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Ronald Reagan's advice for dealing with the Soviet Union actually happens to be the best standard for #MeToo as well.

Ronald Reagan's advice for dealing with the Soviet Union actually happens to be the best standard for #MeToo as well. | image tagged in trust but verify metoo,innocent,trust,metoo,believe,justice | made w/ Imgflip meme maker
360 views 4 upvotes Made by KylieFan_89 5 years ago in Politics_Redux
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0 ups, 5y
Solid advice for confusing times. | image tagged in ronald reagan trust but verify,ronald reagan,reagan,metoo,sexual assault,trust | made w/ Imgflip meme maker
This is the standard I use.

1. "Believe all women!" isn't correct because some women lie. FBI statistics estimate 2-10% of accusations have no merit, though it's hard to assess a difficult subject like this. But it stands to reason most women are not psychopathic enough to bring public accusations that could ruin people's lives. Certainly most of the women I've met in my life do not fall into that category.

2. "Innocent until proven guilty!" also isn't a great standard, because it gives too much leeway to perpetrators. Example: Weinstein had 100+ public accusers as of the time he was finally convicted in criminal court a couple months ago, and even then only on a couple counts. That was about 2.5 years after the NYT and New Yorker stories first broke in Oct. 2017. In the meantime, it was abundantly clear in his case: where there's smoke, there's fire.

(Same for OJ Simpson. Most today believe he is guilty of murder, for good reason, despite the jury's verdict of acquittal in the criminal case. He was actually found responsible for the deaths later in a civil trial and had to pay money damages.)

(Same for Jeffrey Epstein. Most today consider him a serial pedophile based on publicly-available information, even though he killed himself in jail before he could be convicted. The intense national scrutiny of Epstein was sparked by a bombshell 2018 Miami Herald report revealing that reporters had identified about 80 women who say Epstein abused them from 2001 to 2006.)

So, I like Ronald Reagan's formulation: Trust, but verify. To the extent possible, given the information we have.

And in relation to Biden vs. Trump, I decline right-wingers' invitations to consider 1 accusation as equivalent to 25.
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