Not really. There’s no “we” in this and there is no confusion on the definition of corroborate. Bone articulated this nicely in post 337.
I’m starting to get a feeling that you are having difficulty with this whole corroboration concept.
What do you think is being corroborated? Just assume everyone shares your definition of the word. A corroborates B. Substitute the variables and make a statement.
You quoted this earlier, but I’ll add some parens to make it extra clear…
(Yearbooks from Holton-Arms and Georgetown Prep) corroborate (Dr. Ford’s assertion that Kavanaugh and Judge were one to two years older than her and students at a local private school).
That’s…
(A) corroborate (B).
There’s some subject verb agreement awkwardness here since A is plural.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. This is just the simplest non-trivial example to determine if we can collectively correctly apply the definition of corroborated.
Fine. Stipulated. What else do you have in the metric fuck ton?
From her written statement…
Corroborated or uncorroborated?
Uncorroborated.
Could I trouble you to expand on that? In particular I would like you explain how that assertion fails to satisfy the definition of corroborated.
It fails to satisfy the definition of “corroborated” because there has been no evidence presented that backs up, supports, proves, or (perhaps) corroborates it.
The reason for this, as you well know, is that the statement as it stands is not one that can be supported, proven, corroborated or whatever, due to not referring to a specific time. Which is the main reason that none of her allegations can be corroborated. That Kavanaugh and Judge may have been visibly drunk on, say, the 12th of November 1987 tells us nothing about Ford’s allegations one way or another.
Where in the definition of corroborated can I find this ‘specific time’ requirement?
If someone asserts that he or she has seen the movie The Black Panther, is there any way that assertion can be corroborated if the person can’t specify the date he or she saw the movie?
Yes, of course there is. But if someone asserts that they were assaulted by another person during a showing of Black Panther, merely showing that the accused had seen the film does not corroborate the claim.
Ford’s claim is not that Kavanaugh and Judge had ever been visibly drunk. It is that they were visibly drunk at the time and place she claims she was assaulted, and that claim is uncorroborated.
You appear to be confusing “corroborated” with “consistent”. All that evidence that they have been known to be drunk, or that the accused had seen Black Panther, shows is that the accusation is not impossible, it doesn’t actually support it in any way.
To reply to this bit specifically, it’s not the definition of “corroborated” that is relevant, it’s the nature of the claim.
The definition of corroborated is always relevant when we are trying to determine if an assertion is corroborated.
We have an assertion and you have said that the assertion can not be corroborated, “due to not referring to a specific time.” However, there is nothing in the agreed upon definition of corroborated that requires a specific time.
An assertion is corroborated if other evidence exists that tends to support it. That’s the definition. You are trying to add specificity requirements on the assertion to the definition after we have spent a great deal of time nailing down a mutually agreeable definition.
We have an assertion: Brett and Mark were visibly drunk.
The only question we need to ask to determine if this assertion is corroborated is, “Does other evidence exist that tends to support this assertion?”
I forgot to add… this is hilarious.
I am the one who has been harping over and over on the need for us all to be using the same definition of corroborated in this discussion. I think there has been one agreement and one assume for the sake of argument that we agree. The rest of you refuse to commit to a working definition of corroborated. Refuse to even discuss it. You claimed that the definition of corroborated was irrelevant in the post right after the post where you claimed I was confused about the definition of the word.
For the most part, the, “No details provided by Dr. have been corroborated,” crowd is confusing corroboration with proof. Corroborated is an extremely weak characterization of an assertion, but Kavanaugh supporters are insisting that it is much stronger.
This is also an assertion fail. It lacks specifics and to assert it is corroborated begs the question. Because of your failure to articulate your thoughts, I recommend you always phrase your use of “corroborate” in the form of A corroborates B.
The only thing that I am asserting is that you have done a spectacularly poor job of making an argument.
We are all using the same definition of “corroborated”. It’s just that we are pointing out over and over that none of the details that Dr. Ford gave that would tend to establish that she was attacked by Kavanaugh and/or Judge have been corroborated.
I thought Bone had summed it up rather well.
“Both Kavanaugh and Judge were a few years older and attended a local prep school.” That has been corroborated - I would say more than that, it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
“My attackers were a few years older and attended a local prep school”. That has not been corroborated. Because the bare assertion that she was attacked at all has not been corroborated, let alone that it was Judge and/or Kavanaugh.
Now you are apparently trying the same thing with this -
This is uncorroborated because [ul][li]We don’t know if Bret or Mark were there []We don’t know where “there” was []We don’t know when “there” was [*]No one else observed that they were visibly drunk on that occasion, whatever it supposedly was.[/ul]So no, this has not been corroborated.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Well done sir. Welcome to the corroboration bandwagon.
It’s like you didn’t even read the post.
Regards,
Shodan
We have said that no allegations made by Ford have been corroborated, which is factually correct, at least based on the evidence I’ve seen. You are claiming that, somehow, corroboration of things other than her allegations is relevant to whether those allegations have been corroborated.
Lets look at some of your claims. You say that Ford’s statement that Judge and Kavanaugh went to a school near her, and were a year or two older than her. That’s trivially proven true by looking at publically available information. To describe it as “corroborated” may be technically true, but it’s also weaseling. This fact about the two boys (as they were) is consistent with her allegation that one of them assaulted her, but does not corroborate it - that is, it neither refutes the allegation nor provides evidence in support of it.
There’s another claim - that the two were visibly drunk. It’s slightly less trivial to prove that, as it requires a witness. However, there are witnesses to them being visibly drunk at various times, so that’s fine. But, again, that’s not Ford’s allegation - her allegation is that they were visibly drunk at a party the three of them attended, where one of them attacked her. That is emphatically not corroborated by the fact that they were seen drunk at some point in their lives - that is, again, the fact that they were seen drunk at some point tells us nothing about whether they were drunk at any particular time except the time(s) that witnesses attest.
Ford’s allegation is that Kavanaugh, whilst drunk, attempted to rape her at a party whilst Judge, also drunk, was present. No part of that allegation has been corroborated by any normal definition of that word. That is, there is no corroboration that such a party happened, that they were drunk, or that they or anyone else attempted to rape her.
This just shows an appalling lack of effort.
I have articulated my thoughts clearly over and over to the point where it seems mildly repetitive.
We have an assertion and a definition of what it means for an assertion to be be corroborated. What happens when you apply that definition to that assertion?
You can do better than wah, wah, wah… specificity. Try harder.
If it helps take the obvious step of assuming she meant “Brett and Mark were visibly drunk,” on the day of the other events described in that part of her statement.
I’ll put this one in A corroborates B form once you put in a modicum of effort.