Kavanot

Now that the dust is settling around the Kavanaugh fiasco, and the despicable corporate media are no doubt regrouping for their next bout of fabricated outrage, I might just take a minute to mention that I don't really care much for Brett Kavanaugh. I supported his confirmation for the Senate, of course, but how could one not? The Democrats made the confirmation process a referendum on insanity. Do you oppose insanity? Great, now you support Kavanaugh, by necessity. It become a matter of principle, not how we personally felt about the guy, or even his judicial record. His legal career was considered to be impeccable by the likes of the National Review - who can't be trusted - but we can safely assume that anyone on a list hand-picked by the Federalist Society and vetted by the Heritage Foundation is an acceptable choice. For those who may not have been aware, Trump had those two organizations collaborate a list of potential nominees during his 2016 campaign, and he promised to select someone off the list. It was a brilliant political move. So brilliant, in fact, that I'd be surprised if we don't see it copied in future elections. It was particularly relevant to Trump's campaign, the first election in something like a hundred years with a Supreme Court vacancy during the election, and he as the wild-card candidate. Offering a whitelist of names before the election soothed a lot of anxiety among conservatives unsure about the unconventional outsider and former Democrat.

We don't know why President Trump picked Kavanaugh over other names on the list, many of whom are more conservative. Perhaps he suspected that Kavanaugh had the guts to handle a potentially raucous confirmation process. Perhaps he had made an agreement with Justice Kennedy not to pick someone too far to the right. Most likely he made what seemed to be a safe pick given the Republicans very soft hold of the Senate. When you consider that there are several Senate RINOs prone to treachery, and that Democrats will only very rarely vote with the president, you can see why 51 seats on the Senate doesn't go very far.

A serious demerit to Kavanaugh's record is his affiliation with the George W Bush administration, and his involvement with the Patriot Act. Rand Paul doesn't think much of Kavanaugh's record regarding the Fourth Amendment. You can trust Rand Paul on those kinds of matters. It's a very important consideration. Since the Bush tenure we've had the Snowden revelations, a massive expose of the depth of the US surveillance state. Even worse, and still ongoing, is that the FBI used those anti-terrorism powers to spy on a US presidential candidate in an attempt to veto a national election. Even those of us who are extremely skeptical of the US surveillance state were floored to learn that a FISA warrant was issued against a presidential candidate based on his opponent's opposition research. So yeah, having a guy who is weak on the 4th Amendment and was even involved in some of the offending executive actions is cause for concern.

Senator Claire McCaskill, whose Senate seat is under serious threat, voted No because Kavanaugh would not vote to overturn the Citizens United ruling. Well, that was her excuse anyway. Of course, she never actually considered voting for him. You know, this is one area where I tend to want to agree with the left. The corporate media is enemy number one in this country, and anything to increase their influence should be resisted as a matter of pragmatism. You have to wonder, why are so many liberals - complete stooges of the corporate propaganda - so opposed to Citizens United? Well, for one, liberals are unprincipled. The reason they oppose it is because the majority opinion was from the conservative wing of the court. As simple as that. And their leadership - the media, Soros, the Clintons, etc -haven't directed them away from their default position of opposing whatever conservatives do. So why haven't the left-wing elites done that? Well, Citizens United was a conservative non-profit that was prevented by the FEC from airing an anti-Hillary film during the 2008 primaries. They sued on grounds that the law violated their First Amendment rights, and ultimately the Supreme Court agreed. So, while personal contributions are strictly regulated, PACs were granted unlimited influence in politics. Scary stuff, it would seem. But consider something. Isn't it interesting that the plaintiff in Citizens United was a conservative outfit? There's big money on both sides, but much more goes to the left. Consider not only that Clinton outspent Trump by about three times in 2016, but that she got the vast majority of the big money. If the laws in place prior to Citizens United were limiting to corporate influence, wouldn't we expect the plaintiff to be from the left?

And that's the rub. The left already own the corporate outfits. They own the media. They get the Wall Street cash and Hollywood endorsements. They effectively own a mass propaganda wing that is largely immune to regulations. As we say here a lot, selectively enforced rules are merely tool of tyranny. So the prior FEC regulations would limit, say, Dinesh D'Souza from putting out documentaries, but allow CNN to engage in 24-hour vitriol against conservatives. Moreover, even in this slanted environment, punishments will still be selectively doled out. D'Souza went to prison for illegal campaign donations. A crime under the law, to be sure, but he was the first person to ever serve jail time for such a crime. He was a political prisoner. Meanwhile, the Wikileaks showed numerous campaign finance violations by the Democrats and even the media. There has been not even a hint of action on anything. These selectively enforced rules are unjust. Citizens United is preferable to one-sided regulations.

The final piece to Kavanaugh is more personal. After the rape accusations fell apart, the left went to questioning his temperament. It's a nonsense argument. For ten days straight the biggest news story in the world was that he was a serial gang-raping monster, which resulted in threats on his family and the like. We don't do trial by ordeal in this country. Even Lindsey Graham made the quip to a protestor, "why don't we dunk him in water and see if he floats?" Why don't we ruin his career, publicly humiliate him and destroy his reputation, threaten his daughters, and see if he gets mad? Of course he got mad! Still, just the same, I thought he was too emotional. It's because he was naive, as I argued here a while back. Nothing disturbs a person like unexpected maliciousness. Kavanaugh should have expected it. They accused Roy Moore of rape right before his election. They accused Donald Trump of rape right before his election. Did he not suspect they'd accuse him of rape right before his nomination to flip the balance of the court? Clearly he did not, nor did he or his family expect the circus going on in the Senate before the rape claims came out. When someone has that mindset - oh, yeah they accused those other guys of rape, but that can't happen to me because I'm solid - it's hard to tell where the naivety ends and the narcissism begins. Those are the traits we hate the most in leftoids, and in so-called conservatives like Bill Kristol.

The best case for Kavanaugh is that he has been red-pilled to the extreme by his public attempted lynching. Still, I'm hedging my bets. I saw two Kavanaugh headlines today on a pro-Trump site, both regarding his staff appointments. One was that he was the first SC Justice ever with an all-woman staff, and another about a high-level of minority staff appointments, higher in his career than the liberal hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The boast was to shove it in liberal's faces. "See, you're wrong, he does care about women and minority races!" It's the stupidest political stance you can take. Since when do the liberals give credit where it's due? All they do is to vilify any of us, and especially Kavanaugh, whom most Democrats still believe - or at least pretend to believe - is a gang-raping monster now sitting on the Supreme Court. It's possible that his staff picks, now and throughout his career, are genuine. I don't know much about the biz, but I'd suspect women's traits of attention to detail and ability to multitask could give them an advantage in the role. It's certainly possible that all the best candidates were women. Still, I ain't buying it. It's too much like your typical cuckservative behavior. Appease the left enough and maybe they'll like you. Or at least stop calling you bad names in the press. Hire enough women and maybe you won't be crucified in the press as a gang rapist. Or maybe you will. Conservatives hiring based on sexual and racial virtue signaling is just as bad as when liberals do it. Actually, it's worse because it adds a whole new layer of irrationality. We'll show those stupid feminists by only hiring women!

Speaking of irrationality, Jordan Peterson had quite a surprising take on the issue. He suggested that, if confirmed, Kavanaugh should step down. If you don't know about Jordan Peterson, one of his big principles is that you never apologize to a mob. He's quite articulate on the matter. You only apologize to people where the apology stands between you and resuming a cordial relationship. If I get drunk and say some awful things about you - perhaps on this blog, where literally dozens of people read - you might demand I make an equally public apology. You know, friendship isn't all about being nice to each other. Friendship is about telling the truth and pushing each other to improve. If I disparage you publicly, I have at least granted you the opportunity to demonstrate you have a backbone and won't tolerate abuse. And if you force me to concede my error, you teach me humility and steer me in the direction of improving so I won't make a similar blunder in the future. The transgression-apology cycle can actually strengthen a relationship, as counter-intuitive as that may be. But none of that applies with the leftist mob. Vox Day - who loathes Jordan Peterson - was writing about it years ago in his book SJWs Always Lie. It's something of a modern corporate survival guide, and I've sent copies to a couple friends working in those environments. The major lesson is don't apologize for "offensive speech" and other pseudo infractions, because your accusers will take that as the admission of guilt they will use to hang you with. Jordan Peterson knows this well, and in fact he first became famous for standing up to proposed compelled speech laws in Ontario. He's now making millions a year off his fame, but he advises Kavanaugh to effectively prostrate himself before the mob.

I'm quite a Jordan Peterson fan, myself. In fact, last Thursday I attended a Jordan Peterson lecture when he came through Missouri. Dave Rubin tours with Peterson, and led off with a brief standup bit. Then Peterson gave his hourlong stream of consciousness, followed by about a half hour of Q&A with the two. Rubin had Peterson's laptop which he was using to take question off of some app. He quipped, "Oh look, Jordan left his Twitter open. I could send the Tweet that ends it all tonight." It got a good laugh because one of Peterson's things is that he is very careful with his words. He says he does so as a matter of principle, but also because he knows the radical left are just dying for him to misspeak in a career-ending way. So it's interesting that just a number of hours later Peterson would Tweet something like that. He's very careful not to arouse the leftist lynch mobs, but he neglected to be mindful of his own supporters. Peterson isn't really a conservative. He's never claimed to be. But most of his followers are right of center. Some are far to the right. It would be one thing if he made a principled stance that ruffled the feathers of his conservative patrons. It's quite another to seem to abandon all his own principle to do so. He followed up his initial Tweet with a couple more that only seemed to dig the hole deeper. He said it's a complex issue. No, it isn't. He's the guy who did such a great job of making the dynamic simple for the rest of us. Don't apologize to a mob. Five words. Not complex at all. He called Kavanaugh a divisive figure. Getting assailed by the left because they don't want the courts to lean right doesn't make him divisive. It makes them divisive. What's Kavanaugh to say to all the people who went to bat for him, like the many dozens of women from his life making positive character references? "Thanks for pulling through when I needed you the most, but nevermind."

Many on the right already dislike Peterson. Some because he's a liberal. He was anti-Trump last I know, and I imagine he still is. Some because they are jealous, I suspect. Vox Day and the Zman fall into that camp. They've both dismissed him before all this, but never made a compelling case. They don't have to like him, yet they still go out of their way anyway to making unconvincing arguments against him. They don't like intellectual competition in their niche. Some just don't get him. Blonde in the Belly of the Beast says she was pretty well on the fence with Peterson already. She also went to one of his live shows, but found it to be just an hour of incoherent rambling. Well, the show isn't for everyone. It certainly takes an intellectual bent to follow and enjoy. Blonde is a Q believer, so her inclinations can be questioned. She still makes a perfectly logical refutation of him. Either he's not that logically consistent after all, and not careful with his words, or he's selling out his convictions to pander to the left, more interested in gaining approval from his "intellectual dark web" compatriots than standing by the lessons he delivers to his fans and supporters. Either way, she's justified to denounce him.

I think it's great that someone can make millions as a rambling philosopher in this culture. Peterson is the icebreaker, and many more should be following through to keep that sea lane open. If anti-progressive "hate speech" becomes big business, that's good for everyone. I think Jordan Peterson is absolutely brilliant, and I'm not likely to stop following him because of this incident, as bad as it is. He could do a lot of damage control by actually issuing an apology. Because those of us who are his supporters, who buy his book and pay to see his lectures, we actually want to resume cordial relations. And if he can't man up to own the error here and admit he got reckless, well maybe Dave Rubin's joke was quite timely after all.