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Moore: the plan seems to be… — 41 Comments

  1. Franken still is in the Senate and can always reverse his decision. I may not like Moore, but I agree with your thought of if the Rs kick Moore out of the Senate, then everyone will be subject to the same standards.

    The result that I am looking for is that all people will report harassment at the time that it occurs, not 40 years later. Note that I said “all” since harassment can occur between anyone. I would feel very uncomfortable if a female was too touchy-feely with me. I would definitely ask that person to stop and report it if the behavior continued.

  2. If Moore wins fair and square and they try to expel him based solely on what is now known it will be one of the most outrageous miscarriages in American history.

  3. Another point – I just called both of my Senators to mention the possible impact on all Senators. One of my senators was the director of a youth camp and I mentioned that he might be subject to an accusation at a later date.

  4. This is what Mac doesn’t understand, this election is beyond Moore, sexual allegations against him and even his politics, it is a referendum of if due process and the principle of assumption of innocence should be abolished and allegation equals guilt and if weaponizing hoax allegations against conservatives should be allowed.

    you let this Metoo bulls**t continues, if you don’t stop evil in it track, the next person they will crucify with hoax sexual allegations could be a politician you support, your husband, your father, or even your son.

    The lies we believe today are the life we will lead tomorrow.

  5. I know most of you don’t like the this Stefan molyneux man but gee that is one good line and I just can’t resist to recite it.

  6. “Flip that around and you have today’s climate.” neo

    Yes, better that ten innocent men be condemned than one guilty man get away with it. As you point out though, it opens the door to politically motivated accusations that will often be impossible for an innocent man to defend themselves against.

    If this comes to pass, I fully expect the democrats to see it as the means to regain political dominance.

    That way lies chaos and eventually, Civil War.

    When there is no proof of wrongdoing, every Republican hounded out of office will bring us one step closer to the precipice. By the time they get to Trump, Civil War will be a certainty.

    One woman accuser of Trump is basing her sexual harassment accusation, on Trump many years ago having asked her for her phone number…

    When the rule of law becomes a cruel joke and redress of grievance impossible… only the law of the jungle remains.

  7. Obviously the GOP can see the Democrats Franken and raise them a Menendez. With Menendez there are charges pending and an entire trial which ended in a mistrial. But New Jersey has a Republican governor, so barely a peep about his resigning.

    But New Jersey will soon inaugurate a Democrat governor. Thus, should Moore win (and I think he will) the GOP should turn the tables. Forget Franken. They’ll support pushing Moore to resign or face expulsion when Democrats do the same for Menendez.

    That would occur if anyone in GOPe had cajones. But, well….

  8. If Moore loses, and no new evidence or confession regarding the sexual assault charges comes out, then you are going to see this tactic used on every R running for national office.

    If Moore wins, or if strong evidence comes out that he did what he was accused of, then maybe we have a chance of not seeing these kinds of charges normalized and weaponized for every election.

  9. Dave: say whatever you like but leave my name the hell out of it. I am seriously pissed off at being put in this situation, I know a hell of a lot more about it than you do and unless you’re a lot older than you seem to be have been dealing with it for a hell of a lot longer. Feel free to continue your condescending and ignorant lectures. Just don’t address them to me.

  10. At the time of the witch trials, Increase Mather said that it was better that ten witches go free than that one innocent man be condemned.

    I believe that some woman activist just said that it was ok to believe that men are not innocent. (I am paraphrasing).
    Dangerous grounds that we are on. We are passed the slippery slope.

  11. It is interesting that people assume these women are telling the truth, yet the same or similar people dismissed Paula Jones, Juanita Broderick and Kathleen Willey as trash.

  12. Mac:
    I am sorry for continuing to getting you involved, it would be the last time I promised, I am not myself today because of all the tension but please accept my sincere apology.

  13. We were but we’re not anymore. 🙂

    Thank you, Dave. Apology accepted and mine offered in return. I can say the same thing you said: I’m not myself today. This whole debacle has gotten me into a really foul mood.

  14. Well we will know tonight how this thing pans out and I am sorry things became so fouled up heading into this election with good old Roy. I don’t think the sex stuff 40 years ago should matter as much as just who the man is today and he does not impress me at all. On the other hand I think I would walk over legos with bare feet to keep another dem senator from being seated.

    Tonight will be interesting and I have kind of had my fill of interesting politics for awhile yet here we are.

  15. If Moore wins by 5+ points, it will be the second shot heard around the world. (I would vote for Moore simply because he is not Hillary). A Moore win will set the fox loose in McConnel’s hen house.

  16. One of our prolific and esteemed commenters, Geoffrey Britain, writes in part, at 5:12 pm,

    “If this [one of neo’s concerns] comes to pass, I fully expect the democrats to see it as the means to regain political dominance. That way lies chaos and eventually, Civil War. When there is no proof of wrongdoing, every Republican hounded out of office will bring us one step closer to the precipice. By the time they get to Trump, Civil War will be a certainty.”

    I find myself wondering what Civil War II would look like.

    What I mean is, Civil War I pitted North against South, and while there were Southerners who were sympathetic to the North and Northerners who were sympathetic to the South, the sides were nonetheless geographically defined, at least from both military and political points of view.

    In 2017, there are true-blue states and blood-red states, but there is no geographical division as in North versus South. Maybe coasts versus heartland, but that’s not satisfying (at least to M J R); the southern east coast states are (still) pretty red while the northern east coast states are true-blue.

    A better description of the Civil War II sides might have to do with urban versus rural, where suburbs of true-blue strongholds would be blue but suburbs of other cities might tend to be red. Yes, that’s definitely an oversimplification.

    There’s the by-now well-worn crack, that the red side would have all the guns so the blue side wouldn’t stand a chance, but I think the antifa creeps and their sympathizers would be very armed (and very dangerous). What would Civil War II look like? Fighting in the streets? Would there eventually come a time in which some semblance of conventional military might takes over? Would there be any geographic aspect to the hostilities? Or would it all be street fighting?

    And which side would our armed forces be on? At this point, the military bureaucracies, careerist and very obama-ized, might be on opposite sides from the soldiers they command. Verrrrry interesting, sez M J R . . .

  17. M J R,

    I wonder if at first it won’t take the form of a factional Cold Civil War where right/left, urban/rural, radical/traditional wage wars of personal destruction. Can probably make a decent argument that we have been in a Cold Civil War for going on 20 years now. The one thing that may keep it from ever reaching the shooting stage is that while it is hard to imagine for some but in reality the vast, vast majority of the citizenry really don’t care that much about this stuff so it’s going to take something really major to set them off. But who knows.

  18. MJR,

    It will be every man (woman, child, confused gender puppies) for themselves and god against all. It would be very messy, not clear cut who was the enemy or friend.. The military? That is up for grabs. House to house, town to town, suburb to suburb, urban neighborhood against neighborhood. There would be so many factions you’ll need a super computer to keep track.

  19. I’ve said it before but I really think the genesis of this was the Bush/Gore election of 2000. Even more than 9/11 I think that singular event is the most important event of the last fifty years in this country. It was THE thing that ignite the far left.

  20. Witch trial, elective abortion, or lynching?

    The first carries historical baggage of a culture at the twilight fringe. The last is a thorn in Democratic sides. The Choice, denying due process, disproportionate sentences, and other wicked solutions, evokes a consensus perception of progress.

    Plan, indeed. Elective abortion, it is.

  21. MJR,

    I think it likely that in any civil war, elements in the US Military will determine the outcome.

    But if they stayed out of it, it would be urban/suburban VS small town/rural. Even more than armed forces, the major cities great vulnerability is food and water. Those necessities would be easily disrupted by rural elements in a civil war.

    Nor militarily, do I see the massive disparity in population size as the determinant element.

    The prospect of a modern civil war is far too brutal to seriously contemplate yet contemplate it we must because it is in that direction that we are headed. The fools are dragging us toward nightmare.

  22. It is shocking to be witnessing right now how people are so seamlessly and with such apparent ease tacitly acquiescing to the casting aside of what has long been rightly treasured and defended as a foundation rock of western civilisation: the presumption of innocence.

    It is appalling to be witnessing, live, the excesses of the star chamber: the conviction of citizens in the public mind and their banishment from polite society, with all that that entails for their careers and reputations, on the basis of denunciation only.

    There is truly nothing new under the sun and human nature does not change in its essentials. Our forebears knew that predators are always among us, from generation to generation, robbing, stealing, killing and raping and that they must be identified and punished – but they tempered and balanced this laudable aim with the recognition that there are always among us people who hate and envy and who will bear false witness, (or who though honest may sometimes err), and that to hold a trial and test the evidence in such circumstances before convicting an accused is not to minimise a crime or its victim in anyway at all but, on the contrary, dignifies the victim and reinforces society’s censure of the crime.

    Commitment to this vital truth and noble policy seems to be breaking down before my eyes and I am biggly, yuugely worried by it.

    In all of this I am reminded of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” where the poet laments what he sees as the ebbing of traditional virtue and faith in old truths which were, like the ocean:

    “… once, too, at the full and round earth’s shore
    Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
    But now I only hear
    it’s melancholy, long withdrawing roar.”

    To deplore what is happening in this frenzy of sexual abuse denunciations coupled with immediate punishment of the accused is not to discount the evil of sexual abuse. Yes, “sexual abuse does exist and some people are guilty of it” but we cannot leave the problem defined only that far.

    To the assertion of the problem itself needs to be added the essential rider that denunciation alone is not proof and that no one ought ever be condemned on that basis alone.

    Society needs to pause and reflect on the misleadingly simple but incredibly profound truth observed upon in Robert Bolt’s timeless “Man for all Seasons” where the character of Sir Thomas More, a worldly man if there ever was one, and a lawyer, speaks for all of discerning men and women today:

    “I have no window to look into another man’s conscience. I condemn no-one”.

    Yes, sexual abuse does happen – but the frenzied need to pause a moment, take a deep breath and reflect that it is not disloyal or disrespectful to victims to acknowledge that in the rush to judgement no good will come.

    How does it do justice to a victim to convict the wrong man while the true offender goes free? In such an event would there not be two injustices: one to an unjustly condemned innocent and the other to the victim herself?

    I discern in all that is happening today the very same scenario we see played out in Man for all Seasons.

    Sir Thomas refuses to swear an oath affirming the legitimacy of the King’s break with Rome and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. He will not say why.

    Like the audience for today’s growing army of finger-pointers who, because they did not personally witness the deeds alleged against the accused, may suspect – but cannot possibly know – whether they took place or not, the King and his counsellor Cromwell may suspect what is in More’s heart – but cannot know it.

    The play, it seems to me, is timely because it warns us against acting upon or presuming a truth based only on our subjective presumptions and feelings; on our own all-too human self-regard that we are virtuous when we allow our own consciences to become final arbiters of truths we cannot actually know.

    That way, with all the best will in the world, lies great injustice and the danger of falling prey to the circular reasoning that the self-righteous always are prey to:

    Cromwell: “The king’s a man of conscience so he wants either Sir Thomas More to bless his marriage or Sir Thomas More destroyed”.

    Rich: “They seem odd alternatives, Secretary”

    Cromwell: “Do they? That’s because you’re not a man of conscience. If the King destroys a man that’s proof..that he must have been a bad man, the kind of man a man of conscience ought to destroy…”

    Have none of these people currently calling for immediate retribution against Judge Roy and all the accused without a hearing ever had the finger of accusation pointed at them unjustly? If not, they are very lucky indeed. If so, they are hypocrites of the very worst kind.

    To paraphrase Sir Thomas, “I would give the devil himself benefit of law – for my own safety’s sake.”

  23. Geoffrey Britain, 8:38 pm — “The prospect of a modern civil war is far too brutal to seriously contemplate yet contemplate it we must because it is in that direction that we are headed. The fools are dragging us toward nightmare.”

    GOD I wish you (and I) were wrong.

  24. Stephen Ippolito:

    Well said.

    I’ve been thinking lately of the fact that a prohibition on bearing false witness is one of the Ten Commandments. It is considered that important.

    And our previous devotion to the idea of innocent till proven guilty was always a hard hard sell. The rule of law is enshrined but fragile, because human beings have a tendency to rush to judgment. And to do so en masse.

  25. Parker:

    Antony Beevor’s book on the Spanish Civil War is *very* interesting in that it discusses what happened at the very beginning on Days Zero and ensuing. Many people were very unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There wasn’t much of a ramp up of viciousness: it was full on atrocity mode from the get go.

  26. I wonder if someone like that Lizza guy who vehemently claimed his innocence has a different opinion of someone like Moore or at least his situation.

  27. Neo @9:45 pm,

    Sadly, I must, and for the first time, respectfully, disagree with your view.

    I don’t think that the universal presumption of innocence has ever been “a hard sell” as you contend – at least not for the thinking, reflective man or woman.

    Both native intelligence and experience of life inform thinking people of the truth of Sir Thomas’s words: “I have no window to look into another man’s conscience”.

    The less intelligent, the less reflective, the less experienced – and the just plain stupid and/or malicious – yes, such people do tend to rush to judgement and have to be restrained.

    But the truly thoughtful, I think, rush only into suspicion, never to a conclusive judgement in the absence of a full and fair canvassing of all of the evidence, under the rules of evidence.

    Constitutionally, thinking men and women are innately, instinctively led to pull themselves up short of judgement because they recognise that although appearances might strongly suggest guilt nevertheless appearances can be deceiving and will for that reason refrain from final judgement until the accused, (and the public) have had the chance to see and test the evidence for and against.

    Yes, thinking people are human too, (sometimes all too human), and will therefore often entertain suspicions – often very strong ones – but they will refrain from making a final, conclusive judgement and proclaiming an accused guilty until such time as all the evidence on both sides has been heard and tested. Only then may a suspicion be confirmed as a fact. They are entirely different creatures and part of being intelligent is knowing this.

    Personally, I take great comfort – or used to – in the following exchange from one of my favourite plays:

    Norfolk: “…your reasons must be treasonable”
    More: “Not must be, may be”
    Norfolk: “It’s a fair assumption”
    More: “The law requires more than an assumption. The law requires a fact.”

  28. Stephen Ipppolito:

    I’m not so sure we disagree.

    You write: “Both native intelligence and experience of life inform thinking people of the truth of Sir Thomas’s words…”

    But the real question is what percentage of people fit that definition? Perhaps our real disagreement is on whether it’s a majority of people. I have come to think it is not.

  29. Neo @9:45 pm

    That’s a coincidence that you’ve been pondering the importance of bearing false witness in the context of its appearance in the Ten Commandments and the solemnity such an inclusion imports to such an action.

    I have been reflecting on the same thing myself lately.

    I know that the most venerated lines in the US Declaration of Independence are the very opening ones, beginning with the magisterial: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…..” but I happen personally to find more inspiring and important the final line where the founding fathers pledge to their cause: “Our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour”.

    Notice that only one of the three stated attributes is elevated to the “sacred”: their honour.

    These men of the world of course valued their lives and their worldly estates but even these commodities did not rise to the “sacred” in the eyes of the founding fathers.

    I’ve always found that interesting. It can’t be accidental because I’ve read the historical accounts of the committee that reviewed Jefferson’s drafting of the document as it progressed and know how closely Franklin and Adams in particular parsed every single word and idea in it. Not a word appears in it by accident.

    Although not many of the founding fathers were religiously pious they were far more familiar and attentive than our own generation to the scriptures generally and to the ten commandments in particular.

    Surely the founding fathers, like the early church fathers, and all our forebears in the west right up until fairly recently, valued personal honour so highly because they viewed a man’s public repute to be intrinsic to his fully-actualised humanity flowing from the fact that man is made in the image of God. It’s by that process that reputation ascends to the sacred.

    It is no coincidence, I think, that the Roman term “virtus” which embraces the whole parcel of qualities that combined to make a Roman’s public reputation and personal worth derives from the word “vir” meaning “man” . A man deprived of his favourable public reputation was thereby deprived of his very manhood.

    Anyway, that’s what I’m currently thinking and one of the reasons I so strongly deplore (false) finger-pointers and the people who demand immediate and automatic atonement for nothing more than accusations only.

  30. The Other Chuck, 10:57 pm — “MJR asks what a 2nd Civil War would look like. Here is an article from Nov. 2016 that answers that question.”

    The link is to a piece in “Cracked”, a magazine that was once a poor rival to Mad Magazine, but that eventually died an extended death. Cracked dot com is using the magazine’s name, but based on this one piece, it is nothing like the old “Cracked”.

    Any such piece is frightening, this one included. Shudder.

  31. Stephen, every word you wrote tonight is golden. Would that they could all be somehow levered into the stream of Twitter and Facebook and the MSM, but, of course,they won’t be — or you never have had to remind us of such plain truths.

    Neo, you are right to cite the Lord’s Commandment against false witness — just a gentle reminder that it is part of the horrible plaque that the Courts demanded Judge Moore remove from his court.

  32. KLSmith Says:
    December 12th, 2017 at 11:19 pm
    …and fundraising behind Strange (to eliminate Mo Brooks) before the primary because he figured it would easier for Strange to knock off Moore than Brooks.
    * *
    This kind of double-thinking always gets upended when reality intrudes; did McConnell not know about how Strange obtained his post by playing footsie with the governor? He should have.

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/disgraced-gov-robert-bentleys-sex-scandal-threatens-to-ruin-sen-luther-stranges-career/article/2635418

    “Maybe that reality is not fair. Strange wasn’t the governor’s wingman, after all. He was only the attorney general. And Strange didn’t convince Bentley to bully aides into silence, to joyride with his mistress on the governor’s helicopter, or to leave his wife of more than 50 years. He just accepted a special appointment to the Senate from the governor he was supposed to be investigating.

    Three days ahead of the runoff, most of D.C. has forgotten about the quid-pro-quo rumors. Most see the battle between Strange and Moore almost exclusively as part of a larger proxy war, a clash between establishment Republicans and insurgent populists.”
    * * *
    I’ll repeat a comment from another in this interlinking collage, responding to Neo’s observation that President Trump, when he appointed Sen. Sessions to the Cabinet, could in no way have foreseen either the candidacy of Moore or his undoing: no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

    http://neoneocon.com/2017/12/11/i-think-its-pretty-clear/#comment-2324201

  33. “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40)

    That pretty well covers it, does it not?

    As to Civil War II, I have long seen it coming. Prevention requires the unlikely recovery of States’ Rights, possibly a Constitutional Convention leading to allowed secession, a drawn-out peaceful process dependent on good will, which is evaporating as we speak.

    If an actual war, it can be won by conservatives surrounding and cutting off supplies to the big Dem cities, much like Mao’s strategy; and as what happened in Germany in 1922 when farmers refused to sell grain because of massive inflation that took one loaf of bread from 1 mark to 1 billion marks, so middle-class city dwellers starved, lacking inflatable assets. The unionized working class did OK due to inflation-adjustment clauses in their contracts with the employers.

    Only question is how the Armed Forces will react, and that depends substantially on who is C-i-C. The historical deferral to civilian control of the military is very entrenched. If POTUS is a Dem of Obama mold, it will all be over quickly. He may in fact stimulate the War in order to win it. And rule, like Mugabe.

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