[BryantD]

> Defending oneself from an accusation inherently entails discrediting the accuser

This reduces the question to a black and white decision, which is unreasonable. I see two major flaws here:

1. You're eliding the difference between discrediting the accuser's claim and discrediting the accuser themselves. There is a significant difference between saying "that's not accurate" and saying "the person who said that is a drunken loser who has been out to get me for years."

2. You're likewise removing any distinction between true and untrue responses! Surely it's acceptable to criticize a defendant for lying?

Now, we have not established whether or not Kavanaugh was lying, and I'm not saying he was -- but your response completely skips over that entire facet of the question. You are assuming a conclusion which has not been reached.

[manfredo]

>There is a significant difference between saying "that's not accurate" and saying "the person who said that is a drunken loser who has been out to get me for years."

Did Kavanaugh ever say the latter? In fact this line of criticism seems to work in his favor: the label "drunken loser" was applied to Kavanaugh much more frequently than it was applied to Ford, at least from the coverage I saw (admittedly, mostly from left leaning outlets so that may be a factor).

I'm not sure why you brought up #2 given that you later state that you don't know of any instances in which Kavanaugh lied. Yes, if Kavanaugh lied that would be significant. But as you stated in your own comment, you do not know of any such instances. I am not aware of any statement that was proven to be false either, at least outside of tangents that stretch my idea of relevance to the accusations (e.g. contents in his yearbook). So, yes if Kavanaugh lied that would be valid criticism - but we both agree that this was never demonstrated, so this point is moot.

[BryantD]

No, he did not say such a thing.

I'm not specifically addressing Kavanaugh, I'm pointing out a flaw in your logic. You made a general assertion, which I'll quote again: "Defending oneself from an accusation inherently entails discrediting the accuser, to criticize defendants for doing so is essentially saying it should be socially unacceptable to defend oneself from an accusation."

Did you mean that, or did you generalize a bit more than you intended while defending Kavanaugh?

[manfredo]

Yes, I meant precisely what I wrote. Defending oneself entails discrediting the accuser. Knowingly lying, or insulting the accuser in a way unrelated to maintaining one's innocense is not necessary. But as you stated yourself, the subject at hand did neither of these things.

How you made the leap from, "Defending oneself from an accusation inherently entails discrediting the accuser" to, "knowingly lying and needlessly insulting people is okay" is a mystery to me.

[BryantD]

> How you made the leap from, "Defending oneself from an accusation inherently entails discrediting the accuser" to, "knowingly lying and needlessly insulting people is okay" is a mystery to me.

Ah, I'm sorry that was unclear.

The word "discrediting" is ambiguous. It's sufficiently general so that it's hard to make a moral statement about it. You can discredit someone by pointing out flaws in their statements. You can discredit someone by lying about them. There are lots of ways to discredit people, so just saying that it's OK to discredit the accuser doesn't really imply any specific moral principle. It's not a useful statement.

Does that help?

Edit: whoa, crap, I missed something. I did not say "the subject at hand did neither of these things." I said "we have not established whether or not Kavanaugh was lying, and I'm not saying he was." Close one there!

[zozbot123]

I would not say that the "inherently" in that comment should be read as a necessary condition, since some false accusations are the result of e.g. mistaken identity, that entails no blame on the accuser. However, it certainly is the case often enough to deserve mention, entirely aside from what the specifics of Kavanaugh's case might be.

[manfredo]

Saying that the accuser mistook someone's identity is still discrediting them. It's selectively discrediting them, by specifically discrediting the part where the accuser claims it was the defendant that did the crime while not discrediting the fact that the crime took place. But it still is discrediting the accuser.