Agreement is irrelevant. We could agree because you threatened my wife, or because we're family and I'm partial, or simply because I like you and not the next guy. These are merely economic transactions, not moral ones. You need to be deeply steeped in a capitalist society to equate economic transactions with moral ones, so the mistake is understandable but it's a rather simplistic and unexamined position. That's where almost everything goes wrong with most of your thinking. — Benkei
Because of all of the above, and because Joe Biden has notably done none of the above, you might think it would be pretty clear to people that of the two candidates, one of them is good for democracy and one of them is bad, and that the latter is very obviously Trump. But according to the results of a terrifying new poll, that is, somehow, very much not the case.
That poll, conducted by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, reveals that in the six swing states Biden won in 2020, more voters classified as “Deciders”—that is, they are likely to decide the outcome of the election—think Trump is better equipped to handle threats to democracy than Biden. — Vanity Fair
When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. — The Atlantic
The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.
Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law. ...
Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.
— Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer, Dissenting on Presidential Immunity
By requiring that Congress create federal offices “by Law,” the Constitution imposes an important check against the President—he cannot create offices at his pleasure. If there is no law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution. A private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former President.
The limitation on the President’s power to create offices grew out of the Founders’ experience with the English monarchy. The King could wield significant power by both creating and filling offices as he saw fit. He was “emphatically and truly styled the fountain of honor. He not only appoint[ed] to all offices, but [could] create offices.”
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