What happened in high school should stay there

Kavanaugh at 53 is not same person he was as a teenager

High school, some youthful sage wrote in my own high school yearbook, “is not a place, but a time in one’s life.” True, and that time comes with an obvious statute of limitations. When you’re 53, the only time high school should be part of your life again is when you get invited to your class reunion.

Thanks to the #MeToo movement, that statute of limitations is no more. Now, we’re witnessing a contemporary equivalent of the Salem witch trials and Brett Kavanaugh is very likely to get burned at the stake, whether the 53-year-old U.S. Supreme Court nominee is innocent or guilty. Of course, he must be guilty, since as our very own prime minister has previously pointed out, women must be believed.

Let’s set aside the fact that the two women now accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct came forward at a strangely propitious time with their allegations. The first supposed incident happened when Kavanaugh was in high school in 1982, while the second allegedly happened during his student days at Yale. And the accusers never went to the police or told anyone about these incidents until now, just at a moment when the Democrats would dearly love to block Kavanaugh’s nomination? Can you spell smear campaign?

The #MeToo movement has run off the rails and is out of control. The Kavanaugh case should strike fear into the hearts of all men because it means that no matter how sterling a reputation you have in your adult life and career, something dumb you may or may not have been involved with in high school can forever come back to haunt you. It’s as if an individual is the same person at 53 that he was at 15 or even at 20.

There’s also a kerfuffle about what Kavanaugh supposedly wrote in his high school yearbook about a girl. How much more ludicrous can things get? Just wait. Some years ago, there was a news story about a six-year-old boy who was suspended because he kissed a little girl on the school playground. I hope that boy, wherever he is, is not planning a career in politics because the #MeToo movement is now so off the beam that someone will very likely try to use that incident to destroy him. After all, if you’re the same person at 53 as you were at 15, then logically you must still be the same person you were at age six or even three.

But, as former Manitoba MP — and now MLA — Steven Fletcher learned to his chagrin recently, you can’t even fondly reminisce about high school without being treated as if you were some kind of predator. Fletcher got in trouble after he replied to a tweet one of his former high school teachers sent him.

The teacher, congratulating him on an article he wrote for The Economist, tweeted: “Excellent article, Steven. I wholeheartedly agree.” Fletcher responded with: “Thank you. It’s nice to hear from you. You were always my favourite teacher. Given 35 years have passed if I may tell you that you were also the hottest teacher. All the boys loved you in inappropriate ways. :)”

Boys get crushes on their teachers and refer to them as hot. Big deal.

Yet, Manitoba Status of Women Minister Rochelle Squires huffed that Fletcher’s comments were “insulting, demeaning, inappropriate.” Someone else tweeted that “sexual innuendo in public on Twitter from an elected official to a member of the public is never appropriate; especially not in 2018.”

Well, that attitude may explain why 2018 promises to be one of the most prudish and stuffy years since the Victorian era. Get off your high horses with your prissy outrage. Fletcher’s remark to the teacher was harmless.

Three decades after leaving high school, what anyone did there, what he scribbled in his yearbook, or how hot he thought some teacher was, is totally irrelevant to who he is now.

The #MeToo movement has run off the rails and is out of control.