And now we're prosecuting him for a malum prohibita, a law created by the government — Hanover

Right, election laws are created by the government, as are laws against falsification of records.

The case is likely to be based on combining the two. The latter is a misdemeanor in New York law, but:

To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.

In this case, that second crime could be a violation of election law.

NYT

There are no such rights because you refuse to give them. You will not afford anyone the right to life or the right to own anything. And of course you will not defend them. Only government can do that. — NOS4A2

Yes NOS, if only everyone would behave and not take anything from anyone else and if someone did take something from someone else we should defend the person who was wronged.

If only ...

Do you really need to be told that this is not the way the world works?

Here are some facts for those who think they are important:

Bragg did not start the investigation. He inherited it. He was concerned with the strength of the case and slowed down the investigation. As a result the two leading prosecutors resigned. It was not until successfully convicting the Trump's company of tax fraud that he convened a new grand jury. He would not have done so if he did not think he now has a strong case. We do not know the details of the case. The Republican leaders do not know the details of the case either, but are circling the wagons and amping up the rhetoric and threats. All in an effort to get the voters to decide before the trial even begins and evidence is heard.

Guessing at what the short and long term consequences of indictment might be should not be the determining factor. We do not know what those consequences will be. In addition, these are not the only consequences to be considered. Treating someone as if he is above the law and unaccountable to the people he is sworn to serve is a bigger problem.

If you want to know what Trump is guilty of, not just in this case but since the beginning of his political career, look at what he accuses others of.

He has turned a legal issue into a political one, and accused the Democrats of being the ones doing that. If they don't cuff him he will request that they do. All the better for his image as a reality TV star martyr, an image he has been cultivating from the beginning. As he told the faithful in Waco:

"They're coming after you." — Fooloso4

This he has convinced them is the real threat of what he calls the "weaponization of law enforcement". He has turned law enforcement into a weapon to be used against the faithful MAGA followers, the good people who must fight against the forces of evil.

The threat of civil war is real, but given the disparity of power and weapons, it will not be fought by conventional means. The battleground will be the hearts and minds of the people.

Their research showed that a large share of shooters were suicidal in the year before they committed their violent acts. Taking a gun to school (or shopping center...) and opening fire was a fairly certain way of dying--a form of suicide by police bullet. — BC

How many of these shooters would not take a high capacity semiautomatic rifle to school if they did not have one?

Although suicide is a mental health issue not everyone who becomes suicidal suffers from mentally ill.

The majority of suicides by gun are not mass murders. The majority of deaths by gun are not mass murder.

The only common factor in all these cases is guns. We should do more to adequately address mental health but it is not on its own the answer.

I quit being a crime lord in the Fall of 1951. — jgill

Some students who struggle with math might think teaching math is the bigger crime.

Thanks for the vivid telling of this true crime story.

On another note. Watch Trump's left shoulder. His posture has changed. He tries to appear confident but he seems to be weighed down by the mounting legal pressures. But this is likely to make him more erratic and dangerous.

I think they will come to see that backing Trump is a liability, but I would not bet on it. A major factor is what will happen with the protests Trump is instigating. With each protest following each indictment if the protest turn violent, which seems likely, I think more and more sensible Republican voters will turn against him. When enough do the political "leaders" will follow.

But there is another factor. The timeline to MAGA, for deep pocket, high power conservatives, means going back to undoing the socialist programs of Franklin Roosevelt. Of course for the average MAGA supporter it means something different, they do not want to give up Social Security. But this is not where the dark money is. On the other hand, they despise Trump and will only support him as long as they think he can further their own plutocratic interests.

I own property because I purchased it or made it. — NOS4A2

Your ownership of the property is protected by the rule of law and from someone coming in and taking it from you by force.

I won't go into your anti-tax rant again. It rings hollow. You receive from the government far more than you [correction: give].

I get to live on a plot of the lord’s land, pay them a certain percentage of what I myself make and create through my own industry ... — NOS4A2

The lord's land? You live in a fantasy. Did you or the lord build the infrastructure on that land?

... so that I might find solace in the chance that my government will protect me should war come knocking. — NOS4A2

If it comes it will not knock. But the likelihood of it even coming is greatly reduced because our borders are guarded. But there is no need for you to be concerned. You have a gun.

Restricting my rights to own a gun does not protect the rights of anyone else, for I have not violated anyone’s rights. — NOS4A2

Once again, you need to look at the issue from a perspective that is not limited to you. You are not the only person with a gun. In addition, the example cited has nothing to do with guns.

Yet the government reserves for itself the right to own weapons that can destroy the whole planet. Where is the gun control then? If this isn’t antithetical to the interests of the individual I don’t know what is. — NOS4A2

I agree that the arms race is a problem, but national security is not antithetical to the interests of the individual.

What this all boils down to ... — NOS4A2

It is not what it boils down to but rather what the narrowness of your understanding allows you to see.

That story could have turned out very differently! It makes me wonder about what happened leading up to the story that brought together a fourteen year old, a mafioso, and a frequently fired stolen gun.

An impressive vocabulary. — jgill

Arthur Koestler's definition of philosophy:

the systematic abuse of a terminology specially invented for that purpose.

You own private property because that right is protected by the government. You are able to speak freely because the government protects you by limiting its own power.

I am down for any law that is just and protects the rights of the individual. — NOS4A2

Sometimes, in order to protect the rights of an individual constraints are put on the rights of other individuals. If you are a business owner, for example, you cannot hire children to work in a sweatshop.

Laws that protect the state, its own interests, or some other interest group are unjust and do not protect the rights of the individual. — NOS4A2

That is an overly broad, vague, and simplistic generalization, intended to pit the government against the individual. The interests of the state are not necessarily antithetical to the interests of the individual. The example, chosen to stay on topic, is gun control.

The self-centered, myopic view is that gun control violates individual rights. Does it? The majority of people favor gun control. The prevalence of guns violates their right to life. Right now, judging by government inaction, the state and powerful special interest groups such as the NRA are aligned with the interests of individuals who oppose gun control.

Suppose legislation is passed on gun control. Whose side would the government be on? On both sides there are the interests of individuals, but the interests and rights of more individuals would be served by limiting the right to sell and own and carry guns.

Setting up the state as the enemy of individual rights is nothing more than crass and empty rhetoric.

This was a problem with early Christianity. In order to curtail the practice it was declared that suicide would prevent you from getting into heaven.

I think if you had paid attention then the thin-veiled contempt wouldn't have gone over your head. — Tzeentch

These arguments often get heated and personal. Where did he express contempt for the claim that mental health is important?

With regard to thinly veiled contempt, your accusation that what is at issue went over my head did not.

It's funny you're reacting with such hostility to the suggestion that mental health is an important aspect to this problem. — Tzeentch

If you have been paying attention to what he has actually said I find this accusation incomprehensible. He has stated several times that he thinks mental health is a serious problem that should be addressed.

The question under discussion is gun control. Mental health is certainly an issue in the gun control debate, but the problem is the attempt to shift focus away from guns, to take gun control off the table and focus only on mental health.

Certainly not the government. Neither of us can name one right in the Bill of Rights that has not been violated. So how can you trust that they will protect your rights? — NOS4A2

I trust that they will protect my rights because they do in fact protect my rights and yours as well, albeit imperfectly. If you cannot see that it is because you are blinded by your ideology. The saying:

The best is the enemy of the good.

holds true in this case. Good laws are better than no laws. The goal should be to improve them not do away with them because they are less perfect.

You cannot live in society and not live according to its laws. You can work to change its laws, but cannot live as if you are above or free of the law.

Understood, but to give some indication of the issue of gods and immortality:

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

(Genesis 3:22)

It is, according to this view, immortality that separates men from gods. As Nietzsche asks somewhere, are we up to the task? The same question is posed in the Genesis story, and is answered by blocking access to the tree of life, to immortality. In secular terms, it is the question of being human and finitude.

The related question of power is also addressed in Genesis. In response to the building of the Tower of Babel God says:

The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

(11:6 Emphasis added)

What would be possible for human beings working together for eternity? This is what is in play with Descartes program for the infinite perfectibility of man. For Francis Bacon too there is the project of endless progress. Both take seriously the idea of a universal language, that is, to overcome God's will and renew man's quest to do whatever they will to do.

In other words, in your heaven man would come closer and closer to closing the gap between God and man.

or possess the attributes of God. — Captain Homicide

Being immortal they would possess that attribute of God.

How would living people on Earth see death and killing from this point on? — Captain Homicide

We have abundant test cases, those who believe in a heaven much as you describe it.

An anarchist who whines about his rights. Who do you think will protect your rights?

But then you sell your own and anyone else’s authority to the next political campaign. — NOS4A2

This is why a constitution with stable laws is so important. It is a check against what may happen as the result of the next political campaign. It is not a perfect instrument, but in an imperfect world it is the best we have devised.

To argue that only those in power get to make rules is absurd. — NOS4A2

Once again this points to the importance of stable laws. Those in power cannot do whatever they want and cannot make whatever rules they want. And if they attempt to they may lose their power in the next campaign.

Like it or not you live with other people. Your interests do not outweigh theirs. It is the role of government to find and maintain a balance of competing interests. In practice it is far from perfect. Do you have a better solution?

Your insistence on controlling people and restricting their rights ... — NOS4A2

You may not think it necessary for anyone to exert control over you, and perhaps it is true, but that does not mean there is no reason to control the actions of others. One important reason for this is to protect your rights.

A thread about religion and faith has veered off into a thread about evidence and lack of evidence.

Christ dying on the cross? — spirit-salamander

Yes.

You might find this interesting. In Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, the problem of creation is dealt with differently. Ein Sof (without end) withdraws itself in order for there to be room to create the world.

Probably not a practical end, rather only a theoretical one. — spirit-salamander

I was thinking along the lines of a theological one.

And what end is served by the idea of a presently existing God. — spirit-salamander

I think this is the background against which the former question can be asked. Everything from an absentee landlord to protector and provider.

If I think about it carefully, the idea of a defunct God can yield the same values as theism or atheism. — spirit-salamander

Right. That was one of the things I was getting at with the question.

Interesting approach, the world or its emergence would thus have something necessary, inevitable. — spirit-salamander

I think this overstates the case. The point is that the idea of a defunct god does not do away with teleology. Theology made use of teleology but it was with Aristotle a natural rather than theological principle. It is of the nature of an acorn to become an oak. But not every acorn becomes an oak and there is nothing necessary about there being acorns and oaks.

...some abstract universal found floating in the mind of a collectivist ... — NOS4A2

The American Founders were collectivists?

We have been through this before. More than once. I don't know if it is a genuine failure to understand the concept of the general good or the failure to acknowledge the importance of anyone but yourself.

"By the people" does not mean by a person over and against the people It is a collective term consonant with the "general good" and the interests of a free state. Automatic weapons in everyone's hands threatens the general good and a free state.

Which is the bigger problem, someone with a mental illness or someone with a mental illness in possession of a semiautomatic rifle?

Restricting my rights does not benefit me. — NOS4A2

On the subject of rights, let's look at the Bill of Rights:

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Let's use an originalist interpretation. Something Scalia talked a great deal about but failed to do when he decided Heller.

A well regulation Militia was needed because there was no standing army. With a standing army a militia is no longer necessary to the security of a free state. In addition what is at issue here is the security of the state not of an individual within the state.

The right to keep and bear arms is a right that is contingent upon the necessity of securing a free state.

Scalia ignored his own principle of originalist interpretation when he arbitrarily inserts "in common use" and applies it to common use today rather than then. He inserted it for two reasons. One, there are considerable differences between a knife or musket and a semiautomatic rifle and he wanted to assure that those who had guns could keep them. Two, he knew there must be limits to the weapons that might become available to the public. A limit the Founders did not see as necessary because they could not imagine that there could be such weapons.

The Bill of Rights does not include the right of Yahoos to keep and bear high power automatic weapons. This is very far from a musket toting well regulated militia.

People with guns protect you. — NOS4A2

SOME people with guns protect me, and part of what they protect me against is other people with guns. It is not guns for all or guns for none.

So which is it, the government protects us or we have to protect ourselves from the government?

Should they ever need your help — NOS4A2

Should the US government need my help they would give me a gun. But this scenario is so unlikely as to not be taken seriously. If active military and reserves are not sufficient they would go to the millions of able bodied younger people before being desperate enough to ask an alta cocker like me to pick up arms to protect the country.

I don't defend myself against the government. For one, I do not buy into your paranoid deep state conspiracies and the need to defend myself against the government. For another, no matter how many guns I have the notion that I could defend myself against the military is absurd.

As to owning a gun to defend myself and my family against criminals, it is not as if they are going to wait until I get my gun, load it, and point it at them before they point their loaded gun at me or a family member. Perhaps you sleep cuddling a loaded gun, but I think it far more likely that a gun in the house will do me or my family harm than good.

No roads, cars, steering wheels, or brake pedals really exist. — Art48

No. Roads, cars, steering wheels, or brake pedals really exist. And so does whatever is going on at the molecular, atomic, and sub-atomic levels.

We have been told by popular scientists that the floor on which we stand is not solid, as it appears to common sense, as it has been discovered that the wood consists of particles filling space so thinly that it can almost be called empty. This is liable to perplex us, for in a way of course we know that the floor is solid, or that, if it isn't solid, this may be due to the wood being rotten but not to its being composed of electrons. To say, on this later ground, that the floor is not solid is to misuse language.

(Wittgenstein, Blue Book)

I agree and would add that it is not just guns but a "gun culture" that promotes the idea that guns are the solution to two major threats, the government and criminals.

There is another, much older, trope of a dead god. That one was put into service and gained critical historical significance.

To what end do you think this idea of a defunct god serves? How do you see it as an alternative to teleological/intelligent design arguments? It could be argued that an acorn dies or is transformed in order to become an oak. The same teleological argument can be made about a god who dies or is transformed to become something else.

My answer is #2. But your parenthetical warning is nonsense. Rhetorical proselytizing. "Warning: the truth lies this way".

Which is the big difference between faith and religion: choice. — Raef Kandil

Religion is a matter of choice, although there are those on both sides, for and against, who attempt to deny people that choice.

The choice is: whether you want to bear the pains to know and trust something as a solid truth or not. — Raef Kandil

There is a difference between organized religion and your own religious quest. Perhaps you do not understand that difference, but I suspect you do. It is evident that you know that many people here are adverse to religious talk, and so you attack religion in order to create a backdoor for your god talk and call it "solid truth".

Let me rephrase the question: Since you talk directly to God what do you hope to gain from talking to us? Do you hope that we may allay your doubts?

To the contrary. You say about your god:

He has a very solid logic and a character that would bring you along his way wherever you go. — Raef Kandil

and:

The only thing that can bring you closer to Him is honesty and sincerity. — Raef Kandil

So, once again, it seems you are proselytizing. It is not about the distinction between faith and religion, it is about faith in your god, the god who "has a very solid logic", a god who will "bring you along his way" "His way." The way of God. To be brought "closer to him" in order to be brought along the way is, by its very definition, religion. Rather than sever faith and religion you join them. Are you trying to fool us or have you fooled yourself?

What is it you hope to gain from making these arguments?

For the sake of the argument let's assume there is a simple, divine substance. What knowledge of it might we possibly have? We cannot take what is true of the substances it creates as the standard of what it is capable of or how it is able to create a world that is other than it is.

An argument from a substance that creates the world out of its own parts is not the same as an argument without parts except for the part about parts.

To create out of itself does not mean to lose a part or the whole of itself in the act of creation. It means to create out of its own capacity to create something, not to make of itself something other than it is.

I used to think the same thing and I talked it through with him. — Raef Kandil

Well if you have talked through it with him that settles the matter. What then are you doing here? Proselytizing? Surely no one here can tell you anything more than you get directly. What you go on to say it sure seems like it.

Why is that not enough in your view? — spirit-salamander

My view has nothing to do with it. It is the view of the rational theist that you are addressing. Now unless you define a rational theist as someone who holds that God creates the world and then does nothing more, the question of something more is on the table. If a rational theist holds that creating the world is not all that God does, then a self-destructive God will be rejected.

A likely point of attack would be C1 and C2. The idea of simplicity. It does not follow from the idea of simplicity that God cannot create out of himself without becoming other than himself.

Can there be faith without it being faith in something?

I don't want to impose my hard-earned concept of God over everyone's else. — Raef Kandil

So, you are talking about faith in some concept you call God, who presumably is not just a concept.

I, and I would claim God, want people to worship God with their own free will. — Raef Kandil

What does what you want and what you claim God wants have to do with anyone else's faith? What if someone's faith is to surrender their will to the will of God? That free will is what separates us from God and leads us astray? That to be faithful is to be obedient? And further, that we can know what God wants of us through religion?

Or, what if one has faith that God is a deceiver? That whatever God wants is evil? That one freely gives his will to the opposite of whatever God wills?

It appears that faith is an empty concept after all. One that can be filled however one wishes.