USA Politics (redux)

[Florestan]

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY29tL3RoZS1uZXctYWJub3JtYWw/episode/NjgwNzdkOTgtNDlhMC00NDhiLWE4M2ItMzBiYzU2YWVlZjZj?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwigrLTModHtAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw&hl=en-NZ

Good journalism practice requires at least three independent sources to corroborate a news. You gave me one. Which are the other two?

Really, Mister: White House Insider: Trump Wanted to 'Maim' Immigrants? Is this the best you can do? No The New York Times? No The Guardian? No The Atlantic? Is it possible at all that your sources be untrustful?

[Florestan]

Then forget it. You're not going to try and I don't know why I bothered.

Oh, but please illuminate me: which extra-legal considerations are relevant when considering Law X and its possibl;e breaking. I'm all ears.

[SimonNZ]

I'm not playing this game.

My post - as I'm sure you're aware - is meant to ask you. Can trump, or anyone, do anything formerly accepted as illegal and even unethical if they can rewrite the law to have a figleaf of legality.

If you're not going to answer that question then don't bother answering at all.

[Florestan]

Can trump, or anyone, do anything formerly accepted as illegal and even unethical if they can rewrite the law to have a figleaf of legality.

No, they certainly can't do anything illegal and they certainly can't rewrite the law.

If you're not going to answer that question then don't bother answering at all.

I just answered that question.

[Todd]

Did he?

I assume he did.  Such behavior contributed to his defeat.  It was legal.

[Florestan]

It boggles my mind, really. Either we're tallking about the law, ie legal considerations, or we're talking about something other than the law, ie extra-legal considerations. Tertium non datur.

[Florestan]

I assume he did. 

I assume he didn't. Sue me, see you in court!

Such behavior contributed to his defeat. 

Absolutely.

It was legal.

I assume it was.

[Todd]

It boggles my mind, really. Either we're tallking about the law, ie legal considerations, or we're talking about something other than the law, ie extra-legal considerations. Tertium non datur.

Once one recognizes that virtue signaling is endemic to the web, one understands that people conflate simple, basic concepts every single day of the week.  Often purposively.

I assume he didn't. Sue me, see you in court!

I would contact my attorney tomorrow, but it would be wasted money since you are not an American.

I assume it was.

It definitely was.  See the first part of my post.

[SimonNZ]

It boggles my mind, really. Either we're tallking about the law, ie legal considerations, or we're talking about something other than the law, ie extra-legal considerations. Tertium non datur.

We're talking - well I am, you and Todd are pointedly not - about how the use of the law so transparently cynically a manner effects people's faith in institutions, in government and in elections in the long run, as well as stoking division and violence.

You are in such a rush to mock that you have to ask what extra-legal considerations might be that you refuse to read this. It was in my previous post and has been put forward time and again in the posts of others.


Now: if you respond to this post with sarcasm I fucking swear I will never speak to you again. You'll be merely another Todd and no longer worth rising to the bait.

[Florestan]

There are lots  of people who can't distinguish between legality and morality, nay, who would like legality and morality be exactly the same --- thanks God they are a minority.

[SimonNZ]

Fuck off, then.

[Florestan]

Fuck off, then.

So much for the rationality and the caring of the Left --- to which I assume you nominally belong.

I suppose Que will delete your post and mine in not time --- I just hope you'll read it before he does.

[Todd]

So much for the rationality and the caring of the Left --- to which I assume you nominally belong.

I suppose Que will delete your post and mine in not time --- I just hope you'll read it before he does.

Goodness, how can you possibly recover from such an attack?

[Florestan]

Goodness, how can you possibly recover from such an attack?

I'm devastated.

[71 dB]

For someone living in Romania the US might look like a beacon of democracy, but for people living in countries such as New-Zealand and Finland it is certainly not. Just 1 % of the stuff that has happened in this presidental election the past 6 weeks or so would be totally unthinkable in Finland and I am pretty sure the same goes for New-Zealand. Nobody questions the results of election in my country. Everybody trusts the votes are counted correctly and accept the result without taking cases to courts weeks after the election. People may not like the results, but they respect the outcome and demoractic process. From this kind of perspective this presidental election in the US was quite lunatic and alarming even if the outcome is the correct one in the end.

This is not only about the legal stuff. This is about how much the people trust in the system.

[Florestan]

Nobody questions the results of election in my country. Everybody trusts the votes are counted correctly and accept the result without taking cases to courts weeks after the election.

Too bad. They should. The true test of an independent judiciary is legally being challenged against, and upholding the result of, the latest elections. When was the last time thw Finnish judiciary upheld the latest elections against a legal challenge?

[Florestan]

For someone living in Romania the US might look like a beacon of democracy, but for people living in countries such as New-Zealand and Finland it is certainly not.

I couldn''t care less about democracy in USA, Finland or New Zealand.

All I care about is NATO being up and running.

Ie, all I care about is USA being up and running.

[Karl Henning]

Bill Galston (I think): The Republican Party is now actively cultivating a kind of citizen, and it is not a citizen of a democracy. It is not a given in human history that human beings just automatically do the right thing, even when it's costly, and you have to cultivate people who are willing, you have to reward acts of honorable sacrifice for the good of the political community. And right now Republicans are not doing that, they are doing the opposite: they are deliberately saying and doing idiotic, incredibly irresponsible things in order to get the cheers of (I'll be honest) an ignorant mob and in doing that, they're making the mob more ignorant and more hateful, and this is happening and repeating itself in a kind of death spiral every single day. These are people we have to keep living with, they're our fellow citizens who are going to keep voting, who are gonna protest who are going to be putting pressure on their elected officials going forward, and that's where it's scary. I don't know if, as [N.] said, that the exact scenario will be unfolding again in the future like it has this time without actually Trump on the scene, but other bad things can happen when such a significant chunk of the electorate is buying into this kind of civic poison that is now circulating around the country....

My educated guess is that if at any time in the US history I had replaced Republican with Democrat in the above, or even kept it Republican,  I'd have still had a somewhat valid point --- especially if I were someone as partisan as Bill Galston.

Where do you learn that Bill Galston is partisan, please?

[Karl Henning]

We're talking - well I am, you and Todd are pointedly not - about how the use of the law so transparently cynically a manner effects people's faith in institutions, in government and in elections in the long run, as well as stoking division and violence.

You are in such a rush to mock that you have to ask what extra-legal considerations might be that you refuse to read this. It was in my previous post and has been put forward time and again in the posts of others.


Now: if you respond to this post with sarcasm I fucking swear I will never speak to you again. You'll be merely another Todd and no longer worth rising to the bait.

It's one of the minor unsavory mysteries to me that Andrei gives himself to playing Gracie to Todd's impoverished George Burns.

[Todd]

Ie, all I care about is USA being up and running.

You win!