My career has me spending a lot of time inside Fortune 1,000 corporations (25 years in management consulting). Most of the ones I have seen from the inside take diversity seriously, both in how they market and in how they hire. A long time ago, I think that was mostly regulatory compliance and fear of being sued. But it’s not that anymore. It’s competition for talent, and a recognition that you simply can’t write off most of the population as candidates if you want to prosper.
That doesn’t mean it’s done. The C-Suite/ Boardroom tends to be a lot more white and male than middle management. But there absolutely is movement. More importantly, it’s movement driven by commercial advantages, which makes it immune to political and regulatory changes.
If corporations are where the money (and political speech) comes from, the GOP’s focus on how much they hate browns is going to hurt them in the long term. That does not align with what I see as the public faces or internal values of the business world. Not anymore.
I understand and there clearly is a place for both Federal government to pass legislation and the courts to step in. Civil rights is the text book example. Both as matters of justice and practically, it would be chaos if 40 states recognized gay or interracial marriage but 10 didn’t. But I think relying on the Federal government or Federal court system to achieve social change as the first place to go and not that states is generally a bad idea.
I’ve used this example before, but … It took 50 years from the Wyoming to give woman the right to vote and the first unsuccessful court case until the 19th amendment was passed and every woman had the right to vote. But when it passed most states had already given woman the right to vote and it wasn’t controversial. Roe V Wade is 45 year old now and were are just as divided about abortion now as were in 1973. I believe that if states had been allowed to legislation for another 20 or 30 years, and then the courts or Federal government had stepped in would still be pro-choice but it would far less contentious.
Except it’s not really that clear is it? The same states that demand and even threaten to have their state rights, and no on interfere with them, will do everything in their power to try and force the federal government to stop the state rights of other states when it’s something they don’t like.
Your entire approach seems to rely on the blue states being blue while at the same time, the Republicans are not only doing everything they can, including drafting literally unconstitutional maps to keep red states red, they keep putting out bills to break up blue states so they can have more red states.
It is not reasonable to bank the entire fate of the country on blue states who have to spend time and their effort and their energy and everything just to allow the voting population to vote, to keep the states together, and to make sure humans in the United States of America are treated like humans, regardless of their ethnicity, their religion, their race or sex or any other category that allows the Republicans to point at them and say, you don’t like your life, you don’t like your income or your wealth, you don’t like having to stop being a racist piece-of-shit, here is your Other to blame.
No. I am not onboard with let the red states do whatever the hell they want and hope the blue states hold it all together train. We had that war. The South lost and because everyone was so concerned about reminding the losers they were the actual losers, we’re still fighting the same damn fights today. Perhaps when that fight is over and acknowledged we can approach it different, but today the sheriffs, the redrawing the maps, the attempts to suppress the vote, the make everyone without a R next to their name some sort of enemy combatant, like claiming actual violence… we already know what the red states will do under their own devices; they’re doing it right now because our Federal government has an anything for an undefined win mentality and as far as they are concerned, that’s their winning team down there.
There is something to be said for the fact that kids so stupid things and we do generally forgive them.
I dunno about this, but Tom Nichols pointed out, rightly, that if this is the way we are going to judge folks, be ready to have it applied to people you don’t already hate.
And folks you like are gonna have stuff dug up about them. Some of them are going to have done some bad things.
I am 100% certain I have not tried to rape anyone, and I have not committed murder. And if those were two actions that were part of my past, and I was allowed by society to be free, I would not attack my victims and would live out the rest of my life in penance. And penance is not the the privilege and social standing of a Supreme Court Judge of this United States of America.
He’s not asking for forgiveness here, and he’s being placed in a position of trust while, perhaps, lying, in doing so.
Don’t lie about to Congress, perhaps? A whole lot easier to brush, “youthful indiscretions” off if you aren’t on record flatly denying they ever occurred.
You know what, if the man was black, there’s a good chance that he would not have only paid for his attempted crime, as in jail time, but he wouldn’t be anywhere close to the seat of a judge.
It’s already that way for a lot of people… and it’s not consistent, today.
There is nothing normal or minor about young men trying to rape women, and no, you don’t get to brush it under the rug sending a message to everyone that you can force yourself on women until 18 and then not worry about it anymore. Also, don’t fucking lie to Congress.
And it does. What is your point. There a lot of kids out there with trespassing, shoplifting and MIPs. They don’t magically get their records expunged, and you know no matter how you come back with how that’s not fair, or how society shouldnt’ do that, well they do and… we can hold our Supreme Court Judges to a higher standard. We should absolutely hold them to higher standards. He can’t tell everyone how he grew from the incident or anything of the kind because instead of telling the truth he went and got his binder full of women, just in case…
I mean, that’s a thing. Most states allow you to have your criminal record expunged when you become an adult. Different places have different rules, but in general most jurisdictions do operate under the notion that crimes committed as a minor often shouldn’t be part of someone’s permanent record.
But again, I’m not saying any of this to change your mind, or saying that your feelings here are wrong.
It’s not automatic nor is guaranteed. And it is still available to several databases after supposedly it is expunged. How familiar are you with this process?
So you’ve never actually tried to get someone through this process have you? Do you know that a number of people can’t get Financial Aid due to crimes… it’s not the magical 18 year old wand they portray on TV, and there are still groups that reach that record and deny you even if you do go through the process.
I can see an argument for ignoring offenses from 40+ years ago when applying for a mortgage. Or getting hired as a sales manager. Or even running for mayor.
But this is none of the above. A Supreme Court Justice, more than anyone else in the country (including the POTUS), is expected to be able to distinguish right from wrong.
So yeah, when it comes to the SCOTUS, choices you made as a teenager count.
If BK had admitted to it and shown or demonstrated remorse, the position that it happened three decades ago would be more tenable. However given his purposefully misleading testimony in prior testimony and then flatly denying what sounds like a credible charge now is disqualifying. As Nesrie pointed out, SCOTUS judges need to be held to a higher standard. And yes that standard should apply regardless of ideology.
