Quote of the Day, Two:

The coordinated effort to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court required the systematic refutation of the entire notion of Western jurisprudence by senators and much of the American legal establishment.

–Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness

Even if you are already disgusted and dismayed by the confirmation hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Victor Davis Hanson paints a picture of the implications of this unfolding event as more serious than even the most saddened among us might imagine.

Hanson, a classicist with a wonderful knowledge of western history and civilization, sees the Kavanaugh hearings as "an epitaph for a spent culture for which its remedies are felt to be worse than its diseases."

Hanson cites several dates: 338 B.C., when the Greek city states were crushed by the Macedonians; A.D. 476, when the Roman Empire fell to barbarians; 1453, when the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottomans; and  1939, when the Nazis launched an invasion of Poland that led to World War II.

Is the current confirmation battle over Judge Brett Kavanaugh really THAT important?

Here are ten new standards, as Hanson sees it, that could be established by the Kavanaugh hearings, and all of them go against the western jurisprudence and our sense of decency, both developed over centuries:

  1. The veracity of accusations will hinge on the particular identity, emotions, and ideology of the accuser;
  2. Evidence, or lack of it, will be tangential, given the supposed unimpeachable motives of the ideologically correct accuser;
  3. The burden of proof and evidence will rest with the accused to disprove the preordained assumption of guilt;
  4. Hearsay will be a valuable narrative and constitute legitimate evidence;
  5. Truth is not universal, but individualized. Ford’s “truth” is as valid as the “Truth,” given that competing narratives are adjudicated only by access to power. Ford is a victim, therefore her truth trumps “their” truth based on evidence and testimony.
  6. Questionable and inconsistent testimony are proof of trauma and therefore exactitude; recalling an accusation to someone is proof that the action in the accusation took place.
  7. Statutes of limitations do not exist; any allegation of decades prior is as valid as any in the present. All of us are subject at any moment to unsubstantiated accusations from decades past that will destroy lives.
  8. Assertion of an alleged crime is unimpeachable proof. Recall of where, when, why, and how it took place is irrelevant.
  9. Individual accusations will always be subservient to cosmic causes; individuals are irrelevant if they do not serve ideological aims. All accusations fit universal stereotypes whose rules of finding guilt or innocence trump those of individual cases.
  10. The accuser establishes the conditions under which charges are investigated; the accused nods assent.

I urge you to read this essay.