The Larger Perspective on False Accusations: The "Ruling Class" Speaks

Anyone who follows the false accusation industry, be it false accusations for "child molestation" or for "rape" should be struck by what seems to be a disconnect. On the one hand, scientific analysis is as sophisticated as it ever has been, and DNA and forensic science certainly falls into the "sophisticated" category. Likewise, we are as knowledgeable in psychology as we ever have been and have advanced techniques for being able to understand the nature of interviews and whether or not they are producing false information.

Yet, at the same time, false accusations abound, and I mean abound. Look at the websites in which law firms and investigative agencies that abound on the Internet that deal in NOTHING but false accusations. It seems that no one has stepped back and asked what I think should be a simple question: Why are so many people falsely accused of "sex" crimes at a time when we should be able to ascertain between true and false charges?

During the Tonya Craft trial, I must admit I was dumbstruck by the absolute ignorance, coupled with arrogance, of the prosecutors, "Alberto-Facebook" and "The Man," "Det." Tim "Dirty" Deal, and the so-called expert witnesses from the Children's Advocacy Center. After the trial, Ione Sells, the director of the CAC in Fort Oglethorpe, assured me that Dr. Nancy Aldridge and Dr. William Bernet were liars and charlatans, despite the fact that Sells is a nobody in this field and Bernet and Aldridge literally "wrote the book" on this kind of forensic interviewing.

This is not just stupidity, although I am ready to agree that Sells, the LMJC personnel in general, and the others at the CAC are not the brightest bulbs on the planet. Nonetheless, I have to say that it is more than just sheer stupidity and arrogance, given that CACs around the country are just as likely to encourage prosecutors to pursue false child molestation accusations, just as rogue Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners like Tara Levicy of the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case are ready to claim that certain women have been "raped" when, in fact, it is clear that no rape occurred.

No, there is a much larger aspect to this sorry tale, and it does not just involve stupidity and arrogance, although I will be the first to say that Deal, Arnt, Gregor, and Sells are both stupid and arrogant. However, they are stupid and arrogant people armed with the most fearsome weapons of all: the weapons of state power, and it is there that we begin.

Robert Higgs, one of my favorite economists and a chronicler of the present age who is on a level with H.L. Mencken, in my view, recently had an article in which he feted an essay by Angelo M. Codevilla, an emeritus professor of International Relations at Boston University, on what he calls "America's Ruling Class."

The essay itself is excellent and worth the read (and it is long), although I don't agree with all of what Prof. Codevilla writes, nonetheless I believe a lot of it is very accurate. In his description of the essay, Prof. Higgs writes:

Codevilla cuts immediately to the core: the United States today is divided into (a) a ruling class, which dominates the government at every level, the schools and universities, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and a great deal else, and (b) all of the rest of us, a heterogeneous agglomeration that Codevilla dubs the country class. The ruling class holds the lion’s share of the institutional power, but the country class encompasses perhaps two-thirds of the people.

Members of the two classes do not like one another. In particular, the ruling class views the rest of the population as composed of ignoramuses who are vicious, violent, racist, religious, irrational, unscientific, backward, generally ill-behaved, and incapable of living well without constant, detailed direction by our betters; and it views itself as perfectly qualified and entitled to pound us into better shape by the generous application of laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations, and unceasing declarations of its dedication to bringing the country—and indeed the entire world—out of its present darkness and into the light of the Brave New World it is busily engineering.

This class divide has little to do with rich versus poor or Democrat versus Republican. At its core, it has to do with the division between, on the one hand, those whose attitudes are attuned to the views endorsed by the ruling class (especially “political correctness”) and whose fortunes are linked directly or indirectly with government programs and, on the other hand, those whose outlooks and interests derive from and focus on private affairs, especially the traditional family, religion, and genuine private enterprise. Above all, as Codevilla makes plain, “for our ruling class, identity always trumps.” These people know they are superior in every way, and they are not shy about letting us know that they are. Arrogance might as well be their middle name.

What does this have to do with Tonya's case? Everything.

Think about the origins of the epidemic of false accusations of rape and child molestation: federal laws. The government requires state investigators to treat EVERY accusation, no matter how ridiculous or patently dishonest, as though it were true. Furthermore, Washington promises lots and lots of federal dollars to those state and local entities that prosecute these "crimes," and the promise of money alone is enough to drive false prosecutions.

But, as Prof. Codevilla's essay notes, there is much more. The modern "elites," whether they are prosecutors, part of non-profit organizations tied to government (like the CAC), or bureaucrats and politicians, have carved out privileges for themselves that do not apply to the rest of the Great Unwashed. While many of these "elites" pass themselves off as "experts" (and often are worshiped as such by the mainstream media), they are no more qualified to do their jobs than any person pulled off the streets.

Forget truth or even good science. Identity and protection by one's peers means everything; how else can men like Arnt and Gregor suborn perjury, yet be protected not only by "immunity" but also by all of the government agencies that are supposed to oversee them? Prof. Codevilla explains:

If, for example, you are Laurence Tribe in 1984, Harvard professor of law, leftist pillar of the establishment, you can "write" your magnum opus by using the products of your student assistant, Ron Klain. A decade later, after Klain admits to having written some parts of the book, and the other parts are found to be verbatim or paraphrases of a book published in 1974, you can claim (perhaps correctly) that your plagiarism was "inadvertent," and you can count on the Law School's dean, Elena Kagan, to appoint a committee including former and future Harvard president Derek Bok that issues a secret report that "closes" the incident. Incidentally, Kagan ends up a justice of the Supreme Court. Not one of these people did their jobs: the professor did not write the book himself, the assistant plagiarized instead of researching, the dean and the committee did not hold the professor accountable, and all ended up rewarded. By contrast, for example, learned papers and distinguished careers in climatology at MIT (Richard Lindzen) or UVA (S. Fred Singer) are not enough for their questions about "global warming" to be taken seriously. For our ruling class, identity always trumps.

This is not necessarily about political parties, although the Democratic Party clearly is the party of choice for most "elites." For example, Arnt, Gregor, and Deal are Republicans, and on his Facebook page, Deal claims to be "pro-life" and a "Christian," yet he is willing to take part in fabricating documents during the trial, which would violate all norms of Christianity.

Why would Deal and the others do these things? They do them because they can. They are part of a sheltered ruling class, and they cannot be bothered with the truth or even doing right. Instead, they make their own rules and are protected by the laws that their peers create so that they can be shielded from accountability no matter how outrageous their conduct.

The thing that motivates people like Deal, Arnt, and Gregor, along with Sells and her CAC underlings, is power. They enjoy wielding it and they especially enjoy the fact that they can do whatever they want and not pay legal consequences for it. Heck, for the most part, they ARE the law. Notice that none of these people, including "judge" Brian Outhouse, are exactly elites in the academic or social sense. However, as Prof. Codevilla notes, the "ruling class" is not comprised of people with superior skills or intelligence, just people who have the "right" identity.

If one wonders why the feds and the Georgia authorities have not intervened in this case despite the numerous violations of federal and state law, I believe that Prof. Codevilla and Prof. Higgs have the answer. Justice in modern America is not about justice at all; it is becoming one class of people engaging in warfare against another class.