After Reading Dahlia Lithwick's Indictment Of Kavanaugh, I Believe The Accusations Against Him Even Less Than I Did Before
He was on a naughty email list!!!!!1111
Seriously, this is just about the thinnest gruel imaginable.
Now that false accusations of sexual assault and hate crimes are basically just another tool in the PC toolbox, my view is basically that a few such accusations are to be expected against any prominent man. What a surprise that a SCOTUS nominee that the left has lost its shit about should be the target of an anonymous, 11th-hour, allegedly 30-year-old accusation... Each accusation has to be treated according to its own merits, of course...but merely qua unsupported accusation...well...you know...
Honestly, I used to be strongly disposed to believe accusations of sexual assault. Either I was an idiot, or bogus accusations have simply become more common. (Note: inclusive 'or'.) One would, of course, predict that something would become more common when it is normalized and heroified. In fact, feminists have long argued that most accusations of sexual assault should be considered veridical because such shame and stigma attach to them. However, just the opposite is now the case. So, if that argument was previously sound, then it should be taken to point in the opposite direction now: now there are incentives to make accusations.
As I may have mentioned, I hate counterproductivity arguments... What's most wrong about false accusations is that they are lies that harm the innocent. But counterproductivity considerations just can't be ignored in this case. False accusations profoundly harm actual victims of such assaults as well as the innocent accused. And the cottage feminist industry that promotes and rewards false accusations, and produces nonsense about e.g. subsequent regret turning consensual sex into rape is about as despicable as any such thing could be.
And this Lithwick nonsense about naughty email lists...Jesus...what crap. We're not even talking about stuff Kavanaugh wrote or even forwarded himself...we're talking about a list he was on. That's like holding someone responsible for all the humor on a subreddit they frequent. Should we hold Lithwick responsible for all the ignorant-ass shit that Slate publishes? Should I be held responsible for it because I sometimes read the ignorant-ass shit there?
I used to carefully say things like Now, of course, this accused man might very well be guilty... But I'm not inclined to do that anymore without something more than a bare accusation.
Seriously, this is just about the thinnest gruel imaginable.
Now that false accusations of sexual assault and hate crimes are basically just another tool in the PC toolbox, my view is basically that a few such accusations are to be expected against any prominent man. What a surprise that a SCOTUS nominee that the left has lost its shit about should be the target of an anonymous, 11th-hour, allegedly 30-year-old accusation... Each accusation has to be treated according to its own merits, of course...but merely qua unsupported accusation...well...you know...
Honestly, I used to be strongly disposed to believe accusations of sexual assault. Either I was an idiot, or bogus accusations have simply become more common. (Note: inclusive 'or'.) One would, of course, predict that something would become more common when it is normalized and heroified. In fact, feminists have long argued that most accusations of sexual assault should be considered veridical because such shame and stigma attach to them. However, just the opposite is now the case. So, if that argument was previously sound, then it should be taken to point in the opposite direction now: now there are incentives to make accusations.
As I may have mentioned, I hate counterproductivity arguments... What's most wrong about false accusations is that they are lies that harm the innocent. But counterproductivity considerations just can't be ignored in this case. False accusations profoundly harm actual victims of such assaults as well as the innocent accused. And the cottage feminist industry that promotes and rewards false accusations, and produces nonsense about e.g. subsequent regret turning consensual sex into rape is about as despicable as any such thing could be.
And this Lithwick nonsense about naughty email lists...Jesus...what crap. We're not even talking about stuff Kavanaugh wrote or even forwarded himself...we're talking about a list he was on. That's like holding someone responsible for all the humor on a subreddit they frequent. Should we hold Lithwick responsible for all the ignorant-ass shit that Slate publishes? Should I be held responsible for it because I sometimes read the ignorant-ass shit there?
I used to carefully say things like Now, of course, this accused man might very well be guilty... But I'm not inclined to do that anymore without something more than a bare accusation.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:58 PM
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