Yes, one thing the Conservative Incorporated likes to forget that Reagan implemented harsh and targeted gun control, especially in California, where he did it to arguably stop the Black Panther party from policing their own communities. The racist beginnings of American gun control are well-enough known, but it’s surprising to see it implemented in almost the same fashion today, not so much on racial terms, but to defend the established order.

Fascism is undoubtedly conservative, as is gun control. But i would argue that the "American left", if there was such a group, is as conservative as the right when it comes to its culture and institutions. Liberalism and freedom and individual rights are are nothing but rhetorical play-things for all of them.

We observe the entities in order to derive their properties, relations, and activities. I suspect I lack the necessary abilities to abstract a property from that which it is a property of, but I do not see how they can be distinct from one another. One cannot measure the mass of a thing without measuring the thing.

Just to add, Fascism is against "individual self-defense" and "class self-defense". Defense was the sole job of the state, which is a common idea nowadays.

"The Fascist doctrine, enacting justice among the classes in compliance with a fundamental necessity of modern life, does away with class self-defense, which, like individual self-defense in the days of barbarism, is a source of disorder and of civil war." (Alfredo Rocco - The Political Doctrine of Fascism).

I suppose that's why they enacted some pretty harsh gun controls.

Prosecuting politicians who try to remove the guardrails off the political process (illegally asking for votes, encouraging, aiding, and not calling off a violent insurrection in the Capitol as sitting president?).

Prosecuting political opponents for trumped up charges, yes. Though such activity could be construed as communist, or Putinist, I suppose.

Also, again, it's a slow build whereby the guardrails get taken off a bit at the time and normalized. Then use whatever norms that aren't strict laws to make decisions that work against the spirit of democratic governance, if not strictly illegal.

Like prosecuting one’s political opponents or removing them from the ballot? Given the unprecedented nature of each of these, we can watch in real time as the guardrails get removed one piece at a time.

I see nothing adjacent here and see much of what you described in the activities of his opponents. At any rate, there is a thread for that topic and if you wish to debate it we can take it up there.

Ah, fascism improper. Ok

I also focused on the philosophical premises, which you avoided.

Hallmarks and echoes aren’t good enough, I’m afraid. One has to show that fascism is the guiding “thought and action” behind he who implements it.

Which “various aspects” have I missed?

Fascism has long been absorbed into the structure of the American state, starting with FDR. It's corporatism, grand public works, state propaganda, have a frightening similarity (Wolfgang Schivelbusch – Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939) with the policies of Mussolini and Hitler. The missing element is the abject totalitarianism, although we’ve seen it rear its ugly head during the pandemic.

But Fascism was rarely a policy program. Though in Italy it was founded on corporatism, it was willing to use any economic system, whether liberal or socialist, to advance the interests of the State. In the mouths of its founders, Fascism was more of an ethos. It held a quite common view of man as a political animal, a la Aristotle, and thus conceived of man's duty towards the polis as obligatory, one of duty rather than freedom. Any bourgeois aloofness from the political life was denounced. Wherever man focused more on his own life he risked atomizing the whole.

Its weird statist ethos is observable in some rhetoric nowadays. For instance any ideas that regard the State as "the foundation of all rights and the source of all values in the individuals composing it" (Giovanni Gentile – The Philosophic Basis of Fascism) agrees with fascism at one of its most fundamental points. Another is its opposition to individualism—"Fascism is opposed to all the abstractions of an individualistic character based upon materialism typical of the Eighteenth Century" (The Doctrine of Fascism – Benito Mussolini). Anti-individualism is absolutely rife nowadays. Defending individualism on this very forum is sure to be met with disdain. Fascism also despises historical materialism and class conflict, a la Socialism, because it refutes homo economicus and the division of classes; but it seeks to retain the "sentimental aspiration" of it, "to achieve a community of social life in which the sufferings and hardships of the humblest classes are alleviated (The Doctrine of Fascism – Benito Mussolini)". Of course, this is achieved through the state rather than communal responsibility, from one man to another.

At any rate, fascism is dead. At best we can have some philosophers and some parties that could be described as Neo-Fascist, even where they themselves might repudiate the label. One can read philosophers Alexander Dugin or his French collaborator Alain De Benoist to see what they're up to. Their whole project, as of now, is illiberalism. And I fear that, from all sides Left and Right, their ideas are catching on.

This is the position of Trump's attorney, but I'm pretty confident it will fail, but more importantly- I feel strongly that we should all hope it does fail.

We should hope it fails, because it would permit a President to commit any crime that a small number of Senators are willing to countenance.

I hope it passes because a salty prosecutor could indict the presidents he doesn’t like, and it would render useless a check on the executive and judicial branch. Impeachment is far better measure because it leaves the power to convict and acquit their leaders in the hands of the representatives of the people, such as it is.

They have the power to fire a President if he commits a crime. They don't have the power to try and convict an actual criminal case which is why he wouldn't have been jailed if found guilty by the Senate.

Right, impeachment is not a criminal trial. It's a unique process. Trying impeachment involves both the judicial and legislative branches. The Senate tries, the Chief Justice presides. If convicted he "shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law". And through this process he has been acquitted.

Yes, and the only punishment. But someone who does things like kill or steal military secrets should be punished by more than just being fired. They ought be criminally prosecuted and jailed if found guilty.

They should be criminally prosecuted, and probably would if they were convicted of those crimes in the Senate. They should not be criminally prosecuted if they were acquitted.

From being fired, yes. That doesn't preclude subsequent criminal prosecution.

It doesn't include it either. What precludes it is the double jeopardy clause of the 5th.

Or a real scenario: what if the President tried to prevent the legitimate certification of a Presidential election that he lost?

It was all above board. I say this because it is exactly what some Dems did in 2016. The only difference is that House members in 2021 had the backing of a Senator, as per the rules.

The Constitution provides a mechanism to fire a President. He wasn't fired. It doesn't then follow that he can't later be criminally prosecuted.

They have the power to try and convict of high crimes and misdemeanors. The firing is just the punishment for that process. He was acquitted.

It’s such an outlandish scenario that would never happen, but if it did, It would no doubt lead to a constitutional crisis.

At least their wild thought experiment runs parallel to a more realistic scenario. What if the president sent the DOJ or some AG to prosecute his political opponents in the lead up to an election?

At any rate, none of it applies in Trump’s case. The constitution provides a mechanism to sort it out, and he was acquitted through this mechanism.

I fear that a political solution would not work. The power of government is illegitimate to begin with. It functions on monopoly and plunder. Taking power in such an institution requires one to wield illegitimate power against his fellows, something my own conscience could not bear.

A rapid abolition of any kind would be cruel to the unweaned, those who view the government as the solution to all their problems and rely on it to subsidize their lives. Generations of people who were raised under the auspices of that promise could be met with troubles I would wish on no one, like poverty, once they found themselves responsible for their own lives and communities. They would view you as if you killed their god and resentment would grow.

In my view the reversal of nanny government would occur naturally in tandem with a decline in statism, which is the defining belief of our age. The power and reach of the church, for instance, declined only as people stopped attending, participating, and believing in its authority.

But can you not see that a direct attack on the Whitehouse (literally storming it, occupying political offices and stealing government intel - lets leave aside whether Trump wanted that) is absolutely a serious, serious problem that raises it to a similar level of undesirability?

I’m afraid I can’t. As stupid and belligerent as the affair might have been, the political class has been largely insulated from the pathologies they have unleashed on the country. For a few hours on January 6th they weren’t.

I can appreciate your view. But Had the rioters on Jan 6th pointed their ire at the public or on private businesses, and looted wherever they went, destroying the livelihoods of regular Americans, I would be more even handed.

You’ve never done anything besides playing games to pass the time?

Paine’s projections reveal that everything he does to pass the time is a game.

I copy and pasted the link. No clue.

Not only that, but the protesters got a huge settlement from the DOJ, just another example of the two-tiered justice system.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna24325

The passage I quoted from you began:

And?

The end of May 2020. It’s when they burned down that famous church and defaced multiple monuments as they attacked the Whitehouse. The president had to be taken to the underground bunker it got so bad. Curfews, arsons, looting, all that good stuff.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Washington,_D.C.

The facts remain. Yes, rioters died. I said they didn’t kill anyone.

The riot I was speaking about in particular was the assault on the whitehouse, and the occupation of entire city blocks by rioters, something that resembles an insurrection far more than a 3 hour riot at the capitol building.

So it appears you should check your own facts.

I have thought about this statement for several days and it strikes me as a perfect parody of what some people think.

Are you completely cynical and pulling on people's reactions or do you have any skin in the game? Do you want something for yourself and yours or are simply amusing yourself?

I’m just passing the time.

Does dissent from The Narrative frighten you? Because I haven’t seen try to impugn anyone else’s motives.

Crazy accusations in a new court motion.

BREAKING: Filing alleges ‘improper’ relationship between Fulton DA, top Trump prosecutor
Fani Willis hired alleged romantic partner as special prosecutor, court motion says
https://www.ajc.com/politics/breaking-filing-alleges-improper-relationship-between-fulton-da-top-trump-prosecutor/A2N2OWCM7FFWJBQH2ORAK2BKMQ/

District Attorney Fani Willis improperly hired an alleged romantic partner to prosecute Donald Trump and financially benefited from their relationship, according to a court motion filed Monday arguing the indictment was unconstitutional.

The bombshell public filing alleged that special prosecutor Nathan Wade, a private attorney, paid for lavish vacations he took with Willis using the Fulton County funds his law firm received. County records show that Wade, who has played a prominent role in the election interference case, has been paid nearly $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022. The DA authorizes his compensation.

The motion, filed on behalf of defendant Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official, seeks to have the charges against Roman dismissed and for Willis, Wade and the entire DA’s office to be disqualified from further prosecution of the case.

Pallavi Bailey, a Willis spokeswoman, said the DA’s office will respond to Roman’s allegations “through appropriate court filings.”

It is unclear if the explosive issues raised in the filing undermine the validity of the indictment against Trump and the remaining 14 co-defendants or simply muddy the waters by questioning Willis’ professional ethics.

The filing also offers no concrete proof of the romantic ties between Willis and Wade, except to say “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney have confirmed they had an ongoing, personal relationship.”

It alleges that Willis and Wade have been involved in a romantic relationship that began before Wade was appointed special prosecutor. It says they traveled together to Napa Valley and Florida, and they cruised the Caribbean using tickets Wade purchased from Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise lines — although the filing did not include documentation of those purchases.

The motion also said the checks sent to Wade from Fulton County and his subsequent purchase of vacations for Willis could amount to honest services fraud, a federal crime in which a vendor gives kickbacks to an employer. It is also possible this could be prosecuted under the federal racketeering statute, the motion said.

Roman’s lawyer, Marietta attorney Ashleigh Merchant, wrote that the “motion is not filed lightly. Nor is it being filed without considerable forethought, research or investigation.”

But the issue had to be raised and must be heard because the issues “strike at the heart of fairness in our justice system and, if left unaddressed and unchecked, threaten to taint the entire prosecution of this case, invite error and completely undermine public confidence in any outcome in this proceeding.”

Willis and Wade, the motion contends, “have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”

A problem with Wade’s appointment is that it was not approved by the Fulton board of commissioners as required by law, the motion said. The motion also questions Wade’s credentials, contending he has never prosecuted a felony case.

If all this turns out to be true it's just another instance of corruption in Trump's opponents and the justice system.

The conscious thing is that which we observe when it comes to consciousness. The phenomena we call consciousness is exactly identical, in fact one-and-the-same, to the conscious thing. In our case, it’s our bodies. In the case of bat consciousness, it’s the body of the bat. Consciousness is the organism, as you yourself imply. But we needn’t go any further than that. We needn’t reduce or expand consciousness in any other direction, to some other organ or substance, simply because no other organ or substance can be shown to be conscious.

Consciousness doesn’t emerge as a property any more than unconsciousness does, or happiness, or sadness, or anger. I do not think that it’s possible to show someone acquires more properties, or different properties, should she shift her emotions from one to the other, or when he falls asleep. The properties required for any state of emotion, consciousness, feeling, or mind are already present. No such thing emerges. Rather, the body changes in ways that are observable.

Moreover, we can abandon the noun “consciousness” entirely from philosophy of mind and lose nothing. For me, “consciousness” appears as the last refuge for those who wish to rescue the doctrine of the soul.

The thing or things we ascribe properties to can be observed. To observe the property “boiling point”, for example, we have to observe something boil. With an activity it’s the same. If we want to observe a standing ovation we need to observe people stand and clap. There is no observable distinction between one or the other, the thing and its properties.

I get it but properties are too abstract. They emerge only from thinking and discourse and various other analysis. What matters in the case of consciousness is the thing that is conscious, what it is we analyze and ascribe with various properties. That is consciousness by any measure.

Well said.

The problem with emergentism is that nothing—and certainly no thing—can be shown to emerge. Nothing of any sort “appears” or “arises”, especially wherever we use such language. We’re left with nothing to work with or even think about.

That’s the problem with consciousness and mind in general. They cannot point to what they are talking about. That these words are noun-phrases and occupy the subject position in a sentence does not entail their existence.

Couldn’t get him for what he did do, so they try to get him for what he didn’t do.

Jan 6th was the regime’s Reichstag fire.

Bought and sold was the idea that we witnessed an insurrection, an attack, as if by a military force on January 6th.. But that portrayal resembles more the countless riots and protests of the preceding year, especially wherever they laid siege to federal and state property, up until and including the occupation of entire city blocks in what rioters and the obsequious press called “autonomous zones”. Despite this and the resulting damage caused, those were just “mostly-peaceful protests”.

We’ve forgotten that in 2020 a mob descended on the Whitehouse, leading to the secret service to take the president to a bunker, a place reserved in case of breaches, bombings, and terrorist attacks. In that event, the president’s whereabouts were leaked to the press and reported as if unconcerned that the nation’s democratically-elected leader could be located and harmed. Of course, they laughed at and mocked the president for it, and drew support for the belligerent parties.

The response of the government to those events was nothing in comparison to the response to January 6th. Like the riots of the previous years, police were indeed injured in the J6 fray, but the establishment mandarins deviated from their typical portrayal and instead gave capitol police a heroes status that those injured in the 2020 riots could never find. Promotions and the medals of honor were never forthcoming.

That’s to say nothing of Jan 6th protesters. Even though they never assaulted any private property, never looted local businesses, never committed any arson, nor killed anyone (a streak that cannot be found among the rioters of 2020), federal stormtroopers would waste no time and resources in sending them to the gulag. Rather, the anger of those on Jan. 6th was directed to the benighted elites in Congress, who hid like cowards behind their benches instead of facing their constituents. One of the rioters grabbed a lectern and another dared to put his feet on Pelosi’s desk. Someone dared to build a miniature gallows, an effigy upon which no one could possibly be hanged. A broken window, a kicked in door, and other milquetoast vandalisms would occur. And look, a guy holding a confederate flag. These and other images would be an assault on their brand of democracy.

When Biden was sworn in his inauguration was surrounded by tanks and razor wire, a fitting image for the new fascism. Had Trump done anything like that after the attack on the whitehouse his opponents would be incensed, of course, but unlike the Biden administration the Reichstag moment never occurred to Trump. The January 6th riot, as inconsequential as it was in comparison to the riots of 2020, never had the support of the obsequious press, who counted it as worse than the civil war, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and 9/11.

As AG Garland noted in a recent press conference, they have charged 1250 individuals and obtained over 890 convictions in connection with the event. It is the largest criminal investigation in American history, and all the charges and convictions just so happen to fall upon the regime’s political opponents, including the biggest threat to their power, Donald Trump.

Please provide your definition of "insurrection". The Colorado Supreme Court ruling surveyed a variety of definitions, and I don't see that any apply. For example, they quoted Trump's attorney, saying it's "more than a riot, less than a rebellion". An objection raised in a parliamentary procedure doesn't even constitute a riot.

That’s not up to me, or the courts. That’s up to Congress, as only they have the power to enforce the provisions of the article.

But given that the 14th amendment was during the era of reconstruction and refers to the war debts of the insurrection of the confederate states, it’s clearly referring to the kind of insurrection like the civil war. So the clause would refer to those who engaged in the Battle of Fort Sumter, for instance, or those who fought for the Confederacy.

People went to prison as a result of Trump's election falsehoods. Police were physically injured; Babbit was killed.

Babbit was murdered. She was a slight, unarmed woman executed in the capitol building because she jumped through the wrong window. No warning, no takedowns, no less-than-lethal-force, just straight up shot by some goon and left to bleed out. Of course, the goon was promoted, and rioters sent to the gulag in one of the largest federal prosecutions in American history. A travesty of justice all around.

Insurrectionists wanting Biden to block certification.



Insurrectionists preventing certification of the results of a legitimate election.

His fitness for president has already been proven. That lie was refuted every day he was in office.

No, not a single person was hurt because of “Trump’s untruths”. The nation suffered because there was four years of hoaxes, and many are trapped in a moral panic the likes of which have never been seen.

I’ve already identified Biden’s lies. Your willful ignorance on the matter suggests you’re not one to talk. It was a “blizzard of lies”.

Do you think Trump was encouraging them to march up to the Capitol and cheer on the Republican Congressmen from the street? Outside on the steps of the Capitol? Inside the chambers were Congress was actually convening? What, exactly?

In the area cleared for the protest.

You’ve found me another reason why law in general and the legal profession in particular are stupid. Another reason why you should refrain from appealing it.

Nonetheless, Appeals to authority and the claims of state bureaucrats and council are not the evidence of critical facts. And there has to be a crime.

Because your position implies Trump was willfully ignorant. That's relevant to the crimes he's charged with and to his ability to serve as President.

Refusing to believe something isn’t a principle of any crime I’ve ever heard of.

Why should I care who told him what? You tell me I’m wrong all the time, and I still don’t believe what you think I ought to.

But that’s what he said in the preceding sentences to the one you quoted.

And yes, he wanted Congress to makes a stink about certification just as the Democrats in Congress did to the certification of Trump in 2016.

He wasn’t asking his supporters to prevent some hypothetical fraudulent election. He was asking them to prevent the actual election, which wasn’t fraudulent. You don’t get to get away with a crime by falsely claiming that want you want to do isn’t a crime.

It’s clear from his speech what he was advocating his supporters to do and what the actions of Congress he wanted them to cheer on. It’s all in there.