Victim: "The Stasi spied on me."

Stasi Spokesman: "All of it was above board.”

Then why did they return the passports? Because they shouldn’t have taken them. In this case the contents wasn’t theirs to take, and they knew it. Corruption, incompetence, stupidity.

Legal or not, it just goes to show their incompetence or corruption. They were there for classified documents and walked out with personal documents. Pretty basic stupidity

No I think it was ironic and wrong to take Trump’s passports.

No, they ought not to have. They should have grabbed “All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793, 2071, or 1519”. The parenthesis “and all contents therein” is simply a way to weasel out of constitutional violations and other incompetent or corrupt moves, such as taking Trump’s passports.

You’re defending the FBI taking things they ought not to have. That’s embarrassing.

Did they raid the house for Donald Trump’s passports? The answer is “no”. There is no need to weasel for their incompetence or corruption.

I’m not sure why you’re leaving out the first sentence, but passports aren’t “physical documents with classification markings”. It doesn’t matter anyways. The 4th amendment demands that law enforcement know what they’re taking before they take it.

It’s not reasonable to take people’s passports when you’re there to seize government classified documents. The FBI ought to know what they’re taking before they take it, and if they don’t, they are either incompetent or corrupt.

Stealing documents.

The irony.

Is it better to serve the self as an individual or see the self as all things and thus serve all things/others equally as your own body/personal needs.

It is certainly worse to see the self as all things and thus serve all things/others equally as your own body/personal needs for the simple reason that it isn’t true. As soon as you are unable to see yourself as an individual you cannot see others as individuals as well, and you risk sacrificing their individuality on the alter of your own ego. A good rule of thumb is “don’t live for others any more than you expect them to live for you”.

Magistrate judges are appointed by the court, not the president. (https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-trump-appoint-judge-who-approved-fbi-mar-lago-raid-1732495). This magistrate judge happened to recently recuse himself from a civil racketeering case that Trump has brought against the DNC, but never said why. (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article264444421.html).

He never said it was a sudden evening raid. He said it was an “unannounced raid”. (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/news-gf6pdxrpau2342)

Trump’s lawyer said she was basically kept in the parking lot during the raid.

The search warrant was personally approved by AG Garland, who is suspiciously missing from your inconvenient truth. “I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.” (https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-merrick-garland-delivers-remarks)

Trump has been very vocal on Truth Social and his official website all weekend, despite your claims he has “gone dark”. (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump)

OK. What is the difference between Amazon competing for control over internet sales and government competing for control over violence?

You say one is a monopoly, the other isn't.

The government has jurisdiction in a given territory over which it has the supreme and final authority. Amazon doesn’t. The motives, the commodities and services, and the scope of control are entirely different.

I can’t help it. I have never had any faith in their idea of justice, nor the American justice system and her institutions. The FBI has been especially odious in this regard and the historical record proves this.

I only tried to answer the question “How do governments monopolise violence?”

If you want to keep asking questions in a discussion forum, don’t be surprised when you get answers.

Was the attack on Salman Rushdie consistent with mainstream Muslim theology

If I remember correctly, Rushdie’s crimes were that of blasphemy. Though there is a theological debate whether such a crime should lead to worldly punishment, such as beheading, the very accusation can and has justified religious violence.

Not when those same agencies are engaged in reckless or criminal behavior.

I doubt it was reckless. That the judge who signed off on the warrant defended associates of Epstein is enough for me to know that Trump is scaring all the right people.

It’s often used against political opponents and whistleblowers.

It doesn’t matter his rationale.

So they're different because they're different. Great explanation!

To be fair, it was a shit question based on a false analogy.

Because it is a public and sensitive matter. It should be in an authority control, not in private hands or businesses.

That’s exactly the line of reasoning used to justify the state persecution of Assange and Snowden. The government’s criminality and murderous barbarism are certainly sensitive to some parties.

That they are using the overly-broad world war 1 era law used to justify jailing whistleblowers and critics of the government is enough for me to know that it reeks of politicization of the Department of Justice.

Why is it against the law to posses declassified documents?

None of this has been proven and all of it is without precedent. None of us have seen the affidavit. So your claim he broke the law is without merit, and given a long and poor history of such claims, just another conspiracy in my books.

Probably because a monopoly in trade has nothing to do with a monopoly on violence.

An Atlantic article. Nice. Here’s a NYT article.

Can presidents declassify matters directly?
Yes, because it is ultimately their constitutional authority.
…

Do presidents have to obey the usual procedures?
There is no Supreme Court precedent definitively answering that question.
…

What about nuclear secrets?

They are distinct, although for purposes of criminal law there is little substantive difference.

Congress has passed a law, the Atomic Energy Act, that imposes its own legal restrictions on mishandling information about how to build a nuclear bomb or enrich nuclear material. Such information is called “restricted data.” Legally, it is not the same thing as being “classified” under the executive order, although in everyday parlance people often refer to it as classified.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/14/us/politics/trump-classified-documents.html

Can you arrest a police officer or any government agent and jail him for committing violence? You cannot.

The people or institution that claim the monopoly on violence has what Weber called the “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” The term “legitimate” underlies the principle. The principle does not imply that the state is the only entity committing violence, but it is the only entity authorized to commit violence.

Murder, torture, beatings...the usual. Do you live in Utopia by any chance?

Those are crimes, though. You’d be tried and imprisoned should you commit that violence. You’d be tried and imprisoned by those who have the monopoly on violence.

The president can declassify what he wants. He’s the commander in chief.

Yes, I believe it was politically motivated, because they know people such as yourself will spread it uncritically and use it to guide their activity.

According to his defense he had a standing order to declassify documents so he could take them for work at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI suspiciously waited until before the midterms to retrieve those documents, making a show of it no doubt. This is the same FBI that deceived the country and foreigners like @ssu with Russiagate.

But I can be violent. Am I the exception? Do you find it impossible to be violent? The government do not seem to me to have the monopoly at all.

If I were violent, there would be consequences, it would be difficult...


But if 'difficult' is the criteria for holding a monopoly, then certainly large corporations hold several monopolies.

Which sort of violence can you do?

And then he can brush of this as a politically motivated witch hunt, which not only @NOS4A2 thinks it is.

What else can it be?

Yes, the monopoly on violence is seized and held through violence, essentially. I’m not sure might equals better, in this instance.

No, Amazon does not have the monopoly on internet sales.

If what is my point?

It's not an argument, it's a question. How do governments monopolise violence? I seem quite capable of being violent.

It’s gained the old fashioned way: by brute force and conquest. It’s maintained and made legitimate by law, for instance the “use of force” doctrines in policing. If you or I armed ourselves and forced our way into someone’s home, or pointed our weapons at someone, or cuffed someone and threw them in the back of our car, we’d be criminally charged. The state, however, is well within their legal right to do the exact same thing. This distinction is peculiar to states, but when it isn’t it is only because “the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it” (Max Weber).

Collectivist groups? I’m not so sure about that. Band societies, maybe, most of them kin.

It’s a document dispute about the National Archives. And if there are classified materials involved the president can declassify whatever he wants.

What I see is two-tiered justice. No FBI broke into Clinton’s house with guns drawn when she stored classified info in her house and destroyed evidence with hammers and bleachbit. They didn’t do it when the Clintons stole furniture from the white house. Trump dares to take a letter addressed to him from Obama and they show up with rifles and vests.

The FBI is stealing something or planting something, one or the other.

Imagine if Trump’s DOJ raided Biden’s house in the lead up to the midterms. He was impeached for simply asking Zelensky to look into claims about Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.