Brett Kavanaugh, SEPARATE Condoned Sex Tape, and Prep School Privilege

Having what I consider a relevant perspective and being a life-long political moderate who has always had Independent or Unregistered status (and last voted in 2015) is prompting this diversion in to Blogland regarding Brett Kavanaugh. 

Like many proper-thinking individuals, I am unsure if the allegations against Kavanaugh justify keeping him off the United States Supreme Court. I would want both sides to calmly and objectively state their cases. I do believe that the raising of the issues is ENTIRELY politically motivated and does not reflect a belief that he lacks the knowledge and the experience for the position, 

The aforementioned perspective is being a prep. school boy with first-hand knowledge of the environment of Kavanaugh during his formative years. This essay discusses the virtues and the ills of that system and addresses the related senses of entitlement and lack of oversight that can allow (and condone) bullying and other improper conduct that literally includes a covert sex tape. The sad part is that parents shell out big money to shelter their kids from those harms. 

POLITICALLY INCORRECT

A starting point is that one purpose of the three branches of government and the related checks and balances is to have the highest court in our land be free from political influences. Further, the past several nomination proceedings have demonstrated the flaw of having a president nominate a Supreme Court justice,

The means by which the Academy Award winners and popes are selected seem to provide a better model. Each time that there is a vacancy, the Supreme Court should PURELY randomly select a panel of federal judges to nominate candidates based on Congressionally approved standards. This slate should be then be presented to every federal judge below the Supreme Court level for voting, 

The checks and balances consist of existing procedures for removing judges for misconduct. 

A more underlying issue is that any court should not consider politics when resolving legal disputes. The uniform practice of exerting political pressure on the court has always greatly bothered me, Although the framers of the Constitution could not have anticipated modern issues such as marriage equality, ANY court should take a secular what would Jesus do approach and OBJECTIVELY determine the applicable constitutional principle.

PREP PROS AND CONS

The name of the respected prep. school that I attended for three years is irrelevant because news and anecdotal reports (as well as the '80scom "The Facts of Life") indicate that the same type of thing occurs at most of them. My experience overall was positive in that the smaller classes and living with teachers enhanced learning, being required to participate in a sport (fat kids took refuge in the drama department) prompted a MODIFIED exercise program that I still follow, and I remain in touch with some classmates whom I generally consider to be brothers.

A hilarious misunderstanding highlights the new friends and broadening of horizons of prep. school. A very nice black guy in my dorm always would greet me with a smile and what sound like "Hi Holmes" whenever we passed even though I doubt that he knew my name. Because I was a smart kid, I thought that he was calling me Sherlock Holmes. 

This guy laughed when this smallish white boy from an upscale area asked him about the term. He explained with absolute no ill will that the term was "homes" and that people in college used it to greet high school friends "from home" when seeing them in college. 

A current friend PERFECTLY describes a downside of prep. schools by calling them "kids' jails" to which parents send children to get rid of them under the guise of doing something good. I was agreeable to going to boarding school (and benefited from it), but my mother manipulated me into doing so to aptly facilitate moving to Washington to pursue her interest in politics; living with Dad was not an option. 

The relevancy of this to Kavanaugh is that the downside of even day school prep, school life is that many parents send their kids there so they do not have to deal with them. At the same time, teachers often do not properly fill the parental role and can just as regularly be concerned that bad acts not ruin the life of the offender. This makes it rough when the bully has 24-7 access to you.

Although Kavanaugh attending a day school, the same sense of privilege and lack of parenting seems to apply. All accounts indicate that he was a stud of the school and destined for great things. The apparent problem was that no one either saw or acted on the need to rein him in. 

BULLY FOR YOU

From the beginning, the Kavanaugh controversy reminded me of literally nightly NON-SEXUAL attacks during my prep, school days. I have since made peace with the main offender, who reminds me a great deal of the nominee. This guy had a similar ethnic background and was a star player of an aggressive contact sport, He additionally had a strong sense of privilege and currently runs a predatory business that greatly profits from the misfortunes of others. 

I lived on the same hall as this guy and his partner-in-crime (who now is a top-ranked finance guy) my junior and senior years. The lesser offenses of these guys was breaking into my room to take snacks and "borrow" a backgammon board, which they always would return, If I was around, these big guys would refuse to leave until I played as many games as they wanted. Of course, they would torment me during the game and do things such as lunge at me to provide them the amusement of watching me flinch,. 

The worse offense was bursting into my room into the middle of the night EVERY night just to wake me and try to scare me; they apparently did not realize that my knowing that this occurred every night precluded being scared.

Although (if true), the experience of Christine Blasey Ford was more terrifying, I can relate to her hesitancy to speak up. A prep, school community is smaller and more tight-knit than at a public school, and "ratting out" a fellow student can make life tough. The offenders living down the hall and your classmates always not being much further away exasperates this.

My tormentors actually driving a kid from the school further illustrates this. I knew that the midnight raids had extended to a small and frail boy who was a newly transferred junior when the bullies and I were seniors. This abuse prompted the kid to drop out after two months; I likely would have done the same if I had been targeted at the beginning of my first year at the school.  That year allowed me to establish myself and to establish a large group of friends. 

The dorm master, who was a burned-out senior faculty member with a minimal dorm presence and let two stoners play Frisbee on the roof every afternoon, did ask me if I knew who was tormenting the junior, I lied and said that I did not. My reasons included not wanting to ruin the lives of the bullies and knowing that only having one strike against them would not have gotten them expelled. I also mistakenly believed that covering for these guys would have gotten them to ease up on me.

SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE

A more recent incident at the school hits even closer to home. A random Google search of the school in June produced the surprising result of two relatively recent newspaper stories about a sex tape.

The condensed version of the incident was that the boy did not tell his girlfriend that he was taping their consensual sex. As always happens in prep. school settings, word of the tape soon spread. The police were called in and found the recording even though the boy asserted that he had only watched the tape once by himself and erased it. It was suspected (but never proved) that others saw the tape.

The boy left the school, and there was a court proceeding. The headmaster surprisingly condoned the act by writing the boy a letter of recommendation after learning of the tape. The stated justification was that the boy had done good work before the incident, and the headmaster had not wanted one incident to ruin those accomplishments.

The rest of the story is that the headmaster was a student when another sexual offense occurred and MAY have witnessed it, I had recently graduated and was told the story by a faculty member with whom I maintained contact. 

The synopsis this time was that a fully dressed female student was grabbed and thrown into the locker room of a boy's team. The girl was held down on the bench, and a boy put his exposed naughty bits in her face. The blurry details regarding this (recently confirmed) incident included a belief that the boy was the boyfriend of the girl.

The elements that make one sympathize with Ford this time include that the sexual history of the girl (including regularly climbing in the dorm-room window of one of my tormentors when they were "dating") was  a factor regarding the student body not being sympathetic toward her. The faculty member shared that the boy who climbed on her was forced to leave the school and that the students thought that the girl should have been the one to go This is another example of the price of going against the school stud, 

The relayed incidents (and other stories such as teacher having an affair with and ultimately marrying one of his students) are a few of numerous examples of what occurs in many (but probably not every) prep. school and the system that allows it to go unchecked. 

FINAL EXAM

My own feelings until talking (but not hugging) it out with my bullies suggests both that Ford would have obtained closure if the prep, school system was better designed to handle such matters. This likely would have avoided all the cost and turmoil related to the Kavanaugh proceeding,

The fact is that such campuses largely being self-contained communities and not paying property taxes enhances a sense that they are sovereign nations; the notable alumni (including the sitcom producer from my school :-)) and family legacies contribute to this sense of privilege.

On a related note, my best friends and the parents whom I liked the best lived relatively simply and did not flaunt their wealth. My parents not being very active in my life made me enjoy comfort-food home-cooked meals with friends, their parents, and their siblings who also often became friends, The mothers invariably cooked the meals despite having enough money to have live-in help, 

The best memory regarding this was befriending the doberman whom one family largely had for protection because of the nature of the work of the father, My smiling and saying "good boy" when the dog ran up barking and my showing him great love ultimately fully transformed him into a pet. The self-imposed rule for overnights was that I would not invite him on the bed but would not rat him out if he jumped up. I would make him get down before anyone else woke up. 

Forwarding this email to a former teacher/involved dorm parent who currently has input regarding prep. school culture hopefully will help change things for the better.