Folamh3
User ID: 1175
Folamh3
1hr ago
It's incredible. Even his father didn't have nearly as much hair at that age.
Folamh3
1hr ago
But I think it's fair to say that it's highly questionable for the President to use that power to prevent his loved ones from facing legal repercussions for misconduct. If the presumption that it's illegitimate for a Republican President to do such a thing, but legitimate for a Democrat President to do it, that is a defection.
Ah, correct on both counts: probably the main reason that so many tech companies (Google, Meta etc.) have their EU headquarters in Dublin (along with the English-speaking populace). Interesting.
Folamh3
6hr ago
Folamh3
8hr ago
He considers Ireland's market reforms a model and wants to go even farther, so that Argentina's the freeest country in the world.
This is fascinating, did he mention which specific reforms he was referring to?
Folamh3
10hr ago
Obviously the Kennedys held the mantle during the period in which they were the preeminent political family in the states, and probably the Clintons as well.
The story above, coupled with:
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Trump's weird habit of openly lusting over his own daughter
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Trump's ex-wife accusing him of rape
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Trump's second wife almost certainly being unfaithful to him
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Trump's current wife's obvious distaste for him
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Trump paying a porn star to have sex with him, along with his numerous other extra-marital affairs during at least two of his marriages
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Trump Jr. getting embroiled in a messy divorce and custody battle
Folamh3
1d ago
He shouldn’t have said he wouldn’t pardon him but that’s not actually what he said, was it
The president's decision to pardon his son is a sharp reversal from months of vows from the White House and Biden himself that he would not use the power of his office to benefit his family. After his son was convicted in his gun case, the president said he would "abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”
"Spite" may be an appropriate emotional reaction in certain situations, in the sense that it was what we would expect the average person to reasonably feel in that situation. That's quite a ways from saying it's the virtuous emotional reaction. The whole point of virtue as a concept lies in recognising that many times our instinctual emotional reactions to situations are both morally wrong and often counterproductive.
Not only is being spiteful not virtuous almost by definition, in many cases it's counterproductive from the perspective of pure pragmatism - hence the phrase "cut your nose to spite your face". It's an ugly and irrational emotion.
To give a simple example, if a criminal is breaking into your house uninvited in the middle of the night, then the virtuous thing to do is certainly to respond with malice.
Hard disagree. The virtuous thing to do in that situation is to defend yourself from home invasion using no more than force than is strictly necessary (which, yes, can escalate into lethal force depending on the specifics of the situation). In the hypothetical situation in which you can point a gun at the criminal, force him to surrender and wait for the police to take him away, what do you stand to gain by using additional force beyond that?
The malicious thing to do would be to maim the criminal breaking into your house and then sadistically torture him for hours on end. Your immediate response to hearing someone breaking into your house in the middle of the night should be concern for your and your family's welfare, not "oh goody, now I have a blank cheque to be as vicious and cruel as I please!"
"Bullshit - if someone breaks into my house, beating the shit out of him is a totally understandable, even reasonable response." No argument here. We're not discussing what's understandable - we're discussing what's virtuous. The standards are higher, by design. I can't even truthfully say that this is a standard of behaviour I would succeed in meeting in the heat of the moment - but this is a failing on my part, not a failing of the moral standard I've set myself.
Folamh3
1d ago
Maybe this is just the availability heuristic, but it does seem to anyone else that the two major political families in American politics (the Trumps and Bidens) are two of the most uniquely toxic and dysfunctional families in the US? This would sound contrived if it happened in a soap opera.
This was intended to be a lengthier comment but my phone posted it before I could finish it. I replied to you with a full comment.
Hunter is known to have fathered at least five children. The first three of these he fathered with his first wife, the youngest of whom was born in 2001. The fourth he fathered illegitimately in 2018 with a former stripper, denying paternity until a paternity test proved otherwise, followed by a court ruling. The fifth child he fathered in 2020 with his current wife.
I have a hard time imagining that Hunter is terribly present in the life of the girl whose father he denied being and whose mother had to sue him for paternity (as noted elsewhere in the thread, said daughter was pointedly not invited to Biden family events), so if he'd gone to prison I can't imagine said daughter would've noticed. I agree that his youngest daughter with his current wife probably would have felt his absence. But as upsetting as it is for a young child to have a father behind bars - is it so much more upsetting than having a father who's addicted to crack cocaine and unexpectedly disappears for weeks at a time to go on crack binges and have sex with prostitutes? Sort of sounds like much of a muchness to me, to be honest. There's even the possibility that a short spell in an environment in which crack cocaine is markedly harder to come by than outside might have straightened him out by forcing him to go cold turkey.
Finally there's the point about Hunter providing for his children financially, to which my only response is a high trill of gay laughter. Whether Hunter had gone to prison or not, I think we all know that, either way, his children would have been financially provided for by their grandfather, not their father. Hunter has been a wastrel for his entire adult life, and I don't think even he would dispute that whatever gainful employment he's had (e.g. his seat on the Burisma board) came about purely as a result of his family connections.
But even in the counterfactual world where Hunter had his shit together and was capable of providing for his minor children on his own merit and was a positive role model for all of them - either his crimes are serious enough to warrant jail time, or they aren't. This seems like "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" - why is the welfare of Hunter's children being elevated to being a point of material concern in whether or not he should serve jail time, and not the welfare of the children of all the other people who've been convicted under the same laws he's deemed to have violated?
Folamh3
1d ago
ensure his family has a future
I'm curious what you mean by this. Pardoning Hunter ensures his family will have a future?
Why should a father not protect his son when he is able to?
A father should protect his son when he is able to - when the son is a child. Even if Hunter was in his early twenties, it'd be a lot more understandable if Joe pardoned him - sowing your wild oats is what youth is for. But Hunter is 54 years old and has been a fuckup and prodigal son for essentially his entire adult life. Tough love has to come into effect at some point.
especially for a crime as minor as tax fraud
One of the crimes Hunter was indicted on was providing false information when purchasing a firearm, namely lying when asked if he was a drug user. "Crack cocaine addicts should not be carrying guns" seems like a rare gun control policy proposal that I could imagine a lot of 2A diehards getting onboard with. Given Joe's outspoken support for gun control (e.g. his support for the federal assault weapons ban of 1993; his longstanding support for universal background checks; the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which he signed into law two years ago), this makes his leniency all the more hypocritical.
There's something heartwarming about the party that has recently been so obsessed with procedural norms and maintaining the moral high ground learning that there are, in fact, situations where a strict literal interpretation of the norms should be suspended. This may be more of a tactical consideration than a purely ethical one, because it helps Republicans illustrate how absurd the prosecution of Trump has been.
I see nothing heartwarming about this naked hypocrisy and corruption. Espectially seeing as, contrary to your interpretation, I have zero confidence that this pardon will prompt reflection among Democrats and they'll realise "you know, maybe it's more about the spirit of the law than the letter, perhaps we should be more forgiving when the Republicans overstep in future". No - the takeaway from this will be, as always, "it's okay when we do it".
It's an appropriate parting "fuck you" to a political establishment that conspired to replace him without his consent in the 2024 election.
It's weird that I specifically asked you why you think this action was "virtuous", and part of your answer is, in essence, that was a wonderfully spiteful act of malicious revenge. Which is quite far from what I typically think of when I hear the word "virtuous".
Folamh3
1d ago
Steven (nominative determinism) Gallant, a convicted murderer who, while on day-release, fought against the jihadi who carried out the London Bridge attack in 2019
How have I never heard this story before? This is incredible. What a redemption arc.
Folamh3
1d ago
This was the virtuous thing to do.
Why?
The world needs more humans, and fewer bots who are governed by algorithms (even, and perhaps especially, when that algorithm is the algorithm for “justice”).
What a bizarre way of saying "there's no point in having rules or laws of any kind".
Would TheMotte really be here condemning Trump if he pardoned Don Jr. in a tax fraud case?
I would.
A tweet from June 6th:
Riddle me this MAGA: how has Biden weaponised the Justice Department if his own son is on trial and he's saying he will not pardon him if convicted? Your whole argument kinda crumbles, doesn't it? Embarassing.
Oh.
Sure enough, in his final month in office, Joe has pardoned Hunter, after repeatedly promising not to do exactly that. No less than the Guardian and the BBC are calling Joe Biden a hypocrite and saying that this latest action legitimises some of the criticisms Trump has lobbed at Biden.
A few weeks ago there was a discussion here on what Biden might do with his final few weeks in office to ensure his legacy, knowing that he'll never hold public office again. Negotiate a last-minute but inevitable peace deal in Ukraine, to snatch that opportunity from Trump's grubby claws? Recognise the Armenian genocide at last? Pass a bill mandating the creation of a new national park? Step down so that Kamala can legitimately claim to be the first female POTUS, if only for ten minutes?
I guess we have our answer as to what he'll do with his legacy: piss all over it, exposing himself as no less of a corrupt nepotist than Erdoğan.
Folamh3
2d ago
This is fundamentally what men are doing with each other when they bond like this: they're accentuating the intimacy they feel for each other by demonstrating that they're so close and their bond is so tight, they can insult each other and engage in dominance behavior without any real threat.
Late to the party, but Scott refers to the phenomenon you're describing as "countersignalling". Essentially, "I trust you enough that I can insult you, knowing that you'll understand no real malice is intended and you'll take it in good humour". Zizek argues that ribald jokes of this kind are vital for defusing tensions between members of warring ethnic groups.
Folamh3
2d ago
it would seem less than conducive to a healthy working environment to know that your colleagues consider you naturally predisposed to neurotic behaviour, by virtue of being a woman.
Any woman in the workplace already knows that her male (and female) colleagues believe this about her.
It's tangentially related, but I'd like to take this opportunity to share one of my favourite bits of linguistic trivia.
The Irish word for "President" is Uachtarán*. (The President is a largely ceremonial role: the leader of the country is the Taoiseach, the Irish equivalent of the Prime Minister in the UK and other countries with a Westminster-style parliament.) The word uachtarán was originally used for the chief of a tribe or village in pre-colonial Ireland. The President's official residence is called Áras an Uachtaráin.
When we had to learn Irish in school, we learned the words for cream (uachtar***) and ice cream (uachtar reoite**** - literally "frozen cream"). I always wondered about the connection between "uachtar* and uachtaráin, as they're obviously from the same root, but I only found out last year. Can you guess?
Uachtar literally translates as "top". It is used to refer to "cream" because the cream floats to the top of the milk. By extension, the uachtarán is the person at the top of the tribe/village/country.
*Pronounced "OOK-tar-awn".
** Pronounced "TEE-shuck".
*** Pronounced "OOK-tar".
**** Pronounced "OOK-tar ROW-it-cha".
hugbox incoming
I just want to say: I appreciate you guys. I spend so much time in this place that I sometimes forget what an aberration it is compared to the rest of the internet, by virtue of being a space which encourages honest good-faith discussion and penalises juvenile name-calling and consensus-building. Occasionally I'll step out into the wider world and be reminded of how unusual the Motte is in this regard. I got into an argument about JK Rowling on Facebook this evening with some dude I don't know, and after a couple of backs-and-forth he announced that, from that point on, any additional comment I posted would result in his estimation of my IQ decreasing by 5 points. I made a few additional points, and to each one he responded with the same comment - just "-5", over and over again.
"-5"
"-5"
"-5"
Such a bizarre way to behave. The NPC/Soyjak meme didn't come out of nowhere - people like that really exist. As good a reason as any to redouble my efforts not to get into arguments with strangers on the Internet, or at least not with strangers incapable of comporting themselves like adults. As bad as some people might find this place (particularly people whose opinions go against the local norms), I find it impossible to imagine someone here refusing to engage and simply taunting their opponent by robotically posting "-5" ad nauseum. And not even because the mods would put a stop to such immature conduct pretty quickly - I just think it wouldn't happen, full stop.
If you haven't already read it, I think you will enjoy this article: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/10/we-are-repaganizing
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