Megan Garber: "Brett Kavanaugh And The Revealing Logic Of 'Boys Will Be Boys'"

   Garber is--as should go without saying--right that 'boys will be boys' isn't a good defense. That's not exactly what Miller wrote, but what he wrote was in the vicinity. It's rightfully derided.
   But Garber simply ignores the obvious and unavoidable central issue: that the accusation is merely an accusation. If you were asked to bet your life...or even your house...or even your car...one way or the other, you'd probably be more circumspect than you are just shooting your keyboard off on the internet. The accusations are long-standing, and the accuser seems to have been reluctant to make them public. And it's the kind of thing there's usually no corroboration for. Though in this case...there is alleged to have been a witness.
   One can't help but cast one's mind back to the Anita Hill affair...and the truth did emerge there, though several years late. I basically just believed Hill, and thought it was an outrage. I still remember one of my housemates...female, and a dancer...reluctantly telling me that she basically thought I was full of shit, on the grounds that sexual banter was a harmless fact of life...everywhere but the philosophy department... I was basically accidentally right to believe Hill...and I still kinda think I was right that Thomas's actions were outrageous...but I do now appreciate more that the philosophy department isn't a place filled with normal people....
   Which really has nothing much to do with the Kavanaugh allegations. I don't have the foggiest idea what to believe. So I guess I defer to the wisdom of the ages, and don't believe the accusations, barring the production of some further support. Kavanaugh's friend allegedly witnessed the alleged incident... So that's something rather than nothing.
   Incidentally, both sexual assailants and false accusers belong in in a fairly deep circle of hell. Though I guess that the former already are supposed to end up in the seventh circle, what with them being violent and all. Does a false accusation count as fraud? Because, if so, that'd actually put false accusers one level below the assailants. Weird.