And that’s totally reasonable. Again, I’m not defending him.
This is not an opinion Timex, this is a fact. It has nothing to do with a feel. I’ve worked with youth before, haunted by their past. At 17, he probably would have been tried as an adult anyway. Do you know what that means?
You are trying give this guy rights other’s don’t even have as if he is trying to to apply to scholarship. He’s trying to be a Supreme Court Judge. And there is no reason to believe that his behavior changed since he spent more effort hiding it than overcoming it, assuming all this is true of course.
You know, i don’t think you are really that interested in understanding what I’m saying, and that’s cool. Let’s just walk away and let it go.
Sounds like maybe you need to take a breath. Once you do that, maybe you can answer a question.
Anyway, this isn’t really a new thing. In 1986, Douglas Ginsburg’s SCOTUS nomination was withdrawn because he smoked pot in the 1960s.
Isn’t this already the case, though? It’s the same dirty pool the right has been playing since Bill Clinton. And it’s gotten worse, because now if they can’t dig up something, they just manufacture it, whether it’s being born in Kenya or a cover-up for Benghazi or, hey, let’s go full-on Pizzagate. I think the right would gladly dig up the misdeeds of any Democratic minor, indiscretions or otherwise.
So, yeah, this should totally be used as a tool to keep Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court. I’m willing to accept whatever repercussions there may be, because I don’t think they’ll be any different from the way it already is.
-Tom
I’m kind of in the same boat with how I feel.
I’m fine with things like rape and murder not caring about how long ago they were. If Kavanaugh had stolen a candy bar, I would give zero fucks.
If he did it, isn’t he lying about it right now? Is he a minor right now?
(If the ‘new’ rule is if you and a friend tried to rape a girl when you were 17, that shit’s going to make you look bad, I guess I can live with that rule.)
In practice, juvenile crimes are only off the record when it’s convenient for the people in power.
E.g.
Too bad about those millions of women denied the right to vote during that 50 years, huh?
I mean, maybe in 1861 we should have been willing to wait another 100 years or so for the southern states to come to their senses and free the slaves? Surely they would have come around eventually?
I obviously missed out on a lot of critical teen culture when I was busy playing Star Control and being too shy to ask girls out.
Who among us hasn’t killed a person or two at a party when they were a teenager?
No. This is bullshit, an attempt to draw a line where none needs to be drawn. I’m perfectly capable of believing both that juveniles should not be held to the same standards as adults AND that rapists and murderers should not hold positions on the Supreme Court no matter when they committed their crimes. The Venn diagram that includes both of those positions is not hard to construct. It’s easy to think that a minor drug offense committed by a 17 year-old should be expunged, but that murder should follow someone forever. McArdle is full of a heaping pile of shit–she’s acting as a pure partisan here. One major problem with political discourse in this country is that we draw lines of principle and demand that people stand on one side or the other. In reality, many seemingly difficult ethical situations are easy to untangle by examining context. It’s obvious to be that a person who has committed murder or rape as a teenager shouldn’t be serving on the Supreme Court.
If they’ve committed (or attempted) murder or rape then fuck them. I used to like Bill Cosby. I liked Louis CK. John Edwards. Anthony Weiner. Eliot Spitzer. I can change my mind. Fuck those guys. I can also make nuanced determinations, e.g. from everything I can tell, I think Al Franken got railroaded out of office and generally didn’t do anything that really deserved more than mild disapprobation.
All this time I thought my teenage years were wild. Now it doesn’t seem so.
And here’s Rod Dreher revealing again that he’s just a partisan water carrier who should be soundly ignored for all eternity:
100% agree. I don’t see the Democrats as crossing over any line in the sand over this.
I like the irrelevant “by God’s grace (literally)” he felt compelled to shoehorn in there.
Um, we did. Or does Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement not count?
All of these cases involve multiple women coming forth and making multiple against the same guy sometimes even with pictures. If Kavanaugh attempted to rape the woman, than being a juvenile shouldn’t give him a pass. But that’s why the details matter, her or the media attempted rape, may be nothing more than drunk high school kid attempts to kiss girl at party. Making a pass at member of the opposite sex at party, while a drunken teenager certainly describes at least 1/2 the population, more guys than girls but plenty of women also.