Kavanaugh? Whose that? Can we talk about Russia again?
My social media has been unusually quiet re. the Kavanaugh smear
campaign. The usual sanctimonious liberals
who think Trump is the embodiment of evil haven’t had a word to say about the lies
being thrown out against the judge.
And let’s be clear here.
They’re lies. It’s an obvious
game to try to throw a Senate vote and hold open a Supreme Court seat. Let’s get that out of the way.
But my progressive friends have never been shy about repeating
the most ridiculous accusations against Trump or any other Republican. Until
now. Now it’s crickets.
Hmm, why?
Well, I know why.
Even among my “consent” crowd, most of the guys have done stuff like
this for real. And worse. And a lot more recently than 35 years ago.
In fact the huge majority of my “progressive” friends were
directly involved one way or another with the bad stuff. I heard the stories about drunken high school
parties. I was the nerd in high school
who didn’t get invited to the parties, but I heard a lot of stories. I heard
the stories from boys and girls – and the girls weren’t the slightest bit
outraged by what was going on. They
gladly kept returning to the same type of parties, kept drinking up to or to
the point of passing out, and doing what they did.
It was “partying.” Nobody
objected, nobody complained.
In college, I saw a lot. Our fraternity was mild compared to most, but
there was stuff going on. My freshman
year I saw guys put grain alcohol in the punch.
I found out later that punch was passed off as “non-alcoholic.” We had an award for the guy who slept with
the ugliest woman. And the list goes on
and on.
Are these guys bad people?
Are they predators? No. The crazy (or not so crazy) thing is women showed
up willingly to be a part of this stuff.
Because a big part of the college experience involved getting drunk and
having awkward hookups and crazy stories.
The women were all in on this stuff. And I’m talking about women who were feminist
activists at the time and who now are influential in the political
establishment. Because we were all
immature and liked to party and it didn’t seem bad at the time. None of those women is saying anything now,
either. Because, yah, we all did crazy,
stupid stuff in high school and college that we wouldn’t do now. And yah, we were pretty lucky to get out
okay, and we’d caution our children to not repeat our mistakes. But we’re also not who we were then.
Then there are the guys I’ve met more recently, who come
from the “evolution/ consent” circles.
But they got there because they weren’t *entirely* aligned with consent
earlier in their lives. And by earlier,
I mean like within the past 5 years or so.
Pretty much all of them did stuff.
Some of it really bad – like, way worse than what went on at the
fraternity. Hell, guys from that
community have engaged in inappropriate behavior within the past few months and
want forgiveness.
And the thing is, a lot of these guys did messed up things
and really took the lesson to heart.
They changed. People can change a
lot in a few years, or five years. Much
less ten years. Twenty or thirty years
– hell, some of these guys weren’t BORN then.
And those who are older are nothing like those guys, that’s how
evolution works. Should they lose their jobs because of how they used to be, no
matter how much they changed since then?
That goes against everything we teach our kids about how to learn
lessons and become a better person. But
that’s where we are it seems. Or some of
us anyhow.
Should these guys be deprived of their livelihood or embarrassed
in front of their families for things that they did 20 or 30 years ago? No.
And neither should the women who went along with it and encouraged it
(or at least looked the other way). We
all grew up. We learned to be
responsible. We became good husbands and
fathers. We became responsible and successful at work.
(I’m not even going to get into the embarrassment of
publicly admitting to being a virgin well past the age of 18. Most guys would rather confess to false rape
charges than admit they didn’t get laid until later in life. I know women who would reconsider dating a
guy if she found out he lost his v-card later in life, the stigma is real. Also, he kept his calendars from high
school? He’s not a sexual predator, but
if “being a complete nerd” is a crime, he just pled guilty.)
The reason none of my “progressive” friends is saying boo
about the accusations against Kavanaugh is because they know the truth. Nobody is who they were in college, and the
stuff some of my friends did was considerably worse. Support the judge or not
based on his record as a judge.
Degrading him and attacking him for alleged drunken stuff from high
school or college is nonsense.
Even if all the charges against him are 100% true (and we
know they’re not), it shouldn’t change one single senator’s vote if we have any
common sense left. Dragging up stuff
from high school and college is BS. If
someone is deprived a job or a promotion because of what happened as a
teenager, that’s just wrong.
These accusations should have never seen the light of day
and they shouldn’t be getting the attention they’re getting now. What happened 20 or 30 years ago is far too
long ago to make any kind of judgment on a person today.
And even my most hard core “progressive”
friends know this. And thus the crickets.
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