A few thoughts about January 6, 2021

[Buyetyen]

Not really. Suppose next election, they just let Hillary use clairvoyance and just tell us who won? No actual ballots, she'll just assure us she knows. How would I prove she's wrong? Polls? Those can be rigged too.

What in the actual fuck are you talking about?

As virtually no other first world democracy allows mail in voting as we did,

In alphabetical order, every country that allows mail in voting:

Australia
Austria
Canada
Finland
France
Germany
Hungary
India
Indonesia
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
Norway
Philipines
Spain
Switzerland
UK
USA

You make shit up.

as laws were violated, as voting machines were shown to be completely vulnerable,

Prove it.

That and allowing people to vote months early results in de-facto uninformed voters. They have not witnessed the election.

What the fuck does this mean? Are you suggesting that people should wait until the election is over to vote?

And I like the idea of ensuring that only people that can be arsed enough to come to the polls with voter ID can actually be counted. Maybe they actually have reason to know about the election and have a reasoned opinion.

I bet you really do like the idea of disenfranchising people, but only the ones who don't vote the way you want.

We do need to make election day a holiday to give working people a better window of opportunity in which to vote.

Mitch McConnell says that would be socialism, so there's no way your party will ever agree to that.

I also hear some poll areas are over-crowded with long waits. That has to change too. And I blame local politicians that need to be primaried for that sort of failure.

Again, this was deliberately engineered by your party.

But my question re: 1/6... if the tresspassers, even if incorrect, believed the election stolen and that they thought they were protecting the rule of law... is their motive a defense against the charge of insurrection?

Nope.

 

[gorfias]

So... they extended registration periods? That's what you've got?

And what does this have to do with the incorrect idea that "no other first world country" has mail-in voting like the US?



In legal terms? No, because an incorrect belief motivating an action does not mitigate responsibility for the action (unless the individual is mentally incapacitated or impaired). So, for instance, theft is still theft if the thief wrongly believes that their victim also stole the item from someone else.

Even if hypothetically their motivating belief (that the election was stolen) was correct, they would still be culpable for insurrection, because that would not convey the right to attack the legislature.

Voting Fraud Is a Real Concern. Just Look Around the World

If concern about voter fraud with mail-in ballots is delusional, it is a delusion that is shared by most of the world.

www.newsweek.com

I should have simply quoted, " Banning mail-in voting or requiring people to use photo IDs to obtain a mail-in ballot is quite common in developed countries, especially in Europe. " I do think your apparant blase response to UN-Constitutional changes to election law is misplaced.

I'll have to think on your second point. You could be right.

Motivation, even if wrong, is typically a defense except against statutory crimes ie, you thought it was legal to park somewhere but it was not sort of thing. But you take something from a store thinking you paid for it but something went wrong at the register and the sale did not actually complete... you are not guilty of theft. Though you do have to make amends.

 

[Agema]

To this day, there are Democrats that will call requiring photo ID to vote the new Jim Crow.

An exaggeration, but like most exaggerations there's an element of truth behind it. It is surely not just a coincidence that the sorts of people less likely to have voter ID tend to vote Democrat. As there is virtually no evidence of voter fraud that voter ID would prevent, we can see why people would suspect a different rationale.

Trump? I hope he does not run in 2024. I don't want the election to be about him but rather, the issues.

I figure the Republican Party will be working on scuppering a 2024 Trump run behind the scenes. But there is a huge problem with Trump that he and the issues blend into one another. For instance, one cannot support a man as nakedly corrupt as Donald Trump and simultaneously object to corruption. It isn't even like it is a new thing: he has had a lifelong dedication to cheating, conning and lying.

That and, did we do some 300% more harm to ourselves with our Covid response than the disease did itself? Trump helped make this happen. An argument against him: was the economy built on a house of cards and he knew it? That he wanted the response we gave to excuse a system that was unsustainable and about to collapse?

I don't think Trump knows much about the economy, and (aside from making money for himself) doesn't care, either.

ITMT: does motive matter? If the Jan 6 trespassers really believed, even if incorrect, they were trying to stop an insurrection, would that be a defense?

Not in a sane world.

A defendant should have good reason to believe they were okay to commit a crime. If a country has very low incidence of voter fraud, a heavily scrutinised election was judged initially fair, plus defence from additional audits, recounts, investigations, judicial reviews etc. concluding there is no evidence of significant foul play, then he does not have good reason to believe the vote was unfair. At best he could make the argument that 70% of Republicans think the election was fraudulent, but arguments from popularity are fallacies.

 

[tstorm823]

Oh wow, this is such a bad line of thinking it hurts. Comparing trump to fringe leftists is really stupid because he was the fucken president, not some rando yelling on twitter. You cannot pretend this is on the same level at all.

This is such a bad retort it hurts. I compared him to fringe leftists 20 years later, only after listing a more current example of election denial that has prominent mainstream support.

You want apples to apples, let's google what people thought in 2001 about the 2000 election.
33% of people believed Bush didn't legitimately win.
The New York Times spent the following 6 months investigating the vote in Florida.
Prominent Democrats tried to block the electoral votes, and to his credit, Al Gore as Vice President himself shut them up, in much the same way Pence did his job and pushed past challenges to the votes this year.

Like, I went back and pulled up some C-SPAN transcripts, and I believe Clinton had no objections on January 6th for his terms, W Bush was objected to both times, Obama was objected to neither time, and Trump was objected to in 2017. We have 20 years of Democrats officially denying and challenging elections in Congress, and 1 year of Trump doing it.

 

[09philj]

Fringe leftists still haven't conceded Bush won fairly.

The idea of the 2000 election being a bit of a stitch up is a fairly mainstream opinion. If nothing else, it's one of the two elections out of six in my lifetime where the candidate who got fewer votes won.

 

[Worgen]

This is such a bad retort it hurts. I compared him to fringe leftists 20 years later, only after listing a more current example of election denial that has prominent mainstream support.

You want apples to apples, let's google what people thought in 2001 about the 2000 election.
33% of people believed Bush didn't legitimately win.
The New York Times spent the following 6 months investigating the vote in Florida.
Prominent Democrats tried to block the electoral votes, and to his credit, Al Gore as Vice President himself shut them up, in much the same way Pence did his job and pushed past challenges to the votes this year.

Like, I went back and pulled up some C-SPAN transcripts, and I believe Clinton had no objections on January 6th for his terms, W Bush was objected to both times, Obama was objected to neither time, and Trump was objected to in 2017. We have 20 years of Democrats officially denying and challenging elections in Congress, and 1 year of Trump doing it.

That is a totally pointless statement since we aren't talking about fringe republicans, right now, we are talking about the majority of a political party that views the election as invalid and its not just the electorate, its also the politicians and the former president. So no, its not comparable.

Ok ok, but the problem here is that 2000 and 2020 aren't apples to apples. Its easy to think so if you don't really know about it but for 2020 to take a turn, trump would have needed at least 3 states to switch for him and even in close states it wasn't that close. One of the big reasons that people call Bush Jr illegitimate is because he lost the popular vote. Plus, in 2000 florida was the tipping point and it was close enough and handled weirdly enough that ending it when they did was suspicious. The trumples have been looking since the election and finding only dust and more conspiracy theories since they SOOOOO obviously won all 51 states, they won so hard that a new state sprang into existence, they call it trumpsburge.

So?

EDIT: Did you actually read the New York Times article? After finishing that its more apparent then ever that Gore should have won and the Bush campaign was pulling some, not illegal but really dodgy shit to get the votes he needed to win and Gore kinda handed it to him in the end, by not challenging the absentee ballots more since he didn't want to be constantly hit by republicans as not supporting the troops.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I should have simply quoted, " Banning mail-in voting or requiring people to use photo IDs to obtain a mail-in ballot is quite common in developed countries, especially in Europe. " I do think your apparant blase response to UN-Constitutional changes to election law is misplaced.

If the state Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court say it's not unconstitutional, then it's not unconstitutional. That's how our laws work.

EDIT: to avoid a tedious argument: yes, the Supreme Court has been wrong. But you will need a better argument than that

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

We have 20 years of Democrats officially denying and challenging elections in Congress, and 1 year of Trump doing it.

And how many times did Democrats storm the capitol building chanting for people to be hung?

 

[gorfias]

If the state Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court say it's not unconstitutional, then it's not unconstitutional. That's how our laws work.

EDIT: to avoid a tedious argument: yes, the Supreme Court has been wrong. But you will need a better argument than that

Did they say it passed muster or did they refuse to rule on the merits? I don't think they did passed on it and Clarence Thomas called them out on that. They said there was no need as the number of votes in dispute would, they think, not have swung the election and Thomas countered the issue is what is relevant and it is unsolved.

 

[Buyetyen]

Did they say it passed muster or did they refuse to rule on the merits? I don't think they did passed on it and Clarence Thomas called them out on that. They said there was no need as the number of votes in dispute would, they think, not have swung the election and Thomas countered the issue is what is relevant and it is unsolved.

Clarence Thomas is also an unqualified hack. What's your point?

 

[Silvanus]

I should have simply quoted, " Banning mail-in voting or requiring people to use photo IDs to obtain a mail-in ballot is quite common in developed countries, especially in Europe. "

Sure. But so is allowing postal voting without restriction. Both are commonplace in the Western world and haven't let to fraud on anywhere near the scale necessary to overturn the US election.

I do think your apparant blase response to UN-Constitutional changes to election law is misplaced.

I am indeed pretty blasé about changes being "unconstitutional", since I don't particularly care if something's in a constitution or not. I don't think the law of the land should be dictated by rules set down by people long dead, with those who are actually alive unable to change them.

But either way, the constitution also states that each state should individually determine their own electoral procedures. And yet both Sidney Powell and Donald Trump were willing to use federal power to unilaterally overrule the state's individual decisions. That is a much larger contradiction of the constitution; it strikes right at the heart of the separation of powers, unlike a simple deadline extension.

Motivation, even if wrong, is typically a defense except against statutory crimes ie, you thought it was legal to park somewhere but it was not sort of thing. But you take something from a store thinking you paid for it but something went wrong at the register and the sale did not actually complete... you are not guilty of theft. Though you do have to make amends.

Yes, but in that situation, the individual did not believe they were committing the act at all.

In the scenario you're putting forward, the insurrectionists know full well that they're attacking the Capitol in an attempt to negate the election. The belief isn't that they're not doing it. The belief is that circumstances justify it. And that's not how the law works. The law doesn't give a shit if someone thinks they know better or not.

 

[CM156]

EDIT: to avoid a tedious argument: yes, the Supreme Court has been wrong. But you will need a better argument than that

I'll add to that: If someone's response to the Supreme Court ruling against their legal theory is to say "Well, the Supreme Court has been wrong before", their argument is basically the legal field equivalent of the Galileo Gambit. You see this all the time with people in the Republican party wanting to relitigate the New Deal cases (and the commerce clause) and nullification (this was big in Obama's first term) and some Democrats wanting to relitigate the Heller and McDonald decisions (I still people yammer about militias and muskets over a decade after the fact.)

 

[Agema]

You want apples to apples, let's google what people thought in 2001 about the 2000 election.
33% of people believed Bush didn't legitimately win.

And yet there are even different types of apples.

The 2000 election was about as close as it is possible for an election to be: it hinged on one state with a difference of about 500 votes (0.01%). The state was run by the same party as the president, there were aspects of how it was conducted that were low quality (some voting forms were confusing, technical problems, etc.), and a recount procedure that was dragged through courts with what I would be tempted to describe as everything but an honest desire to thoroughly review the results. Ending with a Supreme Court vote to stop the recount that split straight down "party lines", which could not look worse. To add to this rather awkward situation, Gore also won the popular vote nationwide by some 500,000 (0.5%). This is breeding ground for suspicions of cheating.

Trump, however, was beaten by >10,000 vote margin in even the closest state he lost in, with all of the key battleground states under partial control of Republicans (governor or at least one legislative chamber), and the highest court in the land had just been stuffed with right-wing candidates. And finally Biden won the popular vote by a very considerable seven million (!) people, or 4.5%.

In reality, the 2020 election wasn't even close: it was a clear and decisive win. It seemed close whilst the counts were going, but only because of the way that the counting was staged so that Trump was given an early lead that then had to be reeled in and overhauled. This of course delivers a sort of huge emotional impact, like the crushing experience of watching your team winning in a game until suddenly crumbling in the last 10 minutes.

And yet despite the huge disparity in the closeness of these elections, even though the Republicans have won the popular vote just once since 1988, it is Trump's defeat that set off a vastly larger and more forceful accusation of electoral fraud. Not least because, catastrophically, that campaign was manufactured and orchestrated by the president of the USA himself. As candidate, Gore shut down the 2000 election quibbling with the authority of being a sort of de facto Democratic party leader. Whilst Pence and other Republicans held the line for democracy, the top Republican in the land with the most authority attempted to undermine the result, and people will look to authority.

 

[gorfias]

Sure. But so is allowing postal voting without restriction. Both are commonplace in the Western world and haven't let to fraud on anywhere near the scale necessary to overturn the US election.



I am indeed pretty blasé about changes being "unconstitutional", since I don't particularly care if something's in a constitution or not. I don't think the law of the land should be dictated by rules set down by people long dead, with those who are actually alive unable to change them.

But either way, the constitution also states that each state should individually determine their own electoral procedures. And yet both Sidney Powell and Donald Trump were willing to use federal power to unilaterally overrule the state's individual decisions. That is a much larger contradiction of the constitution; it strikes right at the heart of the separation of powers, unlike a simple deadline extension.




Yes, but in that situation, the individual did not believe they were committing the act at all.

In the scenario you're putting forward, the insurrectionists know full well that they're attacking the Capitol in an attempt to negate the election. The belief isn't that they're not doing it. The belief is that circumstances justify it. And that's not how the law works. The law doesn't give a shit if someone thinks they know better or not.

Some of what you write is why a Texas case was thrown out for lack of standing. In this case, as a matter of procedure, where a State to violates it's own laws in ways that impact the Federal government I would think the Fed has standing to disregard that state. If, for instance, the Arizona electors were the result of lawlessness, the Federal government would have the lawful right to reject those electors.

ITMT: I would love for the Fed to enforce a voter ID law but agree with you. That would be over stepping their bounds.

 

[AnxietyProne]

Republicans love cops right up until cops "violate their rights" (i.e. stop them from doing whatever they want to do). Then they're jackbooted government thugs.

Binge watching a fair share of 1st Amendment Auditors and SovCits has completely invalidated any "We love our cops, our law enforcement..." rhetoric a right winger tries to pull with me.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

And yet there are even different types of apples.

The 2000 election was about as close as it is possible for an election to be: it hinged on one state with a difference of about 500 votes (0.01%). The state was run by the same party as the president, there were aspects of how it was conducted that were low quality (some voting forms were confusing, technical problems, etc.), and a recount procedure that was dragged through courts with what I would be tempted to describe as everything but an honest desire to thoroughly review the results. Ending with a Supreme Court vote to stop the recount that split straight down "party lines", which could not look worse. To add to this rather awkward situation, Gore also won the popular vote nationwide by some 500,000 (0.5%). This is breeding ground for suspicions of cheating.

On top of that, Republicans actively staged a violent riot in recount areas with the specific intent of stopping the recount while the Supreme Court decided the outcome, because the vote would stand as what it was when the Supreme Court said "stop" and they were currently in the lead.

Brooks Brothers riot - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[09philj]

Binge watching a fair share of 1st Amendment Auditors and SovCits has completely invalidated any "We love our cops, our law enforcement..." rhetoric a right winger tries to pull with me.

What they really love is the idea of shooting people who displease them without any consequences, and the police and the armed forces kind of represent that idea in an aspirational way. The application of hard, violent power is kind of foundational to the right wing nationalist conception of the US so they are very attracted to the institutions that carry that torch in the modern day, but only when they're representing that idea.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

What they really love is the idea of shooting people who displease them without any consequences, and the police and the armed forces kind of represent that idea in an aspirational way. The application of hard, violent power is kind of foundational to the right wing nationalist conception of the US so they are very attracted to the institutions that carry that torch in the modern day, but only when they're representing that idea.

One of the NRA's favorite slogans is "an armed society is a polite society". What they mean by that is "you'll be polite to me because I've got a gun".

 

[Buyetyen]

One of the NRA's favorite slogans is "an armed society is a polite society". What they mean by that is "you'll be polite to me because I've got a gun".

Also kind of telling on themselves. They need the disincentive of murder to avoid acting on their basal impulses in society.

 

[happyninja42]

But my question re: 1/6... if the tresspassers, even if incorrect, believed the election stolen and that they thought they were protecting the rule of law... is their motive a defense against the charge of insurrection?

....are you fucking serious? That's the most ridiculous defense I've heard, which makes sense that it's coming from someone defending the insurrectionists.

That's like saying "Well hey I believed that the person I was sitting next to on the bus actually WAS a child murderer, so hey, my act of stabbing them to death is totally a defense against me being guilty of killing them"

or, from real world events in fucking crazy ass republican-verse. "I honestly, and truly believe there is a child sex dungeon under a bowling alley/pizza shop (that doesn't even have a basement), so me going in there with a gun is a perfectly valid act, and not at ALL a crime in any way! Because it's what I BELIEVED!!" This is insane thinking, something the conservatives have been cultivating for years. The fact that you BELIEVE something is X, doesn't make it X, and it doesn't justify you taking an action that is against the law, simply because of your belief.

Your party is living in a fantasy realm of their own making. Their distrust in the election system, something you pushed really hard as justification for them rising up against the government, has been entirely motivated by their own fucking party TELLING them (without any actual evidence) that it's rigged. It's this incestuous, recursive loop of the conservative mouthpieces "asking questions" and feeding the doubt to their flock, then when the idiots start rambling about a stolen election, the politicians turn and point to their base, (that they stirred up into the frenzy in the first place) and say "see, we're just representing their concerns! So it's totally legit!" Ignoring THEY are the ones that have been feeding them those concerns in the first place.
But when they are actually in front of a fucking judge, and have to actually account for what they say in a court of law, and provide evidence, every one of them, has backpedeled so fucking hard, from officially declaring, on record, that they are declaring voter fraud, that they are probably reversing time. The other times they have tried to present anything, the briefs and information have been complete BS, poorly written, citing absolute garbage, so bad that the judges have had to just throw the shit out, as if it was written by a 10 year old, and not someone who supposedly passed the bar, and knows how to fucking law.

Give me a fucking break.