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In my view, if you start out by stating, "It's better to let ten guilty people go free..." you acknowledge the system of justice is imperfect. Surprise. Mistakes are made. We don't always know the truth. For that reason, we require evidence. Not a perfect solution. But a better solution than relying on guesses, past grievances in our lives that resemble present accusations in another person's life, and so on to determine the truth.
I'll probably still vote democrat. Trump is that bad. But what an awful group of people the democrats are sometimes. Very discouraging. How do you solve partisan differences? With evidence. Not brain surgery. And not a new idea. Sometimes a guilty person goes free. That is a choice our society has made, to avoid the greater evil of convicting people who have committed no crime.
I did not quote your entire post. It was a good one.
I still have a few comments.
I'm not sure that by presuming innocence and requiring proof of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt we are acknowledging that our system is imperfect.
Our criminal trial system is, in my opinion, pretty near perfect. The imperfection is not so much in the system, the imperfection rather resides inherently in the humans who operate the system.
Moreover, it is necessary to understand the goal of our criminal justice system in order to evaluate its level of perfection.
Because humans are imperfect, it is impossible to expect them to have perfect knowledge of facts, or to truthfully or even just accurately give testimony. In fact, it is nearly impossible to "know the Truth" of many accusations. And because our founding fathers were terrified a government that would seek always to grow ever larger and more powerful and which would become increasingly corrupted by human imperfections, our criminal trial system, by deliberate design, presumes the innocence of an individual and requires that the State prove beyond a reasonable doubt the accusations brought against the individual by the State.
Thus, the goal of our criminal trial system is not to find the "Truth" or to achieve "Perfect Justice" (those are admittedly noble goals, but, nonetheless goals we realize are nearly impossible to attain). The goal of our criminal trial system is to force the State to prove its accusations so that the State cannot trump up charges against individuals who may be an annoyance to the State or who hold a politically unpopular view.
This is the reason that we (Americans) believe "it better to let ten guilty people go free..." When a criminal defense attorney forces the prosecution to abide by the rules of due process and observe all technical rules, the attorney is not simply helping some "slime-ball crook" to get off or beat the rap... the defense attorney is preserving al of our rights as individuals against infringement by the State.
Anyone who thinks these ideas or fears of an overly-powerful and corrupted government are over-stated need only look at the history of governments past, recent and present. Specifically, take a look at the Chinese and the Indonesian Governments and how they deal with unpopular people and political dissidents as criminals rather than merely people who hold different opinions.
If you can understand all of this, it should be clearly evident why we do not (should not) give any credence to completely unsubstantiated accusations of a crime brought against individuals in a political setting.
Last edited by Salmonburgher; 09-21-2018 at 09:39 AM..
Bad news for the GOP. 2nd poll in 2 days shows the public doesn't support Kavanaugh. Likely the GOP has commissioned their own polls also. They probably are considering withdrawal of the nomination due to the mid-terms being around the corner. Their biggest talking point will be how to spin it politically and blame the Democrats, in an attempt to get the mud off their face.
Bad news for the GOP. 2nd poll in 2 days shows the public doesn't support Kavanaugh. Likely the GOP has commissioned their own polls also. They probably are considering withdrawal of the nomination due to the mid-terms being around the corne.
Bad news for the Democrats, SCOTUS nominees aren't confirmed by polls.
It's a stalling tactic. She has no intention of testifying and taking questions because there are too many holes in her story. They hope to delay a week to negotiate "terms" and when that has played out she will declare they could not come to agreement. By then they will have thought up some new excuse to delay. They are quite literally counting days, trying to run out the clock.
Unfortunately for them, everyone sees through it and the GOP will not allow them to run out the clock no matter what.
These conditions By Ford and her lawyer (and the Democrats) for her testifying were crafted to be unacceptable on purpose. Ford does not want to testify, and what is more important, the Democrats do not want her to testify. They know that she is not a credible witness and that she will be methodically taken apart on national TV - by a female criminal attorney - if she does testify. They do not want that and she will not testify under ANY circumstances - because she and the Democrats have already determined that she will not testify.
Also, if the Republicans allow Ford to dictate the terms for her testimony, that will establish a precedent that will be cited and expected to be followed from now on. So, after this, ALL witnesses get to dictate the terms of their testimony before Senate committees. Talk about a chaotic, uncontrollable, unworkable mess.
If Grassley and the Senate Republicans have even a minimal amount of wisdom and intestinal fortitude, they will not give serious consideration to allowing any witness - including this one - to dictate terms for giving testimony. And I do not believe they will consider it, in part because they already know that she has no intention of testifying and that this is just another delaying tactic.
Ford and the Democrats want to be able to dishonestly represent that they wanted to testify, that they tried to testify, but the Republicans would not let them. It is a lie, of course. But their sycophantic followers are liars too, and will happily repeat this lie, because that is who these people are and it is what they do.
Anyone with an open mind will see this and the rest of the Democrat's spectacularly outrageous and inappropriate conduct around this nomination for what it is. This will surely help to motivate Republican voter turnout in November quite a lot.
No, but the Republicans run the government like a heavy-handed dictatorship. Consider the Hastert Rule: no bill is allowed to come to the floor for a vote unless a majority of Republicans in Congress supports the bill. This effectively prevents moderate Dems and moderate Repubs from working together to pass bipartisan bills. Everything is Congress is toe the line.
Bad news for the Democrats, SCOTUS nominees aren't confirmed by polls.
But elections are right around the corner. But go on, do something unpopular like this right before the midterms. It's a good political strategy for a party that is already facing a tough November, don't you think?
But elections are right around the corner. But go on, do something unpopular like this right before the midterms. It's a good political strategy for a party that is already facing a tough November, don't you think?
The Democrat's blatantly obvious smear and slander campaign of a nominee for the Supreme Court is what is going to be unpopular here.
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