Brett Tu, Utus?

[XLFD]

History, like President Trump at his umpteenth campaign rally or the mainstream media with their latest batch of talking points, has a tendency to repeat itself.  Join me as we go back and forth in time to catch repetitions of themes and motifs.

The title is a phonetic twist of the phrase "Et tu, Brutus?" (aka "Et tu, Brute") in reference to the current political drama dealing with the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the eleventh hour revelation of an incident that allegedly happened over 35 years ago that paints him in a bad light.

It's also referential to the lesser-known "Battle of the Utus", known chiefly as the last of the bloody pitched battles between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Huns, led by Attila. It was fought roughly 500 years after Roman Emperor Julius Caesar reportedly said "Et tu, Brutus" on the Ides of March after a host of Roman senators including Brutus Albinus cast their impeachment vote with knives in a successful assassination.

The modern day version is modestly less violent than the murder or the battle, but we find a lot of similarities. Before the latest allegation of a sexual impropriety by Kavanaugh, the hearings had allegories to ancient Roman times, with multiple visitors to the hearing acting in an uncivilized, barbaric manner during the confirmation hearings and Democratic Senator Corey Booker claiming a Spartacus moment for a definitely minor revelation of already disclosed material. 

Spartacus, a Thracian contemporary of Julius Caesar, was enslaved by the Romans, escaped and finally died in the Third Servile War, dispatched by a pair of consular legions sent by the Roman Senate to quell Spartacus' rebellion.   The Senate would dispatch Caesar 27 years later.  Booker's reference is to the movie "Spartacus" when fellow slaves rally to protect Spartacus' identity.  

In the present, a senator named Dianne Feinstein would hold her own weapon close to her vest for two months, plotting with other operatives of the Washington Post when the best time to strike the conservative Supreme Court candidate with it would be.  Had this weapon been produced before or during the confirmation hearings, it surely would have been blunted and unable to do fatal damage to Bret Kavanaugh.  Like Senator Lucius Cimber who distracted Caesar and pulled down his tunic, Senator Feinstein would allow others to aim at the candidate's vitals with her weapon.  

The weapon:  36 year old sexual assault allegations from a woman named Christine Blasey Ford, reportedly happening when both were just starting high school.  The crime had remained dormant for 30 years, until 2012, when she reportedly made the shocking revelation while in couple's therapy.  At this point, there seems to be no corroboration of the heinous crime she alleges, and Kavanaugh and the other party's involved flatly deny any knowledge of such an event.  

Ford does not remember the reason for the gathering, whose house this happened in, or how she had got there, a lot of other details.  Being that the recollection of this memory happened during a visit to a psychologist/therapist working on the underpinnings of why her current relationship wasn't working, this could easily have been a false memory which may have been created for some purpose in her mind. 

Unfortunately, Ford's 2012 therapist will not likely be able to testify as to whether the memory was recalled and whether they believe it could be a manufactured recollection.   That would surely dull the warlike natures of the Huns hell-bent on seeing Kavanaugh's nomination being defeated at any cost, even if a reputation gets slaughtered and the Sixth Amendment (dealing with the rights of the accused) has to be trampled.

The presumption of innocence was well known to ancient Romans:  "Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat" (“the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies”), yet there is a disturbing trend following the "me too" movement, that this staple of jurisprudence will no longer be tolerated-- at least when somebody or some group our society's elites don't like is the accused.  Redouble that sentiment when it has any association with Donald Trump.

 

We must always be suspicious of those who would so freely take away our basic human rights and who demand that Kavanaugh have the burden of proof to show his innocence and who demand that Kavanaugh testify first at any evidentiary hearing when he may be as unclear to the charges as the rest of us.  People of any political ilk who demand us civilized people cater to such barbaric and unfair legal practices, must protect the Utus River from the hordes of invaders, must protect the potential Supreme Court nominee from the concealed then revealed weapon poised to bring him down as surely and as dishonorably as Tribune Casca's dagger did to Julius Caesar.  

This isn't a defensive necessity that should be confined to one political party or one gender.  In the end game, losses will be severe for both sides, just like at the Battle of Utus, in this battle for the SCOTUS.  Once these basic legal rights are vanquished in such manner, they won't easily be brought back no matter which philosophy the next Supreme Court embraces.  

[stump]

 I guess with all the sexual harassment going on, the young high school girls should order up their new Burkas. The guy's can just find a prostitute to fulfill their urges. but then again that didn't work out for Trump to well.