomed to not getting his
way. It’s a shame Republicans, even with all their Bible belt rallies, can’t
find any morals to stand on. What they have found is under the culture of
Trump, when the moral high ground is an impediment to maintaining power, bypass
the high ground, feign righteous indignation, but by all means, keep the power!
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