Yes but I hold that as a good thing. So long as the leftist infests our institutions, conservatives have a moral duty to disrupt them as much as possible.
Trump Investigations Thread
- Thread starter Rocinante
- Start date
Yes but I hold that as a good thing. So long as the leftist infests our institutions, conservatives have a moral duty to disrupt them as much as possible.
So I looked it up, and apparently Kemp is legally unable to pardon Trump, as that's pretty restricted in Georgia. But an impeachment leading to a conviction is also pretty unlikely. Georgia would need an additional 5 Democratic senate votes out of 23 to secure an impeachment.
Yup, like I thought, bullshit theatrics
bintananth
behind a desk
Sorta like all the impeachment talk which comes out of Congress going back to the attempt to get Clinton back in the 90s.
Unless we're at Nixon-level "he done fucked up big time and both parties want blood" it's all just attention whoring theatre -- and a total waste of the legislature's time -- because the votes to get an impeachment conviction just aren't there.
Vyor
My influence grows!
You have a very limited number of those.
Doomsought
Well-known member
Even if you theoretically have a right to an appeal, the higher court can just ignore it. There is also the problem of punishment through process, there the whole point of the case is the waste of time and money (easily above a normal person's life savings) that needs to be expended to defend yourself.
Which is why I think the constitution should be amended so that 225% of the money you spend as an American citizen on your own defense should be refunded to you over the course of six months immediately following an acquittal.
Doomsought
Well-known member
I'd prefer "innocent with prosecutor malice" as a jury verdict. If the jury finds a person innocent on a charge, and they find that the prosecutor knew that the accused was innocent prior to trial, then the persecutor shall be stripped of immunity and made vulnerable to both civil and criminal liability for bringing charges against an innocent man. Also a mandatory sanctions hearing, with a bunch of sanctions spelled out (loss of position, loss of license, liability for court fees and legal costs etc).
The jury instruction being missing or the sanctions hearing being skipped are appealable.
mandatory 5 year prison sentence, if it's found his or her politics motivated it.
Should probably also criminalize state bars and other licensures.
The legal profession was vastly less corrupt when it was a trade.
The single most dangerous thing for a civilization is unemployed lawyers, Cromwell, Lenin, Robespere when you look around for revolutionaries the ones who end up starting it are a great deal of the time lawyers. Before AI there was 1 position for every 3 lawyers now AI threatens to cut that number in half.
6 people vying for the same damned job, its one of many reasons why Im so bearish on the lefts long term prospects. They don't have enough positions for all of those elite asperiants. Which means your going to have high level defections from the establishment (the left) to the right that just wont stop because once again not enough seats for everyone.
On top of that you have a whole pile of other isssues that almost make you think the establishment wants to be overthrown.
So it's a certain impossibility, then?
bintananth
behind a desk
Even if the Republicans had the exact number of Georgia State Senators needed to ram an impeachment through by a party vote there's probably at least one who'll go "this is BS" and vote against convicting.
Not every Republican toes the party line and some despise Trump.
Pretty much yeah, they've been able to hold off the collapse via credentialism and turning colleges and bureaucracies into employment schemes a Roman "welfare" advocate would be ashamed of.
But that's not gonna last and society is starting to demonized the credentialed. That's coming to an end.
edgeworthy
Well-known member
Friendly Reminder - Rule 2E: Unsubstantiated Claim of Extremism
Just so everyone is completely clear on how spectacularly wrong* this post is. The Constitution of the United States expressly forbids Bills of Attainder; Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3. As does every State Constitution.
The Supreme Court has ruled on this five times.
(*There is another word that might seem applicable here, has seven letters, starts with an "F", ends in "ist"?)
Skallagrim
Well-known member
I assume you mean the word that leftists always throw around whenever they disagree with something, regardless of whether it's applicable? That word?
The rest of your post makes sense as a legalist argument ("it's not possible because the existing law forbids it"), although of course that doesnt address the salient point (perhaps @The Immortal Watch Dog supports changing the law to make it possible, which is a perfectly valid position). However, by adding that last line, you rather destroy your own credibility.
Or have I misunderstood your intent here, and were you not suggesting that anyone who wants to change the law in a way you don't like is therefore a fascist?
edgeworthy
Well-known member
Changing the law to suit your own purposes is extremely questionable. And exactly the sort of thing that totalitarian states do.I assume you mean the word that leftists always throw around whenever they disagree with something, regardless of whether it's applicable? That word?
The rest of your post makes sense as a legalist argument ("it's not possible because the existing law forbids it"), although of course that doesnt address the salient point (perhaps @The Immortal Watch Dog supports changing the law to make it possible, which is a perfectly valid position). However, by adding that last line, you rather destroy your own credibility.
Or have I misunderstood your intent here, and were you not suggesting that anyone who wants to change the law in a way you don't like is therefore a fascist?
America's Founding Fathers inserted an absolute ban on attainding because they were well aware of the injustice and political abuse inherent in it.
[Hence any change would at a minimum require an Amendment to the US Constitution.]
The analogy is perfectly valid because historically its what they did. Baring someone from holding office for "Sins of the Blood" is precisely what happened in 1930 & 40's Germany. It is completely applicable.
DarthOne
☦️
Communists are still barred from the US government.
Communist Control Act of 1954 - Wikipedia
Skallagrim
Well-known member
As opposed to what? Changing the law to suit someone else's purposes? "Your purposes" is just a pejorative way of saying "your beliefs". Of course I want to change the law to suit my beliefs, on the basis that I hold my beliefs because I think they're correct. That's not "the sort of thing totalitarian states do", that's something everybody does.
Wanting to change laws to secure gun rights = "suiting my purposes". And yeah, the left calls that fascist, too.
The fact that you mention amendments is telling. Amending the law is possible for a reason. Additionally, the "Founding Fathers" were hardly monolithic. Jefferson, the one I admire most, wanted every law to automatically expire after 20 years, specifically because the living should never be chained to the will of the dead. Whether you agree with that is another matter (I have my own caveats), but it shows that your appeal to the supposed "will of the Founders" is misplaced.
Again, though: suppose someone wants to change the Constitution to allow bills of attainder (which were specifically outlawed, by the way, because Parliament had abused them; you could add provisions against abuse when re-introducing then). Suppose that. Why would that be "fascist"?
I'll now show that your argument, quoted below, is faulty to the point of being farcial.
Good heavens! It's something Hitler did! Quick! Round up all the vegetarians! Destroy all highways! HITLER SUPPORTED THAT CRAP!
That's a bullshit argument. Does one agree with Hitler's motivations? Are the reasons and goals the same? What is the proper context? You ignore all such questions, and posit a false equivalence.
However... bills of attainder were first banned by the USA for very specific reasons. (Same reason they banned the quartering of soldiers in citizens' homes: the British had done that, and it was a known grievance of the colonists.) This does not imply that it is "fascist". Lots of countries -- in fact, practically all -- continued to allow bills of attainder well into the 19th century, and continue to allow other things that the Consitution banned (such as the aforementioned quartering of soldiers during wartime) to this very day.
If something is "fascist" because Hitler did it, and therefore people here are "fascist" for advocating that thing, then -- by your logic -- basically all of 19th century Europe was "fascist". In other words: the definition of "fascist" that you employ to make your point is so ludicrously broad as to cover anything you don't like. Which is precisely the leftist tactic that I decried.
Therefore, as an absolute prerequisite for honest debate, I now ask you to provide a definition of "fascism" which proves that bills of attainder are fascist. If that definition is so broad as to cover all or most of 19th century Europe, I ask you to admit that you are using "fascism" in so broad a sense as to render the term meaningless. If you have a more specific definition, I ask you to clarify why that definition supposedly covers @The Immortal Watch Dog, but excludes the countless historical defenders of the very same thing that leads you to call his idea "fascist".
If you cannot provide such a definition, I ask you to admit that your accusation of fascism was false and misplaced.
Last edited:
edgeworthy
Well-known member
As I never actually said that, I merely suggested that it might be applicable, congratulations on completely misquoting me, and thus invalidating your entire position.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
....
Or have I misunderstood your intent here, and were you not suggesting that anyone who wants to change the law in a way you don't like is therefore a fascist?
You didn't literally say it, but I asked whether you meant that, and you confirmed it by explicitly referring to Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. At that point, you also stopped "suggesting", and did literally say: "It is completely applicable."
Stop the childish word games and just admit that you were wrong to make the accusation.
(Also, I haven't misquoted you at all. I've only quoted your posts, unaltered...)