Nope. It’s a novel legal theory with no precedent and full of holes. This is election interference, political persecution, a Biden campaign strategy, pure and simple.

Another misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations. Here we are 8-years later. This whole case is the real crime.

Yes, I've read the indictment. What's missing is the alleged other crime. There is none. Both the DOJ and the FEC examined the case and no charges were brought. So will you hazard a guess as to what the other crime may have been, federal or otherwise?

Oh no! Trump wrote down "legal fees"!

So it's even worse, a misdemeanor book-keeping error past its statute of limitations made to look like a felony in the furtherance of another crime, but there is no other crime. It just shows the absurd lengths they are willing to go to in order to further their fantasy that Trump is some big criminal, a lie they've been regurgitating to themselves for years now. They're literally making up laws and novel legal theories to take down their political opponent. That's how you flout the law.

Paine's Common Sense is worth a read if you're ever bored.

I think what you write is true. And the distinction between the two is becoming less and less apparent as government grows. Let but the State confiscate all social power, and its interests will become identical with those of society—this appears to be one of the most fundamental assumption of statism in general, whether communist or liberal or conservative. But the State's function is anti-social in both origin and function. That's why I tend to worry about schemes such as the one suggested in the OP.

Oddly enough, voting is not just limited to those who are educated. Now, it has been argued that a certain degree of education ought to be mandatory, but that would be discriminatory. So... we get the problem described by Plato, being a successful candidate is like offering candy to children.

Very true. Buying votes with promises is one means to edge out the other guy. But really the only reason people vote is for astronomical reasons, because the earth has spun on its axis 1460 times. So at least they know how to count.

As I've mentioned before, I think the prosecution's legal basis is weak, so there's a good chance of overturning it on appeal. But the coverage of the case provides a good reminder of Trump's sleazy character (irrespective of the legality).

That, I think, was the point all along: a campaign favor for Trump's opponents. What else could explain why they waited past the statute of limitations so that it could happen as close to election as possible? It's the corruption of the justice system for another smear job, not unlike the one which defrauded the American people in 2016. So now we all get to talk about the Access Hollywood tape again, which appears to be the only play they have.

But thankfully it has revealed an even sleazier element, for instance the extortion of Trump devised by Cohen and the porn star's lawyer. Given their claim to moral superiority, it rings kind of odd that the anti-Trumpists have pinned their hopes and dreams on the porn stars and perjurers and the corrupt New York justice system.

Now you're speaking my language. Thomas Paine wrote that writers tend to confound Society and Government, as if the two were one and the same, so I appreciate your distinction.

Of course you disagree. It's enough for me to know that you're now finally informed of the matter.

The group in control is always the state. There are only two classes of people worth pondering: the state and the rest of us.

You read more Fox news than I do. Have you never heard of the phrase "hatchet man"?

It surprised me too that I had to learn about the conflict of interest from the defendant in the trial. Where did you learn of it?

Even the appearance of a conflict of interest should be enough for a judge to recuse himself, preferably to a judge whose kids do not benefit from Trump's conviction.

What other state, other than anarchism, wouldn't relegate us to serfdom?

In my opinion it would be a state whose only concern is to protect natural rights and provide equal access to justice.

..... but what they all have in common is that it isn't us.

In one it could be you; in the other it couldn't.

Well, I think every system is capitalist. The only thing that differs between them is who they believe should control capital. But yes, I think any system modelled on the republican state relegates us to the status of serfs.

I was talking about the individuals in the communities you mentioned. Let them organize and live however they wish. I wasn't saying you were getting in their way; I was saying that by not getting in their way you're implementing freedom.

Nobody can 'implement' freedom. In societies where the law does not prevent association among people, freedom to change a community need only be exercised. How a community functions is up to the people who live in it.

Sure they can. It's easy. Just stop getting in their way.

That's great. Then nothing needs to be implemented but the freedom to do it.

Thanks NOS, I slept well for four days after that one. Have you ever heard of voting?

No problem, pal.

Yes, I’ve heard of voting. Isn’t that what educated people do?

I seem to recall you complaining about media propoganda, and yet here you are- regurgitating (right-wing) media propoganda.

I learned about Colangelo from the New York Times and Merchan’s daughter from a gagged Donald Trump. One place you won’t hear of it is in your little echo chamber.

This, because I've sometimes regretted not having studied Greek and Latin.

Me too. I wonder if the absence of a middle voice in English completely alters our understanding of the ancient Greek texts. I suppose it does. Would be nice to read them in the original.

I’m with you. So what is stopping us? Why don’t we just organize, find some like minded people, and implement our philosophy by living it and doing it?

I have a theory. "From the cradle to the grave" was the ambition of the British welfare state. It turns out they weren't speaking about our welfare and security, but rather the length of time citizens have to spend working for the state in order to fund its schemes. That is precisely where the socialism comes in, and it quickly resembles serfdom.

The problem is that in accepting this bargain we have given up our responsibility to members of our own community. Larger and more powerful institutions have promised to do it for us, or at least that’s the bill we’ve been sold. All we need do is give it some of the fruits of our labor and it will provide a host of services for children and those in need. But if the institution takes the earnings of n hours of our labor, it is like taking n hours from our lives because those n hours are spent providing for someone else. This is time and resources we could use toward helping those in need. So, since we have delegated our responsibilities to one another to this institution, and we toil to fund it, our efforts towards each other are already exhausted. Why would someone give resources to children if he already gives resources to the institutions that are meant to serve, educate, and protect the children?

We have three kinds of action: automatic (motions of body that do not require us to be conscious or aware) instinctive (emotional response to stimuli, over which we don't always have control, or have imperfect control) and deliberate ones that proceed from conscious thought. Most evil thoughts are not translated into action, but no evil act is performed without forethought.

If an evil person is someone who acts immorally and wickedly, they need to act immorally and wickedly, and thinking just doesn’t rise to that level as an activity or behavior. If you were to observe someone having evil thoughts versus someone having good thoughts, it would be impossible to determine which one was evil and which one good unless the performed some other act.

Or precipitate a world war in one lifetime. Or nuke 180,000 people in an hour.

What combination of words and letters could force you to push the button?

Words are not even innocent when read by impressionable youth; they're guilty as sin when written as commands and read by obedient drones.

Words are wholly innocent. The blame lies solely on those who act on them.

I don't think so. I think that to believe thoughts can be described as evil is the result of a superstition of language.

I say this because thinking is one of the least consequential and impactful activities human can engage in. If they were to store the kinetic energy produced by any of amount brain activity and release it on the world I wager it wouldn't move a feather, let alone produce any evil. Even when thoughts are reified into a phrase or book, one could observe the words for 10 lifetimes and see nothing come of it. They are completely innocent.

It is true. Not only that but it’s a made up crime that no one has ever been charged with. They have to make up crimes in order to feed their fantasy that the man is a criminal. It’s glorious. No wonder trust in these institutions is falling, and I’m all for it.

I think you’re right about that.

Education is never impartial; it often represents the beliefs and desires of the people and institutions that provide it. Church education, for instance, never forgot to instil a belief in the church and its religion.

As for public education, my opinion is that the state doesn’t want philosophers and people who can think for themselves. It wants dutiful tax-payers, soldiers, state employees, and dependents. Thus the system trains the population into a state of serf-mindedness and compliance. It teaches us to glorify the very institution that provides for their training.

Go drink your soy latte.

I laughed. A mixture of soy and political dopamine fuels the rage. One thing you won’t find is any principle.

Bragg’s current prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, previously served as acting associate attorney general in Biden’s Justice Department and also led New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil inquiry into Trump. He’s Biden’s hatchet man.

Add this to the fact that the judge’s daughter received millions from the Biden/harris campaign, is it just not possible to find someone in the justice system who is impartial, and not a Biden/obama stooge with a vested interest in Trump’s conviction?

I don’t really care about your fee-fees. So maybe we can dispense with them.

I do not hold a further fact view about identities.

I don’t care whether you’re interested or not. I note only that you have not provide any counter. Your objection, as far as it was legible, I could not understand. Maybe you can clarify.

An agent is something with the capacity to act. I’m not sure what a collection of causes and effects is, nor do I understand what bullet you want me to bite. Not a single ounce of discomfort involved here.

I’ll just reiterate the point to which you replied. So far no determinist has shown that any act or choice was determined by anything else, and until that happens I cannot follow it.

You can give me any example you like. Does anything else in the universe determine an agent’s actions? What prior causes? What causes are you speaking of that go into an agent and determine his actions?

Is there some other cause besides you that raised your arm? As I mentioned, the determinist ought to be able to say what else besides the agent caused his action. If you’re saying the agent who he was 1 second ago caused the action, then so much the better. The anterior state to the agent is still the agent.

It’s not begging the question to accept the reality of a first-person perspective with phenomenal character; it’s the foundation upon which the dispute between naive and indirect realism rests.

Their argument is over whether or not distal objects are constituents of this first-person phenomenal character.

The foundation is the biology, which can be experienced from all perspectives. But from the first-person perspective most of it remains invisible, thus what it is doing and how it works is largely inaccessible. With this in mind the notion that a first-person perspective grants special access seems incoherent.

The “what it’s like” to be so and so lacks more data than it could possibly provide. It’s more “what it seems like”. This is the reason why the foundation is forever “phenomenal”, and never actual. All that could ever be provided from that perspective is belief.

Maybe it’s relevant for indirect realists and dualists of all types, no doubt, but my relevant concern is why they’re begging the question, why they proliferate unobservables into a menagerie of ineffable terms and concepts, and why they’d eschew the 3rd-person perspective in favor of one that cannot even see his own ears, let alone what is occurring in the skull.

So you have no knowledge of qualia that you can illustrate, even though you assert that you are acquainted with qualia. That comes off as quite convenient.

But given that experience is an act involving a practical relationship between oneself and the rest of the world (and never a space located in the body with area and volume), it follows that objects are often participants of that act.

Right, you’ve gained knowledge of qualia through your non-judgemental acquaintance of it rather than by gaining knowledge of it through a description of it being so-and-so. I, on the other hand, have no acquaintance with qualia. So what, if anything, can you say of the experiential evidence you’ve gathered in regards to qualia?

Direct awareness as knowledge, as contrasted with descriptive knowledge, sure. I’m just asking if you can afford me some of that knowledge that you have derived from your acquaintance.

You’re acquainted with qualia but do not know about qualia. This troubles me. I’m just trying to figure how one can agree with the first premise.

So which is it?

Is a quale a property of experience or of mental objects?

If you are you ought be able to describe a property or two of each.

I’m just saying that you’re not acquainted with mental phenomena. We’re so unacquainted with mental phenomena that we cannot even describe one. If we were acquainted with mental phenomena this whole issue wouldn’t be such a struggle.

You treat them and speak about them like they are objects. If you are acquainted with an object it can be explained further.

You can name them.