Tea at Trianon: What About My Son In The #MeToo Era?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

What About My Son In The #MeToo Era?

From Red State:

The country’s attention has been transfixed on discussions of sexual abuse, innocence, trauma, compassion, and guilt. Two individuals, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, have been thrust into the spotlight. They’ve both experienced their share of ridicule, harassment, and threats. They’ve both been asked painful questions and we, as Americans, have reached our own conclusions.

Personally, I find Dr. Ford to be a traumatized individual. I don’t question whether she’s been abused or assaulted in the past in some way. However, according to the plain evidence before us, Judge Brett Kavanaugh does not at all appear to have been her attacker. Emotions are not fact. Suspicion is not guilt.

As I’ve watched everything unfold I have stopped to wonder more than once, “What does this eventually mean for my son?”

I’m the blessed mother of an energetic toddler boy who has brought so much joy to my life. Obviously, he is several years away from dating and meaningful romantic interactions, but that truth makes me all the more concerned. If we live in a time when women are instantly believed and men are automatically guilty, then what will the environment look like in 12-15 years?

When claims of sexual abuse and assault are made, they should be taken seriously. We owe it to males and females to consider these situations through an untainted lens and allow the facts to dictate the conclusion. There is simply no other option.

The way that things stand right now, the scales are tipped toward labeling men as guilty with no pause for the truth. The Patriarchy is a force that must be defeated and all males are to blame for sexual crimes whether they’ve committed them or not. Their inclusion in a group that so obviously sees women as nothing more than objects makes them, at the very least, an accomplice. At least, that’s what we’re told.

One major talking point that we hear repeated is the claim that 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted during their college years. Ashe Schow over at The Daily Wire has written extensively about sexual crimes. In a recent piece, she debunked several of the myths surrounding these statistics. (Read more.)

From the WSJ:

As malignant as were the campaigns against Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, even they didn’t face accusations as vile and unrelenting as the unsubstantiated charges against Brett Kavanaugh. Adding to the injustice is that the frenzy surrounding his nomination isn’t really about him.

It’s about Roe v. Wade. The 1973 Supreme Court decision upended the laws of all 50 states on behalf of a constitutional right to abortion the Constitution somehow neglects to mention. Since then, the advocates of a living Constitution posit that while our Founding document is infinitely malleable, this one ruling is fixed and sacred. Judge Kavanaugh’s great misfortune is to have been nominated at a moment when the party in opposition frets this fixed and sacred ruling could be overturned. Never mind that Chief Justice John Roberts is unlikely to acquiesce to a move that would bring down the furies on his court. Or that it’s not clear Judge Kavanaugh would be any different, having assured senators that he regards Roe as “settled” and “an important precedent” whose central holding had been reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). Or that overturning Roe still wouldn’t make abortion illegal.

The problem is that even Roe’s most ardent champions know it is devoid of legal and constitutional substance. So they know it is vulnerable to a closer look by any serious jurist, including those who are themselves pro-choice. No wonder Sen. Dianne Feinstein tweeted, “It’s not enough for Brett Kavanaugh to say that Roe v. Wade is ‘settled law.’ ” Let me translate: Nothing personal, judge. But if you won’t declare that a decision laid down by seven unelected men in robes is untouchable, we have no choice but to do whatever it takes to keep you off the high court. This is what Democrats do when they see a possible fifth vote against Roe in play.

It’s what they did in 1987 when they transformed “Bork” into a verb. It’s what they are now doing to Judge Kavanaugh. They do it with the eager help of a press that has abandoned even the pretense of objectivity, and institutions such as the American Bar Association and American Civil Liberties Union, which have betrayed their own principles in the effort to bring this man down.

In this cause, there is no room for fairness and decency. When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Sen. Mazie Hirono if Judge Kavanaugh deserved “the same presumption of innocence as anyone else” about the sexual-assault accusations against him, the Hawaii Democrat gave the game away.

“I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases,” she replied, noting he “very much is against women’s reproductive choice.”

Mr. Tapper understood instantly. “It sounds to me like you’re saying, because you don’t trust him on policy and because you don’t believe him when he says, for instance, that he does not have an opinion on Roe v. Wade, you don’t believe him about this allegation about what happened at this party in 1982” he asked.

Bingo.

Once again Antonin Scalia saw it all coming before anyone else. He laid it out in a biting dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Amid the circus the Kavanaugh nomination has become, it bears rereading. Many assume the Roman Catholic jurist’s dissent was rooted in his personal opposition to abortion. But Scalia never spoke of his own views. And his Casey dissent is something to which even the most robustly pro-choice Americans could sign their names. Far from settling the issue, Scalia wrote, Roe remains brittle because it lacks constitutional warrant. It represents the triumph of an “Imperial Judiciary” which “intensifies” the polarization over abortion by keeping the issue out of the democratic process, thus depriving the losers the compensating “satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight.” He went on. If the Supreme Court is simply to be a vehicle for choosing among competing values, in a democracy it should be the values of the voters that prevail. Thus, “confirmation hearings for new Justices should deteriorate into question and answer sessions in which Senators go through a list of their constituents’ most favored and most disfavored alleged constitutional rights.”

Today the nation marches to the beat of the dysfunctions Scalia laid out so well in his Casey dissent, to the point where we have just allowed the nominations process itself to be blown up. When the day comes that the Court reconsiders Roe, the justices will no doubt take seriously the arguments from stare decisis for leaving it be. Let us hope they consider as well the poisons Roe continues to inject into the American body politic, not least of which is the incentive to reward the character assassination of Republican nominees.

Brett Kavanaugh is a decent man with a lovely wife and two sweet daughters. He is also what the Democrats fear most on the courts: an honest judge. Which is why he and his innocent family are being destroyed before our very eyes. (Read more.)