Maybe you have different criteria for a threat, but to my ears it sounds like one. Trump is saying that if Raffensperger does not do his bidding then he would be committing a criminal offense.

I’m curious to hear what definition of “threat” you are using to assure yourself that those are threats. It certainly doesn’t fall under any legal definition of threat, which is a felony. He never expressed any intent to harm anyone in anyway. He never said anything about doing his bidding, contrary to what you say.

But even beyond that I'll repeat my previous question again. Raffensperger was/is a life long republican and at the time this happened he was a Trump supporter. If there was a legal way that he could have flipped GA to go for Trump - for what possible reason would he have NOT done that?

Public and political pressure, maybe. One minute you’re conversing with lawyers on contesting a close election, the next you’re indicted on sham RICO charges. No one is safe in Georgia, apparently. I suspect it’s no coincidence he supported Georgia’s Election Integrity act the month Trump left office, and now the experts are warning him about problems with his Dominion voting machines. All conspiracy theorists, I guess.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/23/brad-raffensperger-georgia-dominion-voting-00103298

Only if there was a threat.

It’s true. Crime pays. Taking people’s money can have its benefits.

Yeah the 'ol won't/can't answer questions, so throw out random ones of your own. I have to admit I used to do stuff like that a long time ago.

Used to? That’s the second time I asked that question, right after answering yours. So you still do it.

As to your queries: I don't know and I (pretty much) don't care or worry about it. I have received a huge amount from my tax dollar, even though I am paying more total taxes than the vast majority.

What have you received?

Oh no, his feelings. Poor guy.

How much have you payed for the Department of defense and have you gotten your money’s worth? I wager you have no clue what you’re paying for or where your money goes, whether to the fire department or into right into a politician’s pocket.

Yeah, “and we’ll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you let us do it”. Who is this we? It’s us, the Trump team

Trump: Okay, whatever, it’s a disaster. It’s a disaster. Look. Here’s the problem. We can go through signature verification, and we’ll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you let us do it. And the only way you can do it, as you know, is to go to the past. But you didn’t do that in Cobb County. You just looked at one page compared to another. The only way you can do a signature verification is go from the one that signed it on November whatever, recently, and compare it to two years ago, four years ago, six years ago, you know, or even one. And you’ll find that you have many different signatures. But in Fulton, where they dumped ballots, you will find that you have many that aren’t even signed and you have many that are forgeries.

The notion that Trump is pressuring Reffensperger to “find” votes is just another hoax.

How many of them checked the signatures as per the Trump team's request? Or shared the data? It's ok, you don't know the answer to that. Neither does Trump's team. Neither do I. Just take it from high and repeat what you've been told, I guess.

That's besides the point. The point is Trump is being indicted for lawful activity, and based on a lie even you repeat. Did Trump pressure the secretary of states to "find" votes? Or did he say "I have to find 12,000 votes", and "I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state". "I" doesn't mean "you". "I" doesn't mean "The secretary of State for Georgia". "I" doesn't mean "Brad Raffensperger". What does the word "I" refer to when it comes out of Trump's mouth, and why is this word suspiciously missing from your account every time you repeat it?

The office of the Secretary of State in Georgia.

The votes he’s speaking about are the votes people were going to make but couldn’t because someone already voted for them. It’s why he pressured them to examine the signatures.

We’re going to have an accurate number over the next two days with certified accountants, but an accurate number will be given, but it’s in the 50s of thousands. And that’s people that went to vote and they were told they can’t vote because they’ve already been voted for. And it’s a very sad thing. They walked out complaining. But the number’s large. We’ll have it for you, but it’s much more than the number of 11,779 that’s -- the current margin is only 11,779. Brad, I think you agree with that. That’s something I think everyone -- at least that’s a number that everyone agrees on.

If they shared the data and reports maybe none of this would have happened. But they didn’t.

For not looking at the fraud and sharing their reports and data with the concerned party? Yes.

Is there a possibility for the worker to make decisions individually?

There isn’t. Unions often have the power to discipline their members, whether by fine or the denial of union benefits. So crossing the picket-line may come at extra cost to you and your family. It’s an extra layer of collectivist bureaucracy, meaning the decisions are made by a faction of the membership in tandem with the forces of union administration, whether you agree with it or not.

Trump and his lawyers were pressuring them to look at the fraud and to share their reports and data. The Big Lie™ is the criminalization of these efforts and the propaganda surrounding it. No thinking person can look at the phone call and come away with the exact same outlook as the deep-state dinner theater shoved in your face for years. So no, they’re not heroes, but propaganda-driven knaves.

Maybe if you weren’t paying for the salaries and benefits of union administration you could use that money to save for emergencies.

I would not pay for the Dept. of defense or the fire department given the chance. How much have you payed for either service and have you gotten your money’s worth?

Still waiting to hear about the details on the acquisition of "nonstolen" money...

Have you ever paid for something voluntarily, for instance for a product or service? We do it all the time.

It’s more of an attempt to say the vat represents the body, shedding what is necessarily a fundamental factor of mind and self in favor of an untenable view of mind and self as brains. The thought experiment is evidence of a brain/body dualism not that much different than mind/body dualism. Premising epistemological considerations on the absurd is little more than navel gazing, in my opinion.

Sure.

However. people who think seriously about the subject recognize that different parts of the human body do different things. What the brain does seems to be of particular interest. Do you disagree?

Obviously it is of more interest than the foot, and people spend a great deal on it, but should that be the case? I’m not so sure. For instance, the question of where the brain ends and the rest of the body begins is in my mind insoluble. The carotid arteries, the spine, the endocrine system—all are intimately connected, and are therefor one thing. Removing the rest of the body from a theory of mind is a huge but fairly common mistake.

You might be surprised but you don’t have to always pay for things with stolen money. Another crook.

I have no illusions. I don’t think any statist wants any sort of freedom, that much is clear, nor would I expect anyone to accept any ideology. At any rate, I don’t think anything like liberalism or Marxism can exist on Republican terms.

At the time of these events the DOJ was being run by Trump's own people. At the time of these events the "Georgia officials" were all Republicans and Trump supporters.

Are you saying that people who are life long Republicans and Trump supporters could not be trusted to help Trump?

No, I’m asking “Why would someone trust the DOJ and Georgia officials?”

Not everyone is so enamoured with party as you guys. Trump especially. He’s been thrown under the bus by republicans and Trump supporters at every single turn.

I don’t believe experience happens in the brain. When I shake someone’s hand I believe I experience the situation with my entire body, since the entire thing is being used to perform the act. My trouble is with the biology of it. My question is: How can one take every experience of a handshake, from standing to grasping someone’s hand to leaning forward etc, and put all that as an experience in the brain?

Stimulating the visual cortex with electrodes in the blind is a far cry from mimicking reality. I’m not sure how the one can make possible the other.

I think it is fair to say that human beings are more than brains, and that any brain is so interconnected to the rest of the body that to separate one from the other is to end the human being.

Right. Anyone or anything that does not support Trump and his claims cannot be trusted.

Anyone who facilitates the worst conspiracy theory in the history of the United States in an attempt to subvert the duly elected president should not be trusted. These are the same crooks now trying to indict him. Given their history, they should not be trusted on principle alone.

That had already been done. He knew that but did not like that none of the multiple investigations supported his allegations.

Requesting that a governor look for election fraud in his state is nothing compared to spreading a conspiracy theory that Russia stole an election, instigating multiple investigations and fishing expeditions, spying, capturing the minds of the gullible, influencing elections, and eventually leading to a hot war. This is an actual attempt to defraud the United States. Given that you and others cry foul at one but not the other is enough reason to doubt any finger-wagging on the topic.

It makes no difference whether he meant find votes that can be discarded as illegal. There was not and is not evidence they exist. He was repeatedly told by the Justice Department and Georgia officials that they did not exist.

It is one thing to question results, but quite another to reject the evidence.

Why would someone trust the DOJ and Georgia officials?

It does make a difference because everyone who has criticized that particular remark never stipulate that he was requesting they look for illegal votes, which is evidence criminal activity, a far cry from some nefarious abuse of power or election fraud.

Trump already has done so given the opportunity. There are currently 8 ongoing national emergencies stemming from Trump's administration. But there are still ongoing national emergencies from the 90's, under Clinton. There is still one from the Carter administration. Obama currently has 9 ongoing national emergencies. Biden has 8.

There was not and is not evidence that they exist. Where were they supposed to "find" them?

Actually, after a quick read of the transcript, I’m pretty sure that Trump was speaking of the illegal ballots of his opponents, that if he found them and discarded them as fraudulent it would put him in the lead.

Yes. It’s not like he’s asking him to find illegal ballots.

Can't wait to hear proposals on how government services should be paid for.

They shouldn’t be.

Hence saying that liberalism hasn't ever gained any foothold anywhere in the world sounds like the often heard argument here that "Marxism has never been TRULY attempted in the world".

I’m aware that many or even most would disagree. Liberalism may have had some brief inroads, like a 50 year presence in England, but it was all in opposition to the general rule and how things were actually run. Herbert Spencer wrote about how the Whigs were Tories of a new type, detailing how they took steps to curtail freedom instead promote it during their brief surge.

Either way, wherever one looks there has been no liberty, no laissez-faire, and no individualism anywhere in the world. No one can point to a liberal place or liberal time period because the closer one looks there lies the law, regulation, military, and the statism present in all other ideologies.

That’s the biggest farce because in a republic one is allowed to believe an election was stolen and take steps to challenge it, especially after traditional elections were dismantled and jiggered so as to suit a particular party in that election.

Actually, we’ve got the dictator right now. For the first time since Lincoln was sworn in we had a massive military presence at an inauguration, quelling any and all viewers and protest. His justice department and state lackeys goes after people who challenged the legitimacy of his leadership and authority, especially his main political rival. His regime stifles any attempt to look into his increasingly corrupt dealings.

That’s fair. I’m mostly addressing the hypothesis that one can somehow wire up a human being and go around the senses themselves and illicit a similar experience. I think the fact that both Putnam and Descartes remove the senses and the rest of the body from their thought experiment is telling, as if experience could occur without blood and bones and lungs.

Other more fundamental perceptual and sensual cues would be absent, for instance the perception of up and down, the effects of gravity, wether one is standing or sitting, or the fact that he forever has to see his own nose in his periphery, not to mention that such a being could never be alive in the first place.

So in my mind there are plenty of reasons why “experiences” cannot be illicit artificially, and that’s because the body cannot be replaced by a machine and still be considered alive, let alone experience anything.

Sure, in that case he can refer to light and shapes and colours just as we can. But he can’t refer to trees and brains or truthfully claim that the things he sees are fabrications.

He could truthfully claim the things he sees are fabrications if he reaches out for the tree and discovers that there is no tree there, that it is some sort of light.

The subject being that you're totally partisan on anything to deal with US politics, which was an entirely accurate assessment by MU and which you then whine about as bullying tactics. And like any Trumpster, instead of reflecting on your own behaviour you double-down, by insisting a clear paraphrase is a misquote.

So I was on message and you're just trying to deflect.

A misquote, a mischaracterization, a laughing emoji, and of course it is aimed only at those with whom you disagree, namely me. On message, for sure, because if you had any clear standards and lacked your own partisanship none of this would be occurring. But as usual you like to insert yourself and aim your contempt in only one direction and at one person.

I don't work for the government and am not an official. Yet as a reservist I have voluntarily trained other reservists, so that's I guess the closest I come to working with the authorities. It's been quite popular now especially after last year. And when your government in these voluntary exercises train reservists how to detonate a VBIED by a text message (as how in the Big World it is done), you know there is trust between the government (the armed forces) and it's reservists.

I've heard the stories of White Death and now I view you in a different light. But there is something to be said about reservists and a combat-trained populace.

That is a very interesting point of view.

Care to elaborate what's the mistake with Roman and Republican ideals. I thought the "Republican" part of the US system avoided the democracy becoming something like in the French Revolution.

Notions of statehood and sovereignty flow directly from the genealogy of the republican system (not to be confused with the Grand Old Party), and I believe most if not every state, no matter its founding ideals, are based on republican foundations (even communist ones, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, People's Republic of China, for example). Terms like "Head of State" (in the early-modern period, literally the head of the the political body), and systems of representative government (rather than rule of the people), mixed constitutions, parliament, the senate, the social contract etc. are republican ideals. Even the French revolution sought a republic. Given that republicanism on the one hand and liberalism on the other are distinct, though often conflated, I would argue that it is republicanism rather than liberalism that is the dominant political and state ideology throughout the world. I would even argue that liberalism has never gained any foothold anywhere in the world, as far as I can tell.

No need for a headset. Just shoot beams of light into the eyes in various shapes and patterns and colours that generate the image of a tree.

But wouldn't he be referring directly to the light and the patterns, even if he mistook them for a real tree?

Lol. Obviously coming from an American. Well, in smaller expandable countries the feeling is a bit different, should I say that.

What's your role in your government?

It's hard to fathom how far Americans have fallen from the ideals of their state. Perhaps it's spoon fed in the media, by your politicians, by Hollywood that the first and foremost enemy and threat to the citizen is the state. No really, I believe you. I went with my family to Capitol Hill (in the Trump years) and hearing with my own ears how a Republican member of the House speaking during a Session what a danger the FBI constitutes to the US and Americans made me see just how deep the utter mistrust and hatred for the state Americans have. So it isn't any surprise that you think the way you do.

American institutions in particular do not have the greatest track record, to be fair. But it's true; the mistrust is present even in the founding documents and much of the subsequent literature. The mistake was to organize these founding principles on roman and republican ideals of statehood, in my opinion. These ideals are as statist and collectivist as they come.

Ok, Why don't you first read what was my point?

The point was this: Communities and families that people belong to matter to people and their actions and work inside this group aren't the same when buying or selling something. Everything isn't materialistic and connected to money. And since the security starting from our own families is extremely important, so does our attitudes toward security in general are different.

The fact is that if the state's authority collapses, the police doesn't work, then communities organize themselves the similar function. This happens quite universally.

While I think it's true that some individuals seek state-like authority in any given community, and that a vanguard might arise as an authoritative organization, I don't think that is the case with all of its members. In other words, only a part of a community, a ruling class, seeks power over others and organize themselves in a similar function. In other words, it's not as universal as we like to say it is.

Here we do not get taxed for lottery, but the lottery corporations are all run by provincial governments, so they get all the revenue anyways. But recipients of welfare or employment insurance are taxed on what they receive from the government as if it was a wage and as if it wasn't already tax revenue.

Examples are myriad. Think of a sales tax. If you and I were to sell a product to one another back and forth and back and forth in perpetuity, with the government profiting on each sale, theoretically the product would produce more tax revenue than the product itself is worth, and will do so until the sales stop. It really is a corrupt system.

Sure. The point is that its experiences are elicited artificially by a computer directly manipulating the sense organs.

It never sees a tree or a brain or a vat and as such no words in its language can refer to these things.

I don't see how it is possible. Much of the sense organs and their sensual periphery point outward, and as such any direct manipulation would require the manipulator to work external to the body, like a sort of VR headset. In that case, he would directly see the headset and would directly refer to that headset, or at least to whatever appears on the screen. I suspect this problem is why Descartes and others need to imagine themselves without bodies in order for their thought experiments to work.

If you prefer, consider instead a body in a vat. It’s the same principle. This person never sees trees, only “hallucinations”, but if the causal theory of reference is true then none of the words in its language can refer to (real) trees.

To be the same principle the body would in some way need to be silenced, or asleep, or unconscious, as in the movie Matrix. Of course, in these states he wouldn't be seeing or hallucinating anything, but dreaming. If the rest of the body is included, awake, and in full working order it would notice that it is in a vat, that it cannot move, is suspended in some sort of liquid, and so on, and his words could directly refer to the environment.