New SCOTUS Judge II: The Wrath of Kavanaugh

[phiwum]

Good. This will push the narrative that women and men who respect the rights of women cannot get justice from a Supreme Court with Kavanagh on it. It's important people understand that. The continued investigation will also keep Kavanagh front and center in the news media, likely making his life and his family's life in the DC area unbearable. There's always the faint hope he will be so harassed and humiliated that he'll want to leave the bench.

I'm sorry, but are you sincerely hoping that the lives of his children are made intolerable?

I don't even think Kavanaugh himself is evil. He's not appropriate for the Supreme Court and he might have done some awful things in his youth (though I can't be positive), but I doubt he's evil.

I am certain that his children don't deserve your fantasy.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

In 2000, the majority of Americans grudgingly respected the Supreme Court's deciding to hand the Presidency to Bush.

If we get into a similarly tight race in 2020, the Supreme Court won't have the credibility necessary to support a Republican over a Democratic win.

 

[Craig4]

I'm sorry, but are you sincerely hoping that the lives of his children are made intolerable?

I don't even think Kavanaugh himself is evil. He's not appropriate for the Supreme Court and he might have done some awful things in his youth (though I can't be positive), but I doubt he's evil.

I am certain that his children don't deserve your fantasy.

His wife and children are unfortunate casualties and certainly asked for none of this. However, Kavanagh is an attempted rapist and he, knowing this was in his background chose to put his family through this. He had to know this would come out. It's unfortunate but that shouldn't stop a full-blown character assassination of him.

 

[applecorped]

By all credibility necessary!!

 

[acbytesla]

The interesting thing to me is that as my life has gone on, I've seen America grow more and more liberal (in the true sense of the word, not left/right, but I mean tolerant). Issues that are considered major controversies now were not even a possibility when I was young. Gay marriage was a scare tactic used by conservatives to warn of what was at the bottom of the slippery slope. Transgender issues? Wasn't even a thing. Now we have legal weed in some states, porn novels as best sellers and hit movies, sexual harassment laws that actually punish people for sexual harassment. We've had a black president. A woman has gotten the majority vote in a presidential campaign, and a Jew has gotten the majority vote as vice-president. Those things could not have happened when I was young.

And through it all, the panic about the evil conservatives who will destroy our way of life has gotten more and more strident and over the top. You would think that we were living in some theocratic nightmare of a country because some people, and now almost certainly a majority of the court, thinks that a cake baker should be allowed to turn down customers in certain, very limited, circumstances.


There will be some rollback, temporarily, but, really, it won't be that bad.

The liberal left has been winning the culture wars for 50 years and losing the equity wars all that time. I agree, that the war for homosexual rights is basically over. But at the same time simple income fairness has been a disaster.

The Republicans have been demonizing Gays, Blacks and immigrants my entire life but the people in power in the Republican party could care less about those issues. The culture war is merely a diversionary battle cry to rally their boot soldiers. Everything is always a call to the past where everyone you knew were the same color and everybody fell in line, where they felt comfortable. In the meantime the wealthy have been accumulating wealth at a staggering pace and everyone is getting sodomized.

 

[angrysoba]

Come on, GOP! You have plenty of other candidates. Kavanaugh surely cannot be the best you can do! Really? There’s no one else without credible stories of attempted rape in their bio?

 

[acbytesla]

In 2000, the majority of Americans grudgingly respected the Supreme Court's deciding to hand the Presidency to Bush.

No they didnt.

f we get into a similarly tight race in 2020, the Supreme Court won't have the credibility necessary to support a Republican over a Democratic win.

LMAO. Now that's funny.

As if they care.

 

[Mumbles]

You know, some folks defended your bizarre fantasy as mere hyperbole. You could've done them a favor by not doubling down.

He's absolutely right.

Just to be clear, Travis' first post wasn't some incredible hyperbole. It was just a worst case scenario, and the snooty show you're making here, is exactly the sort of attitude that would allow it to happen.

There are quite a few ways for the people of the US to actually fight back against nonsense, but if they just bow their heads every time as you seem to desire...then we're done for.

 

[Mumbles]

Just a question...and if you tell rape jokes, or you're a white supremacist, don't bother replying.

When you go to family gatherings, and talk to that racist uncle, or that kid that claims that he "supports" rights, but votes against them to "pwn the libs".

Y'know, the stories you tell to contrast yourself, to say that you're "one of the good ones".

What have you done to actually change those uncles and nephews? I told you, running up to the election of 2016, you need to do more to change their thinking. So that they won't burn their own healthcare, see their own bridges fall, just to make sure black people, Hispanic people, LGBT people, suffer worse.

As the oldest male in a large black family, I know what I've been teaching my family, but it seems like some of you are only now realizing what was easily predictable.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

So is Senator On-This-The-Day-Of-My-Daughter's-Wedding flying back in for the vote?

I was just thinking that if the Democrats wanted to play the game like the Republicans do, they'd let the vote proceed quietly with McConnell thinking he has a safe 50 votes, then Manchin would change his vote to 'no' and Kavanaugh would be sunk.

[ETA] Regarding the hyperbole argument, I'm pretty sure that on the day of Trump's election someone warning that he'd start locking immigrant kids in concentration camps while deporting their parents as a warning to others would also have been dismissed as hyperbole, yet here we are. IT CAN HAPPEN.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

America has always been a country with different parts running at different speeds.
Republicans seem to be proud to be the slowest.

 

[autumn1971]

I think there is precisely 0% chance of removal. Impeachment from the House would be a tiny possibility, but no chance of actual removal.

The current piece of **** of the United States told us that there’s a second Amendment chance.

 

[Meadmaker]

He's absolutely right.

Just to be clear, Travis' first post wasn't some incredible hyperbole. It was just a worst case scenario, and the snooty show you're making here, is exactly the sort of attitude that would allow it to happen. There are quite a few ways for the people of the US to actually fight back against nonsense, but if they just bow their heads every time as you seem to desire...then we're done for.

I disagree.

The "snooty show" is exactly what will prevent it from happening. There are plenty of people, including me and Phiwum, and most of the rest of the country, that finds Travis' scenario so incredibly unthinkable that as soon as we took steps in that direction, there would be uproar.

Yes, politicians might try it. In the case of the Supreme Court, they might remove protections that are found in the "penumbras and emanations" of the constitution. If that happens, then people will have to get busy with their legislators to restore them. If they were to actually go after the stuff that everyone understands is really protected, the people putting on the "snooty show" will be the very people organizing to fight it.

Don't worry. We aren't complacent. For my part, it's just that I've seen so many changes happen so quickly in my lifetime that I am pretty sure there's a clear trend, even if there's occasionally some small retrenchment and step back toward the old days. The weird phenomenon that I was referring to earlier is that as things have been liberalized, the demonization of the conservatives has grown more and more strident. When I was young, a person calling for legalization of gay marriage would either be considered a kook or someone who was trying to overthrow America. Today, someone who won't bake a cake for a gay wedding is someone who has to be thrown out of business. Meanwhile, those who think it might be ok if some people have to go to a different baker are, we are told, taking us on the road to Dachau. It has gotten so strident that it appears to many of us that those who profess to support liberalism have actually become quite illiberal.

 

[phiwum]

His wife and children are unfortunate casualties and certainly asked for none of this. However, Kavanagh is an attempted rapist and he, knowing this was in his background chose to put his family through this. He had to know this would come out. It's unfortunate but that shouldn't stop a full-blown character assassination of him.

I don't consider him an attempted rapist, though I think the preponderance of evidence may be against him.

Supposing he's an attempted rapist,I wish his children no ill. They did nothing wrong.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I disagree.

The "snooty show" is exactly what will prevent it from happening. There are plenty of people, including me and Phiwum, and most of the rest of the country, that finds Travis' scenario so incredibly unthinkable that as soon as we took steps in that direction, there would be uproar.

No there won't. Do you have any idea how many incredibly unthinkable things have happened recently? If you were going to uproar, you'd already have done it. Instead you'll keep telling yourself that it's still technically better than it was when you were young.

Don't worry. We aren't complacent.

Yes you are.

 

[phiwum]

I disagree.

The "snooty show" is exactly what will prevent it from happening. There are plenty of people, including me and Phiwum, and most of the rest of the country, that finds Travis' scenario so incredibly unthinkable that as soon as we took steps in that direction, there would be uproar.

Yes, politicians might try it. In the case of the Supreme Court, they might remove protections that are found in the "penumbras and emanations" of the constitution. If that happens, then people will have to get busy with their legislators to restore them. If they were to actually go after the stuff that everyone understands is really protected, the people putting on the "snooty show" will be the very people organizing to fight it.

Don't worry. We aren't complacent. For my part, it's just that I've seen so many changes happen so quickly in my lifetime that I am pretty sure there's a clear trend, even if there's occasionally some small retrenchment and step back toward the old days. The weird phenomenon that I was referring to earlier is that as things have been liberalized, the demonization of the conservatives has grown more and more strident. When I was young, a person calling for legalization of gay marriage would either be considered a kook or someone who was trying to overthrow America. Today, someone who won't bake a cake for a gay wedding is someone who has to be thrown out of business. Meanwhile, those who think it might be ok if some people have to go to a different baker are, we are told, taking us on the road to Dachau. It has gotten so strident that it appears to many of us that those who profess to support liberalism have actually become quite illiberal.

I don't disagree, so putting my name in your camp is acceptable.

I disagree that Kavanaugh should be selected, but that's another matter.

 

[Mumbles]

I disagree.

The "snooty show" is exactly what will prevent it from happening. There are plenty of people, including me and Phiwum, and most of the rest of the country, that finds Travis' scenario so incredibly unthinkable that as soon as we took steps in that direction, there would be uproar.

Those steps that you claim that you'd be in an uproar over?

They've already been taken. And y'all sat quietly. You've already failed your own test.

 

[kellyb]

There are basically no government facilities that do elective abortion. A major part of the (fairly successful) push against abortion is to limit the ability of private groups to do abortions. The majority of the push, for years, has been against these private groups you speak of. A whole lot of private clinics have been shut down.

Yes, see:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mississippi-abortion-20180308-story.html

 

[autumn1971]

You do understand, don't you, that Kavanaugh is a God-botherer?

It's too bad this forum wasn't around in 1998. It would be so amusing to compare and contrast how members viewed lying under oath, then and now.

(Psssst. The evidence that he actually lied under oath is pretty weak. He certainly painted an inaccurate picture, as if there were only a very few occasions where he might have had too many beers, but that's spin, not lies. The greatest hope for proving he lied seems to be the blackout thing, but the strongest evidence that he ever blacked out seems to be a bunch of people who saw him drink so much that he must have.)

This is wrong on so many levels. The first college that I totally washed out of (before classes even started; I suck at college,) has an honor code. The rules specified that “quibbling” or evading questions with obfuscation was exactly the same as lying. It’s what decent people (so no republicans) teach their children.

Kavenaugh had every opportunity to be a better man and refused every one. He’s a piece of **** frat-boy douchebag and a coward.

 

[Cavemonster]

I disagree.

The "snooty show" is exactly what will prevent it from happening. There are plenty of people, including me and Phiwum, and most of the rest of the country, that finds Travis' scenario so incredibly unthinkable that as soon as we took steps in that direction, there would be uproar.

I'll agree that Travis's characterization is hyperbole at best.

But I'm not so confident in the idea that outrcry would stop us before we went somewhere extreme in general.

History is crammed with societies that went from relative harmony to crazy. It happens in steps and while the end result is fascist or whatnot, each step creates a new normal like the frog boiling in the pot. Compare the rhetoric and policy of Trump to even Reagan. Regan looks like a bleeding heart liberal on a lot of policies in comparison. Look at things he said about immigration. We got there step by step. Like the frog in boiling water.

I think because at least some demographics in the US have enjoyed a level of peace and stability, we can imagine "It can't happen here". But we're not magically protected from dictatorship by slow steps.

I do think this administration and their supporters have some pretty scary goals. While this one seat on the SC is not the bright line in the sand, if they replace RBG, and the following continues to be as rabid, and the GOP in general continue to fall in line, and the executive branch continues their perspective that they are above the law and norms, then we may be headed for a place uglier than we might imagine people would go along with.

To make the obvious Godwin, Germany didn't look like they'd leap right into concentration camps when Hitler first came to power. We can say it was happeneing with the benefit of hindsight, but we can also seehow new norms step by step changed a society greatly.

But it's not as though the Nazis were totally unique in that. We can look to Syria, Mexico, Spain, pretty much every country in South America, and on and on. Slides into despotism are common.

I hope that's not the case here, but I don't think we're special and that it can't happen here.