This Is Getting Ridiculous

Do you now or have you ever [been a member of the communist party] behaved inappropriately toward a woman?  The hysteria is incredible, and it really is getting ridiculous.  Today’s accused, to the delight of some and dismay of others, is Al Franken.

Let me first state that I am a woman and yes, I have been harassed in the past.  But, let me also declare that was the past and based on the circumstances of the time I chose to or not to make formal or informal complaints.  I certainly do not consider myself a victim today.  Let me also state that I am not particularly fond of Al Franken, as a legislator or in his previous role as a comedian.  But, like so many other of the delayed complaints, I find the complaints against him to be ridiculous at this time.

Let me also note that I am not making judgment about the acts complained of.  At the time of the acts that so many women are now complaining of against so many men, the acts may actually have been reprehensible and inexcusable and perhaps criminal.  But, perhaps they were not.  And that is not an attack upon the women now making the claims.  (It is frightening in itself that any words that might be seen as an questioning the “me too” victims are seen as attacks and quickly silenced.) 

The many allegations that newly surface every day are usually from many years ago.  To use the most recent Franken allegations, they are from around 10 years ago.  Now, if we take a single act alone and in a vacuum, it may have a very different character than when looked at in the context of its circumstances.  For example, if I told you I forcefully yanked a child’s arm you might think that bad, but if you learned that it was done to pull him out of the way of a speeding oncoming car you might think differently.  And, what if the child, now an adult, came out and complained that years ago I had hurt him by yanking his arm.  If I or others were not allowed to provide context, might not an injustice result?

Similarly, we cannot just absolutely accept every isolated act reported now as some form of punishable harassment.  To take Franken again:  there are some pretty ugly photos now surfacing of him grabbing women’s breasts. There are reports of his crude jokes in which he talks about assaulting women.  In isolation these acts or words are certainly offensive. But, Franken was a comedian at the time who used this form of comedy and this sort of comedy was generally found funny by many of his followers (indeed, you can still find this sort of infantile humor performed on a variety of comedy shows and by many comedians today).  Perhaps Franken would not use this humor today and perhaps the audience would not today find it so funny, but the alleged actions did not take place today; they took place at a time when that sort of humor was routinely accepted.  That does not make it right, but it also does not merit the horror and hysteria that is being voiced today.

One must wonder why suddenly so many come forward with age old stories of harassment.  Yes, the climate for reporting is different today, and hopefully that means that women who are harassed or assaulted today will come forward today with their complaints.  But such complaints are far different from suddenly finding one’s voice over something that one until now had been content to live with for years and which occurred at a different place in life, both societally and individually.

Are we going to search everyone’s life back to the day of puberty to see if they ever did anything that today we would find offensive? And are we going to judge yesteryear's acts by today's standards? Because that seems to be what we are doing.  That is really unfair because times and circumstances are different today than 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years ago.  If something was acceptable at the time it occurred, is it really fair to find someone guilty years later when a particular act or behavior is no longer considered acceptable?

Time passage is important.  People’s memories change over time.  People may now perceive an interaction in a completely different light than they did at the time of its actual occurrence.  In most instances there are statutes of limitation for these types of complaints and there is a reason for those limits.  Similarly, courts and legislatures generally do not apply new laws and prohibitions retroactively. 

But, in the court of public opinion, media allegations, and politics there are no such limitations.  One only need to come forward with a decades old allegation, claim that they felt harassed, demeaned, or humiliated and the alleged harasser is immediately condemned.  Those who question the complainer are also condemned for not believing her or seen as condoning the types of acts complained of.  This is a real danger.  And, it is approaching some sort of mob rule.

We have a justice system that provides remedy for wrongs.  That system assumes someone is innocent until proven guilty.  It also assumes that those complaining are being truthful.  When the two sides disagree suggesting that one of the assumptions is incorrect, then the law provides a way of presenting relevant evidence in order to arrive at the truth of the matter.  When we not only allow but encourage people to come forward with allegations and then judge them in the media without a full hearing of all relevant evidence we are denigrating our justice system and by implication our way of law and government.

I am glad that women feel that they can come forward now and be believed about their reports of harassment, but I am not sure that it is really wise to encourage the rush to judgment about incidents that allegedly occurred long ago.  We are creating a class of victims in all the “me toos” but beyond that we are encouraging a belief that all one has to do is say “me too” and they will get vindication – without any actual proof, without the hearing of the other side of the story, without any due process at all for the accused. 

And, so, what then happens when someone does make up an allegation? What happens when allegations become nothing more than political tools, perhaps a way of removing an opponent?  And, what happens when the full facts and circumstances would suggest that the accuser was not wronged in the way she now believes or perceives? We will never know the answers to these questions, because we are not allowing for this sort of rational consideration of each allegation.

The most written about allegations on this particular day involve Roy Moore and Al Franken.  I don’t particularly like what I know about either man, but I also think that neither should be railroaded based only on allegations of incidents that occurred years ago. This is not fair to the men, nor is it fair to their accusers who have a right as well as a duty to have their allegations solidly proven. I am also disturbed by the way that both are being used for political gain by the men’s opponents.

I do not think that it is disrespectful to question an accuser, even one who is accusing someone of sexual crimes or harassment.  And I do not think that it is unreasonable to wonder whether the plethora of such allegations coming forward is not perhaps to some extend a sort of social media way of belonging.   And, I am skeptical that simply a mass of people coming forward because it is the thing to do right now is really a way of empowering women to come forward when the time is not so ripe for such allegations.

Women who are harassed should come forward with a timely complaint.  They should be believed and allowed to present their case against the accused.  The accused should be presumed innocent and allowed to present their view of the alleged events. Honest and reasonable questions about either’s story should not be viewed as attacks.  Judgment should occur without hysteria and only after a full and fair hearing of all the facts.  This, of course, is easier when the facts are not decades old, forgotten, or altered by faded memories.

I began this post by changing the words of the McCarthy hysteria to the words of today’s sexual harassment hysteria.  The hunt for Communists was not good then, and the hunt for harassers is not good now.  The hysteria is out of control and mob mentality along with media “trials” and rush to judgment, while perhaps cathartic for some, are not healthy for our democracy.