1. I'd like to offer an alternative definition of "rational, rights-based liberalism" to counter the ahistorical one put forward here. I don't think there's anything "dangerous" or post-liberal about trusting Ford's compelling testimony.
2. Tom Paine, someone we can safely take to be an articulator of America's "rational, rights-based liberal" tradition, was very attuned to how historical power dynamics had systematically authorized the voices of some people (monarchs & aristocrats) & silenced others (like him).
3. If we want to undo deeply-rooted systems of asymmetrical power like monarchy or aristocracy, Paine argued, then we have to legitimize the voices of "the people" and regard the voices of kings and earls with greater suspicion.
4. He didn't say "off with their heads," he just said "sit down, be humble." How about if us ordinary folks get a chance to say our piece without being shouted down, ridiculed as "the swinish multitude," or regarded as dangerous and traitorous "threats to all we hold dear?"
5. Ordinary folk in Paine's era had been taught to defer to power, to doubt themselves, to assume that when a powerful person said something it must be right and true. One of Paine's missions was to expose those habits as harmful to society, and as impediments to justice.
6. My understanding of liberalism has consent at the heart of it. Liberalism (Paine's version at least) was about distinguishing between legitimate forms of power based on consent, and illegitimate forms of power based on pre-emptive claims to historical privilege.
7. Every time a social group has said "we do not consent to this form of power which you unjustly exert over us," conservatives have responded with hysterical wails about the end of western civilization. Humpty Dumpty will never be put back together again! All is lost!
8. "WE are the beneficent and kind defenders of truth and light, YOU (slaves, Abolitionists, women's rights activists, civil rights activists, LGBTQ activists, labor unions) threaten to destroy all that is good and noble about America. WE are to speak. YOU are to listen."
9. "WE will decide what forms of power are legitimate and which are illegitimate. WE will decide whose testimony, whose voices, whose experiences carry weight in public."
10. The dividing line between self-described "conservative liberals" like Goldberg and the people he derides as "anti-liberal liberals" seems to be this--do we think a healthy liberalism has any obligation to reckon with historically-rooted asymmetries of power?
11. I take Goldberg to be saying "no. Just because there is a long history of sexual violence and a tiny fraction of sexual assaults ever get reported (let alone prosecuted), that does not mean we should give the benefit of the doubt to the testimony of sexual assault survivors."
12. It's hard for me to see how those who disagree with him are "dangerous." They are saying "here's credible testimony from someone w/ little motivation to lie, asking us to use our rational faculties to gather more details abo something the public has a stake in understanding."
13. We have fact-finding, reason-based, evidence-based procedures in place to adjudicate such questions. What justification could there be to say we should not put those procedures into operation in this case?
14. The only explanation I can see is that Kav's voice and Dr. Ford's voice are to be treated as equivalent...but also that Kav's denials trump Ford's testimony to such a great extent that even taking her word seriously is "dangerous." Some fury, presumably, will be unleashed.
15. It looks to me like Goldberg is re-enacting an old script in which the innocence of a powerful person is to be presumed, while evidence of guilt put forward by someone from a position historically associated with less power and status is to be taken less seriously.
16. This version of "liberalism" (as theoretically neutral and agnostic when it comes to matters of historical power) strikes me as far more dangerous than the alternative.
17. We know the harm that the presumption of male innocence has caused to untold number of women, just as Paine knew the harm that the presumption of aristocratic and monarchical benevolence had caused to millions of ordinary people.
18, Paine said (paraphrasing) "if we want to build a more just world, we should insist that those historically born to unearned power relinquish some of it so that we can all live lives of self-determination and dignity."
19. That ideal is the basis of America's tradition of reformist liberalism. There's nothing tyrannical and "fascistic" about it, unless of course you are a person in a position of power who hears a request to share some of that power as an existential threat.
20. One thing that has always rankled me about conservatives like Goldberg is the way they want to celebrate the progress the nation has made on matters of race, gender, and sexuality, while arguing that the social movements responsible for that progress are "liberal fascists."
21. I don't think you can have it both ways. You can't say at one moment "America's history of racism is deplorable and I'm proud of the progress we've made" and then say "contemporary movements for racial justice pose fascistic threats to freedom."
22. You can't say at one moment "America's history of sexism is deplorable and I'm proud of the progress we've made" and then say "contemporary movements for greater gender equity pose fascistic threats to freedom."
23. Or, you can't say such things unless you have a limited understanding of how historical change happens...and I had always thought that conservatives prided themselves on their respect for history.
