Some were surprised at my initial reaction on FB to the accusation against Kavanaugh was that I was concerned, and the word "concerned" was the word I used, we were going back to high school to defeat political opponents. I knew from the start what Kavanaugh was accused of was sexual assault. I knew too I was sympathetic to his accuser, and am still believing her more than Kavanaugh. However, I was trying to be consistent in being supportive of "liberal" jurisprudence that even some "conservatives" on the US Supreme Court have embraced regarding the cruelty of harsh and long sentencing of minors for near capital and capital criminal offenses they may commit. See this link on the topic.
I re-evaluated my position following some arguments on others' FB pages for the following reasons: (1) Kavanuagh does not have entitlement to a lifetime appointment on the US Supreme Court, and not getting it is not anywhere like what minority and poor minors face with the type of acts for which Kavanaugh stands accused; and (2) it is time for white males of my age and Kavanaugh's age to acknowledge our shortcomings in a generational way, and accept that youthful acts of criminal misconduct should have had consequences then, but did not. As one commenter put it to me, whether that payback comes now is really not relevant. For me, what convinced me was not quite that, but when I recognized again a poor, black kid often would not, and still often does not, get the type of second chance Kavanaugh has had throughout his life.
Kavanaugh and the Republican right wing, for which he stands, has been consistent in wanting to prosecute and hold minors accountable for the rest of their lives when they commit acts of a violent, criminal nature. The lie behind their position was that they supported the cultural "winks and nods" which allowed young white men, including those in the "jock" world, to get away with what they did, combined with cultural norms of attacking the victim which kept young women from coming forward--until now. And the conservatives' lie behind the principle they espoused was further enhanced by the casual racism which led them to conclude black lives and brown lives did NOT matter--hence, the new movement to say black lives DO matter. As I said the other day, when changing my view, there is an intersection here of racism and sexism that needs to be acknowledged.
Kavanaugh, too, was not a judge who agreed with the recent Supreme Court humane precedent on the subject, and, ironically, he would join the conservative minority on the Court in pushing to reinstate life without parole for capital crimes committed by minors, if I correctly understand Kavanaugh's judicial philosophies. Maybe conservatives should be the ones to start proclaiming what liberal jurisprudence has accepted, but if they do, and I just saw a Jonah Goldberg op-ed this morning making that case, it will be to simply defend the moment, which ends up being another defense of white privilege. Regardless of whether Kavanaugh squeaks through, they will later jettison the principle Jonah Goldberg espoused this morning about teen brains, and back to their usual ways of seeing the issue, particularly when the teen looks like Treyvon Martin.
I still feel we who opposed Kavanaugh's nomination from the start may also be accused of some hypocrisy in this moment. However, when I consider the many facts and circumstances surrounding this moment in time, this accusation, if enough Senators believe Ms. Ford, should properly sink Kavanaugh's nomination as a Justice of the US Supreme Court.
I discussed my changing my mind with my daughter the other night, and wondered what she thought. She saw immediately what I did not in my initial position, but she was not quite aware of the liberal jurisprudential issue about the harsh sentencing rules many states had enacted regarding minors committing crimes. When I noted that, she said she did have some concern about pushing too hard on this, but then came back with her own experience in high school (class of 2016). She said she feels high school football guys still get away with a lot of actions that would otherwise be considered criminal. We both realized then our society still has a long way to go. I then said I agreed that maybe making Kavanaugh a poster boy to say "Enough!" is the kind of rough karmic justice we need to face the music in terms of male-female relations, too. She tried to tell me I'm not so bad, but I said, I think we white guys of my Baby Boomer years are still complicit. I did not say any more, but what I mean by that is my own initial reaction missed the perspectives I had to read and absorb.
