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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: Today at 04:33:57 PM »

If accepting a pardon requires an admission of guilt, then what are people who receive general pardons for all federal offenses - like the Bidens - even admitting guilt to? All federal offenses, from drug trafficking to mail fraud to terrorism? They've been pardoned for those crimes just as much as they've been pardoned for whatever crime you or Trump or anyone might have thought they really were guilty of. Doesn't make much sense, does it? Adding to that, no court has ever treated being pardoned as evidence of guilt. Like I said, the DoJ were just mad that years of work were about to go up in smoke, so they made a weak effort at saving face. The Jan. 6th rioters aren't implicated by being pardoned, and neither is anyone whom Biden has pardoned.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: Today at 02:35:47 PM »

The DOJ under Biden clearly stated that acceptance of a pardon required an admission of guilt of the crime.

It doesn't. That was simply them trying to save face in anticipation of the Jan. 6th participants being pardoned.

You might be more convincing if the family members Biden pardoned weren't being investigated by a congressional committee over the last two years, who have shown evidence of them receiving millions of dollars from foreign sources despite offering no known product or service.

Two years of liars telling Republicans what they wanted to hear, general FUD, and miscellaneous failson sleaze, all presided over by a body that didn't lift a finger when Trump openly monetized his office, ushered government business his way, and sold access to himself far more blatantly than any Biden did.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: Today at 04:07:31 AM »

The most famous presidential pardon is Ford's pardon of Nixon, which conspicuously lacked a conviction, indictment, or even a criminal investigation. As to the rest of it, not all pardons are created equal. There is no logical or ethical conflict between criticizing pardons that reward the corrupt and unrepentant and being okay with pardons that protect the innocent. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I'd support the pardon power being removed in a constitutional amendment, but until that happens, I'm not going to object to Biden using it to protect innocent people from a corrupt incoming president who's looking for payback.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 21, 2025, 04:44:04 AM »

Regardless of whether or not this is a stable or wise investment, it's not something that the president should be attaching their name to or otherwise getting involved in. The presidency is a full-time job, with no room for side gigs. We don't want a president who has one eye on the country and one eye on their business interests. That's just inviting all sorts of conflicts of interests - not legal conflicts of interest, which the president is exempt from, but factual conflicts of interest, where they're tempted to do something that benefits their bank account but doesn't necessarily benefit the country. And when I say "we," I really do mean it, because this isn't a partisan point. Ten years ago, the overwhelming majority of Americans (along with every single person who's posted in this thread) would have agreed that of course the president shouldn't be in business for themselves while running the country.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: January 20, 2025, 04:11:29 PM »

Ideally he wouldn't have to do something like this, but Trump would have very likely abused his office to pursue revenge against the people who investigated him instead. It's also very likely he'd have targeted Fauci to pander to the conspiracy nuts who still think that covid was a false flag and the vaccine was a time bomb or whatever. Those same conspiracy nuts regularly ignore the fact that Trump took credit for the vaccine and encouraged people to take it, but as I've said before, Trumpism is inherently contradictory.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 20, 2025, 04:01:34 AM »

You're overthinking things. What it really came down to was this - TikTok praising and flattering Trump in several different public messages. That's what Trump responds to more than anything. He doesn't believe in any ideals or hold any actual political positions of his own. He makes his decisions based on gut impulses and personal whims. That's why TikTok felt the need to glowingly refer to Trump by name in their messages, and it's why we saw people like Zelenskyy and the Greenland PM rushing to kiss Trump's ass in anticipation of him handing over Ukraine to Putin and doing something incredibly stupid and reckless to try and get control of Greenland, respectively. Trump fans undoubtedly see these public shows of fealty as a sign of Trump's strength, but in reality, it's the opposite. Someone who's this susceptible to flattery and lets their own emotions and personal feelings overrule their policy positions is not fit to be a leader.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Sexual Scandals

« on: January 20, 2025, 12:31:16 AM »

I wasn't really trying to make a political point; I was just saying that Gaiman being a feminist as well as a sexual predator isn't a brand-new wrinkle we've never seen before. I do think, though, that Gaiman will be hurt by this a lot more than other celebrities, because his work has drawn such a progressive and feminist fanbase. Louis CK had plenty of edgelord fans to back him up when his career took a hit; Gaiman does not.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Sexual Scandals

« on: January 19, 2025, 04:29:43 AM »

At this point, I think the majority of celebrities who have been outed as creeps have been of the very publicly progressive or feminist kind.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Sexual Scandals

« on: January 18, 2025, 07:24:24 PM »

wtf Neil

This one honestly hurts a lot.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: January 14, 2025, 02:53:58 AM »

No, you lost the privilege of complaining about electing old men with dementia (I'll assume that calling Biden a conman is projection) by electing Trump over Kamala. It would be one thing if it were still Trump vs. Biden, but it wasn't. We had to endure four years of bleating from conservatives about how Biden's age and mental decline were the worst things we could possibly have in a president, and once the shoe was on the other foot and the Republican candidate was the conspicuously ancient one with an obvious and steep mental decline over the past several years, conservatives proved their lack of sincerity by electing him anyway. You can't go back to pretending that relative youth and unhampered mental fitness are the most important qualities in a president now. Trump is less than four years younger than Biden, and there's ample evidence of him being far less sharp and more erratic than he was eight or even four years ago. He says his nonsense more confidently and aggressively than Biden does, but that doesn't make it any less nonsense. You made your choice - partisanship over mental soundness - and now you have to stick to it.

Incidentally, I love the implication that giving the victims $770 each is such a ridiculous idea that it's just being left without comment, as if an explanation of why that's a bad idea or what a better figure would be is unnecessary. I guarantee you not a single one of the chuckleheads jeering along with the RNC in the comments of that post would have a clue what to say if you asked them what the problem was in person.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 11, 2025, 04:37:29 AM »

I did read the article and as I wrote earlier, it is quite obvious Raskin is totally onboard with a Trump presidency...amirite?

Raskin was not trying to or planning to block Trump's certification as president to overturn the election, as Tom's original post falsely suggested. Whether or not Raskin is enthusiastic about a Trump's presidency isn't relevant.

Raskin said Trump was an insurrectionist. The 14th Amendment already covers this. No need for a new bill.

Section 5 of the 14th Amendment reads, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Which makes sense, as it would be very difficult to enforce specific sections of the Constitution as-is that everyone might have a different interpretation of without some sort of authority providing clarification as to how it's going to be enforced, or what it even means to be enforcing it.

You admit that Democrats in Congress were, in fact, threatening or attempting to stop the certification of Trump's victory. So there is nothing further to discuss on this matter.

I didn't "admit" that, nor did I say anything even remotely close to it. Once again, disqualifying someone from running for public office is objectively not the same thing as refusing to certify or attempting to stop the certification of an election that's already happened because you don't like the results. You might think that they're morally equivalent, but they are not the same thing in the same way that black is not white and two is not three. It's not my opinion, but an objective fact.

As for the Greenland news, again, foreign leaders don't have the luxury of telling the President of the United States to fuck off. They have to deal with him whether they like it or not, so naturally they're going to be cordial. If you're going to interpret every boilerplate "we are looking forward to working with President Trump" statement as evidence of complete and total capitulation, then you're going to be very surprised by the end of the month when Trump inexplicably isn't crowned God-Emperor of the entire world.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 09, 2025, 02:55:33 AM »

I did read the article and it is spook shit.

I did hear Raskin say exactly what he said.

He said that 9 justices did not want to do his job.

So, he was whining about bullshit.

At least he didn't have his gay badge on when he was whining.

If you had read the article, or even just the first few paragraphs of the article, then you would have known that the "100% fabricated" alleged quote was Raskin supposedly saying, "Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office," not the video clip that Tom posted which I was saying had been taken out of context.

Yeah, no. The argument you are presenting of "no no no, he is just working against someone who is theoretically just like Trump" is a very poor argument. Rep Jamie Raskin went on a media tour telling everyone that Trump should be disqualified.

MSNBC - Rep. Raskin: To know the law is to understand Trump is disqualified from office

Yahoo News - Jamie Raskin on how the 14th Amendment applies to insurrectionists seeking office

Brian Tyler Cohen - Jamie Raskin on constitutionality of Trump disqualification

Forbes - 'The Supreme Court Punted': Jamie Raskin Reacts To Supreme Court Ruling In Favor Of Trump

Here is a quote from the last one:

Transcript @0:34
in any event the Supreme punted and said
it's up to Congress to act and so um I
am working with a number of my
colleagues including uh Debbie W and
Schultz and Eric Swell to revive
legislation that we had to set a process
by which we could determine that someone
uh who committed Insurrection is
disqualified by section the 14th
Amendment

So this guy clearly thinks that Trump should be disqualified, and suggests that he was actively working against Trump becoming president.

That's not my argument, and there's no need to try and convince me or anyone else that Raskin wanted to disqualify Trump, because of course he did. When I said "someone like Trump," I meant "someone who has done what Trump has done," because of course they wouldn't be writing a bill that mentioned Trump by name and was all about him specifically. I wasn't saying that this was all a coincidence. My actual argument is that Raskin was not talking about doing what Trump tried to do - stage a coup to stop the rightful winner of the election from taking power. He was talking about using the legal process, in accordance with the Constitution, to disqualify Trump from being eligible to run for president, which no less a body than the Supreme Court said Congress had the constitutional right to do. Regardless of whether or not you feel that doing such a thing is fair or ought to be allowed, the fact is that it is objectively not the same thing as staging a coup with brute force and overturning the results of an election that has already happened.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 08, 2025, 06:23:04 AM »

If you had actually read the article instead of just glancing at it, you would have known that "100% fabricated" was in reference to a different quote attributed to Raskin. The article discusses more than one thing that Raskin has allegedly said.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 08, 2025, 04:28:49 AM »

That's been blatantly taken out of context. Raskin was talking about the possibility of passing legislation at the federal level that would prohibit someone like Trump from being on the ballot, which is no more than what the Supreme Court themselves said was the appropriate course of action. That last point deserves emphasis - the SC did not rule in Trump v. Anderson that Trump had a guaranteed right to run for president and nobody was allowed to stop him. They ruled that only Congress had the power to determine eligibility for federal office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, not the states. In any case, Raskin certainly wasn't saying that they were going to refuse to certify Trump's victory.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 05, 2025, 10:47:25 PM »

So the answer to Dave's question is yes, basically. "Peace" means "Russian conquest."

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 05, 2025, 09:42:11 PM »

Oh, I have no doubt that it will be Trump who gets the "credit" for handing over to Putin however much of Ukraine he wants.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 05, 2025, 09:17:46 PM »

Again, Trump is the new president. Zelensky doesn't have the luxury of calling Trump out as a Putin lapdog and vowing to defy him. All he can do now is try to flatter Trump so as to hopefully soften the incoming blow. And an unfavorable ending to the war in Ukraine is only "inevitable" because Trump won and will now deliver Ukraine up to Putin on a silver platter. Not because of any sober calculations about the cost of war or as part of any overall geopolitical strategy, but simply because Trump admires Putin and wants to impress him. Every decision that Trump makes is entirely personal. Who has flattered him lately, who does he want to impress lately, who has spent money on him lately? He has virtually no interest in or knowledge of actual policy.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: January 05, 2025, 05:45:59 AM »

I really don't think it's that noteworthy or remarkable that Mexico or any other country is indicating that they want to work with the new president and are willing to change their previous positions to that end. Or, to put it another way, I don't think Mexico changing its position is uniquely conditional on Trump being the president, as if they'd be willing to blow off any other president, but Trump is just such an impressive and fearsome man that Mexico doesn't dare disobey him. America is always a force to be reckoned with in international politics, and the president is always somebody who needs to be taken seriously. There's only so much that world leaders can push back on the president, let alone openly defy him on.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 30, 2024, 12:05:56 AM »

That's not how it works. Congress does not have the right to make these kinds of constitutional determinations and take unilateral action on them, let alone for something drastic like overturning an election.

Both houses of Congress voted to convict Trump of insurrection at his second impeachment trial.  It sounds like they already made those sorts constitutional determinations and of took that sort of action.

Only the Senate votes on whether or not to convict in an impeachment trial, and Trump was acquitted with a vote of 57-43, ten votes short of a conviction.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 29, 2024, 06:43:11 PM »

It might be possible the election results will not be certified.

No, it's not.

It's possible, just not likely.

The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” This disability can be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House. 

Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government. The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.

That's not how it works. Congress does not have the right to make these kinds of constitutional determinations and take unilateral action on them, let alone for something drastic like overturning an election.

Only in a make-believe world does the act of two impeachments not ultimately qualify as a form of prosecution.

Impeachment is objectively an entirely separate process to criminal prosecution, as it was designed to be. In any case, it was Congress that impeached Trump, not his own administration.