@gulfgal98 But I don't think nominees of presidents, for any position, should be tanked based on politics.

When repubs win the presidency, they nominate from their side. When dems win the presidency, they nominate from their side.

IMO, unless there is something egregiously wrong with a nominee, the nominee should be confirmed without a circus. Nominations used to be fairly uncontroversial; the winners and losers were able to deal with their wins/losses.

#5 I agree with this point which is something I highlighted in Alligator Ed's essay. To be clear, I do not agree with everything in your comment, but this is and should have been the primary focus of the Democrats.

The whole point of this 35-year old accusation is to crowd out any discussion of the law, and how BK interprets it. The Democrats barely touched on BK's jurisprudence. Instead they pull out this classic smear.

This is not to diminish sexual assault allegations, because they are important. But by focusing almost soley on the sexual assault allegations from 35 years ago, the Democrats have given Kavanaugh a pass on his severely lacking jurisprudence on many issues that he will be ruling on for decades to come. This diminishes the importance of these legal issues in favor of trying to play an emotional card in an attempt to push Kavanaugh out of consideration.

This is a very risky strategy. On one hand, if the Democrats are successful, then we the people got lucky that a very poorly qualified judge was not appointed to the Supreme Court. However is Kavanaugh does get the appointment, then it appears that the Democrats only cared about the alleged sexual assault to the exclusion of his many judicial faults.

We are going to be stuck with this man for several decades. It is appalling to me that the major focus of the Democrats has been only on this sexual assault issue when they should have also been calling the attention of the people to his known stances on issues of corporate power, women's reproductive rights (Rowe versus Wade), and Citizens United.

@mimi

A quick google turned up this interesting article from 2016: How Helicopter Parents Cause Binge Drinking.

This article points to the much tougher competition for slots in elite schools, slots that lead to elite jobs. Its all part of that "gotta make it big or you won't make it all" attitude that today's teens and twentysomethings have. (Not to say that, in our horrible economy and society, there isn't some reason for that attitude.) Their parents are not quite "juku-mama" (cram school mothers), but they are heavily invested in the kids' success.

Professional-class parents and their children are tightly bound to each other in the relentless pursuit of admission to a fancy college. A kid on that track can’t really separate from her parents, as their close involvement in this shared goal is essential. Replicating the social class across a generation is a joint project. That’s why it’s so hard to break into the professional stratum of society: The few available spots are being handed down within families. From this has flowed a benefit that parents love—deep emotional closeness throughout adolescence, with no shadow of a future parting. Kids don’t rebel against their parents anymore; why would they? Would you rebel against the concierge at the Hyatt?

Furthermore, the college admissions process is part of the problem.

the Good Parent who naively assumes that preventing a teenager from drinking will help him or her in the college-admissions stakes is dead wrong. A teenager growing up in one of the success factories—the exceptional public high school in the fancy zip code, the prestigious private school—will oftentimes be a person whose life is composed of extremes: extreme studying, extreme athletics, extreme extracurricular pursuits, and extreme drinking. Binge drinking slots in neatly with the other, more obviously enhancing endeavors. Perhaps it is even, for some students, necessary. What 80-hour-a-week executive doesn’t drop her handbag on the console table and head to the wine fridge the second she gets home? Her teenager can’t loosen the pressure valve that way—he has hours of work ahead. A bump of Ritalin is what he needs, not a mellowing half bottle of Shiraz. But come Saturday night? He’ll get his release.

The top colleges reward intensity, and binge drinking is a perfected form of that quality. Moreover, it’s highly correlated with some of the activities admissions officers prize most, such as varsity sports: High-school athletes are less likely to use drugs and more likely to drink alcohol than their fellow students. Colleges complain like hell about binge drinking, but their admissions policies favor the kind of kids most likely to take part in it.

And, once they get to college, the same elite, professional crowd is at the heart of the problem.

Who are these students? By and large, they constitute the most privileged subset of undergraduates, and those who would (unwisely) emulate them. The students at the center of this culture are most likely to be the children of white, college-educated parents, young people whose free time is probably spent not working to help support themselves, but rather participating in certain activities, most notably Greek life and athletics.

Anyway, I think the article is a good starting place to answer your question.

the only question I have is, why there is and was so much binge drinking among highschool kids and later on? Why can't they stop after a couple of beers or gin or whatever. With that kind of drunkenness, who would be able to remember anything? I do believe that if a woman or girl was sexually harrassed against her will and if she herself was not senselessly drunk, then the harrassment alone will never be forgotten and is remembered like a trauma, be it a rape with penetration or not.

I don't feel at all comfortable to participate in this thread. Could say more, but for reasons I don't know myself, I don't want to. Politically it makes no sense to me, because as much as on a personal and emotional level talking about it may help those who have been assaulted or harrassed against their will, it will not help to prevent such men as Cavanaugh to get power in politics. But may be those discussions help to get men like Cavanaugh out of power, but I doubt that and have little hope it will.

@janis b Thank you Janis.

between not only genders, but in relation to decency in general. I don’t understand it, but I also don’t think it needs to be settled here. I think the point is to consider and reflect, and grow in appreciation and respect of each others perspective with a willingness to learn.

[video:https://youtu.be/hDD5cAbf2BE]

@Crazytimes

for saying all of this and for saying it so well. I do agree with you and also have the same kind of experience to inform that agreement. Alcohol and drugs are a big subject, or are 2 big subjects that have the the potential to divide this forum. I want to say not only, where are the parents, although that's easy to say with hindsight, but also where are the schools? I wonder how much public education could help to enlighten all of us about the harm of using alcohol, not to mention drugs. Big subjects. Very important in this discussion.

It is difficult to articulate how I feel about this, and I think most people will not agree with me, but I will try to explain. I want to start by saying, I think we can all agree that men/boys should not treat girls/women in that way ie: take advantage of them when they are vulnerable.

However, the sad truth is that men DO these kinds of things. It is not new, and in fact, it has been that way forever (or what seems like always). I am not excusing the behavior, but I want to point out that as a woman, if you put yourself in a position of being drunk at a party and expect that nothing will happen to you, that is naive behavior. That is not saying that it is not WRONG for it to happen, but it should not be outside the realm of expectations.

Women need to take some responsibility for the decision that she makes to put herself in that position as well. I can't believe that parents would not teach their daughters these things. And before anyone gets all righteous on me, yes I have been to parties, and been drunk, and I have definitely had unwanted advances/touching/grabbing etc.

I believe that part of our job as women is 1. Learning how to successfully deal with such threats, because they exist whether we want them to or not, and 2. Teaching your own male children to be better.

We can say all day that a woman shouldn't have to deal with men treating her that way, but the reality is she does and that is not new.

All that being said...Did something happen with this woman and the judge when they are teenagers? Maybe yes, maybe no..but the point to bring this up now, some 30 years later and expect to be believed is a little ridiculous to me.