Kavanaugh Hearing Conclusion

    

Tarred and Feathered

I did not watch last week’s Senate confirmation hearing that featured the dramatic confrontation between Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford who has accused him of sexually molesting her 36 years ago when she was fifteen years old at a house party. Fortunately, important matters kept me out of the house since I had no desire to listen to what has turned into a national disgrace. 

Nevertheless, on the way home my wife and I turned on the car radio right in the middle of Judge Kavanaugh’s spirited and emotional defense. Actually, I thought something might have been wrong with the reception since it seemed to keep breaking up. Only later, did I discover that it was Kavanaugh himself breaking up in tears as he defended himself from the charges.

I thought that Kavanaugh did an excellent job although it seemed obvious that nothing he said would have had any impact on the Democrat senators on the committee whose minds were made up long ago. One commentator remarked that how you felt about Roe v. Wade determined how you felt about Kavanaugh’s guilt or innocence. 

I did not hear Christine Blasey Ford present her charges but have read about her testimony and the subsequent charges that have come forward. It seems to me that it is not just a question about who is lying and who is telling the truth. It might also be instructive to consider the consequences of their versions of the truth.

I believe that it would have been the easy way out for Judge Kavanaugh to admit that as a drunken teenager he groped a fifteen-year-old and threw her on a bed at a wild house party. He did admit that he liked to drink beer, and it seems that drunken house parties were common in the high school set in which he traveled. He could even have claimed that given his semi-inebriated state, he had no recollection of the incident.

He could then have gone on to say that if foolish and shameful things he did while as a teenager were going to be held against him and disqualify him for office, then many people now in office, even in the Senate, might have to resign their positions. 

But Kavanaugh did not say that. Rather he proclaimed his innocence and argued that it was his behavior and career as an adult that should determine his qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court. Incredibly, the impassioned defense of his innocence only made his detractors more certain of his guilt. Whether Kavanaugh is confirmed or not, his reputation has been tarred for life.

On the other hand, Christine Blasey Ford’s unsubstantiated accusation has made her a national hero in the eyes of half the population. The very fact that her story cannot be substantiated also means that it can never be proved that she was lying. 

Actually, it would not matter to many of her supporters if Dr. Ford was lying or not. They firmly believe that lying and false accusations are just one weapon that they can employ if their cause is just. They can shout down and disrespect opponents whose ideas they cannot abide.

In the recent hearings was it just a senior moment that led Senator Diane Feinstein to wait six weeks to ask the FBI to investigate Dr. Ford’s letter? Why did one of Feinstein’s staffers leak the letter after Dr. Ford had requested confidentiality? Why did demonstrators seek to disrupt the hearings in the first place? Why did Yale Law students travel to Washington to protest, in effect, against due process and the right of accused to be presumed innocent until proven guilty? 

I would not be surprised if Dr. Ford went on to a new position at a more prestigious university. I would also not be surprised if book deals, lecture tours, TV appearances, and a movie are also being proposed. We just have to look at Anita Hill’s rise to fame and position after her accusations against Judge Clarence Thomas years ago. Hill is a darling of the feminist movement while Thomas serves in relative obscurity on the Supreme Court. 

###

Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings

                                          

The Senate hearings for the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court made it clear that the opposition was more than about the obvious issues. The idea that Kavanaugh’s appointment will somehow protect President Trump from impeachment is absurd. A President is charged or impeached in the House of Representatives and then tried in the Senate, not the Supreme Court.

Democrat politicians do fear that Kavanaugh would tip the balance of the court on abortion and lead to the overturn of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Roe v. Wade is not a law but a Supreme Court ruling that overturned state laws restricting or banning abortion. If the Supreme Court were to overturn that ruling, it would be up to the individual states to pass new laws banning or restricting abortion in their jurisdictions. Otherwise, women would still be free to choose abortion.

No matter what you think about abortion or Roe v. Wade, it should be clear to any fair minded person that a very large percentage of the abortions performed since the original ruling have involved black women. White women have accounted for about half of the approximately 50 Million abortions performed since 1973 but black women who make up a much smaller share of the total population have accounted for about 20 Million abortions or 40% of the total. It is clear that Roe v. Wade has played a significant role in limiting the increase of the black population in this country.

Some sociologists think that this phenomenon is a good thing and that abortion has worked to keep down the crime rate and poverty rate in the country, especially among the “lower classes.” That was certainly the objective of Margaret Sanger, the famed birth-control pioneer on the 1920s. 

Back then Sanger would not have been called a racist. She was a “eugenicist” a word derived from the so-called science of eugenics that claimed that some races and ethnic groups were inherently inferior to others. She argued that immigration from some poor countries like Italy where poverty, ignorance, superstition, immorality, and crime prevailed should be restricted. She also believed that blacks were inherently inferior, and that they should be discouraged from “breeding,” or reproducing themselves.

Eugenics provided a kind of scientific basis for laws in the South prohibiting “miscegenation”, or marriage between members of different races. They said it led to “mongrelization.” In the 1930s the Nazis in Germany became the greatest advocates of eugenics. It provided a scientific basis for policies to eliminate not only the Jews, but also any inferior racial or ethnic types. Their idea of a master race was a creation of eugenics. Of course, eugenics went out of favor after World War II and the Holocaust.

Many years ago I went to a conference where a female, black doctor predicted that abortion would eventually lead to the disappearance of the black race in America. I don’t think her prediction will come true but it is clear that abortion has kept down the population of blacks in this country.

I think the real objection to Judge Kavenaugh is that he is a white male who is also intelligent and successful. Moreover, he is also a Catholic who seems to take his faith seriously unlike many Catholics in high places today. His record as a judge is so outstanding that Democrats had to largely ignore it and ask for millions of documents in order to try to dig up some dirt. At the hearings it was obvious that critical questioners sought to demonstrate that the judge would make decisions harmful to women, blacks, and other minorities.

But why would a white racist be opposed to abortion when it is clear that it has been so successful in keeping down the black and Hispanic population in this country? You would think that racists would be all in favor of abortion. Or would it be better to say that, despite their words and intentions, the supporters of abortion today are the real racists.

During the Vice-Presidential debate before the last election, Republican candidate Mike Pence, another conservative white male, made an unabashedly Pro-Life statement, and argued that the State has an inherent interest in supporting the right to life of the most vulnerable of its citizens. He noted that as Governor he had worked hard to make Indiana a pro-adoption state. 

His opponent Tim Kaine did note that he was Catholic and proud of his Catholic heritage and education. But he argued that despite his personal opposition to abortion, he had done nothing to oppose it as Governor of Virginia, and would certainly support Hillary Clinton’s intention, if elected President, to provide federal funding for abortion.

The Democrat strategy is very cunning. They can appear to be the champions of women, especially the poor and underprivileged, but at the same time, they support measures that have kept the population of Blacks and Hispanics down. Despite contemporary left-wing rhetoric on behalf of the under-privileged, it is still outcomes or results that count. 

The young Progressives of today have been brought up viewing popular TV shows like Law and Order where the great majority of criminals are successful white males. Only rarely are the villains women, black, Hispanic or members of the LGBTQ minority. Nevertheless, the liberal creators and producers of these shows, like Harvey Weinstein of the famed Miramax studio, or Leslie Moonves of ultra-politically correct CBS, are now the ones being charged with sexual abuse of women. Despite professed good intentions, could the media support for abortion be regarded as racist? 

###