|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On June 26 2019 04:15 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 03:46 Dan HH wrote:On June 26 2019 03:33 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 03:23 Dan HH wrote:On June 26 2019 02:57 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 02:54 Dan HH wrote:On June 26 2019 02:46 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 02:19 IgnE wrote:
for the record I do think that border management is a more difficult problem that most people appalled by concentration camps in this thread seem to think.
i did not know that the camps were privately run and operated though. that would seem to be a serious problem. it is no wonder at all that privately run facilities looking for profit did not speculatively build extra capacity What they are completely missing are the consequences of having open borders. Secure borders are critical elements of national integrity. Specifically, what must be understood is that government and its institutions are fundamentally reflections of the values of the people. If we imported half a billion Muslims from the Middle East into the US, it wouldn't be long before our laws and institutions began reflecting Muslim values. The land that makes up the US doesn't magically convert people into Americans who share common American values. For this reason, one of the most important roles of the government is to responsibly manage the borders and immigration into the country so as to preserve national identity. Our current crop of politicians is largely derelict in this duty, which I frankly consider to be treasonous. No one's missing your false dichotomy. The options aren't concentration camps or half a billion muslims Here's a hint: there's no false dichotomy in my post. Let me translate your first sentence for you if you think you're bullshitting your way out of this 'What [people appalled by concentration camps in this thread] are completely missing are the consequences of having open borders' That was the only 'they' in the post you responded to. The choice presented there, between open borders (which according to you is worse) and concentration camps is an entirely false one. Good lord, what a pathetic post. Me identifying people who are appalled by concentration camps is not the same as me saying that the only options here are open borders and concentration camps. You soapboxed about the great dangers of open borders as a response to people being appalled by concentration camps. Are those the ravings of a lunatic or an attempt to make concentration camps seem acceptable in the face of this alternative greater danger? I would hope it's the latter, even if it's fallacious. And yes that question was sarcastic, just in case it needs to be said. You're demonstrating a very poor ability to follow the argument because you are conflating posts and points. When I advocated for detention, I did it in the context of congressional inaction (ie the status quo). My post where you erroneously argued that I put forward a false dichotomy argues for congress to take action.
The inaction you are talking about isn't a relevant variable. During the 2014 immigration crisis you had neither open borders nor a wall nor unnecessarily cruel policies such as separating children from their parents by default or refusing to provide basic amenities. The choice between concentration camp-like policies and open borders doesn't exist in the status quo. Trump could change this today if he stopped using the suffering of migrants as blackmail material for funding his wall. And that's what your false dichotomy refuses to acknowledge.
Your post argued for government to take action purely in "preserving national identity", so excuse me for not being too fussed about that part. Concentration camps do prevent the people in it from tainting your identity with their culture, without cruel policies being necessary for it.
But the main reason I'm wasting my time responding to this is because you know there is absolutely no reason to signal the greater dangers of open borders to people appalled by concentration camps other than to pit the two 'options' against each other.
|
On June 25 2019 18:16 Zambrah wrote:
Id like to see a response to KwarKs question, it's been brought up multiple times but never gotten a direct response from Danglars,
"Out of curiousity Danglars, do you see any kind of potential conflict of interest in Barr writing to Trump's legal defence team with an offer to defend Trump and an assertion that the Mueller investigation was a sham and Trump subsequently selecting Barr as the individual who decided what to do with the Mueller investigation?
Do you think that it looks terrible but Barr happened to independently draw conclusions that matched up with the conclusions he'd already assured Trump he would draw?
Or do you think, as every rational individual out there thinks, that he's not independent of Trump?"
Never gonna happen. I brought it up. Several others brought it up. Danglars keeps pretending these posts don't exist.
On June 26 2019 01:12 IyMoon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 00:18 xDaunt wrote:On June 25 2019 23:21 IyMoon wrote:On June 25 2019 23:18 xDaunt wrote:On June 25 2019 18:53 Simberto wrote:
Just wanted to chime in to mention that i find KwarKs reasoning to be very reasonable, and don't quite understand why Introvert fights it so adamantly. The only point is that people are employed to predict the future, and that that is not impossible. Of course it gets harder to predict the further that future is out, but people still do it. And just because someone does not know all the details of how this specific prediction would work and which factors influence it doesn't mean that you can claim it is impossible.
I don't know all the details which go into maintaining a stable nuclear reaction and producing electricity from that, but i am pretty confident that the people whose job it is to design nuclear reactors do. I don't know all of the details which go into predicting the weather next week, but i still trust the weather report to be mostly accurate, because i assume that the professionals whose job it is to predict the weather know which data they need to do that.
And i would be very surprised if there was not someone or multiple someones in the DHS whose job it is to predict how many people want to enter the US. And if those people predicted the thing incorrectly, it is their failure. If they predicted it correctly, and people didn't react correctly to that prediction, that is those peoples failure. And if those people wanted to react correctly, but didn't get the money and resources necessary to do so, it is the failure of the people who didn't get them the money. At some point in this chain, someone failed at their job. Maybe at multiple points. And thus, it is very reasonable to call the thing an admin failure, because the apparatus designed to administrate this failed. Not everyone in it failed, but enough people failed at their job to make the whole thing fail. Kwark's point is not reasonable because it disingenuously obfuscates who really bears responsibility for this mess. Kwark is blaming the bandaid (DHS) rather than the surgeon (Congress) who actually needs to come in and properly close the wound. Until Congress fixes loopholes in our asylum laws and otherwise provides adequate funding for border and immigration control, this problem is not going to get fixed. Yet Congress clearly has no desire to do these things. This idea that Congress hasn't been adequately briefed on the border crisis is absurd. There have been ample hearings and other reports on the border crisis. Democrats (and many republicans), until very recently, have refused to even consider it being a crisis. Remember all of the opposition to Trump declaring a national emergency at the border? Yeah. Democrats are more interested in playing politics than actually fixing anything. So let me get this straight. Trump makes a problem, one he could fix with changing policy, and demands congress fixes it. Democrats go, I will give you 1.3 billion for more security at points of entry, judges, and resources for handling the flow of people, but no wall. Trump goes not good enough, we get nothing now. And somehow this is the democrats fault? I get the argument that congress needs to do something. It just is undercut by the fact that they did already and it was rejected There's pretty much nothing accurate in your post. No, Trump did not cause this problem. The root problems are migration from the third world to the US and the exploitation of a porous border and American immigration and asylum laws. All Trump has done is decide that these people need to be detained to the maximum extent possible rather than turned loose in the country. Given that 90-95% of asylum seekers simply disappear into the country rather than appear for their hearings, Trump's making the right call.And the Democrat's offer of $1.3 billion wouldn't fix anything. If Trump accepted that funding, nothing would be fixed. They know it. Trump knows it. Trump didn't really have a choice but to turn it down. So this is bullshit https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/26/wolf-blitzer/majority-undocumented-immigrants-show-court-data-s/https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/facts-not-fear-heres-what-doj-stats-say-about-asylum-seekers-and-court-datesOn the low end (first article) you have 60% showing up, On the high end(second article) You have something like 90% of asylum seekers showing up So giving you the benefit of the doubt here and going with the low numbers. You're really really fucking off. Giving that, would you like to revisit your idea that Trumps making the right call? Yup, and under the Family Case Management Program the Obama administration brought in in 2016, attendance was comfortably in the 90% range. This is because families were given resources by people who could speak the same language that explained to them what they were required to do and when they had to show up for their asylum hearings. The program also had provisions in place to deport those who did not follow the program, so it certainly wasn't an open door. As mentioned in the document on the program in my previous post, this program also costed the US government substantially less (as in about 10% of what detention cost per family at the time), and by the sounds of things detention has become even more expensive in the last couple years.
Again, this program was in place in 2017 when the Trump administration came to power. They could have left it in place and avoided this entire mess. They didn't. They cancelled it, began mass detaining families, and then began splitting up families without any plans on how to get them back together, causing thousands of children to be lost in the system. The Trump administration caused this entire mess. They've had 2 years to put a new plan in place to replace the Family Case Management Program, but they haven't. They've instead maliciously dragged their feet and attempted to shift the problems caused their gross inability to get their shit together onto innocent people legally seeking asylum.
|
On June 26 2019 04:22 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 03:41 Sermokala wrote:On June 26 2019 03:18 Starlightsun wrote:
I think people should be allowed to make political blog threads again, to keep down the volume of completely unproductive fighting and contrarianism here. The unproductive fighting and contrarianism is the thread. the only thing the blog did was create echo chambers. Having text based debates on the internet with anononyms strangers having any chance of actually convincing anyone of changing their opinion is a farcical level of optimism of todays cynasism based discourse. There’s this weird meta that’s developed in this thread where it’s just accepted that no one will actually change anyone else’s mind, so instead it’s turned into a training ground where people practice their arguments and rhetoric on each other (at least two people, GH and Danglars, have admitted to this in the past). I don’t necessarily mind that, but if no one is going to take each other seriously then I’d rather not waste my time slogging through bullshit debate/rhetoric techniques and calling each other out on it ad nauseum, if instead I could just learn and judge someone’s beliefs by the strength and logic of their underlying premises. #zlefinformoderator
Why does this myth that my blog was an echo chamber persist?
I used to be a Democrat and now I'm a Communist and IgnE certainly influenced that, so I'd say you're both just flat out wrong.
|
On June 25 2019 18:16 Zambrah wrote:
Id like to see a response to KwarKs question, it's been brought up multiple times but never gotten a direct response from Danglars,
"Out of curiousity Danglars, do you see any kind of potential conflict of interest in Barr writing to Trump's legal defence team with an offer to defend Trump and an assertion that the Mueller investigation was a sham and Trump subsequently selecting Barr as the individual who decided what to do with the Mueller investigation?
Do you think that it looks terrible but Barr happened to independently draw conclusions that matched up with the conclusions he'd already assured Trump he would draw?
Or do you think, as every rational individual out there thinks, that he's not independent of Trump?"
No, there's no material conflict of interest. Barr is entitled to his opinions, as is Trump. This isn't even a close call.
|
On June 26 2019 04:50 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 04:22 Ryzel wrote:On June 26 2019 03:41 Sermokala wrote:On June 26 2019 03:18 Starlightsun wrote:
I think people should be allowed to make political blog threads again, to keep down the volume of completely unproductive fighting and contrarianism here. The unproductive fighting and contrarianism is the thread. the only thing the blog did was create echo chambers. Having text based debates on the internet with anononyms strangers having any chance of actually convincing anyone of changing their opinion is a farcical level of optimism of todays cynasism based discourse. There’s this weird meta that’s developed in this thread where it’s just accepted that no one will actually change anyone else’s mind, so instead it’s turned into a training ground where people practice their arguments and rhetoric on each other (at least two people, GH and Danglars, have admitted to this in the past). I don’t necessarily mind that, but if no one is going to take each other seriously then I’d rather not waste my time slogging through bullshit debate/rhetoric techniques and calling each other out on it ad nauseum, if instead I could just learn and judge someone’s beliefs by the strength and logic of their underlying premises. #zlefinformoderator Show nested quote +On May 25 2019 09:52 Danglars wrote:On May 25 2019 09:13 Introvert wrote:On May 25 2019 07:32 Plansix wrote:
True, he is far from perfect. Nor am I. But he isn’t an asshole about it. The problem with the thread is that people are being assholes, refusing to reign in their bullshit.
Edit: the complaining in this thread is what it has always been, people trying to get the posters they disagree with banned. Conservatives, liberals and leftist alike, everyone wants to see the the posters they dislike banned. Just own up to it and drop the faux concern about quality posting and logical errors. Actually I've never called for anyone to be banned and think we should try a period of zero moderation. Maybe because I don't get the dogpile Danglars and xDaunt do it seems like a fine experiment to me. On May 25 2019 08:58 Nebuchad wrote:DMCD: that was here: https://tl.net/forum/website-feedback/542042-so-why-was-gh-banned?page=8#156For once I get to say this so I'm going to: the truth is somewhere in the middle x) There is no question that political preference plays a role in who is perceived as an annoying presence and who isn't. I'm not saying this as this objective presence that is judging you all: for example until today I thought NewSunshine was perfectly fine as a poster, and apparently some people on the right view him just as I view DMCD. Probably I don't have that perception because NS is more aligned with me politically than DMCD is. This is quite normal, and it's a bit ridiculous that we're going to pretend that some people are disruptive because of their attitude alone, and it just happens that all the disruptive people are the people who agree the less with liberal values, and there are people who agree with liberal values who are just as disruptive but aren't considered so. So that's one side of the coin. The other: a lot of you guys are definitely asking for it. Danglars has admitted himself that he's there to work on his arguments against liberals. There is no hope of ever getting him to agree that you're right on anything, that literally goes against his project here. Pretending that he gets dismissed because of the liberal bias of this forum is comical. xDaunt is, in my opinion, more honest. But he's also lawyering a whole lot. He is almost never presenting a full picture of his argument, he's focusing on what works well and ignoring what doesn't. I'm not even sure that's a criticism, he's a good propagandist. But there's an element of annoyance that necessarily goes with talking to people like that. More generally (and more polemically) I think there's something inherent with conservatism that almost necessitates a strategy when engaging other ideologies. Conservatives will very often present as capital L Liberals, supportive of "classical liberalism". But conservatism was distinct from classical liberalism at the time (tradition descending from Burke vs tradition descending from Smith if you're interested). Simplifying a little (but not grossly imo), liberalism was an effort to give legitimacy to a new system of governance. We have overturned the authoritarian rule that was before us, however we still plan to govern the shit out of you, so how are we different? Well, we deserve it and they didn't. So here's some increase in meritocracy and social mobility, you might think it's awesome. Also I'm a white male so this applies to white males only hey (is that too caricatural? Can you tell I'm not a fan of liberalism? xD). Meanwhile, people like Burke were saying: okay, this new thing is not ideal, but we can use what they're putting forward to maintain the hierarchies that we have and continue to have the upper hand on society. In my view this is a large part of why conservatives often appear hypocritical and difficult to engage from another ideology. A lot of their justifications for what they believe are rooted in liberal values, but they... just don't really mean it. And so you get stuff like: "It's not that I don't want gay people to be treated equally, I'm just very concerned about freedom of religion (a liberal principle)". And in the next conversation when talking about muslims, I will immediately drop this liberal principle and instead talk about, say, women's rights, have you seen how the most backward muslim countries treat women? (another liberal principle) And then there will be this other conversation about abortions and... You get the drift. So when liberals say that conservatives are often hypocritical, I can't say that it's wrong, neither today nor historically. To me an honest conservative would drop this whole liberal value stuff and just say that he wants to be treated better than people who are different from him. Similarly I understand how a liberal can appear hypocritical to a conservative, because traditionally liberals have wanted to maintain a hierarchy in society, and the meritocracy has never worked. So when considering this history, it's not unreasonable to perceive this attack on a privileged position as an attempt to replace the people on this privileged position. That's how liberalism was born, and that's coherent with capitalism. Tl;dr be democratic socialists, we're cool  I think I've told you this before, but one should not confuse conservatism's moderation, tension, and careful movement between competing principles as hypocrisy. Seeing it that way is, I think, one of the main reasons you so often fail to understand it. I might as well say that a generic leftism (pick your brand) is hard to argue with it as it arrogantly presupposes it has all the knowledge necessary to bring about utopia while ignoring the world as it exists. Therefore, it always presents an answer to a seemingly intractable and inherently ambiguous problem as clearly solvable. This is good. I want to add to this something that Nebuchad is glancing past quite a bit here: So that's one side of the coin. The other: a lot of you guys are definitely asking for it. Danglars has admitted himself that he's there to work on his arguments against liberals. There is no hope of ever getting him to agree that you're right on anything, that literally goes against his project here. Pretending that he gets dismissed because of the liberal bias of this forum is comical. Raise your hand if you're open to being convinced that Trump is a necessary evil, and superior to a Clinton administration by reading people commenting on a website? I posit you have millions of examples that would have to be overcome to even get close to that position. Quite the heavy lift. But you can get arguments for why the opposite is, in fact, true exposed as logically flawed or founded in untruths. Similar for political positions I hold. Maybe you think the best-run nation is one with a somewhat intrusive government empowered to make many choices for its citizen's lives that increase health and safety. Do you think arguments you have on the internet will convince you that it's an unacceptable tradeoff with individual freedoms, whose preservation should be given very high weighting in balancing choices? Raise your hand if you think that's likely. However, maybe you become more sure in certain ways you're right about society and government, and less sure in others. That's what I talk about in refining arguments. You aren't likely to vote for Trump in 2020 because of the US Politics Megathread, but now you have a better understanding of why people do. Why your arguments don't carry the day nationally. What counterarguments are tougher or weaker. If increased knowledge of that doesn't refine your arguments (actual removal of the metaphorical slag from the whole, which can greatly change appearance and properties), then maybe this thread isn't the best place for you. I'm not really sure if this needs mentioning, but of course I'm open to changing my mind, and that's easier for things I have unformed opinions or no opinion on, than for things I've seen confirmed over five presidencies. I actually lean towards Nebuchad believing this is true at some level as well. Consider that a question like "How likely are you to vote for Trump in 2020" where "very likely" and "not likely at all" are something of character defects. A little unfair. Secondarily, I've pointed out how easily people dismiss evidence here when it's introduced by Republicans and is negative towards their political crowd. This would not be true if people showed they were weighing the evidence, and understood its implications, instead of lazy "just like Benghazi" and "haha guilty and incompetent." That's my observation of left-leaning treatment of facts, not a conclusion on whether people like my posts. I learn quite a bit in this process. Ryzel, I ask you if you think it's likely from reading this thread to totally change your mind about Trump? If no, do you think it's likely that you'll find some of the reasons to like or dislike him to be discarded on the weight of judgement and evidence? Those are the questions you must answer before you slip in a "they're just working on their arguments." It's quite different. + Show Spoiler +Or, put another way, your second to last post started "if people are serious" and argued semantics and naive unacceptability. I think you seriously undermined your own attempts to prove you were yourself serious about the discussion before the post ended. So tell me if you'd like to be mentioned in future posts as the unserious guy, or whatever summary epithet someone decides to throw in.
To answer your questions, no I don’t think it is likely from this thread that I will totally change my mind about Trump, and yes it is quite likely that some of my opinions about individual aspects of his presidency and administration will be changed by evidence, including evidence presented in this thread. I have had the pleasure of reading this thread for quite some time now and have learned a substantial amount from pretty much every poster, yourself included.
I hadn’t seen your previous post that you quoted, and it seems you’ve demonstrated understanding of what I meant. I should have elaborated, I was referring to the latter and not the former (in reference to your two questions, I agree they are completely different). And no, I’m not calling out the conservative posters specifically; in fact I’ve seen you put in a lot of effort to explain where you are coming from.
My issue is honesty and depth. I feel like there’s a lot of superficial arguments being thrown around, with all the animosity it entails, and it would be nice to get deeper. As an example, my previous post touched on several premises of the “concentration camp” argument, and my conclusion was that it boils down to whether or not there is something worse than putting humans in those conditions. xDaunt did eventually make a post detailing why he believed illegal immigration/open borders is a worse evil, which justifies a lot of his previous arguments and that was greatly appreciated (regardless of whether or not I agree). I take that belief and the arguments that come from it more seriously as a result.
This is opposed to beliefs that seem to be taken for the sake of being argumentative/combative. When I can’t see the foundational beliefs of an argument from a person, it makes it harder for me to take seriously and feels more of a waste of my time. I can’t quote any specific examples but I feel like I see it from time to time.
Sigh. It’s not that big a deal I suppose. I’ll just respect the process and continue watching arguments unfold and taking what bits and pieces of truth I can.
EDiT - On June 26 2019 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 04:22 Ryzel wrote:On June 26 2019 03:41 Sermokala wrote:On June 26 2019 03:18 Starlightsun wrote:
I think people should be allowed to make political blog threads again, to keep down the volume of completely unproductive fighting and contrarianism here. The unproductive fighting and contrarianism is the thread. the only thing the blog did was create echo chambers. Having text based debates on the internet with anononyms strangers having any chance of actually convincing anyone of changing their opinion is a farcical level of optimism of todays cynasism based discourse. There’s this weird meta that’s developed in this thread where it’s just accepted that no one will actually change anyone else’s mind, so instead it’s turned into a training ground where people practice their arguments and rhetoric on each other (at least two people, GH and Danglars, have admitted to this in the past). I don’t necessarily mind that, but if no one is going to take each other seriously then I’d rather not waste my time slogging through bullshit debate/rhetoric techniques and calling each other out on it ad nauseum, if instead I could just learn and judge someone’s beliefs by the strength and logic of their underlying premises. #zlefinformoderator Why does this myth that my blog was an echo chamber persist? I used to be a Democrat and now I'm a Communist and IgnE certainly influenced that, so I'd say you're both just flat out wrong.
I liked your blog personally. Felt it was very real. I’m just referring to a post I had remembered reading previously of yours saying that you used this thread as a way to practice arguing/debating skills that you could apply IRL. To be fair, you didn’t mention that you weren’t open to altering your opinions.
Perhaps I’ve mistaken the strength of some of your opinions as a reluctance to ever change them.
|
On June 26 2019 06:07 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 04:50 Danglars wrote:On June 26 2019 04:22 Ryzel wrote:On June 26 2019 03:41 Sermokala wrote:On June 26 2019 03:18 Starlightsun wrote:
I think people should be allowed to make political blog threads again, to keep down the volume of completely unproductive fighting and contrarianism here. The unproductive fighting and contrarianism is the thread. the only thing the blog did was create echo chambers. Having text based debates on the internet with anononyms strangers having any chance of actually convincing anyone of changing their opinion is a farcical level of optimism of todays cynasism based discourse. There’s this weird meta that’s developed in this thread where it’s just accepted that no one will actually change anyone else’s mind, so instead it’s turned into a training ground where people practice their arguments and rhetoric on each other (at least two people, GH and Danglars, have admitted to this in the past). I don’t necessarily mind that, but if no one is going to take each other seriously then I’d rather not waste my time slogging through bullshit debate/rhetoric techniques and calling each other out on it ad nauseum, if instead I could just learn and judge someone’s beliefs by the strength and logic of their underlying premises. #zlefinformoderator On May 25 2019 09:52 Danglars wrote:On May 25 2019 09:13 Introvert wrote:On May 25 2019 07:32 Plansix wrote:
True, he is far from perfect. Nor am I. But he isn’t an asshole about it. The problem with the thread is that people are being assholes, refusing to reign in their bullshit.
Edit: the complaining in this thread is what it has always been, people trying to get the posters they disagree with banned. Conservatives, liberals and leftist alike, everyone wants to see the the posters they dislike banned. Just own up to it and drop the faux concern about quality posting and logical errors. Actually I've never called for anyone to be banned and think we should try a period of zero moderation. Maybe because I don't get the dogpile Danglars and xDaunt do it seems like a fine experiment to me. On May 25 2019 08:58 Nebuchad wrote:DMCD: that was here: https://tl.net/forum/website-feedback/542042-so-why-was-gh-banned?page=8#156For once I get to say this so I'm going to: the truth is somewhere in the middle x) There is no question that political preference plays a role in who is perceived as an annoying presence and who isn't. I'm not saying this as this objective presence that is judging you all: for example until today I thought NewSunshine was perfectly fine as a poster, and apparently some people on the right view him just as I view DMCD. Probably I don't have that perception because NS is more aligned with me politically than DMCD is. This is quite normal, and it's a bit ridiculous that we're going to pretend that some people are disruptive because of their attitude alone, and it just happens that all the disruptive people are the people who agree the less with liberal values, and there are people who agree with liberal values who are just as disruptive but aren't considered so. So that's one side of the coin. The other: a lot of you guys are definitely asking for it. Danglars has admitted himself that he's there to work on his arguments against liberals. There is no hope of ever getting him to agree that you're right on anything, that literally goes against his project here. Pretending that he gets dismissed because of the liberal bias of this forum is comical. xDaunt is, in my opinion, more honest. But he's also lawyering a whole lot. He is almost never presenting a full picture of his argument, he's focusing on what works well and ignoring what doesn't. I'm not even sure that's a criticism, he's a good propagandist. But there's an element of annoyance that necessarily goes with talking to people like that. More generally (and more polemically) I think there's something inherent with conservatism that almost necessitates a strategy when engaging other ideologies. Conservatives will very often present as capital L Liberals, supportive of "classical liberalism". But conservatism was distinct from classical liberalism at the time (tradition descending from Burke vs tradition descending from Smith if you're interested). Simplifying a little (but not grossly imo), liberalism was an effort to give legitimacy to a new system of governance. We have overturned the authoritarian rule that was before us, however we still plan to govern the shit out of you, so how are we different? Well, we deserve it and they didn't. So here's some increase in meritocracy and social mobility, you might think it's awesome. Also I'm a white male so this applies to white males only hey (is that too caricatural? Can you tell I'm not a fan of liberalism? xD). Meanwhile, people like Burke were saying: okay, this new thing is not ideal, but we can use what they're putting forward to maintain the hierarchies that we have and continue to have the upper hand on society. In my view this is a large part of why conservatives often appear hypocritical and difficult to engage from another ideology. A lot of their justifications for what they believe are rooted in liberal values, but they... just don't really mean it. And so you get stuff like: "It's not that I don't want gay people to be treated equally, I'm just very concerned about freedom of religion (a liberal principle)". And in the next conversation when talking about muslims, I will immediately drop this liberal principle and instead talk about, say, women's rights, have you seen how the most backward muslim countries treat women? (another liberal principle) And then there will be this other conversation about abortions and... You get the drift. So when liberals say that conservatives are often hypocritical, I can't say that it's wrong, neither today nor historically. To me an honest conservative would drop this whole liberal value stuff and just say that he wants to be treated better than people who are different from him. Similarly I understand how a liberal can appear hypocritical to a conservative, because traditionally liberals have wanted to maintain a hierarchy in society, and the meritocracy has never worked. So when considering this history, it's not unreasonable to perceive this attack on a privileged position as an attempt to replace the people on this privileged position. That's how liberalism was born, and that's coherent with capitalism. Tl;dr be democratic socialists, we're cool I think I've told you this before, but one should not confuse conservatism's moderation, tension, and careful movement between competing principles as hypocrisy. Seeing it that way is, I think, one of the main reasons you so often fail to understand it. I might as well say that a generic leftism (pick your brand) is hard to argue with it as it arrogantly presupposes it has all the knowledge necessary to bring about utopia while ignoring the world as it exists. Therefore, it always presents an answer to a seemingly intractable and inherently ambiguous problem as clearly solvable. This is good. I want to add to this something that Nebuchad is glancing past quite a bit here: So that's one side of the coin. The other: a lot of you guys are definitely asking for it. Danglars has admitted himself that he's there to work on his arguments against liberals. There is no hope of ever getting him to agree that you're right on anything, that literally goes against his project here. Pretending that he gets dismissed because of the liberal bias of this forum is comical. Raise your hand if you're open to being convinced that Trump is a necessary evil, and superior to a Clinton administration by reading people commenting on a website? I posit you have millions of examples that would have to be overcome to even get close to that position. Quite the heavy lift. But you can get arguments for why the opposite is, in fact, true exposed as logically flawed or founded in untruths. Similar for political positions I hold. Maybe you think the best-run nation is one with a somewhat intrusive government empowered to make many choices for its citizen's lives that increase health and safety. Do you think arguments you have on the internet will convince you that it's an unacceptable tradeoff with individual freedoms, whose preservation should be given very high weighting in balancing choices? Raise your hand if you think that's likely. However, maybe you become more sure in certain ways you're right about society and government, and less sure in others. That's what I talk about in refining arguments. You aren't likely to vote for Trump in 2020 because of the US Politics Megathread, but now you have a better understanding of why people do. Why your arguments don't carry the day nationally. What counterarguments are tougher or weaker. If increased knowledge of that doesn't refine your arguments (actual removal of the metaphorical slag from the whole, which can greatly change appearance and properties), then maybe this thread isn't the best place for you. I'm not really sure if this needs mentioning, but of course I'm open to changing my mind, and that's easier for things I have unformed opinions or no opinion on, than for things I've seen confirmed over five presidencies. I actually lean towards Nebuchad believing this is true at some level as well. Consider that a question like "How likely are you to vote for Trump in 2020" where "very likely" and "not likely at all" are something of character defects. A little unfair. Secondarily, I've pointed out how easily people dismiss evidence here when it's introduced by Republicans and is negative towards their political crowd. This would not be true if people showed they were weighing the evidence, and understood its implications, instead of lazy "just like Benghazi" and "haha guilty and incompetent." That's my observation of left-leaning treatment of facts, not a conclusion on whether people like my posts. I learn quite a bit in this process. Ryzel, I ask you if you think it's likely from reading this thread to totally change your mind about Trump? If no, do you think it's likely that you'll find some of the reasons to like or dislike him to be discarded on the weight of judgement and evidence? Those are the questions you must answer before you slip in a "they're just working on their arguments." It's quite different. + Show Spoiler +Or, put another way, your second to last post started "if people are serious" and argued semantics and naive unacceptability. I think you seriously undermined your own attempts to prove you were yourself serious about the discussion before the post ended. So tell me if you'd like to be mentioned in future posts as the unserious guy, or whatever summary epithet someone decides to throw in. To answer your questions, no I don’t think it is likely from this thread that I will totally change my mind about Trump, and yes it is quite likely that some of my opinions about individual aspects of his presidency and administration will be changed by evidence, including evidence presented in this thread. I have had the pleasure of reading this thread for quite some time now and have learned a substantial amount from pretty much every poster, yourself included. I hadn’t seen your previous post that you quoted, and it seems you’ve demonstrated understanding of what I meant. I should have elaborated, I was referring to the latter and not the former (in reference to your two questions, I agree they are completely different). And no, I’m not calling out the conservative posters specifically; in fact I’ve seen you put in a lot of effort to explain where you are coming from. My issue is honesty and depth. I feel like there’s a lot of superficial arguments being thrown around, with all the animosity it entails, and it would be nice to get deeper. As an example, my previous post touched on several premises of the “concentration camp” argument, and my conclusion was that it boils down to whether or not there is something worse than putting humans in those conditions. xDaunt did eventually make a post detailing why he believed illegal immigration/open borders is a worse evil, which justifies a lot of his previous arguments and that was greatly appreciated (regardless of whether or not I agree). I take that belief and the arguments that come from it more seriously as a result. This is opposed to beliefs that seem to be taken for the sake of being argumentative/combative. When I can’t see the foundational beliefs of an argument from a person, it makes it harder for me to take seriously and feels more of a waste of my time. I can’t quote any specific examples but I feel like I see it from time to time. Sigh. It’s not that big a deal I suppose. I’ll just respect the process and continue watching arguments unfold and taking what bits and pieces of truth I can. EDiT - Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 26 2019 04:22 Ryzel wrote:On June 26 2019 03:41 Sermokala wrote:On June 26 2019 03:18 Starlightsun wrote:
I think people should be allowed to make political blog threads again, to keep down the volume of completely unproductive fighting and contrarianism here. The unproductive fighting and contrarianism is the thread. the only thing the blog did was create echo chambers. Having text based debates on the internet with anononyms strangers having any chance of actually convincing anyone of changing their opinion is a farcical level of optimism of todays cynasism based discourse. There’s this weird meta that’s developed in this thread where it’s just accepted that no one will actually change anyone else’s mind, so instead it’s turned into a training ground where people practice their arguments and rhetoric on each other (at least two people, GH and Danglars, have admitted to this in the past). I don’t necessarily mind that, but if no one is going to take each other seriously then I’d rather not waste my time slogging through bullshit debate/rhetoric techniques and calling each other out on it ad nauseum, if instead I could just learn and judge someone’s beliefs by the strength and logic of their underlying premises. #zlefinformoderator Why does this myth that my blog was an echo chamber persist? I used to be a Democrat and now I'm a Communist and IgnE certainly influenced that, so I'd say you're both just flat out wrong. I liked your blog personally. Felt it was very real. I’m just referring to a post I had remembered reading previously of yours saying that you used this thread as a way to practice arguing/debating skills that you could apply IRL. To be fair, you didn’t mention that you weren’t open to altering your opinions. Perhaps I’ve mistaken the strength of some of your opinions as a reluctance to ever change them.
I did, but moreso in recognition that others here weren't going to evolve much politically and to a large degree they haven't. Politically many of the posters that complain the most frequently haven't moved an inch, whereas those they consider intransigent have had somewhat significant political perspective shifts.
|
United States42004 Posts
On June 26 2019 06:01 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2019 18:16 Zambrah wrote:
Id like to see a response to KwarKs question, it's been brought up multiple times but never gotten a direct response from Danglars,
"Out of curiousity Danglars, do you see any kind of potential conflict of interest in Barr writing to Trump's legal defence team with an offer to defend Trump and an assertion that the Mueller investigation was a sham and Trump subsequently selecting Barr as the individual who decided what to do with the Mueller investigation?
Do you think that it looks terrible but Barr happened to independently draw conclusions that matched up with the conclusions he'd already assured Trump he would draw?
Or do you think, as every rational individual out there thinks, that he's not independent of Trump?" No, there's no material conflict of interest. Barr is entitled to his opinions, as is Trump. This isn't even a close call.
Lol
The conflict is Trump having the power to appoint a guy who has the opinion that he’s definitely innocent to control the case against him and the appointee accepting a job offer from the guy he’s meant to be prosecuting. Trump is conflicted because he stands to benefit from the selection of a specific individual.
It’s not that Barr has an opinion I don’t like. It’s the conflict of interest. The opinion is irrelevant beyond how it demonstrates the obvious quid pro quo taking place. Had Barr not openly assured Trump of absolution ahead of time (holy shit it’s like they’re not even trying anymore) I would still have a problem with Trump making the appointment and Barr making the call re:Trump.
It’s weird that you always seem to be able to miss the point when reading sentences that everyone else can manage without issue.
Trump should not be able to appoint people to control the case against Trump. That’s the conflict. He can’t possibly be neutral in the selection process and the person selected was selected on the basis of their desire to influence it on his behalf. The selection of the AG should have been done by a bipartisan committee, not by a direct application to Trump’s lawyers with an offer to save him.
Similarly the person selected has a conflict relating to prosecuting the guy they’re soliciting a job offer from. You can’t be neutral about a politician who is actively granting you power, influence and status on an ongoing basis.
Did you not cover professional ethics at law school?
|
United States42004 Posts
You might actually be the only lawyer in the world who thinks that it’s fine for lawyers to solicit and take job offers from individuals they’re involved in investigating.
For what it’s worth in PCAOB audit if the client even makes an implicit and unsolicited job offer you’re off the audit.
|
On June 26 2019 04:28 IgnE wrote:
i learn stuff all the time in this thread. i make up my mind and change it all the time
If that is true (and I hope it is  ) that makes you a very unique person in this thread (as far as I can tell).
|
On June 26 2019 06:23 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 06:01 xDaunt wrote:On June 25 2019 18:16 Zambrah wrote:
Id like to see a response to KwarKs question, it's been brought up multiple times but never gotten a direct response from Danglars,
"Out of curiousity Danglars, do you see any kind of potential conflict of interest in Barr writing to Trump's legal defence team with an offer to defend Trump and an assertion that the Mueller investigation was a sham and Trump subsequently selecting Barr as the individual who decided what to do with the Mueller investigation?
Do you think that it looks terrible but Barr happened to independently draw conclusions that matched up with the conclusions he'd already assured Trump he would draw?
Or do you think, as every rational individual out there thinks, that he's not independent of Trump?" No, there's no material conflict of interest. Barr is entitled to his opinions, as is Trump. This isn't even a close call. Lol The conflict is Trump having the power to appoint a guy who has the opinion that he’s definitely innocent to control the case against him and the appointee accepting a job offer from the guy he’s meant to be prosecuting. It’s not that Barr has an opinion I don’t like. It’s the conflict of interest. The opinion is irrelevant. It’s weird that you always seem to be able to miss the point when reading sentences that everyone else can manage without issue.
No, you have it backwards. As usual, I'm the only one who knows what he's talking about.
First, you don't understand what a material conflict of interest is. Barr volunteering a legal memo to Trump's team is neither here nor there. That's his business. That in and of itself is not even close to constituting a conflict of interest.
Second, you clearly don't understand Barr's memo. Barr's memo didn't say "Trump is innocent." Barr's memo set forth a legal framework for analyzing the obstruction charge. That's a very different animal. And regardless, Barr didn't even use that framework when declining to bring charges against Trump after Mueller failed to make a charging decision. Barr used Mueller's framework.
Third, you really should think through the implications of what you're arguing. Your argument is breathtakingly dumb and, even setting aside any specialized legal knowledge, it's flatly contradicted by observable reality. Lawyers and judges don't have conflicts of interest just because they have certain ideological predispositions. As just one example, religious, pro-life judges don't have to recuse themselves when they hear abortion cases. Every judge and attorney brings their own ideological predispositions to bear in the course of their work. Those, in and of themselves, generally aren't grounds for a conflict of interest.
So to summarize, your original question that Zambrah quoted was garbage, Danglars and others were correct to ignore it, and I have wasted far more time with it than I should have. But hopefully someone learned something.
Did you not cover professional ethics at law school?
Feel free to grieve Barr and get laughed at. You are hilariously out of your depth.
|
United States42004 Posts
xDaunt you’re not remotely addressing the issue. You're doing the exact same thing you always do which is insisting that the issue is something completely unrelated to what the subject is, creating a straw man defence for the unrelated issue, and then complaining that everyone else is talking about the wrong thing.
If you weren't doing it intentionally I'd think you had some kind of disability.
Please feel free to stop making a fool out of yourself whenever you like and address the quid pro quo issue and not whether lawyers are required to have absolutely no opinions which appears to be a straw man you introduced.
If it helps, it would have still been quid pro quo if Barr had not personally given a shit whether Trump was innocent but still assured Trump that if he got the job he would act favourably towards Trump. For all we know Barr doesn't give a shit but was willing to make a deal. "You give me a job, I exonerate you" is quid pro quo.
|
On June 26 2019 03:31 IgnE wrote:
i am not making any equivalences. i think i need a name for what happens when people just parrot back some rote meta-argument at me
just to make it clear, i was only specifically talking about the alternative facts around immigrant court appearances. the way you divide up the cases and track outcomes matters immensely. it is also not unreasonable to think that the very recent surge in border crossings and the tremendous strain it puts on the underequipped administration might produce deviations from even relatively recent history. i am open to the possibility that the testimony of the head of DHS in front of congress might have some validity. i am also open to the possibility that it might be false. but it seems very disingenuous to me to only accept facts because they agree with what you want to be true rather than having some reasonable explanation of why the facts you are citing are better than the others. even if 90% of immigrants have shown up over some time period under some conditions the relevant question is what about this time period, under these circumstances. and if DHS says the relevant dataset is actually 7,000 recent cases where 90% did not show up, maybe he is right?
that said, the major question about holding or releasing from my point of view is “how much does it matter if they don’t show up?” what should be the priority? is there some other way to track them? do we need more lawyers? etc.
You said that it's your opinion that people on "both sides" are likely using alternative facts to support their view. If you aren't mentioning the fact that the current administration is constantly lying (sarah sanders, kelly anne conway, trump, fox news, etc...), then your words are drawing an equivalence between the two groups (whether that is your intention or not).
You cannot talk about immigration and say both sides are are equal in regard to speaking actual facts. Calling immigration a "crisis" is an alternative fact.
That's what this administration did, starting calling something that at most needed reform, a "crisis." Then ripped DACA apart, which made ZERO fucking sense, and continue to make it a problem to justify building a wall (which will do nothing).
Remember the "fact" that Mexico pays for the wall?
DHS is part of this administration, for people question DHS's claims makes sense given the history of this administration, just makes sense. The entire administration is untrustworthy if you depend on facts for your reality.
That's my point in quoting your post.
|
On June 26 2019 07:24 KwarK wrote:
xDaunt you’re not remotely addressing the issue. You're doing the exact same thing you always do which is insisting that the issue is something completely unrelated to what the subject is, creating a straw man defence for the unrelated issue, and then complaining that everyone else is talking about the wrong thing.
If you weren't doing it intentionally I'd think you had some kind of disability.
Please feel free to stop making a fool out of yourself whenever you like and address the quid pro quo issue and not whether lawyers are required to have absolutely no opinions which appears to be a straw man you introduced.
Complaining about Trump’s ability to pick who he wants for AG is even dumber than complaining about Barr. It’s his constitutional right. It is checked by the confirmation process and, if necessary, impeachment.
|
|
|
United States42004 Posts
On June 26 2019 07:38 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 07:24 KwarK wrote:
xDaunt you’re not remotely addressing the issue. You're doing the exact same thing you always do which is insisting that the issue is something completely unrelated to what the subject is, creating a straw man defence for the unrelated issue, and then complaining that everyone else is talking about the wrong thing.
If you weren't doing it intentionally I'd think you had some kind of disability.
Please feel free to stop making a fool out of yourself whenever you like and address the quid pro quo issue and not whether lawyers are required to have absolutely no opinions which appears to be a straw man you introduced. Complaining about Trump’s ability to pick who he wants for AG is even dumber than complaining about Barr. It’s his constitutional right. It is checked by the confirmation process and, if necessary, impeachment.
Again you're dodging the issue. The issue is whether Trump selecting a guy to control an investigation into Trump is a conflict. You're answering the question of whether the constitution gives Trump the authority to select an AG and using that answer to somehow prove that there is no conflict because of a mystery step which you neglected to cover.
You're responding to me pointing out that you only ever answer different questions to the ones asked by answering a different question to the one asked. You're a cliché.
|
On June 26 2019 07:43 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 07:24 KwarK wrote:
xDaunt you’re not remotely addressing the issue. You're doing the exact same thing you always do which is insisting that the issue is something completely unrelated to what the subject is, creating a straw man defence for the unrelated issue, and then complaining that everyone else is talking about the wrong thing.
If you weren't doing it intentionally I'd think you had some kind of disability.
Please feel free to stop making a fool out of yourself whenever you like and address the quid pro quo issue and not whether lawyers are required to have absolutely no opinions which appears to be a straw man you introduced. Complaining about Trump’s ability to pick who he wants for AG is even dumber than complaining about Barr. It’s his constitutional right. It is checked by the confirmation process and, if necessary, impeachment. Again you're dodging the issue. The issue is whether Trump selecting a guy to control an investigation into Trump is a conflict. You're answering the question of whether the constitution gives Trump the authority to select an AG and using that answer to somehow prove that there is no conflict because of a mystery step which you neglected to cover. You're responding to me pointing out that you only ever answer different questions to the ones asked by answering a different question to the one asked. You're a cliché.
I am not dodging anything. It’s not a material conflict for the reasons I already discussed. It’s not a serious issue.
|
United States42004 Posts
On June 26 2019 07:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 07:43 KwarK wrote:On June 26 2019 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 07:24 KwarK wrote:
xDaunt you’re not remotely addressing the issue. You're doing the exact same thing you always do which is insisting that the issue is something completely unrelated to what the subject is, creating a straw man defence for the unrelated issue, and then complaining that everyone else is talking about the wrong thing.
If you weren't doing it intentionally I'd think you had some kind of disability.
Please feel free to stop making a fool out of yourself whenever you like and address the quid pro quo issue and not whether lawyers are required to have absolutely no opinions which appears to be a straw man you introduced. Complaining about Trump’s ability to pick who he wants for AG is even dumber than complaining about Barr. It’s his constitutional right. It is checked by the confirmation process and, if necessary, impeachment. Again you're dodging the issue. The issue is whether Trump selecting a guy to control an investigation into Trump is a conflict. You're answering the question of whether the constitution gives Trump the authority to select an AG and using that answer to somehow prove that there is no conflict because of a mystery step which you neglected to cover. You're responding to me pointing out that you only ever answer different questions to the ones asked by answering a different question to the one asked. You're a cliché. I am not dodging anything. It’s not a material conflict for the reasons I already discussed. It’s not a serious issue.
You discussed whether Barr is entitled to have opinions earlier. That wasn't the issue. Try again. Maybe try reading the post before responding to it. That way you'll be able to see what you're meant to be responding to and can tailor your response. If you're still struggling you can probably ask literally any other person to explain the issue to you.
|
My favorite thread on TL due to the constant dunking on xDaunt. Its been like this for years but he just keeps coming back, no shame at all. I tip my hat to you sir.
|
On June 26 2019 07:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 07:48 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 07:43 KwarK wrote:On June 26 2019 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 07:24 KwarK wrote:
xDaunt you’re not remotely addressing the issue. You're doing the exact same thing you always do which is insisting that the issue is something completely unrelated to what the subject is, creating a straw man defence for the unrelated issue, and then complaining that everyone else is talking about the wrong thing.
If you weren't doing it intentionally I'd think you had some kind of disability.
Please feel free to stop making a fool out of yourself whenever you like and address the quid pro quo issue and not whether lawyers are required to have absolutely no opinions which appears to be a straw man you introduced. Complaining about Trump’s ability to pick who he wants for AG is even dumber than complaining about Barr. It’s his constitutional right. It is checked by the confirmation process and, if necessary, impeachment. Again you're dodging the issue. The issue is whether Trump selecting a guy to control an investigation into Trump is a conflict. You're answering the question of whether the constitution gives Trump the authority to select an AG and using that answer to somehow prove that there is no conflict because of a mystery step which you neglected to cover. You're responding to me pointing out that you only ever answer different questions to the ones asked by answering a different question to the one asked. You're a cliché. I am not dodging anything. It’s not a material conflict for the reasons I already discussed. It’s not a serious issue. You discussed whether Barr is entitled to have opinions earlier. That wasn't the issue. Try again. Maybe try reading the post before responding to it. That way you'll be able to see what you're meant to be responding to and can tailor your response. If you're still struggling you can probably ask literally any other person to explain the issue to you.
I wasn't paying attention to your response to my first where you shifted the focus completely away from Barr and on Trump. But like I said, focusing on the conflict of interest that Trump had in picking Barr to be his AG is even dumber than asking about Barr's conflict of interest. Every president has this same conflict because every president picks his AG. It simply isn't a material issue. You might as well ask whether water is wet. And like I pointed out, there are multiple checks on this exercise of presidential authority, so it isn't a problem.
|
On June 26 2019 08:27 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2019 07:53 KwarK wrote:On June 26 2019 07:48 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 07:43 KwarK wrote:On June 26 2019 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On June 26 2019 07:24 KwarK wrote:
xDaunt you’re not remotely addressing the issue. You're doing the exact same thing you always do which is insisting that the issue is something completely unrelated to what the subject is, creating a straw man defence for the unrelated issue, and then complaining that everyone else is talking about the wrong thing.
If you weren't doing it intentionally I'd think you had some kind of disability.
Please feel free to stop making a fool out of yourself whenever you like and address the quid pro quo issue and not whether lawyers are required to have absolutely no opinions which appears to be a straw man you introduced. Complaining about Trump’s ability to pick who he wants for AG is even dumber than complaining about Barr. It’s his constitutional right. It is checked by the confirmation process and, if necessary, impeachment. Again you're dodging the issue. The issue is whether Trump selecting a guy to control an investigation into Trump is a conflict. You're answering the question of whether the constitution gives Trump the authority to select an AG and using that answer to somehow prove that there is no conflict because of a mystery step which you neglected to cover. You're responding to me pointing out that you only ever answer different questions to the ones asked by answering a different question to the one asked. You're a cliché. I am not dodging anything. It’s not a material conflict for the reasons I already discussed. It’s not a serious issue. You discussed whether Barr is entitled to have opinions earlier. That wasn't the issue. Try again. Maybe try reading the post before responding to it. That way you'll be able to see what you're meant to be responding to and can tailor your response. If you're still struggling you can probably ask literally any other person to explain the issue to you. I wasn't paying attention to your response to my first where you shifted the focus completely away from Barr and on Trump. But like I said, focusing on the conflict of interest that Trump had in picking Barr to be his AG is even dumber than asking about Barr's conflict of interest. Every president has this same conflict because every president picks his AG. It simply isn't a material issue. You might as well ask whether water is wet. And like I pointed out, there are multiple checks on this exercise of presidential authority, so it isn't a problem. How many of those Presidents were under investigation by the DoJ at the time they picked their AG?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
