Yes I did.

How is that a human right? Clearly, it's a legal right - but exclusively in criminal trials.

You thought that by “human rights” I meant “the ability to run for president”. Silly.

I did actually, it was on TV. I also heard him do it on various phone calls.

Then you heard him tell rally goers to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard, something that was not cited in the Colorado decision as far as I can tell. And what you didn’t hear was him inciting anyone to insurrection.

Presumption of innocence isn't a human right. Not being jailed without guilt being proven is probably a human right. But nobody here is suggesting that we simply kidnap Trump and throw him in a pit.

It is not only a human right, it is stupid to do otherwise.

I wonder where they learned that? The whole year previously there were riots everywhere, resulting in numerous deaths and billions in dollars in damage. Entire city blocks were either burned to the ground, or even occupied by bandits, because some crook died. The media largely covered for them.

So really, who cares what the politicians say? I’m glad they were scared, especially Mitch McConnell. They could use some fear in their lives.

People tend to commit crimes before being charged and convicted, not after. That's how time works.

And some people commit crimes without being charged and convicted. See, for example, every unsolved murder in history.

The notion that Trump hasn't committed a crime because he hasn't been charged and convicted is fundamentally mistaken.

How does one know someone is guilty of a crime if he hasn’t been proven guilty, in your world? Did you see him do it? Is it a gut thing? Is it because an authority says so?

One of the human rights I was speaking about is the presumption of innocence. It doesn’t seem to ring any bells around here.

But he hasn’t even been charged for insurrection, let alone convicted. You’re saying he’s guilty of a crime he hasn’t been charged with or proven guilty of. That’s a problem you have.

It involves the evidence of offered by physics, surely, but also some other sciences as well. Given its relation to philosophy of mind, it’s also about biology and chemistry, for example.

The simplest and cleanest way to understand physicalism is as the idea that only the stuff described in physics texts is true.

That’s a weird and messy way to understand it, in my opinion. Much of physics is theoretical and abstract. Not even physicists believe they’re true.

The root word gives it away. It’s not physics or physicism or any sort of positivism. It’s physicalism. It’s much simpler and cleaner to understand it as the thesis that everything is physical.

By punished I mean disqualified from the ballot. Do you think someone should be disqualified from the ballot for a crime he has not been proven to commit?

It is not a basic human right to be on the ballot for POTUS. There are criteria spelled out in the constitution. Not having engaged in insurrection is one of those criteria.

But due process, right to a fair trial, and free speech are. And justice demands that one ought not be punished for something he didn’t do.

Sorry for the confusion but a Supreme Court interprets the constitution and law. I made the moral case that it is wrong disqualify Trump, as is obvious by the post and conversation you butted in on. Morality isn’t their expertise as far as I’m aware. Given your fidelity to good faith and reason, perhaps you could quote me in my entirety next time, because for some reason you’ve left out the reasons as to why it was wrong to disqualify Trump from the ballot, and as such, never responded to them. Appealing to authority and appealing to law doesn’t have much force on moral matters, I’m afraid.

If you wish to take another bite, I’ll reiterate. That someone has the right to do something does not entail that she is right to do it. It is immoral and unjust to punish someone for something they have not done. In doing so she has violated basic human rights.

Maine's Secretary of State was required by Maine Law to hold a hearing and make a decision on the matter. How can it be considered wrong to follow the law?

The decision was wrong.

The question of whether or not Trump engaged in insurrection was evaluated on the evidence by Colorado Courts. Their Supreme Court noted:

Their evaluation is wrong. He was both acquitted of the charge in the impeachment process and was never charged, nor convicted, under any other insurrection law. So why do you think they are correct?

So you think that both that both the party convicted and the party acquitted are liable?

I was trying to say he wasn’t liable for the same charges in the impeachment because he wasn’t convicted. The constitution explicitly said “ the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable”. Trump is not “the Party convicted”. At any rate, these are two separate arguments.

I cannot follow. That someone has the right to do something does not entail that she is right to do it. It is immoral and unjust to punish someone for something they have not done. In doing so she has violated basic human rights.

Their conclusion seems well-reasoned (supported by 45 pages of analysis, considering both sides of the question), and deserving of more weight than the sort of armchair analysis we engage in around here. If you've seen something equally well-reasoned that draws a different conclusion, please share it.

I’m not sure what you’re arguing, but he hasn’t been criminally prosecuted, let alone convicted. No one said he cannot be criminally prosecuted. That he hasn’t been criminally prosecuted, let alone convicted, and also that he has been acquitted of the charge in the impeachment process, are two points against the argument that he has engaged in insurrection. So thanks for bringing that up.

He was impeached twice, and acquitted twice. But never mind.

He was acquitted of insurrection in the impeachment process with the Chief Justice presiding.

Granting she has that right, do you think it is right or wrong to disqualify a candidate for a crime he has been acquitted of?

What if he was acquitted of insurrection? Should he still be disqualified for engaging in it, in your opinion?

Sorry, as already stated, and completely avoided and obfuscated by yourself, I don't argue to win points. That's your projection. I argue for its own sake.

Like Trump you say something then say something else to modify it. As if you did not say what you said and said something else all along. And like Trump you attempt to hide behind your words when your actions tell a different story.

Complete lies. You’re going to pretend you know what I meant more than I do, and this after you deliberately doctor my quotes to suit your little narrative.

Not only that, but removing people from the ballot is the modus operandi of the two-party duopoly. Look how the DNC railroaded Bernie or RFK Jr.

We’ve seen them use lawfare to get the greens off the ballot in different states.

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-lawsuits-voting-north-carolina-raleigh-48f1e61c1988c7083edcdc7bb1eace4a

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/19/texas-democrats-green-party-november/

Or “No Labels” candidates.

https://cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/30/politics/arizona-democrats-sue-no-labels/index.html

They did it to Ralph Nader.

https://ballotpedia.org/Ralph_Nader_v._Democratic_National_Committee

The GOP does it too, for instance with the Libertarian Party candidates.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/05/Republicans-libertarians-ballot-remove/

“Democracy” means for them the grip of the Party on the theater of power. Remember this as they invoke “Our Democracy”, because by “Our”, they don’t mean you and me, they mean them.

You approve of assasinations of other countries generals, yet you have disdain for warmongers? Is that right?

Yes, I approved of that assassination. It arguably averted war.

If you seek argument for the sake of your education and growth then you do not seek argument for the sake of argument. Except it is evident that you actually do argue for the sake of arguing. It is then evident that what you do is pointless. Round and round.

I said I seek argument for its own sake, ie, not for the sake of winning or persuasion. Arguing is an essential activity in one's philosophical upbringing. Why do you refuse to quote what I say, stopping mid sentence for whatever reason, and pretend I said something else? We know why: you're a sophist.

Yes, I seek argument for its own sake, ie, not for the sake of winning or persuasion. Arguing is an essential activity in one's philosophical upbringing.

My compulsive defense of Trump correlates well with my opposition to his enemies.

Did you approve of Trump authorizing the killing of Suleimani? Actions like that are straight out of the neocon playbook. It led to an Iranian airstrike on a U.S. air base. No soldiers were killed, but if some had been, we might have been in a shooting war.

Yes I did. The prospect of war was one of the reasons Bush refused to do it. It turns out he was wrong.

The question is: to what end? If the end is arguing for the sake of arguing, then there can be no advance, just endless argument.

It's a method. The end is one's own education and growth, which ought to be endless.

But this can be argued about Biden too. Do you listen to conservative talk radio or read conservative newspapers editorials — to say nothing of cable news, Twitter, Rumble, podcasts, etc. You’d think the fucking world is ending before of some senile figurehead in the White House. So what? Of course it’s overblown, hyperbolic, sensationalized.

Yes, the left does it too. No question. Even if one believes it’s more extreme on the left, why let that blind us to the reality that it’s tribalism all around?

No, I don’t listen to that shit, nor do I watch any television. My propaganda diet is limited to what pops up on my X feed. But I sometimes see the neocons, warmongers, and Bushites in The Atlantic warning of a Trumpian future and find I am in good company. I’m glad the grand ol party has imploded and the neocons are left without a ship to float on. But that they’ve shifted their support to Biden is quite telling, in my opinion.

There is no right or left. It's uniparty all the way down. Trump has single-handedly upset it and its glorious to watch.

That is shallow, frivolous, and unphilosophical. It is the reason why Plato reserves the practice of philosophy for those who are mature enough to approach it seriously. Argument for argument's sake is for sophists and children.

How does one advance his thinking if he refuses to subject his beliefs to the grindstone of argument? He cannot. You become a victim of orthodoxy, a state reserved for dogmatists and religious acolytes—perpetual children. In any case, my rhetoric isn't intended to persuade others or used in the furtherance of some other ploy.

Sophists also overestimated the power of words. It's a shame Plato never dispelled that myth from the get go or Socrates may not have been put to death.

This is a good example of the problem. If your intuitions are reflected in your arguments then your inability to see when and how your arguments have failed is the result of arguing for the sake of arguing. It is as if you want to play chess and think that you have not lost when checkmated because you continue to move pieces around.

Because you do not take works and arguments seriously you are not taken seriously.

I don't care if I'm taken seriously.

I just can't be bothered to care about his moral life or what comes out of his mouth. What I oppose is the moral panic created in his name. His reactionary opposition, especially of the neocon and establishment variety, have created a folk devil the likes of which we have never seen, and they're sending us directly into tyranny in order to combat it. I'm baffled by people wedding themselves to such a cabal, but so it is and here we are.

I enjoy it. I seek argument for its own sake. I get to test my intuitions against some fairly heavy criticism, and so far so good. If I wanted consensus and adulation I'd join Truth Social.

Why does it hurt so much to see a dissenting opinion?

A man was arrested early Tuesday after he broke into the Colorado Supreme Court overnight and opened fire inside the building, state police said in a news release.

The preliminary investigation “confirmed a high probability” that the incident is not connected to “recent threats against the Colorado Supreme Court Justices,” the Colorado State Patrol said.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/02/us/colorado-supreme-court-arrest/index.html

Benkei’s analysis fails the moment it is compared to reality.

I didn’t even know who he was. I just recognized his X post occupying someone else’s head. But according to his page he’s a legal analyst on MSNBC, which really isn’t known for fairness and accuracy. And his grift is anti-Trumpism, as far as I can tell. His livelihood depends on an empty head’s thirst for that sweet sweet Trump talk. According to Chomsky’s propaganda model the media employ these kinds of “experts” all the time, but given his career as a federal prosecutor it’s clear he was bred to service power and promote the official line.

Yes, these are physical in origin too. Sherlock Holmes does not reside in a separate subspace or as a separate material from matter and/or energy. It was created by the physical brain of Arthur Conan Doyle. It was then written with physical ink on physical paper. Printed by a physical machine, and read by physical eyes and brains.

The grammar is doing the heavy lifting. The grammar states that the noun represents a person, place, or thing, and apparently this is enough to conclude that this noun refers to something extant. But because they cannot find it or point to it, it must be non-physical. It’s quite a common methodology, but in the end it’s talking about words like “Sherlock Holmes”, which the last time I checked are physical.

I prefer it because “physical” is one of the few descriptions of being that is harmonious with the sensual evidence. One doesn’t even need an argument to come to accept it. Everything else is discordant and muddled.

You can literally watch the propaganda as it move from one vector to the other.

Not an original thought among them.

No offense, but my eyes just glaze over when I watch you take everything at face value and repeat it. I just lose interest. Your facts are appeals to authority. Deep down you know how obsequious it is.

I'm impressed! You are actually admitting members of the Trump cult are stupid! We've gotten through to you!

Now we get to watch in real time as they interfere so egregiously in the election that it puts a few Russian Facebook ads to shame. This steal is so brazen that it ought to make Putin blush. But they’ve only exposed themselves in the most stupid fashion. They trod all over everything they’ve claimed to hold so sacred. The Russia hoax, the Ukraine hoax, now the insurrection hoax, reveal themselves to be little more than a Potemkin village so their base can feel better about themselves as their Obergruppenführers rip apart whatever was left of their country. It’s beautiful to watch.

It all reads like an exercise in destroying oneself and leaving an abomination in its place. That’s a big nope for me.