The Roy Moore drama escalates but I’m not convinced *UPDATED*

As the Roy Moore drama escalates, because I distrust those doing the escalating, the new information actually makes me more disposed to believe the judge.

I’m watching with fascination the kill and then overkill with Roy Moore. The GOPers (especially McConnell, McCain, and Romney) are even more hysterical than the Progressives. I can’t figure out if this is Stockholm Syndrome on their part or if they, even more than the Progressives, fear what it would mean to have another Tea Party congress critter amongst them.

All I know is that the accusations are increasingly hysterical and egregious — and that this, rather than convincing me that they are true, has the opposite effect. Let me explain:

When Project Veritas starts small, with a mildly uncomfortable video for the Lefties, it always has lined up behind that first video an increasingly powerful arsenal of videos that highlight the falsity of the Leftists’ initial protests. Project Veritas doesn’t just accuse. Instead, it provides a constant stream of increasingly accusatory videos with real confessions and other statements against interest from the Lefties themselves.

In the case of Roy Moore, though, the Proggies (and GOPers?) are following up somewhat sleazy unsubstantiated accusations with apocalyptic unsubstantiated accusations. There are no videos, no confessions, no blue dresses. Instead, there are just old, stale charges from arguably quite unreliable sources. Rather than convincing me that Moore did something truly bad, it’s convincing me that Moore is making the wrong people very nervous.

Lefties will accuse me of double standards and no moral fiber for refusing to jump on the anti-Roy Moore express, but in determining the truth of an otherwise unsubstantiated accusation, we must always determine whether the source is reliable. When accusations against conservatives come from the completely unreliable and vicious WaPo; from a deeply damaged woman who was a drug and alcohol addict 38 years ago; from women who are Hillary or Bernie supporters; and from the exhibitionistic (but never effective) Gloria Allred via prompts to her clients, it’s hard for me to believe the accusations are credible. 

Because the unreliable sources behind the accusations against Moore prevent me from accepting those accusations as try, my fiber is not tested here. It would be tested only if I believed that Moore raped and assaulted barely post-pubescent girls decades ago. In that case, I’d have to decide whether, as a conservative, I’m willing to use conservative or Progressive standards in determining Roy Moore’s fitness to serve.

What I mean about “using Progressive standards” is that the Progressives, not to mention the GOPers, have always been pretty lax about putting up with moral depravity provided that the person’s politics are acceptable. Progressives supported and GOPers cheerfully worked with a man who callously abandoned a woman to die in a car he’d driven off a bridge. Oh, and they either supported or cheerfully worked with a former Ku Klux Klan bigwig. Oh, and they either supported or cheerfully worked with a man who let his prostitute boyfriend run a brothel from their home. Oh, and they either supported or cheerfully worked with a man who is shown in quite a few videos to be someone who excels at creepily touching young women or speaking to them in sexual terms despite their manifest discomfort. Have I forgotten anybody?

Daniel Greenfield, in an article about the code of silence that held for so long in Hollywood, even as it attacked the military and the Catholic church for sins equal to or less than what’s being revealed in Tinsel Town, explains what the Left has in place of morality:

Ideology replaces character in collectivist political movements. Your principles don’t matter if you believe the right things. But it’s possible to believe the right things and still be a terrible person. You can donate to Planned Parenthood, produce documentaries about campus rape, endow a chair in Gloria Steinem’s name and still spend decades sexually assaulting women. Just ask Harvey Weinstein.

Character means taking personal responsibility for your behavior. But leftists take refuge in social generalities like toxic masculinity, which, like capitalism, means that guilt is collective, not personal. The abusers are also victims. All men are perpetrators. And you can buy atonement with a six figure check to the abortion baby parts ring of your choice or Hillary Clinton’s great feminist crusade for herself.

In the old America, the one that Hollywood and the media are trying to bury, character mattered. The way you behaved showed your character. In the new America, politics tops character. If you believe the right things, you’re a good person. If you don’t, you’re a bad person.

But ideology doesn’t replace the hard work of trying to do the right thing every day, hour and minute.

Communist societies in Russia and China destroyed individual morality and replaced it with collectivist mob violence (the left’s online shaming mobs came to America from China), constant corruption and a horrifying lack of respect for human life. Child prostitution thrives in Cuba, Venezuela and Hollywood.

On the one hand, I want personal responsibility rather than collectivist excuses for people who hew to political correctness. On the other hand, with the United States’ future hanging in the balance, as Leftists use everything they have to stop Trump from returning us at least a little bit to a constitutional representative republic, maybe I have to get my hands and my morals a bit dirty. There’s certainly food for thought there — and a lot of food for thought for Alabamans faced with making a decision at the polls.

That’s philosophy. Let me go back to the facts in this case. There’s one other thing that makes me doubt the credibility behind these sordid claims. When I look at the perfect timing of these accusations, 38 years into a very public career and far enough along in the election cycle to prevent any other Republican from getting on the ballot, all I can think of is the fact that in Illinois, Obama always ran unopposed. Rather than fighting on the merits, he smeared his opponents right off the ballot. It’s easy to win when there’s no one running against you.

UPDATE: I read that people in Moore’s small community are now alleging that, for decades, “everyone knew” Moore was a sleaze, so much so that he was “banned” from areas in which teen girls congregated. To many people, that “everyone knew” is the clincher. To me, it’s merely perplexing.

I’m willing to accept the argument that young women allegedly involved kept silent for 40, 30, 20, or 10 years because they didn’t think anyone would believe them. In a post-Weinstein world, that’s changed so one can arguably excuse them for speaking up so late in the day. (Really so late. So late that no other Republican can get on the ballot. Hmmm.)

What I find strange is the new argument “proving” Moore was a dangerous predator. This argument holds that “everyone knew” what was going on. Does it strike anyone else as strange that, despite “everyone knowing,” no one said anything during all the contentious elections in which Moore was involved? That simply doesn’t make sense. I mean, to my way of thinking, those allegations — that he was banned from malls and was the male equivalent of a cougar — would have been perfect to make public at any time in his flamboyant, controversial career.

*****