The Hijacking of the #MeToo Movement?

The article Millions of women understand Christine Blasey Ford’s decades of silence by Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak starts out with an intelligent overview of the difficulties faced by sexual assault victims and why they remain in silent suffering for years or decades. So I was disappointed and outraged to read Dvorak’s conclusion:

My friend who wrote her attacker’s obituary has an idea about this. And I love it.

“Should all victims of sexual assault who remained silent all these years/decades converge onto Washington to support Professor Ford and her testimony against Judge Kavanaugh?” she asked. “As a long silent victim, I say, ‘Hell, yes.’ Sometimes it takes decades to pronounce your truth. Stand tall and proud, Professor Ford. Legions of silent and traumatized women and men are with you. Let’s expose this dirty — not so little — secret.”

What do you say? What if we launch a #MeToo March on Washington for everyone who has kept silent all these years?

I bet it would be the biggest march in the capital’s history.

I believe the #MeToo movement was a healthy grassroots attempt to highlight and eradicate a serious injustice. But the movement is increasingly being taken over by collectivism, which means that the individual is subordinate to the moral supremacy of the group. Under collectivism, the innocence or guilt of any individual is to be judged not by objective facts but by his group affiliation.

#MeToo is collectivizing into a war on men--all men. Petula Dvorak of the WAPO calls for a “#MeToo March on Washington” this week in one-sided support for Ford ahead of any testimony and prior to the surfacing of relevant facts or proof. Jenna Wortham of the NYT wants “every single man put on notice, to know that they, too, were vulnerable because women were talking.”

This is pure hatred. This is racism. This is collectivism. If “every single man” should fear any woman “talking,” then any man can legitimately be accused of sexual harassment, whether he as an individual is guilty or not. Why not? He’s a man. He’s guilty no matter the actual facts of any individual case, because men as a group are guilty.

Sexual predators should be brought to account. That’s the original intent of #MeToo. But the rise of collectivism within the #MeToo movement indicates that the movement has lost its moral legitimacy. It appears to be turning into an old fashioned witch hunt. Couple that with the modern Democrats’ willingness to do or say anything or destroy anyone’s character to further their totalitarian socialist designs on America, and the trustworthiness of Ford’s (or anyone else’s) accusations against Kavanaugh becomes suspect. Ford could be a Democrat “plant” who is “talking” not to expose actual wrongdoing by Kavanaugh but to put “every single man put on notice, to know that they, too, were vulnerable,” which is exactly what collectivism says is the right thing to do. This fits neatly into Democrats’ desperate efforts to keep off the Supreme Court any justice who views the constitution as it should be viewed--as a check on legislative power and safeguard of the inalienable rights of the individual. You cannot have socialism and individual rights in the same place at the same time. The collectivist takeover of #MeToo also fits neatly into the Democrats’ smearing of all Republicans as racist homophobic women haters. Given these collectivist motivations, it is more than likely that Kavanaugh is a victim of politically motivated false accusations and character assassination.

Just as the Civil Rights Movement started out as a legitimate demand by an oppressed group that America live up to its creed of equal individual rights, but was hijacked by statists who turned it into a collectivist movement for totalitarian socialism, so it looks like the #MeToo movement is being hijacked by a predatory, collectivist, revenge-seeking gang that is on the hunt for innocent victims to condemn without evidence, without a hearing, and without the benefit of Innocent Until Proven Guilty.

This is a shame. Ford may be courageously telling the truth, but her credibility is being severely undercut by collectivist witch-hunting and political powerlust. Or she may be involved in a sleazy Democrat plot to derail Kavanaugh. The timing of her coming forward, and the way she came forward--going to Democrat Dianne Feinstein rather than Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley--indicates the latter. As Reason’s Shikha Dalmia correctly observes, “Taking down decent men on flimsy grounds will discredit #MeToo. Movements collapse when they become more interested in collecting heads than advancing their cause.”

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Collectivism is an insidious evil. In practice, collectivism is by far the greatest killer in human history. The collectivist worldview--identifying individuals only as members of groups--begins with the branding of entire groups for political advantage and ends with killing fields, gas chambers, and mass beheadings. The Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the German genocide, the Cambodian genocide, the Ukrainian genocide: You name the genocide, and it stems from branding of entire groups--whether groupings based on race, or gender, or nationality, or creed, or economic status, or political affiliation, or other category--as the object of moral concern, regardless of the actions or characters of the individuals that comprise the group.

Related Reading:

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

The Rise of Collectivism and the Fall of the Constitution