Don’t Doublethink Twice, It’s Alt-Right

This morning, via Facebook, I shared some thoughts on the Kavanaugh US Supreme Court nomination. Facebook’s default text on the Timeline posting box is “What’s on your mind?” Between the sets of asterisks is what I put in the box, and what my friend Laura J Young was kind enough to ask permission to Share. Laura, thanks again, and on your behalf I am sharing with my WordPress followers…

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“What’s on your mind?” The post box asks us. “Doublethink,” the term invented by George Orwell, is on my mind. It is when you know something is false, but at the same time you know that it is true.

Brett Kavanaugh is a fine, decent man. And Brett Kavanaugh is a lowlife and a liar. There is plenty of evidence that he is part of a male culture that likes to sow wild oats, to euphemize, or to have fun and jokes at the expense and to the detriment of women, to be more candid.

Anyone remember Panty Raids? Frat boys being frat boys would invade dorms or sorority houses and steal young women’s panties. But that’s not all they would do. When I was a student at the U of A one frat boy ripped the bedclothes from a woman in her bed, exposing her bare breasts. I am 100% certain that worse things happened during that panty raid. I am also grateful that I was never in a fraternity.

What Kavanaugh did with his testimony was de facto plead guilty to a lesser series of crimes. He pled guilty to liking beer and hating Democrats. He pled guilty to making fun of his farting classmate and he pled guilty, through demonstration, of being a crybaby.

And this enables the doublethinkers of his like-minded colleagues to rush to his defense. It is the same doublethink that allows Trump supporters to excuse truly egregious behavior on his part, including adultery in his current marriage, as “brash.”

The trouble is, bad as panty raids were (are?), something far worse is going on under our noses. A Treasury raid. An Abuse of Power raid. A raid on our environment. An invasion by a hostile foreign power.

Please, dear friends on both sides of the aisle, stop double-thinking. It is killing our country.

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The title of this post is a riff on the Bob Dylan song title “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Though I regret the partisanship revealed by the “Alt-Right” portion of my title, my weakness for bad puns overcame my wish for neutrality. To all you non-Nazi, humanity- and diversity-loving Alt-righters, please accept my sincere apology.