J'Accuse!
In trying to unravel
the roiling cauldron of charge and counter-charge that was the Kavanaugh
confirmation 'process,' I came across this helpful advice on the difference
between an accusation and calumny from none other than that famous amoralist,
Machiavelli.
Machiavelli distinguishes between “accusation” and “calumny” in order to demonstrate that “as much as accusations are useful to republics, so much are calumnies pernicious.” The difference is that accusations are public, subject to critique and refutation, and a mendacious or even inaccurate accuser pays a price. Calumnies, by contrast, “have need neither of witnesses nor any other specific corroboration to prove them, so that everyone can be calumniated by everyone; but everyone cannot be accused, since accusations have need of true corroboration and of circumstances that show the truth of the accusation.”
Inasmuch as the Left
has gone all in on the principle that 'every woman must be believed,'
including, as in the case of Christine Blasey Ford, those that have neither
witnesses nor any other specific corroborations to prove what they say, then
they clearly are in favor of calumnies as an effective methodology going
forward.
Which puts them,
morally speaking, quite far downwind from Machiavelli.
Quite simply, I
think if you cannot achieve the simple moral sensibility of a man like
Machiavelli, then you might need to do some soul searching - that is, assuming
you haven't already lost your soul altogether.
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