[POLITICS] If Trump is Innocent, he should prove it

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Because people are bad does not excuse assault on people for having differing political views.

Depends on how objectionable they are and how much power they have.

Frankly, if the Nazis or Stalinists looked like they might take control of the state, you'd be justified stockpiling arms and planning civil war.

I get it, I do... but the targets of Antifa and the like have NOT been people that even remotely operate like the Nazis or Stalinists.

Sure, the word "Nazi" gets thrown around a lot in a desperate attempt to make it stick, but it's turned into a cry wolf.

The situation is bad, but it's not bad in the way a lot of people think it is bad, it's not the racism or the white supremacy - it's the corruption. It's not about creating this nationalistic state, it's about politicians trying to get rich. We need to stop jumping at Nazi boogeymen and focus on slaying the genuine late-stage Capitalists and Megacorps.

In the US, however, it isn't just getting tossed around, we actually do have literal Neo Nazis marching through our streets here, training in militias, working in our police departments, military, and in public office. When I am calling someone a Nazi that is because that is how they identify themselves or their views align with. I don;t actually see it tossed around often without it being the actual case here. growing up, it turned out the old guy who lived next door to me was actually SS and had old photos of himself in uniform and all in his house. When my father and neighbors talked to the sheriff about it the sheriff said they knew about it and called the number he was supposed to and there was nothing else he could do. He lived there until he died, and his son is just as racist as he was. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it is okay to call it a duck.

 

[Saelune]

Its what you are not saying that is a problem, cause you are always criticizing the left and never the right

Wrong.

when it is the right who is in power

Correct.

and it is the right doing all the wrong things.

Wrong.

Its like condemning a kid for beating up their bully while never mentioning that the bully was beating that kid up first.

Attacking voters for having a different political leaning is bullying.

I live in the US where Trump is the President and his Republican goons are in power virtualy everywhere else, handily dismembering Checks and Balances. You're the one ignoring the problem by pretending the people not in power are the problem.

I literally said the opposite. That it is wrong to attack the voters.

You are the one being obtuse. Because as I said, you care more about bashing the left than actually supporting the beliefs you claim to have.

Wrong.

Even at the best of times, that's no small problem. "The democratic process" has been slow to fix problems that have existed for generations. Immediately after the damage Trump has done is not the best of times. It'll take years, perhaps decades just to undo the damage Trump has done and is still doing, not least appointing SCotUSes.

I have hope that there is a silver lining to Trump being elected, and that it kicks the left's ass into gear realizing they need to stop being the "Not Republican" party and start being the party that genuinely wants to solve the problems with the legislative process. I hope the pendulum swings back HARD after this recent fiasco.

And/or civil war if they are reforming it so as to help minorities not be murdered.

I think the bigger problem is the corruption at Capitol Hill, it's a complete top-down issue. Get corporate interests out of politics and genuine progress can be made.

Hitler wasn't stopped via the democratic process. King George wasn't stopped via the democratic process. The US's democratic process has been raped and near murdered by Republicans like McConnel, Barr and Kavanaugh. You are waiting for something to save us that doesn't exist anymore.

Plus Hillary got more votes but isn't President. That isn't democracy.

It isn't the 1700s and it isn't 1938 either. The problems being faced today should not be met with 70+ year old solutions, and preferably one that doesn't involve legalizing violence towards others of differing political thought.

It's not a question of "What about Trump?", it's a question of "Why are you focusing on left-leaning violence while right-wing violence and terrorism is far, far worse, both in terms of intensity and in terms of happening more regularly?" all while we're in a thread covering Trump specifically.

And yeah, I would absolutely mention context before criticizing Antifa's (and left-wing) methods. People screaming and whinging about Antifa without putting things in perspective is the reason why some many right-wingers think they are such a menace to society. It fuels the Western right's perpetual victimhood complex.

I agree there are bigger issues, but in this case people have been defending or excusing violence towards people for having a differing political stance. While individually is a small problem, should such trends catch on - or even be deemed acceptable - you're looking at a VERY big problem.

Guys, Trump... is bad. The Republicans... are bad. Because people are bad does not excuse assault on people for having differing political views.

Then Trump is a bully. For someone so concerned with civility, you sure don't care to acknowledge how violent and uncivil Trump is.

We wouldn't need 70 year old solutions if we weren't bringing back 70 year old problems. If people would stop defending a repeat of Hitler's rise, then we wouldn't be heading toward more war. Hitler didn't have a Hitler to point to and go 'This already happened'. There is even less of an excuse now. Trump should have been stopped before he even got into power. The problem is thinking that it couldn't happen again...when it is happening again.

'Trump is bad, now let me go back to bashing lefties'. You're not fooling anyone. If you hate political violence, CONDEMN TRUMP, if you hate uncivil assholes, CONDEMN TRUMP, if you care about fairness and justice, CONDEMN TRUMP!

 

[Saelune]

Because people are bad does not excuse assault on people for having differing political views.

Depends on how objectionable they are and how much power they have.

Frankly, if the Nazis or Stalinists looked like they might take control of the state, you'd be justified stockpiling arms and planning civil war.

I get it, I do... but the targets of Antifa and the like have NOT been people that even remotely operate like the Nazis or Stalinists.

Sure, the word "Nazi" gets thrown around a lot in a desperate attempt to make it stick, but it's turned into a cry wolf.

The situation is bad, but it's not bad in the way a lot of people think it is bad, it's not the racism or the white supremacy - it's the corruption. It's not about creating this nationalistic state, it's about politicians trying to get rich. We need to stop jumping at Nazi boogeymen and focus on slaying the genuine late-stage Capitalists and Megacorps.

Citation needed. I want numbers, I want specifics, who have Antifa hurt? It is going to have to outdo multiple shootings and murders and bomb threats.

 

[Saelune]

And efforts to curtail an investigation, fire the prosecutor and then attempting to cover up that attempted firing, trying to influence testimony, trying to influence a jury...these go well beyond "disliking being investigated". You are trying to handwave some very serious attempts to interfere with several criminal proceedings.

I'm not handwaving attempts, because something would have to be attempted. Curtailing an investigation with no real purpose is neither illegal nor immoral. Once again, the only actions the investigation even arguably found guilty of was trying to interfere with the investigation itself and failing. Maybe, just maybe, he wanted the investigation over, because as someone who didn't conspire with foreign agents, he knew personally the whole thing was a waste of time. Remember, not only did he not conspire with the Russians, he also didn't prevent the Mueller investigation from running its due course. He wanted to, but you're drawing a line from "wanting to end the investigation" to "trying to obstruct the investigation" and that line isn't there. I don't think highly of Donald Trump, and I could buy the "he intended to obstruct justice but was too incompetent to do it" angle if he hadn't said over and over and over "I can fire Mueller whenever I want, but I'm not doing that." He wasn't secretly plotting against the investigation and failing because people wouldn't do his dirty work the way they're spinning it, he was publicly railing against the investigation, expressing on television his power to end it whenever he wants, and cooperating anyway. Like, is there anything in this report about Trump you didn't know before that you do now? A single piece of information? It was all public the whole time! Where are these attempts to obstruct the investigation?

Which communists?

The old Soviet/Maoist style regimes certainly weren't liberal. According to Marxist theory, communism ends with the withering away of the state and so also centralised law and control - socialist libertarianism. The old Eastern bloc, by Marxist theory, was actually in a transitional phase between capitalism and communism. Whilst there still are Maoists / Leninists etc., the failure of those states has led a lot of modern communists to pursue communism by other means, and they tend to be liberal / libertarian.

I would argue all communists aren't liberal, but I guess that is me making assertions beyond the definitions. The way I see it, liberal theories are largely based on the supposition that an uncorrupted person will use their power and influence in accord with reason and morality, where I don't think communist frameworks really allow for the possibility of someone having power or influence and not being inherently corrupt. Liberals can desire a shared prosperity, but wouldn't tear down the mechanisms that provided it. It's cynicism that demands the absolute equality where the state ceases to exist, where no human being can be trusted to lead. There's a tragic irony that the failure of every communist state by dictatorship is itself sort of evidence of the premise of communism. Really tragic.

Now don't get me wrong, I am well aware that many political labels have long been twisted into meaning different things. You yourself are trying to make people think communism is inherently hedonistic, which it is not.

But socialism gets its name from society, the idea being that society should look after the people that is part of it, that we should take care of each other to better our society.

So yeah, it is socialism, because it is society. I will give you the benefit of the doubt here, if you think people helping each other is good, then you need to stop being mistaken into thinking 'socialism' is this evil thing that Fox News and Trump wants you to think it is. Socialism is people helping people.

I am not saying all communists are hedonists. Me saying "hedonistic communists" was not meant to suggests all communists are hedonists anymore than the phrase "vanilla ice cream" suggests all ice cream is vanilla. And while I understand the misunderstanding the first time, I've said already that I'm sure there are non-hedonistic communists. Like, I said that.

My problem with communism is the motivation, it's not "people helping people". Communism is a philosophy on societal behavior I won't agree with.

My problem with socialism isn't always the motivation. I wouldn't always call it "people helping people", and if I did, I'd call it "people trying to help people" because sometimes they fail, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt that most advocates of socialism are trying to help (except most of the people in Congress advocating socialism because, ironically, the market has demanded that of them). My problem with socialism is that it's an answer to a problem we don't have. Socialism answers the problem of distribution rather than scarcity, and its success relies on a post-scarcity economy. To take all the wealth and put it in a pot and divvy it up evenly is to not understand the level of effort people put into creating that wealth. People work very, very hard to overcome the scarcity of resources so that everyone can have food and water and shelter (and modern things like electricity and transportation and communication and entertainment). There is no way everyone works as hard as they do without receiving any benefit from it beyond the equal share they're promised to begin with.

You can demonstrate the post-scarcity outlook in the things that are socialized. Take roads, for example. Everyone gets to use roads equally, but there's a cost to this. Free market devotees are almost certainly right to say roads would be less expensive and higher quality if provided by the free market, but leave out that some roads would never be built and the ones that are would likely not be equally available to everyone. To have that equal scenario, we accept the gross expense and throw money at infrastructure until demand is filled and scarcity effectively disappears from the equation. We act as if roads are functionally limitless, and if we need more manpower or resources to make that happen, we aim more money at it to draw those resources from other parts of the economy.

You can't do that with everything, you run out of resources to use and people to use them eventually. We just don't have the collective wealth to fulfill everyone's desires equally. So if you try to ensure economic equality, you end up having to put limits on industries beneath the demand for them. And when you artificially limit something, you decrease productivity or efficiency from the level there would be without that limit. And then for the sake of solving the problem of wealth distribution, you've aggravated the fundamental problem of scarcity, from which we have yet to escape, assuming we ever do.

If we lived in a world where we could meet all of our needs without people working themselves to the bone, I think socialism would work fine as a method of distribution of goods and services. I'd be all for ensuring a high level of healthcare for everyone if it didn't require the doctors and nurses to drive themselves ragged to provide that. But we don't have that. If we want more better healthcare, someone has to provide that, probably someone working very hard, and someone who's (likely greater) productivity has been pulled from whatever else they would be doing.

All you do is not let corporations abuse people for greed. We aren't lacking for resources, we are lacking for empathy to use them for good. Instead of spending billions on war, we spend it on helping people. Instead of making medicine for profit, we make medicine to stop diseases.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

In democratic states, the people themselves decide what kind of measures it would use. It is in the interest of the state for the people living within it to live well, since the state itself is its own people, and without people - well, it's really nothing. The economy is itself not a construct, but the collection of people, each working according to their skills, consuming according to their own demands... Allowing them the freedom to pursue their own occupation, and consume whatever they desire, within a limit of common acceptance, is a pillar of a healthy and mobile society.

A major problem being that inequalities in wealth are injurious to democracy.

In the UK, there are almost as many MPs from it's most famous public school (Eton, annual fees more than most British households earn) as there are from the entire working classes - 50% of the population. Money buys think tanks, political advertising, even political parties via donations, or the "revolving door" between government and business. Even just socially, politicians come from the same backgrounds and mix with the wealthy in work and friendship, so are prone to alignment of views and sympathies. It is no surprise politicians tend to legislate for the affluent over the poor.

We can talk mobility, but social mobility is in decline across the West. Money buys better schooling, better university places, better places to live. The wealthy increasingly segregate themselves geographically and socially, the politically powerful ensuring they look after themselves whulst leaving the politically weak to struggle with their disadvantages. This even goes down to social connections: how much better it is if you know someone, and a nod and a wink and old school tie gets you that job. The poor have more stress, worse health (and often worse healthcare), making their lives even harder - harder to get good grades and earn good money. Studies suggest poverty contributes to cognitive burden worth up to 15 points of IQ lost. Or the "poverty premium". Being poor, incredibly, comes with all sorts of added costs. Borrowed money will have higher interest due to risk. They are increasingly forced into the waste of rent rather than gaining assets through purchasing. And all this drags them down, too.

"Freedom" to pursue occupation? In the UK, 3 As minimum to get into a degree like medicine, and going to a state school will see someone 2 grades below where their talent would get them expensively educated. How many students don't get their grades and are shut out of better universities and courses? How many don't even try, because they look at society and believe it's stacked against them even if they do - you might be amazed. Freedom, in my view, is meaningless without the positive freedom for people to maximise their potential. But for many, that's state support with welfare, healthcare, social services, education. Subsidise the buses so they don't have to buy a car to get to work. Keep them healthy so they don't lose pay and jobs with work. If their industry dies, give them the room and means to retrain rather than force them to take whatever they have to feed themselves. If not taxes, then other forms of empowerment and reform so they can better fight for themselves instead of going through the state.

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It's true that it seems social mobility has eroded over the years. I do not think it is a sign of things to come, or something that had always been - social-mobility has improved immensely, if you view the reality through the eyes of women a hundred years ago, or men two hundred years ago. I believe that a series of bad decisions in recent decades had consolidated much wealth under the protection racket of the state... An example to that would be the world reaction to the 2008 financial drop, which was caused by bankers inventing a new product and inflating it into such insane proportions that it was too late for the bubble to bust without massive block-back. The dot-com bubble was very similar... These things happen, as did the great depression in the 1920s, however it is the incessant intervention of the state in business that creates inequality to begin with... monopolies from the beginning were a way for the crown to regulate who can make business, and thus profit...

The situation has improved much, but the pendulum swung again - see how the information-age revolution allowed regular people access to a massive market, and gave them the opportunity to innovate and create - but nowadays the market is dominated by giants that consume or stomp on opposition. Those that could not adapt to the changing tides of technological innovation were left behind - many companies make the wrong investment, and fail to predict the future. Those same giants of today could also fail in the future. You're correct that connections between politicians and the wealthy only make the poor even poorer. It's a tragedy, one which is not ought to be a permanent one. I could tell you how things improved from, lets say, the Victorian era, or the middle of the 20th century, but that's not interesting to you... You think about your own generation, as I do myself.

The situation has improved, and it is our goal to make it better. I don't think that improving my lot in life, and the situation of my peers, includes stopping the process which allowed this societal change to begin with. It's a process - long, slow, lasts past our lifetimes... We see it from our point of view, but it changes back and forth, and in my eyes, slowly towards equality of opportunity.
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The creed of socialism, marxism, communism... Expropriation of wealth by force - legalizing theft, murder and more for an ideal - that is the repugnant pillar of those collectivist policies I oppose, and why every follower of such an ideology should understand what they ought to apologize for.

Not for something some people did.

But for the very notion it's fair to steal and murder, to re-distribute as you see fit.

You're a decent person, you oppose violence... yet people will not relinquish their property for your dreams of equality. Do you want people to do it willingly, then? Be the first to volunteer. Grab the institutions of the state to forcefully fix the world to your philosophy... that's cruel and vain. Fall in love with the ideas you created, and believe them to be true above all, including the well-being and rights of your fellow humans.

You can equate redistribution of wealth and property with robbery all you want, and it sure is, if we treat the privilege to accumulate wealth and property with no upper limit as some sort of inalienable right, but honestly, why should we? Why should our laws not acknowledge that one person's boundless accumulation of wealth causes other people to be deprived of food, drink, shelter and comfort? For the money one person spends on some luxury item, a sports car, a yacht, some other frivolous status symbol, another person who suffers from hunger could feed themselves for a year. Who are you to say that one person is more entitled to their Yacht than another is to their food? Personally, I'd rather live in a society where no one has a Yacht but no one is hungry either than in one where some people get to have a Yacht, but many are hungry in return.

And that's only the most simplistic justification for why granting everyone a right to hoard wealth all they want is not the hallmark of a function society. Who do you think runs the institutions in that kind of society, even if it is nominally democratic and liberal? Where people have more money than anyone could spend in a lifetime and practically everything is for sale? A society like this couldn't possibly have a fair justice system, fair elections or a fair political infrastructure but, as a matter of fact, ones that are biased massively towards the wealthy. And you can't seriously deny that they aren't. How often has a Millionaire or a Billionaire gotten off with a slap on the wrist for the type of crime that would have landed a person like me or you in prison for the rest of our lives? How often have laws been passed that benefit no one but the unimaginably rich and the businesses they run? How often has a politician or a party been elected not because of their views but because they had superior funding? More often than either of us can count.

Redistribution is necessary if our goal is a society that doesn't sooner or later collapse under the weight of a majority of property being owned by an increasingly smaller number of people. This is not about people breaking into your apartment and threatening you with a machine gun to share it with someone else, it's about reversing dynamics that harm not onle you and not only me but the vast majority of our population. And once these dynamics have been reversed there is no more need for violence because at the end there is a society where accumulation of wealth beyond a point where it's necessary to life a happy and comfortable life will not be possible. And in that society no one would have a Yacht and no one would have a mansion and no one would have a Ferrari. But everyone would have food, everyone would have shelter, everyone would have work, everyone would have health care, everyone would have a decent education that teaches him not only skills but humanitarian values, everyone would have access to culture, art and entertainment. And I think it'd be better for it.

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Good arguments. Thanks for your reply, I'm happy the other side has people that know what they are fighting for. I disagree on a moral level.

I believe people should have the right to do wrong as well. We make our own choices, and live with their consequences. Some crimes go unpunished and some kind acts go unrewarded... I do not believe in taking the structure of the state to pursue some sort of philosophical and cosmic justice. I believe it should be there to insure the safety and well-being of its citizens, nothing more, nothing less. In democratic states, the people themselves decide what kind of measures it would use. It is in the interest of the state for the people living within it to live well, since the state itself is its own people, and without people - well, it's really nothing. The economy is itself not a construct, but the collection of people, each working according to their skills, consuming according to their own demands... Allowing them the freedom to pursue their own occupation, and consume whatever they desire, within a limit of common acceptance, is a pillar of a healthy and mobile society.

Aristophanes in one of his comedic dialogues writes something I chuckled at when I was at middle-school, yet now seems quite real more than two thousand years after it was written... Two men are having a conversation. One of them says, I wish all men would be equal, and to make all private property common to all... The other person asks, then who will toil the earth? The idealist responds - the slaves, of course.

See now where I come from, they never believed a person could own another person, or that one person deserved to have more while other's suffer. They also believed that all people were all family, all races were one family and should be treated as such. We were taught that we (humans) have a choice, we can choose to create a beautiful world and take care of it, or we can create a hell on earth, that this was not predetermined and the we have control over our present and future and our choices determine the outcome. The idealist where I come from would never say something as horrific as "slaves", instead, the answer would be "we do." That when every person who is able to helps do the work, there is less work for everyone to do and everyone gets to work less and enjoy more time doing what they enjoy when they are done doing the work necessary for our success. All of the people helped do the work so that all the people could get back to what they enjoy sooner. "slaves" isn't ideal, it is horrific.

You say you believe that people should have the right to do wrong. To what extent? If that were the case I would have been murdered already if people just allowed him to do so. I would have been kidnapped by men in a truck if I just allowed them to do so. We have to stop people from doing wrong or it would be a warzone all the time. One's rights end when it infringes upon the rights of another. Why would one person's right to do wrong be more important than another's right to not have their wrong imposed upon them?

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I would never want someone to hurt you. I wouldn't want people to hurt each other at all, if possible. However I do think that a person is responsible for their own actions. If they do something to infringe on another, well... it is legitimate to stop them. People can sin. People can do good. People can be punished, and they can be rewarded. A person is free to live as they choose... however I do believe that we as a society and group we have agreed to not harm each other, on a very fundamentally biological level... We have empathy towards each other, and since we know what makes us feel pain, we would not inflict it upon someone else knowingly... If only it were that simple, we could have lived in a better world. I try to live by the golden rule, whenever possible. I was saying you can't control people, their desires, their dreams... you can only teach them, set limits, and punish those that cross the line in the sand...

I have vaguely known about the practices of the native peoples you are a member of... communal living, property, way of life... Completely unable to co-exist with European settlers, only for the simple fact that your ancestors thought so differently from the colonists... and they took advantage of it to its fullest.

Yes part of it was trying to enslave people who were " different" but another part of it, and why they relocated people onto reservations, was that they were actually afraid of the Native tribes undermining their authority by influencing the settlers to other ways of living. Those in power feared they would lose their power when they saw settlers being influenced by the lifestyles of the tribes. Most tribes did not believe in one persons "god given authority" over another, and the colony leaders, who maintained their power over others claiming to be "God's will", did not like the idea that everyone shares wealth equally, and their choices and voices mattered equally. That concept was extremely dangerous to those who used religion and greed to maintain control over the masses. They separated Native Americans and settlers because they feared how their lifestyle would impact their ability to maintain their power and control over the people if they were allowed to continue to interact. Once they moved the tribes onto " reservations" they then recruited the harshest religious groups to try and force assimilate the tribes through abuse and forced conversion. It did not have good results, and many died due to this abuse. regardless of this abuse, some tribes, such as my own, held out and refused to comply to this day and still have not been assimilated. They will die before they give up their choice. even when the US government kidnapped children, brainwashed them to comply and then sent them back and told the people " this person is in charge" the people just laughed at them and ignored them and did not recognize their authority. It really does not work like that.

 

[Asita]

And efforts to curtail an investigation, fire the prosecutor and then attempting to cover up that attempted firing, trying to influence testimony, trying to influence a jury...these go well beyond "disliking being investigated". You are trying to handwave some very serious attempts to interfere with several criminal proceedings.

I'm not handwaving attempts, because something would have to be attempted. Curtailing an investigation with no real purpose is neither illegal nor immoral. Once again, the only actions the investigation even arguably found guilty of was trying to interfere with the investigation itself and failing. Maybe, just maybe, he wanted the investigation over, because as someone who didn't conspire with foreign agents, he knew personally the whole thing was a waste of time.

Yes, it would be illegal and immoral. As I've said several times now and you keep forgetting whenever you try to argue that this can't be obstruction, obstruction of justice is a procedural crime that is self-contained in the act of trying to illicitly influence an investigation. For goodness sake, Martha Stewart was convicted of the same for lying for reasons that boiled down to a decidedly non-illegal fear of reputational loss. That her reason for the lie was not illegal did not make her any less guilty of obstruction of justice. In fact, this is another point that the report actually directly addresses (pg 369 of the whole report, or pg 157 of Vol II). (Case citations cut for ease of transcription)

Personal criminal conduct can furnish strong evidence that the individual had an improper obstructive purpose [citation cut], or that he contemplated an effect on an official proceeding [citation cut]. But proof of such a crime is not an element of an obstruction offense [citation cut] (stating, in applying the obstruction sentencing guideline, that "obstruction of a criminal investigation is punishable even if the prosecution is ultimately unsuccessful, or even if the investigation reveals no underlying crime"). Obstruction of justice can be motivated by a desire to protect non-criminal personal interests, or to protect against investigations where underlying criminal liability falls into a gray area, or to avoid personal embarrassment. The injury to the integrity of the justice system is the same regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong

In this investigation, the evidence does not establish* that the President was involved in an underlying crime relating to Russian election interference. But the evidence does point to a range of other possible personal motives animating the President's conduct. This includes concerns that continued investigation would call into question the legitimacy of his election and uncertainty about whether certain events - such as advance notice of WikiLeaks release of hacked information or the June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians - could be seen as criminal activity by the President, his campaign, or his family.

*as a reminder, "does not establish" doesn't translate to a lack of evidence, but the inability to prove it beyond the standard of a reasonable doubt necessary to secure a conviction.

Remember, not only did he not conspire with the Russians, he also didn't prevent the Mueller investigation from running its due course. He wanted to, but you're drawing a line from "wanting to end the investigation" to "trying to obstruct the investigation" and that line isn't there. I don't think highly of Donald Trump, and I could buy the "he intended to obstruct justice but was too incompetent to do it" angle if he hadn't said over and over and over "I can fire Mueller whenever I want, but I'm not doing that." He wasn't secretly plotting against the investigation and failing because people wouldn't do his dirty work the way they're spinning it, he was publicly railing against the investigation, expressing on television his power to end it whenever he wants, and cooperating anyway. Like, is there anything in this report about Trump you didn't know before that you do now? A single piece of information? It was all public the whole time! Where are these attempts to obstruct the investigation?

Except that's mostly wrong. The report shows that there was a lot of evidence of conspiracy, and numerous situations that are very damning, but from the holistic approach Mueller was using, it wasn't enough to be considered beyond reasonable doubt (ie, more than enough to bring to trial under normal circumstances, but not enough for a slam dunk conviction). And in the case of obstruction, the report lays out numerous cases of obstruction where evidence likely went well beyond the point of reasonable doubt. Point of fact, the report directly states (pg 369) that "The President's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is mostly because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests". The report soon follows with a short summary afterwards, broadly describing two phases, with the second phase being incredibly damning.

Soon after he fired Comey, however, the President became aware that investigators were conducting an obstruction of justice inquiry into his own conduct. That awareness marked a significant change in the President's conduct and the start of a second phase of action. The President launched public attacks on the investigation and individuals involved in it who could possess evidence averse to the President, while in private, the President engaged in a series of targeted efforts to control the investigation. For instance, the President attempted to remove the Special Counsel; he sought to have Attorney General Sessions unrecuse himself and limit the investigation; he sought to prevent public disclosure of information about the June 9, 2016 meeting between Russians and campaign officials; and he used public forums to attack potential witnesses who might offer adverse information and to praise witnesses who declined to cooperate with the government. Judgments about the nature of the President's motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence.

By all indications, the report found evidence well beyond what is necessary to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Perhaps the most interesting of these indications is found in how the report was comfortable saying that it "did not establish" [beyond reasonable doubt] conspiracy, but then waffled on the count of obstruction. Not only does the report decline to make a traditional prosecutorial judgement on the matter of obstruction, it immediately follows this up by saying that "at the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state". That's a really interesting choice, that only really 'clicks' when you consider the framework the report sets up at the start, so succinctly oversimplified as "they were allowed to rule 'not guilty' or 'not not guilty'". In light of that, it is very difficult to not conclude that Mueller et al had concluded beyond reasonable doubt that Trump was guilty of obstruction but refrained from outright saying so purely due to the aforementioned framework.

Edit: fixed a transcription error where I wrote "election" instead of "investigation"

 

[Agema]

I get it, I do... but the targets of Antifa and the like have NOT been people that even remotely operate like the Nazis or Stalinists.

Sure, the word "Nazi" gets thrown around a lot in a desperate attempt to make it stick, but it's turned into a cry wolf.

What, really, is a fascist or a Nazi? In practice fascism (including Naziism) was a product of its time in the turbulence of the early 20th century. There may be a few who directly claim to be inheritors of those beliefs, but for the most part they are dead and gone.

However, the modern far right are around and growing in force. They may not be fascists per se, but they have a lot of ideological overlap. People like Richard Spencer. The guys in their uniforms and SS / Swastika-like badges, often with military pretensions. The not infrequent comments that culturally or racially unfavoured citizens should not be allowed high office or even the vote. All these people may not technically be "fascists", because it's no longer the early 20th century. But, bluntly, there is so much overlap in ways that they are not just moral objectionable, but a potential threat to liberty and democracy. Trump is not a fascist. I don't even think he's ideologically inclined, just a narcissist playing an audience. But when you observe his gross populist and nationalist lurches, stacking courts and government agencies with politicised appointees potentially of dubious competence, xenophobia, "othering" even of US citizens... All that is normalised by now: stamped, sealed, approved and endemic from top to bottom in one of the USA's two monolithic political parties. It'd be the work of decades to clear it out even were anyone motivated to.

Bar extremists, the far right in terms of Richard Spencers are mostly well behaved. So were the 1930s blackshirts in the UK as they had their marches: they knew it was intimidating enough for antisemites in paramilitary dress to march through Jewish districts in their hundreds or thousands, cheering the German who was stripping them of their rights and property. No violence at all is needed to stand outside a poll station and make voters scared to enter.

Go back and re-read that Michael Rosen poem that was posted in this thread. We can already see the development of the far right, because different countries are already at different stages. In the USA, the far right has decisively infected a major party. In countries like Spain (Vox) and Germany (AfD) there are far right parties building and potentially in place to claim coalition governance. In Italy, they're already there in the form of Matteo Salvini and Lega Nord. In France, Marine le Pen didn't come that far from the presidency. In Hungary, the far right have already taken over and we can see more clearly what they might do - muzzling of the free press and control of nearly all national media, destruction of the independence of the judiciary, numerous democratic institutions and safeguards eliminated, explicitly racism and calls for "illiberal democracy", such as Putin's state.

So you can say that the fascists aren't really there, and you're technically correct, but you're sort of missing the point. And the far right will be happy with you all the way, as you help do their job for them smoothing their way to acceptability.

 

[tstorm823]

All you do is not let corporations abuse people for greed. We aren't lacking for resources, we are lacking for empathy to use them for good. Instead of spending billions on war, we spend it on helping people. Instead of making medicine for profit, we make medicine to stop diseases.

You have things totally backwards. Empathy is the easy part, if empathy was power we'd have conquered the universe by now. Unfortunately, to enact that empathy takes a lot of work. Like, a lot of work. Do we have the physical materials required to provide a high level of health care to everyone available to us? Sure. But it the resources need to be manufactured into something useful, transported to where the need to be, and deployed effectively, and all of that takes work. Immense amounts of work, of which we have finite amounts to give.

Do you really think people aren't empathetic enough? Do you really think people would turn down the offer of "everybody has great healthcare"? That's not the situation. You're not giving consideration to how much work that takes and whether we're even capable of it.

Yes, it would be illegal and immoral. As I've said several times now and you keep forgetting whenever you try to argue that this can't be obstruction, obstruction of justice is a procedural crime that is self-contained in the act of trying to illicitly influence an investigation.

If you're tired of saying that, then stop saying that. I understood that, you're not understanding me. I'm not saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of the underlying crime, I'm saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of obstruction. The investigation played out. Mueller did his job. Trump cooperated. You think he's guilty of obstructing justice because he didn't like the investigation and because he took some actions tangentially related to it.

Here's an analogy. Let's say there's a person I don't like who works for me. Let's call him Bob. Let's say I really don't like Bob, and I've said on occasion that I'd like to strangle him sometimes. And then for work, I have Bob drive across the state, so you try and arrest me for attempted murder. Seems like a bit of a jump in there, right? Not for your logic! I've implied I wanted him dead, and car accidents kill people all the time, so me making him drive somewhere is clearly attempted murder!

You know that Trump didn't like the investigation and wanted it over, and you know he took some actions that could have theoretically interfered with the investigation. But you can't prove that the former was motivation for the latter, and much more importantly, you have no reason to try and prove that because the investigation wasn't obstructed! If my Bob died in a car crash after I made bad comments about him and told him to make that drive, you still wouldn't have a criminal case against me, but you'd have reason to be suspicious. If the investigation was actually hampered by Trumps actions, and he made all his comments about being against the investigation, you still wouldn't have a criminal case but your suspicions would be justified. But I see no indication that the investigation into Russian interference and theoretical collusion was even mildly inconvenienced by Trumps disdain for it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Do you really think people would turn down the offer of "everybody has great healthcare"?

I don't know about Saelune, but I do, yes. The idea that certain people, or types of people shouldn't get the same as everyone else, for one reason or another, is nothing new.

 

[Sonmi]

I agree there are bigger issues, but in this case people have been defending or excusing violence towards people for having a differing political stance. While individually is a small problem, should such trends catch on - or even be deemed acceptable - you're looking at a VERY big problem.

Guys, Trump... is bad. The Republicans... are bad. Because people are bad does not excuse assault on people for having differing political views.

Obviously, if the situation were to spiral down it would be a big problem, but that's the thing. It isn't. Left wing violence is not out of control, right-wing one is. And any discussion on how much of a problem Antifa is blows them out of proportions and makes right-wing nutjobs feel vindicated in their notion that they are acting out of self-defense when they stock up on weapons in the event of a civil war or start bombing the shit of media personalities and synagogues they feel might be putting them in danger. And I'm only talking about good faith actors that are genuinely mistaken in the scale and role of Antifa here, not about the ones who use it to stoke fear and radicalize gullible, vulnerable people... like the POTUS did for instance.

There is no equivalence between right-wing and left-wing political violence in the modern day, harping on about the misdeeds of Antifa and about conservatives getting a soda spilled on them will convince people there is though, hell, it might lead to people believing that the left is responsible for most of the political violence, and that is a massive problem.

In France, Marine le Pen didn't come that far from the presidency.

Just a quick correction because that issue is one that really obsesses me, but that's mostly a misconception perpetrated by the Le Pen and the Front itself to aggrandize themselves more than anything. With the French two rounds system, there was never a chance that Le Pen could be elected President in a run-off with anyone but Fillon, and even in the extremely unlikely event that she had to compete with him, Fillon would have been the likely candidate to win it, even with mass abstentions. The French system's checks and balances actually work pretty well in that respect.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Do you really think people would turn down the offer of "everybody has great healthcare"?

I don't know about Saelune, but I do, yes. The idea that certain people, or types of people shouldn't get the same as everyone else, for one reason or another, is nothing new.

I certainly do and I actually work in the field. The reality is we actually have part of the US population who actually thinks that the poor should do without or be forced to use charity care because they see themselves as "more deserving". I have heard people actually say " I don't want my taxes paying for it, they can use ST. Judes." Yes they ignorantly suggest people use a charity that they do not even understand what they do. Of course, what should I expect though from someone who thinks like that in the first place?

I have had to listen to people complain that they had to wait longer to see the doctor for walk in visits now since we have more patients at the clinic after Obamacare. These patients previously often did not have access to Doctors outside of waiting for it to get really bad and end up in the ER instead. Some of the people here are seriously so entitled they would rather that other people's children do without access to healthcare so that they do not have to wait an extra 10 minutes on a same day appointment. These people are worried about having to share a waiting area with poor people and have to interact with them at their Physicians offices where they expect to only have to see people who can afford to be there. We have actually have had people ask about where they can find physicians that do not accept Obamacare patients so they do not have to be burdened with them existing in the same space. but as I have mentioned before, I live in a wealthy area in Texas and have had to deal with these sorts for a long time now, so not all that surprising to me at this point. This mindset being popular in this area is the primary reason why Texas has so little in benefits, and why the state has so many uninsured.

EDIT: It is also complete and utter BS that the US cannot afford to provide great universal healthcare. They just need to take a crap ton of hands out of the cookie jar. All of the vultures driving up the costs to make a profit off of desperate people are the primary problem that has to be addressed.

We not only need to address Medication costs, but medical supply and equipment, administrative fees, absurd Physician fees, investor profits and operations costs.

 

[Sonmi]

If you're tired of saying that, then stop saying that. I understood that, you're not understanding me. I'm not saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of the underlying crime, I'm saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of obstruction. The investigation played out. Mueller did his job. Trump cooperated. You think he's guilty of obstructing justice because he didn't like the investigation and because he took some actions tangentially related to it.

Here's an analogy. Let's say there's a person I don't like who works for me. Let's call him Bob. Let's say I really don't like Bob, and I've said on occasion that I'd like to strangle him sometimes. And then for work, I have Bob drive across the state, so you try and arrest me for attempted murder. Seems like a bit of a jump in there, right? Not for your logic! I've implied I wanted him dead, and car accidents kill people all the time, so me making him drive somewhere is clearly attempted murder!

That analogy only works if you told several people you have authority over that they need to kill Bob for you, on several occasions, and they just refuse to listen to you because they're not willing to put their ass on the line for you. Just because you didn't succeed in getting someone to do your dirty work doesn't mean you weren't actively trying to contract someone to kill Bob for you, which is a crime, one analogous to obstruction of justice, if we are to go back to the actual Trump affair.

 

[Asita]

Yes, it would be illegal and immoral. As I've said several times now and you keep forgetting whenever you try to argue that this can't be obstruction, obstruction of justice is a procedural crime that is self-contained in the act of trying to illicitly influence an investigation.

If you're tired of saying that, then stop saying that. I understood that, you're not understanding me. I'm not saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of the underlying crime, I'm saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of obstruction. The investigation played out. Mueller did his job. Trump cooperated. You think he's guilty of obstructing justice because he didn't like the investigation and because he took some actions tangentially related to it.

My apologies for misreading your intent, but that actually changes the nature of your mistake, not whether or not you made a mistake. To elaborate, you said "Once again, the only actions the investigation even arguably found guilty of was trying to interfere with the investigation itself and failing." Trying to interfere with an investigation and failing is obstruction. The crime is not defined by the success of the interference but instead by the simple fact that it was attempted. And in Trump's case we have

Here's an analogy. Let's say there's a person I don't like who works for me. Let's call him Bob. Let's say I really don't like Bob, and I've said on occasion that I'd like to strangle him sometimes. And then for work, I have Bob drive across the state, so you try and arrest me for attempted murder. Seems like a bit of a jump in there, right? Not for your logic! I've implied I wanted him dead, and car accidents kill people all the time, so me making him drive somewhere is clearly attempted murder!

And again, you whitewash it in your analogy in a vain effort to downplay Trump's actions by making it seem ridiculous via an analogy that turns the argument into a strawman wherein the actions suggesting a crime not only do not exist but the accusation is made for completely unrelated reasons so as to make the suggestion that it's even plausible sound ridiculous. This is not the first time you've done that even within this conversation, tstorm, and it's wearing my patience thin. I don't find it difficult to believe that you dislike the man, but you are certainly bending over backwards to go to bat for him.

You know that Trump didn't like the investigation and wanted it over, and you know he took some actions that could have theoretically interfered with the investigation. But you can't prove that the former was motivation for the latter, and much more importantly, you have no reason to try and prove that because the investigation wasn't obstructed! If my Bob died in a car crash after I made bad comments about him and told him to make that drive, you still wouldn't have a criminal case against me, but you'd have reason to be suspicious. If the investigation was actually hampered by Trumps actions, and he made all his comments about being against the investigation, you still wouldn't have a criminal case but your suspicions would be justified. But I see no indication that the investigation into Russian interference and theoretical collusion was even mildly inconvenienced by Trumps disdain for it.

Tstorm, it's becoming glaringly apparent that you have not actually familiarized yourself with the case you are trying to argue against. You never reference any findings in it, directly or indirectly, but instead content yourself with drawing faulty analogies or otherwise suggesting that the actual findings of the report either did not occur or are our own amateur conclusions predicated on us figuratively throwing feces at the wall in the hopes that something will stick. Truth be told, your analogy actually has me flashing back to arguing against creationists who tried to liken evolution to a tornado going through a junkyard and miraculously creating a working 747 jet.

Now on the one hand, I don't fault anyone for not having time to read through a report of this length, but on the other hand, I do expect that anyone trying to argue the case should be at least familiar enough with it to be able to accurately reference key findings within it rather than basing it entirely on their own preconceptions. If you want a cliff notes version, I again suggest this video, which clocks in at just under 11 minutes (with the first 6:50 focusing on the legal framework) and if nothing else works as a good starting point in understanding the case. And I've linked the report above for anyone who wants to either examine specific citations or give it a more thorough reading.

For goodness sake, I can once again cite the damn report here, with a citation that even appears in the aforementioned video. "Our investigation found multiple acts by the president that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, carried out in one on one meetings in which the president sought to use his official powers outside the usual channels" (pg 369). Hell, I quoted a similarly damning segment in my last post. "The President's efforts to influence the election were mostly unsuccessful, but that is mostly because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests". Your analogy does not even remotely resemble these findings wherein substantial evidence of criminal behavior was in fact found and recorded.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Bringing this back to the topic of the report, something interesting just popped up in my feed.


And it brings up an interesting point that seems to be getting left in the shuffle. Not an indictment of Mueller, mind you, just that the framework in which the report was made requires that we adjust our 'bottom line' fixation somewhat. Simply put, the legal framework Mueller was working with did not actually allow him to conclude that the president committed a crime. So - to borrow from an oversimplification in the video, "they were allowed to rule 'not guilty' or 'not not guilty', and they ruled 'not not guilty'". What makes this important is that we've been wont to think of the latter as saying that the evidence was inconclusive, when in fact it's quite the opposite.

Flat out accusing Trump of a crime was never on the table for Mueller due to the DoJ's policy not to indict a sitting president. As far as Mueller was concerned it wasn't the job of the investigation to level that accusation at a time when extant policy forbade the case from going to court. Instead, he saw the purpose of the investigation as "to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available". So saying that the report didn't say "Trump committed a crime" is a moot point because that is not an accusation that Mueller felt he was allowed to make in the first place. And when you understand the framework that he was working with, it forces you to take another look at the specific findings, and those...well, "wow" sums it up rather neatly.

Source. Nexus here meaning "a nexus between the act and an official proceeding"

Thank you for posting this info btw, when reading the report it is easy to lose track of how this adds up and this consolidates it nicely.

 

[Saelune]

All you do is not let corporations abuse people for greed. We aren't lacking for resources, we are lacking for empathy to use them for good. Instead of spending billions on war, we spend it on helping people. Instead of making medicine for profit, we make medicine to stop diseases.

You have things totally backwards. Empathy is the easy part, if empathy was power we'd have conquered the universe by now. Unfortunately, to enact that empathy takes a lot of work. Like, a lot of work. Do we have the physical materials required to provide a high level of health care to everyone available to us? Sure. But it the resources need to be manufactured into something useful, transported to where the need to be, and deployed effectively, and all of that takes work. Immense amounts of work, of which we have finite amounts to give.

Do you really think people aren't empathetic enough? Do you really think people would turn down the offer of "everybody has great healthcare"? That's not the situation. You're not giving consideration to how much work that takes and whether we're even capable of it.

Yes, it would be illegal and immoral. As I've said several times now and you keep forgetting whenever you try to argue that this can't be obstruction, obstruction of justice is a procedural crime that is self-contained in the act of trying to illicitly influence an investigation.

If you're tired of saying that, then stop saying that. I understood that, you're not understanding me. I'm not saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of the underlying crime, I'm saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of obstruction. The investigation played out. Mueller did his job. Trump cooperated. You think he's guilty of obstructing justice because he didn't like the investigation and because he took some actions tangentially related to it.

Here's an analogy. Let's say there's a person I don't like who works for me. Let's call him Bob. Let's say I really don't like Bob, and I've said on occasion that I'd like to strangle him sometimes. And then for work, I have Bob drive across the state, so you try and arrest me for attempted murder. Seems like a bit of a jump in there, right? Not for your logic! I've implied I wanted him dead, and car accidents kill people all the time, so me making him drive somewhere is clearly attempted murder!

You know that Trump didn't like the investigation and wanted it over, and you know he took some actions that could have theoretically interfered with the investigation. But you can't prove that the former was motivation for the latter, and much more importantly, you have no reason to try and prove that because the investigation wasn't obstructed! If my Bob died in a car crash after I made bad comments about him and told him to make that drive, you still wouldn't have a criminal case against me, but you'd have reason to be suspicious. If the investigation was actually hampered by Trumps actions, and he made all his comments about being against the investigation, you still wouldn't have a criminal case but your suspicions would be justified. But I see no indication that the investigation into Russian interference and theoretical collusion was even mildly inconvenienced by Trumps disdain for it.

Most people don't care about anyone but themselves, and even caring for themselves is severely lacking it seems.

I don't think people would turn down everybody having great healthcare, cause I KNOW they would, cause they did. It was one of Trump's big platforms, along with being racist.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

All you do is not let corporations abuse people for greed. We aren't lacking for resources, we are lacking for empathy to use them for good. Instead of spending billions on war, we spend it on helping people. Instead of making medicine for profit, we make medicine to stop diseases.

You have things totally backwards. Empathy is the easy part, if empathy was power we'd have conquered the universe by now. Unfortunately, to enact that empathy takes a lot of work. Like, a lot of work. Do we have the physical materials required to provide a high level of health care to everyone available to us? Sure. But it the resources need to be manufactured into something useful, transported to where the need to be, and deployed effectively, and all of that takes work. Immense amounts of work, of which we have finite amounts to give.

Do you really think people aren't empathetic enough? Do you really think people would turn down the offer of "everybody has great healthcare"? That's not the situation. You're not giving consideration to how much work that takes and whether we're even capable of it.

Yes, it would be illegal and immoral. As I've said several times now and you keep forgetting whenever you try to argue that this can't be obstruction, obstruction of justice is a procedural crime that is self-contained in the act of trying to illicitly influence an investigation.

If you're tired of saying that, then stop saying that. I understood that, you're not understanding me. I'm not saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of the underlying crime, I'm saying he's not guilty of obstruction for lack of obstruction. The investigation played out. Mueller did his job. Trump cooperated. You think he's guilty of obstructing justice because he didn't like the investigation and because he took some actions tangentially related to it.

Here's an analogy. Let's say there's a person I don't like who works for me. Let's call him Bob. Let's say I really don't like Bob, and I've said on occasion that I'd like to strangle him sometimes. And then for work, I have Bob drive across the state, so you try and arrest me for attempted murder. Seems like a bit of a jump in there, right? Not for your logic! I've implied I wanted him dead, and car accidents kill people all the time, so me making him drive somewhere is clearly attempted murder!

You know that Trump didn't like the investigation and wanted it over, and you know he took some actions that could have theoretically interfered with the investigation. But you can't prove that the former was motivation for the latter, and much more importantly, you have no reason to try and prove that because the investigation wasn't obstructed! If my Bob died in a car crash after I made bad comments about him and told him to make that drive, you still wouldn't have a criminal case against me, but you'd have reason to be suspicious. If the investigation was actually hampered by Trumps actions, and he made all his comments about being against the investigation, you still wouldn't have a criminal case but your suspicions would be justified. But I see no indication that the investigation into Russian interference and theoretical collusion was even mildly inconvenienced by Trumps disdain for it.

Most people don't care about anyone but themselves, and even caring for themselves is severely lacking it seems.

I don't think people would turn down everybody having great healthcare, cause I KNOW they would, cause they did. It was one of Trump's big platforms, along with being racist.

I actually do think the majority of people DO care about others, the issue is " get mine and screw everyone else" is running rampant in the US it seems. This mindset does not seem to be as much of an issue in many other nations I have been to. The US appears to have a serious malicious greed issue that desperately needs to be addressed.

 

[Sonmi]

I actually do think the majority of people DO care about others, the issue is " get mine and screw everyone else" is running rampant in the US it seems. This mindset does not seem to be as much of an issue in many other nations I have been to. The US appears to have a serious malicious greed issue that desperately needs to be addressed.

I don't want to make this a religion issue, but I'm fairly sure that shit is due to Protestant Christianity, and especially the American variants of it. It's much more centered around the individual than the community, notions of predetermination, exceptionalism, and a prosperity gospel lead you to believe that if you are rich and successful, it's because God is on your side, and a theoretical direct line of communication with God means that you only need to seek pardon from yourself for your misdeeds.

It led to a twisted society where wealth is worshiped and seen as inherently virtuous, where people feel justified for their vile actions because God can only be on their side if they are rewarded for their crimes, and where the permanent poor are systematically vilified.

Obviously, it's no longer so openly religious, but this is still what shaped American thought to this very day.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I actually do think the majority of people DO care about others, the issue is " get mine and screw everyone else" is running rampant in the US it seems. This mindset does not seem to be as much of an issue in many other nations I have been to. The US appears to have a serious malicious greed issue that desperately needs to be addressed.

I don't want to make this a religion issue, but I'm fairly sure that shit is due to Protestant Christianity, and especially the American variants of it. It's much more centered around the individual than the community, notions of predetermination, exceptionalism, and a prosperity gospel lead you to believe that if you are rich and successful, it's because God is on your side, and a theoretical direct line of communication with God means that you only need to seek pardon from yourself for your misdeeds.

It led to a twisted society where wealth is worshiped and seen as inherently virtuous, where people feel justified for their vile actions because God can only be on their side if they are rewarded for their crimes, and where the permanent poor are systematically vilified.

Obviously, it's no longer so openly religious, but this is still what shaped American thought to this very day.

Where it is the exact opposite of what Jesus actually teaches in the Bible, but I guess they don't bother actually reading the bible and just listen to whatever nonsense is told to them by a so called megachurch pastor.

Matthew 19:23 23Then Jesus said to His disciples, ?Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God

How anyone can somehow twist that around to mean the opposite of what it says is beyond me. Maybe that is why Republicans keep cutting education funding they are worried people will learn how to read and figure this out.

 

[Sonmi]

I actually do think the majority of people DO care about others, the issue is " get mine and screw everyone else" is running rampant in the US it seems. This mindset does not seem to be as much of an issue in many other nations I have been to. The US appears to have a serious malicious greed issue that desperately needs to be addressed.

I don't want to make this a religion issue, but I'm fairly sure that shit is due to Protestant Christianity, and especially the American variants of it. It's much more centered around the individual than the community, notions of predetermination, exceptionalism, and a prosperity gospel lead you to believe that if you are rich and successful, it's because God is on your side, and a theoretical direct line of communication with God means that you only need to seek pardon from yourself for your misdeeds.

It led to a twisted society where wealth is worshiped and seen as inherently virtuous, where people feel justified for their vile actions because God can only be on their side if they are rewarded for their crimes, and where the permanent poor are systematically vilified.

Obviously, it's no longer so openly religious, but this is still what shaped American thought to this very day.

Where it is the exact opposite of what Jesus actually teaches in the Bible, but I guess they don't bother actually reading the bible and just listen to whatever nonsense is told to them by a so called megachurch pastor.

Matthew 19:23 23Then Jesus said to His disciples, ?Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God

How anyone can somehow twist that around to mean the opposite of what it says is beyond me. Maybe that is why Republicans keep cutting education funding they are worried people will learn how to read and figure this out.

They try to twist "The eye of a needle" into meaning a small gate in Jerusalem, or try to translate camel into meaning rope, or cable, basically, obfuscate the gospel's disdain for obscene wealth as much as possible, and in the event that you're not able to, downplay the whole passage through dishonest means.

It's absurd.

 

[tstorm823]

Tstorm, it's becoming glaringly apparent that you have not actually familiarized yourself with the case you are trying to argue against. You never reference any findings in it, directly or indirectly, but instead content yourself with drawing faulty analogies or otherwise suggesting that the actual findings of the report either did not occur or are our own amateur conclusions predicated on us figuratively throwing feces at the wall in the hopes that something will stick. Truth be told, your analogy actually has me flashing back to arguing against creationists who tried to liken evolution to a tornado going through a junkyard and miraculously creating a working 747 jet.

Now on the one hand, I don't fault anyone for not having time to read through a report of this length, but on the other hand, I do expect that anyone trying to argue the case should be at least familiar enough with it to be able to accurately reference key findings within it rather than basing it entirely on their own preconceptions. If you want a cliff notes version, I again suggest this video, which clocks in at just under 11 minutes (with the first 6:50 focusing on the legal framework) and if nothing else works as a good starting point in understanding the case. And I've linked the report above for anyone who wants to either examine specific citations or give it a more thorough reading.

For goodness sake, I can once again cite the damn report here, with a citation that even appears in the aforementioned video. "Our investigation found multiple acts by the president that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, carried out in one on one meetings in which the president sought to use his official powers outside the usual channels" (pg 369). Hell, I quoted a similarly damning segment in my last post. "The President's efforts to influence the election were mostly unsuccessful, but that is mostly because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests". Your analogy does not even remotely resemble these findings wherein substantial evidence of criminal behavior was in fact found and recorded.

Ok, but have you quoted me any actual crimes? I can't quote what's not there, and what's not there is what you think is. You know that Trump wanted the investigation over. You know he acted in ways that could have messed up the investigation. But read your own quote carefully: "Our investigation found multiple acts by the president that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, carried out in one on one meetings in which the president sought to use his official powers outside the usual channels". The actions were capable of exerting undue influence over the investigation... but they didn't. He sought to use his official powers outside the usual channels... but he didn't. Yes, duh, Donald Trump doesn't know ordinary procedure for how the Presidency works, especially in the embarrassingly chaotic early months. So he went to his staffers and advisers saying what he wanted to happen, and they said "no that's not how this works", and then the things he wanted to happen didn't.

If you can find the crime in wanting something potentially illegal to happen and then not actually doing it, be my guest. It isn't there. You can argue making those comments to people could have potentially caused illegal things to occur, but they didn't, and if you're a reasonable person, you'd think for a moment that maybe the crimes didn't actually happen because Donald Trump didn't intend to break the law.

Most people don't care about anyone but themselves, and even caring for themselves is severely lacking it seems.

I don't think people would turn down everybody having great healthcare, cause I KNOW they would, cause they did. It was one of Trump's big platforms, along with being racist.

You're not being reasonable. The Affordable Care Act didn't give everyone great healthcare, and ending the individual mandate didn't remove it. And I don't know how you can stand to think so little of people. How can you see the Sisyphean effort people exert to make human civilization prosper and think "everyone would be set if everyone wasn't so hateful".