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Sunday, September 16, 2018

Libido and libation

There's an explosive, detailed allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh:


1. To judge by the story, I find the allegation realistic and credible. But credible isn't the same thing as convincing. 

2. For the most part, her account lacks any independent corroborative. Thus far, no one else at the party confirms her story. That doesn't mean her story is false. If it happened, both Kavanaugh and witness Mark Judge have every incentive to lie. And if it happened, they were the only direct witnesses. Mind you, if she was distraught, other partiers might notice her condition as she left. 

This is a problem with failing to report a crime when it happens. The witness pool dries up. Memories fade. 

3. The closest thing to corroboration is the polygraph. I think it's significant that she passed the polygraph. Indeed, I think it's significant that she agreed to take it in the first place. If she fabricated the story whole cloth, would she even dare to take a polygraph?

4. That said, a polygraph is not infallible, and to my knowledge, it only shows that the subject is convinced of what they say. Some people who claim to be victims of ritual Satanic abuse might pass a polygraph. Some "alien abductees" might pass a polygraph. On the vicissitudes of the polygraph:

http://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph.aspx

5. If true, it's odd that she's uncertain what year it happened. Given such an unforgettable incident, how could she be unsure about the year? 

Likewise, she's given conflicting accounts of her age at the time of the alleged assault. Was she 15 or in her "late teens"? How could she not remember her age?

The fact that she says she doesn't remember the year or the place could be a calculating way to render her allegation unfalsifiable. 

6. Although I find her allegation plausible, there's another plausible scenario. Both she and Kavanaugh were inebriated. 

She denies that she was drunk, but I treat her denials the same way I treat the denials of Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. If guilty, they have reason to hide their guilt. They have reason to protect their reputation. But that cuts both ways. For by the same token, if she was inebriated to some degree, she has reason to deny it, since admitting that both were intoxicated dramatically changes the social dynamics. 

Why do teenagers go to drinking parties if not to drink and hookup? By design, it's a sexually charged setting.

7. If they were both intoxicated to some degree, then she could be completely sincere in her recollections, yet intoxication might impair her perceptions at the time, what signals she was sending, as well as her memories of the event. (By "perception" I don't mean sensory perception but interpretation.)

When teenagers and college students attend drinking parties, there's a presumption that the partiers are under the influence and sex is on their minds. It pretty much removes the conditions necessary to establish nonconsent. 

8. Rape charges are often hard to verify if there are no witnesses. In addition, rape depends on nonconsent. And that makes attempted rape even harder to verify. Throw in a drinking party with barelyclad teenagers, and what's the presumption? What's the expectation? 

9. In addition, the timing is politically calculated to derail his confirmation. She's a registered Democrat. 

Now, that's still consistent with the truth of the allegation. But it's equally consistent with expedient defamation. That's a problem with last-minute accusations, which weren't reported at the time the alleged incident occurred. 

10. There's also the issue of double standards. Suppose, at a drinking party, a teenage girl shoved a boy onto a bed and began to tear his clothes off. Technically that's sexual assault, but if girl does it to a boy, does anyone honestly think that's sexual assault–or do we instinctively understand that what may be a traumatic experience for a female isn't a traumatic experience for a male? Men are wired differently. 

Or suppose you had a gay drinking party in which one young sodomite forced himself on another young sodomite. Is that attempted rape? Of did he leave himself open to that, given the setting? Swim with sharks...

Our society needs to get honest about standards. Either have a consistent unisex standard or a consistent complementation standard. If secular progressives are serious about how men and women are physically and psychologically interchangeable, then what is attempted rape when a male takes the initiative is attempted rape when a female takes the initiative.

If, on the other hand, we admit that normal men and women are physically and psychologically different, then that justifies a double standard in some situations (where sexual differences come to the fore), but that needs to be consistently applied. That means excluding women from certain occupations to which they are physically and/or psychologically unsuited.

What we have right now is a double standard when it benefits women. Where men are presumptively guilty. That's a miscarriage of justice. 

14 comments:

  1. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-allegations-serious-but-not-solid/

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  2. Steve wrote:
    ---
    That said, a polygraph is not infallible, and to my knowledge, it only shows that the subject is convinced of what they say.
    ---

    Not quite. It shows the physiological responses when a person is asked a question and when they respond. The theory is that when someone lies, it causes stress and that is shown in the bodily reaction. And if you take an unprepared person, that's generally true.

    The problem is that just about anyone can pass a polygraph test with training, and it's downright easy if you're a sociopath who doesn't care about right or wrong, truth or lies. Sociopaths can fool it because they literally have no physiological responses, because they don't care if they tell the truth or lie. Of course, the lack of physiological response would be picked up too, but a sociopath can fake the response they want, just as a regular person could too.

    The first part relies on the fact that the interviewer has to establish a baseline for when you tell the truth and when you lie, so the test begins with asking control questions. The basic way to begin to fool the test is to figure out a response to what to do when you're saying something true (e.g., perhaps you curl the toes in your right foot) verses the response when you're telling a lie (e.g., bite the inside of your cheek or tongue, enough to cause pain but not enough to cause damage), and then when you get asked a question you want to simulate truth on, you just curl your right toes, and if you want to simulate a lie, bite your tongue.

    Doing this consistently throughout could let you pass, and at worst would result in an "inconclusive" result on the tests. In fact, one book I read said if you just want to get the results tossed and don't want to concern yourself with fooling the other person, just always bite your tongue even on questions that you would obviously be answering truthfully ("Is today Sunday?" "Yes"--polygraph shows you lied, but it IS Sunday...) and they won't be able to tell when you were lying.

    So knowing what the polygraph is measuring, and practicing in advance, while giving yourself masking techniques, you could easily fool a polygraph tester. This is why polygraphs are inadmissible in court.

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    1. Some skeptics have suggested that as a psych prof., she'd have the savvy to bluff her way through a polygraph test.

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  3. The left is well-practiced at fabricating stories that are “realistic and credible”. Except they are not true.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/09/16/transparent-political-hit-job-kavanaugh-accuser-christine-ford-blasey-activated-to-advance-35-year-old-accusations/

    https://twitter.com/Larry_Beech/status/1041519668966645761

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    1. Yes, fictional stories can be realistic and credible. Indeed, there's a stock narrative about drunken teenage partiers. That's the sort of thing some teenagers do when they're intoxicated. In that respect the story has verisimilitude, but that could either be because it's true or because it's custom-tailored to fit a stock narrative.

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  4. My ability to see Post articles has ended. Maybe I should subscribe since they do some good reporting.

    Did the accuser take the lie detector test after she came out publicly or before?

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  5. And then there's this....

    https://af-mg.com/2018/09/17/breaking-news-christine-fords-parents-were-defendants-in-a-1996-foreclosure-case-guess-whos-mom-was-the-judge/

    Apparently, Christine Ford's parents were defendants in a 1996 foreclosure case whose judge was Brett Kavanaugh's mother.

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    Replies
    1. I saw that last night and figure it is worth exploring, but the details don't seem relevant so far.

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    2. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/no-brett-kavanaughs-mother-didnt-foreclose-on-his-accusers-parents

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    3. Thanks, Matthew, and that does address the problem with conservatives who claim that judge ruled against Christine Ford's parents, but that's not really the issue. The issue is that judges and defendants are not supposed to be in the same case if they know each other. In fact, the first time I got called for jury duty, one of the potential jurors with me was asked, "Do you know anyone involved in these proceedings?" and he responded, "Yes sir, I know you." At which point the prosecution had him dismissed.

      So the fact that Judge Kavanaugh did not recuse herself and the parents did not seek to have her recused indicates that they probably didn't know each other, which would certainly mean it unlikely that either of their children had mentioned the other family.

      This is certainly not open and shut, but it's clear that Ford hadn't told anyone of anything involving Kavanaugh back then, and that if she did happen to have actually met Kavanaugh in some capacity she never mentioned his name. Is it possible? Yes. But it would lead far more credence to her claims if Mrs. Kavanaugh had been forced to recuse herself from the case.

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  6. A few other possibilities:

    The event happened to her but with other men involved. She just put in Kavanaugh's name as a lie, and the rest of the credibility is carried by the fact that it was a real event.

    She was drunk and got wrong who was involved.

    He was drunk and hence doesn't remember doing it.

    On another note: Would he have special difficulty winning a defamation lawsuit because he is a public figure? Could this explain his not suing for libel or defamation even if innocent?

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    1. Useful observations. In a way, this is a useful test-case for sifting testimony.

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    2. Lydia asked:
      ---
      On another note: Would he have special difficulty winning a defamation lawsuit because he is a public figure? Could this explain his not suing for libel or defamation even if innocent?
      ---

      There's also the fact that to win a libel case you have to 1) prove the claim was false, 2) prove there was actual harm done to you, and 3) prove the person making the claim intended it maliciously (i.e., you have to prove they knew it was false and made the claim anyway). While point 2 is easy to establish, both 1 and 3 are not.

      It's important to note that in point 1 above, it's not enough to show that the claim has not been proven--you have to actually prove it false. (e.g., "To prevail in a defamation lawsuit, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant made a false and defamatory statement about the plaintiff that was communicated to a third party." -- http://andersontriallawyers.com/faqs/person-prove-win-slander-libel-claim/) This puts a very high burden of proof on Kavanaugh, since absent him finding an email where she admits to conspiracy or something like that, it's difficult to see how he can actually prove she's lying, no matter how innocent he is. And even if you could prove it is definitely a lie, you'd have to prove that she knew for a fact it was a lie. And, as you mentioned, if something happened and she just confused the individuals involved, then she hasn't acted with malice against him.

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    3. Yes, I think that may be a difference between American and European defamation law. My impression is that under European law, once the suit is brought, the defendant has burden of proof to show that the statement is true, whereas under American law the plaintiff has to show it to be false.

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