https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/us/politics/virginia-blackface-mark-herring.html “I feel like I’m living in an episode of a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel where people are rushing to judgment, and it feels like if I don’t proclaim judgment right away, it somehow reflects on me,” said State Senator J. Chapman Petersen, a Northern Virginia Democrat. “I think we need to slow down.” Interesting, how when things flip, it's time to slow it down. "On Wednesday, Mr. Herring acknowledged that he put on blackface and wore a wig while an undergraduate at the University of Virginia in 1980." "Mr. Northam faces calls for his resignation after a racist photo in his medical school yearbook emerged last week and he admitted he once blackened his face as part of a Michael Jackson costume." "Two days later, Mr. Fairfax, the next in line for governor, faced allegations of sexual assault" Their is already more evidence with Mr. Fairfax then their was with Kavanaugh, and had their been this much evidence and people that could corroborate the Kavanaugh story, I would have said throw him in jail. To me, all this information is being brought up to remove these men from office for the republican successor, but given the proof , and confirmation by two of them, it seems pretty crazy they have remained in this long still.
I would suggest it is less because the accusations themselves are likely to be false, but because the media focuses on certain ones, particularly ones that play well to the political climate. If you were actually at a police station cataloging actual accusations (and not just social media accusations), it'd be a different story. When things are working as intended, we don't pay attention. Instead, both human nature, and as a result media, likes to focus on scandalous and shocking things, and it's a shame when we start to think that those are the norm instead of the exceptions. This is the case with sexual assault allegations, it is the case with superfund sites not being cleaned up properly, it is the case with police brutality, it is the case with school shootings... it is the case with most things people get outraged about from either direction. Also keep in mind that just because it can't be proven, doesn't mean it is a false claim. These sort of crimes often leave very little evidence. Just as the innocent until proven guilty bar is high as it should be, we must also make a good faith effort to investigate accusations in a reasonable manner.
I find it is interesting how this story has been in the news for so long yet this one came and went in under a week. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/steve-king-white-supremacy.html Related to Sok's note, an interesting npr story on exceptional clearance was on recently. https://www.npr.org/2019/02/07/6924...-nationwide-often-mishandle-sexual-assault-ca
"House Republican leaders removed Representative Steve King of Iowa from powerful committee posts on Monday, after Mitch McConnell suggested he find “another line of work” and Mitt Romney said he should resign. The punishment came after Mr. King, who has a long history of racist remarks, made comments to The Times last week questioning why white supremacy was considered offensive." Why he's still in congress, I don't know, but he shouldn't be. I'm honestly confused how he thinks white nationalist, white supremacist, and western civilization are all in the same, where as 2 are just racist and one is just western civilization as a society. Difference is if you ask a normal conservative, if the guy should be removed, they'd say yes. If you ask a liberal or democrat if their guy should be removed, they give you a round about answer on how one is worse than the other and they don't really think what he did was bad enough to have him removed, at least that's how sok does it. "That said, stuff like this, something you wrote in your highschool yearbook, some middle of the night tweet from 10 years ago... that's the kind of stuff where I agree with you. But there are crimes that I would take more seriously and not just assume it was a one time stupid thing - in the cases of crimes of a violent or sexual nature, for example, past behavior is one of the biggest indicator of future offense - so I'd take those more seriously even if it's in the past. The biggest issue with this kind of thing is really the public shaming - whether the issue is in the past or not - the public shaming takes on its own momentum and can ruin people's lives to a point that's not about justice or proportional to the issue itself (for example, the comparison of Kavanaugh to this photo situation tells you that it's easy to get mixed up in a tit for tat when the reality is the two situations are nowhere near analogous)." What sok's party did wasn't as bad conveniently enough, bias, and he doesn't even understand how or acknowledge it which is the worst part. Underlined, and in bold, is my comments regarding Steve King, just so it's all clear and nothing can be read between the lines.
