Wednesday and we’re on top of the mountain looking at the other side of the week. If this were a 10,000 foot peak, we’d have a 5,000 foot climb down. That would do a number on your knees.
Speaking of peaks, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the peak judicial body here and around the world. I say that because it is charged with weighing our laws against the United States Constitution, the greatest legal document ever devised among developed nations.
Donald Trump recently nominated Amy Coney Barrett, a 48-year-old devout Catholic mother of seven (including two from Haiti) to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the notorious liberal who was nonetheless a widely respected jurist. Given the stakes—a presidential election that could be decided in the courts, the Affordable Care Act, the Roe v. Wade precedent, the threat to the Second Amendment and so much more—her confirmation is essential for conservatives.
I’ve only seen a bit of the Senate hearings, but I read late yesterday about Democrat Sen. Mazie Hirono’s opening questions of Amy Coney Barrett.
Hirono: “Since you became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors, or committed any physical or verbal harassment or assault of a sexual nature?”
Barrett: “No, Senator Hirono.”
Hirono: “Have you ever faced discipline or entered into a settlement related to this kind of conduct?”
Barrett: “No, Senator.”
Hirono prefaced those questions by noting that she asks them of all nominees who appear before her committees, “to ensure the fitness of nominees for a lifetime appointment.” That’s apparently true and it’s her justification for asking them of Amy Coney Barrett.
Hirono asked them quickly and matter-of-factly. But, in context, they were cringe-worthy.
Do you honestly think that if there were any dirt like that on ACB, the Senate wouldn’t know it? She and her life have been sifted like a sack of flour by the opposition.
Did anything about Amy Coney Barrett justify being asked those questions? Is Hirono setting up Coney Barrett for some rude surprise; maybe a high school sweetheart who will accuse her of holding his hand against his will?
Imagine being one of the seven children sitting there, listening to a female politician ask your mother if she’s ever raped any one. The same female politician who asked the same questions of Justice Brett Kavanaugh who was later accused during his confirmation hearings by Christine Blasey Ford of sexually assaulting her in high school.
Hirono believed Blasey Ford. She wanted the FBI to launch an investigation of Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh. She cranked out a mini-tirade at a presser when she said, “Guess who’s perpetuating all of these actions? It’s the men in this country. I just want to say to the men in this country: Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing, for a change.”
She later explained that “this kind of behavior — sexual harassment, sexual assault — it’s been going on.”
“It’s not just something for the women in this country to care about,” she said, “it’s for all of us. That’s why I’ve said to the men: ‘Just shut up and step up.’ And you know, for the men who are offended by this, you should ask yourself: Why are you offended by this? Why don’t you ask yourself: What about this offends you? We should all be holding together. We should all be treating each other like human beings.”
“It’s the men in this country” who are committing sexual assault on women, but also women “perpetuating all of these actions,” too, so we must ask them all the same questions. Especially conservative Catholic women who pose a threat to the progressive agenda.
Sen. Hirono’s two questions were out of bounds. They were invasive, humiliating and inappropriate. She smeared all the men in this country two years ago, and now she’s using that tactic to intimidate a conservative woman.
The best that can be said about Sen. Hirono is that she’s consistent. Unfortunately, she’s consistently awful.
“Wednesday and we’re on top of the mountain looking at the other side of the week. If this were a 10,000 foot peak, we’d have a 5,000 foot climb down. That would do a number on your knees.”
I beg your pardon, sir, this is a blatant, despicable knee-ist remark! A 5,000 foot climb down from a peak would NOT do a number on my knees. I’d be rolling uncontrollably, flailing and flopping, and splatting unceremoniously at the bottom. However, my knees would be unscathed.
As for Hirono (pronounced “HER? Oh, NO!), I don’t understand how some “women” (and I use the term loosely) can utter (rhymes with gutter) the most sexist, and derogatory comments about men, and think it’s alright, and get away with it. It urkes me.
As for Hirono (pronounced “HER? Oh, NO!), when considering the questions she asked of Amy Coney Barrett, you just need to consider the source.
I did notice the complete polar-opposite examples of what True “Womanhood” is, and is NOT. The BEST and the WORST:
~ Amy Coney Barrett
~ Hirono (pronounced “HER? Oh, NO!)
How elegantly you would descend the mountain without damaging your knees! Never again will I be so knee-ist!
😉
Mazie also said something else today to which I left comment on her Facebook page:
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Earlier today in regard to the phrase “sexual preference” you said:
“It’s used by anti-LGBTQ activists to suggest that sexual orientation is a choice; it is not. Sexual orientation is a key part of a person’s identity.”
Senator, while it is true that there is a biological impulse which orients us in one direction or another, it is just as true that we are highly evolved, intelligent mammals who have the ability to override our biological imperatives.
When people of either sex end up in prison, they have a remarkable adaptability to override their natural predispositions and accept new sexual paradigms. Funny, isn’t it, that a heretofore heterosexual male can suddenly find another male appetizing enough, in a carnal way, to consummate a new way of life.
Prisons are only a catalyst for potential reactions which are just as possible outside of their dismal walls. Cultural attitudes, especially religious ones, likely have a huge bearing on a person’s perceived and professed sexuality. In America, men have largely been raised from birth to believe that attraction to their own sex is sinful, and that violating this one rule can result in an eternity burning in a lake of fire, etc. What effect does this guilt and brainwashing have as it becomes ingrained in the mind of an impressionable child? What subliminal role in the forming of one’s sexuality do these dire injunctions serve as a young boy or girl slowly matures?
Left to our own devices, our “sexual preferences” likely change on the hour, or possibly even on the minute as different people cross our paths with their own unique personal effusion and emotional chemistry.
As always, your writing is logical and effective. I don’t agree, of course, with your use of the term “brainwashing” in relation to religion. I do, however, appreciate your challenge to the Senator from Hawaii, who seems to be sitting just a little too tall in the saddle on her high horse. Dave
Would you agree that Muslim children are “brainwashed” with the declarations of Allah, or Hindu children are brainwashed with the stories of the blue-skinned god Krishna and his friend Arjuna, etc.?
This has been sitting in my “to do” file for a few days. Simple answer is “no.” I don’t agree that the examples you cite are cases of brainwashing. As always, we need to define our terms. Should we take dictionary.com’s first definition? “A method for systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs, originated in totalitarian countries, especially through the use of torture, drugs, or psychological-stress techniques.” That’s what I think of when I think “brainwashing.” Their second definition is probably closer to what you’re thinking: “Any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, especially one based on repetition or confusion.” When a Christian, a Muslim or a Hindu is teaching their children, they are teaching what they believe to be the truth, not trying to “alter beliefs” using drugs or torture (although some kids sitting in some worships services would disagree :)). Is it “systemic indoctrination”? To a degree, yes, but not based on “repetition or confusion.” If you taught your children that there is no god, we could argue that it too is a form of systemic indoctrination, but I see it as teaching what you believe to be the truth. Brainwashing is a form of coercion. If a child grows up and decides that they want to explore other options besides monotheism, and they decide that there is no god, contrary to what they were taught, that isn’t a coerced belief. Same if you taught them atheism as truth, and they grow up to reject it through free inquiry and decide that there is, in fact, a God.