How Did Christians Decide Christmas Was On December 25th?

The Nativity by He Qi

A 12th century biblical scholar named Jacob Bar-Salibi wrote a bible commentary dated to 1171 A.D., a copy of which was discovered in the 19th century. In a note written in the margin of the copy that was found is the claim that Christmas was moved from January 6th to December 25th to coincide with the Roman pagan holiday Sol Invictus. From this, Christian critics, legalist Christian sects, and Christian cults condemned the celebration of Christmas as being of pagan origin. While the Bible makes no mention of the date when Christ was born, there is quite a bit of evidence that He was not born in December, namely that the Bible states that there were Shepherds keeping their flocks in the fields at night, which is not something they would have done in the winter. There are other ways to estimate the time of Christ’s birth, but suffice it to say, He was not born in December. Does that mean that Christmas is a celebration of pagan origin?

20th century scholarship, much of it still unknown outside of work by historians and scholars of ancient texts, has actually refuted this idea by looking at the Christian practices and writing of the time the supposed borrowing took place. When Aurelian proclaimed Sol Invictus to be an official cult of the Roman Empire on December 25th, 274 A.D. and thus making that day the feast day of Sol Invictus, most Christians were not celebrating the birth of Christ. There was some interest in determining the date of His birth, with Clement of Egypt writing in 200 A.D., recording some of the proposed dates as March 21st, April 15th, 20th, or 21st, or May 20th. At any rate, one of the reasons why Christians were persecuted from the foundation of the religion until the tolerance of Constantine in 312 A.D. was that they did everything they could to remain wholly separate and distinct from non-Christians. They would not have adopted a holiday from pagans at all from 274 to 312, as well as for many years after.

It was not until the late 6th century that Pope Gregory suggested “Christianizing” pagan celebrations in hopes of getting pagans to adopt Christianity. This also explains why many modern Christmas decorations like the Christmas tree, Yule log, wreath and lights all have pagan origins. No Christian writer prior to Gregory even suggested such a thing. On the contrary, their works suggested the exact opposite, encouraging pagans to throw off all semblance of paganism. Augustine in the third century, wrote a book titled Confessions in which he describes his conversion to Christianity and his separation from paganism and in addition to defending Christianity against pagan scholars, he lifts up his mother as an example by telling how she would stop any activity when she found it had the slightest similarity to pagan celebrations. Since Augustine was the model theologian for the early church and many theologians of his time and for centuries after tried to be like him, it should come as no surprise that there is no encouragement from any writer until Pope Gregory to adopt Christian celebrations and paganize them.

The problem is that Christmas appears as a Christian celebration long before the time of Pope Gregory. Pope Julius I proclaimed December 25th to be the official date to celebrate Christ’s birth in 350 A.D. The first official celebration of Christmas in the Roman Empire was on December 25th, 336 A.D. There is even a record that shows that Christians in Antioch (present day Turkey) celebrated Christmas on December 25th in about 150 A.D. The earliest record of the term “Sol Invictus” is from 158 A.D.

If Jesus was not born in December and Christians did not take the date from pagans, where did the date of December 25th come from? Early Christians may have determined the date by determining Christ’s death. In about 200 A.D., Tertullian of Carthage said that Jesus died on March 25th. A rabbinical tradition that important events repeat on the same date caused Tertullian and other North African Christians to believe that the annunciation—Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would conceive of the Holy Spirit—happened on March 25th as well. Augustine was familiar with the March 25th date and reported it in a sermon he preached.

“For he is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”

In other words, if Jesus was conceived on March 25th, a belief held by Christians for at least 74 years before Aurelian’s proclamation of Sol Invictus, then simply adding nine months gives a date of December 25th according to the same tradition. The evidence is quite clear that Christians were using this date for 124 years prior to Aurelian’s proclamation and even several years before a belief in Sol Invictus even began.

No matter how this issue is approached, the birth of Christ was believed by Christians to have been on December 25th long before the proclamation of Sol Invictus

John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons

Sunday night I had some free time for once and I decided to watch John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons. This is now showing on Netflix and is a filmed version of his one-man Broadway show. Leguizamo attempts to tell the history of Latin America in the form of a narrative about helping his son work on a middle school project.

The show is based on some true events. When Leguizamo's son, Lucas was in middle school, he was bullied by white kids at his school and called names like "beaner." When Leguizamo informed the faculty and the offending students were punished, the bullying was intensified. Lucas became ashamed of his heritage and his father set out to find some kind of Latin American history his son could be proud of. The show is the product of his research.

I'm glad that he took the time to do some research, but as with any actor's attempt to "teach" history, the result is promblematic. Leguizamo's source material includes Howard Zinn's book "A People's History of the United States," which Stanford historian and education expert, Sam Wineburg describes as a far left "crusade built on secondary sources of questionable provenance, omission of exculpatory evidence, leading questions and shaky connections between evidence and conclusions." Leguizamo's interpretation of Latin American history echoes the leftist crusade, is reductionist and reiterates leftist canards, one of the worst of which is that Europeans deliberately and systematically wiped out 95% of the indigenous population.

It is 100% true that the European treatment of indigenous Americans was criminal, and they made a solid go at killing off the population, but even liberal estimates put their achievement at a 15% reduction. The other 80% of the population was wiped out by disease. Leguizamo points this out, but his claim is that the Europeans figured out that European diseases were killing the indigenous people and all they had to do was wait around for indigenous people to get sick and then they could go in and waste the indigenous people. In order for Leguizamo's claim to be true, Europeans would have had to have a late 19th century understanding of bacteriology and epidemiology. Unfortunately for the people of the Americas, the European age of exploration began in the late 15th century. Vaccinology wasn't even invented until the late 18th century and even then, it wasn't well understood. The fact is, even if some "hey dude," peace-loving, hippies came to the New World from Europe, the native population of the Americas would still have been decimated by disease.

That's not genocide, because it's not deliberate, that's just plain bad luck.

At least with Zinn's book, Leguizamo was referencing respected, albeit problematic book. What I found surprising were the number of urban legends and meme claims being reiterated as fact by Leguizamo. For instance, he claims that the founding fathers plagiarized the US Constitution, copying it from the Iroquois Constitution. First of all, he doesn't even get the urban legend right. The urban legend is that the American Articles of Confederation were plagiarized from the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. Second, both of these documents are freely available from a variety of reputable sources. Conduct a simple internet search and you can find the full text of the Great Law of Peace, the American Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution. Read them, compare them, and contrast them. They are very different. Furthermore, the founding fathers, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who Leguizamo specifically names had a great deal of respect for Native Americans. While they may have drawn some inspiration from Native Americans (I have no documentation for that), most of the founding documents--the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution were based on the writings of European Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, and Charles Montesquieu.

I was also disappointed by how often Leguizamo took the low road of comedy. He often criticizes Donald Trump in his show and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that he often stereotypically caricatures women, disabled people, people of different races, religions (including Judaism and Islam) and homosexuals. This bothers me on several levels. Donald Trump has been rightly criticized for doing the same thing. Conservative comedians would get raked over the coals for doing a show with content of this nature.

Don't get me wrong, Leguizamo gets a lot correct and if nothing else he addresses serious issues in the American approach to writing history text books. I was surprised he didn't address the Mexican-American studies program in Tucson that was banned by the school board for being un-American based on nothing more than hearsay. I was also surprised that in his search for Latin American heroes for his son, his first major figure was a European born Spaniard, General Bernardo de Gálvez . In his quest for Latin American heroes, he barely gave a footnote Venezuelan born Simón Bolívar , who is often referred to as the George Washington of South America. The Mexican Cry of Dolores lists six heroes of the Mexican Revolutionary era: Miguel Hidalgo, Jose Morelos, Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama, and Mariano Matamoros. He could have told his son about José de San Martín who brought independence to Argentina.

There is one last area where I feel John Leguizamo got something wrong. He claims that Latin American history has been systematically cut out of American history curriculum. I disagree, because in order for Latin American history to have been "cut out," it has to have been part of the history curriculum to begin with and it has not been, which, to me, is even more egregious than the history having been cut out.

Latin American history is usually limited to conflict arising from the secession of Texas from Mexico and the resulting Texas Revolution and then the Mexican-American War.

Usually, the only person who gets main billing for the Texas Revolution is Sam Houston and of course the heroes of the Alamo like William Travis, James Bowie, and Davy Crockett. What about Juana Navarro Alsbury, a Tejana who attempted to negotiate surrender for the Alamo defenders? I don't remember being taught about the Mexican-American War other than it happened and resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Mexican Cession. I don't remember reading about the Radical Whigs and Mexican Oligarchs working together to unify Mexico and the United States into one country, but being rebuffed by racist Americans in the Democrat party, including President James K. Polk and conservative Whigs who were worried that America was already too big and should not expand. I don't remember hearing that General Zachary Taylor was sent to occupy a disputed strip of land and began sending out patrols to taunt the Mexicans into a fight. When the Mexicans did attack a patrol which was on what the Mexicans perceived to be their territory, Polk claimed it was an act of war and used it as an excuse to force the Mexicans to sell the Mexican Cession for chump change.

I'm not suggesting that we give land back to Mexico. What I am saying is that Latin Americans of all national origins have contributed to the formation of this country, probably more so than any other minority group. I’m also suggesting that, while I believe that America is a great country, the teaching of its history should show everything, the good and the bad--warts, bruises, and all.

I do hope that people watch John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons with the understanding that it is primarily entertainment, problematic history with an agenda second, and with that understanding, I hope people will read and research and find out for themselves how their own ancestors contributed to the development and history of this country. As a historian and an aspiring educator, I hope that future curriculum will worry less about putting America in a consistently positive light and just teach history instead. I think America is great. I think America was built on positive ideals. However, America has not always lived up to those ideals and we have some skeletons in our closet. It might change the shade of light that history curriculum shines on America from rosy to stark, but how can future generations learn from the mistakes of the past if they don't know what the mistakes were?

If you’re looking for a good history of Latin America with no agenda, The Penguin History of Latin America by Edwin Williamson is probably the best there is. The Two-Volume A History of Latin America by Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes is also good and has the benefit of some great illustrations. Another great book that deals with a lot of border issues during the time just before and just after the Mexican Cession is Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History by Karl Jacoby. I can’t recommend that book highly enough. I’m kind of obsessed with it.

Leguizamo did recommend two books that are worth reading. One is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. This is a great book that discusses why societies collapse and though it was written 21 years ago, it’s still relevant today. Jared Diamond also has a Ted Talk called “Why do Societies Collapse?” That condenses the findings of the book if you don’t want to read the whole book. Leguizamo also recommended 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Mann is a science journalist and this book consolidates the growing body of work by archaeologists, historians, ecologists, geographers, and anthropologists regarding Native American history.

Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh, the Seriousness of Accusations, and the Presumption of Innocence

I should probably be using my down time at work to be working on homework right now, but I am just too angry and I have to get this off my chest.

A few minutes before I began writing this, I was on patrol at a local college where I work part time as a security officer. I passed by some faculty offices and outside one of the offices, on a bulletin board was a piece of paper with the words “WE BELIEVE WOMEN” printed on it. That was the final straw for me.

Over the past few weeks, I have watched this country degenerate into the worst political state imaginable. It’s not just Republicans and it’s not just Democrats. It’s both and their followers who blindly line up behind their “leaders” lockstep like lemmings and they have all gone over the edge together.

Since I used to be a Republican several decades ago and I still typically vote Republican, I’m going to start with Republicans and people on the right. But don’t worry Democrats and people on the left, I have plenty of juice for you and I am going to give it away for free tonight.

Over the past few weeks from Republicans, Republican voters, so-called conservatives, and way too many Libertarians, I have seen some of the vilest, hateful, ignorant, sexist, and misogynist comments I have ever seen spewed forth from the fingertips and out of the mouths of you people in the name of “questioning the accuser.” It hasn’t been just men either. Even worse, many of them should freaking know better!

“Do all women wait 40 years to report a rape, or is it just Democrats?”

I saw that question in meme form posted on a woman’s Facebook page. But don’t worry guys. A lot of you posted this nonsense too. It’s shameful and it’s ignorant. Here’s a better question: How many women who are victims of sexual violence never report the crime to police? And the answer is about 70%. That’s right, about 7 out of every 10 women who are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted will never tell authorities and their attackers will likely never face justice. EVER! The only reason why we have statistics on this is because women do tell people—friends, family, therapists, clergy, and other people they trust. The reality is, though, that many women may not tell anybody and take the information to the grave with them, so the real number could be higher. Much higher.

I will throw another statistic out there for you women who may be thinking about climbing on your high horse. Men are also victims of sex crimes and while the numbers of men who are sexually assaulted are lower, the number of men who report sex crimes to authorities is only about 10%.

Why would a woman not tell the police they have been sexually victimized? The answer to that is for women have already been victimized, the process of bringing their accuser to justice forces them to be revictimized. They have to go to a doctor who is going to swab every inch of her body for evidence. After a sexual assault, most victims don’t want to be touched at all. They want to shower, close and lock their doors, pull their drapes, and cry themselves to sleep. Then of course, there are the lawyers who are going to question their reputation, their actions, how they dressed. Yes, it is the job of defense lawyers to try and place the blame on the victim if there is solid evidence that the accused did sexually assault the accuser. Then, of course, there is the shame that comes with having been violated that way: What will friends and family think, and if this becomes a big enough deal, what will the public think? Do you want to have your name and reputation dragged through the mud? I don’t think so. Anyone who comes forward, even in a clear cut case is very courageous. This is why we take accusations of rape or sexual assault seriously. Notice that taking an accusation seriously is not, nor should it be synonymous with belief, or disbelief for that matter. But I’ll get back to that in a bit.

“If Christine Blasey Ford was so afraid of flying, why did she fly to Hawaii, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean?” and similar idiotic questions.

The questions about her travel habits may be a clever tactic to convince the weak-minded that there is a problem with her story, but in reality, there are many people who are afraid of flying who do so because it is the only way to quickly get somewhere where they need or want to be. Sean Bean of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones fame doesn’t like flying, but do you think he took a boat to New Zealand to film Lord of the Rings? Nope. He flew. During one filming sequence, the crew needed to take a helicopter to get on set. During the first trip, some of the cast played a prank on Sean Bean and got the pilot to do some “fancy flying” and it scared Sean Bean. So, for the rest of the filming on that set, he got to the site early, got into full Boromir costume, took a ski lift part of the way up the mountain, and then hiked the final few miles. The whole trip took him two hours each direction every day. And yes, he did it multiple days.

Could it be that Ford wanted to avoid unnecessary travel?

I know lots of people who are afraid of flying. I am not one of them, but I have a family member who is afraid of flying. She has flown all over the world with a white-knuckled death grip on the armrests the whole way. But still she flies and I believe she has gotten better about her fear of flying, but I haven’t asked her about it lately. The point is that people who are afraid of flying will avoid flying unless they have to or the rewards for flying outweigh the drawbacks. For Ford to testify in the Senate hearings, she could take a week-long trip by car or a three day trip by train or bus, which would be extremely inconvenient, or she could suffer through the shorter albeit more stressful inconvenience of flying in one day. She’s an educated woman and I believe she made the educated choice. Facing your fears to do what you love or feel is important is pretty brave.

Brett Kavanaugh has many great character witnesses that say he’s a great guy.

So what? Ted Bundy was liked by everyone who knew him. Jeffry Dahmer was described as a thoughtful, active citizen. Phillip Markoff was an honors student. Robert Lee Yates was an active member of his church. They were also all notorious serial killers. If enough evidence comes out to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kavanaugh did sexually assault Ford, none of his character witnesses will amount to a hill of beans, to coin the Humphrey Bogart line.

Okay Christine Blasey Ford supporters. I have finished flame spraying Kavanaugh supporters, let me aim my frustration at y’all for a while.

“Innocent until proven guilty.”

Need I say more? How about this?

“The burden of proof rests with the prosecution until it shifts to the defense.”

These are foundational beliefs in the American justice system and yet with just an accusation, the anti-Trump crowd has actually decided that a person accused of a crime should be considered guilty until proven innocent. Regarding Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, former Vice President Joe Biden recently said, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time. But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron.” It is almost as if Joe Biden is saying that if there is more publicity involved, the accusation should be taken more seriously. Really?

Here's another one for you:

“Equality before the law.”

I believe that what Joe Biden is saying has some truth to it. A person who has been sexually assaulted by someone prominent who is also willing to come forward is very courageous, but there could be other reasons why a person would make a false accusation against a person of prominence, but I’ll get to that. The fact is that a person is not more believable because they are accusing a person in prominence any more than a person in prominence is more likely to be a criminal. Sure, power corrupts, but that does not mean that we do away with the foundations of our whole legal system. If you think the prison population is a problem now, just go ahead and do away with equality before the law and innocent until proven guilty. A whole world of accusations will explode and so will the prison population.

But I digress.

“We believe women.”

That’s what got me here in the first place. Why are women more believable than men? Why is Christine Blasey Ford more believable than Brett Kavanaugh? But “we believe women.” Fine.

A young man who was a senior in high school, a talented football player, had committed to attend USC, and received a scholarship to attend. His star was on the rise. Then, a female classmate of his accused him of rape. He confessed to the rape in order to receive a plea deal and spent more than five years in prison. He lost his scholarship, while many of his high school friends went on to play professional football. The woman also received a $1.5 million settlement from the high school since the alleged attack occurred on the campus. Of course, a few years later she was found to have lied about the whole thing. Her family had to give back the money plus some, but the man, Brian Banks lost 10 years of his life, what likely would have been a promising, multi-million dollar football career, and who knows what other experiences were stolen from him because “we believe women."

In 2006, Crystal Gail Mangum accused three members of the Duke University Lacrosse team of rape. Women are to be believed right? Well, the case went to court and it was discovered that she had falsely accused the men of rape. That didn’t prevent the men’s lives from being thrown into chaos, having their educations interrupted for months, the mental strain, suspensions, distrust from friends, etc.

In 1987, Mike Pitassi a high school band teacher in Tuscon, Arizona was accused of sexually molesting two girls in the band. Women should be believed, right? Well, it turns out that they were going to receive a bad grade in band and wanted to get it changed. Either Pitassi would change the grade or they would go to authorities and he would be arrested and they would get their grade changed that way. It didn’t work out for them. Of course, it didn’t work out well for Mike Pitassi either. He resigned his position and I have no idea what happened to him. Sure, he was exonerated, but it hurt his career at the very least.

I have personally been the subject of false accusations at the hands of women for simply doing my job. They were believed. I was never accused of sexual assault, but I have still had accusations made against me. I was once accused of sexually harassing a woman. She accused me because I was her supervisor, and I caught her trying to get out of work and put her back to work. Fortunately, there were witnesses, both male and female, who came to my defense in the investigation, but it was a stressful time.

My story and the stories I listed above are not exceptional. They occur all too frequently because we have lived in a world for a few decades now where women are more often believed over men. Why? It’s low hanging fruit. It’s easy to pick and easy to eat. It doesn’t take much intellectual work, but questioning and investigating takes work. That work is made all the more difficult when the events being investigated are 40 years old. It's not just lacking in intellectualism, it is anti-intellectual.

The fact of the matter is that as much as politics plays a role in this issue because a Supreme Court nomination is at stake, this is not a political matter. It is a legal one. Because this is a legal matter, until Ford has a case that she can take to a court of law and try Bret Kavanaugh, Christine Ford’s accusation is just that and nothing more. It is a political maneuver by a woman who has been and still is an outspoken anti-Trump protester. Whether she’s making it up or it actually happened is a matter for a court of law to decide, not the general public, politicians or the media.

Why would anyone put themselves through this kind of a stressful situation where they’re receiving death threats and having to be victimized through the media again?

There are at least four possibilities.

The first I have already discussed. She is making a political maneuver to prevent a conservative judge from getting on the Supreme Court. The circus involved, even if he is eventually found innocent may be enough to get him to pull his name from consideration and let another nominee have his name put forward. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, someone might even be offering her some kind of monetary reward for doing this.

The second is attention. She may be looking for her fifteen minutes of fame. Sure, she’s a published Ph.D., but that’s not famous. She’s a household name now, though. Democrats and leftists, politicians and celebrities, and just every day people have rushed to her defense by the millions. She’s been automatically believed. For every negative e-mail or letter, or death threat she has received, there have been equal amounts, if not more support lavished upon her. A person who craves attention doesn't care if it's positive or negative. Sure, positive is preferred, but everything is good.

The third is a case of mistaken identity. I want you to think back to your time in high school, especially if you went to high school decades ago. Did you go to any parties? I did. Did you meet people from other schools? I did. Members of the opposite sex? Yep. Lots. What were their names? Uh oh. I went to a ton of parties. I met people from different high schools. There were a lot of people whose names I knew at the time because I swam with them for USAA, SAA, or AP&R for years. I also knew people from different high schools because we lived in the same neighborhood or went to the same schools at other times. I can only remember a few of their names now and only two of the females from other high schools. I remember them because I attended junior high school with them. Of the boys’ names from other high schools that I remember from high school parties, there is only one I remember because we swam on the same AP&R team and later the same USAA team. Other than the people with whom I am friends on Facebook, I couldn’t tell you what any of the rest of those people looked like today.

The point I am making is that it might be easy to remember a face, but it can be difficult to remember the name of a person you don’t see on a regular basis. If you throw in alcohol, drugs, or just plain being tired from being up late, you might forget a face, too. Add 20 years to that memory and you see a person who looks familiar, you check the name, and yep they’re from your town, yep, the name rings a bell, that must be the person! Of course, that person now looks like the older version of  another person who victimized you, or your mind is connecting that person to the memory of your victimization, and yes, that happens. In fact, it has been shown that people can be wrong about very simple and seemingly obvious details just moments after a crime has been committed. Adrenaline, fear, and other stressors can cloud details even further. Time does not help you gain clarity.

Then, of course, there is a fourth option: She remembers the whole thing vividly, Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her and he and Bill Cosby should be sharing a cell together. If enough evidence is found to take him to court (no such thing has happened yet), then go to court. What if he’s already been confirmed? The Constitution has the “good behavior” clause and if he is found guilty, he would be removed from the court and jailed.

The veracity of Ford’s claims, or the guilt or innocence of Brett Kavanaugh is not for me to decide, or you, or the media, or politicians, or anyone else for that matter. It is up to a court of law.

Does that mean I disbelieve Ford’s claims and believe Kavanaugh’s claims? No. I take all claims of all crimes very seriously but taking a claim seriously does not mean I believe it or disbelieve it. It means that I believe that the claims should be looked into by law enforcement and if evidence is found to indicate there is a case against Kavanaugh, he should be taken to trial with an unbiased (good luck with that!) jury of his peers and the judicial system should handle the case.

I will not pass judgment on either Ford or Kavanaugh because I was not at the party where the sexual assault occurred. Neither were any of the people who are likely reading this, so for those who are passing judgment on one or the other, I am passing judgment on you: You're being stupid!

I will finish by asking a couple of questions to those who have pushed through their anger to read this far:

Ford supporters: Why are you supporting her? Is it because you believe all women without evidence or is it because you hate President Donald Trump so much that you will grab on to anything to hamper his administration and block his agenda?

Personally, I can’t stand Trump. I did not vote for him in 2016 and I have no plans to vote for him in 2020 either. I will even be honest and say I am not particularly fond of Brett Kavanaugh either. Sure, I love his libertarian and pro-constitution stances on the 2^nd amendment and government regulation. However, he has very problematic views concerning presidential impeachment. He supported government metadata collection in violation of the 4^th amendment, and there are other 4^th amendment opinions he holds that I take issue with. If I had a vote, I would not vote for him. However, does that mean I am willing to call him a sex predator because someone claims he did something almost 40 years ago? Nope.

Kavanaugh supporters: Why are you more willing to support him? Is it because you think that Ford’s accusations lack merit or are at least suspicious, is it because you love Trump so much that you are willing to overlook any possibility of malfeasance on the part of his nominees, or is it because you hate Democrats or anyone who opposes Trump so much that you automatically assume anything they say is a lie?

I am also not fond of most Democrats. However, I am not willing to just dismiss out of hand an accusation of sexual assault simply because of the timing or because it is made by a Democrat, nor am I willing to simply dismiss a claim because it was made 40 years after the fact since most sexual assaults are never reported.

Because of most of the arguments I have seen on the internet and in the media, I do not think either side is thinking about this from a non-partisan and logical perspective. Mostly, it’s just hate, vitriol, politics, and worse, feelings.

In other words, you’re both wrong and I'm not sorry if I hurt your feelings.