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On June 04 2018 05:48 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2018 05:37 a_flayer wrote:They are deciding for you, GreenHorizon. When you complain about the black lady in the Unilever commercial turning into a white lady (who then turns into a Middle Eastern lady and she into an Asian lady, a context which matters profoundly, I think), while at the same time apparently ignoring the fact that the black lady most likely does not have her natural hairstyle ( it appears to be straightened). When you do that, I think you're basically just playing the game on their terms. You're letting them sell their ridiculous products in favor of a horribly flawed discussion about race. I'd argue that the black lady's hair is more of that problematic racist cultural indoctrination that's so pervasive and can be found everywhere than the fact that there's a bunch of women from different ethnicities taking off their tops and turning into one another -- something that also could be interpreted as being related to the soap they're trying to sell. Not only is that hairstyle a much more insidious part of the racist cultural indoctrination, but it allows Unilever to sell more straighteners at the same time. But either way I'm still more offended by the notion that they're trying to draw attention to the ad by having women take off their top (sex sells) than anything about race in that video. Nothing wrong with finding all of that problematic (which I do). I wasn't complaining about it though, other than that it was being used as to pettifog the uncomfortable discussion around what white people should be doing in the US to stop the stories they themselves categorize as horrific and my position that it's (what they are doing currently) not enough and demonstrative of a collective moral failing. Though I did explain the most basic part of why it was racially insensitive.
Well, I probably shouldn't have directed the entire post at you as I did. It was merely your response to my spoiler that prompted me to post what I did in the first place. But the mere fact that the level at which pretty much the whole discussion regarding the commercial took place was about the most superficial issue, leads me to believe that the decision has been made to have the fight amongst ourselves. Just as when poor people like me will be sent to fight the Russians to kill their poor that are no doubt invading one thing or another, and it's too late to wonder why they're doing that in the first place.
Edit: it's just the most imagined of issues in the commercial. It requires one to imagine that they're using the soap to wash themselves into another ethnicity. They're not. The creators are using a dirty little trick (the motion of a woman taking her top off) because that reflects an increased amount of eyeballs on the screen in the statistics. That's why the decision was made to have that happen. They're also using multiculturalism (the full ad goes from black to white to middle eastern to asian), because that's the rad thing to do these days. That's fine, I don't object to it, but I recognize the marketing of it. So nothing in the ad really has to do with race, unless you're projecting that into it.
At least with the Chinese commercial, they're actually using the soap to wash a black man into an Asian one. But that's a culturally acceptable form of racism. You know why? Because the man is the object, regardless of this ethnicity. The woman is looking for a sexual partner, and is not interested in a black man, so she has an impressive black specimen changed into an ethnicity of her liking. That's an acceptable form of racism, is it not, choosing your partner? Once again, they're just using sex to sell a product. They could've used magic to do the transition as well, except it would be harder to sell the product in that context. Remember my argument of dark vs light magic? Is it racism that allows one to wash an African man into an Asian one, or is it magic?
All the complaints about whether or the ethnicity change from black to white is racist are just completely misguided in my mind. People on social media get upset about it, I understand, but that's because they're already upset about race (rightfully so) and then project that into almost anything. But the advertisement is not racist. It is only the projection of people that associates the product being sold with the ethnicity change that makes it appear racist. In other words, it feels racist. What are you all, a bunch of right-wingers that base their view of reality on feelings?
I don't think people understand the importance of this. We are focusing on the imagined part of the racism in the commercial. Sort of like the cops imagine a gun in the pocket of every black person. The difference, of course, is that in one case, the negative feedback is dead black people, while in the other the negative feedback is the alt-right saying "I'm just more right wing now". Just like what Danglars is saying Obama did in a post down below - the negative feedback cycle is very real.
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On June 04 2018 07:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2018 06:01 Falling wrote:On June 04 2018 04:14 a_flayer wrote:On June 04 2018 03:47 KwarK wrote:
In other news, based on a non scientific sample of a few thousand Social Studies exams from 11 year old kids from Kentucky that I've read over the last two weeks, American children believe that all employees within a business are paid equally and that any other allocation of profits would be unfair. They're not arguing for equal division of profits between employees, they think that's the default, they don't realize that it would be a thing that anyone would need to argue for because they don't know that there is another model.
I welcome the new generation of egalitarians. Hah. Load of good that will do us. (I linked to a "classic youtube video" that explains people already think things are a lot more equal than they are, but also think it should be a lot more equal than the illusion in which they live -- it's not happening, and the discrepancy between poor and rich is continuously getting worse) + Show Spoiler +We will have to choose to fight them (rich people) or each other (poor people) in the end. Unfortunately, historically, rich people seem to choose for the poor that they must fight each other. I'm not a fan. The thing is, the discrepancy between the rich and the poor doesn't matter so much as whether the standard of living has increased as a whole. Discrepancy is a relative measure, but whether the richest fellow is richer than me by a million dollars, a billion dollars, or a trillion dollars, it has no material change on how well I am doing. And in absolute terms, the standard of living has grown in leaps in bounds when comparing my generation to my grandparents' generation and leaps and bounds again from their childhood to fifty and a hundred years ago. What it means to be the working poor in the US or Canada now is very different from the past. As long as you are in the upper 75-50-25%(I didn't fact check these numbers) depending on where in the west you live, yeah, doesn't really matter how rich the superrich get because you are comfortable either way. But for the people below that group, they could get considerably better 'returns' for their money than the billio-trillionaire could get from his. From my perspective, even if you factor in some type of entropy where part of the money disappears in the redistribution process, if someone has 1 billion then there's more utility of 2 billion spread between 1 million poorer people than there is from him having another 4 billion. The bottom 20% of households in the US make about $21.7k per year, for reference. source Like, just to be clear, I'm not saying we should just take the money and redistribute it. The following is more an example to illustrate how much money we are talking about. it seems like the average income of top 400 income earners in 2015 was $337 millionIf you take half of that total sum, you get ~$70 billion. Those people would still be seeing average yearly incomes of $168.5 million. You'd have the ability to distribute $1k to 70 million people - or $1k to each of the 20% poorest americans, per year. Single mom (it's 4 times more common than single dad!) of 2 living on $20k could get $23k. Literally 70 million people could have a felt improvement from taking half the income of 400 people, where I personally have a hard time seeing how any of those 400 would even really 'feel' it.
Technically, wouldn't the best solution be a global one, where that money is sent to countries like India or Nigeria, where their average net worth would be multiplied the most by the money? I understand that it's politically braindead everywhere in the world that is well-off. Just a hypothetical, doesn't need to be answered.
Also, to Falling: wealth discrepancy means that the standard of living for the average person is likely lower than it could be, blunting your argument a bit in my eyes. Could you elaborate on what you meant? That the working poor aren't as starving as fifty years ago's working poor doesn't mean we should necessarily accept that they live in decrepit houses and compared to our own nice ones, or that the incomes at the top rose at a faster proportion to their previous wealth than the incomes at the bottom.
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On June 04 2018 06:09 Ayaz2810 wrote:What a fucking asshole Santorum is. I still don't get how this myth of "OMG Obama fomented racism and hate and was soooo divisive" still persists. Santorum says Obama was against the police in a lot of the instances. No fucking shit. The police were wrong and brutal in most of them. Why is this surprising? Even saying that strikes me as borderline racism. Like.... the cops are always right and the brown people they kill are always wrong. Seems legit. And as I've said before, I'm the son of a cop for Christ's sake. I know what good cops do, and these fuckwits do. Not. Qualify. If you're so cowardly that you kill someone for pulling up their pants when you already have a gun drawn on them, or while they're grabbing a phone, you shouldn't be a cop. Jesus this kind of shit makes me angry. https://www.yahoo.com/news/rick-santorum-says-barack-obama-exacerbated-racism-u-s-191634118.html“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” -LBJ
If you want to consider Trump as some instigator of racism and hate, you have to consider Obama too.
My son would’ve looked like Travon? That’s a great racial line about a Hispanic who claimed to have been defending himself against a black attacker that was pummeling him on the ground.
“They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.“ It certainly doesn’t arouse hate against religious people or gun owners.
How about Obama’s campaign ads. Romney was sexist for looking through binders full of women for appointments to high positions or promotions. Oh, definitely him and his campaign team are going to use the phrasing to demean Romney. It doesn’t matter if you’re a female Republican that wishes their bosses looked through qualified job candidates who are women.
Obama and his stooges, both media and aides, perpetuated the idea that his opposition was highly racist. Like the opposition to Obama contained a segment of size worth mentioning that used policy disagreements as a cloak for racism. I don’t want to go on and on with examples that people have seen and rejected.
Obama deserves that moniker. He owned it. He reaped the political benefits. Trump reaped much of the reaction in his run against Clinton. I’m not even a fan of Santorum, but the basic point is correct. It gets denied because many people think racism or bigotry against whites doesn’t exist or is otherwise justified.
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United States43205 Posts
Danglars, do you at least acknowledge that Trayvon was racially profiled?
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On June 04 2018 08:37 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2018 06:09 Ayaz2810 wrote:What a fucking asshole Santorum is. I still don't get how this myth of "OMG Obama fomented racism and hate and was soooo divisive" still persists. Santorum says Obama was against the police in a lot of the instances. No fucking shit. The police were wrong and brutal in most of them. Why is this surprising? Even saying that strikes me as borderline racism. Like.... the cops are always right and the brown people they kill are always wrong. Seems legit. And as I've said before, I'm the son of a cop for Christ's sake. I know what good cops do, and these fuckwits do. Not. Qualify. If you're so cowardly that you kill someone for pulling up their pants when you already have a gun drawn on them, or while they're grabbing a phone, you shouldn't be a cop. Jesus this kind of shit makes me angry. https://www.yahoo.com/news/rick-santorum-says-barack-obama-exacerbated-racism-u-s-191634118.html“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” -LBJ If you want to consider Trump as some instigator of racism and hate, you have to consider Obama too. My son would’ve looked like Travon? That’s a great racial line about a Hispanic who claimed to have been defending himself against a black attacker that was pummeling him on the ground. “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.“ It certainly doesn’t arouse hate against religious people or gun owners. How about Obama’s campaign ads. Romney was sexist for looking through binders full of women for appointments to high positions or promotions. Oh, definitely him and his campaign team are going to use the phrasing to demean Romney. It doesn’t matter if you’re a female Republican that wishes their bosses looked through qualified job candidates who are women. Obama and his stooges, both media and aides, perpetuated the idea that his opposition was highly racist. Like the opposition to Obama contained a segment of size worth mentioning that used policy disagreements as a cloak for racism. I don’t want to go on and on with examples that people have seen and rejected. Obama deserves that moniker. He owned it. He reaped the political benefits. Trump reaped much of the reaction in his run against Clinton. I’m not even a fan of Santorum, but the basic point is correct. It gets denied because many people think racism or bigotry against whites doesn’t exist or is otherwise justified.
Oh no you sooooo do not need to blame Obama in the same way that Trump deserves blame. You're saying the guy pointing out that racism exists is just as bad as the actual racist. Romney's comment about women was indeed a dumb, sexist one. Trump's comments about *everyone* are dumb and often sexist or racist. When the opposition is highly bigoted, you don't get to respond with "And we would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling civil rights activists calling us out!"
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I wrote a fairly substantial post and the page timed out or some shit. Guess I'll reply when I get home. The only point I'll quickly make is that Zimmerman was told not to follow Martin. The "pummeling" as you call it, and thus the shooting, was entirely his fault. That's an awful example sir.
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United States43205 Posts
Literally all that Obama was saying was that Trayvon was racially profiled, which is completely uncontroversial, and that it resonates with him because if he had a son his son would suffer from the same racial profiling.
Zimmerman being hispanic has literally nothing to do with whether Trayvon was racially profiled. You cannot argue "how could Obama think Trayvon was racially profiled if this other guy was Hispanic?!?!" without being an idiot. Whether Trayvon was the aggressor in the subsequent confrontation also has zero bearing on whether or not Trayvon was racially profiled because the racial profiling happened before the subsequent confrontation. Whether or not Zimmerman was losing the fight has nothing to do with the racial profiling that happened before.
Honestly Danglars you're not even making a basic effort to understand what was being said before you attack it.
Trayvon was black. Trayvon was racially profiled. Obama is black. That's the extent of it. If you wish to argue against it then you need to argue against one of those three components.
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On June 04 2018 07:26 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2018 05:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 04 2018 05:37 a_flayer wrote:They are deciding for you, GreenHorizon. When you complain about the black lady in the Unilever commercial turning into a white lady (who then turns into a Middle Eastern lady and she into an Asian lady, a context which matters profoundly, I think), while at the same time apparently ignoring the fact that the black lady most likely does not have her natural hairstyle ( it appears to be straightened). When you do that, I think you're basically just playing the game on their terms. You're letting them sell their ridiculous products in favor of a horribly flawed discussion about race. I'd argue that the black lady's hair is more of that problematic racist cultural indoctrination that's so pervasive and can be found everywhere than the fact that there's a bunch of women from different ethnicities taking off their tops and turning into one another -- something that also could be interpreted as being related to the soap they're trying to sell. Not only is that hairstyle a much more insidious part of the racist cultural indoctrination, but it allows Unilever to sell more straighteners at the same time. But either way I'm still more offended by the notion that they're trying to draw attention to the ad by having women take off their top (sex sells) than anything about race in that video. Nothing wrong with finding all of that problematic (which I do). I wasn't complaining about it though, other than that it was being used as to pettifog the uncomfortable discussion around what white people should be doing in the US to stop the stories they themselves categorize as horrific and my position that it's (what they are doing currently) not enough and demonstrative of a collective moral failing. Though I did explain the most basic part of why it was racially insensitive. Well, I probably shouldn't have directed the entire post at you as I did. It was merely your response to my spoiler that prompted me to post what I did in the first place. But the mere fact that the level at which pretty much the whole discussion regarding the commercial took place was about the most superficial issue, leads me to believe that the decision has been made to have the fight amongst ourselves. Just as when poor people like me will be sent to fight the Russians to kill their poor that are no doubt invading one thing or another, and it's too late to wonder why they're doing that in the first place. Edit: it's just the most imagined of issues in the commercial. It requires one to imagine that they're using the soap to wash themselves into another ethnicity. They're not. The creators are using a dirty little trick (the motion of a woman taking her top off) because that reflects an increased amount of eyeballs on the screen in the statistics. That's why the decision was made to have that happen. They're also using multiculturalism (the full ad goes from black to white to middle eastern to asian), because that's the rad thing to do these days. That's fine, I don't object to it, but I recognize the marketing of it. So nothing in the ad really has to do with race, unless you're projecting that into it. At least with the Chinese commercial, they're actually using the soap to wash a black man into an Asian one. But that's a culturally acceptable form of racism. You know why? Because the man is the object, regardless of this ethnicity. The woman is looking for a sexual partner, and is not interested in a black man, so she has an impressive black specimen changed into an ethnicity of her liking. That's an acceptable form of racism, is it not, choosing your partner? Once again, they're just using sex to sell a product. They could've used magic to do the transition as well, except it would be harder to sell the product in that context. Remember my argument of dark vs light magic? Is it racism that allows one to wash an African man into an Asian one, or is it magic? All the complaints about whether or the ethnicity change from black to white is racist are just completely misguided in my mind. People on social media get upset about it, I understand, but that's because they're already upset about race (rightfully so) and then project that into almost anything. But the advertisement is not racist. It is only the projection of people that associates the product being sold with the ethnicity change that makes it appear racist. In other words, it feels racist. What are you all, a bunch of right-wingers that base their view of reality on feelings?I don't think people understand the importance of this. We are focusing on the imagined part of the racism in the commercial. Sort of like the cops imagine a gun in the pocket of every black person. The difference, of course, is that in one case, the negative feedback is dead black people, while in the other the negative feedback is the alt-right saying "I'm just more right wing now". Just like what Danglars is saying Obama did in a post down below - the negative feedback cycle is very real.
People that get more than mildly upset about the sheer lack of awareness it takes to make a commercial like that are wasting time. It does make it racially insensitive and that's problematic.
People that use stuff like that to excuse their racism are going to do, say, and perpetuate racist aspects of our society regardless of any of this.
It's the same "well you think all those text messages in the middle of the night and mysterious overnight trips mean I'm cheating on you, so I did and it's all your fault" kinda logic.
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On June 04 2018 06:09 Ayaz2810 wrote:What a fucking asshole Santorum is. I still don't get how this myth of "OMG Obama fomented racism and hate and was soooo divisive" still persists. Santorum says Obama was against the police in a lot of the instances. No fucking shit. The police were wrong and brutal in most of them. Why is this surprising? Even saying that strikes me as borderline racism. Like.... the cops are always right and the brown people they kill are always wrong. Seems legit. And as I've said before, I'm the son of a cop for Christ's sake. I know what good cops do, and these fuckwits do. Not. Qualify. If you're so cowardly that you kill someone for pulling up their pants when you already have a gun drawn on them, or while they're grabbing a phone, you shouldn't be a cop. Jesus this kind of shit makes me angry. https://www.yahoo.com/news/rick-santorum-says-barack-obama-exacerbated-racism-u-s-191634118.html“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” -LBJ
I'm curious, what's your dad's take on the rash of police shootings of black people? Does he consider some justified and others not? Does he feel the cops maybe circle the wagons too much?
I'm thinking the more famous cases here.
On June 04 2018 09:52 KwarK wrote:
Literally all that Obama was saying was that Trayvon was racially profiled, which is completely uncontroversial, and that it resonates with him because if he had a son his son would suffer from the same racial profiling.
Zimmerman being hispanic has literally nothing to do with whether Trayvon was racially profiled. You cannot argue "how could Obama think Trayvon was racially profiled if this other guy was Hispanic?!?!" without being an idiot. Whether Trayvon was the aggressor in the subsequent confrontation also has zero bearing on whether or not Trayvon was racially profiled because the racial profiling happened before the subsequent confrontation. Whether or not Zimmerman was losing the fight has nothing to do with the racial profiling that happened before.
Honestly Danglars you're not even making a basic effort to understand what was being said before you attack it.
Trayvon was black. Trayvon was racially profiled. Obama is black. That's the extent of it. If you wish to argue against it then you need to argue against one of those three components.
Of course he isn't. Danglars is playing his usual whataboutism game.
I'm sure he thinks it's a coincidence that the first black President ended up in a 'scandal' where a certain side of the political spectrum kicked up a 'controversy' about whether or not he was born in the United States of America.
Not only was Obama the subject of immense racism in the way the Right wing treated its coverage of him (remember Fox News calling him Barack HUSSAIN Obama at every turn for a while?), he now gets to be accused of being an instigator of racism. The gall is amazing.
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On June 04 2018 17:45 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2018 06:09 Ayaz2810 wrote:What a fucking asshole Santorum is. I still don't get how this myth of "OMG Obama fomented racism and hate and was soooo divisive" still persists. Santorum says Obama was against the police in a lot of the instances. No fucking shit. The police were wrong and brutal in most of them. Why is this surprising? Even saying that strikes me as borderline racism. Like.... the cops are always right and the brown people they kill are always wrong. Seems legit. And as I've said before, I'm the son of a cop for Christ's sake. I know what good cops do, and these fuckwits do. Not. Qualify. If you're so cowardly that you kill someone for pulling up their pants when you already have a gun drawn on them, or while they're grabbing a phone, you shouldn't be a cop. Jesus this kind of shit makes me angry. https://www.yahoo.com/news/rick-santorum-says-barack-obama-exacerbated-racism-u-s-191634118.html“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” -LBJ I'm curious, what's your dad's take on the rash of police shootings of black people? Does he consider some justified and others not? Does he feel the cops maybe circle the wagons too much? I'm thinking the more famous cases here. Show nested quote +On June 04 2018 09:52 KwarK wrote:
Literally all that Obama was saying was that Trayvon was racially profiled, which is completely uncontroversial, and that it resonates with him because if he had a son his son would suffer from the same racial profiling.
Zimmerman being hispanic has literally nothing to do with whether Trayvon was racially profiled. You cannot argue "how could Obama think Trayvon was racially profiled if this other guy was Hispanic?!?!" without being an idiot. Whether Trayvon was the aggressor in the subsequent confrontation also has zero bearing on whether or not Trayvon was racially profiled because the racial profiling happened before the subsequent confrontation. Whether or not Zimmerman was losing the fight has nothing to do with the racial profiling that happened before.
Honestly Danglars you're not even making a basic effort to understand what was being said before you attack it.
Trayvon was black. Trayvon was racially profiled. Obama is black. That's the extent of it. If you wish to argue against it then you need to argue against one of those three components. Of course he isn't. Danglars is playing his usual whataboutism game. I'm sure he thinks it's a coincidence that the first black President ended up in a 'scandal' where a certain side of the political spectrum kicked up a 'controversy' about whether or not he was born in the United States of America. Not only was Obama the subject of immense racism in the way the Right wing treated its coverage of him (remember Fox News calling him Barack HUSSAIN Obama at every turn for a while?), he now gets to be accused of being an instigator of racism. The gall is amazing.
It's classic victim blaming... Clearly, Obama was asking for it by merely being a black man with that middle name and by reaching for a position of power. People wouldn't be racist against him if he didn't exist in the first place. People couldn't be racist against Trayvon if Trayvon never existed. Trump never would have sexually harassed all those women if all those women never existed, let alone be ranked as a 9 or 10 by him. Can't grab women by the pussy if women don't exist, etc. They're all instigators by existing, making it at least half their fault for the prejudice and attacks they received.
It's abhorrent.
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I’m going to go out on a limb and say this wouldn’t work. The president commit a crime and then pardon him/herself. That’s isn’t what the founding fathers had in mind.
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On June 04 2018 08:37 Danglars wrote:
If you want to consider Trump as some instigator of racism and hate, you have to consider Obama too. Nope. Trump is an instigator of racism and hate. He does not denounce white supremacist groupsRemember that there are some fine people with white supremacist marchers. Said white supremacist groups have said that they feel emboldened and validated by Trump encouraging them. . It's not something that needs to be considered at all. He IS an instigator of racism and hate. There's no two ways about it. Your consideration of Oboma to be as such is a different matter and it makes no sense to lump the two together.
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On June 04 2018 21:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/AP/status/1003618204344872967I’m going to go out on a limb and say this wouldn’t work. The president commit a crime and then pardon him/herself. That’s isn’t what the founding fathers had in mind.
But it's technically legal, right? Immoral as hell, but it seems that presidential power is essentially absolute unless Congress impeaches him and removes him from office, which will never happen in this administration.
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On June 04 2018 21:58 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:But it's technically legal, right? Immoral as hell, but it seems that presidential power is essentially absolute unless Congress impeaches him and removes him from office, which will never happen in this administration.
I don't believe so, no. There is a rule against judges hearing their own cases of obvious reason. The same legal theory would apply with to the executive branch. The president cannot pass any form of judgment or pardon on cases against him/herself.
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On June 04 2018 21:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/AP/status/1003618204344872967I’m going to go out on a limb and say this wouldn’t work. The president commit a crime and then pardon him/herself. That’s isn’t what the founding fathers had in mind. A (perhaps naive) part of me holds out that if Trump actually did this he would be impeached.
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That is the real answer, no one has tried. But it would empower the president to have complete immunity when committing criminal actions and would upset the balance of power of the three branches. I cannot see the pardon standing if he did it.
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Well I think that's the problem folks like Mueller saw from the beginning. Trump is supposed to take some lumps and get off with a slap on the wrist and everyone pretends like the system worked (they settled down to this after everything else failed). Problem is Trump won't. He sees everything as zero-sum. He wants to crush them. That means gloating that they can't touch him, even symbolically.
Trump is above the law and answerable only to the, and to a more significant degree his, voters.
Now they're trying to scramble to figure out what to do. Do they do their best to throw the book at Trump and risk him just upending the perception of our system by just pardoning himself for even heinous crimes? Or do they take the last 2 years and flush them down the toilet and let Trump off with an even gentler "extremely careless" as to avoid forcing people's hands to get us to the pardoning himself part?
They've completely lost the political side of this already btw. There is 0 hope for impeachment before 2020.
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On June 04 2018 22:34 GreenHorizons wrote:
Well I think that's the problem folks like Mueller saw from the beginning. Trump is supposed to take some lumps and get off with a slap on the wrist and everyone pretends like the system worked (they settled down to this after everything else failed). Problem is Trump won't. He sees everything as zero-sum. He wants to crush them. That means gloating that they can't touch him, even symbolically.
Trump is above the law and answerable only to the, and to a more significant degree his, voters.
Now they're trying to scramble to figure out what to do. Do they do their best to throw the book at Trump and risk him just upending the perception of our system by just pardoning himself for even heinous crimes? Or do they take the last 2 years and flush them down the toilet and let Trump off with an even gentler "extremely careless" as to avoid forcing people's hands to get us to the pardoning himself part?
They've completely lost the political side of this already btw. There is 0 hope for impeachment before 2020.
Well... the problem is that the people with the power to enforce punishment on him won't do it.
I believe Bill Clinton was dead right when he said if a Democrat was in office right now and had done even half of what Trump's done, the Republicans would be running articles of impeachment through congress.
But if Trump pardons himself I expect the Republicans to turn on him. T
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I expect maybe 1/3 of republicans, the rest are in there for purely power grabs imo.
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EPT
Some of the literature I've read on the topic says that no one has really tried before (Ford pardoned Nixon) so we'd have to see, although in theory it shouldn't be permitted. 
