You may be right, I am not a lawyer either, but regardless, I would be very hesitant to accept anything said about it here. Let's just say that the "Lemmy Bar Association" doesn't exactly have a great record with legal analysis.
BigNote
joined 2 years ago
Unfortunately our system was not designed in the anticipation of someone like Trump together with the complete siloing of information ecosystems made possible by modern technology.
What we're seeing is new in kind because both Trump and our information ecosystems are new in kind.
The founders also lived in a much more honor-based society wherein dueling was still very much a thing. Someone like Trump, a notorious liar and loud-mouthed braggart would have almost certainly been run through with a small-sword or shot while dueling. If he declined to accept a challenge to a duel, he would have been ostracized from polite society and effectively cut off from public office.
In other words, they expected that things like honor and decorum and the risk of being killed in a duel would provide for consequences not enumerated in the Constitution.
And they were right for over 200 years, then along came Trump and it turned out that such "customs and norms" were not enough.
We now see our old and very decrepit system --that was deliberately designed to be almost impossible to update -- struggling with that fact.
If it gets to the SCOTUS, and that's a very big if, they can easily make a ruling favorable to Trump without ever touching the question of whether or not he engaged in insurrection. I'm not any kind of expert, but as a long time amateur SCOTUS-watcher I think that's almost certainly what the conservative majority would do. You'd only see the question of insurrection mentioned in the dissenting opinion.
They failed to stop him in 2016 and 2020, so I see no reason to think they'll succeed in stopping him this time.
Out of curiosity, where are you getting this idea? Are there any reputable experts you can point to? I sure haven't seen anyone arguing anything like this apart from you.
Not trying to be a dick, just asking.
There's nothing ironic about it at all.
Good. I appreciate the lack of condescension. I still think you are wrongheaded in your analysis, but I am happy to cordially disagree with you while not infantilizing your arguments.
As for China, I think what's notable is that it was able to use command capitalism to achieve its admittedly phenomenal economic success specifically on the back of capitalism.
But now China is facing demographic collapse together with a collapse of its real estate market.
It's in the rest of the world's interest to mitigate China's coming economic difficulties as much as we can, but there's only so much we can do for an economy built on a house of cards.
Mark my words; China is in deep shit economically, and it will be a huge deal in the coming years.
And your point is?
How is that going to work when you live in a group of around 30 to 50 people, all of whom are closely related either through blood or marriage, and all of whom have known you for your entire life?
What we see in all of the ethnographic literature on small-scale hunting and gathering societies is that you absolutely cannot rise to a position of power and influence simply on the basis of strength. To the contrary, the way you gain power and influence is by being a good and wise and generous provider for the group, not by beating your fellow tribe-mates down.
If you know of an example that demonstrates your idea, please do tell, since I am unaware of any such case in the existing anthropological literature.
No, we don't see any evidence of this at all in the ethnographic literature. To the contrary, what we tend to see is antisocial actors being socially ostracized or killed by the larger group. This is evidently a very old behavior since we absolutely see it in chimp bands as well which means that it goes all the way back to our most recent common ancestor which existed 6 million years ago.
In Portland or in Washington County?
You do if you're in a union. At least my union does. Part of our pay package includes contributions to our PTO accounts at our credit union. As far as I'm aware, the same is true for all of the other big trade unions as well. We also have paid sick days that accrue over the course of the year with any unused getting rolled over or paid out if you quit.
Join a union kids.
Well according to the theory of the case the 14th amendment is self-executing, so it doesn't require that Trump be convicted. It remains to be seen how well that stands up in court however.