I was looking for someone to read that with the same shock and horror as I did and respond directly to OaH that this statement is not OK. I didn't expect me to have to point it out for someone to do it. Instead of someone actually condemning it (except Guitarstv), my statements have been the ones coming under scrutiny as opposed to that horrific statement. That's kind of what I was expecting.
I read your post first so I responded to it first.
My first reaction to the "I don't care" post was confusion. I don't even comprehend that position.
Perhaps @OzzieandHarriet meant they will still vote for him because the alternative is so much worse?
Hopefully they will elaborate on their position.
Fair enough, it all got out of order. I will say that even if that is OaH's view (and yours, if I'm reading your post correctly), that's still quite a statement to make and people making it, IMO, lose a lot of credibility when criticizing people for voting for Trump despite his many ethical and moral failings (policy stuff excluded).
ETA: I re-thought about this one. All credibility. All credibility is lost to ever criticize anyone for voting for someone who has done something abhorrent in the past. If rape isn't a bar for someone doing something evil that disqualifies them from being elected to the highest office in the land, then nothing will.
I'll never feel good about casting my vote for a lesser evil, but I'll still do it. Even if this accusation were proven true, Biden has a long way to go before he matches Trump's moral and ethical failings. If I could only choose between a murderer and a thief to babysit or leave it up to chance, I would choose the thief and not be very happy about the situation.
ETA: Again, my position assumes a situation where there are only two choices. In such a situation, the only bar is the other candidate.
I'm not even saying you shouldn't do that. I'm just saying, anyone who did forfeits all high ground to criticize non-political life actions/crime/reprehensible things committed by any presidential candidate outside of policy decisions. Also, you compare this as murder to theft. This is sexual assault to sexual assault. I'm not aware of anything Trump was accused of doing prior to his presidency that was worse than rape.
Perhaps I should have compared one act to many.
However, Trump has been accused of raping 12/13 year olds with Epstein and those events were corroborated by Epstein's assistant. Charges were brought and then dropped on 2 separate occasions.
ETA: Regarding the bolded, your logic doesn't follow. I haven't said that non-political life actions/crime/reprehensible things are irrelevant, only that I would choose the lesser evil. All that really says about me is that I don't believe in abstaining from the vote as a form of protest.
First of all, Trump is horrific, awful, and even if Biden did this one thing, he has almost certainly done more things. I am not disputing any of this. My logic does follow, because you don't have to abstain, you could choose to vote for someone who didn't rape someone. I'm not demanding you abstain from voting.
I was getting upset yesterday responding to this, so I'm obviously not in a good frame of mind to argue this, and that's on me not on anyone else. That being the case, I'll respond with this and leave it at that.
I saw this accusation of Biden of rape and was curious what everyone would think. I have seen first hand on this board and on others what has happened when this kind of thing comes up and the Republicans are the ones who are accused of it. Anyone that wants an education on it, please go back to the Kavanaugh thread. The tone of many was much more on the believe the woman side of things. This situation may not be as "provable" as the Kavanaugh one was, but it's also not some random woman who never had contact with Biden accusing him. The woman who accused him had already talked about how he made her uncomfortable - they have certainly had contact with each other. That was all it took for many/most of the liberals for Kavanaugh to say multiple times in multiple ways - this is one of the highest offices in the land - surely the Republicans can find someone who they like who isn't accused of rape. The Republicans I know either didn't believe it at all or said that their particular political issue - pro-life, was more important, even if it did happen. I didn't buy it, and it was a big reason why I started distancing myself from Republicans. It was a terrible ethical statement to make - ends justify the means kind of thing.
So I bring Biden up, curious and also thinking/hoping that liberals would respond in an ethical way. First, I was expecting people to treat it the same - say yes, we should investigate this, but it seems reasonably credible, so we should probably lean towards believing the woman. That didn't really happen. Then I hoped that people would say, if the investigation proves true, there's no way I'll vote for a rapist. Both may be rapists, but I can't vote for someone who raped someone else. If they couldn't do even that, I surely for pete's sake hoped they would say it would be the most difficult decision in my life voting, but I feel that Trump is so bad I feel I have no other option even though I feel terrible for doing it. I stand by what I said that you would lose all moral high ground to criticize anyone for voting for someone because they did something in the past, because you would literally be voting for someone who raped someone in the past, and it doesn't get much worse than that. You would be saying political ends justify the means of your vote for someone who raped someone else, and that's a line that once you cross, I don't buy any equivocating that you can come back from there.
What I got on this thread was nothing like that. I was disappointed. I shouldn't have been. I know political expediency trumps (no pun intended) all. Despite all of my arguing with many stalwart liberals on this forum, I actually have a lot of respect for mainstay liberal posters on here. You have broadened my horizons on issues and changed my perspective on many things. In this instance, from my view, I saw political expediency play out in people on this forum, and it made me sad. That's pretty much all.