How can liberals believe that...

[AzogtheDefiler]

I don't mind liberals. I dislike Leftists.

 

[miketx]

How can liberals believe that...they know what the temperature was 33000 years ago?

You are confusing liberals with Scientists

You are lying again. Most "scientists" who work for the gov are liberals. I knew many. Especially in the national weather service where you either swallowed the global warming hype or found another job.

You are lying again. There are scientists around the world making the same claims based on the same evidence
Are they all liberals?

Many are.

 

[rightwinger]

How can liberals believe that...not having any proof yet someone should still be punished?

Eyewitness testimony is proof. Many people are in prison based on eyewitness restimony

Where's all the eyewitnesses in the judges case?

Dr Ford provided eyewitness testimony to a sexual assault and identified Brett Kavanaugh as the perpetrator
Most sexual assaults don’t take place in front of an audience.

Many people have gone to prison based on testimony of the victim

Are you kidding or trolling with that statement?

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

 

[miketx]

Well, looks like the OP hit and ran. He was going to explain and all we have is a troll here spinning and half truthing as usual.

 

[OldLady]

How can liberals believe that...they know what the temperature was 33000 years ago?

You are confusing liberals with Scientists

You are lying again. Most "scientists" who work for the gov are liberals. I knew many. Especially in the national weather service where you either swallowed the global warming hype or found another job.

Possibly they bought it because they understand the scientific method well enough to trust the overwhelming evidence of climate change, what is causing it and what limited options we have to limit its impact..

 

[rightwinger]

How can liberals believe that...they know what the temperature was 33000 years ago?

You are confusing liberals with Scientists

You are lying again. Most "scientists" who work for the gov are liberals. I knew many. Especially in the national weather service where you either swallowed the global warming hype or found another job.

You are lying again. There are scientists around the world making the same claims based on the same evidence
Are they all liberals?

Many are.

Most scientists I have dealt with in my life are quite conservative

 

[miketx]

Where's all the eyewitnesses in the judges case?

Dr Ford provided eyewitness testimony to a sexual assault and identified Brett Kavanaugh as the perpetrator
Most sexual assaults don’t take place in front of an audience.

Many people have gone to prison based on testimony of the victim

Are you kidding or trolling with that statement?

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

Where is the proof and corroborating witnesses in fords case liar?

 

[well named]

How can liberals believe that...not having any proof yet someone should still be punished?

As I said, there are like 89 thousand Kavanaugh threads so I'd rather avoid having another one, but I'll offer a few thoughts

1) I think your premise is wrong, re: what liberals believe. You're overgeneralizing from a difference of opinion about a single case.

2) I think we should apply different standards of evidence in different contexts. So for example there is definitely not enough evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Kavanaugh is guilty of a crime in relation to Ford's testimony, and so he should not face any criminal punishment. I doubt there is enough evidence to support a civil judgement either, but I don't really know for sure, and it would be hard to know without a much larger investigation which I assume will never occur.

With regard to Kavanaugh specifically, I disagree with characterizing the situation as one in which he faced punishment without "proof". He was not facing criminal or civil charges, he was being considered for a life-time appointment to the highest court in the U.S. I think part of the bargain that someone makes when they agree to be a nominee for such a position is that they will face a very high level of scrutiny. And the only possible consequence of that scrutiny under consideration was that he might not get the position. I think a reasonable standard of evidence necessary to deny him the position -- given it's importance and the length of the appointment -- is much weaker. I would vote against a nominee facing reasonably credible allegations of sexual misconduct even if I were not very certain they were guilty. That reflects the importance of the position, and the wide availability of qualified candidates without such allegations. I don't feel that this is prejudicial; no one is entitled to a supreme court seat, and the integrity of the court is very important to me. There are caveats here, of course. I would dismiss allegations that were clearly demonstrated to be false, but I don't believe that has happened here.

3) Many liberals view the problem of sexual violence and harassment in context with the fact that the criminal justice system has always been inadequate at protecting women, and for most of our history has been pretty complicit in perpetuating male dominance through sexual violence. Just as a single example, it's not a coincidence that there weren't even such things as laws against marital rape in all states until the early 90s. There's a cultural element to the way many men think about sexual assault allegations, and a lot of tendencies towards disbelieving victims even though false allegations are rare (which is not to say that they aren't serious!), and blaming victims in various ways.

It's also the case that the nature of criminal justice just doesn't work that well for these cases, precisely because there's often a lack of perfectly objective evidence (and I agree with rightwinger that testimony is evidence, n.b. that "evidence" is not "proof"). This is an unfortunate drawback of the standards of evidence we use in criminal cases. Don't get me wrong, we have good reasons for insisting on those standards and there would be other problems with relaxing them, but we should be cautious about the fact that "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" almost necessarily means that many victims will never be able to have justice, because it's simply impossible for them to ever meet that standard. That's why rape is so under-reported and why there are relatively few prosecutions. This is a real injustice for women who have little recourse in many cases.

 

[miketx]

How can liberals believe that...they know what the temperature was 33000 years ago?

You are confusing liberals with Scientists

You are lying again. Most "scientists" who work for the gov are liberals. I knew many. Especially in the national weather service where you either swallowed the global warming hype or found another job.

Possibly they bought it because they understand the scientific method well enough to trust the overwhelming evidence of climate change, what is causing it and what limited options we have to limit its impact..

lol 33000 thousand years ago. Even Fred Flintstone can't help your fantasy.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

Where's all the eyewitnesses in the judges case?

Dr Ford provided eyewitness testimony to a sexual assault and identified Brett Kavanaugh as the perpetrator
Most sexual assaults don’t take place in front of an audience.

Many people have gone to prison based on testimony of the victim

Are you kidding or trolling with that statement?

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

LOL. In America you are innocent until PROVEN guilty. An uncorroborated claim without any physical evidence is a nothing burger. You are dying on the hill of stupidity. And who made you judge and jury? You're a retired dumbass living off my labor.

 

[miketx]

How can liberals believe that...not having any proof yet someone should still be punished?

As I said, there are like 89 thousand Kavanaugh threads so I'd rather avoid having another one, but I'll offer a few thoughts

1) I think your premise is wrong, re: what liberals believe. You're overgeneralizing from a difference of opinion about a single case.

2) I think we should apply different standards of evidence in different contexts. So for example there is definitely not enough evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Kavanaugh is guilty of a crime in relation to Ford's testimony, and so he should not face any criminal punishment. I doubt there is enough evidence to support a civil judgement either, but I don't really know for sure, and it would be hard to know without a much larger investigation which I assume will never occur.

With regard to Kavanaugh specifically, I disagree with characterizing the situation as one in which he faced punishment without "proof". He was not facing criminal or civil charges, he was being considered for a life-time appointment to the highest court in the U.S. I think part of the bargain that someone makes when they agree to be a nominee for such a position is that they will face a very high level of scrutiny. And the only possible consequence of that scrutiny under consideration was that he might not get the position. I think a reasonable standard of evidence necessary to deny him the position -- given it's importance and the length of the appointment -- is much weaker. I would vote against a nominee facing reasonably credible allegations of sexual misconduct even if I were not very certain they were guilty. That reflects the importance of the position, and the wide availability of qualified candidates without such allegations. I don't feel that this is prejudicial; no one is entitled to a supreme court seat, and the integrity of the court is very important to me. There are caveats here, of course. I would dismiss allegations that were clearly demonstrated to be false, but I don't believe that has happened here.

3) Many liberals view the problem of sexual violence and harassment in context with the fact that the criminal justice system has always been inadequate at protecting women, and for most of our history has been pretty complicit in perpetuating male dominance through sexual violence. Just as a single example, it's not a coincidence that there weren't even such things as laws against marital rape in all states until the early 90s. There's a cultural element to the way many men think about sexual assault allegations, and a lot of tendencies towards disbelieving victims even though false allegations are rare (which is not to say that they aren't serious!), and blaming victims in various ways.

It's also the case that the nature of criminal justice just doesn't work that well for these cases, precisely because there's often a lack of perfectly objective evidence (and I agree with rightwinger that testimony is evidence, n.b. that "evidence" is not "proof"). This is an unfortunate drawback of the standards of evidence we use in criminal cases. Don't get me wrong, we have good reasons for insisting on those standards and there would be other problems with relaxing them, but we should be cautious about the fact that "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" almost necessarily means that many victims will never be able to have justice, because it's simply impossible for them to ever meet that standard. That's why rape is so under-reported and why there are relatively few prosecutions. This is a real injustice for women who have little recourse in many cases.

Total bullshit. There is NO proof whatsoever and every scum lib here still believes he's guilty with no proof! Over generalized my ass!

 

[rightwinger]

How can liberals believe that...letting men claiming to be women into girls restrooms is ok?

Personally, I do not obsess with peeing
You gotta go somewhere

Conservatives will also bitch about a tranny using the men’s room. Conservatives bitch about gay men using the men’s room. Women’s rooms all have stalls with closed and locked doors. Nothing to see here

Let them pee and get on with your life

 

[well named]

How can liberals believe that...guns cause crime when they don't want to punish criminals?

Again, I think your premises are dubious, both that guns cause crime and that liberals are against criminal punishment in general. But here's my opinion:

Guns don't "cause" crime in any simple sense of the word cause, but there's ample evidence that the widespread availability of guns is highly correlated to deadly violence (cf. various charts here). If we had fewer guns, we would have fewer violent deaths, fewer suicides, and we would also almost certainly have fewer problems with police shooting people that didn't need shooting, because the police would be in dangerous situations less often.

So, there is a large social cost associated with having so many guns. There are also (from a liberal point of view) relatively few benefits. Guns are not, in fact, a useful deterrent to government tyranny, at least not in the 21st century. Guns are not a particularly desirable means of self-defense, or at the very least it would be preferable to not need guns for self defense, i.e. because there aren't so many guns. Liberals look at other countries and see that they don't have these problems.

Add that all together, and the conclusion is that guns aren't worth their social cost, and we ought to restrict access to them more than we do. Note that none of this reasoning has anything to do with the topic of criminal punishment in general. It's purely a cost/benefit calculation.

 

[rightwinger]

Dr Ford provided eyewitness testimony to a sexual assault and identified Brett Kavanaugh as the perpetrator
Most sexual assaults don’t take place in front of an audience.

Many people have gone to prison based on testimony of the victim

Are you kidding or trolling with that statement?

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

Where is the proof and corroborating witnesses in fords case liar?

Where is it in any sexual assault case?

 

[OldLady]

Dr Ford provided eyewitness testimony to a sexual assault and identified Brett Kavanaugh as the perpetrator
Most sexual assaults don’t take place in front of an audience.

Many people have gone to prison based on testimony of the victim

Are you kidding or trolling with that statement?

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

Where is the proof and corroborating witnesses in fords case liar?

Collins and Manchin voted Yes. It's over. Now will you shut up about Kavanaugh PLEASE?

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

Are you kidding or trolling with that statement?

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

Where is the proof and corroborating witnesses in fords case liar?

Where is it in any sexual assault case?

There is usually physical evidence or evidence that the alleged was actually there. There is no proof with CBF that Kav was even there and non of her witnesses recall it. If there was corroboration that Kav was even in the same house then it may be a different story. Damn, you're dumb.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

Are you kidding or trolling with that statement?

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

Where is the proof and corroborating witnesses in fords case liar?

Collins and Manchin voted Yes. It's over. Now will you shut up about Kavanaugh PLEASE?

It is not about the Kav case its about how suddenly the burden of proof is on the defendant. That is wrong.

 

[well named]

How can liberals believe that...letting men claiming to be women into girls restrooms is ok?

It's not clear to me that there is a single dominant view among liberals about how to address civil rights issues for transgender people, but I would say the very short answer is that liberals who oppose bathroom bills disagree that there is any particularly large risk associated with allowing transgender people to use bathrooms assigned to the gender they identify with. They might say that allowing that is not equivalent to sanctioning the negative outcomes conservatives assume will follow. In other words telling an MTF transgender person that they can use the girls' restroom does not actually imply that non-transgender men should be allowed to use the restroom to ogle girls. It's not really that difficult in practice to distinguish the two cases, and the normal way we enforce social norms (criminal and otherwise) is sufficient. Basically they think that opposition to allowing transgender people to use those bathrooms is an unjustified moral panic driven mostly by bigotry.

My view is that it's somewhat understandable that a lot of people are hesitant about what feels to them to be dramatic changes in norms about gender. Our beliefs about gender are pretty deeply enculturated. I don't think people are necessarily bigoted in their negative reactions, but I do think you can be well-meaning while still ignorant and overly reactionary. I'm sympathetic to the way in which transgender people feel excluded from society because they don't fit neatly into the socially-acceptable boxes for gender, and I think it's important to be open to finding ways to be more inclusive. I also think it's reasonable to show some deference to established norms, or to proceed a bit more gently. I'm at least modestly conservative in that sense. I tend to agree that the opposition to transgender bathroom use is largely a moral panic without substance, but I think it's reasonable to compromise and have public accommodations like single-occupant bathrooms reserved for non-traditionally-gendered people.

Also clearly much of the discussion needed on transgender issue is about the nature of transgender as a phenomenon, much like we've spent a long time as a culture arguing about homosexuality. That is, I ought to address claims that in reality their are only two genders, and things like that (cf. gender vs. sex as categories). I can do that elsewhere, if anyone is interested. It's too much here. But obviously liberal views on how to treat transgender people flow somewhat from beliefs about the nature of gender and sex.

 

[rightwinger]

Prove me wrong

This is not Islam. In America we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I mean you were a Holocaust denier in HS and drew swastikas on schools. Prove me wrong....

You fail to prove my statement wrong
Going into an anti-Muslim rant or a Godwin Defense does nothing to help your case

Where is the proof and corroborating witnesses in fords case liar?

Where is it in any sexual assault case?

There is usually physical evidence or evidence that the alleged was actually there. There is no proof with CBF that Kav was even there and non of her witnesses recall it. If there was corroboration that Kav was even in the same house then it may be a different story. Damn, you're dumb.

Again.....you are changing the premise from “no evidence” to “not enough evidence”

 

[OldLady]

How can liberals believe that...they know what the temperature was 33000 years ago?

You are confusing liberals with Scientists

You are lying again. Most "scientists" who work for the gov are liberals. I knew many. Especially in the national weather service where you either swallowed the global warming hype or found another job.

Possibly they bought it because they understand the scientific method well enough to trust the overwhelming evidence of climate change, what is causing it and what limited options we have to limit its impact..

lol 33000 thousand years ago. Even Fred Flintstone can't help your fantasy.

They got ice core samples or some such.