Michael Ferguson
The U.S. is going crazy. Clearly, a few troubled women are being exploited by a group of amoral politicos and journalists.
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David Joseph Leonardi Agreed. I was watching a clip from MSNBC and they based their analysis on a twisted misquote of Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh said "I am sure she may have [had such an experience]. MSNBC quote "I am sure she had [such an experience]. Totally different meaning. Then they ascribe guilt, etc. Then the guest accused him of lying, but then had to walk back her own statements. Pile of crap for news.
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Benjamin Daniel Stone The US has been crazy. This is the new normal that McConnell created; I don't see it going away until he and his ilk do.
Michael Ferguson That is ridiculous. McConnel did this. The new normal is Americans throw around idiotic accusations and think there is something wrong with other people.
Benjamin Daniel Stone Subversion of established democratic norms as the new normal doesn't arise out of nothing, and the person who organized institutional efforts to subvert them is public record. Adaptation to new rules may seem less likely than spontaneous insanity from a certain perspective, but I'm having trouble seeing it.
Douglas Kallevig One of the democratic norms established long ago is the presumption of innocence.
It has been changed on the Democrat/Socialist side to guilt by accusation.
That change is on your side, and it is significant.
Michael Ferguson What we've seen with Kavenaugh is the result of the belief that the ends can justify the means. Liberals are more prone to it because postmodernism doesn't provide a good moral compass.
Benjamin Daniel Stone Douglas Kallevig I don't have a side, I've just been paying attention for longer than three months. It's quite clear, if we're being honest, who started valuing tribalism over espoused principles of fairness first, and what an arms race that's wound up being. Further, there's only a presumption of innocence when accused of crimes; he's been caught lying several times, which, regardless of guilt or innocence over sexual assaults specifically, shows a lack of trustworthiness unbefitting one of the highest legal arbiters in the country. Twenty years ago, republicans thought (or pretended to think) lying under oath was sufficient grounds for impeachment. Now? Mentioning such a thing is liberal amoralism.
You can dismiss everything that's led up to a situation when observing it if that's what's important to you for reaching the conclusions you want to, but frankly, that's just another surrender to a US gone crazy.
Douglas Kallevig Apparently you are convinced, in spite of no evidence supporting the woman's claims, even by the witnesses she called.
Guilt by Accusation is your motto, and sliming a good man in order to keep killing more babies is worth you and the Democrat/Socialist Party descending into the gutter.
Believe your lies if you must.
Benjamin Daniel Stone And you're either illiterate or intentionally not reading what's being said to you in favor of vapid grandstanding.
It's not impressive, and I don't think the audience in this forum is dumb enough to be convinced by it either.
Michael Ferguson You are both being tribal (puts group identity above objectivity). A "He started it" retort is childish. In this particular case the Dems are scared spitless that a Kavanaugh confirmation would create a more or less permanent 'original intent' SCOTUS. That's a problem because they have been using SCOTUS to get things like gay marriage that they can't get democratically.
So in a 'ends justify the means' logic, they have been trying to build a narrative of Kavanaugh as a besotted sexual deviant and have gone out and found unwell women to help them build that narrative.
This is obvious to anyone who isn't blinded by ideology and tribal thinking.
America is pathetic and this interchange is submitted as Exhibit 1,000 or so.
Michael Ferguson Douglas Kallevig i call it a divorce. I do not see Federal tanks rolling into Austin. So, people should just get to it and start encouraging a U.S.A. breakup. You will all be a whole lot happier afterward.
Michael Ferguson Douglas Kallevig yes, probably. But sitting here, happy, in Belarus I don't know that it is a bad thing.
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Barry Kort It's unclear to me if "a group of amoral politicos and journalists" refers to the Republicans and the Right-Wing Media or if you are referring to the Democrats and the Left-Wing Media.
Michael Ferguson In this case the left wing, as yOu call it, systematically suppressed exculpatory information with the intent to mislead their readers, viewers and listeners. Anyone who listened to both MSNBC and Fox, understands that Democrats orchestrated a hit job on Kavenaugh. It is now clear that there is absolutely no corroboration for any of the charges and it appears that even Ford perjured herself multiple times.
I'm not saying that Republicans are better. However, in this case the Democrats feel that the replacement of the SCOTUS swing vote with a strong original intent guy justified truly reprehensible means to achieve what they consider a righteous end. Scuzzy is the norm on both sides but this was way beyond the pale. America is not an admirable country and it's getting worse.
Michael Ferguson Barry Kort Which part? That Kavenaugh was cynically worked over by the Dems because his ideology is wrong? Yes.
That Ford perjured herself? The evidence is strong enough to indict and it appears to convict.
That American politics is reprehensible? Well, that's just obvious.
Michael Ferguson I took every Philosophy course offered by my university so you may assume that my understanding of epistemology is comprehensive.
Barry Kort Of the three statements you listed, are each of them a working hypothesis of yours?
Are any of them not a working hypothesis of yours?
Michael Ferguson Barry Kort everything I assert is a working hypothesis. However, my confidence varies. What is your point?
Barry Kort That's what I'm seeking to assess — your sincere degree of belief or level of confidence of the probity of an assertion.
Conversational English text (sans audible inflection or tone of voice) is not a very precise medium for assessing whether one is stating a plain fact, an opinion, a speculation, a well-thought-out thesis, a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic, throw-away, or cynical remark, etc.
I personally find it very hard to determine where along such a diverse spectrum to place assertions in general.
Michael Ferguson Barry Kort my confidence runs from moderate for the first and very high for the last.
Barry Kort I am not aware of any credible evidence for the middle one. On that one, how did you falsify the null hypothesis?
I reckon we agree on the third one (which I would characterize as a diagnosis).
Michael Ferguson There is a slew of it. But, though she could be indicted for perjury, I don't favor it. She clearly has no fear of flying, didn't build a second door into her house because she is claustrophobic, did advise another woman on taking lie detector tests, etc. However, her falsehoods were designed to enhance her vulnerable image, not directly corroborate the assault charge.
Barry Kort How did you falsify the assertion that she has fear of flying?
I absolutely hate flying. I don't even like driving. But I do both because there is no alternative. Just because there are things one dreads doesn't mean they never do it. It takes courage to do things we dread, but we do them all the time. She said she was terrified to come before the committee, but she had the courage to do it, knowing it would be a dreadful experience.
How do you know the parameters of her interior mindscape — her fears, emotions, backstory, unresolved issues, beliefs, desires, or intentions? Those are extremely subtle and complex elements of any human being.
Michael Ferguson First, they looked at her flying record. But also they talked to he ex-boyfriend of six years who had flown all over with her and he said she showed no anxiety at all, even when they flew in single engine prop planes.
Michael Ferguson Barry Kort we can't. But, for example, the degree of serious crimes is often determined by an imputed state of mind. You are being a good defense attorney for her, but I doubt many juries would buy it. However, I do not favor indictment. I think these women are troubled.
Barry Kort It is not a crime to have an emotion like dread.
And it is not uncommon to find the courage to do what one dreads.
Doing what one dreads does not falsify the neurological fact that one has the stated dread.
Michael, it is intellectually dishonest to assert that just because people are observed doing what they dread that they are committing perjury when they disclose that dread.
To come to such an absurd and scientifically unsupported conclusion, Michael, is evidence of a lack of critical thinking skills.
Therefore, I increment my calculation that you lack the level of critical thinking skills to be taken seriously when you accuse Ford of indictable perjury.
Your conclusion that Ford has no fear of flying is an unsupportable working hypothesis, and indicative of a failure to scrupulously adhere to the protocols of the scientific method.
Michael Ferguson Barry Kort it is a moderately supported hypothesis based upon her behavior and what those around her have said. Your arguments are not without some merits, but the evidence would support a loss in civil court and probably guilty in criminal court. I believe what happened here is that Dem operatives maneuvered her into testifying when she didn't want to. She invented the fear of flying to keep from testifying. The GOP said the offered to fly the committee to her for private testimony but her attorney, provided by Feinstein and a well known Dem operative did not pass it on, the Republicans believe that was because the Dems intended to try Kavanaugh in the court of public opinion and they needed the testimony in DC and public.
There is a legal term, preponderance of evidence and the evidence against Ford I think clears that hurdle. But who knows. It just means that I think that the prosecutor would have an easier task than the defense. I grant opposing assessments. Guess I don't have you argumentative disposition.
Barry Kort It's one of many imaginable working hypotheses, but that doesn't make it anywhere near conclusive or the ground truth.
Your thesis that someone could be indicted and convicted for perjury for candidly disclosing a dread is laughable, Michael.
People in business typically say that they hate meetings. But they go to meetings all the time. One can find hundreds of fears that people genuinely possess, but soldier on nonetheless.
Everyone finds it necessary to do things that give them anxiety. It's a manifestly universal feature of being human.
Moreover, emotion axes reside along a continuum. A person's emotional state slides along such axes, sometimes moving at a snail's pace, sometimes lurching in a dramatic fashion.
Michael Ferguson Barry
1) you are not the arbiter of truth
2) I don't care what you think. So, I'm done.
3) if we interact again, please be polite. You can strongly disagree with another without calling their position laughable.
Barry Kort I once had a housemate who co-owned a single-engine Piper Cherokee Arrow. We went flying with him perhaps a half-dozen times. One time we flew all the way from New Jersey to the Turks and Caicos Islands, just three bachelor housemates in their early thirties.
I had no experience in flying at all. The two of us who had no licenses alternated between right seat and navigator. Once I flew by instruments in the fog. I even did a take-off once. But the only thing I was comfortable with was calculating the navigational parameters. The rest of it was scary as hell. But we did it, and we survived, notwithstanding some dicey passages.
A year later, one of the other co-owners bought the farm when that little single-engine Piper Cherokee Arrow "November Two One One Two Tango" went down in New York Harbor.
Believe me, I had plenty of anxiety flying and sailing with those housemates.
Barry Kort Michael, it is profoundly rude to call someone a perjurer based on laughably faulty reasoning. Consider that had I used your standard, I would have called you a liar with respect to your theory of mind about Dr. Ford.
But I didn't call you an indictable liar. I merely said your reasoning was unscientific to the point of being laughable. Which it is, Michael, because I couldn't help myself. I rolled my eyes at it. And then I overcame my dread and (perhaps against my better judgment) reached out to assist you in coming to appreciate a feature of your reasoning that I reckoned you might not have been aware of.
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Nicole Tedesco Yes Michael, it's nuts here. Not quite third world, blood-in-the-streets nuts, but civility in political AND private life has been strained as of late. On the political front however, this has been some time coming unfortunately.
Michael Ferguson Well, I wrote "America is headed for a divorce" for the first time in 1993, so...I know.
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