The greater the number of recipients, the greater the duty of keeping the promise. The promise was made to the whole of the UK, which has a population of 66.57 million. There was a confirmed electorate of 46,500,001. And 33,568,184 ballot papers were included in the count. Which gives an exceptionally high turn out of 72.2%. — S

Sure, all else being equal, promising to more people adds weight to the promise. However, I was aware that the referendum involved a lot of people and I don't see how this changes any of the reasoning's for a second referendum I posit as defendable. Again maybe not "true" arguments, just of a sound and reasonable structure following likely agreeable ethical principles to most UK residents.

These examples aren't relevant, given that I'm not arguing that there are no circumstances in which a promise should be broken, only that the circumstances in the case of the referendum up to the present moment aren't enough of a basis to warrant breaking the promise that, to the extent that it's within their control, the results of the referendum would be treated as binding, and there wouldn't be another one, at least for a long time. — S

Ok, we are in agreement here, but (at least in the post I was responding to) your argument was it's simple ethics that promises should be kept; if you make a bold statement like this you should expect to be challenged.

The relevance of the circumstances I bring up is that parliament could make a reasonable defense of a second referendum along any of the lines I mention. My main point is there's no clear constitutional or political or ethical or "fairness" principle that somehow excludes a second referendum. If you agree that in principle a second referendum would be justifiable with "sufficient changes" or "sufficient evidence of campaign fraud" or "sufficient changes to the makeup of parliament that they need not feel bound by poor decisions of passed leadership", then we are in agreement in principle.

As for the "promise of binding", I do not feel this is a simple defense. For instance, what do we mean by "binding"? That article 50 would be triggered? Well, that's already done so "promise fulfilled", what do we do now that a deal is on the table: consult the people once again.

There isn't a concrete Brexit agreement to vote on. There will only be one when it actually comes down to the vote in parliament. — S

From what I understand the May-EU proposed agreement is the "final offer" as far as the EU is concerned, so it seems to be there's something to vote on.

But I'm against breaking the promise and rendering the results meaningless. I can't stand the consequence that it would've all been for nothing, that what was in fact my first ever vote in politics turned out to be meaningless and a waste of time. I don't want a second chance, I want the first chance to matter. — S

A second referendum would not render the first meaningless. In any complex planning process it's very normal critical things come up for votes several times; so it's fairly natural that there's a vote to start a process and then the same kind of vote at critical junctures in the process. For instance, if you instruct your lawyer to liquidate all your assets and throw the money out of a helicopter, it's likely they will come back at each critical step to know you still want to carry it through (though I don't mean this analogy as a alarmist parallel for Brexit, it's not like starting a disastrous war or something on that scale; for me the stakes are more geopolitical: I believe, despite the EU having man flaws, it is a much greater force for democracy and peace building than China or the US going forward; so UK staying in EU makes the EU stronger and in a better position to counter-balance China and US; and remember Trump maybe just the beginning of the current US foreign policy trajectory -- we should not assume that Trump is about to go nor that what will follow him will be magically better).

The consequences of the referendum have been triggering article 50, going all the way to 30 months before Brexit deal or no-deal. I believe in the context of the Brexit campaigns, the "binding promise" was more about the idea parliament would just ignore the vote and do nothing; in that scenario, yes I agree it would lower faith in the democratic process; however, the actions of parliament post-Brexit vote have definitely had consequence, and so given all those consequences and actions by the parliament it's quite natural to confirm things in a second vote.

Okay, maybe it's not simple ethics. Maybe that was a poor choice of terms. Although I think that you've taken my meaning way beyond what I intended. — S

"Promises should be kept" is a good slogan, but the problem with good slogans is that even knowing that the issue is more complicated, the feeling of "having a good slogan" quickly translates to a feeling of "the position is strong as it has such a good slogan that can make gains in twitter memes and sound bits allowed to air by the media". In other words, people can quickly become victims of their own propaganda, especially with a compliant media wanting to shelter people from any nuance (as that quickly creates space to criticize elites); though I'm not saying this is your case, it could be worth reflecting how "average George" can quickly believe good slogans means a good positions must exist that these slogans represent.

What you say about parliament is only hypothetical. As things stand, the reality is that there is to be no vote in parliament on a second referendum. There is only to be a meaningful vote on the final deal. And even if there were to be a vote in parliament on a second referendum, it would still need to get a majority in the house. Both major parties, officially, are against it. Would there be enough rebels? Doubtful. — S

Yes, my points are mainly on the theme that it's not anti-democratic for Parliament to call a second referendum. Given Parliament "represents the people" it isn't anti-democratic "in itself" for parliament to decide not to have a second referendum (any criticism of this is reducible to the whole Parliamentary scheme, not inconsistency in the system as it is; i.e. no second referendum would be consistent but within a low-efficiency-democratic system as a whole; in other words the same elites-representating vs as-direct-as-practical democratic, such as the Swiss system, debate as existed before Brexit or second-Brexit).

Now, if I was an MP I would vote for a second referendum. The main argument I would use is that if I struck a preliminary agreement with another business and then the lawyers drafted the final version of the agreement, I of course have the right to backout and even if the lawyers (i.e. my representatives) had power of attorney to sign on my behalf -- and even if their understanding of my instructions left room for interpreting that maybe I don't want to review the final draft -- I would definitely want to review the final draft as well as consult me again at critical points. No competent representative in the business world would act otherwise without either incredibly clear instructions to not-re-consult or then some sort of bizarre situation where confirmation is impossible and so they did their best; in the case of Brexit, re-confirmation is not impossible, and any lawyer would, given a similar situation in business or with individuals, that obviously confirming at each step is the best way to know one is faithfully representing their clients; I don't see why political representatives should have lower standards (which is logic that leads directly to the Swiss system, which I am a big fan of). So yes, I'd expect my representatives to respect my preliminary indication of what to do, but I'd also expect them to come back once they have a clear idea of the agreement or execution plan so that I could give a final decision (preliminary agreements are not binding as that makes negotiations basically impossible, it's binding after the signature and parties can walk away before that; in the case of Brexit it's a highly suspect line of reasoning that "the results of the referendum being biding" continues to make every further step towards Brexit also binding, it's entirely consistent that the results are binding to start implementing the objective and further consultation is reasonable to make subsequent critical steps also binding).

He knows that it's impractical. The point is that lacking a suitable timeframe between a referendum and a rerun causes problems, and the suggestion is that two years isn't long enough. — S

Yes, I wasn't clear enough that I was trying to make this point that a referendum every 15 minutes being impractical doesn't mean 2 years is impractical. That some interval being certainly impractical does somehow extend to all intervals being impractical. I'm not sure who originally made the argument that accepting a second referendum would be a slippery slope to voting of Brexit every second of the day, but posters have already mentioned that by this logic only one vote could ever be held about anything.

Baden's argument is that there's enough of a basis to render the referendum results invalid. I disagree, and my view reflects the reality, as the results haven't been declared invalid by anyone with the authority to do so. — S

They are not currently declared invalid by a sufficient authority, I'm quite sure no one is arguing that. In this context "the results are invalid" I would wager this phrase is making reference to what such an authority should decide. This is a notoriously tricking issue as rule breaking is almost inevitable (especially if you can send a mole to break a rule and annul the referendum if you like), but at the same time if the campaign rules have no substance if they can be broken without ever being able to invalidate the results (as the short time-span running up the vote is too short for any enforcement measure to likely succeed beforehand).

I don't know enough about the specific to make an opinion on this point, my main interest is arguing against the idea that a second referendum would be somehow anti-democratic or unethical/unreasonable for the parliament to decide to do. To be clear, I also don't see it as anti-democratic (in itself) to not have a second referendum, the wise representatives can always claim "they know more, even secret intel and negotiations, that can't be made public and they are sure means Brexit can't be undone without damaging the UK" (but this displaces the debate to whether the parliamentary system is sufficiently democratic, but is another debate).

It boils down to ethics on a fairly basic level. Should promises be kept? — S

This is not simple ethics. Though most would agree that promises have some moral weight to them, one should not make a fraudulent promise or dismiss a promise for a slight convenience or on a whim, it's a pretty old and trivial philosophical exercise to show that placing "holding promise" as an overriding ethical principle is extremely difficult to defend.

For instance, if I, in a moment of anger, "promise to kill someone" (thinking it was a justifiable killing at the time of the promise), should I keep my promise if I later decide the murder is not justified?

A more trivial example is that in moment of exuberant celebration I promise to give you as many shots as you want, but then I renege on this promise when I see you may overdose and die; I, nor essentially any member of society, would view it as the ethical thing to keep giving you shots, and if you did die and I knowingly let you the defense "a promise is a promise" I doubt would sway any judge or jury in a manslaughter or some similar trial.

These are an extreme and a trivial example but sets up the basic dilemma, which I'd be happy to oblige you with plenty of other examples if you want. The general case however is that changing circumstances making a promise no longer feasible to keep or even circumstances staying the same but simply a recognizing a promise as too foolish to keep or that the promise was unethical at the time, we can easily invent circumstances that I'm confident everyone on the forum would agree reneging on the promise is the ethical course of action. Now it might be reasonable that some consequence goes with the promise breaking, but that's a secondary issue (in the case of Brexit maybe the secondary consequences should be resignations a general election and voting out anyone still associated with it).

In the case of "the promise to stick with Brexit", parliament could make any number of arguments to justify breaking the promise. First, "who made the promise" is not quite the same people as are in charge now, so the "new parliament" can decide is now new enough as not to be bound by the old parliaments promises (just like a new boss can easily cancel whatever promises an old boss made if there's no legal commitment and no one would think much of "promises must be kept"; the old boss was incompetent and got fires, so foolish promises that were made no longer stand unless legally backed). Pretty much every modern nation is based on the argument that it's entirely reasonable justifiable to break an oath to some king at some point in time.

The parliament could also argue that bad faith actions of the leave campaign do substantially outweigh any supposed equivalents with the remain campaign, and so the "good faith" implicit precondition of the promise was breached and the promise no longer holds. It can be further argued that the this good faith assumption did not need to be made explicit because there are laws that govern campaign finance etc.

The parliament could argue that they made the promise under the assumption that article 50 could not be canceled, now that it seems that it can it is their responsibility to reconsider their promise based on this new information.

Or, parliament could make no direct excuse at all for the promise breaking, but argue they have a more important promise to protect the interests of UK citizens and they simply made a mistake in organizing the Brexit vote the way they did and that they must act on their ultimate promise as servants of the public in providing a vote now that there is a concrete Brexit agreement to actually vote on.

Now, I'm not saying all the above arguments are "true". One could argue that in each case there isn't sufficient reason to act (not sufficient campaign violations, not sufficient changes in parliament that they can feel liberated from previous promises, etc.).

My point is that it is not "simple ethics" to conclude no second referendum should be made, it's a very complicated issue and parliament would be entirely within their mandate and power to call a second referendum as well as within their mandate and power to decide on behalf the people to push through Brexit.

In the US there have been referenda to do one thing and referenda to undo that very thing. Gay marriage was one of those referenda: first rejected, then passed. Might there be a third to reject it again? That's possible; it might not be a good thing, but I don't see any reason why it can't happen, all quite legally. — Bitter Crank

Yes, we are in agreement here. I listed arguments for "no second referendum" simply to make the difference between the "anti democracy argument" and the "practical argument". By practical arguments I mean not having a Brexit referendum every day or every hour, as well as legitimate arguments elected representatives could make. The argument that the elected representatives advertised it as a "final thing" because once the process is started there's no going back, is in my view a legitimate argument. But by legitimate argument I just mean it can be argued without self-contradictions right off the bat; it is a viable position of the parliament so say "we said it was final, exactly because the process is painful and once started the only viable thing, for all sorts of reasons, is to carry it through".

However, by viable I don't mean to say it's the best decision nor that contradictions won't arise with further arguing; just that arguing no referendum for practical reasons doesn't fail right out of the gate (in contrast to arguing for no-second referendum based on it being more democratic to not vote again, which does, in my opinion, fail straight away).

In short, the current UK parliament is not anti-democratic in "sticking to the deal of a final vote" nor anti-democratic in calling a second referendum. One can question the democratic efficiency or even legitimacy of the UK parliament system to begin with (which I definitely would), but insofar as one accepts parliament as legitimate then they can legitimately "stick to their guns" as it were; as legitimate elected preventatives they could decide any number of things, such as campaign fraud, are reason for a second vote or then decide nothing is sufficient and as the elected wise rulers they need to stick to Brexit since it was known from the outset going back on it isn't tenable regardless the pain; if their decision are bad (which I would say they are) there is a process to replace them with people who will call a second referendum. Even after Brexit is official the UK could rejoin.

However, to argue the lack of a second referendum is anti-democratic is reducible to the UK parliamentary system being anti or insufficiently democratic. My point is that, the UK system being what it is, neither a vote nor not-vote is a constitutional crisis ... which the UK doesn't even have to begin with ...

But I agree with you that a second vote is probably a good idea, and the temporary embarrassment does not outweigh all the negatives of Brexit -- that sometimes it's better to fold even after a sizable commitment.

You're strawmanning me. — frank

I'm not. My statement was for any deliberating body; I am a deliberating body when making my own decisions; therefore my principle should hold for myself; any mutually exclusive principle should not hold for myself. If the deliberating body represented in the referendum changing its mind would be an instance of tyranny against itself, then so too would an individual changing their own mind be an instance of tyranny.

Of course, it makes no sense to tyrannize myself so it could seem the whole argument makes no sense, but a democratic body tyrannizing itself also makes no sense in essentially the same way. A legitimately democratic referendum by definition cannot be an example of tyranny.

Again, there maybe other reasons not to have a second referendum, but avoiding tyranny or anti-democratic processes in one form or another isn't one of them.

Must they hold hourly referenda so that all decisions reflect the pulse of the public in order to meet your definition of democracy? — Hanover

I'm not sure if you read my post, but the argument against this is it isn't practical.

Of course, democratic processes such as deferring to representatives and referendum should be democratically created; I don't think anyone's arguing against that.

If polling shows my congressman no longer popular, is it an insult to democracy that he continue to serve? — Hanover

For instance, most states I believe have a potential recall process for congressmen. How easy a recall should be is a practical consideration that should be democratically determined; weighing the advantage of "getting a better representative" against the cost and disruption a proliferation of recall votes would create.

You act like fairness and adherence to prior decisions are unrelated, and you put no value on finality, as if indecisiveness is a virtue. — Hanover

You maybe confusing two separate issues. One issue is whether it is anti-democratic or a constitutional crisis to hold a second referendum. The other issue is whether it's a good idea to have a second referendum or not. That the vote was advertised or understood as "final" in someway, that going back on Brexit would be a international embarrassment accomplishing nothing but significantly weaken the UK within the EU (due to the embarrassment, being out the loop last two years on various committees, and more isolated than before due to changing alignments in the meantime), are arguments for not having a second referendum (which are basically May's arguments for staying with Brexit, though states more indirectly). However, those reasons are practical considerations, not inherently more democratic than a second referendum.

(From my Canadian perspective) my own reading of the whole situation is that the model was Quebec, which had a separatists movement that was partly fueled by "not being allowed to have a referendum, this is not real democracy". This argument is powerful as it's simply true and builds it's own momentum and displaces the argument from the substance of separation to a sense of injustice of being robbed a referendum. Both in the Canadian separatist experience (and many other contexts of different referendum movements for various things), losing a referendum simply dissolves this kind of momentum and what seemed like a political force yesterday simply evaporates the next.

So I believe that Cameron and his inner circle viewed the UKIP movement as similarly partly fueled by "the absence of a referendum as proof of a great injustice", and so a preemptive strike was a better bet than trying to ignore it and letting it make slow but sure gains. The other issues of Quebec nationalism, cultural erosion and regulations being "decided in Ottawa where not-Quebeckers dominate", and anti-immigration (both Anglophones from other provinces and immigrants to Canada) were also similar themes.

However, I think a better lesson from the Quebec separatist movement is the clarity act that came after the close referendum, that was passed some years after the close referendum, where a clear process was outlined on how a province could separate. Step one is to have a referendum that would simply start negotiation between the province and the federal government one what the proposed separation would actually be, then there would need to be an proposed separation agreement made and then a vote. Critically, the vote would need to represent the majority of eligible voters, not simply the majority of who votes; so a higher bar but not anti-democratic nor robbing a province of a right to make majority decisions.

Basically, the clarity act was made to solve the fact that a sudden ill-defined separation vote would be total chaos with dozens of practical problems no one had the slightest answer to: obviously same trade issues of exiting a common market, native Americans having treaties with the federal government, large amounts of people from other provinces living and working in Quebec and vice-versa, as well as things like the country being cut in half.

I'm not accustomed to taking anything for granted in that department, maybe just a cultural difference between us. So my question didn't seem at all ridiculous to me. Your statement would be considered alarming in my part of the world. — frank

I've followed haphazardly the thread, but I think Benkei's main point is that any deliberating body can change it's mind. If I change my mind I am not somehow tyrannically opposing my own will; likewise, if a king, parliament or referendum changes decisions there's no fundamental political dilemma in doing so: new information or arguments come to light and a previous decision is changed.

The problem in changing decisions are secondary to the process itself. For instance, if an individual or a government signs and then reneges on an agreement then this may create problems with whoever the agreement was with -- given the issue it may even be argued to be immoral to renege that particular agreement, but it does not create a constitutional crisis in the fact itself of deciding and undeciding (on any political level: from the individual to referendum of whole countries).

The argument for not polling the people on every decision, both new ones and to confirm existing ones, every single day is that it is simply not practical to do so.

There maybe many practical argument for not having a second referendum on the Brexit issue, but the argument that it renders democracy incoherent in some way doesn't work for the same reason an individual changing a decision does not in itself render the person incoherent (the content of the reasons for the original decision and content and consequences of changing the decision would be where any incoherence would be found).

What are your thoughts on the current situation on the US border with immigrants? — ron

US illegal immigration is a complicated issue. The root causes are first and foremost immigrants needed to drive economic growth by importing births to grow the population (easiest way to grow GDP) and on a micro level various industries wanting cheap vulnerable disenfranchised exploitable labour (including sexually) who then use profits to, in part, corrupt the political system to maintain the status quo. This economic incentive for illegal immigration often combines with people compassionate for illegal immigrants and wanting to protect them from deportation. These are the internal reasons.

The external reasons are mainly the war on drugs and CIA actions that, as I mention in my first post, "was for the good of the system in order to avoid communists taking over" that disrupt fragile democracy, result in crony capitalism riddled with drug gains and so failed, tyrannical or inefficient states people have many reasons to leave and take their chances in the US (to build a new life or remit money back home).

So, for solutions. Why is GDP growth an absolute imperative? Why is US birth rate below replacement? Why do companies easily get away with exploiting illegal immigrants? Why is the war on drugs still a thing even after the obvious reality has emerged that it causes way more problems and doesn't even solve any problems, both in the US and the drug supplying countries? Why is US policy to support crony capitalism in its poor periphery?

The above root causes need to be addressed so solve the causes of illegal immigration. However, now that there's 11-12 million illegal immigrants in the US, it's simply impractical from both the economic and compassionate point of view to deport any significant percentage of them; making a immunity period where legal immigrants can be made legal in one form or another and then afterwards large fines for companies employing illegal immigrants and even larger fines and prison time for any company obstructing their illegal workers from getting documented, can then turn the illegal problem in to a legal problem, which would still be nuanced and complicated situation but the first step.

I think a large part of it simply has to do with financial contributions to politicians. Reversing Citizens United vs. FEC would be incredible as it would help reverse "dark money" from foreign entities trying to influence elections+politicians like you are describing. — ron

Yes, corruption is now legal in the US. These laws are essentially represent the "rats looting and abandoning the ship" phase of collapsing empire.

When I talk about the US system, I refer to the US global system (empire, hegemony, power projection, Internationale order, or whatever it's called in a given context). I see essentially no way this system will continue for the reasons in the first post. Bush II oversaw the overstretching and loss of credibility supported by economic crisis at home phase; Obama oversaw a very tense but diligent strategic retreat and salvaging America's international brand phase; but Trump is simply trashing the whole system and there is no recovery or even consolidation and maintenance of a smaller empire as
far as I can tell: the system is in free fall.

However, the prospects of the US as a country is not so bleak. Though the root problems are numerous and have been neglected for decades, it also means there's plenty of low-hanging fruit so a group of competent politicians could make life significantly better for US denizens in short time. Most people in the US don't actually benefit from the US global system. If the momentum reversed it could go a long way very quickly. However, it's a race against time since if the US global system collapses with incompetent, delusional and/or corrupt politicians in charge the result will most likely be total chaos domestically (hyperinflation, disrupted supply chains, roaming bandits, doubling down on the police state, riots like we are now seeing in France but with lot's and lot's of guns; it could go as far as things like a coup); just like a cycle of fixing problems could suddenly make life a lot better, a cycle of violence could spiral out of control (Appendix: Mexico).

Yours is a disturbing post. I hope most folks will try to read it. What is disturbing about it? It is a long piece of misdirection and apologetics for Russian activity, built on an extended tu quoque argument. — tim wood

I'm not defending the Russians here. Putin is definitely trying to do everything he can to disrupt the Western system, just as the US did everything they could to disrupt the Soviet system (and the similarities of tactics are in my view striking).

If I had to choose between a US, Soviet or Chinese dominated system, I would not hesitate choosing to live under US hegemony; and I basically do, living on the periphery of the US system where I am not bothered much by US policies but have no real risk of falling under Russian or Chinese domination either.

However, just because the peripheral places orbiting the US system is the best place to live at the moment, does not mean the US system can or even should be saved.

The point of the OP is that the Russians wage war, make war. Part of that war is disinformation. The question is, what to do about it? — tim wood

The conclusion of my post was that Russia is simply stoking (how effectively can be debated both ways) processes that are happening in the US anyways. These processes are things like a delusional war lobby that led the US into the Iraq war that was later found for discredited WMD reasons, general quagmire in the middle east, polarized political system far beyond ability for reasonable compromises to make sound policy when needed to fix real domestic and foreign relation problems that are very real problems, legalized cronyism now at eleven under Trump, de-industrialization to focus on "innovation" but then letting the Chinese steal all the IP anyway because promoting real information security would frustrate information collection, various addiction problems from opiates to television, inflating a real-estate bubble and then bailing out the bankers with zero percent credit who then foreclosed on overdue interest payment of citizens, out of control debt at every level, dilapidated infrastructure, natural disasters costing hundreds of billions made much worse by climate change and bad zoning and land management over decades, are all problems that have nothing to do with the Russians.

Now that these, among many, problems are starting to reach a breaking point where the citizenry find them intolerable but the political system can't respond in a reasonable way (producing Trump as an answer, for reasons including but not limited to a prior inability to modernize presidential elections, a break down of reasoned discourse due to Fox news and conservative talk radio, systematically disenfranchising black voters, a reality-TV culture with many just wanting to see the next season of "The Trumps vs the Establishment", a distrust of established media fueled by things like supporting the WMD narrative which creates a credibility vacuum filled by the echo chamber of your choice with a little help from your friend Facebook, and maybe even some Russian and Saudi money cutting deals here and there to tip the balance for certain supporters to jump in with Trump, and maybe even some twitter posts too), the system is starting to destabilize and both Russian legitimate arguments (i.e. Russia looking after Russian interests just like US looks after US interests, prove yourselves morally superior) as well as genuine disinformation starts to add to the problems.

So what to do? In my opinion there is nothing to be done other than solve the underlying problems causing the US domestic economy and political system to destabilize. That what Russia does and says starts to matter (have some sort of real effect) these days is evidence that the system maybe past saving.

For certain, Putin learned a lot about weaknesses of Empire from the collapse of the Soviet Union and is trying to help along similar tendencies towards collapse in the West. My previous post was just trying to point out troll farms and facebook adds are not Putin's tools of choice here (though of course if facebook did allow Russians and other foreigners to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of adds, enough to matter, as foreigners or then laundering to pack money in the US, I'm sure Putin would have jumped on this opportunity too; just the blame here is Facebook and US government for letting it happen as it's pretty easy to stop; you simply can't move that kind of money to a US corporation without that corporation or any cursory regulatory fiscal investigation finding out, which "ensure campaign finance laws are being respected" is plenty enough reason to investigate in any reasonable legal system ... though I wouldn't be surprised if it was either impractical or legally impossible to force facebook to allow scrutiny of political add purchases during the election, and maybe still is as it seems measures taken since were voluntary).

I'd like to say a few words on the subject of the OP (though on the subject of "what about America meddling in foreign elections" I have to backup Πετροκότσυφας arguments here; it's as well documented historical fact as any other; it's in fact so well documented that the former CIA director, Woolsey, didn't even bother denying it just saying “Oh, probably, but it was for the good of the system in order to avoid communists taking over” (and keep in mind the subject is meddling in elections). So, as Πετροκότσυφας points out, you need a double standard to defend the US and condemn the Russians on this point, that the US is good and either knows what's best for other electorates (which again no one really even bothers to defend anymore, though I welcome anyone to try) or then the morally neutral "defending US interests" which translates directly to "Russians can defend their interests too". However, it's not clear to me anyone in the thread is actually defending US's meddling or simply denying specific comparisons as reaching the threshold for meddling.

As for the OP's contention:

What the Russians have done and are doing to us is no joke, and to be sure, they're doing it harder in other parts of the world. Perhaps it started, in the modern era, with Stalin. At issue is the lie, backed where possible by force. I don't see much news from Eastern Europe or the Baltic States, but I'd guess there is relentless pressure from the Russians on those countries to corrupt the narrative in any way possible, so that truth and news become essentially impossible. — tim wood

I'd like to point out what's usually minimized or not mentioned at all, which is is the whole disinfo meddling story essentially boils down to the Russians influencing voters primarily through twitter bots and facebook, and a particular focus on facebook adds.

Even assuming the (scant examples so far of) trolling and adds coming from Russia was a Russian government operation, Twitter and Facebook are US corporations in US jurisdiction responsible for obeying American laws with sophisticated data analysis and profiling, In terms of organic spreading of information ... you need to be in people's social networks for this to have much effect; just making an anonymous bot on twitter will end up being followed by a few other bots. Accounts with influence on Twitter are real people or organizations with millions of followers genuinely giving weight to the opinions of the objects of their fandom. There's no evidence of the Russians bribing or blackmailing twitter or facebook influencers to support Trump nor some mysterious widespread hacking of hundreds of accounts that all shouted for Trump on election day; that's what a real disinfo campaign would be like on this social media level (to have any real effect); the idea that just making accounts and tweeting some poorly crafted memes, which is what I got from Mueller's actual case against the Russians, has any affect is preposterous. The whole thing, on face value, basically makes Mueller look like an idiot ... but there's a good reason for indicting what seems like a two-bit Russian troll farm which is to maintain the facade of the primary purpose of the investigation in order to continue also investigating other crimes that are very serious just not Russian election meddling per se (money laundering going way back and corruption and campaign finance violations of various kinds, involving American porn starts, as well as various other corruption schemes ).

More important, it's not clear if making accounts and tweeting opinions as some anonymous world citizen and trying to attract followers and act like a random twitter user is legally actionable in any sense. Millions of people around the world as well as plenty other bot networks based elsewhere (it's a hot topic which plenty of bot nets are sophisticated enough to jump on the ban-wagon on all by themselves) tweeted and retweeted opinions about Trump or Hillary; why can't Russians participate? If they can't, why just them but every other country can? If no one can, how is Twitter supposed to enforce this (if laws have actually been broken then Twitter is responsible to attempt to make some reasonable effort to make sure laws are respected on their platform, or is this not the case: non-US citizens outside US jurisdiction can break US laws on a US platform that need not do anything about it, only the non-US citizen is at fault?)?

Where someone could have some real effect would be in facebook adds. But here who's to blame? Russian oligarchs and shady characters with perhaps even the blessing of Putin to go buy some facebook adds? Or the US regulation for allowing Facebook to allow clients to buy targeted adds without even bothering to check who's buying them to ensure campaign finance laws are being enforced?

US lawmakers left an obvious door for any foreign entity to buy influence anonymously wide open with the precision of Facebooks user profiling, and somehow the narrative is Russian's orchestrated a sophisticated disinfo campaign. Even if Putin himself poured billions of his own money into facebook adds, who's fault is that really? Now, if it wasn't really much adds for anyone to notice compared to the hundreds of millions spent of legitimate campaign and pack money, then well who cares? If it was enough to make a difference, no one at facebook noticed hundreds of millions of shady political add buying from ambiguous organizations requesting to target American citizen profiles?

And let's say facebook does turn a blind eye because "hey it's money, I like money, letting this slide could definitely have zero future PR consequences we should think about", none of various US intelligence services with their sophisticated analysts, human intelligence, money flow and internet monitoring algorithms, direct access to facebook servers, no one there saw or suspected hundreds of millions of foreign funds are buying political adds and we should maybe go and knock on Facebook's door and see what's going on?

The whole social media disinfo story, thus far, is so easily stopped by a few monitoring algorithms and some extra steps to verify you are can buy political adds in conformity with campaign finance laws (problem solved). I see no way to argue that the fault is either on American regulators and facebook for enabling foreign political add buying, of then their not at fault because some got through but such a small amount compared to billions of domestic money spent on adds that it's totally irrelevant and of no real concern (though still good to plug any wholes for the future).

Now, why is Russian disinfo such an important topic for US elites. Part of it is blaming Russians for Hillary's loss, but Hillary and other US commentators were already saying there was an information war with Russia before the election (and that the US was losing). There just wasn't any mention of twitter trolls and facebook adds (which obviously the next sentence would be, we should probably get Twitter to shut down Russian disinfo bot nets and we should probable get Facebook to stop selling add-space to Russian political disinfo operations).

And this is true. There is a sophisticated Russian "disinfo campaign", it's called RT. It operates exactly like the BBC or any american news network, except it will host American journalist and intellectual voices that are essentially blacklisted from appearing on any Western platform as well as journalists and intellectuals that jumped ship in order to not self-censor.

These American and Western dissidents basically say whatever they want about American politics without any instruction from the Kremlin. The only disinfo part of RT is that they are not allowed to criticize Putin or Russia in any significant way.

RT also allows anyone to actually know the Russian side of the story on any political event, whether truth or lies you can hear what the Russian government has to say for themselves.

The reason RT is not a big part of the disinfo conversation (though mentioned from time to time as "the problem") is that countries can have their own media organizations, and RT is not some covert operation masquerading as US based (it's literally called Russia Today). US media has a US bias, British media has a British bias, French a French bias etc. yet RT having a Russia bias is suddenly a problematic disinformation campaign. There's no real international law argument or even philosophical argument to make with RT (they haven't kidnapped any US journalist and forced them to repeat prepared statements at gun point; everyone who works for them is doing so voluntarily).

Russia can also host whistle blower dissidents physically. Snowden's plan was just take the material and go to Russia. Without having a place outside US influence to go to, Snowden may have not leaked to begin with, been captured before being about to transfer the information, and even if successful at least made an example of. That there is a physical refuge for dissidents is just as frustrating for US elites as is a media platform refuge (just as the west being a refuge for soviet dissidents was a frustration for the Soviets).

The reason it's a problem, is simply the West was accustomed to controlling the narrative and it's way easier if there's simply no way people can easily hear the other side of the story; so it makes life difficult. And here, (because RT does have a meaningful affect) US elites immediately identified google's amplification of RT's reach through the youtube algorithm (treating RT the same as any other content that a given profile may or may not be interested in), as something that "should be done about it". Here google resisted a time but ultimately caved, changing their algorithm as well as joining in platforming Alexjones and a bunch of other US citizens.

The other part of Russia's disinfo campaign is just normal international politics, taking advantage of a loss of credibility of the US after the disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria as well as things like Yemen. When a US narrative breaks down around something, because it makes no internal sense (like funding jihadists to fight Assad), this gives space for Russian diplomats to advance other ideas.

The biggest problem of all of course is Russia propping up Assad to fight the jihadists. If it was quick and easy toppling like Libya shortly after it would "oh golly gee, Islamists and jihadists have basically taken over, they weren't democratic activists after all" and everyone would forget about it. But having it drag on, even western journalists going to Syria and seeing that their all Jihadists. This brokedown the US narrative to the point where US DoD supported factions are fighting CIA supported Factions (meaning the US military system themselves couldn't agree on which narrative their following).

But regardless of narrative, Russian intervention in Syria created the worse information of all which is the CIA can't just topple any government at will nor rally the West for any cause at Will. There's enough a priori doubt about US claims and enough Russia view-points being heard (on internet or by ambassadors) that the rally the clans "this guy is evil, we got to take him out, no time to think of what's likely to happen after" effect, as we saw in Libya, stopped working in Syria. For instance, the chemical weapons; there was enough doubt about what really happened for real diplomats and analysts (not just US mainstream media) and more importantly enough doubt about US ability to control the narrative regardless of facts on the ground (people remember the last time WMD claims started a war ... and more importantly could not be maintained indefinitely without any facts; hence, what the facts are actually matter and reasonable doubts need to be considered regardless of appearances).

The second biggest problem is Turkey, it's rumored that Russian infosec tipped Erdugan off about the coup, which is nearly impossible to believe occurred without US blessing and likely aid. This again undermines the "topple governments at will" assumption as well as US infosec omnipotence.

Erdogan surviving the coup creates all sorts of problems.

I could go on, but my point is what Russian is doing is similar to what the US did to the Soviet Union. Host dissident intellectuals that have opinions and analysis that spread one way or another (i.e. breakdown narratives despite large internal propaganda trying to maintain those narratives), and frustrate military adventures in the middle-east, use loss of narrative credibility to sow doubt and undermine alliances via normal diplomatic channels (so when there are problems there is no coordinated response from allies, institutions and even soldiers, as people ponder both factual and moral doubts instead of acting to protect the system). However, just like the Soviet Union, these are internal processes and weaknesses that are happening anyway (it wasn't Russia that invented the idea Iraq was a mistake, nor leaked the Torture tapes nor gave Trump 2 billion dollars of free air time) and can only be helped along on the outside (there are US intellectual dissidents without RT, but with RT hosted dissidents can outproduce essentially the rest of the internet in terms of dissident content weighted for quality, and likewise allies can start to doubt US narratives without Russian diplomats providing further contradictory arguments and information).

All this to say, if you want to get worked up by the US media going on about the Russian information war, at least get worked up about the right information war, not twitter and facebook posts and adds.

Not exactly, no - but increased oil costs effect everything else produced or supplied using oil. The ubiquity of oil raises prices on almost everything - a cost of living increase that eventually, wages increase to account for. Now, the original price hike has effectively disappeared. You don't get as many apples for a dollar - but you get more dollars an hour, and work the same hours for the same apples. Effectively therefore, the value of money has changed to accommodate the price hike. — karl stone

This is not what happened in the oil shock. Your describing a fairly distributed inflation, where things cost more but you make more so it's the same thing. Oil shocks don't create a fairly distributed inflation.

In the immediate and short term, sure - a huge economic dislocation you seem to want to cause on purpose, to make renewable energy more competitive. I just don't think that a good idea. — karl stone

Internalizing the true cost of fossil fuels would make renewable energy more competitive in the market and it would create social upheaval for a time: entrenched industries that built up based on the assumption they could continue to externalize the real costs of fossil fuels would have their feelings hurt, and people who identify with the fossil guzzling lifestyle would cry like babies for a time. However, it's a mistake to believe this would be "bad"; continuing to burn fossil fuels at cost of extraction rather than the real cost also has a bad impact. The discomfort of adapting to a new economy where true fossil costs are internalized to the price is far less than the discomfort of disrupting the ecosystems down the line. For every investor or used car salesmen that takes a "hit" from the internalization of the real cost of fossil fuels, you have to pair up with people in the future who take a "hit" from a cat 5 hurricane in a higher ocean, or take a "hit" from changing weather patterns that cause drought and famine, or take a "hit" of their environment getting so hot it's basically unlivable there.

Also, internalizing the true cost is not making renewable energies artificially more competitive. Someone is paying the difference between the true cost of fossil burning and the price-cost either now or in the future, just not the person who got the direct benefit from the fossil burning. The negative externalities drag society and economy down; lowering production and efficiency elsewhere (disease, damage to natural resources, smog chasing away tourists etc.). Again, what can be debated is what exactly the true cost is: how much lung disease is due to fossil burning, how much environment damage etc. But it's basically economics 101 that allowing industries to externalize costs is simply a subsidy to that industry from the rest of society and so distorts the economy to be less efficient.

There's lot's of social problems I believe subsidy is the way to solve, such as education and health care. But for fossil burning, this is one thing where the "market mechanism" of just internalizing the true cost solves the issue. "Free-market" economists paid to defend entrenched interests get all knotted up when this is mentioned; this is why the fossil industry had to run a deny everything strategy.

No. I said renewable energy doesn't need subsidies - it needs infrastructure funding, like the rail network, the canals, or the Romans and their roads. I also propose a means we can raise the money to apply renewable energy on a massive scale, and keep fossil fuels in the ground at the same time. — karl stone

Government funding to an industry that is not on the same terms as available private funding, is a subsidy to that industry. Paying for rail lines to be built is a subsidy to the rail industry, paying for roads to be built is a subsidy for the auto-motive industry, paying for broadband lines to be built is a subsidy for the telecommunications industry, paying for canals to be built is a subsidy to the boating industry. You can say these are worthwhile subsidies to create public utilities that are good for these industries and by extension the rest of society, but they remain subsidies.

A good first recourse is the wikipedia page on subsidies which also mentions "environmental externalities" as a form of subsidy. Internalizing the true cost of fossil fuels is the anti-subsidy program that would allow the market to work efficiently.

I agree with the way you reason out the scenario you describe, but it's not what I'm proposing at all. If you'd read the OP - I'd love to get your opinion. — karl stone

Your title is "how to save the world". I already addressed the reasons the hydrogen economy is unlikely to be economic to build. Your response for the leaking of hydrogen and the atmospheric effects of this on a billions-of-tons scale was "it's just a material science issue", but if we can just hand-wave material science at the problem then batteries and solar thermal work for base-load power as well.

Since this is a philosophy forum I think it's much more relevant the subject of whether the general approach is workable or the best. The problem of the general approach of the government paying for huge energy infrastructure is that it still is a subsidy (weather you want to call it subsidy or not) to energy industry as a whole and so pushes out energy-saving technology and business models that would otherwise be competitive if the true cost of energy was reflected in the price (be it renewables or fossil). If hydrogen is the best energy storage media for base-load and ships, then the market would figure that out, if it's batteries then it's batteries, if it's more just using less energy to get the same results (negotiating by voip or vacationing by train instead of flying for instance) then it's that.

I don't see how it's off-topic to discuss whether your approach is optimal, even if technically feasible. If you're concern is only technical feasibility regardless of it being economic or good policy, then I'm sure a physics forum will accommodate that discussion.

I disagree. I wouldn't suggest internalizing the true cost. But if you did, the very value of money itself would adjust - just as it adapted to oil price shocks in the past. Rather I'd suggest, seeking to limit the implications to a narrowly focused, feasible and necessary endeavor - like funding renewable energy infrastructure. — karl stone

There's no magic symmetry that somehow changes the value of money to offset internalizing the true cost of fossil fuel burning. The oil shocks of the past weren't somehow made redundant by money changing value, but rather created massive economic dislocations: incumbent industries shrinking because they don't make economic sense without cheap fossil fuel energy and new investment in renewable energy as they are more competitive if fossil energy is more expensive (i.e. the social upheaval that I alluded to in my post).

By "funding renewable infrastructure" I assume you mean by subsidy. If we view just the comparative cost of energies, it seems that forcing fossil to internalize true costs is the same as subsidizing renewables. However, it's not the same. By simply subsidizing renewables to be cost-comparable to fossil energy is not the same as internalizing the real cost of fossil energy.

First, the real true cost of fossil (pollution, health, deforestation, military bases and patrols of fossil producing regions etc.) is not reflected in a renewable subsidy.

Second, subsidizing cost-parity by definition leaves the market open to fossil as regional and other kinds of arbitrage will make fossil more economic in some places even if renewable is better in other regions.

Third, and most importantly, a subsidy to renewable remains a subsidy to primary energy as a whole, and this has the effect of subsidizing energy intensive industries over energy-efficient industries. For instance, with cheap enough kerosene it's economic to fly fruit around the globe, displacing local fruit production. When gas is cheap enough people can afford to commute longer distances, when gas is more expensive it motivates people to live closer to where they work or buy electric vehicle or use public transportation etc. Likewise any business is motivated to make investments that conserve energy (location, insulation, natural lighting or other passive architecture, reducing supply-chain distances, light-weighting or otherwise redesigning production to consume less energy) -- it is not true that these investments would happen anyway as the return on investment is sensitive to the cost of energy: the money saved overtime must be better than the opportunity cost of other things the business can do, like marketing, or then then the general discount rate (for those unfamiliar with this sort of terminology, if a 100 000 USD investment saves 2500 USD a year in an energy saving, but that same 100 000 USD could generate 3000 USD per year in bonds or the stock market or perhaps even 4000 USD a year through a marketing campaign, the business will do one of these other things if they are "economic rational agents", but if the cost of energy was double and they would save 5000 USD a year then the economic rational thing is the energy economizing investment; and of course the differences don't have to be this large, the energy saving could be 3 999 USD a year and a fixed income investment, i.e. bond, could be 4000 USD and the economic rational thing to do would be the bond).

Edit: forgot to explain the discount rate which just represents the same basic facts but instead of the business having 100 000 USD in profits it is able to borrow 100 000 USD; so, if the cost of borrowing is 3% per year, then the energy saving investment must make more than 3000 USD per year to pay off the interest and the principal over the loan maturity or just "eventually" if the business can roll over their loans.

Just a few things I'd like to drop into this conversation.

Hydrogen is simply not a good energy carrier for a few reasons. First, it's not a liquid or solid at ambient temperature, which is a big inconvenience. Second, hydrogen is so small it diffuses through most metals causing micro-fractures leading to failure; solving these problems to power a rocket or in industrial processes can be solved ... but scaling to a transport infrastructure this problem is essentially unsolvable. Third liquid hydrogen boils off and easily slips through the tiniest cracks between parts making it extremely difficult to make a hermetic sealed hydrogen system at a lab level and simply impossible at an infrastructure scale. Hydrogen floats to the top of the atmosphere where it acts as a potent green house gas.

Long story short, if you have a lot of hydrogen you may as well solve all the above problems by reacting with carbon to make hydrocarbons and have all the benefits the energy density of hydrogen without the massive technological hurdles. Since there's excess carbon in the atmosphere it's easy to get to do this and means not only a cheaper infrastructure to build ... but an infrastructure that already exists.

So the thesis of the OP is essentially correct, there's just no reason to use hydrogen by itself as an energy carrier. And since you'd need to make electricity first to make hydrogen to make hydrocarbons (or whatever analogous process), you may as well use that electricity directly for most transport needs. Electric trains, trams and batteries for personal transport is simply far more efficient if you already have electricity. "Synth-hydro-carb" fuel would still be useful for trucks and lorries and airplanes .

Of course, as the OP mentions and thread has discussed, the real problem is the getting all the energy to make hydrogen or whatever your energy carrier is. With the energy problem solved you can then solve water, heating in winter, running an industrial base, space travel, or any other problem on the table.

When you look closer at this problem, it's easy to solve technologically. As Bittercrank points out in the previous post, these problems were solvable decades ago through technological and lifestyle changes. The core of the problem is this pesky western lifestyle.

The amounts of energy consumed by the typical western lifestyle (and that must continuously grow in energy and resource consumption!) is just so enormous that it's simply impractical to live the western lifestyle if convenient energy and minerals are not simply lying in the ground to be dug or pumped out. But if you get rid of waste you get rid or (most) mining, (most) personal large vehicle transport, (most) road construction and maintenance, (most) meat consumption, (most) of suburbia, (most) of the airplane transport and (most) industrial mono-culture farming as (most) people just have a garden and community farm they participate in on the same land area they are currently wasting on lawns and roads (solving many problems). Sure, some of all these things can make sense when needed, but if you look at the numbers there's simply no economic reason to make solar power to make jet fuel to fly people to New Zealand to visit the sets of the Lord of the Rings; so, if you mandated a renewable jet-fuel (through a fossil tax internalizing the true cost of fossil jet fuel into it's price) ... only actually useful flying would tend get done, which if you think about is a very small amount. Likewise, you could mandate less meat consumption overnight (i.e. again, internalizing the real cost into the price people pay for meat) and so people could still eat meat ... they'd just eat a lot less. And so on for every climate or otherwise environmental problem. Nearly every problem can be solved essentially overnight by internalizing it's real cost, people would consume it less or organize their lives to do things for themselves as it just saves too much money not to do it (like a personal garden). Of course, what the true cost is can be debated, but assuming we get it right, then by definition the problem is solved through internalizing the true cost.

What happens the next day? All these industries contract, the capitalist system is thrown into chaos, people's identifies as car riding, suburban house owning, rapacious meat eaters with a job in one of these industries that fly across the globe for a few selfies ... gone. This is the core of the ecological problem and why no politician has done anything about it. Huge push back from existing entrenched industries on one side and on the other identity crisis for a large part of their constituents.

Why (should have) a politician do something given the social upheaval it implies? Because the problems don't go away, and a bunch of social upheaval is far better to live through than the collapse of ecosystems and prolonged global conflicts it will induce (is inducing) and both these factors simply getting continuously worse and worse over time (not some switch that we then adapt to).

The light at the end of the mine shaft is that the system isn't sustainable and so will end.

The GOP is looking to overturn Roe vs. Wade... — creativesoul

I'm really not sure they will actually do this. It's very convenient for Republican politicians that the Justices took care of this issue rather than legislation. Their base gets to feel victimized and there's none of the nuances, compromise and progressive implementation, planned or through reforms at various time, that the legislation process creates. It was illegal and a big problem issue for Republicans in less social conservative areas, and then went to just being completely legal and something Republicans politicians don't have to worry about.

So the situation is sort of best of both worlds for conservative politicians (assuming they don't care at all about the underlying issue, just pandering to their base, which is my general assumption). They get the outrage support from the pro-life movement (some who might otherwise be social-democrat, supporting health-care etc.) without losing swing-voters that are pro-choice but otherwise more conservative. My guess is the farthest a conservative SCOTUS will go is just not interfering in state level anti-abortion initiatives, which is essentially status quo at the moment anyway.

seem likely in the house and — boethius

In general, and historically I have been impressed with how the court has decided many - most issues. Even rulings that I disagreed with. It is a human institutions, and there are exceptions to that, but in general they have been a reasoned body. I think the lifetime appointment is a critical part of that. — Rank Amateur

There is only one advantages of life-long appointments in my opinion, especially if the bar is high to get on the bench (not 51 senators as it is now). The main advantage I see is that the judge appointments are spread out over decades so this guarantees a minimum diversity, and political rot must set in over decades to make big changes. However, I don't feel "unaccountably" in the form of life long appointments somehow magically increases honesty, it's a similar argument to the "rich don't need more money so are less corrupted" which people made vis-a-vis Trump. If a judge isn't affected by lollipops of the prospects of their kids and nephews getting the jobs they want of VC financing for their startup or whatever, not to speak of direct bribes or direct threats or blackmail (even he it means resigning or possibly being assassinated), I would strongly guess it doesn't matter the format of the judgeship for this kind of person; a person who is affected by leverage of whatever kind out of weakness or even welcomes bribes and lollipops as "just looking our for number 1", I don't think lifelong appointment would cause some sudden change of heart.

In previous comments I've outlined the advantages I see in direct election of judges (with much higher bar that 51% first-past-the-post systems being available, as well as longer terms than a typical politician, for instance 10-20 years). However, the dutch system of judges selecting their replacements as well as the US system can work. It's a matter of potentially working better as well as being a better learning experience for society (to consider what the law is, what good judgement is, judging a judges record and voting, I feel is a positive experience for society as well as lending more credibility to the system; in particular in a direct-voting system, if corruption is perceived as a problem, the judge that really wants to fight corruption fiercely and face death-threats can present him or herself; also, in the Europe continental judicial tradition, such as in France, judges generally have power to investigate themselves police or political corruption or things they feel of extraordinary import, it doesn't happen often but they have the power, though this power can be done in the US or any system as well, it's another good thing in my view).

Hasn't even left the dry dock yet. We have not had a direct serious charge yet against him - if such a charge comes to life - the Republicans in Wash will rush to the floor to start proceedings and do all they can to end this nightmare. — Rank Amateur

I'm starting to really doubt this scenario. Trump has already essentially admitted to obstruction of justice on national TV, has scandals of affairs and payments to porn stars, separated children from families, which are just three incredible things more than enough to impeach on. A large portion of sitting US politicians hate Trump, for taking away their power as well as genuine disgust with how he acts and what he says. They've tried (with Fox news supporting) numerous times to trigger an conservative rejection of Trump wave, each time failing. High profile republicans have on numerous occasions made the case against Trump during the campaign. There's definitely enough republicans in the house that genuinely think Trump is bad for the country and the long term prospects of the Republican Party to impeach him ... but no demand from the Republican base, so it would be a short-term meltdown of the GOP and total loss of power of any Republican who participated. It would be similar to the assassination of Ceasar to save Rome from tyranny where every participant was hanged anyways regardless of if it was the right thing to do; there's not enough Republicans politicians that would but country before themselves (many genuinely believe that maximizing personal gain is maximizing society's gain and so if they would lose any power by opposing Trump it's by definition good for the country to keep supporting Trump).

I don't see Mueller being able to up the bar in terms of the scandal-meter, and even if he could the Republican base may not have any threshold where they would be calling for Trump's impeachment. Since impeachment is a political process, without public sentiment of the Republican base changing I don't think it will happen. Even if democrats get the numbers to impeach in both houses, which seems essentially impossible in the Senate at the moment in the midterms anyway nor in the event Trump is re-elected, they might still not impeach him without Republican support, as it would fire up the Republican base (if they still support Trump) and they may prefer Trump over Pence to erode the Republican base as a whole (which is definitely happening under Trump) so they may just dillydaddle and investigate and bring as much scandalous information to light as possible without ever actually impeaching Trump even if they could (i.e. same scenario as the Republicans who think Trump is terrible now: it might be the right thing to do but it's politically expedient not to do it).

edit: corrected implied super majority needed in congress to impeach, which is not correct.

it is about the votes about abortion - not the issue, the votes. It is, and has been, about how 3 Republicans can vote against a pro life court member and get re-elected, or run for president, and how 1 democrat can vote no and not get beat in a Republican state by a republican. — Rank Amateur

Yes, if you're talking about the Republican base perception that Kavanaugh will change abortion precedent, not whether that precedent will actually change, then we are talking about the same thing. Of course, other judges would have fit that description too, why Trump chose Kavanaugh in particular is because he sees Kavanaugh best for him and knows, due to the abortion thing and his base supporting him, the senators can't do shit to change it even if they wanted too.

disagree - the beauty of the lifetime appointment to the bench is once on - Trump hold absolutely no power over him, none. It maybe about a constitutional issue of what can or can't be done to a president - but it won't be about Trump. — Rank Amateur

By about "protecting Trump", I mean that's why Trump nominated him, as he saw he's the guy most likely to protect him, whether due to leverage or just ideological compatibility or both.

I do not believe life long appointments really do free people from all leverage points and allows them to vote their conscience. Leverage in elite circles can be from all sorts of angles.

Yes, Kavanaugh will still be there after Trump, but this may play out poorly for Republicans.

Republican (establishment) ideology has become a cult of personal enrichment at the cost of everyone else including the state. Money equaling speech is a good example of how far the Supreme court is into this ideology even without Kavanaugh. The supreme court is vital to the state functioning, once the ideology of (what the rest of thew world calls) corruption is fully in control it could rapidly erode democratic processes to the point sufficiently many people simply no longer find those processes credible. What happens after is difficult to predict, but it's not good for anyone.

I can help him there - none of them are, and that is exactly the loyalty he deserves. — Rank Amateur

Some are loyal, like his family members, but I agree the term loyalty as we usually understand it isn't a good word for most. It's more brand loyalty, people who believe the Trump brand is the future of the Republican party and are staying on the ride, as well as people Trump has leverage on.

as for all the other Trump stuff - let me restate what I said before - he is the worst human being to ever hold the office - and the sooner he an this mess leave Washington the better. — Rank Amateur

I think the impeachment boat has sailed. The entire media, including Fox news, has tried multiple times to try to switch the narrative to "is Trump done, I think Trump is done, yep he's done ... oh look the polls haven't changed". Fox News has painstakingly taken the credibility of establishment media and given it, not to themselves as they imagined, but an organic mania machine on the internet.

Trump has created a new normal for the Republican base and party apparatus. The previous republican main players will find it ironic that all their effort into voter disenfranchisement, electronic voting machines without paper trails and supreme court precedent of recounts not being a thing (further strengthened by a 5 conservative justices) will be reaped by Trump, but they'll get their piece of the cake too and be happy about it.

Not being a Republican or a Democrat, but an independent who thinks the system is broken - here is what I think would be a great ending. The Senate approves Judge Kavanaugh on Saturday - and on Monday he declines the nomination. — Rank Amateur

My opinion is that this scenario has essentially zero chance of happening. If you want to believe that Kavanaugh is some noble patriot thinking of the interest of the court and country before himself and his masters, well let's see Monday if he "declines".

As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the purpose of the FBI investigation was simply to buy time to see how the polling goes for senators like Flake who still don't get the scandal / logic immunity that the Trump administration has vis-a-vis the Republican base.

The administration has been immune from any scandal affecting the Republican base support for Trump (he might be the most popular Republican president, among self identified republican voters, ever), so why would it stop now? And indeed it hasn't.

Therefore, claim the investigation is thorough, which the Republican base can then repeat to each other, and that Kavanaugh's performance in difficult questioning was stellar, and then nominate him to the bench.

Why Democrats Senators would pickup the meme of a "FBI Investigation" in the first place, when the FBI is controlled by Trump and he's certainly changed it to his liking by now ... is a good example of Democrats being paid to ignore how the system works (that's basically the roll of most Democrat politicians).

I also disagree that this this is about abortion. Kavanaugh's nomination is about protecting Trump. I very much doubt abortion laws will change, that's just something Republicans let the evangelicals believe they'll care about someday. The situation of abortion as it is, is convenient for republicans and the'll likely keep it that way.

What matters, is that while Mueller's investigation grind on and scandals peter out and new scandals emerge, and the leaves turn color and the larks go extinct, Trump has been finding by trial-and-error who's loyal and who's not. He got hoodwinked by Sessions and his backers so that an investigation could start that would have leverage on Trump (something the Republicans establishment ousted by Trump wanted to control him and something Democrats wanted to blame the election loss on, so a win-win for the previous power brokers), but Trump has found other backers and has started to understand, with his family members, how the state apparatus works and the amazing powers of the President (from controlling things like the FBI, intelligence agencies, nominating SCOTUS, tariffs and trade deals, threatening nuclear war and the like) as well as cut deals with the real Republican power holders like the Israelis, Saudi's and the Kochs, not the puppets seen on TV who he can now just ignore. He'll soon be able to pardon who he wants from federal and state crimes, get rid of Rosenstein and Mueller, as well as take full charge of the whole wealth of propaganda outlets and dirty bag of tricks the Republican establishment has painstakingly crafted over the years.

In my view Trump has now secured the essential state power mechanisms (why he's now so happy on TV) thanks to unquestioning loyalty of the Republican base that have kept all the Republican senators and congress members in line, and avoided a revolution of the moderate Republicans teaming with the Democrats to impeach him.

So great for Trump. And a great day for Trump supporters for sure.

However, supporting an incompetent statesman who falls in love with dictators is not necessarily a good future for any American, including Republicans. When a real crisis comes, history has shown that governments filled with loyal sycophants simply lose their grip on the situation.

edit: corrections

Both Democrats and Republicans are allowed to be members of the SCOTUS. And as amazing as that is, generally Republican Presidents nominate Republicans, and Democratic Presidents nominate Democrats. It is one of the really cool things about winning an election. — Rank Amateur

When did I say that a republican can't be a judge? I was explaining why it's reasonable for democrats to not vote for Kavanaugh confirmation even if the FBI completely exonerated Kavanaugh proving Ford any all other accusers are frauds, which was a response to your claim of duplicity on the part of Democrats.

Now, should the system be that with 51% of senators representing less than 51% of people can appoint a supreme justice? That's another question.

Likewise, I qualified "presumably" about the the people wanting unbiased and non-partisan judges (and a democrat or a republican judge can still strive for fair and non-partisan rulings, which would then be reflected in their record and a good basis for getting the support of 60 or maybe more senators). There's nothing forcing people to want unbiased judges, Americans are free to want judges based on loyalty to party above country and even common sense if Americans want.

Nevertheless, thanks for advising me to win an election. I'm not an American, nor ever lived in America. I won't reap the direct affects of republican propaganda (largely with democrats enabling the whole thing) gaslighting America's ability to make even simple arguments. But I do care about Americans and everyone outside America affected by the world's super power, so I take interest from time to time. For myself personally, I choose to live in the place on the planet I believe least affected by this interesting time in history.

he was all of those things you wanted him to be until give or take 60 days ago when a women sent a letter to the committee saying he molested her as a teenager. — Rank Amateur

What are you talking about? Kavanaugh's record is extreme partisanship. That's not in dispute. He already got caught stealing democratic info off a gov server with a stolen democrat password. Because republicans control the process they can choose to ignore all the evidence Kavanaugh isn't fit for the office.

He was everything Republicans wanted, an extreme partisan, until a women sent a letter.

The point I am making and you are missing, is the reality of the situation is meaningless. — Rank Amateur

I understand your point and I disagree. Had the republicans nominated some book-worm, squeaky clean goody-two-shoes, it would have been smooth sailing. And let's even imagine a false accusation (whether a "democratic hit job" or one of the millions of Americans just imagining things), and this much more boring judge would have made a much more boring and calm and reasoned response and basically end of story.

The situation is like it is because Kavanaugh is simply not what is expected of an important judge, and the illusion he is, is starting to implode even for Republicans (judge Judy has far more composure and sharp intellect ... far, far more ...). He's clearly a rash partisan from his record, as well as jumping to the conclusion that Ford's testimony must be a Clinton political hit job without evidence (jumping to conclusions that have no supporting evidence is exactly what a judge is hired to avoid doing).

It's not a situation that it's "all politics" and Kavanaugh would have been taken down regardless of his past or how he answers questions. The situation is that precisely because he's so over-the-top partisan, so loyal to the Republican party, rash in presuming everything is a liberal conspiracy, it's exactly for these qualities that Trump selected him. Making the most extreme partisan choice of the most irresponsible person (vis-a-vis caring about the constitution and forming unbiased opinions) has the affect of giving plenty of credible ammunition to Democrats (who understandably don't want an extreme partisan). R senators and the white house knew Kavanaugh's "beach week" past and that it's anyone guess what might come up. It's reported fairly powerful R senators argued strongly against Kavanaugh's nomination.

In my opinion, Trump selected Kavanaugh not only because he's the most partisan, the most extreme in defending the party, most likely to be loyal to Trump ... but also if a scandal does emerge it takes attention off of Trumps various scandals (and normalizes that "everyone has crazy scandals", which exactly what he said about everyone in the room in his most recent word-escapade). So, he gains something either way and another candidate can easily be rushed through last minute if need be (republicans control every branch and they can do what they want ... for now).

Edit: clarity

My point was, IMO, however he responded it would have been incorrect by those doing all they can to prevent his nomination. — Rank Amateur

This is simply not true. If he was calm and collected, people (even those against his nomination) would say he has the demeanor of a supreme court justice when the stakes are high.

It should also be noted that it's pretty easy to deny things that happened 30 years ago, the possibility of making a case (even if he's guilty) are slim.

So him simply calmly denying it, accepting that he did drink but never sexually assaulted anyone, going through the questions of the senators (assuming there really was no corroborating evidence to support assault claims that would arise, FBI or in the press). The conservatives could then say "see, this is supreme court material", and if he had calm and reasonable answers befitting a federal judge presenting themselves for a supreme court nomination there's little democrats could say (and since they can't block his nomination, republicans would be in an easy position to tell their base "sure, she got assaulted by someone, look how great a judge Kavanaugh and his masterful display of self-awareness and critical thinking in his hearing").

Since the whole thing happened quickly, my guess is that the republican senators thought their "female assistant" would undermine Fords credibility catching her in some sort of contradiction (as it happened decades ago it should be easy to create lot's of doubts and find a contradiction or two), that Kavanaugh would be "very judge like" (because he's literally a judge), that they would do the "republican outrage" to stoke their base (because that's what they do), and then quickly vote him through in a couple of days saying it was all liberal hogwash. Once he's on the bench, nothing anyone can do, news cycle resets.

It didn't go down that way so they accepted a limited one week FBI investigation to see how things play out in the media.

What is the appropriate way for an honorable man to respond to outright lies alleging attempted rape, assuming that's the case? — Hanover

If we bring the acceptable behaviour bar down to the level of kindergartten, then yes being accused of stealing Billy's marbles WHEN YOU DIDN'T, for sure normal to get angry, start re-intepreting all your actions as that of a good little boy and also claiming it was a setup by the Clintons from the start.

However, if the SCOTUS bar is at that of reasonable, calm and collected adults, presumably characteristics the country wants Judges to have (but not written in stone anywhere), then the expected reaction of unfounded accusations is not to get angry, deflect, go on strange diatribes about a political hit job (without providing any actual evidence), claim a calendar proves what you actually did, truly bizarre questioning the questioner. The expected response would be simply defending one's character, claiming complete surety that the accusations are false, answering questions honestly (even if true answer lend credibility to the accusations). For instance, if I'm falsely accused of sexual assault in a bar that I frequent, republicans think it's totally normal, expected, excusable that I'd then lie about frequenting that bar. What am I going to do, place my self at the scene of the crime! No, it's not normal nor does it help my cause, since it's easily verified to be false and being found in this lie undermines my claim that I didn't do it (even if I didn't do it!!).

(Most) innocent people usually react to being a suspect in a crime by being overly honest, making exactly what they know very clear, presenting all the nuances of all their relevant actions and behaviour patterns, because they have true memories (of doing things other than the crime) that it's easy to volunteer the information. A person who did the crime (or suspects they easily could have done the crime in a drunken blackout) cannot by definition volunteer lot's of true information that supports their innocence: they must lie when questioned. The problem with lying is that it's difficult, what's a fully buyable lie? What's a lie that not too believable but can't be proven to be false? What are other true details that are incoherent (though still possible) with the main lie and it's better to lie about those too? What are true details that "don't look good" but are best to be true about (world is a strange place where weird things and coincidences do happen)? When is there no good lie and it's better to simply "not remember"? Making good lies is a difficult task (especially with impromptu questioning) and it's also difficult to deliver them well (as the emotion isn't real, and must be faked too).

What we saw in Kavanaugh's testimony is someone who's bad at lying. Bad choice of lies, bad explanations, bad delivery, sometimes deciding that stone-walling, deflecting and flipping the question on the senator is a good strategy. Maybe he's lying just because he's so afraid of the false accusations he (stupidly) thought lying would help him. Maybe he's lying because the accusations are true and he needs to lie and (unfortunate for him) he's terrible at it.

Kavanaugh's problem is he has no practice at lying but decided to do it anyway. Being a lawyer and then a judge doesn't require much if any lying at all. You represent other people, question other people, judge other people; and it's part of the job to do your best even if you suspect your client is guilty. It's not like being a politician where there are copious opportunities where lying can help and you can get really good at it if that's your thing.

Opinion not philosophy - but pretty sure Kavanaugh is toast. Mukowski and collins do not want a SCOTUS that will endanger Roe - or support state driven restrictions on abortion. Unless the FBI comes back with Dr. Ford made the whole thing up, there is enough noise around him now they can vote no, and go to their constituents with a story it was not about abortion, but about his fitness for the job and take their chances. — Rank Amateur

I'm also of the opinion that Kavanaugh is gone ... but wouldn't be surprised if they push him through to show republicans "are strong".

However, the reason for withdrawing his nomination I don't think only tangentially anything to do with the points you bring up nor even the investigation per se. Rather, it comes down to polling.

Plenty of scandals that are completely outrageous have no effect on republican polling, indeed it often polls that doing something responsible would anger the republican base.

I think the main purpose of the investigation for Trump and the other powerful republicans, is time to measure sentiment on Fox news and their base. If enough of the republican base (in particular republican women) wavers on support for Kavanaugh, that's what I see as the main factor for withdrawing Kavanaugh.

Why this might matter in this case and didn't matter for Trump (enough to lose the election) I think is that Kavanaugh is more a relateable privileged douche whipping it out (allegedly) and raping / attempted raping (allegedly) "normal" women. Trumps scandals are mostly with port stars, gold digging groupies, miss America candidates, that the average conservative women can much more easily say "they're asking to get their pussies grabbed by being in the situation" and "it's part of being super rich".

Yeah, he could've even gotten away with saying: I don't recall it happening but if it did happen I sincerely apologise to Dr. Ford. — Benkei

He didn't even have to go that far. He could have just said "did a lot of partying, drank beer, like beer, had a lot of inside jokes with my friends about vaguely understood inuendo, but I am 100% positive I never sexually assaulted anyone, that's just not me." Which is how nearly anyone that was completely innocent (especially a judge) would respond given a partying past that "doesn't look good".

Lying and misleading and "what about you huh, would like to know about if you ever blacked out", especially unnecessary lies and totally implausible lies, is much more compatible (especially for a judge who presumably knows how evidence and critical thinking work) with the state of mind of someone who is guilty and panicked that it's coming to light. Not proof, but a credible conclusion to make. As Comey points out, small lies are often a indication of large lies.

Political bias is grounds for substition in Dutch courts, whereas the political bias of a US judge is a given nowadays based on which president confirmed his position. The proof is in the pudding as to what extent politics creeps into these systems and the political drive surrounding Roe vs. Wade and Citizens United. It's quite clear from the current spectacle and the Garland no-show which system is embattled by corruption and it isn't the Dutch one. — Benkei

My point was that in a self-replacing judicial system, systemetic bias is one problem (mainly the bias of the class from which lawyers generally come from, and further selection bias). As is the case with bias, people generally don't see their own biases, it's just the "true facts". Systemic bias is usually class bias, not necessarily partisan bias. In this case, your participation in the system perhaps leads you to conclude that it is really the best system, rather than a system that is working for the time being in the Netherlands but it's possible self-replacement of judges is not the main factor leading to the good judging you see (but solid tradition and general cultural norms), that it is an exception and not a good model for countries trying to reduce bias. However, if education is free, opportunity fairly equal, class mobility is a thing, then even class biases can be significantly reduced.

However, let's say down the road social mobility stagnates, the gap between the rich and poor increase, do you think the Dutch judge-guild is going to rule unbiased in cases of typical lawyery crimes as well as the wealthy class in general, or is it more likely a judge-guild to be lenient on people from their guild and class and less lenient on the poor?

Now, I fully agree that the US selection system isn't good. Having representatives select judges isn't a good democratic process of the many to choose from. Even with representatives nominating judges the bar can be far higher (like going back to the 60 votes threshold or even higher as well US congress getting a say).

However, I believe direct voting for judges, and judge terms, is the best system. As a citizen if you vote on who judges you (or at least supreme court), this immediately legitimizes the system and in the case of the US would be a counter-weight to "the club" of wealthy politicians appointing the judges from their class that they like and surprise, surprise those judges then protect the wealthy from accountability. It is also social learning experience to consider a judges record, and formulate an idea of who you think is a good judge.

While this is all well and good - there are really only 3 people in the world that have anything to say about this Flake, Collins and Murkowski. There was not one, well maybe the possibility of one, democrat that would have voted for confirmation. Kind of makes the call for and complaints about the FBI investigation more about delay than truth. If it comes back that he actually is a choir boy and she is a liar, they still would not confirm him. And other than those 3, there is not one Republican who would vote not to confirm, again indifferent to what the FBI report says. — Rank Amateur

The Democrats have the right to think he's not the best candidate regardless. It's already been established that Kavanaugh's accessed democrat emails with a stolen password. No one seems to be refuting this.

From a conservative perspective it maybe "of course! he's a conservative judge and gonna try to get the one-up on democrats any chance he gets: should have protected that password better. Powned!"

However, it seems pretty reasonable that Democrats wouldn't view a judge that participated in hacking their server account (stealing passwords is hacking) for partisan reasons as impartial. It's totally reasonable for any Senator to have already reached their "no-vote" threshold with Kavanaugh for other reasons or then believe a better candidate exists even without any scandal (on Kavanaugh judicial record in itself compared to other potential nominees: as with any job selection process!).

So the "turn it around ploy" and accuse democrats of not voting yes if the FBI exonerates Kavanaugh doesn't work, the FBI investigation is only part of a whole. If the conservatives haven't reached a point where they would vote no while democrats have, it's totally reasonable for democrats to continue the scrutiny process as further evidence may reach R senator's threshold.

This is basic common decision making patterns. For instance, we may want to go on vacation together but we disagree on the spot. You want to go to Paris but I don't want to, simply because I think London is better. We hear a rumour that the plague has broken out in Paris, so I suggest "hmm, if the plague is in Paris, let's definitely not go there, let's try to verify this" a reasonable response is not "woa, woa, if it turns out there is no plague, you wouldn't want to go to Paris anyway, verification is pointless! bad faith, bad faith!"

It's a simple thing, but unfortunately conservative propaganda has taken it to this level.

Edit: Alex Jones also claimed not only was Obama super gay, but Michelle Obama was a man based on her being tall and having broad shoulders ... just like a man. Their kids you ask? Stone cutter child trafficking plants! Innocent or guilty, these claims didn't ruin Obama's reputation. Now, I don't agree that corporate ToS should be used to censor political debate completely deplatforming removing all their content ToS violation or no, and I also agree with Alex that the rich do meet and conspire against the public (just as Adam Smith points out as obvious fact), but doesn't make Obama's Gaygate plausible or relevant, as there's no credibility to it. Kavanaugh's problem is claims are credible, perhaps not true nor proven in a criminal court, but very plausible given reports about his drinking behaviour and material evidence like his yearbook.

If you think that these accusations haven't destroyed his reputation, whether he gets on the supreme court or not, you have to be living on Mars. That accusation will hang over his life for the rest of his life - innocent or not.. — Sam26

A few have responded, but I think the most important rebuttal here is that it comes with the territory of accepting a nomination for the Supreme court.

If you want to be one of the most powerful people in the country, far greater scrutiny than a less powerful judge or politician is part of the process, much less a normal citizen applying at a coffee shop.

If you don't want to deal with such scrutiny or don't want to deal with potential false accusations (which are a thing): don't accept nomination for the supreme court!

Also, Kavanaugh's reputation has taken a hit because it's now firmly established that his behaviour in school and college fits the pattern of irresponsible drinking. If it was just Ford's accusation without witnesses and he had no pattern of excessive drinking and there's simply no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise; maybe true, maybe false accusation; this has happened to other politicians and it didn't "destroy their reputation". Lot's of random accusations were thrown at Obama (like being full into the gay sex scene, part of some secret black stone cutters society), but nothing came of it and his reputation wasn't destroyed since there was no well established pattern of behaviour (of visiting gay bars all the time or hopping from secret society to secret society) nor any direct evidence (i.e. the media had nothing legitimate to talk about and they remained random accusations ... except for Fox new on many occasions). So again, knowing that you have a past that easily supports reckless drunken acts, it's reasonable to expect to deal with such accusations when going for a supreme court seat. And Kavanaugh was fully aware of this, as he preemptively sought support from his friends and acquaintances to make sure they wouldn't tattletale on him. In other words, he rolled the dice on whether his drinking past would come up or not. It's completely fair to Kavanaugh as he could have refused the nomination to avoid the scrutiny. So, innocent or not, it's not a case of "poor little Kavanaugh".

@Benkai

You make a bold claim that facts simply establish that my opinion is simply not true (which was simply independent systems are more vulnerable to corruption than direct/indirect elected system).

As a lawyer in the Netherlands, your opinion that the system works great maybe an example of the exact systemic bias in this sort of system that I'm referring too. But let's ignore this.

Also note, my view is not that that full independence of judges choosing their successors can't work. Just like an aristocracy or perhaps more apt any craftsmen gild: a good starting point, good traditions and supporting cultural norms can result in good performance of these systems for even very extended periods of time. So, I am not saying independent courts totally fail immediately.

I qualified my statement that it is my opinion because I know these systems exist and have performed well; my view is they are not better than democratic systems and not the pathway to reduce corruption.

Perhaps a better presentation of my point is, what you would advise for improving the US system (or an even more corrupt system for that matter): more or less democracy in selecting judges. My conclusion is that if corruption is a problem, historically established or culturally supported, then independent courts of judges selecting replacements isn't going to reduce corruption. If judicial corruption is already a problem how is giving them more insulation from accountability and more power going to help? However, electing judges (of which many, many systems to do so are available) can act as a counter force to corruption.

So, as far as the facts are concerned, why did electing judges (directly or by representatives) arise in the first place? To solve corruption and class-bias problems. If a society doesn't encounter judicial corruption due to strong anti-corruption cultural norms or then lawyers and judges manage to self-discipline their judge-guild to keep it going, independence can work. In other-words, low-corruption cultures have low-corruption judicial systems whether independent or democratically appointed in some way, whereas cultures where judicial corruption became a problem, more democracy rather than more judicial independence has been the historic go to for increasing faith in the judiciary. Do you agree with this? or are you saying that in a country where corruption is a problem applying full independence of the judiciary and judges being life-time appointed and then selecting their successors would be the way forward in tackling judicial and government corruption?

I would also add that elections of judges also serves as accelerating society's learning about what makes a good judge and why impartial judges and fighting corruption benefits everyone.

@Benkei

Do some basic research.

Supreme Court of the Netherlands wikipedia page: "Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by royal decree, chosen from a list of three, advised by the House of Representatives on the advice of the Court itself. "

Politicians are involved.

I agree it's a mix, but a mix is not fully independent.

I also agree that a fully independent court (such as selection entirely from existing judges) can work for a period of time.

My argument is that I think it is more likely to lead to corruption, either blackmail / bribe corruption or systemic bias in the judge selection process, than democratic processes (just as kings can work out for a period of time).

There's a lot of countries out there with an independent justice system that have no problem keeping corruption out of their system, so this doesn't hold true. In fact, from a Dutch perspective, the political identity of judges is in a sense corrupting the practice of applying the law when their political beliefs influence their method of interpretation. "Political views" is not an acceptable interpretative technique when applying the law.

You talk about facts but don't mention any facts. Which countries?

You mention the dutch: literally first hit on searching results in "Judges are appointed by the Crown, under the aegis of the Minister for Security and Justice [...] Individuals can be nominated for appointment to the judiciary only on recommendation by a national selection committee, made up of members from the various courts, the public prosecutor’s office and individuals active in society."

In other words, it's a political process that selects judges. It just so happens that the Dutch value objectivity and impartial judges. However, if these selection committees fell prey to partisan forces they could nominate partisan judges to advance their cause through rulings. It is simply not true to say the Dutch judiciary is independent. Just as 60 vote threshold in the US senate perhaps resulted in less partisan judges, but the process fell prey to partisan forces who lowered the bar.

I mention in my post that indirect voting for judges can nevertheless work better than what we are seeing in the US right now.

To be clear, what full independence would mean would be along the lines of A. that judges simply select their successors without any possible intervention (dependence) from elections or elected representatives (basically how cardinals and popes get selected, B. judges are selected at complete random from the population C. a computer algorithm selects judges (by coders in turn selected by the previous A or B methods).

In the context of the exchange, independent meant complete independence from politics (not a unbiased characteristic voters might wish for judges to have); i.e. no voting for judges directly nor indirectly nor any ability to impeach them.

My comment was in the response to Bitter crank's observation of "I don't know if there is a way to structurally protect SCOTUS from political sturm and drang. Packing, enlarging, establishing term limits for justices... replacing them with Martians... Just don't know." I.e. a completely independent judiciary from all "politics" to which my point is that the justice system is inherently political, so may as well make the best democratic selection process feasible (which may very well be the dutch system of selecting selection committees).

@Bitter Crank

I don't know if there is a way to structurally protect SCOTUS from political sturm and drang. Packing, enlarging, establishing term limits for justices... replacing them with Martians... Just don't know. Anyway, it isn't the Court so much as it is one group of the The People vs. several major players -- like religious organizations in Roe Wade or rich individuals and corporations in Citizens United.

The People really have to have a broader strategy than depending on the court.

The idea of an independent court (like an "independent federal reserve") is mainly to protect the rich from a populist government that wants to redistribute wealth (hence Roosevelt needing to pack the court for the new deal). It's a nice thought that an independent court could reign in a corrupt government, but it's actually more likely, in my view, that an independent justice system is corrupted (bribery, blackmail, or then the slow work of filtering out the non-wealthy from going to top law schools, becoming top lawyers and judges in the first place etc.). Justice is fundamentally a political thing, and so voting for key positions, like Surpeme justices, is in my opinion the best option. Which is the current system just indirectly voting for the president and then senators. Of course, first past the post system for electing supreme court justices would be terrible, but there are other systems in my opinion that are better than first past the post direct voting as well as elect a president and senators (in first past the post and not even counting votes equally, so a mix of two bad systems). Of course, even indirect voting can be improved on too (like a 60 vote threshold maybe). If the argument against direct voting for supreme court justices is that people can't recognize the benefits of impartial judges ... well what benefits can they recognize and so why should they vote on anything at all?

Trying to make any part of government independent of politics, is just an unsolvable problem.

However, I completely agree that judicial activism is terrible even when your own side wins. By short-circuiting the political process of social debate, activity of citizens for what they believe and crafting and passing new laws, the result is a schism and polarization of society (and each side focusing on pushing through their judges rather than needing to engage in public debate). For instance, Ireland only passed a law allowing abortion recently, but this reflects the real changes of the attitudes of Irish society; if one supports abortion rights then this delay caused unneeded suffering, but the alternative to democracy is tyranny and society learning new things by definition takes time.

Why this seems an impossible position for pro-choice people in the case of Roe v Wade, is because there is an assumption in the Anglo style court system that a judge must rule on every case, ultimately the Suprme court being the last arbitrator. Therefore, in this system Judges are faced with needing to invent new laws or applying incomplete laws in irrational ways; i.e. they must either serve injustice or create new standards of justice. This is a false dichotomy. The solution is that, as exists in other systems, justices can request clarification of the laws; basically throwing the ball into the legislature who can then make a new standard (with application of the the standard retroactively being an option), the standard goes back to the courts who then apply it based on the evidence.

Edit: To complete my last point, making politicians clarify the law means people can vote them out if they don't like how they vote. Again with alternatives to geographic and first past the post representation being possible also, including the politicians throwing the ball directly to the people in a referendum (again with higher than 50.1 % threshold being an option as well) and improvements on confusing, badly worded, false dichotomy referendums likewise being a possibility.

@Proto

Haven't read the whole thread, so not sure what problems people haven't responded.

As for the points you list:

Fear of flying

This question came up in the hearing.

Mitchell: I ask that because it’s been reported by the press that you would not submit to an interview with the committee because of your fear of flying. Is that true?

Ford: Well, I was willing—I was hoping that they would come to me. But then realized that was an unrealistic request.

Mitchell: It would have been a quicker trip for me.

[Both laugh.]

Ford: Yes. So, that was certainly what I was hoping, was to avoid having to get on an airplane. But I eventually was able to get up the gumption with the help of some friends, and get on the plane.

It's pretty clear she's afraid of flying, tries to avoid it, but if it's not avoidable she can fly. This is how people with fears behave; their first reaction is to avoid what they fear and then if they can't they try to overcome it (to achieve other goals). It's also clear she didn't use flying to avoid going to the hearing but thought the hearing could come to her, which she quickly realized wasn't possible resulting in her flying to and speaking at the hearing.

This thing about flying is a small irrelevant detail that the conservative media tried to use to undermine her credibility. But she obviously flew to the hearing, despite her fear of flying, which is consistent with flying for other reasons too and inconsistent with the idea of having a contrived excuse to avoid speaking.

Payment for polygraph

It's a super high profile committee hearing. She's asked by high profile people to do a polygraph, directly or indirectly by the democrat senators: she does the polygraph. It's completely reasonable to not ask who's paying for it and not even realize it could be paid by a party other than the government.

It's also not clear what the motivation would be to know who paid for the polygraph but then lie and deny knowledge of who paid. It's clearly information the R members of the committee can easily find out. Ergo: totally irrational to jump to the conclusion that this is yet more lies.

Ford failing to document Kavanaug's name

The pattern of behaviour established so far (according to Ford's testimony and what a few others connected to Ford have so far said) is that Ford tried to rationalize and trivialize the assault (that she claims occurred, and claims committed by Kavanaug) as she managed to escape the rape. So she didn't tell anyone. However, the experience had long term psychological affects that she decided to deal with later. Clearly it did not bother her too much that Kavanaug was a federal judge but the prospect of him being a SCOTUS judge was a threshold for her to do something; it's also a situation where the testimony has a real affect as trying to bring a decades old charge to trial in order to unseat a a sitting judge is very unlikely to succeed nor simply the accusations likely to "ruin his career", but such testimony is much more relevant in a SCOTUS hearing where the standard of evidence is much lower (it is reasonable for senators to consider an accusation of attempted rape by a credible witness, even without corroborating evidence, for a SCOTUS position). Of note, ford sent her letter before Kavanaug was nominated in the hopes that it would sway Trump's nomination choice to avoid a scandal.

Considering Ford's claims, her pattern of behaviour is consistent with them. It is still in the realm of possibility that she is lying, or imagined things, or miss-identified Kavanaug.

The whole point of an FBI investigation is to see if there is corroborating evidence somewhere.

Russian agency

You follow your conclusion that not only is Ford lying on the points you bring up but these lies are reasonable basis to further conclude she's a Russian agent, and then go on to accuse other forum members that they are "failing to think logically" or are "biased".

This is really an incredible level of irrationality. Jumping to conclusions without evidence, just stating you conclude she is lying, is not how rationality works: it's exactly how bias works.

Though it is possible Ford is lying or has missremembered or misidentified Kavanaug, there is so far no evidence to support that as the plausible explanation. A pattern of Ford making up traumatic events or seeking celebrity status (to further her value to Russian?) has not emerged. So simply making a conclusion anyway is not how reasoning from evidence works.

What has emerged is a pattern of Kavanaug drinking to excess, which he already testified to, as even a "weak stomach" does not start vomiting after half a beer without serious medical problem which would be well documented by doctors throughout his life with a strong recommendation to avoid drinking altogether (in other words it's simply not plausible to conclude Kavanaug could drink to vomiting regularly yet somehow not get drunk enough to loose memory regularly; it's conceivable but not plausible).

This in itself is a fatal blow to Kavanaug's candidacy. Past drinking habits are relevant to SCOTUS position. First it's an indication of character that might be outweighed by other indications of character, but relevant nonetheless. Second, even if excessive drinking was long ago, it creates the possibility that hard evidence does exists of crimes or scandalous behaviour (a photo sitting in a box somewhere) and this has the potential to create either a large scandal in the future that undermines the credibility of the SCOTUS or, worse, falls into the wrong hands and is used to blackmail Kavanaug. These are completely reasonable considerations for Senators to consider when considering a SCOTUS candidacy. Even small potential for blackmail based on hearsay (i.e. reputation) about a candidate's past is regularly used to deny promotions to a particularly sensitive positions (keeping nuke codes, access to foreign agent identities, Supreme Court Justice, that sort of thing) even if the candidate is otherwise fully competent and such considerations were not sufficient to block previous career advancements.

edit:spelling and clarity

edit2: and there is actual testimony, not just hearsay, of Kavanaug's drinking habits.