And once again you're trying so hard to find fault with something that contradicts your ignorant presumptions that you end up fundamentally misrepresenting the thing you're cherrypicking under the delusion that by so doing you create a pretext to sidestep the point being made without ever addressing it. First of all, the invocation of Wilcox v Jeffrey does not rely on that as the sole reason for the conviction, only that it was invoked and affirmed by the courts as supporting evidence,
which it was, and which is something the case is criticized for.
Second, the paper invokes that aspect of the case as taking accomplice liability too far, but nevertheless helping to illustrate a fundamental point about how the concept of "aiding and abetting" is applied very broadly rather than narrowly. Moreover, this is used as a rhetorical lead-in to the idea that accomplice liability needs further qualifiers for effective application, which the writer then elucidates before cautioning about the pendulum swinging back too far in the other direction, citing Iago and Lady Macbeth as clear-cut examples of guilty parties that would rightly be found criminally liable. You'd know this if you actually read even a few sentences further. That is all a prelude explaining how Accomplice Liability works and explaining the elements that make the latter invocations feel more applicable than the prior one, which is then applied to the case of Antony's speech in Julius Caesar, which he argues is another case of clear guilt in which he explicitly manipulated others to commit serious crimes.
Third I don't think you realize how telling it is that you're invoking the use of "may be sufficient" as if that were damning. Not only is that common phrasing for legal documents (reflecting the fact that law is designed to be largely informed by context, to the point that lawyers frequently quip that the answer to any broad legal question is "it depends") in the context of the paper, the phrase is invoked not to spitball something but
to explain precedent. The paper invokes the term twice, not "a lot of" times as you claim. Three times if you include the usage in the citation of the Court's ruling in Hicks v. United States. The first was a paraphrasing of another source that was explaining the ruling for the same case, and that the Court's rationale made it quite clear that it found in favor of Hicks because the prosecution had only established Hicks' presence, not his statements, but that if Hicks had been demonstrated to even shout "attaboy" when Rowe threatened his victim, they would have found him guilty. And the other is emphasizing the point that in certain contexts (such as he had been describing) words can very well be the tipping point that convinces someone to do something illegal and in those circumstances the speaker shares culpability. Hardly the mark against it that you imply.
He didn't cherry pick the case or couch it in uncertainty, you were just so eager to prove it wrong that - per usual - you failed to understand what was actually written and then extrapolated a faulty conclusion that belies your unfamiliarity with the topic. And the point remains that you are simply wrong. A person can indeed be charged as an accomplice for speech that encouraged a crime.
In short:
Stop trying to bullshit your way through arguments. There's no shame in not understanding a topic. There's ample shame in being pretentious about the topic, as you have been.
I know you
believe that. That's what we keep telling you is the problem.
You think you know, but that's not the same as actually knowing. And you've long since made it clear that you think you understand much more than you actually do. And more importantly, the presumption that you must already know enough and that you cannot be mistaken in that is preventing you from learning and actually developing an informed opinion. Rather, you've shown time and time again that you close yourself off to new information, only give anything brought to your attention a perfunctory glance as you do nothing other than look for even the most flimsy of pretexts to dismiss it (frequently misinterpreting it so badly that you outright fabricate the flaw you cite whole cloth), and use its alignment with your prejudices as the sole determining factor of whether or not it's "good". You then proceed to arrogantly insist that the sources you are being told you're misrepresenting must actually agree with you because you skimmed an article and concluded that
it said that the source agrees with your mischaracterization. And you refuse to be dissuaded from that presumption no matter how much the very source you're pretending to defer to is cited back to you
at length in explaining how you're brazenly misunderstanding and misrepresenting it.
You aren't making compelling arguments, you're only rehearsing your own prejudices, and then getting upset when we call you out that much of what you say is not only demonstrably wrong and not fooling anyone, but often so inconsistent as to be almost incoherent.
You're not being clever, you're just being an arrogant reactionary whose only consistent position is that anyone who is criticizing you must be wrong to do so. Worse still, when confronted with the things you get wrong, you don't try to learn from it. Instead just look for an explanation that will let you keep believing that you weren't wrong (and frequently misunderstand even those), which you then champion as necessarily representative of "the science" or the prevailing consensus for no other reason than because you want to believe as much, with absolutely no consideration for internal consistency. This is pure ego for you. And that's what makes you so unbearably tragic. All this time you've spent trying to bullshit that you understood a given topic could have been spent learning about it. If you had, you'd now presumably have a working understanding of it and be able to discuss it intelligently rather than getting constantly called out for trying to convince us that you actually know about the topic while consistently demonstrating that you don't understand even its most basic principles.
1) That's a straight up appeal to authority fallacy that wears its hypocritical double standard on its sleeve. Lest you forget, the case is also being prosecuted by lawyers, and lower courts have agreed with the prosecution. I notice that you aren't declaring that - as they have law degrees and are actively practicing law - "they probably have a good reason for that". Though while you're at it, would you perhaps like to argue that the Cardinals' election of
Alexander VI or
Benedict IX to the papacy was proof of the piety and virtue of both? After all, Cardinals are theological scholars who typically led a holy life as bishops and knew Catholic doctrine inside and out. So
surely "if they don't see [their flaws] as being an issue, they probably have good theological reason for that".
2) Republicans falling in line behind Trump isn't the point that you think it is, as at present the cult of Trump has such a stranglehold on the party that Congressional Republicans are taking their marching orders from him and are even
sabotaging legislation they want
because Trump wants to campaign on the underlying issue. Never mind that he now feels comfortable publicly calling for the RNC to replace its leadership with his campaign advisor and daughter-in-law, who just the other week were assuring Republican voters that the RNC would foot Trump's legal bills (something the RNC has been resistant to now that Trump is running for office again) which the two have recently declared to be the RNC's patriotic duty.
3) Never mind that when Jan 6 was recent, Republicans were quite unabashed in calling it an insurrection, and that Trump was practically and morally responsible for the events of that day. But then another election year came up and their driving concern became not driving people away from voting Republican, so they started
downplaying it and trying to paint responses to it as political persecution to win over useful idiots who could be trusted to forget about their initial response and not care enough to look into the story. This became
even more pronounced once it became clear that not only had Trump solidified his place as a "kingmaker" for the party, but was once again a frontrunner for the party's 2024 nomination (ie, popular with the same voters they needed to win over to secure reelection) and that his narratives had gained increasing hold over their voters, whom polls indicated just want to bury the matter. Moreover,
one of their stated reasons for not impeaching Trump then and there was that Trump's actions were clearly criminal
and should be tried in a court of law rather than by Congress.
Mind you, the courts have actually been calling out the brazen double-dealing here, as while Trump and his political allies pushed that during the impeachment, they're both claiming the opposite now that he's facing that court of law: that he cannot be tried unless he was first impeached.
4) While a lot of politicians do have legal backgrounds, need I remind you that their job right now is that of a
politician, not a lawyer. Their job is literally to play politics and appeal to their base, and you're talking about a crowd that puts an enormous premium on loyalty to the party (of which Trump is currently the presumptive leader and - at present - failing to fall in line when he barks gets you deemed a RINO and persona non-grata in the party), is acutely aware of the fact that Trump's base will likely decide their ability to remain in office, and in some cases were actually complicit in his schemes, including
orchestrating fake hearings to try and convince the public that the courts had actually ruled in Trump's favor, which ultimately helped to set the stage for Jan 6. These are not impartial observers, they are people who have strong vested interests (often several) in playing to Trump's camp.
5) That is exactly the kind of logic that Trump et al have been relying on for
years now, taking advantage of good faith assumptions and incredulity to add artificial weight to what amounted to confidence ploys. That people would think that nobody would have the audacity to fake a hearing, so the Wyndham event must have been a real trial that vindicated Trump's claims. That nobody could be dumb enough to keep pushing meritless claims to court (much less repackage the same claims to submit them again to a different court), so all the cases Trump et al were filing must show the pervasiveness for voter fraud. That the sheer audacity of claiming that there was a pervasive international effort to systematically flip votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden was too cartoonishly absurd to push unless there was actually good evidence for it. That Trump et al trying to illegally overturn the election results was too brazen to be real. That nobody would have the audacity to call up a governor and ask him to find 11,780 votes so he would end up with more votes than his opponent and win the state. That Powell and Giuliani were lawyers, so they obviously wouldn't be caught dead doing anything that would risk them getting sanctioned, much less disbarred, so the fact that they're hitching their wagon to Trump's election fraud claims must mean they have merit. That the lot of them wouldn't be parading around "binders full of evidence" that they didn't have, so it was absurd that the courts weren't ruling in their favor... Time and again Trump and his allies rely on Refuge in Audacity to convince people like yourself - who can't be bothered to check their claims - that their case must be compelling for the simple reason that their claims were so beyond the pale that we basically default to assuming nobody would have the audacity to make it up. And time and again people like you fall for it, declaring that "if they don't see this being an issue, they probably have good legal reason for that".
, etc.