Sexual assault allegation against Biden beyond the "uncomfortable hugging" stuff. Is this enough to derail his nomination? Thoughts...?
https://newsone.com/3917043/tara-reade-joe-biden-sexual-assault-accuser-breaks-silence/
A week ago the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination was accused of sexual assault and....no one cared. A lot of, "Well, I don't believe her" from "believe survivors" liberals. Or "yeah, but he hasn't raped as many women as Don" gross excuses.
Cool, cool.
Serious question: what do you want people to do about this? What is it that you'd like to see being said and done? What in your estimation is the right course for pro-Biden or pro-Democratic voters to take with this info?
Well, I've seen basically no calls to investigate the claim (and, I realize - as we all should - that it's almost impossibly to fully "investigate" 30-year old claims and come with the magic smoking gun of evidence that would prove/disprove the claim). Not like we saw with Blasey Ford. So, some consistency there would be nice. Either we should treat all accusations with seriousness or not. Dismissing certain allegations because they're inconvenient just makes one a hypocrite.
As for "what to do," I'm not in a position to tell people what to do. Certainly, post-Weinstein people have made big deals (and rightfully so) about sexual harassment and sexual assault, even allegations that never rose to criminal conviction. This, strangely (…/s), does not seem to be getting the same rigor and drumming up fervor like, say, Al Franken. There is no rallying around the woman (notably Gillibrand) like in the Franken case.
So if I boil it down to one thing, it's just consistency. Being principled. Either you care about sexual assault allegations made against politicians/people in power and want to get as close to the truth as possible (like I said, almost impossible in a lot of these situations) or you don't. But don't play up "these should be investigated!" or "believe survivors!" if you only do it when the allegations are made against people you don't particularly like. Franken was a good case of people being principled. Biden, for whatever reason, appears to be getting a pass. People are dismissing Reade like she's a Bernie or Trump plant.
Thanks D&S. I really thought I was going a little crazy until your responses. I can't understand how anyone can say that this isn't whataboutism for Trump who almost certainly has done worse things, admittedly. People keep bringing up Franken as a good example of the Democrats handling things well. I agree! But as D&S said, it's looking like this is being handled very differently. Like it or not, this is an accusation that is completely credible on the face of it, and it's not being handled consistently by some Democrats in this thread and some that I've encountered in real life. That being said, I've also encountered several in real life and on this thread that have said, we will treat this credible accusation as such and would never vote for someone who is a rapist.
First, whataboutism is a logical fallacy when used to excuse one person's behavior based on another person's behavior. I haven't seen anyone trying to excuse Biden's (alleged) behavior but rather they are saying they would still vote for Biden as the lesser of two evil's. It's not whataboutism if it's literally the other side of a binary choice. If someone used Roy Moore as the comparison, that would be whataboutism.
Second, I can only speak for myself here, but I have been consistent on my opinions between Kavanaugh and Biden. I recall when I first heard someone had accused Kavanaugh my reaction was "It's just an accusation, so what". It wasn't until more information about the circumstances and more importantly Kavanaughs's behavior in response to the accusation entered into the equation that I thought he should be replaced.
On the concept of "believe women" I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of that phrase. It does not mean that allegations=guilt. Can you imagine a world where any politician could be effectively removed from a race with just an allegation? That would be absurd.
It means that we should take accusations at face value and not dismiss them because we assume they are born of ulterior motives. It means that we should not automatically assume the accuser is a liar because we don't want their claim to be true.
Believe women ≠ presumption of guilt
Well, someone did mention Moore earlier....but that aside point taken about not excusing the behavior.
That's fair enough about your personal perspective on Kavanaugh, but I feel that this is not the case for everyone on that topic.
If that's the case, then what is the proper response if it's a 30 year old accusation where someone accused someone else of rape and someone denies it. There's no way to completely prove it, of course. There's always reasonable doubt and burden of proof.
So, I have questions for you. One, if it's a "simple" accusation with no way to prove it but also made by someone who we know knew the person, was almost certainly in a situation where this could have happened, but beyond that there's no proof - a lot (not all) of proof for Kavanaugh was that he was there at the party, he reacted horribly to the accusations, etc, and I think there was plenty of reason to disqualify him from the position. This level of proof fits a large number of rape accusations, where it can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. However, reasonable doubt doesn't seem to be the bar that needs to be met for disqualifying someone from an elected/appointed position, and I don't believe it should be. It doesn't need to meet that level, again, it's a big nation out there, we can select someone else.
I'll also phrase it differently, what if it was to the level of Trump's "proof" that he has commited rape that everyone on here says with assurity that he did. That still isn't courtroom law beyond reasonable doubt level (or it hasn't been proven to be that level yet), yet people still talk with the full confidence he did it and mention it as a completely disqualifying thing for being president. What are your thoughts on that?
Finally, let's say there was DNA evidence level of stuff with witnesses and video that Biden did it. What do you think the morality would be for voting for him or not voting for him. I feel that to vote for him in that situation is inherently unethical. Obviously this won't be the case with that level of proof. It's just a thought experiment. However, I also think at some point even with less proof, it also crosses this threshold. Where that is, is a gray area. However, it seems that you do not think that it would unethical to vote for him even in the most extreme situation. Am I correct in this?