Right And Wrong: The Rule Which Never Changes

"The rules have changed."

This argument has been appearing with increasing frequency of late.  In business, in culture, in politics, we are told that the old ways of doing things no longer apply, that the new era has brought new ways, new ideas, and new rules.

Two noteworthy examples come to us from commentary on two entirely unrelated events, yet addressing this same common theme.

First we have Stephanie Wilkinson's commentary in the Washington Post on an incident involving Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, who was recently accosted in a Chicago restaurant when a server spat on him. Her conclusion about that incident is found towards the end of her piece:

The rules have shifted. It’s no longer okay to serve sea bass from overfished waters or to allow smoking at the table. It’s not okay to look away from the abusive chef in the kitchen or the handsy guest in the dining room. And it’s not okay to ask employees, partners or management to clock out of their consciences when they clock in to work.

For comparison--and more than a little contrast--we have Christopher Dale's column in The Federalist where he takes the US Women's Soccer Team to task for what he considered an egregious display of bad sportsmanship in running up the score against Thailand in World Cup competition. In addition, he takes several sports commentators to task for their rationalizations of the team's behavior:

In The Atlantic, Jemele Hill also tenuously ties the ladies’ off-the-field fight for equal pay with the on-the-field fight for their right to party at an opponent’s expense: “Instead of Team USA being celebrated for what its players achieved, the victory became an opportunity to lecture these women on how to behave… The women are fighting… for equal pay and respect—and, on the field, for the right to pummel their opponents and express themselves in a way that men often do.”

This is, quite simply, wrong. Men do not typically act like that in sports. Or at least not without catching well-deserved criticism.

In other words, Christopher Dale argues, the rules have not changed, and whatever struggles women athletes endure off the playing field should not be used to excuse poor behavior on the playing field.

Against these two commentaries I shall inject merely this--Romans 12:17:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.

I ask you to consider this verse as merely a moral proposition; we need not burden the discourse here with defenses of Christian belief or Christian theology. Regardless of one's religious views, we have in this verse a simple moral proposition that may be interrogated from any moral perspective.

The proposition of not repaying evil for evil carries several important inferences Most significantly, we must presume that notions of good and evil are not themselves mere matters of opinion or perspective, simple and mutable relativistic notions to be defined and redefined as we find convenient; rather, these notions form for us an absolute frame of reference, they are, as it were, the North and South of our moral compass, and we must orient our assessment of proper conduct accordingly. This understanding of good and evil is found also in the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, with its prescriptions of "Right Speech" and "Right Speech".

The proposition of not repaying evil for evil also carries the understanding that, regardless of motivation or intent, evil action is evil action. Explain and rationalize as you will, under this proposition you cannot convert evil act into good deed; it is simply not possible.

Which brings us back to Stephanie Wilkinson's assertion that people should not "clock out of their consciences when they clock into work."

First, let us recall the meaning of "conscience":

the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good.

The notion of "clocking out" of one's conscience, then, can only be understood as a setting aside of basic human impulse to do the right thing and make the good choice. That, however, brings us to a conundrum: That's the old rule, not the new rule. Paul's Letter To The Romans, as part of the New Testament in the Christian Bible, stands as a compendium of moral statements and arguments that has existed for centuries. Romans 12:17 enshrines as a moral virtue the idea of doing the right thing, of making the good choice, regardless of situation or circumstance. We have always been called to do the right thing, and we have never been justified in "clocking out" of our consciences, at work or anywhere else. We can argue and debate over what the right thing truly is, over what truly constitutes the good choice, but we can never argue that we have not always been called upon to do the right thing and make the good choice, whatever that thing and choice might be.

Simply put, our understanding of what is the right thing to do may evolve, but we must never doubt that we are always--and have always been--called upon to do the right thing. That rule has never changed, not throughout the whole of human history.

Moreover, as Christopher Dale points out, we cannot change notions of right and wrong in any moment because of things wholly separate from that moment. Regardless of what struggles the US Women's Soccer Team has endured off the playing field, one thing is absolutely certain: The Thailand team had absolutely no part to play in them. The Thai players are not hindering the US women athletes in their quest for equal (or equitable) pay, and certainly are not preventing the US women athletes from achieving respect equal to their male counterparts. Further, the Thai team has no role in deciding the pay rates for women athletes in the US, and no voice in determining the proper measures of respect women athletes should receive in the US. Regardless of the worth of such debates, they are not debates that involve the Thai women's soccer team. 

Christopher Dale makes the argument that male athletic teams have never been encouraged to run up the score when they overmatch an opponent, and are criticized when their celebrations of success go too far. To be sure, male professional sports organizations such as the NFL have an ongoing debate over how much celebration is "too much" when a team scores. There is an explicit declaration within male sports that excessive celebrations upon victory are examples of poor sportsmanship--they are the bad choice and the wrong thing to do. Against such a backdrop, he makes a cogent argument--if the goal for women athletes is to be regarded the same as their male counterparts, they must hew to similar guidelines as to good sportsmanship and proper conduct, and must endure reprobation when they fall short of such standards.

The claim that "the rules have changed" is therefore simply not true. The rule of doing right and avoiding wrong has not changed even a little, not in the whole of human history. Our understanding of conscience is that, no matter what the circumstance, right remains right, and wrong remains wrong. That has always been "the rule"; it has never not been "the rule."

When has it ever been "right" to spit on one's fellow human being? 

When has it ever been "right" to humiliate one's opponents in a sporting contest?

When has it ever been "right" to settle political differences with violence?

When has moral authority to declare "right" and "wrong" ever flowed from the barrel of a gun?

In my experience, I have never known a time when any of these things were the "right" thing to do.

The rule of right and wrong has not changed, not once. We may change the rules we set for ourselves--our laws and our civic virtues--from day to day, but the rule of right and wrong is as it has always been on every day.  

We have always been called to do the right thing. We will always be called to do the right thing. That will never change.

Will Democrats Give Christine Blasey Ford Anything?

As of this writing, Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape when they were in high school, has yet to agree to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite Committee Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley repeatedly extending the window for her to make up her mind. It is far from certain that she will testify, given Senator Grassley's unwillingness to accede to certain demands, chiefly that she testify after Judge Kavanaugh and that other witnesses be subpoenaed as well, in advance of her testimony.

The potential outcomes are that she either will or will not testify.

(Update: sources close the Senate Judiciary Committee are reporting that Ms. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh have agreed to appear Thursday, 26 September 2018. Some details are still being worked at this time.)

If she testifies, Judge Kavanaugh will appear to rebut her claims and defend himself against her accusations. Whether Mark Judge, an high school friend of Judge Kavanaugh whom Ms. Ford places in the room when she was attacked is subpoenaed seems unlikely, although a compelling statement by Ms. Ford could cause the committee to call him and potentially others as witnesses. If, as seems likely based on news reporting thus far, Ms. Ford's testimony largely repeats the charge without adding new detail pointing to new witnesses or possible corroborations, after the testimony is taken Judge Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court will likely proceed out of committee on a strict party line vote, and if he is confirmed it will likely again be on a strict party line vote.

If she does not testify, then Judge Kavanaugh's nomination appear to be a foregone conclusion. Certainly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell feels quite confident about his chances before the full Senate.

Against the backdrop of these scenarios, with the strong probability that Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed regardless of what she does, one can forgive Ms. Ford for not wanting to appear. A sense of futility would quite a normal state of mind under the circumstances.

Yet futility should be accompanied by frustration, for it need never have come down to this binary choice.

• Senator Diane Feinstein did not have to withhold Ms. Ford's letter for six weeks, then leak its existence to the media rather than forwarding it to either the committee or to the FBI for inclusion in their background check on Judge Kavanaugh.
• Democrats did not have make the ludicrous demand that the FBI investigate Ms Ford's claim, conveniently overlooking the jurisdictional reality that the FBI does not investigate sexual assault claims, and the procedure reality that the FBI does not make determinations of witness credibility when conducting background checks. As of this writing, the number of Democrats who have requested the Maryland State Police and the Maryland Attorney General investigate her accusation remains exactly zero.
• Ms. Ford's attorney, Democrat activist Debra Katz, did not have to issue a serious of demands before Ms. Ford would deign to appear before the committee, demands which are not merely presumptuous in the extreme, but also fly directly in the face of American legal tradition--namely, that Judge Kavanaugh testify before Ms. Ford and not after, thus preventing him from effectively confronting her allegations.
• Senator Kirsten Gillibrand did not have to absurdly and fatuously suggest that setting a time for a hearing where Ms. Ford could give her testimony and present her case against Judge Kavanaugh was, somehow, "silencing" her.

What should have happened? 

When Democrat politicians first met with Christine Ford and arranged for Debra Katz to represent her in this matter (it is no great leap to presume that Katz comes in via Senator Feinstein's office, given that Ms. Katz is a Beltway insider), they should have been preparing her from that point forward to testify. Senator Feinstein should have shared Ms. Ford's letter with the FBI immediately, allowing for Ms. Ford to be interviewed in private and for Judge Kavanaugh to respond in private, sparing both the public spectacle of the current media feeding frenzy. Senator Feinstein should have informed the Judiciary Committee of Ms. Ford's allegations, so that they could have been addressed in the regular order.

No Republican had a hand in any of these failures by Democrats. These are the results of choices made by Democrats and Democrats alone.

Further, to suggest, as Senator Gillibrand did, that Ms. Ford should be believed on the basis of her statement alone is monstrous. To believe blindly is to not care, neither about truth nor about Ms. Ford herself. Crime victims--assault victims in particular--get details wrong in almost every instance, including the identity of the perpetrator.  Add in the muddling influence of alcohol and the effect of time on memory, and the potential for error in her story increases exponentially. It is not a questioning of Ms. Ford's veracity to inquire skeptically as to her accuracy. 

Rather, to ignore her accuracy is to say her veracity is irrelevant. To ignore her accuracy is to say that it matters not what happened to her, it matters only that she is a woman, and that as a woman she is a victim of...something. To ignore her accuracy and proceed to destroy Judge Kavanaugh's life and reputation is to say it does not matter if her attacker receives a just penalty for his behavior.

To ignore Ms. Ford's accuracy is to ignore Ms. Ford. To ignore Ms. Ford's accuracy is to ignore Ms. Ford's trauma. It is as simple as that--and that is not justice by any measure.

What have the Republicans done in response to Ms. Ford's accusations?

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has set a date for a hearing, where both Ms. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh will appear (though they would not be seated side by side, as some media outlets have reported). The agenda is for Ms. Ford to give her recitation of what happened to her 36 years ago, and for Judge Kavanaugh to respond in his own defense.  It is not a trial, and the committee is not a court, but the testimonies will be under oath, penalties of perjury would attach, and there would be a transcript of the proceedings. If relevant questions of fact arise during the proceedings, the committee has the ability to refer those questions to the FBI for further investigation as appropriate. The hearing, should it occur, potentially is the start of the investigation the Democrats have cried out for even as they have obstructed and prevented it.

That is what the Republicans have offered, and apparently in good faith. What have the Democrats offered? In encouraging Ms. Ford to not testify, what closure do they propose to give her? While they keep her name and her trauma in the headlines and on the news shows, seeking maximum political advantage against Republicans in the upcoming mid-terms, what solace do they provide?

While the Republicans are doing their utmost to hear Ms. Ford, and to give Ms. Ford the platform she needs, the Democrats are doing their utmost to ignore Ms. Ford. The Democrats have weaponized her claim against the Republicans, but have done nothing to bring her any healing or any closure. They have taken her claim and left her behind.

We do not at this time know--and quite possibly we may not be able to know--if it was Judge Kavanaugh who attempted to violate Ms. Ford thirty-six years ago. We do know who is violating Ms. Ford today: Senator Diane Feinstein, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Charles Schumer, attorney Debra Katz....Democrats all.

Ford-Kavanaugh: Justice Denied (For Everyone)

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

U.S. Constitution - Amendment 6 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

U.S. Constitution - Amendment 1

Let us be clear on one point about Christine Blasey-Ford's accusation: she is accusing Judge Kavanaugh of a crime. The letter she wrote to Senator Diane Feinstein in July of this year is crystal clear on that:

Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during high school in the early 1980's.

Let us also be clear on one other point about Ms. Ford's accusation. The crime is the only thing which is clearly articulated.  She names Judge Kavanaugh as her assailant, she names Mark Judge as a witness to the assault, and she provides no other specifics whatsoever. She does not specify either time or place, nor does she provide even a hint of contemporaneous corroboration. Quite the contrary, she admits in subsequent interviews that she told no one until some thirty years after the fact, during a therapy session with her husband.

As I noted in my previous post, the credibility of the accusation may be summarized thus:

There are no recitations of events to friends at the time.

There is no police report.

There is no complaint made against Judge Kavanaugh either at his school or anywhere else.

There is no proffered diary entry from Ms. Ford's teenage years.

There is no evidence.

There is no corroboration.

However, credible or not, there is an accusation. Where there is an accuser and an accused, there are rights, and there are due process.  The accuser has the unequivocal right to seek redress of grievance (and there is no denying that actual or attempted sexual assault is a significant grievance), and the accused has the unequivocal right to defend himself. Through the rights enshrined within the First and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution, our notion of due process, of justice for both accuser and accused, are defined.

Those rights will not be respected in this instance. Christine Blasey-Ford will not be given her First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievance, and Judge Kavanaugh will not be given his Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser and rebut her claims. Whatever outcome there may yet be in this saga, a due process that respects the rights of accuser and accused will not happen.

Consider the date of Ms. Ford's original letter to Senator Feinstein:  July 30, 2018. From that date until mid-September, Senator Feinstein was unarguably in possession of this accusation, this clear and unequivocal accusation of crime, and did exactly nothing. She did not pass it along to the FBI for its background check of Judge Kavanaugh. She did not bring it to the attention of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She did not question Judge Kavanaugh about it, not in the written questions posed to Judge Kavanaugh, not in private meeting with Judge Kavanaugh, and not in his public testimony before the committee.

Only after the public hearings had concluded did Senator Feinstein leak the existence of the letter to the media. 

Senator Feinstein cannot, of herself, provide any redress of grievance to Ms. Ford. She cannot dispense justice. She cannot call Judge Kavanaugh to account, except to confront him through the process of his confirmation to the Supreme Court, which she pointedly declined to do.

Even after the accusation became public, and the Judiciary Committee began grappling with the reality of it, Senator Feinstein and the rest of the Democrats on the Committee declined to participate in any process that would allow either Ms. Ford or Judge Kavanaugh to make their respective cases. Senate Democrats pointedly refused to participate in a staff phone call interview with Judge Kavanaugh to discuss the accusation, claiming a need for a full investigation by the FBI--conveniently ignoring the jurisidictional reality that a sexual assault in Maryland would be investigated by either the Maryland State Police or, more likely, the local police department (although with location of the assault unclear, local jurisdiction would be difficult to determine).

From the end of July straight up until now, the Senate Democrats have sought not a full and fair hearing, an open process by which both accuser and accused might receive the justice that is their Constitutional due, but delay, obfuscation, and dissemblage.

Whether Ms. Ford's accusation is credible and deserving of a hearing is no longer relevant. Whether Judge Kavanaugh is guilty or innocent is no longer relevant. These questions are no longer relevant because the Democrats, in pursuit of pure partisan political advantage for the upcoming mid-term elections, have sought to obstruct any and all process by which this matter might be aired, and the truth gainfully sought. Senator Feinstein, her fellow Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, and indeed every Democrat serving within the Senate, have conspired to obstruct justice. Their actions and inactions in this matter, from the end of July up to now, admit of no other interpretations.

There will be no justice done in the admittedly spectral case of Ford vs. Kavanaugh. The Democrats have made sure of that.

Christine Blasey Ford: No Proof And Less Credibility

After the confirmation hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the nomination of Appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court concluded, comes an eleventh hour allegation of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh by a woman who claims to have known him in high school, when the assault presumably occurred.

To be sure, the details provided are, at the very least, salacious, and had they been contemporaneous with the event, tantamount to the accusation of crime.

However, they are not contemporaneous.  The assault, if it occurred, was in the early 1980s.  The accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, by her own admission did not mention it to anyone until decades later:

Ford said she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ford and reviewed by The Washington Post, do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who went on to become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.” The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room.  

Note that Ms. Ford not only makes no mention of the event until 30 years after the fact, she made no mention of Kavanaugh's name at first, and goes on to challenge the accuracy of the therapist notes she herself provided, presumably to bolster her claims of trauma.

How is this a credible allegation? Where in this sordid tale is there anything that amounts to substance? Where are the provable facts, the evidence, the corroboration of her claims?  There is none.

There are no recitations of events to friends at the time.

There is no police report.

There is no complaint made against Judge Kavanaugh either at his school or anywhere else.

There is no proffered diary entry from Ms. Ford's teenage years.

There is, however, refutation against Ms. Ford's claims.  In her statement, she alleges that a friend of Judge Kavanaugh's, Mark Judge, was present during the assault.  Mark Judge has flatly denied such an event ever took place: 

Reached by email Sunday, Judge declined to comment. In an interview Friday with The Weekly Standard, before Ford’s name was known, he denied that any such incident occurred. “It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way,” Judge said. He told the New York Times that Kavanaugh was a “brilliant student” who loved sports and was not “into anything crazy or illegal.”

Ms Ford does not accuse Mark Judge of any misconduct.  In fact, she credits Mark Judge with facilitating her escape from the situation:

Ford said she was able to escape when Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School, Mark Judge, jumped on top of them, sending all three tumbling. She said she ran from the room, briefly locked herself in a bathroom and then fled the house. 

Her presumed hero of the moment, in other words, claims the event never happened.

Those defending Ms. Ford and her allegations will no doubt raise the standard rhetorical question, "why would she lie about it?"  Given the severity of the offense, that is a reasonable question.  Amazingly, Ms. Ford herself, and her husband, provide the answer:

In an interview, her husband, Russell Ford, said that in the 2012 sessions, she recounted being trapped in a room with two drunken boys, one of whom pinned her to a bed, molested her and prevented her from screaming. He said he recalled that his wife used Kavanaugh’s last name and voiced concern that Kavanaugh — then a federal judge — might one day be nominated to the Supreme Court.

Several things are remarkable about this statement. 1) the revelation presumably came six years ago, and nothing was mentioned to anyone at the time; 2) Russell Ford recalls his wife using Kavanaugh's last name (but not his full name); and 3) Ms. Ford and her husband were concerned that Judge Kavanaugh might be elevated to the Supreme Court.

Until that nomination happened, Ms. Ford was willing to "let bygones be bygones," and move on with her life. By her own admission, Ms. Ford is making this statement specifically to prevent Judge Kavanaugh from being confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice.

She is not seeking redress, she is not seeking justice, she is seeking merely to hurt Judge Kavanaugh.

Again comes the question: how is this a credible allegation? And again comes the answer:

There are no recitations of events to friends at the time.

There is no police report.

There is no complaint made against Judge Kavanaugh either at his school or anywhere else.

There is no proffered diary entry from Ms. Ford's teenage years.

There is no evidence.

There is no corroboration.

From this answer comes the conclusion: this is no credible allegation.  Not only is the allegation unproven, but the span of time since the alleged events has rendered the allegation unprovable.  It cannot be proven to be true, and it cannot be proven to be false.

Claims which cannot be proven have no place within a court of law. They have no place before the Supreme Court of the United States. They should have no place in the proceedings for confirmation of Supreme Court Justices.

Christine Ford's allegations have no place in the public dialog. Period.