“Not to tell the Federalist Society how to run its orientation sessions, but “don’t accept explicit photos from someone litigating in your courtroom” should really be on page one.” That’s how Above The Law sums up the disbarment of right-wing judge Josh Kindred.
As Fred Clark points out, though, “one page is not nearly long enough to list all the specific things that you would need to tell someone not to do if they’re the kind of person who needs to be told specifically not to do that. And even if space one page one were limitless, you would never have sufficient time or imagination to list and enumerate all of the many creatively awful things this kind of person would need to have listed and enumerated for them. You can never come up with enough rules to govern the behavior of someone who has no principles.” See, for example, the Necrotic Toddler’s outrageous use of the pardon power.
As the blogger and ethicist Hilzoy put it some years back, “Our moral lives depend, to an enormous degree, on our ability to stop and think before crossing certain lines; to recognize that it is time to stop acting in whatever ways come naturally to us.” A lot of us are very bad at that.
Consider, for example, the endless whines from misogynists and sexists that criminalizing sexual assault is an attack on men (more examples in this list). Or that sexual harassment is just guys doing what they normally do, hitting on attractive women. The argument boils down to claims that guys ignoring a woman’s “no” is just what men do — it’s the woman’s responsibility to make them stop because men can’t help doing what comes naturally (as I’ve mentioned before, nobody has a lower opinion of men’s self-control that misogynists and anti-feminists)
In the first place, rape is not some natural, innate instinct. Even if it were, part of being an adult human in society is learning to control our instincts. Peeing is natural and it’s a drive we cannot refuse; even so I imagine most rape apologists would be outraged if I zipped down my pants and peed on their leg.
Some years back, libertarian asshat Tyler Cowen said he couldn’t think of any reason an employer didn’t have right to say “give me a blow job or you’re fired” — unless maybe, it was written into the employee’s contract. A blogger pointed out, similar to Clark above, that no contract can cover everything: even if it bans unwanted sexual contact, how about “you have to lick my shoes clean every morning during our meeting.”
As Clark says, this is the advantage of broad principles like The Golden Rule, though making rapists follow them isn’t particularly easy. Particularly if they tell themselves that no means yes and the woman really wants it.
I’m not sure what the solution is but punishment — making wickedness unsafe in any station — is obviously part of it. If people can’t control themselves, the fear of punishment may be what it takes. Not shrugging off Kindred’s conduct gets him out of the courtroom and sends a warning to others. Sometimes that’s the best we can do.
