jakee

I was, and I still am. What are you saying? It's hard to tell. Oh I see, because some BLM protesters were badly behaved, the entire movement and justification for it can be condemned. Good to know the purpose of this thread is you condemning the anti maskers, since we all know there are countless examples out there of anti-maskers screaming and shouting in the faces of anyone who gets in their way.

Good to know you're in favour of entirely disarming the police.

Because we don't think like you.

Right, Black Lives Matter protesters can observe how unfairly the rules are applied. People who think Covid is a political conspiracy to crack down on them merely percieve it that way. Is there anything that's too racist for you to say?

Biden has already said that it's not his place to get involved. "It is not something the president is entitled to do, to direct a prosecution or decide to drop a case," Biden told MSNBC in an interview in May. "It's a dereliction of duty."

What, the amount of Photoshop on her face?

I simply don't think either of those things should be a consideration. If he committed crimes in office he should be prosecuted because crime is crime no matter how privileged you are. Wanting him to be prosecuted in order to stop him being elected would mean potentially supporting a politically motivated witchhunt if nothing obvious came to light, and that would be wrong. Similarly, the behavour of his supporters shouldn't be an issue. First in principle, because you shouldn't get better treatment as a result of being more successful at being a fucking arsehole. Second in reality, because honestly they're not going to be that bad. The country survived the BLM protests just fine, and no matter how noisy they are there is simply not the depth and true strength of feeling from Trumpeteers towards his cause as there is towards racial injustice. The vast majority of Trump supporters are just like Ron - full of sound and fury signifying nothing and standing up for nothing. They'll go to some rallies and they'll picket a courtroom or two but like all would be bullies they mosly lack the gumption to get out and put themselves on the line. They'll just simmer back down to posting shit on Facebook like they were going to do anyway.

Exactly, what you previously said was that you don't want him prosecuted for anything he did as President at all. That proposed immunity would have the practical effect of giving him extra rights and fewer responsibilities than other citizens. If I was calling you a liar that's what I would have said - I think you should know that by now. I do recognise that sometimes people contradict themselves by mistake, not on purpose.

Sorry, but that's not true. Not just precedence. You've made it clear on several occasions you don't just want the political crimes to be a secondary consideration, you don't want any legal action on them at all.

So why argue that the guy who draws them all together should have extra rights and fewer responsibilities?

You contradict yourself. If populism and personality can be strong enough to sustain people who are in jail then it can sustain people who are not in jail. When populism and personality are that powerful it doesn't matter if you fight them or not, they'll have support regardless. So why give them special treatment and reward them for their populism?

"I am not a crook," the 65-year-old, whose combative style made him one of France's most popular politicians, told BFM TV this month. He certainly hasn't learned any lessons from history

You don't get it. It's not about pillorying Trump, it's about demonstrating that politicians are accountable to the law just like everyone else, and that rampant corruption isn't OK just because you hold a powerful office. I get that you think the solution is to click your heels three times and wish no-one else will abuse the system but that's simply not an effective real world solution. It will help prevent it from being broken again. If you have bigger things to worry about, why is this the single political topic you have engaged with more than any other ever on this forum? If you have bigger things to worry about why not just ignore it and not care either way if the Justice department decides to indict Trump on charges related to his actions in office? He has all that anyway. Really. You'll take a pass on explaining why you think it's a good thing for government corruption to run unchecked at the highest levels? What a surprise. Yes. Because throughout history problems have best been solved by closing your eyes and hoping they'll go away. That's why Chamberlain's "Peace in our time" speech is remembered as such sage wisdom.

They didn't give it, he took it. The voters weren't given a say after 1933. Which is partly why the national republican party's complicity in attempts to steal the election against the results of the vote are so deeply abhorrent.

You don't answer the questions. You still haven't even attempted to state why you think it's a good thing for Presidents to know that they can break whatever laws they want and engage in as much corruption as they want while in office and face no legal consequences whatsoever.

I'm afraid you havent been paying attention. Trump isn't going away. He is literally going to be standing on platforms at rallies still. He's going to be all over whichever TV stations will have him. He's going to try and control Republican policy and influence primaries at all levels from his Twitter feed and he could well run again in 2024.

Why is it better to leave the door open for another dog? That's when you need to uphold standards. You think it helps unify a country when one side sees the others' guy breaking every rule and law about how to behave while in office and getting away with it? You think that brings people together? An ex-President is a private citizen like everyone else. A President is a citizen like everyone else. The fact that your country has forgotten that is a major source of your problems. Since you recognise that you have a lot of problems, it's crazy that you so strongly resist doing anything about them. They done that already. They were doing it all through Trump's term. The result, 74 million votes, the second highest total in history. He's not personally humiliated and he's not humiliated in the eyes of his supporters. Don't be so naive as to think a few more inside scoops are going to change that. Exactly. And if you steadfastly refuse to hold the President accountable for any rules or laws they break while in office, the next time you vote in him or someone like him you'll get an even higher level of foolishness. It's a reminder to YOU, but YOU didn't vote for him in the first place. It's clearly not a reminder to the 74 million people who did vote for him, because they voted for him. They didn't think they fucked up. They trusted him again. They ignored the warnings again. They will learn no lessons and take no reminders whatsoever from this about who to vote for because they don't think they were in the least bit complacent this time.

These edits do rather seem to confirm how dumb your challenge was, given that it seems clear that at present you really don't know what was happening or why the police were there? In which case, if it's simply the manner of the raid you object to then surely you support calls to defund police departments across the USA since they are constantly utilising heavily armed SWAT teams to serve relatively minor or speculative warrants?

?? It is being studied, it is being increasingly understood and the results are public. So you disapprove of the resistance you mention in your first post?

So you are a black lives matter supporter, and you did get behind the demonstration and prtests after Floyd's death?

Because it's a good idea to have real legal boundaries that the holders of elected office have to respect. Lol, get real. Trump in court isn't causing a civil war, that's hilarious. But if you want to play that game, go and learn your lessons from history. Learn that rampant unchecked government corruption, the very thing you want to allow, is what often leads to civil war.

What is the lesson from history that tells you that? The lesson I learned from history is that Nixon thought he could do whatever he wanted with no legal repercussions and because he was proved right, now Trump thinks he can do whatever he wants with no legal repercussions. Maybe it's time to show future Presidents that they do have to follw the law. This is nonsense. It's not about personal revenge, it's about protecting and reinforcing the very system of government, and making it understood that the President is not a temporary monarch but an elected citizen within a political framework shaped by laws they have to follow. YOU keep forgetting that 70 million people voted for Trump, and they'll be willing to vote for him or someone like him again if they have the chance. That's why political laws have to be enforced. Deciding to reset the precedent that the President can do whatever he wants with no consequences because you're wishing and hoping that it'll make his supporters calm down and vote for someone normal next time is the height of naivety. See, just so naive. Who's 'we'? Did you vote for Trump this time round? No, then you're not part of their 'we'. You're a guy on the sidelines telling them they voted unintelligently. I'm sure they'll be very easily persuaded by that! What you want will simply empower Trump or someone like him to do more damage from the White House. He won't think that, he'll think he was the best President ever. And he'll genuinely believe it, because his tens of millions of hardline supporters, Fox news, Newsmax, OAN etc will keep telling him he was the best President ever.

So again, I really want you to explain to me why - since you think many Presidents are corrupt - you want to send the message to future Presidents going in that they can get away with whatever corruption they want and never have to face the consequences afterwards. Seriously, why is that a good thing? It was worse for the country as a whole because the statement "if the President does it it is not illegal" was never disproven. That's why Trump uses it again today. He could do that anyway. Hoping that Trump quietly goes away if you leave him alone isn't the big picture, it's not even a big picture. It's a really small picture, ok? Safeguarding the integrity of the office is the big picture. In a system of checks and balances you can't simply refuse to use the checks because it might annoy some people into supporting another guy you don't like. What is best for America is the person in the most powerful office in the land knowing there are rules he has to follow. That is not what you have now.

Biden shouldn't have any involvement in who the various Federal law enforcement agencies investigate or who Federal prosecutors decide to charge.

That's a goal post shift. You'd have been free of him regardless. But has the country made any move towards respecting opposing views or working together in bipartisan cooperation? So why insist that doing the same thing again is how to make it happen? That's what you have when you insist that the President can't be prosecuted. Seriously, think about it for a moment. If you insist that the President is not subject to prosecution by the independent judiciary, the only way to hold the President accountable is through a partisan political body. Please, please make a genuine attempt to explain to me why relying on the political dog and pony show as the only possible way to sanction a President who acts illegally is a better method of making both sides feel like they can work together than if you let federal investigators and the court system do the same job they do for everyone else? Come on, it makes no sense. You know it makes no sense. The actions you advocate will not help bring two opposing sides together and they will leave the system weaker. Honestly what you are planning is to do absolutely nothing to fix the damage done or weaknesses exposed in the system by Trump, and instead cross your fingers and hope that no one else so feckless is elected again to take those actions even further. Right - but your friend who posts on Facebook won't be in that book, will he? And people who don't already personally know and trust Bubba wouldn't be convinced even if he was in the book, would they? So despite the reaction of your FB friends, Bubba is still almost entirely impeachable as a source.