Patterico's Pontifications

1/25/2021

Why Was the Attack on the Capitol Wrong?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



Seems like a simple question, right?

Maybe not so much.

Was the mob action at the Capitol wrong because it was a violent attempt to change the declared results of an election? Or was it wrong because the election actually wasn’t stolen?

What if Trump had actually managed to steal it? What if Republicans had won Congress and, based on entirely Trumped-up (pun intended) claims of fraud, had voted to throw the election — an election that Joe Biden absolutely won — to Donald Trump?

In other words, what if Trump had actually succeeded in stealing the election, through means that pretended to observe the letter of the law, but in fact invoked the letter of the law as a purely cynical power grab without any actual justification?

Would an uprising have been justified in trying to reverse that? After all, in such a scenario, the people tried voting — and voting didn’t work.

When I posed a similar question on Twitter, some people reacted by comfortably asserting that the Supreme Court would never allow that. Maybe, maybe not. They could call it a political question, with all of them privately thinking that Congress’s action was wholly baseless, but five or more thinking that it’s not their place to step in.

I think this illustrates a larger point that I will likely elaborate on at another time: why you are doing what you are doing matters. It’s not cancel culture to fire someone for their speech; it depends on what the speech is. Overthrowing a government by force is not always wrong either. It depends on why you are doing it.

Would the Russian people be justified in rising up and overthrowing Vladimir Putin by force? Yes. Why? Primarily because elections there are a sham. Nobody can possibly challenge him because Putin will put a phony case on them and arrest them.

Regime change can happen two ways: through elections or through force. If elections are not an option, force becomes the only option left.

What if presidential elections here became a sham, capable of being overthrown by the whim of Congress? The only option left would be force.

I don’t think the people supporting Congressional objections recognize just how dangerous a precedent they have set. We have to make it clear, through consequences. It’s the only way.

207 Responses to “Why Was the Attack on the Capitol Wrong?”

  1. Someone here was shocked when I said if Donald Trump had stolen the election, I would support his removal by any force necessary. But once an election is blatantly and successfully stolen, we are Russia. We are no longer a democracy. The only way to restore democracy at that point is violence.

    That is why this precedent is so dangerous. And why continuing to press baseless claims of a stolen election, as Rand Paul did this weekend, is so dangerous.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  2. Thomas Jefferson answers the question this way:

    Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

    If Trump had managed to steal Georgia’s votes through malfeasance of local officials, I would have protested in the streets, and maybe occupied the chamber where the dastardly deed was done. The biggest crime in all this was not the capitol occupation but the months of gaslighting that came before it. If you really though the election was stolen, protest is way to address it. The crux is — I think most folks, push comes to shove, kind of new the Trump charges were garbage, but wanted Trump by any means they could get him.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  3. You and I agree that in the case where democracy was subverted and the election was in fact stolen, an uprising would be appropriate.

    My concern is that the people who marched on the capital believed that was the case and that their actions were just. It’s the misinformation that is the problem.

    nate (1f1d55)

  4. The 1/6 attack on the Capitol was wrong legally and–because it was based on a Big Lie–morally.
    I think we have to be careful with our language about “stealing an election”. If members of Congress voted to cancel millions of popular votes in multiple states on 1/6, then we’re Constitutionally screwed because the 12th Amendment says thus…

    But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

    Because Trump won a higher number of states, he could conceivably be reelected within the framework of the Constitution. It would feel like a “steal” but is legally in-bounds.
    Any resultant uprising from this “steal” would be just as illegal as the MAGA attack on 1/6. It wouldn’t be immoral, IMO, because we became less democratic and more fascist in this dirty power grab, but nevertheless illegal. Even though it would be monumentally unfair, we would lower ourselves to the level of MAGA terrorists if there were an insurrection, so I oppose it.
    The solution would be to close the “loophole” in the 12th Amendment, not invade the Capitol.
    Such a “steal” would also kill the spirit of Article II Section 1 because the power of states to choose electors would be stripped, taken by a power-hungry Congress to keep their guy in power. It would be a terrible precedent.

    I have a really hard time comparing the US to Russia because the latter is an authoritarian state that doesn’t respect civil liberties or political rights. The protesters there are truly brave because they are seriously risking life and limb to make their opinions known.
    US citizens have ways to address grievances with their government, Russians do not. As I see it, if the Russian people follow the template in the Declaration of Independence, they have the right to mount an insurrection against Putin because they have no other recourse.

    Paul Montagu (b43e63)

  5. Good mental exercise, BTW.

    Paul Montagu (b43e63)

  6. I keep coming back to the idea that Trump’s incompetency and laziness were the best thing about him. It’s terrifying how close they came and how the GOP base if vilifying the ones that stood in the way. Not so much the congress members that voted to impeach, but the state officials in GA, AZ, and MI that refused to go along with the plot.

    How would this have looked if the Speaker and Head of the legislature in MI had supported the lie?
    Or if the executive branch in GA had?

    Time123 (b0628d)

  7. You and I agree that in the case where democracy was subverted and the election was in fact stolen, an uprising would be appropriate.

    My concern is that the people who marched on the capital believed that was the case and that their actions were just. It’s the misinformation that is the problem.

    nate (1f1d55) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:03 am

    One of the reasons I think it’s important to build and maintain faith in the process is so that we have a process to decide these things.

    One of the things I fault the GOP for is how few of their leaders have supported these processes. Recounts, court cases, canvassing. We needed leaders to honestly say how things were being done and admit how those were trustworthy. We didn’t get that. In fact we’re still getting ‘more investigation needed’.

    Wait until Kamala Harris loses GA, or NC and you see how passionately the left feels about ‘voter suppression’.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  8. I find myself agreeing with Appalled (@2): there were probably some (how many?) among Trump supporters who secretly doubted the BS he was peddling about having won by a landslide, but so desperately wanted Dear Leader’s administration to continue that they simply didn’t care whether their coup attempt was legitimate or not. If it could be pulled of, then, might would make right. Or am I giving the Trump cultists to much credit for reason here?

    Roger (3eb97d)

  9. I do hope that, 10 years in the future, someone doesn’t write a book about how they stole votes to keep Trump out of the White House.

    If the election actually HAD been stolen — that Trump’s victory was wrongfully overturned in the back room — would the attack have been wrong? I very much doubt this is the case, but it still bears asking.

    I think, hypothetically the answer is still yes, as the election was conducted lawfully, and even if that allowed some votes to be lost or manufactured, the way to address that is in the courts. And that was done, and failed.

    “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
    –John Harrington

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  10. I think that, after Trump’s impeachment conviction, that Biden should pardon all those involved in the attack, save those responsible for assaults or aiding assaults. As was pointed out, they believed they were acting for the reasons that many of us would act if an election had actually been stolen.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  11. Assuming the riot had gone exactly as the rioters wanted it – would it have actually changed anything? Or just hurt and killed more people, with the exact same vote results tallied again a later date?

    LYT (5253f9)

  12. Why did they believe Trump?

    1. Because trust in the process was already weak. We all know of close elections where votes suddenly appear. Two well know cases: (2004 WA Governor, certified victor loses (by 0.005%) after 700 ballots are “discovered”) and Coleman-Franken (MN, 2008) with certified winner losing (by 0.07%) after discovered ballots, a recount and several court cases involving counting or not counting several thousand ballots.

    2. Because when many went to bed (and the working class goes to bed early), Trump was on a roll, running the table on the swing states that he needed, and leading in NC, PA, GA, AZ, WI and MI — far more than he needed. It looked to many — including many who detested Trump — that he was going to win re-election. Then everything changed as they counted the absentee vote. If you want to beleive that Trump won, it is not hard to do so.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  13. Assuming the riot had gone exactly as the rioters wanted it – would it have actually changed anything? Or just hurt and killed more people, with the exact same vote results tallied again a later date?

    LYT (5253f9) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:56 am

    There are all sort of wild possibilities. But I think the most likely positive outcome for Trump would have been to delay the process so that he could retain power while they got to the bottom of everything. This would provide more time to get GA and another state to ‘take back’ their certification and create a pretext for further process challenges.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  14. Someone here was shocked when I said if Donald Trump had stolen the election, I would support his removal by any force necessary

    I was not, and was expecting a response like that when I asked the question. I had been arguing that a Trump steal would result in insurrection, secession, and possibly civil war.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  15. There are all sort of wild possibilities. But I think the most likely positive outcome for Trump would have been to delay the process so that he could retain power while they got to the bottom of everything. This would provide more time to get GA and another state to ‘take back’ their certification and create a pretext for further process challenges.

    He would have, sadly, had to declare a State of Siege and martial law.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  16. 1. Because trust in the process was already weak. We all know of close elections where votes suddenly appear. Two well know cases: (2004 WA Governor, certified victor loses (by 0.005%) after 700 ballots are “discovered”) and Coleman-Franken (MN, 2008) with certified winner losing (by 0.07%) after discovered ballots, a recount and several court cases involving counting or not counting several thousand ballots.

    The difference in scale between these and Biden’s win his huge. Trump lost MI, AZ, PA, and GA by almost half a million votes. Not a 700.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  17. There are all sort of wild possibilities. But I think the most likely positive outcome for Trump would have been to delay the process so that he could retain power while they got to the bottom of everything. This would provide more time to get GA and another state to ‘take back’ their certification and create a pretext for further process challenges.

    He would have, sadly, had to declare a State of Siege and martial law.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:16 am

    Not forever, just until the independent investigation got to the bottom of all the accusations of Fraud. Highly respected former leader Newt Gingrinch would lead the independent investigation.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  18. Trump and his schnitzel-slurpers are not sentient beings of human worth entitled to human motives, human action, and human treatment. They are a festering bacterial culture in the body politic which erupted into a pimple on January 6, but thankfully it was small and only needed a dab of antibiotic. So they are not really a good example for the question.

    Absent Moses finding a burning bush, the Declaration of Independence is as good an answer as any to the question posed, and I would add “… and you win.”

    nk (1d9030)

  19. The difference in scale between these and Biden’s win his huge. Trump lost MI, AZ, PA, and GA by almost half a million votes. Not a 700.

    259,000 not “half a million” of which 155,000 were in MI which Trump didn’t need. Adding WI to all but MI, and it’s 125,000 votes. But scale does not matter when you are emotionally involved and think the original lead was wrongly changed anyway.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  20. Highly respected former leader Newt Gingrinch would lead the independent investigation.

    With the able participation of the Honorable Rudy Giuliani and a Democrat (Rod Blagojevich).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  21. The thing that sinks Trump here most forcefully is his loss in the popular vote. While I will forever assert that it does not matter, losing that by 4.5% percent kind of gives the other guy the benefit of any doubts.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  22. Trump and his schnitzel-slurpers are not sentient beings of human worth entitled to human motives, human action, and human treatment. They are a festering bacterial culture in the body politic which erupted into a pimple on January 6, but thankfully it was small and only needed a dab of antibiotic. So they are not really a good example for the question.

    Having said that, can you assert that no one would countenance “fixing” the vote if they also believed that? I mean, if you were standing over Trump’s body with a bloody knife, it would probably speak to motive.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  23. The difference in scale between these and Biden’s win his huge. Trump lost MI, AZ, PA, and GA by almost half a million votes. Not a 700.

    259,000 not “half a million” of which 155,000 were in MI which Trump didn’t need. Adding WI to all but MI, and it’s 125,000 votes. But scale does not matter when you are emotionally involved and think the original lead was wrongly changed anyway.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:27 am

    You’re correct. I wrote ‘half’ when I was thinking ‘quarter’. Sorry for that, but it doesn’t change my point that the margin of Biden’s victory is well outside the ‘reasonable’ range for fraud and error to determine the outcome.

    I also agree that the people supporting this lie aren’t doing so as a rational decision.

    Time123 (b87ded)

  24. Trump and his schnitzel-slurpers are not sentient beings of human worth entitled to human motives, human action, and human treatment. They are a festering bacterial culture in the body politic which erupted into a pimple on January 6, but thankfully it was small and only needed a dab of antibiotic. So they are not really a good example for the question.

    Having said that, can you assert that no one would countenance “fixing” the vote if they also believed that? I mean, if you were standing over Trump’s body with a bloody knife, it would probably speak to motive.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:39 am

    I stopped reading this at schnitzel-slurpers until i saw Kevin respond.

    Time123 (b87ded)

  25. In the musical 1776, Benjamin Franklin said that rebellion is only wrong in the third person. Your rebellion isn’t wrong, and my rebellion isn’t wrong, it’s just their rebellion which is illegal.

    We are, of course, a country founded on rebellion, on revolution. Our rebellion wasn’t wrong, due to one thing, and one thing only: it was successful. Had the Confederacy won in the 1860s, their rebellion would have been justified by success; it was only wrong because it failed.

    Had the Capitol kerfuffle — and that’s exactly what it was, a kerfuffle — been successful, and maintained Donald Trump in power, it would have been right, because it would have won. Rather than the Democrats looking for insurrectionists, it would be President Trump looking for the evil ones who tried to deny him power.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  26. Mr 123 wrote:

    There are all sort of wild possibilities. But I think the most likely positive outcome for Trump would have been to delay the process so that he could retain power while they got to the bottom of everything. This would provide more time to get GA and another state to ‘take back’ their certification and create a pretext for further process challenges.

    The problem with that idea is that President Trump’s term expired on January 20th. If the process had been delayed past that, Nancy Pelosi would have become President at that point.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  27. Assuming the riot had gone exactly as the rioters wanted it – would it have actually changed anything? Or just hurt and killed more people, with the exact same vote results tallied again a later date?

    LYT (5253f9) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:56 am

    The exact same vote totals, and if necessary tallied at another place if the Capitol remained occupied.

    Such an attack is not the away to go even if something like what they thought was happening for real.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:16 am

    There are all sort of wild possibilities.

    But I think the most likely positive outcome for Trump would have been to delay the process so that he could retain power while they got to the bottom of everything. This would provide more time to get GA and another state to ‘take back’ their certification and create a pretext for further process challenges.

    Anything that Trump, or his advisers, could have hoped for, would have been extra-constitutional. And once you step outside of the constitution, the oath that every officer of a state or the federal government becomes determinative. If a president was prevented from being qualified, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would become Acting president on noon on January 20.. Now if we can figure out an endgame that a Trump helper might have had in mid, it could be either:

    A) Count all Electoral votes except those Mike Pence declined to count, and have Congress not overrule pence, and then have Trump win a majority of the remaining Electoral votes,232-227. (Mike Pence declined to do so, either would Congress have allowed a ruling like that to stand.)

    or

    B) have the House vote that no one had a majority – and then choose a winner voting by states. B9ut the frst vote would also have to be by states for the Republicans to win.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  28. Seems less an isolated event and more another symptom to a larger problem, festering for decades. All you have to do is watch/listen to many of them venting their rage. To be sure, pockets of extremists took advantage; nothing unique about that, but some of the lesser Einsteins made sure to be seen, videoed, photographed and heard waving Gadsden flags and rebellious confederate battle banners shouting, ‘We’re losing our freedoms – 1776!!’ They mostly directed their rage at both GOP & Ds– equal opportunity anger; ‘the powers that be’ didn’t really matter; a majority of the electorate are indies as is and don’t identify w/either ‘major party’ ideology anymore. So from their POV, they may likely believe the election truly was ‘stolen’ or ‘rigged’ by 80 year old ‘royalist’ party elites, increasingly isolated and unresponsive to the immediate needs of the electorate. The election results were just another log on the fire. And ignoring them only fans the flames. They’re a pretty resourceful lot.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  29. Excellent points. While Trump showed himself too lazy, incompetent and stupid to succeed either as president or in his insurrection he caused a lot of damage and has left a roadmap for the next narcissistic but competent sociopath to follow. It is, imo, now only a question of time before overturning an election succeeds and it came way to close here. Does anyone really think that if PA had been the only state Trump had needed to overturn and the vote had been closer that he wouldn’t have been able to overturn the election? Further violence and instability is inevitable with all the dangers that implies. I believe the warning signs have now flashed red at us clearly and unambiguously and the US election process and the constitution are not fit for purpose for preventing this. The fear is that in the end what evolves will bear a superficial resemblance to what came before but will be completely different. Think Augustus ‘restoring’ the Roman republic. I cannot for the life of me see how this genie can be put back in the bottle. There is no way to take anything good for the long term out of what Trump has wrought.

    cmd (aa2094)

  30. Mr 123 wrote:

    There are all sort of wild possibilities. But I think the most likely positive outcome for Trump would have been to delay the process so that he could retain power while they got to the bottom of everything. This would provide more time to get GA and another state to ‘take back’ their certification and create a pretext for further process challenges.

    The problem with that idea is that President Trump’s term expired on January 20th. If the process had been delayed past that, Nancy Pelosi would have become President at that point.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:46 am

    But in hypothetical world she’s been killed by rioters we’re now very confident were Antifa. Trump will relinquish power as soon as Mr. Gingrich get’s to the bottom of the fraud and we know who really won. we’ll be taking out case to the SC ASAP.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  31. The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:44 am

    So, uh, might makes right? How Putinesque.

    Paul Montagu (7498e0)

  32. Had the Capitol kerfuffle — and that’s exactly what it was, a kerfuffle

    Brian Sicknick. Remember his name!

    nk (1d9030)

  33. @25. Had the Capitol kerfuffle — and that’s exactly what it was, a kerfuffle…

    Compared to the April, 1968, 4-day hell, death and smoldering wreckage of the Washington Riots- it was a pantie raid. It’s a symptom. Misguided violence is never a solution but the displaced anger toward a slow to unresponsive government on broader,immediate issues to the citizenry who pay the freight isn’t new. Trump was just the latest vessel to carry the ‘Ghostbuster slime’ forward. The growing rise in populism is real- and for a reason. Meanwhile, they seethe in anger waiting for Covid vaccine, $2000 emergency Covid aid and their jobs to return as the economy opens. This morning, the talk from the 50 year Swamp Creature administration is a Covid package by March. So they waste time on a trial of a guy who is gone instead and who’ll surely beat the rap. Again.

    That’s unacceptable from swampy President Plagiarist and his royalist party– and another log on the fire. Geritol Joe best get his two-months-into-his-79th-year-azz in gear.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  34. Time123 (b0628d) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:54 am

    But in hypothetical world she’s been killed by rioters we’re now very confident were Antifa.

    Whoever is the new Speaker of the House.

    If there is no new Speaker, than the president pro tem of the Senate, probably Chuck Grassley. Maybe you could see a scenario in which it would be Pat Leahy. But in no case Donald Trump.

    And most likely, if this went on, pretty soon you’d have have a very short Civil War, which the Trump side would lose, and Trump would be in custody, held without bail in good conditions isolated from other prisoners, maybe on a military base or at Camp David.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  35. @32. Remember these names?:

    George Marvin Fletcher, White Male 28 years old Stabbed in confrontation with eight African-American youth Gas station near 14th and U Street, NW, Thursday, April 4, 1968
    Unidentified teenager Black Male 14~ years old Killed in fire G.C Murphy Store, 3128 14th Street, NW. Friday, April 5, 1968
    George W. Neely, Black Male 18 years old Killed in fire G.C Murphy Store, 3128 14th Street, NW Friday, April 5 ~12:20 p.m, 1968
    Unidentified teenager, Black Male 14–17 years old Killed in fire Morton’s store, 7th and H Streets Friday, April 5 ~4 p.m, 1968
    Vincent Lawson, Black Male 15 years old Killed in fire Warehouse at 653 H St. NE, next to Morton’s store. Friday, April 5, 1968; remains discovered in 1971.
    Harold Bentley, Black Male 34 years old Killed in fire 513 8th Street, NE, I-C Furniture Company. Friday, April 5, 1968
    Thomas Stacey Williams, Black Male 15 years old Shot by policeman, Near 42nd Street, NE, 20019. Friday April 5 ~6 p.m, 1968
    Ernest McIntyre, Black Male 20 years old Shot by policeman 4009 South Carolina St., by Al’s Liquor Store. Friday, April 5, 1968
    Annie James Black, Female 52 years old Smoke inhalation from fire. Apartment above Quality Clothing Store at 701 Q St. NW. Friday, April 5, 1968
    Ronald James Ford, Black Male 29 years old Bled to death after slashing his neck and chest on a broken store window. Found outside the playground fence of Cardozo High School on 13th Street NW. Saturday, April 6, 1968
    Cecil Hale, ‘Red Rooster’ Black Male 40~ years old Smoke inhalation from fire Carolina Market, 1420 7th Street, NW. Sunday, April 7, 1968
    William Paul Jeffers, Black Male 40 years old Killed in fire Jan’s Drygoods Store, 1514 7th Street, NW. Sunday, April 7, 1968
    Fred Wulf, White Male 78 years old Found unconscious, allegedly beaten by black youths, developed pneumonia at hospital Sidewalk at New Jersey and H streets. Monday, April 8, 1968

    – source, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Washington,_D.C.,_riots

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  36. ‘Highly respected former leader Newt Gingrich would lead the independent investigation.’

    Newt Gingrich, Moon President:

    https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sci-fi-cold-open/n13372

    ‘May Divorce be with you.’

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  37. Meanwhile, they seethe in anger waiting for Covid vaccine, $2000 emergency Covid aid …….

    I don’t recall any banners saying “Give me a COVID vaccine and $2,000 or give me death!” among the insurrectionists. In fact, I am nearly certain that most of the rioters would be anti-vaxxers and against Big Government giving away free cash.

    Blame Big Pharma on the COVID vaccine, they are the ones holding the country hostage.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  38. Leahy, not Roberts, expected to preside over impeachment trial as House to send article to Senate on Monday
    …….
    Chief Justice John Roberts will not be presiding like he did for Trump’s first impeachment trial, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Instead, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the President pro tempore of the Senate, is expected to preside, the sources said. The Constitution says the chief justice presides when the person facing trial is the current president of the United States, but senators preside in other cases, one source said.
    …..
    The likelihood that Leahy will oversee the trial has raised questions about whether he will also be eligible to vote, but constitutional experts say that nothing would stop him from doing so.
    “He’s a sitting senator, he still gets to vote. Nothing in the Constitution would preclude him from voting,” said Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri law professor who has written extensively about impeachment.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  39. Time123 (b0628d) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:54 am
    But in hypothetical world she’s been killed by rioters we’re now very confident were Antifa.
    Whoever is the new Speaker of the House.

    If there is no new Speaker, than the president pro tem of the Senate, probably Chuck Grassley. Maybe you could see a scenario in which it would be Pat Leahy. But in no case Donald Trump.

    And most likely, if this went on, pretty soon you’d have have a very short Civil War, which the Trump side would lose, and Trump would be in custody, held without bail in good conditions isolated from other prisoners, maybe on a military base or at Camp David.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca) — 1/25/2021 @ 11:18 am

    Probably was more about using force to prevent another decision point going against trump, apply pressure to his allies, and create a delay that would allow for other things. I assume the end game was some sort of procedural win for him combined by the fact he was already in office.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  40. Meet Trump’s Pro-Insurrection “Intellectuals”
    ……
    [Ross] Douthat wondered—naïvely in retrospect—if “certain kinds of partisan fantasy might actually be stabilizing forces, letting people satisfy their ideological urges by participating in a story.” Or perhaps “once enough politicians have endorsed dreampolitik, the pressure to make the dream into reality will inexorably build.”

    On January 6 that pressure gave way to a rampaging and murderous mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists.

    They ransacked the U.S. Capitol to disrupt President-elect Joe Biden’s transition to power, murdering officer Brian Sicknick and shouting “kill him with his own gun” at officer Michael Fanone while they tased him to the point of causing a heart attack.

    It was ironic to see anti-police violence from a movement identified with slogans like “Blue Lives Matter” and “Back the Blue.” But it should not have been surprising. In fact, pace Douthat, none of it should have been surprising. Because for anyone paying attention, agitation for violence on the right has been widespread and increasing disturbingly specific.

    For an example of this festering interest in violence, which is both anti-government and anti-police, consider a recent article by Claremont Institute fellow and Boston University professor emeritus Angelo Codevilla. Published just days before the November presidential election, “The Police and Us” argued that it was time for conservatives to start “hurting cops.”
    …….
    Codevilla went on to advise readers to organize themselves into local armed cells:
    ……
    Codevilla concluded with a call for “jury nullification” in favor of “anyone remotely like yourself who is charged in any confrontation with those tribes and with their authorities.”

    It’s hard to see this—by one of the “intellectuals” of the nationalist program—as anything but a call to proto-insurrection. And this was before the election.
    …….
    Three days after votes were cast, conservative activist Ned Ryun (who ironically served as a member of Trump’s Advisory 1776 Commission), itemized a number of alleged election irregularities—“you’re telling me the semi-senile basement dweller won roughly 3 million more votes than Obama did in 2008?” “Look at Milwaukee and the statistical improbabilities of the Democratic votes there.”—before channeling Malcolm X to propose violence as a remedy for his grievances:
    ………
    Former Trump national security spokesman Michael Anton—best known for authoring the “Flight 93 election” essay analogizing Democrats to terrorists bent on destroying the republic—made a similar argument, suggesting hopefully that Trump supporters might be aroused to “rebellion”:
    …….
    Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani endorsed threats against lawmakers who refused to help overturn the election results. “Sometimes it even requires being threatened,” Giuliani said about pressuring Michigan state lawmakers.

    Freshman congressman Madison Cawthorn urged attendees at Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA to threaten their representatives as well.

    “So, everybody, I’m telling you, I’m encouraging you, please get on the phone, call your congressman,” he said. “And feel free, you can lightly threaten them, and say, ‘You know what? If you don’t start supporting election integrity, I’m coming after you, Madison Cawthorn is coming after you. Everybody is coming after you.”

    …….
    Just days after Trump’s election loss, American Greatness contributor Chuck de Caro recalled the McMinn County War of 1946 (also known as the Battle of Athens) during which a group of two thousand veterans violently rebelled against corrupt local officials with automatic weapons, Molotov cocktails and dynamite, ultimately seizing ballot boxes implicated in a disputed election.

    De Caro was explicit about the historical lesson he hoped to impart, suggesting that disappointed Trump supporters consider paramilitary action to combat perceived electoral malfeasance:
    …….
    What’s striking is that this fetishization of violence was not merely in reaction to an electoral loss. In the days leading up to the election, some pro-Trump commentators were preparing for violence after Trump won, consumed with the idea that Democrats were organizing a “Color Revolution,” wherein anti-Trump demonstrators would attempt to topple a re-elected Trump.
    …….
    …..[I]t’s important to note that the idea was for violence if Trump won, and then violence when he lost. The violence is the constant. The violence is the point.
    …….
    Emphasis in the original.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  41. @37. Had those followers been given their $2K and vaccine shots in a timely manner, plenty they’d have been out buying big screen TeeVees at Walmart and home on the sofa rubbing their sore arms. Except for Viking Hat Guy and ‘Elmo Grizzle’ of course.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  42. 29. cmd (aa2094) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:54 am

    Does anyone really think that if PA had been the only state Trump had needed to overturn and the vote had been closer that he wouldn’t have been able to overturn the election?

    No, that wouldn’t have been enough, although it would have looked closer. Trump acted like he only needed one state, but that wasn’t so – that he persisted this way when he had to draw an inside straight so to speak is another mystery here, but what we got is like as if there had been only one state he needed to reverse.

    What mattered was the artisan division in Congress, plus the fact that this was new, so that Trump could only draw less than one third of Republican officeholders into his efforts (except in the House of Representatives. But a bare majority of half the House means just a quarter of the body as a whole, and 2/3 of 1/2 is still only 1/3. And even 2/3 of 3/5 is 2/5 or 40%)

    The danger is if this becomes the way most officeholders, in either or both parties, act.

    Further violence and instability is inevitable with all the dangers that implies…I cannot for the life of me see how this genie can be put back in the bottle. There is no way to take anything good for the long term out of what Trump has wrought.

    That’s why this needs to be rejected and possibly, the Republican Party split, and candidates for office be closely examined, unless this is dead, dead, dead.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  43. @37. Had those followers been given their $2K and vaccine shots in a timely manner, plenty they’d have been out buying big screen TeeVees at Walmart and home on the sofa rubbing their sore arms. Except for Viking Hat Guy and ‘Elmo Grizzle’ of course.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:11 pm

    I get this on one level. If you’re hurting that money is a big deal.

    But a lot of these Trump fans sacking our capitol to steal the election clearly haven’t been missing any meals. They might be better off if we took back the previous stimulus checks and told them to get a job. I definitely don’t want a nickel to go to anyone who entered the capitol. They should get free room and board for ten years though.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  44. @41-
    Had those followers been given their $2K and vaccine shots in a timely manner, plenty they’d have been out buying big screen TeeVees at Walmart and home on the sofa rubbing their sore arms.

    Watching OANN and Newsmax and getting riled up to storm the Capitol.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  45. On Inauguration Day there were destructive protests on Inauguration Day. But the attackers wanted to make it quite clear that they were not right-wing extremists:

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-inauguration-portland-prote/anti-fascist-protesters-vandalize-buildings-in-portland-and-seattle-idUSKBN29Q0H9

    Anti-government and anti-fascist protesters in Portland and Seattle vandalized a Democratic Party office and other buildings and scuffled with police on Wednesday, protesting against President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

    People dressed in black and with their faces covered broke windows and the glass door at the Democratic Party of Oregon business office in Portland, spray-painting an anarchist symbol over the party sign, video posted on social media showed….

    “We don’t want Biden. We want revenge for police murders, imperialist wars, and fascist massacres,” read a banner they marched under.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  46. 39, Time123 (b0628d) — 1/25/2021 @ 11:56 am

    I assume the end game was some sort of procedural win for him combined by the fact he was already in office.

    I think they didn’t have any endgame that would result in Trump continuing as president, but they lied to Trump that there was one.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  47. On Inauguration Day there were destructive protests on Inauguration Day. But the attackers wanted to make it quite clear that they were not right-wing extremists:

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-inauguration-portland-prote/anti-fascist-protesters-vandalize-buildings-in-portland-and-seattle-idUSKBN29Q0H9
    Anti-government and anti-fascist protesters in Portland and Seattle vandalized a Democratic Party office and other buildings and scuffled with police on Wednesday, protesting against President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
    People dressed in black and with their faces covered broke windows and the glass door at the Democratic Party of Oregon business office in Portland, spray-painting an anarchist symbol over the party sign, video posted on social media showed….

    “We don’t want Biden. We want revenge for police murders, imperialist wars, and fascist massacres,” read a banner they marched under.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:23 pm

    I’ve been saying for months that the Far left didn’t like or support Biden. I’ll take this as more evidence I’m right.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  48. @43/44. Only if they can afford cable. 😉 It’s a symptom to a bigger problem that has been festering for decades thanks to two major parties run by aging royalists increasingly out of touch w/t contemporary life of the electorate. Pacifiers are an easy fix w/this bunch. Ask any of them and they’ll tell you the only one who ever sent them checks had one name on it- Trump.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  49. “I’ve been saying for months that the Far left didn’t like or support Biden. I’ll take this as more evidence I’m right.”

    I’ve been assured that these people are Democrat Brownshirts, acting under the direct orders of Nancy Pelosi.

    Davethulhu (f31045)

  50. New – Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Senate pro tempore, is expected to preside in impeachment trial, two sources tell me and @JoanBiskupic – not Chief Justice John Roberts

    Senators preside when the person facing trial isn’t the current president of the United States, per one source

    — Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 25, 2021

    I think that’s right.

    The only reason Chief Justice had to preside over the Senate trial was to avoid conflict of interests of the impeached president’s VP. In this case, Trump isn’t “the President” now, so there’s no conflict. As such, Senate pro tempore is more than suffice to preside over the trial.

    whembly (63cfde)

  51. @47

    I’ve been saying for months that the Far left didn’t like or support Biden. I’ll take this as more evidence I’m right.

    Time123 (b0628d) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:26 pm

    I don’t think so.

    The bevy of EOs signed so far by Biden were advocated by the far left too.

    The sh!tf!t by the left responding to McConnell’s gambit to protect the filibuster is telling.

    I think the far left wants big progressive policies forced through and they’re not sure Biden is willing to fight for them. I think what they’ll see, is Biden doing (or trying) whatever the Democratic party as a whole wants, which is being dominated by the progressive left these days.

    Joe Manchin and Kristen Seinema are in the minority outside of the prevailing progressive wing and how long will they hold out against the full weight of their party?

    whembly (63cfde)

  52. Mr Montagu wrote:

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:44 am

    So, uh, might makes right? How Putinesque.

    Yes, might most certainly does make right, and has throughout history. The might of the white settlers extended us across this continent, and made our conquest right. The might of the union made the conquest of the Confederacy right. The might of the colonists made right in our revolution.

    The might of Christian soldiers made the defeat and destruction of the Norse mythology right.

    Had der Führer been a little bit smarter, a little bit saner, and waited until he had finished off the British before he invaded the USSR, the history of Europe would have been written far differently, and his might would have made a very different right.

    Might has always made right, because the winners determine how history will be written. The might of the Nazis in pushing their propaganda and their education made it right for millions of German citizens to expose and turn in the Jews, and it was only the greater might of the Allies which changed that.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  53. Democrat donor class would tell democratic establishment your job is to protect the republican party from the left’s vengeance. As it has been since 1932

    asset (275151)

  54. DCSCA wrote:

    @43/44. Only if they can afford cable.

    Well, their parents could, and if they were living in their parents’ basement . . . .

    Oops, wait, sorry, that’s for the leftist activists.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  55. Whembly wrote:

    The only reason Chief Justice had to preside over the Senate trial was to avoid conflict of interests of the impeached president’s VP. In this case, Trump isn’t “the President” now, so there’s no conflict. As such, Senate pro tempore is more than suffice to preside over the trial.

    Why wouldn’t Vice President Emhoff preside? There is no conflict of interest for her.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  56. Vice President Emhoff

    LOL good grief man

    Dustin (4237e0)

  57. President Plagiarist touting his ancient mindset of ‘Made In America’ bullsh-t. Did the plagiarist drive a Pinto or a Pacer? This does nothing to get Covid vaccine and $2000 emergency Covid aid to suffering U.S citizens, Geritol Joe. Another wasted day.

    How many of your laptops, smartphones and TeeVees are made in America, President Plagiarist? How many of your gadgets have cheaper-than-Eveready, made in Japan Panasonic batteries running them?

    This guy is as useless as a 1975 Pet Rock.

    Vlad smiles… and Xi grins.

    ______

    “I know how the system works.” -President Plagiarist, 3:56 PM EST, 1/25/21

    Gee, Joe, plagiarizing Trump?!?!

    “No one knows the system better than me.” – Donald Trump

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  58. Who?

    Nic (896fdf)

  59. Why did they believe Trump?

    Some, like the Q Shaman, have serious mental issues. Others, feel left behind in the political process.

    There is nothing you can do about the former – the mentally ill we will always have with us. The fact that they are mentally unstable makes them hard to predict and consequently, hard to stop. Unless, of course, we as a nation are ready to go back to the old days of forced medication and hospitalization.

    The latter is the real problem. Way too many people on both sides of the political aisle are beginning to feel marginalized from the political process. Militias. Anarchists. They believe in different things but do what they do because they feel they have no voice or power in the current political climate. And they may have a point. I have to say, in terms of brevity, the Haves control the county and the Have Nots are left holding the bag.

    Something has to change.

    Hoi Polloi (139bf6)

  60. @55

    Whembly wrote:

    The only reason Chief Justice had to preside over the Senate trial was to avoid conflict of interests of the impeached president’s VP. In this case, Trump isn’t “the President” now, so there’s no conflict. As such, Senate pro tempore is more than suffice to preside over the trial.

    Why wouldn’t Vice President Emhoff preside? There is no conflict of interest for her.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:54 pm

    If Harris wants to, in this scenario, yes she can preside as she’s the President of the Senate. If she cannot, then it’s the Senate pro tempore, which is Durbin.

    whembly (63cfde)

  61. 40.

    murdering officer Brian Sicknick

    That wasn’t caught on videotape but another attack with fire extinguishers on police (in that case Washington, D.C. police) was.

    The three people the FBI is presumably looking for most are the person who hit Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick on the head with a fire extinguisher, resulting in his death; the person or persons who left explosives by the RNC and the DNC; and the woman who stole a laptop from Nancy Pelosi and wanted to send it to Russia and who has now disappeared.

    Another policeman got a heart attack. One member of the mob was shot and killed by a policeman; another was stampeded to death (not a drug overdose) and two suffered a heart attack and a stroke, respectively.

    Just days after Trump’s election loss, American Greatness contributor Chuck de Caro recalled the McMinn County War of 1946 (also known as the Battle of Athens) during which a group of two thousand veterans violently rebelled against corrupt local officials with automatic weapons, Molotov cocktails and dynamite, ultimately seizing ballot boxes implicated in a disputed election.

    There were a number of places where there was a GI Revolt in 1946.

    In Hot Springs, Arkansas they just insured an honest election and the political machine, controlled by Owen Vincent (Owney the Killer) Madden, a co-founder of organized crime in America, lost. Owney Madden knew when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. Many people associated with the machine moved to Hope, Arkansas.

    Madden wasn’t finished. He got the new mayor kicked upstairs to Governor, then engineered a scandal forcing him out and by the mid 1950s he was back in power, protected by the Governor, Orval Faubus.

    Faubus overcame the traditional 2-term limit (2 years each) by creating the Little Rock school crisis in 1957 – after that he was re-elected every two years until Winthrop Rockefeller defeated him on his second try, in 1966, which was also after Owney Madden was dead.

    Bill Clinton brought Orval Faubus back in 1984 as his opponent in the Democratic primary (some of Clinton’s supporters financed him)

    Another story: In Georgia there was the attempted coup by future Senate Watergate Committee member, Herman Talmadge, in 1947, when his father, Eugene Talmadge, died,and he was not the Lt Governor elect.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Governors_controversy

    Eugene Talmadge’s supporters had been unsure of his chances of surviving until he was sworn in, so they did some research into the state constitution and concluded that if he died, the Georgia General Assembly would choose between the second and third-place finishers. As Talmadge ran unopposed, they secretly arranged for some write-in votes for Eugene’s son, Herman Talmadge, who had run his father’s successful campaign for governor….

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  62. Excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article that ran in the Jan23/24 2021 issue:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-the-failure-of-the-expert-class-11611341116

    … Mr. Trump assaulted democracy in the ordinary sense of the word, but he did so only after the 2020 election. That effort was discreditable and disruptive, but it was also delusional and ineffective. It was not the assault the president’s expert-class critics had foreseen…

    …In the wake of the Jan. 6 siege at the Capitol, members of the expert class are busy congratulating themselves for being right about Mr. Trump all along. He really was the would-be autocrat they always said he was! But the important question was not Mr. Trump’s true nature or innermost designs but whether America’s democratic institutions, especially the courts and Congress, were prepared, if required, to rebuff his designs. Of course they were. If this was an attempted coup, it was a comically inept one. Hardly anyone in Mr. Trump’s own administration, including the vice president, wanted anything to do with it.

    Mr. Trump’s character deficiencies were always obvious, even to many of his supporters. Other questions required judiciousness to answer, and about them the expert class had almost nothing useful to say, so fixated were they on the president’s unworthiness…

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  63. Whembly wrote:
    The only reason Chief Justice had to preside over the Senate trial was to avoid conflict of interests of the impeached president’s VP. In this case, Trump isn’t “the President” now, so there’s no conflict. As such, Senate pro tempore is more than suffice to preside over the trial.

    Why wouldn’t Vice President Emhoff preside? There is no conflict of interest for her.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:54 pm

    If Harris wants to, in this scenario, yes she can preside as she’s the President of the Senate. If she cannot, then it’s the Senate pro tempore, which is Durbin.

    The Senate pro tempore is Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. “Since 1890, the most senior U.S. senator in the majority party has generally been chosen to be president pro tempore and holds the office continuously until the election of another. This tradition has been observed without interruption since 1949.”

    Also, “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside…” Since Trump is a former President, the presiding officer is the Senate pro tempore.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  64. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-worst-virus-failure-11611356844

    Which brings us to the irony of Mr. Trump. Few presidents, with his taste for nonconformity, were better selected by nature to lean against the wall of stupid that politics necessitates in such moments. Failing to do so was his missed opportunity.

    I finally heard an intelligent public service announcement about masks on a local college station the other day. It ran for several minutes, worked through the permutations, and concluded that masks are likely to afford meaningful protection when both you and the infected spreader are wearing them, are interacting for fewer than 15 minutes, and are staying significantly more than 6 feet apart.

    This was realistic advice of the sort that usually leads to good results. Our results have not been good. Demonstrably, the story since last spring has been one of increasing mask usage and declining social distancing (i.e., Mr. Trump was irrelevant). The upshot was a giant surge that only now is starting to recede because of the vaccine and natural herd immunity…

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/regenerons-antibody-miracle-for-covid-19-11611270897

    Three weeks ago my wife and I were toasting the New Year and giving blessings for the last…Then the coughing began.

    After a long day at work, I went to bed early and kept waking up with a hacking cough. I rose the next morning feeling dizzy and achy with a cold sweat. I called my doctor, who got right to the point: “You probably have Covid; that’s the only thing getting through masks these days.”

    Since I had a fever, I went directly to NYU Hospital’s emergency Covid ward. Although it was overcrowded, an unexpected calm prevailed. Several of the nurses and aides told me they’d already had Covid. Others had been vaccinated. More important, they said, they now have powerful weapons to use against the virus.

    The weapon that interested me most was the antibody cocktail by Regeneron that has emerged from this crisis as a giant-killer. Once my test came back positive, I asked the nurses whether I could get the casirivimab and imdevimab drugs that night. They said it’s only given the day after you’re diagnosed. I also learned that despite Operation Warp Speed’s remarkable achievements in bringing drugs like this to the market quickly, there were still regulatory barriers to its distribution that seemed needlessly bureaucratic.

    By the time I returned home, my wife was also developing symptoms. Fortunately my doctor had been working behind the scenes trying to find a place where Regeneron’s drugs could be administered quickly. We received our infusions over the following two days. That’s when the “miracles” began.

    In short order my wife and I started feeling remarkably better. Two days after the infusions, our symptoms were gone. We’re three weeks past the infusions now, and we seem fully recovered.

    So why in the middle of a Covid surge is it so difficult to get remarkable drugs when indications are that there is an excess of supply? Until the vaccines are universally available, the antibody cocktails are as close as we’re going to come to a silver bullet for slaying the Covid monster.

    Last week the Trump administration agreed to a $2.6 billion purchase for 1.25 million new doses from Regeneron. If the Biden administration wants to make its mark on the pandemic, something more than repeating simplistic bromides like mask mandates, it should double down on that contract. Experts like former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb say fortifying supplies of the antibody serums, as well as deregulating their distribution and setting up infusion centers in hospitals, should be a top national priority. My wife and I heartily agree.

    But all anybody wants to talk about is vaccines. Or vaccines and masks.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  65. I think we have to be careful with our language about “stealing an election”. If members of Congress voted to cancel millions of popular votes in multiple states on 1/6, then we’re Constitutionally screwed because the 12th Amendment says thus…
    But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.
    Because Trump won a higher number of states, he could conceivably be reelected within the framework of the Constitution. It would feel like a “steal” but is legally in-bounds.
    Any resultant uprising from this “steal” would be just as illegal as the MAGA attack on 1/6. It wouldn’t be immoral, IMO, because we became less democratic and more fascist in this dirty power grab, but nevertheless illegal. Even though it would be monumentally unfair, we would lower ourselves to the level of MAGA terrorists if there were an insurrection, so I oppose it.

    Paul,

    Just because there are processes that can be abused does not automatically make abuse of those processes legal. It is conceivable that Trump could run in 2024, lose the election but win Congress, and have Congress engage in a trumped-up vote citing non-existent fraud as their basis. The fact that documents allow that, to me, is like saying because a document entitles a judge to make a decision about whether to grant bail to a suspected attempted murder, the judge can grant bail because he dislikes the victim and hopes the defendant finishes the job.

    I think an armed revolt in the hypothetical I cite is not only dissimilar in every moral and legal sense from the Capitol insurrection, but would actually be an appropriate act by the citizenry — no less than removing Putin by force would be an appropriate act.

    Convince me I’m wrong.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  66. The might of the Nazis in pushing their propaganda and their education made it right for millions of German citizens to expose and turn in the Jews, and it was only the greater might of the Allies which changed that.

    Dana in Kentucky, it has been clear for some time that you lack a moral compass, and this comment cements it for anyone who previously doubted it. You don’t have the slightest idea what “right” actually is. You frankly frighten me. I think I will moderate you while I figure out what to do with you. I can’t allow this kind of thing on my site.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  67. @47
    I’ve been saying for months that the Far left didn’t like or support Biden. I’ll take this as more evidence I’m right.
    Time123 (b0628d) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:26 pm

    I don’t think so.

    The bevy of EOs signed so far by Biden were advocated by the far left too.

    The sh!tf!t by the left responding to McConnell’s gambit to protect the filibuster is telling.

    I think the far left wants big progressive policies forced through and they’re not sure Biden is willing to fight for them. I think what they’ll see, is Biden doing (or trying) whatever the Democratic party as a whole wants, which is being dominated by the progressive left these days.

    Joe Manchin and Kristen Seinema are in the minority outside of the prevailing progressive wing and how long will they hold out against the full weight of their party?

    whembly (63cfde) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:42 pm

    I think the far left wants big progressive policies forced through and they’re not sure Biden is willing to fight for them. –This part is entirely consist with them not liking Biden or supporting his vision for what we should do.

    Democratic party as a whole wants, which is being dominated by the progressive left these days. If the Democratic party as a whole was so progressive left why didn’t Bernie get more votes? I maintain that the answer is that the party has a wasn’t as far left as you think.

    The bevy of EOs signed so far by Biden were advocated by the far left too.

    True, the worst (IMO) were actually continuations of the Trump orders.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  68. @63 Yup, Leahy. I stand corrected, thanks!

    whembly (63cfde)

  69. Mr Montagu wrote:

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/25/2021 @ 10:44 am
    So, uh, might makes right? How Putinesque.

    Yes, might most certainly does make right, and has throughout history. The might of the white settlers extended us across this continent, and made our conquest right. The might of the union made the conquest of the Confederacy right. The might of the colonists made right in our revolution.

    The might of Christian soldiers made the defeat and destruction of the Norse mythology right.

    Had der Führer been a little bit smarter, a little bit saner, and waited until he had finished off the British before he invaded the USSR, the history of Europe would have been written far differently, and his might would have made a very different right.

    Might has always made right, because the winners determine how history will be written. The might of the Nazis in pushing their propaganda and their education made it right for millions of German citizens to expose and turn in the Jews, and it was only the greater might of the Allies which changed that.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/25/2021 @ 12:46 pm

    Dana in Ky, You’re not using the word ‘right’ in any way i can understand. Don’t really know what to say other then when your philosophy leads you to conclude that one of the greatest tragedies in history is right you might need to re-think your philosophy.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  70. “Fight for Trump”: Video Evidence of Incitement at the Capitol

    How direct is the connection between what President Donald Trump communicated to his supporters and their actions in laying siege to the U.S. Capitol? Videos recorded by many individuals over the course of the day provide some answers. A portion of these videos have not been seen widely before, including video footage largely from the platform Parler showing how the crowd reacted in real time to some of the most potent lines in Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. The videos, along with other information in the public record, provide strong evidence of a causal link between Trump’s messages to his supporters and their dangerous, illegal conduct. The collection of videos, viewed chronologically, also shows the ways in which Trump placed the life of Vice President Mike Pence, among others, in grave danger.

    What’s revealed by these videos is not only relevant to the impeachment trial of Trump, where the House has charged that Trump “willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged—and foreseeably resulted—in lawless action at the Capitol.” The video evidence may also be relevant to an investigation by the Attorney General of the District of Columbia for potential incitement to riot. And it may be relevant down the road to other federal prosecutors. Ultimately, the greatest relevance of these videos will be how parts of the public understands the events of the day, and how history records it.
    ……
    Paul Butler (@LawProfButler), former federal prosecutor with the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice:

    The video contains strong evidence that Trump did incite the insurrection, regardless of whether that was his intent. The rioter’s words “we were invited here” were exactly right, and the refrain “fight for Trump” was directly responsive to Trump’s demand. In criminal law, we would say this video proves the act but perhaps not the mental state – that Trump intended to cause the insurrection or knew it would happen as a result of his words.

    It would be difficult to convict Trump in a criminal court because of the high level of proof required but the standard for impeachment is different. The circumstantial evidence, including Trump’s bellicose words, his reported glee at the invasion of the Capitol, and his failure to immediately speak out against the violence, and his ultimate stunningly weak admonition to the insurrectionists to “go home” should persuade most Senators that he was either intentional or extremely reckless. ……..

    Stuart M. Gerson, former Acting Attorney General of the United States, Assistant Attorney General, and Assistant United States Attorney:

    Unable effectively to lead a country beset with a pandemic and critical challenges from foreign adversaries, Donald Trump gave criminal aid and comfort to a mindless minority whose aim was to overthrow its constitutional government and replace it with an autocracy alien to the republic our founders gave us……

    Elie Honig (@eliehonig), former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, former Director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice:

    The House impeachment managers should consider rolling this tape as their final exhibit at the trial. It shows, clearly and viscerally, how President Trump’s words in fact incited the insurrectionist mob — particularly when taken in combination with Trump’s own tweet, after the riot, praising the mob as “great patriots” who should “remember this day forever.”

    Harry Litman (@harrylitman), former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General:

    From a legal standpoint, a prosecutor in a case charging Trump with seditious conspiracy would play this tape in an opening, and then say, “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, the evidence will show that the insurrectionists came to Washington that day because they believed the President had called them there to do their patriotic duty; once there, the President worked them into a demented rage, telling them they had to fight like hell, and that he would be there with them at the Capitol. They went with blood in their eyes screaming ‘Fight for Trump!,’ threatening the lives of Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, and proceeded to storm and lay waste to the Capitol, the sanctum of our democracy, all while President Trump viewed the bedlam with delight from his safe perch back at the White House……..

    …….
    Jennifer Rodgers (@JenGRodgers), former Deputy Chief Appellate Attorney of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York:

    The evidence in this video strengthens the case against President Trump for inciting an insurrection by showing the direct line from Trump’s statements to the violent actions of the insurrectionists. The juxtaposition of statements makes clear that the insurrectionists came to Washington at Trump’s behest, they chanted the (baseless) slogans he taught them, they explicitly targeted the enemies he identified for them (most notably Vice President Mike Pence), and they followed his instructions to the letter to “be strong” and “fight” like a “boxer” by marching to the Capitol and delivering the message he fed them — which was no less than that the elections results Congress was in the process of certifying should be thrown out. Put up against the timeline of Trump’s actions that day, including that he waited hours after the violence began to say anything at all, and even then did not condemn what was happening, a compelling case can be made that not only did the insurrectionists believe that what they were doing what Trump wanted, but that it actually was what Trump intended. …….

    ………

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  71. Rather than the Democrats looking for insurrectionists, it would be President Trump looking for the evil ones who tried to deny him power.

    Absent an objective reality to measure things by. Had they succeeded through armed force, hanging Pelosi, Schumer, Romney and all who defied them, they still would have had to deal with \over a 100 million pissed off people, 17 newly seceded states, 100s of thousands of armed rebels and the resignation of most of the government. Not to mention the disdain of the entire world. Except Russia.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  72. Rather than the Democrats looking for insurrectionists, it would be President Trump looking for the evil ones who tried to deny him power.

    He would have been sworn in by Judge Moore, assuming someone in the Secret Service didn’t do his duty.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  73. As a fellow Kentuckian, let me defend The Dana’s point…sort of. He’s not wrong with how history is written immediately after, the problem comes a later when you look at the right that the might made, i.e. making the sausage. The Nazi’s right was facilitated by their might creating one of the greatest, I’d say the greatest, tragedies, black spots, shame, in the history of man. The evil, nope temporally concentrated EVIL, of the Reich is a rock solid fact. All of them, and their defenders, deserve to burn in hell for eternity, then do it all again in a new reality.

    So I’m assuming that he just assumed that everyone realized that latter bit when referencing the might makes right part. I’d suggest spelling it out though,specifically, that he knows the difference while in moderation.

    Slavery…evil. Genocide by anyone on anyone…evil. No might makes those right.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0)

  74. @time@67 I think we need to be careful in saying “this is a far left policy” or “this is a far right policy” just because someone on the far left or the far right might like that policy. There are many policies that are supported by a wide swath of voters.

    Lets say, for example, that car registration fees go up. Now, depending on circumstances and the state of the roads, etc, the far right might support a reduction in car registration fees, but so might the mainstream right, the moderate right, the moderate, and the moderate left. maybe even the mainstream left. Is a reduction in car registration fees a far right issue? Not really.

    Is temporarily restricting new fracking licenses on federal land a far left issue? Well, the far left almost certainly approves to a certain extent, but they are undoubtedly unsatisfied that it isn’t a full and long-term restriction, including the cancellation of current contracts, and they would probably prefer even tighter regulations on fracking, so it isn’t really a far left issue. Is it more mainstream left? I suspect that the mainstream portion of the left would prefer a moratorium on new fracking contracts on federal land being long-term. A short term moratorium is in order to study the issue is probably moderate fading into mainstream left but also fading into true moderate preferred policy.

    If we look at Trump’s policies, they also are not purely far right, even though there are a lot of people out there screaming that everything he touched is fascism.

    Nic (896fdf)

  75. I definitely don’t want a nickel to go to anyone who entered the capitol. They should get free room and board for ten years though.

    Reaganomics, Dustin:

    It would be cheaper to just send ’em $2000– and send ’em home. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  76. It would be cheaper to just send ’em $2000– and send ’em home. 😉

    If only it worked that way. Just give a beggar his $20 and that’s the end of it, he gets his lunch and applies for some jobs, you never see him beg again.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  77. @73. Watch this: it’s a fascinating PBS doc from 1989.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPJlwXhLv0Y

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  78. If only it worked that way.

    Except it does.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  79. I think an armed revolt in the hypothetical I cite is not only dissimilar in every moral and legal sense from the Capitol insurrection, but would actually be an appropriate act by the citizenry — no less than removing Putin by force would be an appropriate act.

    I want to agree with you, Patterico, and don’t take this wrong, but I think it’s an excuse to say that, because the other side “abused” the Constitution (despite still abiding by it), you’re therefore justified to insurrect. I agree morally that their tack is wrong (especially for objecting to and canceling millions of votes based on a lie) but can’t agree legally.
    It’s akin to saying that you’re swearing to defend and uphold only the parts of the Constitution that you like but not that inconvenient language in the 12th Amendment. The Electoral College is itself a representative vote and not as democratic as a straight national election, so the Constitution already has quirks in it that make it about the states. The “each state having one vote” in the 12th Amendment is a similar representative vote, though less reflective of the will of the people than the Electoral College, but is still a representative vote in a representative republic.
    And I’m saying this a non-fan of the 12th Amendment; there’s got to be another better way, but it’s the law that we have.
    The hardline Trumpists who’ve read and cited the 12th Amendment language know that that’s how Trump could’ve still prevailed, and it wasn’t lost on douchebags like Cruz and Hawley. I’m sure that’s why Hawley said on January 4th, “That depends on what happens on Wednesday.” My concern is we would be rightfully accused of hypocrisy, for condemning an unlawful storming of the Capitol incited by Trump but approving an unlawful storming of the Capitol if Cruz-Hawley get their way. I’d rather be on the right side both morally and legally.
    I also think that comparing a free nation to an authoritarian state is not apt, just like there’s no comparison in bravery between the MAGA protesters and the Navalny kind. The poor Russians have no recourse with their government, but we do with ours.
    I don’t know if I’ll convince you or not, probably not, just saying my piece.

    Paul Montagu (77c694)

  80. @79 Paul… I agree with everything you posted there.

    Isn’t the crux of this conversation is this? What’s the appropriate action (or non-action) to send the message that this isn’t acceptable?

    whembly (63cfde)

  81. Except it does.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/25/2021 @ 2:19 pm

    I always learn a lot when discussing the issues with you. I really like the ‘no, it is so!’ and ‘but you’re wrong.’ arguments.

    But you’re forgetting something. Your argument is that if people got checks they wouldn’t just demand more checks. They did get checks twice already. They need jobs, not checks. No checks for traitors.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  82. Reaganomics, Dustin:

    🔩⚾

    Dustin (4237e0)

  83. Is that screw ball? Dumbbell ball?

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0)

  84. The way I read Dana’s post he says it was “right” for Germans to abuse Jews in the same way that it was “right” for children in Stalin’s Russia to turn in their parents for saying the “wrong” thing.

    The regime asserts what is right, it is taught without exception, and in many cases that is what people believe. And it remained “right” until force of arms overturned the regime.

    I did not take it as a moral perspective, but a legal and/or cultural one, inside the given state.

    Today, many American children are taught things that I consider wrong, even immoral. They however believe them to be “right.” Then they go vote and the people they elect assert the same things. If you asked Americans 100 years ago if it was “right” for the government to demand everyone have health insurance, they would have said either “You’re crazy!” or “What is health insurance?”

    Are income taxes “right” or even moral? The US government says they are and will put people in prison for not paying them.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  85. Is that screw ball? Dumbbell ball?

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/25/2021 @ 2:38 pm

    I was going for screw ball. I have limited emomji’s to work with so give me a break!

    Dustin (4237e0)

  86. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

    The Constitution is silent on how the states come to that vote, but in the interim every state has chosen to let the People choose the electors. They have laws, procedures and bureaucracies set up to implement these elections. The People have clear expectations how all this will work.

    If the state comes along and says “No, we don’t agree, let us choose the electors ourselves”, pointing at the 12th Amendment as their empowerment, I very much doubt that the federal courts would allow that to happen, after the fact. By passing the laws and paying the staffs, they have abandoned the right to unilaterally choose electors, at least for that election.

    Maybe they could recover that through legislation going forward, but they would be subject to some political resistance from the people they were disenfranchising.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  87. @81. The path to jobs is emergency Covid aid through the dark tunnel, vaccine ASAP and walking out ino the light of a reopened the economy, Dustin. Dying in the tunnel is not a good strategy.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  88. How about dumb as a 🛍️ of 🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  89. Right-Wing Activist Banned From Airline for Not Wearing Mask Is Charged in Capitol Riots
    ……
    Brandon Straka, 43, has been charged with several crimes, including impeding a law enforcement officer during civil disorder and engaging in disorderly conduct with the intent to disturb a hearing before Congress, for his role in the Jan. 6 siege.
    …….
    In June, Straka also made national headlines after he was banned from American Airlines for refusing to wear a mask on a flight to Dallas amid the coronavirus pandemic.

    In a criminal complaint unsealed Monday, prosecutors state Straka posted several photos and videos during and after the riots. The court documents say investigators were clued into Straka’s involvement when a tipster indicated he had posted a video on Twitter on Jan. 6 in which the activist shouted, “Go, Go!” near the entrance of the Capitol.

    “Also—be embarrassed & hide if you need to- but I was there. It was not Antifa at the Capitol. It was freedom-loving Patriots who were DESPERATE to fight for the final hope of our Republic because literally, nobody cares about them. Everyone else can denounce them. I will not,” Straka also wrote in a Jan. 6 tweet.
    …….
    “Patriots at the Capitol – HOLD. THE. LINE!!!!” he wrote in one Jan. 6 tweet. In another, Straka added that he “arrived at the Capitol a few hours ago as Patriots were storming from all sides. I was quite close to entering myself as police began tear-gassing us from the door.”

    “I’m completely confused. For 6-8 weeks everybody on the right has been saying ‘1776!’ & that if congress moves forward it will mean a revolution! So congress moves forward. Patriots storm the Capitol—now everybody is virtual signaling their embarrassment that this happened,” Straka wrote in another post.
    …….
    In the eight-minute video taken on Jan. 6, a Capitol Police officer is seen holding a protective shield as he tries to stop a crowd of rioters. As individuals push past the officer to break into the Capitol, Straka is heard yelling, “Take it away from him” and “Take the shield!”

    Several people in the crowd then grab the officer’s shield as Straka continues to yell: “Take it! Take it!”
    ………
    By their tweets ye shall know them.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  90. They need jobs, not checks.

    Which will the Democrats do? They cancelled Keystone XL.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  91. Most of those guys sacking the capitol could make it a month without any food. They would probably live longer with a little fasting in the diet. No more Nacho Cheese Fountains for Q Anon traitors. Make America Grate Again.

    We do need to get past COVID to get more jobs. I’d argue Biden’s decisions so far show he’s not that serious about energy jobs either. But we also need stability.

    I say, get the NSA to give Parler free servers and go ahead and make some labor camps so we can make iPhones domestically.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  92. Which will the Democrats do? They cancelled Keystone XL.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 3:04 pm

    Yeah they suck. Give me something better than Biden and I assure you I’ll vote for it.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  93. Dustin, we can have the National Firewall block all those bad sites like Parler. Oh, wait, we just need to ask Amazon. “Hey, Jeff, nice little monopoly you’ve got there; be terrible if anything were to happen to it. On another subject, boy do we hate Parler.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  94. I wonder about Roberts not presiding over the trial. Could it be he thinks the trial of a former President is constitutionally suspect, and doesn’t want to lend it credence? The conflicts of interest are wider than just the VP.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  95. I wonder about Roberts not presiding over the trial. Could it be he thinks the trial of a former President is constitutionally suspect, and doesn’t want to lend it credence?

    No. See post 38; the Chief Justice only presides over impeachments of “the President,” not an former President.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  96. Along the same thematic line as Kevin M. circa post #88, and yet a couple days late, here is a really weird idea from the land of Appalled. For the record, i like Chief Noc-A-Homa.

    urbanleftbehind (f01a5f)

  97. To many here keep forgetting 74 million voted for trump. They did not vote for never trumpers. The 80 million who voted for biden 95% of them are to the left of never trumper republicans.

    asset (4eb011)

  98. “Tomorrow I will be sending him [President Plagiarist] a letter!” – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy 7:05 PM EST, 1/25/21

    And Nancy wants to keep the NG at the Capitol until March; on your dime. You wonder why Congress was stormed? They’ve learned nothing.

    “Oh. That one hurt.” – Ernie Capadino [Jon Lovitz] ‘A League Of Their Own’ 1992

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  99. 88.How about dumb as a 🛍️ of 🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨

    Shorter: Reaganomics.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  100. To many here keep forgetting 74 million voted for trump. They did not vote for never trumpers.

    Losers though

    Dustin (4237e0)

  101. I’m pretty sure that anyone in the “Never Trump” car was on the Biden train. Hence, 80M.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0)

  102. The fact that documents allow that, to me, is like saying because a document entitles a judge to make a decision about whether to grant bail to a suspected attempted murder, the judge can grant bail because he dislikes the victim and hopes the defendant finishes the job.

    If the judge has the authority to make the ruling, what makes it illegitimate is that he exercised it in bad faith. Overturning it would presumably require an appellate panel to find the bad faith. Congress has the constitutional power to overthrow an election in the manner the insurrectionists wanted. The questions are, what would de-legitimate that action, and who, if anyone, is authorized to make that finding.

    Second question first: maybe nobody. I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised if it’s justiciable. In which case, there’s no possibility of closure as to whether the action taken is legally proper. Was it really the constitutional design that whether a congressional overthrow of an election is proper is exclusively a political question to be determined at the ballot box, assuming the next Congress allows that election to stand, and so on? If so, that seems like a pretty major design flaw.

    As for whether overthrowing the electoral college result is morally culpable, that’s a harder question than I’d like it to be. If the Trumpists who voted to overturn the election knew there was no election-determinative fraud — as I strongly suspect most did — than their actions were obviously immoral, seditious, and had they succeeded, worthy of popular revolt. But what if they honestly, albeit delusionally, believed there was a massive fraud that determined the election result? Exercising their power in that instance is obviously a cataclysmic disaster of historic proportions, but is it a moral atrocity justifying counter-revolution? Again, it seems to me the problem is structural. The framers provided a method for batsh1t crazy representatives to overthrow a free and fair election. Does that imply an invitation to violently remove the imbeciles from office? I don’t know.

    lurker (59504c)

  103. No. See post 38; the Chief Justice only presides over impeachments of “the President,” not an former President.

    1) Trump was not the former president when he was impeached, so this is a trial of a President.

    2) The Constitution is silent about trials of any “former” official. I’d guess that the mayor of Los Angeles could preside.

    3) If Roberts needed an out, without showing his hand, that would be a good one.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  104. 92.Which will the Democrats do? They cancelled Keystone XL. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 3:04 pm Yeah they suck. Give me something better than Biden and I assure you I’ll vote for it.

    Doubt you’re so assured; you had one: Trump did not have any plans to cancel Keystone XL. And Parsing President Plagiarist has, indeed, stopped fracking on Federal lands as “well”…

    You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  105. 1) Trump was not the former president when he was impeached, so this is a trial of a President.
    That may be, but he is a former President now.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  106. @5 I agree, Paul. The question posed is worthy of serious thought — and has made this “someone” reassess being shocked.

    Chris (3d25b0)

  107. 1) Trump was not the former president when he was impeached, so this is a trial of a President.
    That may be, but he is a former President now.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/25/2021 @ 5:32 pm

    As Dana from KY might appreciate, all that matters is how the Senate reads the constitution. The Court will not interfere with this kind of thing. The GOP will find an excuse no matter what. This is such a serious crime, and it was something we all saw Trump do, but there will be some formality that the GOP’s loyalists rely on, inevitably.

    You bought him; you own him.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/25/2021 @ 5:15 pm

    Nah, what we own is democracy. Trump opposed the peaceful transition of power, relying on his white supremacist nutcases and haters of many other stripes. Biden is the price of keeping the country. I don’t think you’ll find many who regret voting for Biden.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  108. I’m pretty sure that anyone in the “Never Trump” car was on the Biden train. Hence, 80M.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/25/2021 @ 5:05 pm

    Ah yes, the winners.

    It’s another day when Donald Trump is not the President because he is the loser.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  109. Unless he is convicted, which he will not be because the current so-called Republican Party’s moral fiber is of the same consistency as the surface of the Hudson River which is to say scum, this impeachment has as much legal significance as the play Julius Caesar in Central Park with Julius Caesar dressed up as Trump. Never mind political question, there will be no case or controversy.

    If he is convicted and disqualified, however, it will be justiciable. For example, if his pension is cut off or his petition for candidacy is denied (or approved and his opponent sues). Those are not political questions, they are pains and penalties forfeitures and disabilities imposed on a citizen of the United States.

    nk (1d9030)

  110. Nah, what we own is democracy.

    Political party strength in U.S. states – Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength…

    On December 17, 2020, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republican, and 41% as Independent.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  111. @109. ‘Unless he is convicted, which he will not be because the current so-called Republican Party’s moral fiber is of the same consistency as the surface of the Hudson River which is to say scum, this impeachment has as much legal significance as the play Julius Caesar in Central Park with Julius Caesar dressed up as Trump. Never mind political question, there will be no case or controversy.’

    Might wanna check with Frank Drebin, nk 😉

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1o2Em_Ona8

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  112. 84. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 2:49 pm

    he regime asserts what is right, it is taught without exception, and in many cases that is what people believe. And it remained “right” until force of arms overturned the regime.

    The one thing about that is that the Nazi regime wasn;’t around long enough to affect the beliefs of adults. Some very young SS members in 1944=5 had no compunctions about killing anyone but that’s as far it got. There were people who had no concept pf right and wrong independent of legality or custom but that pre-dated the Nazis. They did not hate Jews – they just did not oppose murder. They believed in pure science.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  113. @93. More likely, ‘the stupidity of this political theatre is beneath me and I have work to do.’

    Roberts is the only genuine, sane adult in Washington, D.C.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  114. I’ll be frank: the comment from Dana in Kentucky shocked me. I have not seen a good explanation of it in his moderated comments. It seems historically out of character but more in character with recent comments of his. I need a forthright and unequivocal repudiation and retraction of any suggestion that the Nazis were “right” (did I seriously just have to write that??) before I can get over my shock. I’d like to think he didn’t mean that but it sure looked like what he said and that makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t think he realizes how it comes across but maybe he does. In which case, my God.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  115. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 2:49 pm

    I think it’s a little more than that. Many people currently believe abortion is morally right. The concept of “right” is very flexible. This is especially true once you’ve embraced secularism, materialism, marxism, etc.

    It’s expected now to have a strong reaction against nazis. But that’s based on years of conditioning. If we took a person today and found their equivalent in 1930’s Germany, and especially after the war started, they’d have been a nazi, i.e. if you’d have existed then chances are you’d have been a nazi. This is more a statement about human nature than about anyone specifically. The few exceptions would be any of the various targets of nazi oppression.

    It’s easy to cite the worst nazi atrocities, say the nazis were evil, and pretended that same evil doesn’t exist in all people. How many people care that the iPhone they have was made with slave labor? Mention nazis to those same people without condemning them completely and watch the virtue signal get turned to 11.

    frosty (f27e97)

  116. Patterico (115b1f) — 1/25/2021 @ 8:43 pm

    I read it as “thought they were right” or “claimed they were right” and also that if they’d have won there’d be very few people around saying they were wrong. I’m not sure why you’re choosing to interpret the comment as pro-nazi as opposed to a simple pragmatic statement.

    They certainly didn’t say “we know this is morally wrong but we’re doing it anyway”. They basically created their own religion for the express purpose of supporting their claim.

    To Dana’s other point; the only thing that stopped them was might and, for all practical purposes, that’s the only thing that lets us sit around now saying they were evil. They weren’t stopped by the mystical fairies of moral superiority.

    frosty (f27e97)

  117. \

    if you’d have existed then chances are you’d have been a nazi.

    Nah. It’s easy to imagine everyone’s a joiner and fooled by the day, but a lot of people aren’t. Hitler was powerful, but needed fascism to keep his power. Trump could only hope to keep power with similar abuses, and could not lead a free people for long. A lot of people have revealed themselves as Cruzes or Cheneys.

    Mention nazis to those same people without condemning them completely and watch the virtue signal get turned to 11.

    frosty (f27e97) — 1/25/2021 @ 8:51 pm

    If you want to defend Dana 2 you should just do it directly.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  118. Oh, we cross posted and you did do it directly. that’s more coherent at least.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  119. Patterico, I think that folks who stay in their own ideological areas, and believe that folks who disagree with them are cosmically wrong, become more and more extreme.

    I think the posts are attempts to defend situational ethics. Old fashioned as it may be, I think some things are beyond the pale. But the real question is how the poster “got there.”

    Simon Jester (a5de65)

  120. Dustin (4237e0) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:10 pm

    Hitler was powerful, but needed fascism to keep his power.

    I’m not sure sure why anyone thinks it works this way. Hitler wasn’t a magician. He didn’t have some supernatural power. Fascism wasn’t a magic spell. Pretending that nazis were a result of Hitler doesn’t explain every other time something like this happened, i.e. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Armenian genocide, Rwandan genocide, etc.

    frosty (f27e97)

  121. Some very young SS members in 1944=5 had no compunctions about killing anyone but that’s as far it got

    The Nazi regime was around for 12 years, and the Nazi movement for another 5 or so. See “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” from Cabaret, set in 1931, to see the effect it was having on the youth.

    Similarly is the children singing on the train in Michael Radford’s movie of 1984

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  122. It’s expected now to have a strong reaction against nazis. But that’s based on years of conditioning. If we took a person today and found their equivalent in 1930’s Germany

    1930’s America would have been bad enough. Attitudes towards Jews weren’t very good, we had Jim Crow pretty much as a national institution, and when war came we rounded up the Japanese.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  123. Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
    Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
    — John Harrington

    Dana in Kentucky chose an unfortunate example, and with John Brown, Nat Turner, and Abraham Lincoln right at his fingertips for a better one, too.

    nk (1d9030)

  124. if they’d have won there’d be very few people around saying they were wrong.

    A point make in “The Man in the High Castle”, especially where the American Fuhrer’s kid turns himself into the eugenics authorities when he is diagnosed with a genetic defect. It was the “right” thing to do.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  125. The one I like to use is Dr Carl Weiss.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  126. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:34 pm

    I need to track this story down so that I can make sure it’s true, and reference it correctly, but for a more actual factual version of something like this I’ve heard of the accounts of the German police sent to occupied Poland. When asked why they participated in the massacre of men and women they said it wasn’t much of a choice. They had all sorts of excuses that we can debate today. They said if they didn’t someone else would and after they refused they and their families would be punished. Possibly executed for treason. But the interesting part is when they were asked why they killed children they said it was the humane thing to do. After killing their parents there was no one to take care of them and they’d just starve anyway.

    I think that’s evil and I’m also glad I can sit here and say that instead of being there and having to say that.

    frosty (f27e97)

  127. @122. Actually, they were around longer than that. Watch this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPJlwXhLv0Y

    It’s from 1989 and a fascinating perspective; certainly not a justification but given the context of the times w/o the benefit of hindsight, it reveals some of how the seduction was easier to pull off. More interesting, you’ll hear echoes of ‘familiar phrases heard over the past four years- [remember, this was produced in 1989.]

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  128. @118. Dustin, you know what the difference is between Trump’s use of Twitter and Hitler’s use of the Volksempfänger?

    Nothing.

    I’m likely one of the few on this forum who has actually met a genuine real world, big league Nazi -one who broke bread w/ol’Adolf himself. The smart ones were- and are- a sinisterly smooth, seductively expedient lot. The common rabble- the lesser Viking-horned, podium and mail stealing Einsteins noted up thread– not so much.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  129. Hitler = Mao. Ask the left how they treat modern day China. Ask the Uighurs how China treats them.

    All Dana was saying was winners write history. Except when the losers come into power. Then they write history and change the past.

    Does anyone think the majority felt Dred Scott was unconstitutional when it was passed? What about Korematsu? What about Roe?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  130. Earlier I posted 74 million voted for trump. Most of these are hard trump voters as liz cheney will soon find out. Biden’s 80 million voters are a lot of soft votes. Many voted against trump. Not many voted enthusiastically for a senile old fool biden. During the 2020 primary the d.n.c in its efforts to stop bernie sanders maneuvered the other moderate establishment candidates out of joe biden’s way so their would be enough votes to stop sanders, keeping warren in the race as long as possible to siphon votes away from bernie sanders. Trump supporters are now the overwhelming dominating force in the republican party. Other groups are now rinos who are still in the republican party. From donor class to secret never trumpers they make up a small minority. Populist republican party get used to it. On mark levin’s radio show the donor class is running ads saying never trumpers should be welcome in the republican party pointing out mark levin only came on board the trump clown car after ted cruz lost to trump and the talk show host didn’t want to lose his listeners.

    asset (d6c9b1)

  131. I was going to quote Man in the High Castle. Thank you for beating me to it Kevin.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  132. All Dana was saying was winners write history. Except when the losers come into power.

    Yeah, when the Mets win, they erase all that Yankee history in the stat books. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  133. Re: Dana’s might makes right comment

    I fully support Patterico’s decision to moderate Dana in Kentucky because we need Dana’s explanation for his thinking. His phrasing is shocking, which might have been the point, but requires a careful denouement to drive home a finer point.

    I agree with Kevin’s charitable take as well because I detected the same thing in Dana’s comment, BUT, that is OUR thinking, and may not be Dana in Kentucky’s thinking. I was attempting to make a similar shocking statement ages ago in order to drive home my point, which required my listener to ask the same question; “so might makes it right?”

    My answer was, “NO! Might makes it possible!

    Cain’s might made his attempt to murder Able possible, not right.

    felipe (630e0b)

  134. felipe (630e0b) — 1/26/2021 @ 2:59 am

    His phrasing is shocking, which might have been the point, but requires a careful denouement to drive home a finer point.

    Yes, we need to carefully discipline our speech. Suggesting that some people are not sentient beings of human worth entitled to human motives, human action, and human treatment but are instead a festering bacterial culture should require a careful denouncement if there is a finer point.

    I fully support Patterico’s decision to moderate Dana in Kentucky because we need Dana’s explanation for his thinking.

    Now that it’s been moderated we can’t really get that though can we?

    frosty (f27e97)

  135. “Might has always made right, because the winners determine how history will be written.”

    The threat of violence or reprisal did create a sort of normalcy that would cause ordinary Germans to turn in their Jewish neighbors for deportation and eventual extermination. But it’s strained to call that situation objectively “right”…..primarily because it’s built on demonstrably ignorant assumptions….the same with slavery….the same with eugenics….the same with genocides. One might counter, “well what about Hiroshima…and western expansion through Native Indian territories…our involvement in Viet Nam….heck even Iraq under W?” I would only reply that we learn from each of these situations…and debate them vigorously and struggle with interpreting the evidence in a free society…and don’t just blithely call them “right”.

    Trump worrisomely praised dictators for getting what they wanted through tyranny and threat of violence…..which made many wonder what he was implying….and who he was trying to appeal to. He also did nothing while rioters were pressing his false stolen election narrative at the Capitol. There was nothing “right” about the rioter’s actions because they couldn’t prove that the election was in fact stolen. Yes, somehow they could have created a “new reality” by potentially delaying the transition of power….but “right” requires some sense of objective justice…..and that is what is missing from Dana’s comments….

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  136. If the state comes along and says “No, we don’t agree, let us choose the electors ourselves”, pointing at the 12th Amendment as their empowerment, I very much doubt that the federal courts would allow that to happen, after the fact. By passing the laws and paying the staffs, they have abandoned the right to unilaterally choose electors, at least for that election.

    I agree, Kevin, because Article II Section 1 should take precedence over a joint session rule about dealing with objections, a rule that is open abuse by corrupt Senators with ill intent. I checked, and there’s nothing in the 12th Amendment about objectors.
    Now that we’re six days into a new administration, we can look back a little and say that the good news is that our Constitution underwent a stress test and it came through pretty well. We had a president who spent two months, pulling out all stops, trying to steal an election, and he failed. Our Constitutional process held up.

    Paul Montagu (0186ae)

  137. I can’t help but wonder if, along with his little sailor suits, Trump’s mom also filled his head with stories about Bonnie Prince Charlie:

    During the ’45 Jacobite Uprising, Clan MacLeod’s main branch supported the British Government. Clan MacLeod of Raasay, however, were strong Jacobite sympathisers who fought for the House of Stuart at the Battle of Culloden and helped to hide and transport the exiled Prince to safety.

    😉

    nk (1d9030)

  138. A lot of people have said that the Electoral Vote Count Act of 1887 is unconstitutional, for the reasons you stated, Paul.

    nk (1d9030)

  139. Gah, I forgot about the Electoral Count Act. Thanks for the gentle reminder.

    Paul Montagu (0186ae)

  140. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:34 pm

    I need to track this story down so that I can make sure it’s true, and reference it correctly, but for a more actual factual version of something like this I’ve heard of the accounts of the German police sent to occupied Poland. When asked why they participated in the massacre of men and women they said it wasn’t much of a choice. They had all sorts of excuses that we can debate today. They said if they didn’t someone else would and after they refused they and their families would be punished. Possibly executed for treason. But the interesting part is when they were asked why they killed children they said it was the humane thing to do. After killing their parents there was no one to take care of them and they’d just starve anyway.

    I think that’s evil and I’m also glad I can sit here and say that instead of being there and having to say that.

    frosty (f27e97) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:49 pm

    Your point that all people are capable of evil is a good one. But it’s not what he wrote and i can’t see how to twist his comment around to get there. He also didn’t say that what we perceive as right is a result of how those in power chose to record events. .

    He might have meant one of those things but it’s not what he wrote.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  141. Back at you for the correction that it’s the Electoral Vote Count Act. 😉

    nk (1d9030)

  142. A lot of Nazis at Nuremberg said they were only following orders, as have a lot of the January 6 invaders that have been arrested. But did any of them (the Nazis, I mean) have their moms tell the judges that they could only eat organic food or they would get sick?

    nk (1d9030)

  143. -> a violent attempt to change the declared results of an election?

    How exactly were they going to change the results?

    Steal the results and replace with a new sheet of results?

    BillPasadena (5b0401)

  144. AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 1/26/2021 @ 5:48 am

    But it’s strained to call that situation objectively “right”…..primarily because it’s built on demonstrably ignorant assumptions

    It wouldn’t be strained. It would be incorrect and it’s not necessary to rely on faulty assumptions. The nazis didn’t make an actual claim to be objectively right because they rejected any sort of objective framework. This is the underlying foundation of the Übermensch philosophy. Their pseudo-logic and pseudo-science didn’t get them back on any objective foundation.

    but “right” requires some sense of objective justice

    You’ve dropped the qualifier you originally had. If you add it back the tautology becomes clear.

    frosty (f27e97)

  145. Lebensraum. Elbow room. Less hypocritical than Manifest Destiny, honestly, but then hypocrisy requires a sense of right and wrong (and that one is doing wrong) to begin with. The Nazis lacked the grace to even be hypocrites.

    nk (1d9030)

  146. Seems like this thread is having some problems with the term “right”. So let’s try this:

    1. What is actually indeed “right” in a given situation is immutable. It doesn’t change. There may be an infinite variety of “right” moves, but what is and isn’t right, in the eyes of God, does not change.

    2. We humans have an imperfect concept of right, and that is easily changed and influenced by power, circumstances, and our desires.

    Might does not make right. It does change the way we see things.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  147. Mention nazis to those same people without condemning them completely and watch the virtue signal get turned to 11.

    What a nasty and stupid comment, frosty, given that the comment I am responding to went a little further than failing to condemn Nazis but rather actually said that the might of the Nazis “made it right for millions of German citizens to expose and turn in the Jews.”

    Are you able to distinguish between a failure to condemn something completely and calling it “right”?

    It’s not the same fucking thing, frosty, and it does not reflect well on you to pretend that it is.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  148. Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:09 am

    He might have meant one of those things but it’s not what he wrote.

    True. I could also say he might have meant one of those things but that’s not how you interpreted it. Which is basically what I did say.

    Your point that all people are capable of evil is a good one. But it’s not what he wrote and i can’t see how to twist his comment around to get there.

    That’s because I wasn’t trying to twist the original comment around to say that. The comment you are referencing is the result of Kevin M and I drifting away from the original topic.

    frosty (f27e97)

  149. Appalled,

    Precisely so. And what I need from Dana is a frank and unequivocal acknowledgment that in the eyes of God, turning in Jews was absolutely evil, and some kind of apology or retraction for writing a comment that said turning in Jews to the Nazis was “right” in any sense of the word. I honestly can’t believe I am having to write this and I deeply resent frosty making it sound like I am being politically correct for objecting to a characterization of cooperating with Nazis as “right” behavior. JFC.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  150. frosty (f27e97) — 1/25/2021 @ 9:05 pm

    if they’d have won there’d be very few people around saying they were wrong.

    Hitler wanted to abolish the very concept of right and wrong. (because, if not, people would hate him after his death)

    Opposition to murder he called bourgeous sentimentality.

    They certainly didn’t say “we know this is morally wrong but we’re doing it anyway”. They basically created their own religion for the express purpose of supporting their claim.

    It wasn’t so much their own religion, as abolishing religion’s claim to guide anyone’s conduct in life. Religion was OK, so long as it was only ritual.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  151. Dana needs to come to grips with the fact that what he actually wrote is monstrous. If he didn’t mean it — if he actually meant something different— he needs to say so clearly or he is done here. I don’t know how to say it more clearly.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  152. FiveThirtyEight has a long, detailed post on the causes for the assault on the Capitol.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-radicalized-republic/

    The reasons for the fervor on 1/6 are complicated, but the radicalization of politics has been fomenting for over four decades. Trump just bought it to a boil. However, the anger and resentment in the body politic is not going away just because Trump is out of office. He has a lot of money in his PAC funds to continue to sow derision and dissent.

    Watch the video posted above by Rip Murdock and look at the MAGA mob defending their actions. They’re saying things like “my president invited me,” “I’m doing my patriotic duty,” “1776! We’re to protect our freedom and defend our country.” These people don’t have a clue.

    The American Revolution wasn’t really a “revolution” per se. In 1776, the colonists did not declare war on Britain. They simply listed their complaints against the Crown–the main one being not about taxation without representation, but about general warrants issued by the Crown, which allowed British soldiers and spies to search and seize any property or person without justification (that’s what really pissed off the colonists)–and declared their independence. The British then invaded to squash the unruly colonists. Paul Revere’s rally cry was not “The British are coming!” Because most of the colonists were British. It was “The Redcoats are coming!” So this was actually a defensive war.

    Even though Britain had the most powerful military and naval force in the world, it was stupid of the Redcoats to invade the colonies. The country boys knew the terrain, how to hide in the woods with camouflage, and most of them were excellent marksmen. They could shoot a British soldier in the head from 500 yards away, just as easily as they could shoot a squirrel on a tree, with a musket mind you. The British marched in lockstep military formation, and their red coats made them easy targets.

    There are atrocities committed in every war. Civilian deaths (collateral damage it’s called), houses and entire towns razed and burned to the ground, farms and ranches raided, etc.. The British committed many of these atrocities during the Revolutionary (Defensive) War, but they lost. They tried again in 1812, which was the last time the Capitol was ransacked and burned to the ground, but they lost that invasive war as well.

    The American Civil War is another story. More books have been written about that war than any other in all of history. It wasn’t fought over freeing the slaves. Lincoln himself was a racist; his letters prove he thought of Africans as sub-humans. And the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederate states, not in the Union states, and there were slaves in the Union states. They were not freed until the passage and ratification of the 13th amendment, which Lincoln had nothing to do with, as he was dead.

    There were multiple causes for the Civil War, the main one being that northern industrial states were imposing tariffs on goods from southern agricultural states. So the South seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy, as was their right under the Constitution. I’m not about to defend plantation slavery, but this was a war fought more over economics than human rights. It was a horrible war, the deadliest and most destructive in US history. And the effects still linger, as FiveThirtyEight illustrates.

    All of this talk of WW II misses the point. Weimer Germany was under severe sanctions and punishments by the rest of Europe after WW I. Economic ruin, hyper-inflation, 1000%; it cost less to decorate your walls with deutsche marks than with wall paper. It’s this type of environment that allows a Hitler to rise. He told the people what they wanted to hear, that they were the superior race, the uber-mensch. At least he could write his own book and give inspiring speeches to a nation.

    Hitler was not a fascist or a communist–he was a national socialist. That’s what NAZI stands for. He drove the Germans into insanity, waged war, set up concentration camps, and killed hundreds of millions of people.

    Trump can only have a wet dream he could accomplish something like that. He stoked division, derision, and political assault for years. 2000 was a tragic year. Millions of infected, hundreds of thousand deaths, economic loss, banks and businesses closed, millions out of work; these are the conditions that create violent unrest. Which is what happened, under Trump, who urged it on.

    Call it an insurrection, call it a failed coup attempt; call it whatever you want, but was it a revolution? No, it was not.

    It was a mad crowd whipped into a violet frenzy by a failed president. Do we have a system in place at the state and federal levels? Yes. Was it a free and fair election? Yes. The results were confirmed, by the states. And we’re supposed to upend our democracy because Trump didn’t like the results?

    I don’t think so. He is a loser, and the results confirmed it. But he has his MAGA mob storm the Capitol, wreak havoc, resulting in several deaths and multiple injuries, the vandalization and destruction of Capitol grounds?

    These fissures have been developing in our body politic for a very long time. Only now have they come to a head. The question is, what are we going to do moving forward?

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  153. I think that’s evil and I’m also glad I can sit here and say that instead of being there and having to say that.

    There is always a choice. They may all be bad, but there is a choice.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  154. Earlier I posted 74 million voted for trump. Most of these are hard trump voters

    I doubt it’s “most” in the sense that they only voted, or voted GOP, because Trump was the candidate. But what makes you say they voted for TRUMP and not for the platform that Trump espoused? Would they have voted for TRUMP if he had been for something wildly different, like AOC’s platform? I doubt it.

    The point I’m making is that another candidate that brought the same general platform will attract the same voters, and maybe this time the candidate will be better at getting things enacted.

    I know you won’t admit it, but Trump was incredibly poor at governing. He talked the talk, and maybe walked the walk, but he could not get government to walk with him. And without that, he accomplished very little.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  155. BTW, both Biden and Trump are lying when they claim that the 20% increase in voting over 2016 was due to them. It was more due to states making it incredibly easy to vote, and engaging in voter outreach in a way never done before.

    Had Trump embraced absentee voting, allowing his voters to have a whole month to get around to casting a vote, like Biden’s folks had, he would have won easily. But he engaged in the most remarkable own-voter suppression campaign, asking his voters to wait until election day. Some of them had other things to do. He lost WI, AZ, GA and PA by a total of 125,000 votes. Win any 3 of those states and he wins. Just about anything tilting Trump’s way would have done it.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  156. Question: In which state did Trump get the most popular votes?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  157. Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:09 am

    He might have meant one of those things but it’s not what he wrote.

    True. I could also say he might have meant one of those things but that’s not how you interpreted it. Which is basically what I did say.

    Yes, might most certainly does make right, and has throughout history. The might of the white settlers extended us across this continent, and made our conquest right. The might of the union made the conquest of the Confederacy right. The might of the colonists made right in our revolution.

    The might of Christian soldiers made the defeat and destruction of the Norse mythology right.

    Had der Führer been a little bit smarter, a little bit saner, and waited until he had finished off the British before he invaded the USSR, the history of Europe would have been written far differently, and his might would have made a very different right.

    Might has always made right, because the winners determine how history will be written. The might of the Nazis in pushing their propaganda and their education made it right for millions of German citizens to expose and turn in the Jews, and it was only the greater might of the Allies which changed that.

    I can’t see how my interpretation isn’t fully supported by his comment. His comment is clear statement that might makes right followed by examples of historical acts with an explanation that the winner was right because they won.

    Your point that all people are capable of evil is a good one. But it’s not what he wrote and i can’t see how to twist his comment around to get there.

    That’s because I wasn’t trying to twist the original comment around to say that. The comment you are referencing is the result of Kevin M and I drifting away from the original topic.

    frosty (f27e97) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:43 am

    Sorry I misunderstood the context.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  158. Gawain, Great post. But this is just silly.

    They could shoot a British soldier in the head from 500 yards away, just as easily as they could shoot a squirrel on a tree, with a musket mind you.

    A trained solider was expected to fire three rounds a minute in massed volleys. Most muskets were lethal up to about 175 yards, but was only “accurate” to about 100 yards, with tactics dictating volleys be fired at 25 to 50 yards.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  159. Patterico (115b1f) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:42 am

    Are you able to distinguish between a failure to condemn something completely and calling it “right”?

    I gave my interpretation of the original comment. I did not interpret it as saying it was right in the sense you mean. I thought I gave a reasonable explanation for why I was making the distinction.

    It’s not the same … thing, frosty, and it does not reflect well on you to pretend that it is.

    I’m not pretending it is.

    frosty (f27e97)

  160. Steal the results and replace with a new sheet of results?

    Pretty much.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  161. The American Civil War is another story. More books have been written about that war than any other in all of history. It wasn’t fought over freeing the slaves.

    At the core of every conflict between north and south, was the institution of slavery. The economic differences, the structure of society, the personal goals of each individual — all were based on being in a slave state or a free one.

    But the actual split, when it came, was clearly over the election of Lincoln and his attitudes towards slavery. There is quite a bit of history in the 20 years leading up to that, with the continuing crisis of the legality of slavery in territories won in the Mexican War.

    Yes, there were economic differences, such as the tariff, but those differences were completely due to the reliance of the agrarian south on enslaved laborers, and the desire of the north to industrialize and have an educated work force.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  162. The American Civil War is another story. More books have been written about that war than any other in all of history. It wasn’t fought over freeing the slaves. Lincoln himself was a racist; his letters prove he thought of Africans as sub-humans. And the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederate states, not in the Union states, and there were slaves in the Union states. They were not freed until the passage and ratification of the 13th amendment, which Lincoln had nothing to do with, as he was dead

    .

    Most of this is wrong or irrelevant. I will note that saying that Lincoln had “nothing to do” with passage of the 13th Amendment is particularly egregious (hiding behind the point that ratification didn’t happen until after he was assassinated by a white supremacist angry that blacks might get the vote is clever but also stupid)

    The Civil War was fought because the South could not stand the idea of losing political power to advance expand slavery. There’s really no other reason inhabiting the mind

    Victor (4959fb)

  163. On the subject of “right” and “wrong” and condemning past atrocities…

    I used to own a house in Southern California. It was on land once the property of the Chumash people. This land was stolen from them and they were wiped out over time by various European groups.

    Was it “right” for me to own that house, or was I complicit in a long line of genocidal abuses, committed before my time. I think that I was OK in this, as neither I nor any decendent had any part in the slaughter, but I am pretty sure that there are some who would disagree.

    I am not even sure that I would condemn the result of those actions, although I would condemn the methods. Right and wrong can be complicated; rarely is it so clear as in the case of the Shoah or human slavery (and even the latter was practiced for all but the last 150 years of human existence).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  164. That got printed by accident. It was supposed to end

    The Civil War was fought because the South could not stand the idea of losing political power to advance, expand and protect slavery. There’s really no other reasons inhabiting the minds of Southern Secessionists.

    Victor (4959fb)

  165. Seems like this thread is having some problems with the term “right”. So let’s try this:

    1. What is actually indeed “right” in a given situation is immutable. It doesn’t change. There may be an infinite variety of “right” moves, but what is and isn’t right, in the eyes of God, does not change.

    2. We humans have an imperfect concept of right, and that is easily changed and influenced by power, circumstances, and our desires.

    Might does not make right. It does change the way we see things.

    Appalled (1a17de) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:40 am

    Abortion is murder. It’s an absolute wrong. Doesn’t mean people don’t twist their minds to make it “right.”

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  166. Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/26/2021 @ 8:14 am

    It’s possible we’re having a fundamental misunderstanding of the “might makes right” argument. The context of this statement, in my view at least, is that it never means “right” in an objectively moral sense. This isn’t a phrase that exists in a vacuum. You can’t hang any interpretation on it you want. The phrase exists to represent the fallacy of moral claims founded on force.

    For reference, there are two common understandings of the phrase. Neither carries the moral implication you’re trying to apply.

    I can’t ask Dana to elaborate on the comment so I can only work from my interpretation. Absent more evidence I’d be reluctant to assume someone was using it in the opposite way it’s normally used.

    frosty (f27e97)

  167. Might doesn’t make “right”, but it does make law. Sometimes that law comes from a democratic majority, but that is still “might.” One of the reasons that Law and Justice are not the same thing.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  168. Oregon Republican Party falsely calls U.S. Capitol riot a ‘false flag’ meant to ‘discredit President Trump’
    …….
    In Oregon, the state Republican Party isn’t just backing former president Donald Trump — its official position falsely claims that the entire episode was a “false flag” operation staged to discredit the GOP and silence Trump’s supporters.

    Last week, the state party released a resolution passed by its executive committee that says the supposedly fake operation was meant to undermine Trump and give more power to President Biden, citing websites by John Solomon and the Trump-friendly Epoch Times.

    “The violence at the Capitol was a ‘false flag’ operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters, and all conservative Republicans; this provided the sham motivation to impeach President Trump in order to advance the Democratic goal of seizing total power,” the resolution says.
    …….
    The Jan. 19 resolution, which the Oregonian reported was approved by party officials …… compares GOP lawmakers who voted for impeachment to Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold.

    “The ten Republican House members, by voting to impeach Trump, repeated history by conspiring to surrender our nation to Leftist forces seeking to establish dictatorship void of all cherished freedoms and liberties,” the resolution says.

    Without elaboration, the group also incorrectly claims there is “growing evidence” the riot at the U.S. Capitol was a ‘false flag’ operation, meaning an event undertaken by one group that is disguised as another…….

    The Oregon state GOP also compared the Capitol riot to the burning of the German Reichstag in February 1933 — a flash point that allowed Adolf Hitler to seize on the fears of German citizens to consolidate power. Hitler was able to pass emergency legislation that, he claimed, was required to keep the country safe — which included suspending freedom of speech, assembly and press.
    …….
    Oregon Republican Party Chairman Bill Currier in a news release also falsely claimed that the protesters on Jan. 6 were “peaceful” and that “Democrats and their enablers are trying to falsely assign blame” to them for the riot at the Capitol.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  169. Gawain’s Ghost (b25cd1) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:53 am

    They were not freed until the passage and ratification of the 13th amendment, which Lincoln had nothing to do with, as he was dead.

    The 13th amendment was sent to the states on February 1, 1865, and Lincoln had a lot to do that. Steven Spielberg even made a movie about it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(film)

    Plot

    In January 1865, United States President Abraham Lincoln expects the Civil War to end soon, with the defeat of the Confederate States. He is concerned that his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation may be discarded by the courts after the war and that the proposed Thirteenth Amendment will be defeated by the returning slave states. He feels it imperative to pass the amendment beforehand, to remove any possibility that freed slaves might be re-enslaved.

    The Radical Republicans fear the amendment will be defeated by some who wish to delay its passage; support from Republicans in the border states is not yet assured. The amendment also requires the support of several Democratic congressmen to pass. With dozens of Democrats being lame ducks after losing their re-election campaigns in the fall of 1864, some of Lincoln’s advisors believe he should wait for a new Republican-heavy Congress. Lincoln remains adamant about having the amendment in place before the war is concluded and the southern states are re-admitted….

    Goofs in the movie (these would tend to be photographic or minor goofs, as they are easer to specify

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272

    You could, perhaps, argue that Lincoln’s motive was to preserve legality rather than freeing the slaves per se.

    There were multiple causes for the Civil War, the main one being that northern industrial states were imposing tariffs on goods from southern agricultural states.

    The main one was that slavery and its defenders were held in extreme disrepute, but no southern politician could take a different position, and as a result no southern politician could aspire to any federal public office that required northern votes. So some southern politicians decided to create their own separate country, and created an atmosphere in which it was no more possible for one of them to dispute the merits of secession than it had been possible for some twenty five years or so to dispute the merits of slavery.

    All of this talk of WW II misses the point. Weimer Germany was under severe sanctions and punishments by the rest of Europe after WW I. Economic ruin, hyper-inflation, 1000%; it cost less to decorate your walls with deutsche marks than with wall paper.

    The reason for the hyperinflation was not, in fact, reparations. It is that speculators, such as Hugo Stinnes, were borrowing German marks and selling them on foreign exchange markets. A similar thing happened with other currencies. (only certain people were in a position to borrow huge sums of marks, though.)

    The payments anyway were pretty much abolished by 1930.

    He told the people what they wanted to hear, that they were the superior race, the uber-mensch.

    It wasn’t that and it wasn’t they he argued Germany was unfairly blamed for the war. It was that he told them “you can be great again” as somebody once told me several decades ago I think.

    The Germans never thought they were wrong to start a war in 1914. Right and wrong just weren’t a factor.

    Yes, I think it is possible that somebody was supplying Donald Trump with double entndre slogans which Trump didn’t understand.

    Hitler was not a fascist or a communist–he was a national socialist.

    The word “Fuehrer” is the German translation of “duce”

    He drove the Germans into insanity, waged war, set up concentration camps, and killed hundreds of millions of people.

    About 50 million people, which was around 2% of the world’s population then. Hundreds of millions would have been above 10% It didn’t reach that level.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  170. Oh, come on, Rip! We all know that’s not the Oregon Republican Party who is saying that. It’s Antifa pretending to be the Republican Oregon Party.

    nk (1d9030)

  171. @171-
    LOL!

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  172. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/26/2021 @ 8:57 am

    Oregon Republican Party Chairman Bill Currier in a news release also falsely claimed that the protesters on Jan. 6 were “peaceful” and that “Democrats and their enablers are trying to falsely assign blame” to them for the riot at the Capitol.

    Well, about 8,000 people assembled at the Capitol, and even more when you count the people who went only to the Ellipse. There were several layers of protection, but the number who went into the building was around 1,000.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  173. Patterico (115b1f) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:46 am

    I deeply resent frosty making it sound like I am being politically correct for objecting to a characterization of cooperating with Nazis as “right” behavior.

    If it helps, that wasn’t the intent. The intent was to point out the more general inconsistencies that keep coming up in modern examples especially related to China. A more specific example would be the inconsistency between the treatment of @18 and @52.

    frosty (f27e97)

  174. Well, Time123, I read about this British general who was giving orders to his troops, the Bang! his head was blown off. The shot came from a colonist hiding in the woods 500 yards away. It scared the Redcoats more than anything, because they were up against country boys hiding in the woods. Maybe it was a lucky shot, because 500 yards with a musket is almost impossible, but it happened.
    The point being is that you don’t go up against American country boys with a formalized British army. Those country boys will take you out from afar.

    What is happening now is the result of decades of misinformation. This MAGA mob who assaulted the Capitol were disillusioned. Call it an insurrection, call it sedition, call it whatever you want. You cannot call it anything other the mob violence. It’s still wrong.

    We are at a perilous point in our democracy. There is no going back. Too many factions are arguing one party over another. This has got to end.

    We either reform as a people or we do not. And if we do not, then all hell breaks lose.

    That is what is going on here.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  175. Nazi analogies are almost always bad analogies. See also Godwin’s Law.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  176. A more specific example would be the inconsistency between the treatment of @18 and @52.

    If Trumpkins wanted the exclusive right to “othering”, they should have patented it. I have nothing but contempt and derision for Trump and his supporters and it extends to denial of fellowship in the human race, human thought, and human sensibilities. They’re a mindless mob mindlessly following a soulless conman. No respect for them, or soup either.

    I am also aware of the Alinsky Rule about forcing the enemy to follow his own book of rules, as well as your own tactics here, frosty.

    However, I will pay heed to Time123’s reaction to “schnitzel-slurpers”. That’s a different Alinsky Rule: When a tactic drags on too long it becomes a drag, not to mention that a good tactic is one that’s fun for your people. I don’t want people to recoil, I want them to laugh.

    nk (1d9030)

  177. The Natty Bumppo myth. Mark Twain had a lot of debunking it, which I thought was kind of mean and also showed a lack of professional courtesy to a fellow writer.

    nk (1d9030)

  178. had a lot of *fun* debunking it

    nk (1d9030)

  179. Nikki Haley On Insurrection And Impeaching Trump: Come On, Give The Man A Break
    I want to offer my sincere congratulations this morning to Trump and his supporters on having almost completely broken the “reasonable” wing of this collapsing party. There are still a few pockets of resistance led by Liz Cheney but MAGA’s just mopping them up at this point. Once Cheney and the pro-impeachment House Republicans are successfully primaried in 2022, the anti-Trump guerrillas will have been overrun and exterminated. Well, except for Romney and Murkowski. But at the end of any war there are always a few soldiers left alive on the losing side.
    …….
    Which brings us to this creature, the nominal establishment favorite for the GOP nomination in 2024. If anyone should be expected to take a firm moral stance against a two-month coup attempt punctuated by an attack on Congress, you’d expect the great centrist hope to do it. All she has to say for herself here, though, is that Trump’s behavior was “not great” and that we should “give the man a break” regardless, which has to be the single lamest soundbite about uttered by any politician since January 6. At least Senate Republicans have farted out some BS jurisdictional excuse to justify voting against conviction. Haley’s actually going so far as to make Trump the victim in all this.
    ……..

    Acyn Torabi
    @Acyn
    Nikki Haley: I don’t even think there’s a basis for impeachment… Now they’re going to turn around and bring about impeachment yet they say they’re for unity… I mean at some point I mean give the man a break. I mean move on…

    She wants to be president someday and now here she is surrendering unconditionally to MAGA, making clear that she’ll say anything to improve her chances. Her capitulation looks all the more servile considering that she criticized Trump more pointedly on January 7…..
    …….
    Maybe she’s saying one thing to party apparatchiks like RNC attendees and another to Fox-watching Republican voters. Or, more likely, she misjudged how much of a backlash there’d be to Trump’s behavior on the right in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack. On January 7 it looked like there might be some momentum for convicting him. By January 25, that momentum had all but totally dissipated. Haley reworked her message accordingly.

    She stands for nothing except her own ambition and now everyone knows it, in case there was any doubt. Another spectacular victory by Trump and MAGA. I’m genuinely impressed.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  180. nk (1d9030) — 1/26/2021 @ 9:38 am

    I don’t have any problems with your comments and I’m not trying to get you moderated. I’m not the comment police and I’d rather that sort of stuff be out in the open.

    But the inconsistencies are interesting.

    frosty (f27e97)

  181. Sigh. Patterico will never need to moderate me. All he ever needs to say is “nk, go and be a douche somewhere else.”

    As for my fellow commenters, I should hope that they all know by now that I am never afraid to apologize, admit that I’m wrong, and thank the person who corrected me. Well … maybe all.

    nk (1d9030)

  182. NK Wrote

    I am also aware of the Alinsky Rule about forcing the enemy to follow his own book of rules.

    The Alinsky rule about forcing your political opponent to follow their own rules isn’t really what we seem to be talking about so much on line.

    From Alinsky 4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.

    He wasn’t talking about intellectual consistency. He was talking about overwhelming systems by increasing demands for resources beyond what had been planned. Sort of a DOS attack before computers could automate it.

    What people usually seem to mean now days is either intellectual consistency or the application of rules in unintended ways. For instance treating a person who made a joke that referenced hanging VP Pence the same as you would a person who sincerely advocated hanging VP Pence.

    The 2 problems I see are; First that everyone just fights, often dishonestly, about what the rule actually is and Second that people react as if their can’t be any sort of balancing test of context to the rule.

    Combine the two together and you get a lot of pointless accusations of hypocrisy and avoidance in discussing the actual issue.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  183. Twitter bans MyPillow CEO
    ……
    A spokesperson for Twitter said, “This account was suspended for repeated violations of our civic integrity policy.” Twitter confirmed late Monday that the ban on the entrepreneur from Minnesota is a permanent one.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  184. Twitter bans MyPillow CEO
    ……
    A spokesperson for Twitter said, “This account was suspended for repeated violations of our civic integrity policy.” Twitter confirmed late Monday that the ban on the entrepreneur from Minnesota is a permanent one.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/26/2021 @ 11:02 am

    Stupid decision.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  185. “She wants to be president someday and now here she is surrendering unconditionally to MAGA”

    I suspect she is playing to her Fox News audience, but it brings up the most troubling aspect of this whole impeachment process…that Republicans are not leading this effort. Removal wasn’t especially likely given the short window and the minimal expectation for due process. But banning from future office is all about how the GOP wants to be viewed over this decade….as the Party of Trump or something decidedly better. All of these equivocations are missing that Trump wanted one last opportunity to drag down the GOP along with him. Cruz and Hawley were played masterfully….joining in on a conspiracy narrative which will be difficult for them to ever explain in a nation-wide election. But here is an opportunity to say “this is not who we are and there is no defense for his actions and inactions” and there is hardly a peep….just questions of procedure and tedious equivocations. It all comes back…I think….to fear of right-wing media…and fear of being painted NeverTrump and disloyal. The GOP is hostage to its microphone to the base….and that microphone is Trump to the end…..

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  186. Trump worrisomely praised dictators for getting what they wanted through tyranny and threat of violence…..which made many wonder what he was implying….and who he was trying to appeal to.

    Thing is, the jungle he operated in, the Manhattan skyline, is loaded w/monuments to “…dictators for getting what they wanted through tyranny and threat of violence…” Big business, corporations and such are authoritarian by structure and design and definitely not democracies. Hence his shine to dictatorial methods isn’t all that surprising. Everybody he knew and worked with essentially was a $ucce$$ful one. It’s the world he operated in. Reaganomics. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  187. Suggesting that some people are not sentient beings of human worth entitled to human motives, human action, and human treatment but are instead a festering bacterial culture…frosty (f27e97) — 1/26/2021 @ 5:48 am
    It is unfortunate that you would think this way, when I clearly suggested nothing of the sort. Those thoughts do you no credit.

    Now that it’s been moderated we can’t really get that though can we?
    frosty (f27e97) — 1/26/2021 @ 5:48 am

    When you’re right, frosty, you’re right. And when Dana in Kentucky is no longer moderated, I will look forward to his explanation.

    felipe (630e0b)

  188. Patterico (115b1f) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:46 am

    what I need from Dana is a frank and unequivocal acknowledgment that in the eyes of God

    Not to nitpick but I’d be careful with this. I certainly believe it’s evil and I like to think God agrees. But there’s an important difference between believing that and claiming to know the mind of God.

    frosty (f27e97)

  189. felipe (630e0b) — 1/26/2021 @ 11:54 am

    That comment wasn’t directed at you and they weren’t my thoughts. It was directed at @18.

    frosty (f27e97)

  190. #190

    frosty, you do have a gift for saying things that cause me to spew my drink on the keyboard.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  191. Patterico (115b1f) — 1/26/2021 @ 7:46 am

    what I need from Dana is a frank and unequivocal acknowledgment that in the eyes of God

    Not to nitpick but I’d be careful with this. I certainly believe it’s evil and I like to think God agrees. But there’s an important difference between believing that and claiming to know the mind of God.

    frosty (f27e97) — 1/26/2021 @ 12:09 pm

    Good to warn against hubris and knowing the mind of god. But what religion are you assuming where the holocaust is a risky call???

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  192. @188. No surprise; they can’t control ‘them’ externally.

    But watch for these same ‘corporations’ to find executive excuses to quietly purge the more overtly vocal employees among the 74-plus million from with.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  193. Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/26/2021 @ 12:20 pm

    I’m not assuming any where the holocaust is a risky call. There’s nothing in my comment that suggests that.

    I am assuming any that recognizes Deut 5:11. More specifically, any that would agree with

    In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained the second commandment: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all. . . . Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.” Jesus teaches that every oath involves a reference to God and that God’s presence and his truth must be honored in all speech. Discretion in calling upon God is allied with a respectful awareness of his presence, which all our assertions either witness to or mock.

    Again, you do you. I’m not telling anyone what they should do. I’m simply saying how I’d ask/answer the question.

    frosty (f27e97)

  194. Since frosty did not share the source, I will.

    http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P7J.HTM

    It is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as it addresses the taking of the Lord’s name in vain.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  195. frosty (f27e97) — 1/26/2021 @ 12:10 pm

    Roger that, maybe I’ll change my handle to “the easily confused felipe.” You are still right.

    felipe (630e0b)

  196. > We are at a perilous point in our democracy. There is no going back. Too many factions are arguing one party over another. This has got to end.

    > We either reform as a people or we do not. And if we do not, then all hell breaks lose.

    We are not going to. The Republic will fall within a decade.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  197. aphrael (4c4719) — 1/26/2021 @ 2:22 pm

    We are not going to. The Republic will fall within a decade.

    This depends on various definitions of fall. I’d say it already has in the sense that the seeds of WWII were sown in WWI and the seeds for WWI were sown before Ferdinand got stuck in traffic.

    We’re at that part of the Hindenburg disaster where the fire has started but the airship is still airborne.

    frosty (f27e97)

  198. The latter [feeling left behind in the political process] is the real problem. Way too many people on both sides of the political aisle are beginning to feel marginalized from the political process.

    So the solution is to attempt to steal an election by throwing out tens of millions of legal votes on the basis of batsh*t-crazy conspiracy theories?

    And when that doesn’t work, send a mob of fascists to terrorize the legislature into submission?

    Dave (1bb933)

  199. Goya Foods moves to muzzle its Trump-supporting CEO
    ……
    The Hispanic foods giant on Friday agreed to censure (Robert) Unanue, 67, for controversial remarks in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the US Capitol building, including on Jan. 20 when he called President Biden’s election “unverified” during an appearance on Fox Business.

    The vote by a majority of Goya’s nine-member board means Unanue must now obtain board permission before making any more media appearances, sources close to the situation said.

    “Bob does not speak for Goya Foods when he speaks on TV,” Goya board member and third-generation owner Andy Unanue told The Post last week leading up to the vote. “The family has diverse views on politics, but politics is not part of our business. Our political point of views are irrelevant.”

    “I think this it is mission accomplished. Mission accomplished by the union, the partnership, the conglomerate of social media, Big Tech, big media and government, big government, for ushering in the dawn of a new world order. This great reset,” Robert Unanue said on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria” last week. “With an unverified election, and the big prize is the United States.”
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  200. I think the Founders share Patterico’s views and concerns.

    DRJ (aede82)

  201. Wrong is wrong, some people died, some people are arrested, period.

    gmail email login (97223c)

  202. 199. frosty (f27e97) — 1/26/2021 @ 2:48 pm

    in the sense that the seeds of WWII were sown in WWI and the seeds for WWI were sown before Ferdinand got stuck in traffic.

    Wpr;d War I had several opportunities to break out, which were avoided. 1914 was almost the last chance because memers of the German General Staff were leaving the scene.

    Wprld War I broke out because Germany assured Austria-Hungary that a European war would not start if they issued an ultimatum to Serbia, when exactly the opposite was the truth. The German war plan called for an invasion of France, through Belgium – and for good measure an occupation of Luxembourg when Germany mobilized, if Russia merely mobilized.

    We’re at that part of the Hindenburg disaster where the fire has started but the airship is still airborne.

    No Maybe you can say at the point when they built the Hindenburg and decided to fuel it with hydrogen and started regular travel with it.

    But the republic may not be that vulnerable. There may be any number of ways to put out the fire if one happens.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  203. 175. Gawain’s Ghost (b25cd1) — 1/26/2021 @ 9:22 am

    What is happening now is the result of decades of misinformation. This MAGA mob who assaulted the Capitol were disillusioned.

    I think “disillusioned” is the wrong word here. It doesn’t mean that they believed “disinformation”

    Maybe “misillusiomed” or the sentence needs to be rewritten.

    We are at a perilous point in our democracy. There is no going back. Too many factions are arguing one party over another. This has got to end.

    It will end by people ending it. Also people need to start telling the truth.

    Sammy Finkelman (7bb55f)

  204. Our esteemed host wrote:

    Dana needs to come to grips with the fact that what he actually wrote is monstrous. If he didn’t mean it — if he actually meant something different— he needs to say so clearly or he is done here. I don’t know how to say it more clearly.

    Our host and I have gone back and forth a bit over email, and he wrote:

    Yes, it was unclear. It was shocking to me, actually. I kept asking you to say what you just said, and you would continue on with the “might makes right” speech and ignore me.

    Could you do me a favor and go back to that thread and post something along the lines of what you said in the first sentence of your email? I have unmoderated you.

    I am relieved. Check my comments in that thread to see that I was requesting this all along.

    This is what I wrote, with a couple of typos subsequently fixed, in my most recent email to him:

    Of course the Holocaust was wrong, and would have been wrong even if the Germans had won.

    Have I really been that unclear, that no one understood what I was saying, that to the Germans, the treatment of the Jews — at least what they knew about it — was morally acceptable, because that was what they had been taught? That was the whole point of “might makes right”.

    Actually, it was more than just “to the Germans.” Many of the people in the lands the Nazis conquered were just as eager to turn in the Jews to the SS. Some was for fear of the Germans, some was for personal advantage, and some was because anti-Semitism had long been an undercurrent in Europe.

    “Don’t you say you are religious? Is “might makes right” what Christ taught?” you asked me. Parts of Matthew and Luke can easily be interpreted as blaming the Jews for the execution of Jesus, and many churchmen, Catholic priests and Protestant pastors, have taught that way, Thousands of clergymen throughout history, throughout American history, have taught that slavery was acceptable because the Bible mentions slavery and even provides rules for how slaves must be treated.

    This is the old question: would you, personally, have opposed the Nazis had you been a German in 1934? We all say that of course we would, but how can any of us know? We have been educated in late 20th/early 21st century morés, and a history which tells us what happened to the Nazis.

    But in the 1930s? The Germans already had a history of anti-Semitism, the Weimar Republic had been a miserable failure, and the result is given in that one famous photo in which everybody is giving the Nazi salute but one man, August Landmesser, and that because he was engaged to a Jewish woman. When only one among thousands is in opposition, can we realistically say that we would have been that one?

    I am not a situational ethicist, but I do recognize that different situations, different upbringings, different cultures and different times have led to different conclusions on moral questions.

    Even today, we come down on different sides of moral issues. You and I both believe that illegal immigration must be stopped, but His Holiness the Pope is very much in disagreement. I think that you and I agree on abortion, that it is morally wrong, but we very much disagree — or so I judge from your many posts on Stanley “Tookie” Williams 14 years ago — on capital punishment. Yet we are both Christians — I had thought you Catholic as well, from your Sunday posts, but you told me that I was wrong on that — coming down on completely opposite sides of the capital punishment debate. We agree on the absolute, that Jesus was the begotten Son of God, yet on some issues, certainly part of the Christian debate, we come down on opposite sides.

    Herman Wouk, in his works The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, noted that the German universities went over to Hitler “in a body.” These were the most educated Germans, yet even they were seduced by the Nazis, at least after the Nazis took power. What seems to obvious to us, in 2021, was apparently not obvious to the Germans, even the most educated among them, in the mid 1930s.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  205. Have I really been that unclear, that no one understood what I was saying, that to the Germans, the treatment of the Jews — at least what they knew about it — was morally acceptable, because that was what they had been taught? That was the whole point of “might makes right”.

    I’m glad you made this clear.

    Time123 (b4d075)


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