Believing women or actually helping them? (democratic debate)

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Does believing women and in so doing instilling a climate of believing them help them more than instilling policies that help them?

This is the question I'm left with in the aftermath of this debate.

Bernie seems to be accused of having said something which he denies to have said, yet as progressives we're told to believe women when faced with a he-said she-said type of situation and a woman is making a claim. I personally deem this as a malicious jyu jitsu where you make a claim that no matter what Bernie does he comes off looking bad. Either he denies it strongly which makes him "just another Kavanaugh" or he has to admit he did something which he may not have done and apologize for it which does nothing for him other than solidify him as a sinner.


So, I'll just sidestep this whole issue and focus on what I'm actually confused more people aren't boiling this down to. Do you think an "accused sexist" president with policies that help women as much as Bernie's would is "worse for women" somehow than Warren despite her policies being less grand in scope and ambition? Why do we even care about whether or not Bernie said something bad when his policies are so good for so many women? Is it that he'd also help men too with these policies that's the issue?

At this point I'm left to believe that this is thoroughly disingenuous, that people who just like Warren more due to being more centrist are using this argument in complete bad faith, and I have no joy in coming to this conclusion since I actually liked her a lot too.

 

[Agema]

Does believing women and in so doing instilling a climate of believing them help them more than instilling policies that help them?

This is the question I'm left with in the aftermath of this debate.

Bernie seems to be accused of having said something which he denies to have said, yet as progressives we're told to believe women when faced with a he-said she-said type of situation and a woman is making a claim.

Well, what we mean by "believe" when such a claim is made is potentially unclear.

It doesn't mean some sort of deep faith that something is true, just to assume that it is credible in the absence of countervailing evidence. The point being to make sure that when a claim is levelled, it is not dismissed due to underlying prejudices and personal assumptions, and therefore taken forward or investigated rigorously. Obviously, if the claim cannot be supported after investigation, then it should be dropped.

However, by hinging on what precisely is meant or implied by "believe", one might argue that to say to "believe" the alleged victim in a dispute instead prejudices against the accused. Thus some could word what should be done in other ways which are ultimately reasonable and designed to achieve the same end of ensuring victim claims are taken seriously, but may sound a bit half-hearted or lukewarm (particularly to activists).

As to whether "believing women" or solid policy to help them is better, it's hard to say. We all know that policies can fail or have adverse effects so cannot be assumed to necessarily be better, and we have to remember that fostering a change in general attitude without specific legislation or similar may sound wishy-washy, but ultimately be effective. We can't know for sure until we do something and look at the results years down the line. I would mostly just be satisfied with a candidate who takes a problem seriously and formulates a credible plan to deal with it. Evidently the two of them do, so you can argue over who sounds more credible, but hold both of them as at least having the right intentions.

As it is, they're clearly scrapping over the Dem left. Clearly one of them needs to go otherwise they'll split the left and the traditional business-as-normal, corporate-friendly centre will come through again. Sanders is interesting because he may scare moderates away, but win over Beltway-disillusioned voters who want more outsider presence in Washington (and may have voted Trump for mostly that reason).

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

When you have a situation with two people having a discussion with nobody else around, you have exactly the same amount of evidence something happened as you do it didn't, since it's the word of one person vs that of another. Yet, they were treating the issue as though it was something Bernie had to defend himself from or something he did wrong, when there's actually no proof about that. In this situation, the person making the accusation has a default advantage and the only reason the media is focusing on this is because they disagree politically but they can't come up with an actual policy objection so they have to call him sexist or claim his supporters are sexist at the very least. A reporter even claimed that the story was factual because they reported on it, not clarifying that their sources were just people that Warren spoke to, and not actual witnesses or independent sources who can verify anything beyond that Warren claimed that it happened (yet CNN reported it as though it's fact and not claim).


I can't help but see this as just completely disingenuous.

 

[tstorm823]

I can't help but see this as just completely disingenuous.

Welcome to reality.

 

[Agema]

I can't help but see this as just completely disingenuous.

Isn't that most of politics, these days?

I mean, the US president is being impeached on substantial evidence of wrongdoing, and his party aims to summarily clear him by arguing it's only a smear campaign. One might argue one of the salient causes of political disillusionment is that politicians spend more time seeming than doing, although to be fair that's a lot of the fault of the public for so easily accepting seeming rather than doing.

 

[tstorm823]

Isn't that most of politics, these days?

I mean, the US president is being impeached on substantial evidence of not actual wrongdoing, and his party aims to summarily clear him by arguing because it's only a smear campaign.

Fixed that for ya.

The same people acting like Bernie Sanders thinks women are inherently unelectable are the people who claim Trump bribed Ukraine. They do not say these things because they believe them.

 

[CaitSeith]

You omitted something: Warren said it wasn't a big deal. Isn't that part worth believing too?

 

[Seanchaidh]

This has nothing whatsoever to do with "believing women", and it's gross that was ever implied.

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/LLW902/status/1216906182243377153"]
[tweet t="https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1216918242696011776"]
[tweet t="https://twitter.com/Millerheighife/status/1217165439781883905"]
[tweet t="https://twitter.com/eponawest/status/1216862734790230016"]

 

[Kwak]

There is proof of his past that makes it an obvious lie. Also, "The description of that meeting is based on the accounts of four people: two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting."

It's clearly a strategic attack, which she will regret.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

You omitted something: Warren said it wasn't a big deal. Isn't that part worth believing too?

See, Warren doesn't need it to be a big deal to be an effective smear, she needs it to just have happened, as long as she keeps saying it did, how much significance she places on it is irrelevant because I'm sure she won't jump to defend Bernie every time a reporter who is against his politics claims it was a bigger deal than she feels it was.


So, sure, I believe it, I just don't see it as being actually significant one bit, and I'm sure the people who believe her will believe everything BUT that one part.

 

[tstorm823]

Is it hard picking all the dirt out of your noise from having your head be stuck in that hole all day?

My ego is far to large to fit my head in a hole.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Naturally, the audio of the encounter after the debate exists but for whatever reason had been withheld until now.

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/bourgeoisalien/status/1217630629690515456"]

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Apparently Bernie raised almost 2 million dollars in a day after the debate, from over 100.000 people while Warren is getting asked to refund donations. I guess every cloud has a silver lining lol.

 

[Trunkage]

The problem is that you framed it like: 'if we don't believe her, she must be lying.' And you have zero proof that either side is telling the turth or lying. Which is funny, as that's your onlt argument to prove Bernie's innocence. If you think the man in this situation is innocent, by the same logic (without contrary evidence), she MUST be innocent to.

Just becuase Bernie says, 'its all cool' doesn't, in fact, make it all cool. Magicslly thinking that you believe one side of the story over the other, doesn't make it true, for either side.

How about we start with BOTH sides being innocent, insteading of picking sides.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The problem is that you framed it like: 'if we don't believe her, she must be lying.' And you have zero proof that either side is telling the turth or lying. Which is funny, as that's your onlt argument to prove Bernie's innocence. If you think the man in this situation is innocent, by the same logic (without contrary evidence), she MUST be innocent to.

Just becuase Bernie says, 'its all cool' doesn't, in fact, make it all cool. Magicslly thinking that you believe one side of the story over the other, doesn't make it true, for either side.

How about we start with BOTH sides being innocent, insteading of picking sides.

No, this doesn't work like that, the one making the claim has to bear the burden of proof. You can't prove you didn't do something, it's literally impossible, so this is a game where you are hogtied into at best a neutral situation with the suspicion hanging over your head into perpetuity, poisoning your public image.

To prevent such a state of affairs, we presume the person accused of something to be telling the truth and expect the one making the accusation to show us the proof that they're right.


You don't get to make accusations that demean someone and then retreat unscathed yourself into the middle ground. If you wanted to be in the middle ground then just don't accuse other people in the first place. Bernie didn't start this so it was within her power to be unscathed but she chose not to.

Finally, when you have a video from 30 years ago of Bernie telling little kids that girls can grow up to be president just as much as boys can, it beggars belief that he'd think that women can't be president, he also tried to get her to run in 2015 against Hillary, which is an odd thing to do when you don't think that women can be president, which brings further doubt to the claim, doubt you can't shake without proof.


You also need to keep in mind that the way media is reporting it and the way the debate moderators treated him was as though what she claimed was actual fact and not a mere claim without proof, so there's already a lot of damage done that we need to undo through our rejection of this unsubstantiated claim. You can't ask people to believe both people when so many people have taken to believing the wrong person already. That'd leave a lopsided result.

 

[Silvanus]

You also need to keep in mind that the way media is reporting it and the way the debate moderators treated him was as though what she claimed was actual fact and not a mere claim without proof, so there's already a lot of damage done that we need to undo through our rejection of this unsubstantiated claim. You can't ask people to believe both people when so many people have taken to believing the wrong person already. That'd leave a lopsided result.

With regards to this event, I agree, yes. There's no evidence Sanders said what is claimed, and there's quite a lot of evidence to indicate his attitude is quite the opposite.

However, the tone of this last post... well, it leads me to believe you didn't really post the OP in good faith. You're not really questioning or confused at all-- you're quite certain. Is this topic just a springboard from which to attack the Me Too movement (and connected shifts in attitude)?

Because I shouldn't need to point out how the "believe women" advice means a very specific thing regarding the context of sexual assault, and cannot be blithely applied or compared to petty arguments about other shit.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Apparently Bernie raised almost 2 million dollars in a day after the debate, from over 100.000 people while Warren is getting asked to refund donations. I guess every cloud has a silver lining lol.

I didnt think you could refund political donations.

 

[Trunkage]

You don't get to make accusations that demean someone and then retreat unscathed yourself into the middle ground.

Ah... that's exactly what you are doing. (Let's put aside this potentially being used politically by Warren). You claim is that this accuser is lying, doing this to smear Bernie, that it's just 'political jiu jitsu' to trap Bernie. Got ANY evidence for that?

Literally none?

So, what should we do with this woman whose accused Bernie? Ban her from speaking? Stop her from making any accusation? How do we know which woman will accuse? Should we just ban everything? Oh wait... you made an accusation without proof that was meant to smear someone's reputation and take out a political opponent. So whatever you decide for her, NEEDS to be applied to you and your accusation. I await your decision.

See, the problem is, two wrongs don't make a right. You, I or even Bernie making baseless accusations doesn't counter her accusation. And I'm quite clear that hers aren't as baseless as you pretend. She may very well be misinterpreting the situation (see the Quid pro Quo disagreement at the moment for an example of misinterpreting situations.) It is even possible that she's lying. But something happened and it somehow needs to be dealt with and it may be to no one's satisfaction.

By the way, people are generally forgiving. If Bernie did something wrong and apologies appropriate, many (not all) would forgive him

Now, Warren using this as a political attack is another thing. This is highly likely. But, unfortunately, the same rules apply. There isn't any proof. Yet.

 

[Agema]

Fixed that for ya.

You fixed it to the view of people who don't want to accept what's staring them in the face.

Let's remember that it's only you and yours fighting to stop any more information coming to light: you're the ones scared about where that evidence might point to.

 

[tstorm823]

It is even possible that she's lying.

It's probable that she's lying, but even if she's telling 100% truth, she's still being a tool supreme. This supposed conversation was a year+ ago, and then she ran a campaign systematically stealing Bernie's talking points and holding this in her back pocket until such a time as he was taking the lion's share of their combined base of support. And unlike the situations where "believe women" is typically used, there's not a good reason to withhold this one. If Warren believes Bernie is a sexist who thinks women aren't capable in politics, it'd be both a moral imperative to out him and a political gain in her competition for the same voters as Bernie. Instead, she was supposedly silent on it for many months and when it was reported in the press, she attempted not to burn the bridge publicly right away. That's some sleaze right there.

Let's remember that it's only you and yours fighting to stop any more information coming to light: you're the ones scared about where that evidence might point to.

The last time you made this accusation, I welcomed any more information, as I have been doing the whole time, and pointed you directly at Democrats actively blocking the subject from reaching the courts. To date, you have not responded to that post. Until you do, I've won this argument.