| sundin13 said: As others have said, this isn't a court of law. He is being lined up for a promotion so the comparison to someone being tried just doesn't work. What we are asking is if we should take the risk that the country is promoting a sexually abusive liar to the top court in the country, or if perhaps another candidate would be better for the country. Basically, I consider it to be a fairly mathematical formula (numbers are hypothetical): If we a assume a truthful Kavanaugh's suitability for the job is 10, a lying Kavanaugh's suitability is 5 and Trump's second choice is a 9, then if there is greater than a 20% chance that any of these accusations are true or that any of his statements made in court were not true, then Kavanaugh is not the best candidate for the job. Obviously those numbers are hypothetical, but I think it demonstrates the point (I would argue that Kavanaugh was not the best candidate for this job before the accusations but hey, thats just me). |
I'd like to say that your post has been really enlightening on the other side's point of view. I have to admit that such an argument is not one I would have seen coming.
Your argument is pretty much that in purely legal terms, the law doesn't afford him the presumption of innocence because he isn't being tried for something. I would say that many people talking about the presumption of innocence are not talking about it in a purely legal sense but in a philosphical sense as well. If there is no evidence to go either way, do you condemn or do you consider the accused to be innocent? And that is the entire argument.
What I've gathered from your posts is that since he is not being tried for something but is just "up for a promotion" as you say, the presumption of innocence argument is moot. And thus it falls on him to prove his innocence lest it be found out later that he is in fact guilty. Essentially saying that because there is a possibility of him being guilty, we should err on the side of caution and just drop him. I wonder if you've taken the time to actually think of the consequences of implementing such a principle. You're basically saying that unless the accused is on trial in a court of law, in any other circumstance, it's up to the accused to prove his innocence because as long as there exists the possibility of the accusation being true, we should never take the risk.
The presumption of innocence is not just a right in legal terms, but also a principle by which to live and a human right. It is scary to see that people don't see a use for it outside of purely legal situations.
Last edited by Rêveur - on 30 September 2018
