I can know facts without having asked a question or trying to solve problems. — Harry Hindu

Are you quite sure of that? All facts are historical facts; i.e., historical in nature. — tim wood

I didnt ask a question about whether or not all facts are historical, yet you still provided that "fact". So is this evidence that facts exist independent of questions? Questions are a result of ignorance. If we weren't ignorant we wouldnt ask questions because we'd already have all the facts.

Exactly. So life is a certainty in this universe, not a probability, and probabilities only exist as a result of ignorance of what is, can be, or was.

A fact that is not able to answer/solve a question/problem can never be a fact. — ovdtogt

How is this any different than saying that the universe is filled with information/facts that is the answer to some question?

Some bit of information in the universe is only relevant in specific contexts or to specific questions, but that doesnt mean that the information only exists when we ask those questions. We have to find the answers, not make them up.

This search for 'truth' as an abstract concept is illogical. Truth is only logical in relation to a question/problem. Truth is whatever 'solves' this problem or 'answers' that question. — ovdtogt

I can know facts without having asked a question or trying to solve problems.

If the statement is true, then it is false; and if it is false, then it is true. — 3017amen

Is the above a true statement? It seems like more of a meaningless contradiction, and is therefore false.

You can have rational reasons for believing the improbable. Its highly improbable that life exists on a rock floating through oblivion but none the less that's what happened. In fact, highly improbable things happen all the time, its not irrational to believe those things actually do happen — DingoJones

How do you know how probable the existence of life is? It seems certain that life exists in this universe, not probable.

I don't know. If there are then move the conversation forward.

At a bare minimum, all attribution of meaning(all meaning) requires something to become symbol/sign, something to become symbolized/significant and a creature capable of drawing a mental correlation, association, and/or connection between the two.

There are no examples to the contrary. — creativesoul

Does the correlation between symbol and what is symbolized exist only mentally, or is there an external, physical, causal relationship between the two that exists independent of any mind drawing the correlation?

Sorry to answer with another question, but why do we want the truth, what do we want from it, what are we expecting? — Brett

Usefulness. The truth is useful. Falsehoods aren't.

What makes something useful? Isn't is a correspondence between what is and how the knowledge of what is is being applied? If your knowledge of what is is inaccurate, then you probably won't achieve what it is you meant to achieve.

Reason has been shown to result in false conclusions. True belief exists in it's entirety prior to Reason. Thus, the following is rejected...

...'truth' is the property of being a proposition whose contents Reason asserts to be the case - is true.
— Bartricks

Truth is correspondence between thought and/or belief and what's happened, is happening, and/or will happen. — creativesoul

Reason results in false conclusions when you don't have all the relevant information (reasons) to support some conclusion. With the right input, the process of reasoning produces the right output.

Truth is correspondence between thought and/or belief and what's happened, is happening, and/or will happen.
— creativesoul

Prove, please. — tim wood

I am typing and submitting a post. Does this sentence correspond to what has happened? Is it the truth?

What if, as you say, someone asserts this proposition:

1. This statement is false.

Using your words, our Reason enables us to assert such proposition. ' When reason asserts that something is the case, it is the case.' In that case, is the proposition true or false? — 3017amen

Is it true that the statement is false?

Re: When is it rational to believe in the improbable?

Never.

Being rational is using reason and using reason is providing reasons to support some conclusion. If you don't have reasons to support your conclusion, or your reasons to support some conclusion are improbable, then you aren't being rational.

Oh, Harry. Go for clear thinking. Clear thinking is good.

But clear thinking is not only found in Philosophy.

Indeed, clear thinking is rarely found in philosophy. — Banno

Logic is a fundamental branch of philosophy - the branch that is used to ensure clear thinking. One might say that if you aren't using logic then you aren't philosophizing. They would be practicing in delusions and fallacious reasoning.

There is a scientific consensus that it is largely human induced, which is not a proof that that is so, but the fact of consensus among the experts gives us very little reason to doubt their conclusions. — Janus

And Philosophy? It is irrelevant — Banno

So pleading to authority and the problem of induction, among other philosophical topics, aren't relevant in this discussion?

One should ask themselves if they are being consistent across the philosophical board, which includes their philosophical views of science, and the experts consensus that they have rejected in other fields, and fringe elements they have supported that are inconsistent with the experts consensus.

If the answer was in my question, then it wouldn't really be question, would it? Why don't you start by explaining what "meaning" is.

Do you know what elemental constituency is? — creativesoul

Nope. If I did I wouldnt be asking for you to clarify. I don't understand why you are finding it difficult to flesh out your argument because I have no idea what you're arguing for or against.

Your point about my post is true, however, the point I was making was just that situations need future context, as I assumed but did not write that past context is readily available, nor did I think very much of it. Thank you for pointing that out. ( I also assumed I was not a murder or rapist, which I am in fact not either of those) — Lawrence of Arabia

Read the rest of my post. Its not just about future and past contexts. It is about subjective moral contexts that might disagree about what is good and what is bad. If what is good or bad is subjective, then what does it mean to say there are good or bad means and ends?

When you ask me what I mean when I use words, what are you asking?
— Harry Hindu

I'm asking you what you mean. — creativesoul

Your answer lacks substance. Care to elaborate?

The distinction between meaning and causality is one of elemental constituency. They are existentially dependent upon very different things. — creativesoul

How so?

I would have expected something to chew on rather than these empty claims and answers you've provided. Be more specific.

The problem comes in determining how far down the line to go in terms of results. For example, imagine a scenario where if I take a step I will fall off a cliff. That would be a bad effect in and of itself, however, if we look further down the line we find out that I am cliff jumping, and will fall into water. All situations need context, as I would not jump off of a cliff if I did not know I would be safe. — Lawrence of Arabia

What if you are a murderer and rapist, then you jumping off a cliff and onto solid ground rather than a lake, would be a good means to a good end.

The road to hell is paved with 'ends' that justify the means. Idealism has produced the greatest evil committed by Man: Communisim, Fascism, Stalin, Mao, Hitler. All were prepared to sacrifice millions to achieve an imagined Utopia. — ovdtogt

What if those that were "sacrificed" were against creating the Utopia as imagined by Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc.? What is a Utopia and who gets to define it?



To say that something is good or bad is subjective. So what may be good means and ends for one, may be bad for another. There are no objective good or bad means and ends, only subjective ones.

The problem of induction stems from our ignorance and lack of any clear definition of what knowledge is.

How do we know there is a problem with induction when the problem itself is empirical and based on experience? You're using induction to prove the problem of induction exists.

The problem of induction isn't much different than the paradox of knowing that you know nothing. We need a better definition of knowledge to solve the problem of induction and the paradox.

What 'rights of others' does this work need to avoid the infringement of?

I ask because if one of those rights is the right to property, then your argument is circular, if not, then where do these 'rights' come from such that they exclude the right to property (which seems to be listed in quite a number of 'bills of rights')? — Isaac

Its not circular. If I have the right to own property that I worked for, and you do to, then it doesnt necessarily mean we're working to own the same property. Theres also the option to trade what you own for what I own and there is no infringement on rights.

Think "rights" as the goals which we have as individuals and assume others have the same goals so we dont inhibit those goals and expect others to do the same. This is why infringing on others rights takes away your rights to the same thing. Infringe on others rights and others no longer respect yours.

I took it to mean 'perceptions and conclusions'. People can clearly see and hear things that aren't, for the rest of us, there at all. We must assume we need confirmation for our world-view, I suppose. — iolo

So the question can be re-written as "Can perceptions and conclusions trust the perceptions' and conclusions' own mind?"? How does that make any sense?

I'm asking what the "you" is that is having trouble trusting it's "mind" - whatever the mind is if it isn't "you".

Okay, then I think this whole conversation has been mislead somehow, because everything I've been asking is trying to reconcile something you said earlier that suggested that you think might makes right, which you then immediately contradicted in the same post. I've been trying to suss out how you reconcile that contradiction. — Pfhorrest

Sure. It has become quite muddled. I will attempt to clarify.

I don't believe that power is what entails ownership. They are two separate things. One might even ask if one owns/possesses power, and what that means.

I define ownership as things that you worked for, and "worked" excludes any action that infringes on the rights of others. So if you take something that isn't yours, you didn't work for it, which is to say that you don't own it. You may possess it, but you don't own it. The two are mutually exclusive as you can be in possession of my lawn-mower because you are borrowing it, or you stole it. When you steal something, the person you stole it from still lays claim to what you stole.

If "ownership" is meaningless, then by default, so is "stealing". Taking and defending things from being taken is the act of the ownerless trying to become owners of what others have. You can't take something that you own and you can't defend something that you don't own, so it seems to me that taking and defending are implications of an explicit "ownership".

Re: Can you trust your own mind?

What is the "you" that is being referred to in this sentence? Is the mind something that is separate from the "you", and is something that the "you" owns?

The point of thought experiments it to tease out what you're really saying or thinking. Regardless of whether or not something would happen, I want to know what you think in the hypothetical circumstance where it does. — Pfhorrest

Then ask me questions about what I think. I have no comment on impossible scenarios because it is a waste of time and would be a red herring.

I'm trying specifically to avoid concrete real-world issues, but if you really want something like that, here's an easy scenario: the public, losing faith in the way the system works now, decides that it's not fair that there are more unoccupied homes than there are homeless people, and so ownership of those homes should be assigned to the homeless people. So the state, directed by the majority, who elect people to represent that view for them, stops keeping homeless people out of unoccupied homes, and instead keeps those homes previously-assigned "owners" from kicking the homeless people out. The state just starts acting like the homes rightly belong to the newly-assigned owners.

In your view of might makes right, does that then make those homes legitimately the property of the newly-assigned owners, and no theft have happened?

Or on a larger picture: if a state-socialist regime comes into power in a state and does start taking things from people and giving them to other people, on what grounds would you say (or wouldn't you say?) that that was wrong? So far, all you've said to similar questions is "that wouldn't happen". But this has happened, and I gather that you think that it was bad. Why is it bad, if might makes right, i.e. power is ownership? — Pfhorrest

I have never said that "might makes right". Might does not make one right. Might makes one mighty. Facts and logic make one right.

It seems to me that is what you are proposing - that might (the State) makes one right. I think history has shown that the State isn't as mighty as it thinks sometimes and overreaches and that is when its members revolt.

The public is losing faith in the system in the U.S. Look at the presidents we're voting for (Obama and then Trump) - supposed "outsiders" of the system. The average American citizen is looking for alternatives because we are losing faith in our representatives who are life-long politicians - speaking of which - how about we show those representatives who really "owns" those seats they are sitting in. How about some term limits on federal congressmen? How about freezing pay raises for them? Who owns the money they are using to give themselves raises, and their rich corporate pals loop holes in tax laws?

Giving unoccupied homes to the homeless is another scenario that you haven't thought about the implications. It's the typical "thinking with your heart and not your brain" scenario.

Just because the homes are unoccupied doesn't mean that they aren't owned. They are owned by the developers who invested in the resources it took to build the home. If the State started giving away these homes to the homeless, why would any developer invest in any more home-building projects? Home construction would come to a screeching halt. This is what I meant when I said that the system isn't going to do something that would make its members lose faith in the fairness of the system.

The state ought to defend Alice’s property because it is hers.

I’m channeling Bastiat’s formulation here:

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. — NOS4A2

This, coupled with the idea that "laws are for the lawless", one sees that most people understand what "ownership" means and laws are for those that don't.

So if I can convince the state to help me keep you out of the house you live in, and keep anyone else besides me from living there, then it's my house, totally legit? (Or, if the state doing it is somehow wrong: if they just don't stop me from driving you out of the house myself?) — Pfhorrest

The state is going to want something in return, and the state isnt going to do something that would cause its members to lose faith in the fairness of the system. How are you going to convince others that what I worked hard for is yours and how will that be consistent with how the state makes others decisions in regards to ownership? I think you're just making up unrealistic scenarios with taking into consideration the implications of your thought experiments.

Obviously, cooperation is a strategy that works or else human beings wouldnt be as successful as they are. Most of us are intelligent enough to understand that there might be an easier way to gain access to the things others own that don't involve violence where the thief risks their life for something that he doesnt need to in order to use the resource they want.

Who owns them, or who has them? — Pfhorrest

So owning something entails having something and defending your having it. If your defense makes it not worth trying to take what you have from you, then you own it by default.

Bob is tired of Alice's constant nagging in taking out the garbage. Its not worth the effort to live there. A defense doesnt necessarily entail violence. Ownership is often equated to who wants it more and is willing to put more work into posessing it than others.

There is some house that Alice is living in. Bob walks into it and starts living there too — Pfhorrest

An impossible scenario. How does someone walk into a house and start living there? Who owns the keys to the house? Alice's dog doesn't like Bob and bites him everyday he tries to come into the house. Is it the dog's house?

What is your explanation for why the system (person A with the dice) is behaving probabilistically?

You mentioned an important element in the system - ignorance. Person A is ignorant of the initial state of each throw of the dice and person B is ignorant of which initial state becomes a reality even though he knows the outcome after any particular initial state is selected.

So you think probability is an illusion and is just a symptom of ignorance? — TheMadFool

Yes.

The only possible outcomes of rolling a six-sided dice is rolling a one, two, three, four, five or a six. Both and person A and B know this and we don't need to know the initial states to know this because we are confining the outcomes to the die only. No matter how you roll the dice, or what the weather conditions are, there will only be an outcome of 1-6 on the die roll because that is what we are focused on.

here's one issue here that bothers me. If probability is an illusion/imaginary how is it that, in a simple game of dice, the principle of indifference - a feature of true/non-imaginary probability - helps us calculate probabilities that match experimental results? This isn't about ignorance is it? A deterministic system is conforming to a principle that applies only to objective probability. That would be like, in essence, being able to predict random numbers. There's something wrong. Care to take a shot at this. Thank you. — TheMadFool

The principle of indifference is based on our ignorance of the facts. When you don't know the facts, every possibility is equally possible.

But where do those others get those rights to it? Initially you said by being able to defend it. Then you’re saying that that defense is by the state. So if the state chooses not to defend their property, by this logic they have no rights to it; if the state just lets you take it then that’s perfectly okay for you to do, on this account.

Now it sounds like you think there are some other reasons why the state should or should not defend someone’s preexisting rights to things. Which is a fine position, but it’s counter to the “ability to defend it makes it yours” principle you started with. — Pfhorrest

If no one was around to take your stuff it wouldn't mean that you own everything and you can only defend what you own, not what you don't, so being able to defend what you own doesn't exhaust what it means to own something.

You can own something and it be taken away, but that doesn't mean that you never owned it. How can someone take something from you if you didn't own it in the first place? What would they be doing, if not taking what you own? If you never owned it, then how does it even make sense to say that someone is taking it by force?

Probability, in my opinion, has to be objective or real. By that I mean it is a property of nature just as mass or volume. So, when I say the probability of an atom of Plutonium to decay is 30% then this isn't because I lack information the acquisition of which will cause me to know exactly which atom will decay or not. Rather, radioactivity is objectively/really probabilistic. — TheMadFool

I never said that probability wasn't real. I said it is imaginary. Our imaginations can cause us to do things - like behave as if some other possibility was real in the sense that it exists as something other than an imagining.

I don't know what you are talking about when you are saying that "the probability of an atom of Plutonium to decay is 30%". Radioactive decay is a lawful process:
https://www.nuclear-power.net/nuclear-power/reactor-physics/atomic-nuclear-physics/radioactive-decay/

If you agree with me so far let's go to my example: person A who doesn't have knowledge of the initial states of each dice throw and person B who has. — TheMadFool

Like I said, if someone doesn't have knowledge of the initial state, then how can they have knowledge of some future state which is just another initial state to some other future state further down the causal chain?

If, as the experiment reveals, the outcomes are indicating the system (person A and the dice) is objectively probabilistic, then it must be that the initial states are probabilistic. After all the outcomes are determined by the initial states. — TheMadFool

I don't see outcomeS. I see an outcome. There is only one outcome, but in the eyes of the ignorant there are multiple outcomes. How do you reconcile the fact that you have multiple outcomes in your head but only one outcome occurs - and maybe one that you didn't have in your head. If you didn't predict the outcome then what happened to all those outcomes you did predict in your head? They weren't really outcomes then, were they?

Ownership also depends on the agreement of others. — Brett

Only an agreement between me and another person with which I am trading things I own for things that they own. No one else gets to have a say in what we own. They can try to take it, but then that doesn't mean that I never owned it.

But what determines what others own, if “ability to defend it” determines ownership and all defense is done collectively through the state? If the state (with your input, but not your exclusive input) decides not to defend your ownership of something and instead to defend someone else’s ownership of it, doesn’t that make it then rightfully theirs on this account of might makes right? — Pfhorrest

It's really easy to grasp. You just have to take in everything that I have said, which really isn't all that much. The state would only decide to not defend my ownership of something if I acquired it by infringing on the rights of others.

Just because ownership can change doesn't mean that you never owned it.

and I am part of the state. I then defend my stuff by participating in a limited state. The state doesn't own anything except the power to defend what others own.

If those others could not defend their rights to the property in question, then how is it that they had any such rights to begin with, on this account of power = ownership? — Pfhorrest

Did you read the rest of my post? They defend their property by being part of a society with a limited govt that defends those rights.

Power — Maw

Power to defend what you've acquired. A limited government is necessary to ensure that you acquired it legally - meaning: without infringing on the rights of others.

That's because I never made such as distinction, or said that we are defined by social interactions. I'm not sure how I can make it more clearly to you. Perhaps the only other analogy I can offer is that an individual comes to understand and speak a language through socialization, yet what she says isn't directed by some abstract societal force, or whatever concept you have in mind. She has agency to say what she ever she wants to say. — Maw

Then we were talking past each other?

In addition to what Streetlight said regarding the awkward application of legalese to selfhood, any sense of self is natally given, so he's starting from a false ontology of an atomistic self. — Maw

The development of who I am was made possible by natural selection and the contribution of my parent's genetic code. My development continues within a social structure, but what I'm saying is that isn't what exhausts the definition of me - my self. — Harry Hindu

I should add that what is natally given also doesn't define my self in it's entirety.

What makes me a unique individual/self is a combination of factors.

One, I am a unique combination of a pair of human beings. My brothers have different, and unique, combinations of genetic contributions from the same two human beings.

Two, from the moment that I am conceived I establish my own unique feedback loop with the environment. My unique combination of genes undergoes a unique development from its own position in space-time. No matter what area of space-time I occupy, I own that space. Even if you push me, I then occupy and own another space. That space that I occupy is my body, and that includes my mind.

We are all unique combinations of our parents and the development we undergo from our own perspectives and relationships we establish within our local environment. Societies try to enforce similar perspectives and relationships among its individual members to form a more cohesive and efficient labor force.

It seems to me that we mostly agree?

Responses to cherry-picked sections of another's post misses the points made in the rest of the post.

Languages wouldn't be necessary if we didn't have separate, individual minds that we need access to and the only way to access them is via language. There would be no such thing as miscommunication, or using words in new ways. The new way a word is used starts with an individual use of it that is then shared with others who find it useful. — Harry Hindu

How did you come to understand and speak language? Behavioral norms? Ideology? Concepts? Where did you get food and water? How did you form an identity or character? Personality? Through a complete lack of social interactivity? With an absolute deprivation of other people? Did you pull your Self up like Baron Munchausen? No, the development of who you are is made possible only by being a social and natal being. This does not entail that your individual actions are dictated by some background collective as if you were a member of the Borg. I could digress into how socialization, material opportunities and lack thereof affect an individual, their character and actions, but that's unnecessary. — Maw

This seems to imply that there was a me before coming to understand and speak language. You can only become socialized once you understand the words that are being used to share the ideas in the word-user's head. There are people who have lived into their adulthood without learning a language, or even understanding what a language is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words

The development of who I am was made possible by natural selection and the contribution of my parent's genetic code. My development continues within a social structure, but what I'm saying is that isn't what exhausts the definition of me - my self.

How would the philosophical idea of a private language even come about if we aren't cut off from each other in certain ways?

This does not entail that your individual actions are dictated by some background collective as if you were a member of the Borg. I could digress into how socialization, material opportunities and lack thereof affect an individual, their character and actions, but that's unnecessary. — Maw

Then you'd have to explain how that can't be the case, because if we are defined only by our social interactions then our actions would be dictated by the collective and there would be no room for original thought. Explain how original ideas, or discoveries, arise within a social system.

"The essence of discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought."
-Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

You still haven't explained the distinction you are making between the self and individual.

Something is typing these words and clicking the Post Comment button. I call that something, "I".

That individuals have autonomy and agency is separate from the construction and development of a self, which is inherently social and socialized (which is a byproduct of a body). An atomistic self is as incoherent as private language, nevertheless specific languages exist. — Maw

I don't see the distinction between "self" and "individual". In my mind, they are synonyms.

Languages wouldn't be necessary if we didn't have separate, individual minds that we need access to and the only way to access them is via language. There would be no such thing as miscommunication, or using words in new ways. The new way a word is used starts with an individual use of it that is then shared with others who find it useful.

If the self is socially constructed, then how can you say that the individual has autonomy? What relationship does the constructed self have with the individual self? It seems to me that if what you are saying is true, then the constructed self would dictate the actions of the individual.

This also doesn't seem to allow for individuals to go against the social grain. If the self is socially constructed, then how does anyone get the idea that their self is NOT part of the social norm?

Identity politics is predicated on the idea that the atomistic self is false..... — Maw

Then identity politics is as incoherent as the idea that individuals and selves are not the same.

It's not just that. It was illegal for him to withhold aid at all, whatever the motivation. — Michael

President Donald Trump says he lifted his freeze on aid to Ukraine on Sept. 11, but the State Department had quietly authorized releasing $141 million of the money several days earlier, according to five people familiar with the matter.

State Department lawyers found the White House Office of Management and Budget, and thus the president, had no legal standing to block spending of the Ukraine aid. — Michael

If Trump didn't have the power to withhold or release aid, then it seems to me that there was no quid pro quo from Trump. I find it difficult to believe that no one told Trump that he doesn't have the legal standing to make such a request in exchange for military aid that he was offering. Maybe that is why he ended up telling Sondland that he didn't want anything and that there was no quid pro quo.

That's not what happened. It's actually the opposite. — Michael

However, Shokin was not fired for investigating Burisma, but for his failure to pursue corruption investigations — including investigations connected to Burisma. And Biden wasn’t alone in the effort to push Shokin out, but rather was spearheading the Obama administration’s policy, which represented a consensus among diplomats, officials from various European countries, and the International Monetary Fund that Shokin was an impediment to rooting out corruption in his country — Michael

Right, so then Trump wants the Ukranians to launch an investigation into the very same company that the Obama Admin had issues with, it's just that now Hunter Biden is on the board of the company that the Obama Admin wanted to investigate and his father is a political rival to the sitting president, and they withheld critical military aid in exchange for those investigations. That raises even more eyebrows and is even more of a reason to investigate the relationship between Burisma and the Bidens. The fact is that this investigation doesn't just help Trump. Blaming Trump for asking questions that everyone with an objective mind should be asking is hypocritical.

Just to be fair, Trump should have released his tax returns by now. Trump claims to not be a politician, but then goes and does what politicians do - lie.

What is a "quid pro quo"? It means "this for that".

Don't politicians make promises in exchange for votes? Does their election benefit the nation as a whole, or only their voters, constituents and political party members, or themselves?

Don't politicians make promises to each other to support each others bills in exchange for other political favors and do those bills, and the favors they generate, benefit the nation as a whole, or only that representative's constituents back in their home district, and by extension themselves if they get re-elected? One of the favors is getting money from your political party to support your re-election in your district. Are those favors in the public interests or in the private interests of the politician and their party?

It's not a question of whether or not Trump was engaging in a quid pro quo. He was. The question is whether or not it benefited just Trump, or more than just Trump.

What about Biden and the Obama administration's quid pro quo with the Ukranians - in withholding aid in until they fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma and Biden's son? It is not inconceivable that the Obama administration harbored legitimate concerns about the Ukrainian prosecutor. The question is whether the Bidens benefitted personally from the dismissal of this prosecutor as a direct product or merely as a byproduct of the quid pro quo? To maintain the public trust, elected officials must not only avoid impropriety, they must also avoid the appearance of impropriety. At least on this latter score, Biden failed.

Does the relationship between the Bidens and Burisma appear to be corruption? I'm not asking if it IS corruption, I'm asking if it appears that way. If you agree that it does, then doesn't that warrant an investigation regardless whether Biden is running for president or not? Doesn't it make it more important to investigate it since Biden is aspiring to hold the highest office?

The U.S. has a legitimate interest in securing a corruption-free Ukraine. Trump could have stated this in no uncertain terms that aid is contingent on eliminating corruption in their government and that means identifying and prosecuting any and all individuals regardless of party affiliation that are complicit in the corruption.

This statement would have cast a wide enough net to include the Bidens without identifying them specifically by name. The fact that Trump singled out Hunter Biden in the discussion blurred the lines between the public and the private interest, but only because Joe Biden is a potential presidential rival for Trump.

People are claiming that there is systematic racism in the United States.

More federal workers identify as being Democrat than any other party affiliation.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/146786/democrats-lead-ranks-union-state-workers.aspx

95% of campaign donations from federal workers went to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/302817-government-workers-shun-trump-give-big-money-to-clinton-campaign

I'm beginning to see how there just might be some truth to the claim that systematic racism exists in the United States government since the party that has a fetish with identities is the one holding most of the power. I wonder if the Democrats feel ashamed of their political privilege.