Hate Mail File - When Did We Adopt the Presumption of Guilt?

It's always such a surprise, this new regime I've come to understand has taken over in which an accusation is not to be questioned and is to constitute "evidence" of guilt, in itself.  And that any untested accusation can also, not just stand as "evidence" that  the allegation(s) contained in it are true but also that it can support other, untested, allegations.  Apparently untested allegations reinforce each other and so "evidence" multiplies, or at least piles up.

Oh, and such accusvidence is not to be subject to questioning and testing.  And, also,  the mere assertion that someone told someone something, with no evidence anyone ever did tell it provided, is also "evidence" which is not to be questioned.

To which I say, "NUTS!"

By this reasoning, everything which the Republican-fascists make up to throw at Hillary Clinton is to be taken as true, and not only her but any person of either gender.    I recall the cabloid TV robo-blondes arrayed against her and other Democratic women, such as Nancy Pelosi.

This accusation, of a vague kind, made on behalf of a woman who doesn't claim that she was raped but who most of the commentators say was raped - apparently they know more about her experience than she does - in a 34-year-old "account" that is bizarre from start to finish, sets a new low even in this kind of thing.

There needs to be a rule that a decades old accusation with no evidence - not even evidence that someone who lays the accusation even was told the story they're telling - which was not acted on at the time can't be judged for its truth, its accuracy or in any other way.  

Sometimes an accusation can't be judged because the person making it refused to act on it years or decades ago.  The failure to make the accusation when it was possible to collect evidence and build a supporting case for it AS CLOSE TO THE INCIDENT ALLEGED AS POSSIBLE often makes a later accusation impossible to prove.  There is a responsibility of a victim to make an accusation when it can do some good.  When there is no corroborating evidence, physical, documentary, anything, no one has the right to pretend they know what happened.  Say-so is a two edged sword, it's liable to cut both ways, sooner or later.