J Robert Smith
- Nov. 21, 2019
- 4 min read
U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified that there was a “quid pro quo” between the U.S. and Ukraine, even though President Trump made it crystal clear to Sondland that there was no “quid pro quo.”
So, how did the ambassador arrive at his opinion that a “quid pro quo” must somehow exist? It turns out that he assumed or “presumed” it. At one point, he called it a mere “guess.”
The trouble with presumptions and guess-work is that they are often unreliable and sometimes quite wrong. Assumptions and suppositions, by their nature, can be risky and foolish. We should trust only in what we know that is derived from facts. This was the fatal flaw in Sondland’s narrative. [Bold added]
— Gregg Jarrett, November 20, 2019
THE TAKE
As the impeachment scam grinds on, what are the left and Democrats teaching us about their notion of justice? That facts, evidence, and corroboration don’t matter. What counts are feelings and conjecture. It’s the feminist approach. This is perilous to actual justice.
Would you want to be accused of a crime, hauled into court, and found guilty based on the sentiments and guesswork of supposed witnesses? Or be an elected official impeached because some people “think” you’ve violated your oath of office?
Adam Schiff is running the Democrats version of a Soviet show trial. What drives it, though, is a contemporary – and radical – sensibility. Reason applied and judgment based on hard facts are out. Even Russian communists would have made a pretense at both. But those stink of Western Civilization. They’re too masculine.
Democrats who have the reputation and office of the president in hand have given themselves license to decide his fate based on “I said so” testimony. It’s fertile ground for lying, grudge settling, and advancing agendas.
What are Donald Trump and Bret Kavanaugh other than innocent men falsely accused? Men subject to the feminist approach to justice? Kavanaugh was subject to Blasey Ford’s hazy recollections of a sexual assault she claimed Kavanaugh committed against her. No proof, no corroboration, of the alleged event necessary. Blasey Ford’s word sufficed.
As to the president, it doesn’t matter to Democrats that a parade of “witnesses” has contradicted themselves about Trump. Ambassador Sondland – a Schiff star witness – gainsaid his earlier claim in tough cross-examination by GOP Representative Mike Turner (Ohio).
From Sondland’s testimony, via Rush Limbaugh:
SONDLAND: I believe I just asked him an open-ended question, Mr. Chairman. “What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories and this and that. What do you want?” And it was a very short, abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood. And he just said, “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.” Something to that effect.
Then Sondland kills his own testimony in his exchange with Turner.
But Turner gets Sondland on the record saying that no one “on the planet” every told him that Trump was tying aid to any investigations, and that his testimony is not saying that there was ever a tie between the aid and the investigations. Rather Sondland admits, again, that he only PRESUMED it. At which point Turner explained that ‘presuming’ is not evidence, but it really just amounts to made up testimony. [Italics added]
Sondland’s admission should be the takeaway that explodes his credibility. But the mainstream media focused only on his early assertion. The MSM’s censored coverage bolsters the narrative that Trump was seeking a quid pro quo in his dealings with Ukrainian president Zelensky.
This is an old-fashioned attempt to railroad an innocent man – Donald Trump – but it dovetails nicely with a rationale that says to hell with proof. Feeling someone is guilty is good enough.
This explanation of “feminist ethics” from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Since oppression often involves ignoring the perspectives of the marginalized, different approaches to feminist ethics have in common a commitment to better understand the experiences of persons oppressed in gendered ways. That commitment results in a tendency, in feminist ethics, to take into account empirical information and material actualities.
Feminist ethics is not limited to gendered issues because the insights of feminist ethics are often applicable to analyses of moral experiences that share features with gendered issues or that reflect the intersection of gender with other bases of oppression. Feminist philosophical endeavors include bringing investigations motivated by feminist ethics to bear on ethical issues, broadly conceived. [Italics added]
The “progressive” Democratic Party is drenched in feminist thinking, which includes a rejection of Western thinking, which feminists interpret as “privilege[s] historically available to men” to determine right and wrong.
Of course, that’s rubbish. There’s nothing masculine or feminine about a fair trial, a confirmation, or an impeachment. Proceedings must be based on facts, evidence, and corroboration – if truth and outcomes fairly arrived at are the aims.
If the feminist approach to justice prevails, tyranny will follow. And that’s not based on a feeling.
What do you think? Weigh in!
